When the Homily is about Immunology

Barriers

Bill made mention of the same article that Steve did the other day regarding Mega-Churches. Someonenamed Faith over at Bill's comment box made note of this quote from the article...

"It's not a churchy feel," Osteen, 40, said. "We don't have crosses up there. We believe in all that, but I like to take the barriers down that have kept people from coming. A lot of people who come now are people that haven't been to church in 20 to 30 years."

...and then asked that we contrast that with I Cor. 1:18-25.

I put up another question and since then have been giving this more and more thought. My question:

What if the "barriers that keep people from coming" aren't the physical crosses, but what we BELIEVE about the cross? What then? Take them down?

More and more people are going to find Christianity difficult to palate, many already do. To what extent do we cater to their concerns? Why is "belief" the last thing to be sacrificed, while traditional expressions of beliefs (no matter how beautiful or rich) are the very first and easiest to "take down."

Shelby Spong is willing to yield everything to what our culture is willing to accept and ingest. Is he wrong?

What is the lowest common denominator for our Christian faith? When does a belief system cease to be Christian? Are the Mormons any more Christian than Spong because they at least affirm a literal resurrection?