Therefore, we should not look down on our interlocutor, not see him as an enemy, but as a lost brother. We lost him, did not come up in time, did not stretch out a hand, did not explain, did not support... Once we did not say to him, perhaps, just one kind word - and now, in order to explain ourselves, we have to talk with him for hours. Once one parishioner, seeing how long I was talking with sectarians who came to our church, half-jokingly said to me: "Now I understand how you can achieve a long and individual conversation with you: you just need to sign up for some sect."

And one more thing: do not build your defense of Orthodoxy only on the opposition of "Russian" to "American". Orthodoxy is not a national, but a universal, world religion. And in America itself, the Orthodox Church has several million members. The following argument can be appealed to the heart: "What are you? is it not bitter to be a foreigner in one's own country?..". But even turning to reason, with the Bible in hand, it is quite possible to explain the correctness and depth of patristic thinking.

American Vera: A Commodity for Export? [601]

The dollar, the hamburger, and the gospel of Billy Graham go hand in hand. In his latest book, the American sociologist George Ritzer gives his version of the rationalization of American society, calling it McDonaldization. He is referring to the various forms of industries that serve Americans in their daily lives: fast food, fast car service, quick shopping, quick health care, etc. These kinds of everyday services function in the same way as bureaucratization and other kinds of rationalization, as a mechanism for gradually building an iron cage of rationality around man that he can neither get rid of. nor to be distracted to rationalize oneself. McDonaldization has four main aspects:

1. Efficiency. Wherever there is a human need, a McDonaldized system sorts out what's most important for that need, charts a quick way to meet it, and throws the chosen path or solution to market.

2. Quantification and calculation. You can judge from the condition of your stomach what size hamburger you need. You know in advance how long it will take you to visit the respective service point. Your photos will be developed in an hour, your pizza will be delivered in 20 minutes from the time of order, etc.

3. Predictability. You know what to expect, and you can be sure of what you will get. A burger at McDonald's has the same flavor as a McDonald burger in Stockholm, and both taste the same as the burger you bought three months ago.

4. Control through the replacement of human technology with non-human technology. In such a system, your behavior is controlled, whether you are a customer or an employee. Consumers are expected to behave in a certain way, which they do even without training, and workers do it even more, perhaps because they have been taught appropriate, McDonald's behavior.

The business has the last word, and instead of an instance exercising individual control over the quantity and quality of a McDonaldized system, the individual becomes an object of control managed by the business.

Evangelical campaigns targeting Eastern Europe today are, in my opinion, similar to the campaigns for the establishment of fast food restaurants that are now opening in this same part of the world. Both are signs of the ideological collapse of socialism and as such are enthusiastically welcomed by those who have been the most deprived in this ideological system. It is easy to hail the restaurant of the McDonald's empire in Moscow as a condemnation of the old mode of production...

The evangelical "product" entering the Eastern European market reveals similarities between hamburger sales and religion.

1. The content of an evangelical campaign is a product of individual one-time consumption, in contrast to the evangelism of traditional state or national churches, which is inextricably linked to culture and tradition and cannot be reduced to individual and one-time use.

2. The evangelical campaign considers a spiritual need as any other human need, that is, as a purely individual phenomenon. Since these needs are present in a large number of people, their emergence can be calculated and satisfied using the rational means of secular economic business.

3. A meeting organized within the framework of a campaign offers a product that can be perceived by an individual as the satisfaction of his individual need.