Day 4: The Mise-en-Scène

Pulpit Puppet Masters and the Curated Gospel Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we traced the strings back to Nicaea. We saw how the stage was built. How the church traded prophetic freedom for imperial favor. How the first compromises became institutionalized.

But a stage is just a platform. Wood and nails. What matters is the mise-en-scène.

It’s a French term from theater and film. It means “placing on stage.” Everything arranged within the frame to create a specific effect. The lighting. The set design. The positioning of actors. The costumes. The movement. The atmosphere. Nothing accidental. Everything intentional.

Every element placed to make you feel something. Believe something. Do something.

The question for today: What has been arranged to shape your faith?

The Theater of Religion

The connection between theater and religion runs deeper than you might think. It’s woven into the language of Scripture itself.

When Jesus confronted the Pharisees, He called them hypokritēs. We translate it “hypocrites,” but that translation has lost its edge. In Greek, hypokritēs meant a stage actor. Someone who puts on a mask. Someone who assumes a character that isn’t their own.

Jesus wasn’t just calling them phonies. He was calling them performers. Actors playing a role for an audience.

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” — Matthew 6:1

That phrase “to be seen” is theaomai in Greek. It’s the root of our word “theater.” Jesus is literally warning: don’t turn your faith into a theatrical performance.

And yet.

Look around at what modern Christianity has become. The production value. The lighting rigs. The fog machines. The carefully timed musical crescendos. The pastor emerging from backstage at precisely the right moment.

When did worship become a show?

And when worship becomes a performance, who are we really worshiping?

This is the question we avoid. Because the answer implicates everyone on both sides of the stage.

The Oldest Rebellion

Satan’s fall was a worship problem.

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high… I will make myself like the Most High.'” — Isaiah 14:12-14

Five times: “I will.” Satan wanted worship directed toward himself. He wanted to sit where only God should sit. He wanted the attention, the glory, the position that belongs to the Creator alone.

This is the original mise-en-scène. Satan arranging himself at the center. Positioning himself as the object of worship. Demanding what only God deserves.

And this spirit has never stopped seeking a stage.

How many church leaders have built platforms that direct worship toward themselves and the ministries they’ve created? How many have positioned themselves at the center of productions designed to gather followers, build influence, accumulate power?

They may use the name of Jesus Christ. They may sing songs with biblical lyrics. But when the lights are positioned to highlight the pastor, when the production exists to build his brand, when the ministry becomes an empire with his name on it, who is really being worshiped?

The spirit behind it is ancient. It’s the same “I will” that fell from heaven.

Why We Go Along

But here’s what we don’t want to admit: we go along with it.

We fill the seats. We follow the celebrities. We share the content. We buy the books. We attend the conferences. We make the pilgrimage to the megachurch.

Why?

Because we’re worshiping our own gods too.

Belonging. Influence. Position. Power. Provision.

These are the altars we bow before. The production offers us something we want. Community without accountability. Identity without transformation. Blessing without sacrifice. A seat at a table that feels important.

John named these gods plainly:

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” — 1 John 2:16

The lust of the flesh: provision, comfort, the meeting of our desires. The lust of the eyes: image, appearance, the aesthetic of success. The pride of life: position, influence, being somebody.

And then the verdict:

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” — 1 John 2:15

Where these are, the love of the Father is not.

We can call it Christianity. We can dress it in worship songs and biblical language. We can feel deeply moved by the production. But if we’re bowing at the altar of our own desires, we’re not worshiping Him.

The production continues because we keep buying tickets.

The Arranged Experience

Walk into most churches today and you’re walking into a carefully constructed experience.

The parking lot greeters. The coffee bar. The lobby music. The countdown clock. The lighting shift as service begins. The worship set building to an emotional peak. The video announcements. The sermon illustration timed to land with the graphic on screen.

And the pastor? Positioned center stage. Elevated. Spotlit. The focal point of the entire production.

This is mise-en-scène. Every element placed with intention. Nothing left to chance. Everything arranged to produce a specific response.

But here’s the question no one asks: Who is the director? And what response is being elicited?

Watch the altar call. Listen to the invitation. What are people being asked to do?

“Make a decision.” “Raise your hand.” “Repeat this prayer.” “Take a step.”

But is anyone being called to meet Jesus Christ?

