LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: There’s a struggle going on inside Thailand. It’s between two powerful influences. One side can be found in places like this; the other in crowded spaces like this. For now it seems that one side is falling behind.

This is Professor John Butt, senior advisor to the Institute of Religion at Payap University in Chiang Mai.

PROF. JOHN BUTT: It’s a real clash with modernity, with social change, and it’s been very intense. The changes that took place in America and in Europe have been extended over a couple of centuries; here it’s been a couple of decades.

SEVERSON: This is a country where almost 95 percent of the population is Buddhist, where the constitution mandates that the king be a Buddhist, and where there are temples almost everywhere.

PROF. BUTT: I think probably this is one of the central if not the central Buddhist country in the world.

SEVERSON: It’s a country that has recently seen a remarkable rise in economic prosperity. There was a time not that long ago when it would have been difficult to find a mall, let alone one so crowded. The roads would have been clogged with motor scooters, and the fancy cars belonged only to diplomats and the very rich. Not anymore. The Thais have embraced consumerism with gusto.

This is An Jang Sang, professor emeritus at Chiang Mai University.

AN JANG SANG: Some of them may be interested in materialism, consumerism, but deep down in their heart they are still Buddhists.

SEVERSON: But he agrees they’re not going to the temples, also known as wats, as much as they once did.

PROF. BUTT: In the past the wat was not just the religious center, it was the life center of the village community. The social life took place there, counseling, respect, authority for the monks. That’s, I think, decreased tremendously.

SEVERSON: And not as many are going to the Buddha to offer their prayerful good wishes for all living things. Some are giving more in donations, but Phra Boonchuey, the assistant abbot at this large temple, says too many are just donating to buy good karma.

PHRA BOONCHUEY: Because now they are coming to the temple just only to offer the offering in order to please, you know, their life for their own benefit.

SEVERSON: Phra BoonChuey is on a mission to get Thai Buddhism back on track.

PHRA BOONCHUEY: And so we have to do many things, you know, to bring people, you know, back to the religion.

SEVERSON: That would include bringing back the monks themselves who have been disappearing. In the past, almost every young man would become a monk, leading a monastic life, some for a few months, some for a lifetime. But in the last 30 years it is estimated that the number of monks has fallen by more than half. Mr. Vinai, our tuk-tuk driver, served as a monk for over a year as a young man.

(to Mr. Vinai): Did you like being a monk?

MR. VINAI: Yes. Yes.

SEVERSON: Do you think every young man should be a monk?

MR. VINAI: No, no.

SEVERSON: He says not every young man should be a monk because some care more about shopping.

(to Mr. Vinai): How many boys do you have?

MR. VINAI: I have two.

SEVERSON: Were they monks?

MR. VINAI: Yes.

SEVERSON: His last boy served only 15 days.

It’s about 5:30 in the morning, and the first monks are showing up to collect alms, their food for the whole day. Sometimes there’s only one meal a day, often followed by some sort of community service, and then there are the hours of chanting, study, and meditation. It’s not an easy life. Professor Butt says he once asked the young men in his class how many had been ordained.

PROF. BUTT: If I had asked that question a hundred years ago, I would have gotten close to a 100 percent yes, that they had ordained as a novice, maybe a short period of time, but they had done so. I went five years before I got one positive response, who had ordained.

SEVERSON: One reason for that might be the Thais have been practicing family planning, and if there is only one boy in the family, and the choice is school, making money, or ordination…

PRHA BOONCHUEY: You may not want him to be a novice or to get ordination.

SEVERSON: A big factor is that in the past many boys became monks to get a free education at the temple. Now Thailand offers 12 years of free public education and far more are attending secular schools. Scandals have also contributed to the diminishing numbers of monks, scandals revealed by social media. Pictures of monks at parties with women, drinking alcohol, watching porn, driving expensive fancy cars. Things monks are not supposed to be doing.

MR. VINAI: Not whiskey, not beer.

SEVERSON: Cigarettes, no cigarettes?

MR. VINAI: Nah, no.

SEVERSON: No women?

MR. VINAI: No women.

SEVERSON: No partying?

MR. VINAI: Yeah, no party.

SEVERSON: It’s not that there has been an epidemic of scandalous behavior, but what there is seems to find its way into the media. Justin McDaniel, the chairman of the department of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, was once a monk himself in Thailand.

JUSTIN MCDANIEL: It has a big impact in the press. I think it also has a big impact that if somebody was on the fence about being a monk or nun, that this is kind of relatively a legitimate excuse you could give to your mom for not doing it: well, look at the way monks act.

