I liked your article and agree with many of your criticisms of cultural Christianity because it is Christianity without Christ. By now, you can probably hear the “but” coming.
Two things in the article distracted from your main point. I have heard (Gal 1:6-9) applied to everyone and everything from Mormonism to the Word of Faith teachers and in a general sense it can be applied that widely to include the gospel of Cultural Christianity. But everything in scripture has an intended meaning, which is discerned by the context. The false gospel - the other gospel that is not really another because it isn’t a gospel (good news) is the false gospel of the Judaizers, who Paul was preaching against in Galatia. They were people teaching that Christians need to keep the Mosaic Law. Today you see them in Messianic Judaism, the Hebrews Roots Movement and some people within the New Apostolic Reformation. I think by taking this passage out of that context and applying it to whatever group or sect we disagree with, we can make it mean anything we want. But when we can make words mean anything, we actually make them mean nothing.
The second point I take issue with is the claim of hypocrisy. Maybe we run in different circles but I don’t know a single Christian who holds Andrew Tate up as an example of a fine Christian man. As you point out, he doesn’t claim to be Christian. I’ll leave it to Muslims to decide if they think he is a good example of a Muslim man but many of the same criticisms you might have against Tate apply to the life of Muhammed as well so that comparison isn’t as clearcut as comparing the life of any Christian to Christ.
I’ve heard a lot of Christians claim that those Christians who support President Trump were/are being hypocritical because of his public, personal failings. His Christian supporters have countered back that these charges of hypocrisy are born from a hypocritical, legalistic, virtue-signaling perversion of what Christianity is, but I think those types of arguments, from both sides, are counterproductive.
I’m a Christian and I supported President Trump. I have no delusions about his past moral failings (which he has openly admitted). I have concerns about the “Christian” pastors he surrounds himself with. Paula White and Franklin Graham are some of the last people I would want to have the President’s ear. But I didn’t vote from Trump to be my pastor or an elder in my church.
What I do know is that in the 50 years I have been voting no President has done more for this Country and causes many Christians care about, than President Trump 45 and in his first month as President Trump 47 he has far exceeded my wildest dreams of what he could accomplish.
I also know that as a Christian who was also a businessman I made every effort to run that business honestly and ethically but I don’t know that my life or that business would have survived the level of scrutiny that President Trump has been put under for the past 9 years. Neither do I think most of the people saying that, supporting him is hypocritical, would survive that level of scrutiny either, so that speaks volumes about the best parts of his character.
Did Paul, Timothy and the Apostle John change the culture of Ephesus? They certainly had a impact but even before the first century ended, according to the letter Jesus sent to Ephesus through John, a form of Christian legalism was threatening the future of the church there. Ultimately it was a rigid Christian legalism that caused God to remove the Christian light coming from Ephesus.
I spend a lot of time disputing false doctrines so the warning to the church at Ephesus hits close to home with me. We can get so busy judging what we think others get wrong that we lose sight of our first love, Jesus and the Gospel of grace which He brought.
You are correct - Galatians 1:6-9 is not about this particular issue I've mentioned in this article. It refers to Jewish teachers who tried to merge the Law of Moses with the gospel by saying "You have to be circumcised and keep the law to be saved" (Acts 15:1, 5). They were "distorting" the gospel by what they were teaching. I would argue that the application of this passage would include any teaching that "distorts" the gospel of Christ - I think that would include what I've discussed in this article.
As far as Andrew Tate goes, I don't know anyone either who would hold him up as an example of what a good man looks like. But my point had more to do with what Ben Shapiro said about him, the moral standard Shapiro holds Tate to, and how that same moral standard is not held to people within the "Conservative Cultural Christian" movement - like Musk and President Trump.
Personally, I don't fault anyone for voting for President Trump. I think most people just tried to make the best decision they could between two less-than-ideal options.
The point I was trying to make with this article had more to do with calling attention to how flippant and dismissive the "Conservative Christian Movement" is with fundamental Christian teachings - like the identity of Jesus and the gospel of Christ. Many of the leaders in this movement care more about changing culture to be what they want than about the "mumbo-jumbo" (their words) of Christian teaching.
I used to be a conservative cultural Christian. But now I'm a Christian Monarchist. There's only one King of kings and Lord of lords, Who was raised to life and brought up to the right Hand of our Father in Heaven, Who still lives today.