There’s a difference between making a decision and encountering the living God. A decision is something you manage. An encounter is something that undoes you. A decision can be added to your existing life. An encounter with Jesus Christ ends your existing life.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” — John 3:3

Born again. Not improved. Not upgraded. Not added to. Born again. The old passes away. Everything becomes new.

But that’s not what most productions are offering. The response they elicit isn’t surrender, it’s sign-up. Not sacrifice, but membership. Not death to self, but elevation of self as the owner of the grace and mercy you’ve been given.

“God has a wonderful plan for your life.” “You’re a child of the King.” “Walk in your destiny.”

All of it delivered before the cross has done its work. Before the old man has died. Before you’ve lost anything at all.

The curated gospel invites you to receive grace without being broken by your need for it. To accept mercy without mourning over what made mercy necessary. To join the system, attend the services, follow the program, and call yourself Christian without ever being born again.

Jesus told Nicodemus, a religious leader, a man who had the system mastered, that none of his credentials mattered. He needed to start over entirely. Be born again. From above. By the Spirit.

Nicodemus asked, “How can these things be?”

That’s the question the production never wants you to ask. Because the answer requires something no mise-en-scène can manufacture. It requires the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, not the manipulation of a sound engineer or the charm of a charismatic pseudo-preacher.

The response being elicited in most churches isn’t rebirth. It’s recruitment. Not transformation, but transaction. And the transaction is designed to benefit the system as much as the sinner.

The Invisible Arrangers

The mise-en-scène didn’t emerge from nowhere. It was designed. Taught. Funded. Distributed.

Follow the trail backward.

Seminaries shape pastors before they ever reach a pulpit. What gets taught in those classrooms determines what gets preached in those sanctuaries. Who decides the curriculum? Who funds the institutions? Who sits on the boards?

Denominations determine acceptable belief. Step outside the boundaries and you lose your credentials, your network, your livelihood. The boundaries aren’t set by Scripture alone. They’re set by committees, by tradition, by institutional self-preservation.

The Protestant church was born in protest against this very thing. Luther nailed his theses to the door because Rome had made itself the gatekeeper of truth. But five centuries later, Protestantism has built its own gatekeeping system. Elitism and credentialing have replaced anointing and calling. One is led by man, the other by God. And God has always chosen the foolish things to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). He called fishermen, not Pharisees. Tax collectors, not theologians. But today, try standing behind a pulpit without the right degree, the right ordination, the right connections. The system protects itself.

Publishing houses platform certain voices and silence others. The books that fill your church bookstore weren’t selected by the Holy Spirit. They were selected by marketing departments, by sales projections, by what moves units. There is an approved narrative. An acceptable range of voices. A curated menu of ideas.

This is the same system many pastors preach against. They decry the control and propaganda of mainstream media. They warn their congregations about narratives shaped by corporate interests and hidden agendas. And then they platform the religious version of the same thing. Same gatekeeping. Same approved messaging. Same silencing of inconvenient voices.

This is the leaven of the Pharisees. Jesus warned us about it (Matthew 16:6). It spreads quietly. It puffs up the whole loaf. And it does not produce the Bread of Life. It produces processed food that makes everyone fat and spiritually sick. Full bellies. Starving souls. Silenced Spirit.

Conferences elevate certain teachers into celebrity status. Who decides who speaks? Who pays for the stage, the lights, the production? Follow the money and you’ll find the puppet masters. These gatherings have become merchandise bazaars. The product being traded is your flesh, what feels good, what keeps you coming back and funding those who produce it. It’s bizarre that we’ve forgotten what Jesus said: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). The food He offers is real food. It costs you nothing to receive and everything to follow. But there’s no profit margin in the Bread of Life. So they sell you something else.

The script is written before the pastor opens his mouth. Shaped by the seminary that credentialed him. Bounded by the denomination that ordained him. Approved by the publisher that platformed him. Amplified by the conference that celebrated him.

The mise-en-scène is arranged before you walk through the door.

You think you’re making choices. But you’re choosing from a menu someone else prepared. The seminaries, the denominations, the publishers, the conferences. They are the invisible arrangers. And the production they’ve built has one purpose: to keep you seated, satisfied, and spending.

But never transformed.