SEVERSON: Professor McDaniel argues that Thai Buddhism itself is not in decline, that it is gaining considerable traction in the Western world, and that the Thai people themselves are debating it more, which he says is a good thing. He skeptical that there really is a crisis.

MCDANIEL: I’ve never heard any professional religious person, rabbi, monk, priest, imam ever say everything is fine. You know, it’s always we’re in a state of crisis, and we’re in a state of crisis so you should be coming more, and you should be giving more money, you should be becoming a monk or you should be reading more books.

SEVERSON: He would find some disagreement here in Chiang Mai. Phra Boonchuey, for instance, thinks monks need to be taught more critical thinking instead of just memorization, and that the benefits of meditation need to be emphasized more. He wants Buddhists to get back to their basic precepts, such as abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and drinking alcohol. He would also counsel them to consume only what they need and to avoid the trappings of materialism.

PHRA BOONCHUEY: Think before [you] consume.

SEVERSON: There is a branch of Buddhism that’s flourishing. It’s called Dhammakaya. One way to explain Dhammakaya is that it is to Buddhism what the prosperity gospel is to Christianity. In other words the traditional value of selflessness has been replaced with “bigger is better.” The more you give, the more you get. Professor Butt says in some ways consumerism is becoming a religion of its own.

PROF. BUTT: This is the most pervasive and maybe becoming deeply rooted and growing the fastest of any religion in Thailand, and it’s consumerism. This is the way that one identifies one’s life, by what you own. The old thing was “I think, therefore I am.” Now it’s “I buy, therefore I am.”

MCDANIEL: I don’t see consumerism as somehow a-religious. And I don’t see modernity as somehow a-religious. I think that there’s many ways of being religious. I think when we say that consumerism or modernity is somehow a sign of secularism, I think that’s a very particular way of looking at religion.

PROF. BUTT: We’re living in a new world, and religion is a response to life, to what it means to be human, and when that changes, as I said earlier, religion has to change too or it dies. It’s put in a museum.

SEVERSON: No one is suggesting Thai Buddhism is heading for a museum, but many agree that it might need some new packaging.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The post Decline of Buddhism in Thailand appeared first on Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

PASTOR DAVID PLATT: I’m in over my head at every level. Don’t tell that to this church, but I’m clueless. Yeah, if you could keep that a secret, but I am clueless.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: “Clueless” is not the word members would use to describe Pastor David Platt here at the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. He has a doctorate and two master’s degrees from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. At 26, he became the youngest pastor in the country to lead a megachurch—a rich megachurch. And then something radical happened.

PLATT: I guess I would call it a crisis of belief, where looking at the Bible and I’m preaching and I’m thinking do I really believe this?

SEVERSON: He started questioning how his Christian beliefs are intertwined with the American dream of prosperity and success.

PLATT: I don’t in any way want to come across as anti-America. At the same time there are some ideals and values that are at the core of the American dream that are really contrary, even antithetical to the gospel that Jesus preached, and then the American dream obviously leads us sometimes in pursuits of money and possessions and pleasures in this world.

SEVERSON: What troubled him was the material comfort of his congregation and the multimillion-dollar megachurch they worship in. This was not the picture he had of the humble ministry of Christ.

PLATT: This idea that if you believe God, have enough faith, that he will give you health or wealth or prosperity, I don’t think, first of all, that it is a gospel at all. It’s not the good news that Jesus preached. More than health and wealth, Jesus I think gives us a picture more of a homeless and wounded gospel, and even the New Testament church is not a picture of prosperity theology. It’s a picture of adversity theology, persecution, struggles, poverty, helping one another out.

SEVERSON: Recent surveys have shown that while a significant number of mainline churches in the US have been losing members, many of those that preach the so-called prosperity gospel and the big churches, the megachurches, have been gaining members, churches like Faith Chapel, another even bigger megachurch in Birmingham led by Pastor Michael Moore. Pastor Moore’s church has grown from a few members to over 8,000. He’s dressed casually because this particular Sunday was set aside as a casual worship day. Members say Pastor Moore’s scholarship of the Bible is one reason the church has grown so large. Here’s his view of the prosperity gospel:

PASTOR MICHAEL MOORE: If you read the scripture, prosperity is all through the Bible. It’s not a prosperity gospel; it’s a gospel that includes prosperity. I think God is good, and I think God want to bless us with material things. I think the issue is not whether God want to bless us with material things. I think the issue is why are you pursing God? See, are you pursing God to get something from him, or are you pursuing God for God’s sake? Now if you’re pursuing God for God’s sake, then God will bless you with things.

