"A Bizarre Amalgamation of Scripture, Pietism, Entertainment, and Consumerism"

Over at Islam and Christianity, Abu Daoud poses the question:

OK people, tell me if this is way too harsh, maybe even venomous, or if it sounds more or less reasonable:

[E]vangelicalism is in many of its forms a contextualization that reacted against what was (at times, justifiably) perceived as ossified and lifeless ritual, the search for inner contact with God and the individualization and emotionalization of religion go hand in hand. Ritual was sublimated, but since humans need ritual to preserve a sense of identity, the local cultural symbols of America were drawn upon, thus arose a form of uniquely evangelical crypto-sacramentalism centered around a bizarre amalgamation of Scripture, pietism, entertainment, and consumerism.

And this is the comment I posted:

well... this is an interesting if mostly recent phenomenon: "a bizarre amalgamation of Scripture, pietism, entertainment, and consumerism". 

Christian pop music (mediocre imitations of secular sounds), low budget Christian TV (In Kansas, I get about 6 channels now via broadcast digital!), passion of Christ playsets (sold at Walmart), Christian theme parks — (as a Catholic, I'll tell you that Catholics have bought into this amalgam also). 

It seems to me that these bizarre cultural forms go back to Francis Schaeffer's rediscovery of culture and the dualism he proposed regarding culture based on evangelical principles and culture based on other principles.

Waking up to culture was a good and important move for evangelicals. However, the last 30+ years have filled the world with an ersatz Christian culture which offers believers a Christian brand of the same crap everybody else is selling. 

How can Christian culture be original and innovative? I'll say this: you don't become original by imitating everybody else and substituting Christian principles. Other evangelicals can discover an original Christian culture if they live like Schaeffer did — as a member of a hospitable community.

I don't want to be glib in that last statement, but I do want to highlight the necessity of a missionary life, a life of hospitality, in rediscovering Christian culture. Culture is at root the encounter between the fullness of our humanity with the verification of Christ's presence in the world. The shared life, a convivial life, a life of caritas — is an essential dimension of this humanity.