The Two Wisdoms

How do we discern the difference? How do we know when we’re being fed the Bread of Life versus processed food in biblical packaging?

James drew the line clearly:

“This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.” — James 3:15

There are two operating systems at work in religious spaces: the wisdom from above and the wisdom from below dressed in Sunday clothes.

The wisdom from above is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).

Without hypocrisy. There’s that word again. Without the mask. Without the performance. Without the stage actor playing a role for an audience. The wisdom from above has no use for theater.

Notice what comes first: pure. Not polished. Not professional. Not persuasive. Pure.

There is nothing pure about performance. Performance is manufacturing at its finest: the careful assembly of atmosphere, emotion, and expectation to produce a predetermined response. The fog machine isn’t anointing. The lighting design isn’t glory. The emotional crescendo timed perfectly to the altar call isn’t conviction. It’s manipulation with a music budget.

This is the spirit of this age at work. Paul called it “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). It’s the spirit of merchandising. Buying and selling in the temple. Trading in human souls (Revelation 18:13). It packages the sacred and sells it back to you at a profit.

But the Holy Spirit cannot be marketed. He cannot be manufactured. He moves where He wills (John 3:8). He convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8).

He is the Paraklētos. We translate it “Comforter,” but we’ve softened the word beyond recognition. The traditional reading is passive: one called to your side. He comes to you. But consider the reverse: one who calls you to His side. He calls you out of your carnal state, out of your flesh, to abide in Christ. The conviction of sin isn’t Him coming down to make you comfortable. It’s Him calling you up, out, away from where you are.

“Come out from among them and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17). “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

The Spirit doesn’t coddle you in your carnality. He calls you out of it. He convicts. He confronts. He draws you toward Christ, not toward your own comfort.

The comfort comes from abiding in Christ, not from the Spirit making your flesh feel better. The comfort is the fruit of obedience to the call, not a sedative for disobedience.

Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. He was wrong about Jesus Christ, but he saw something real. He saw religion being used to pacify, to dull, to keep people compliant in their condition rather than transformed out of it. The tragedy is that compromised Christianity has become exactly what he accused it of being. Not because the gospel is an opiate. But because the production replaced the gospel with one.

One spirit fills seats. The other empties tombs.

The Doctrine Beneath the Doctrine

The Hebrew word chaneph is often translated “hypocrite” in the Old Testament, but its root meaning is different from the Greek. It means to cover, to hide, to becloud. The pollution underneath is hidden by what’s placed on top.

This is what happens with inherited doctrine. The appearance is orthodox. The language is biblical. But underneath, there may be human tradition, institutional convenience, or outright error. All covered by the stage dressing of religious authority.

“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7

The Hebrew word for “outward appearance” is mar’eh. It means the thing seen. The view presented. The mise-en-scène.

Man looks at the mise-en-scène. God looks at what’s underneath.

Doctrines of Demons in Designer Packaging

Paul warned Timothy:

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” — 1 Timothy 4:1

We imagine such doctrines arriving with obvious horns and a sulfur smell. But the most effective lies wear choir robes.

The doctrine of prosperity theology: where God becomes a vending machine, faith becomes a transaction, and the poor are blamed for their poverty while the preachers fly private.

The doctrine of therapeutic moralism: where sin becomes dysfunction, repentance becomes self-improvement, and the bloody cross becomes a symbol of God’s support for your journey.

The doctrine of experientialism: where feelings validate truth rather than truth governing feelings, where “I felt God say” carries more weight than “It is written.”

The doctrine of easy believism: where the narrow gate has been widened into a turnstile, where “just believe” replaces “take up your cross,” where the cost of discipleship has been marked down to nothing and the product matches the price.

These didn’t emerge organically from communities reading Scripture together. They were developed, packaged, and distributed through the infrastructure we’ve already traced: seminaries that embraced cultural accommodation, publishers that prioritized market appeal, conferences that rewarded crowd-pleasers.

The demonic genius is this: the congregation never sees the script because they mistake the performance for spontaneity. They think the pastor just “felt led” to preach that message. They don’t see the publishing contract that shaped his reading, the conference circuit that shaped his style, the denominational expectations that shaped his boundaries.

The assembly line keeps running. The converts keep counting. The stones keep sitting in pews, unmoved, unchanged, unconverted, but confident. After all, they said the prayer. They have the paperwork.