SEVERSON: The church’s new domes will soon house a bowling alley, a basketball court, and a play area for children, which Pastor Moore intends to eventually open up for his congregation and for poor kids in the neighborhood.

MOORE: I think we should all give to the poor. I think we should all bless the poor. I think those who have it should give. The question I would ask him or anyone else: how can I give something to the poor if I don’t have it?

SEVERSON: Many of Pastor Platt’s members do have it to give, but some were jolted out of their comfort zone when he told them they should follow the lead of the early Christian church and give their lives and their wealth over to God and those in need. He called it a radical experiment and published a book that has become quite popular called “Radical.” It’s about taking back your faith from the American dream.

PLATT: For some people that means selling there home, some people it doesn’t. For some people that means getting rid of this possession or living at this lifestyle, capping their lives here, capping their lives over here. It’s not a—there’s no hard and fast rules, I think, for what this looks like.

SEVERSON: The pastor calculates that Christian churches in the US spend $10 billion a year on buildings and own property valued at $230 billion. He says too many churches are acting like big corporations, but Brook Hills is now constantly looking for ways trim its budget.

PLATT: Okay, how can we begin to reapportion this? Well, first of all, how can we put it all on the table and say God, whatever you want us to do and if you want us to sell this building then we will do that. We want to do whatever you want to do. If you want us to reallocate the use of this building for other purposes then we want to do that, and that’s part of what we’ve done in our budget.

SEVERSON: One of the sacrifices Pastor Platt challenges members to make is to go serve in places where there is vast physical and spiritual need—places like India and Africa. Over 250 members have moved to Third World countries to serve for three months, a year, or more to evangelize and to lend a hand. It was places like these that deeply influenced Platt’s theology.

PLATT: I remember one moment even locking eyes with this five-, six-year-old girl who was standing in her front yard, but it was basically a pile of trash and with a little blue tarp for a home, and I remember thinking my life is created for something much more than just a nice, comfortable Christian spin on the American dream.

SEVERSON: Some members choose places closer to home, like Chuck and Margaret Clark and their three children. They sold their large home in a well-heeled Birmingham suburb and moved to the inner city, though not without trepidation.

MARGARET CLARK: I had probably two primary concerns, and one was giving up my earthly comforts, and then secondly was just the fear for my children. We were aware of the drugs and the alcohol and the sexual promiscuity downtown, and it was just causing me a great deal of fear.

CLARK: Well, you can look around and see there’s lots of apartments that have been burned out, and there was a girl that got off a school bus here that was shot and killed recently.

SEVERSON: The Clarks have only been in their new downsized home a couple months, but they’re slowly getting to know the neighbors, evangelizing when its appropriate, and helping out where they can. Margaret is no longer afraid.

CLARK: We want to redefine success for our children. If my children are kind, and if they are compassionate, and that they are willing to take risks for others the way Christ took a risk for us, then I will accept that definition as success for them.

SEVERSON: Sacrifices by Brook Hill members have come in big ways and small, but in ways that are transformational.

AMANDA MCCOLLUM: I’m actually a preacher’s kid, so I’ve been in church since before I was born, and it really just changed the way I view the church and the church’s role in the world.

SEVERSON: Amanda McCollum is a financial planner who went on her first mission trip this summer to Guatemala. She now pays her tithes on her gross salary rather than her net earnings.

MCCOLLUM: That was one of the big steps. I quit my gym membership, and I cut back on my cable. I kind of pause my cable six months out of the year and then turn it back on for football season.

PLATT: Sitting here in the office one day with a very wealthy man in our faith family. He comes in and he says, “Pastor, I think you are crazy for saying some of the things you are saying.” And I said, “Okay,” and he said, “But the reality is you’re only saying what Jesus said,” and so he begins to share about how he is selling his home and cars, and with tears in his eyes this man looks at me and says, “I want my life to count.”

(speaking to congregation): Aren’t you glad God gives second chances?

SEVERSON: When he first started preaching his radical theology, it was simply too much for some members. They left the church.

PLATT: It’s been a struggle. I mean, there’s been a constant tension, I think, in our faith family. When Jesus said some of the things he said and the crowds sometimes left, I mean totally left. The reality is when Jesus got to the end of his time on earth there were only 120 people who had actually stuck around and done what he told them to do in Acts chapter 1. I mean, that’s not a megachurch, that’s a mini-church.

SEVERSON: He lost members in the beginning, but now Platt says the church has more disciples than when he started, which is about 4300. No way to tell what’s next. According to the pastor, the sacrifices have only begun.

The post Pastor David Platt on the Gospel of Wealth appeared first on Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.