For your Consideration 10.2.2025

    There is no such thing as post-church Christianity. It is a myth perpetrated by mega-influencers who hope to divert our attention from the local church and its “economy of interest” to globally defined issues. It is not only a myth it is wrong. It is un-Biblical. It is counterproductive.  It is an assault on the incarnational deity of Jesus who lived, died, and was resurrected in time and space. There was a there, and a then that redefined all subsequent human experience. Multiple generations of mega Church “biggerism” have impeded our judgement about what is truly important. We have lost our understanding of what we do and where we do it, which means we have also largely lost our identity. 

    I understand that many readers will see me as a malcontent who does not see anything good coming from the contemporary currents moving the Church. This is not entirely true. Yes, I see issues that must be addressed. Yet, I also believe that the Scriptures, rightly interpreted and applied to our present environment offer the solution that the Church needs to rise above our infatuation with culturally driven deviations. 

    This is an issue which has always confronted the Church. It always will. The salvation in Christ, described in the Bible is incarnational. Time, place, situation, circumstances, culture, social structure, national and political environment—these have always been realities the Church has had to navigate. This is not a bug—it is a feature. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is a theological truth not only about Jesus but about us. He came here. He did so then. His then and there allow for salvation everywhere and throughout all time. In celebrating this truth at the heart of our faith we sign up for a life of cultural and social embeddedness, engagement, and evaluation. 

     Jesus lived a culturally Jewish life, yet He questioned those elements of His culture which stood opposed to the will and purpose of God. If Jesus was able to summarize the whole of the law into two signal points and to hold His contemporaries accountable for social and personal deviations from the intended will of God, we must be ready to do so as well. We must understand, as Jesus did that the issue is not so much the content of culture, as the proper place and limits of culture. When cultural commitment creeps into the life of God’s people causing us to lose sight of God’s will it is right for the authorized shepherds of the flock to rise in protest. 

    This is essentially Paul’s position throughout his epistles. There are times when he functions well within the cultural norms of his time and place. There are times when his Jewishness takes precedence. At other times his Hellenistic education takes precedence. And there are times when he relies upon his Roman citizenship. But never do any of these lesser identifying markers supplant his primary commitment to Christ or his unfailing allegiance to the Church. Indeed, there are times when Paul addresses each of these lesser cultural identity markers noting the ways in which they tempt believers into accommodation or inculturation.  He consistently makes a clear distinction between cultural realities and Biblically derived commitments. 

    I offer for your consideration the idea that maybe, perhaps our capacity to make those kinds of clear distinctions we find in the New Testament has eroded. At one and the same time we have allowed media driven, even propagandistic concepts to mold our message whilst compromising the central spiritual and theological commitments which have historically authenticated our allegiance to Jesus. We live in an era in which the very name “Christian” has been emptied of its Christo-centric, Biblical content and replaced with a series of culturally derived prejudices. 

    Again, this is nothing new. In his epistles Paul generally does not address the surrounding culture in which the Church was embedded. Rather, he addresses those points at which the culture had invaded the Church. For all intents and purposes, we have reversed the Pauline emphasis. We focus tirelessly on the beliefs and behaviors of avowed non-Christian culture while avoiding any commentary on the behavior or beliefs of confessed Christians who deny Jesus in both word and deed. We have abandoned theology for sociology because the former is controlled by scripture while the latter is controlled by...us. In making this shift we are risking the broader testimony of the Church. 

    To be blunt. People are not stupid The Bible is widely available to anyone who wishes to read it. What we teach is not a secret nor the behaviors expected of believers. For those who wear the name of Christ the wariness and reticence of the culture far too often evoke a contentious response rather than considerate, patient, instruction. It seems that the very fallenness of the world insults us and insulates us from any empathetic, compassionate, evangelical response. The more we argue against culture, the more we take offense at the behaviors of those who are outside of Christ, the more we attack, the less effective is our witness the less resonant our voice. 

    Perhaps we need to be more compassionate and understanding rather than contentious and condescending. Outsiders who consider the Church can readily sense and easily see the disconnect between the words of the Church and the words of Jesus. In the 21st Century far too many Christians have become desensitized to this disconnect. I would offer, for your consideration, that something must change if we are to recover our voice amid the despairing, dying culture in which we find ourselves.