And the system calls it revival.

The Director’s Chair

Every mise-en-scène has a director. Someone calling the shots. Someone deciding what you see, what you feel, what you’re led to believe.

In the theater of modern Christianity, who sits in the director’s chair?

Is it the Holy Spirit? The Paraklētos who calls you out of carnality and into Christ? Is He directing, or is He listed in the credits while someone else calls “action”?

Is it Scripture? The Bible claims to be living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Does Scripture direct your church experience? Or has it been reduced to a proof-text, a decoration, a few verses on the screen to legitimize what was already planned?

Is it Jesus Christ Himself? He said He would build His church. The gates of hell would not prevail against it. But is He building, or has the construction been contracted out to consultants, growth strategists, and brand managers?

The curated gospel has a director, but it’s not the One it claims.

Tearing Down the Set

So what do we do?

The Bereans show us the way. When Paul came to them with the gospel, they didn’t simply accept his mise-en-scène. They examined everything against Scripture.

“Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so.” — Acts 17:11

Every day. Not once. Not when it was convenient. Every day they tested what they were told against what was written.

This is how you tear down the set. You stop accepting the arranged experience. You start examining everything against the Word.

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.” — Isaiah 8:20

The law and the testimony. Scripture. The unchanging Word in a world of shifting stages.

Jesus Himself modeled this. When Satan came with his temptations in the wilderness, each one was a mise-en-scène. A carefully arranged presentation designed to elicit a specific response.

And Jesus responded the same way every time: “It is written.”

Not “I feel.” Not “My tradition says.” Not “The experts agree.”

It is written.

The Word cuts through every production. It exposes what the lighting was meant to hide. It speaks when the music stops.

The Damascus Road Collapse

Consider Saul on the road to Damascus.

He had the ultimate mise-en-scène. Trained by Gamaliel. Credentialed by the Sanhedrin. Authorized by the high priest. Everything arranged to confirm his position, his righteousness, his mission.

Saul had every credential the system could offer. He was the product of the religious production of his day. Elitism and credentialing at their finest. And it was leading him to persecute the very Body of Christ.

He was so certain. So arranged. So directed.

And then a light. Brighter than the sun. Brighter than any stage production.

A voice cut through the carefully arranged narrative. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

In that moment, the set collapsed. The lighting changed. The script was torn up. Every credential became worthless. Every position crumbled. The fishermen he would have dismissed, the tax collectors he would have despised, they had what Saul’s degrees could never give him: an encounter with the living God.

Everything Saul thought he knew, everything he’d been arranged to believe, everything he’d been positioned to do, all of it came crashing down.

And a new Director took over.

“Who are you, Lord?”

That’s the question that tears down every mise-en-scène. Not “What should I believe?” Not “What does my tradition say?” Not “What will my community accept?”

Who are you, Lord?

When you ask that question honestly, when you’re willing to let the answer overturn everything you thought you knew, the production ends and relationship begins.

Damascus Road Moment

The stage has been set for your faith. The lights are positioned. The script is written. The cues are marked.

But you don’t have to play the part.

STOP

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling. — Isaiah 30:15

Stop performing. Stop following the cues. Step off the stage long enough to ask whether any of it is real. In the silence, away from the music and the lights and the program, what remains?

LOOK

“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in your faith.” — 1 Peter 5:8-9

Look at the mise-en-scène of your faith with clear eyes. Who arranged it? Who benefits from your compliance? What have you accepted without examination? The lion doesn’t always roar. Sometimes he directs the production.

LISTEN

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” — Joel 2:12-13

Hear the invitation beneath all the noise. Not the amplified voice from the stage. The still, small voice that speaks when the production stops. He is calling you out of the theater and into relationship. Will you come?

LIVE

“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” — John 17:3

Today, identify one element of your faith that was arranged for you rather than chosen by you. One doctrine you inherited without examination. One practice you follow because of the production, not because of the Producer. Take it to Scripture. Take it to prayer. Let the true Director speak.

The set can be torn down. The script can be rewritten. But only if you’re willing to stop performing and start seeking the One who stands outside every human production, waiting to be found.

Tomorrow: The Maze with No Exit — The pseudoreality of curated options