Like many of you, I am somewhat of an NPR groupie.  I awaken to Morning Edition coming through my clock radio.  I listen on my satellite radio while driving from place to place and church to church.  On the 17th of February, I heard Chris Arnold on Morning Edition introduce a new term to me. He was speaking of "Zombie Banks."  "A zombie bank," he went on to say, "keeps draining bailout capital from the government, but doesn't respond with any meaningful lending that helps the economy recover."  I pictured what looked like a bank... with tellers, doors that open during banking hours, a vault, elevator music playing in the lobby....but no loans being made, no transactions being carried out that banks usually carry out.  It looks like a bank, smells like a bank, sounds like a bank, but it is for all intents and purposes... dead.
 
I began having a very uneasy feeling that I had seen that in some churches as well.  They have stained glass windows, steeples, bulletins on Sunday, the correct hymnbooks in the pew racks, organ music in the background looking for all the world like a church, but for all intents and purposes... seem dead.  Zombie churches... what a disturbing thought.

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