We must honor our civil leaders, but in the end, every knee will bow to Him 🙌🏼
Scary stuff - thinking you know the gospel and there is something different!
I ran into that but it is so huge of an event that I am catching my breath with the Lord and trying to see if I should write about it. So I am doing some side stuff on the Bible Stories that pointed me to the gospel. Amazing that Absalom, Tamar, Amnon, and David drove me back. And, by the way, I am not "concretive" I am RADICALLY transformed and following Jesus - and wow, that love is transformational. What did 45 years in a pew do for me? Well, it made me wonder what was wrong. What a 2-edged sword that is!
'Clement Attlee famously said that he respected the ethics of Christianity but not the mumbo-jumbo.'...the ethics exist BECAUSE of the "mumbo-jumbo"...you can't bake a pie, then take the filling out, and still call the empty crust a pie. It may look like one, and the crust is still tasty, but it's not a pie any more, it's just an empty shell, albeit a good looking tasty one.
One requirement: Jesus said one must be born again before He or she can even see the Kingdom of God. That puts a real crimp on cultural Christianity. Being born again transforms your life.
RE: Dudess, harsh reality time: You Socialistically secured (SS#) chattel live in Harlot Babylon’s Democratic Socialist nation -within the Marxist Beast’s UN Global Village - where the Spirit of Christ’s holy-theocratic heavenly Kingdom does exist and actually rules within the circumcised hearts of His Bride’s wise virgins (i.e. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego). Dudess! Will you END (i.e. condemn them to be cast into the Beast’s fiery furnace) those martyred wise virgins in Christ’s Bride who joyfully take up their daily cross and obediently COME OUT of Big Brother’s Socialistic Security System during the utopian ‘Digital Age’ of Neo-Babylon’s revived MAGA Golden Age (see Revelation 18:4)?? This delusional eugenic reasoning of the ‘Georgia Guidestones’ just says you don't see God’s Holy Spirit theocratically working within your uncircumcised heart (Philippians 2:13). The harsh reality is that God isn't sovereign LORD of your digitally-marked (SS#) socially-secured soul. The Socialist spirit of Babylon’s Orwellian Utopia is a powerful delusion that has brain-washed the covid-vaxed chattel who are happily enslaved within Socialism’s eugenic Security System. So, get over trying to expose the antichrist lectures of those who, unlike Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, cowardly refuse to take up their martyrs cross and who self-righteously write ‘good’ things about how to idolatrously bow their uncircumcised hearts in patriotic allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar’s idolized Golden Image—or to the sacred MAGA image of Trump’s revived Babylonian Golden Age.
Did you read the whole article? I said: "I’d prefer to live in a society where Christian principles were more embraced rather than less embraced - and I imagine this is probably true for most of us."
My focus in this article is actually connected with something you said in your response - "I would rather have an Elon Musk...[who] agrees with the principles of Christianity."
Someone who thinks Jesus was merely a "good man" and a "wise teacher" does not agree with the principles of Christianity.
And that's the danger of "Conservative Cultural Christianity."
RE: "I’d prefer to live in Masonic Pax Americana’s Judeo-Xian society where Democracy’s lukewarm Laodicean principles were more self-righteously embraced rather than less embraced - and I imagine this is probably true for most of us digitally-marked (SS#) chattel that are happily enslaved within the Marxist Beast’s Socialistic eugenic Security System.
The Marxist Beast’s WHO enforces its “social science-based” eugenics vaccination policies upon the deluded digitally-marked (SS#) chattel that are held captive within the UN Global Village’s inescapable Socialistic Security System. Socially Secured chattel that are unvaccinated will be targeted with threats: No-Jab-No-Mall, No-Jab-No-Church, No-Jab-No-Job, etc, all in the name of “it's for your safety and the safety of others.”
During the Orwellian “Digital Age” of Neo-Babel’s Global Village (i.e. Sodom -Egypt) all global-e-commerce merchandise, including the souls of men, must be digitally-marked with the identification number (SS#; SIN#) of the Marxist Beast’s Socialistic Security System. Mentally engraved within their hearts’ consciousness (the forehead’s memory) and embedded within their hand-held credit card is the digital name of the Marxist UN Beast. No man can legally buy, sell, engage in the cashless global-e-commerce, obtain a drivers license, a bank account, a passport, an airline ticket or be hired for employment without being branded for life with the Beast’s SS#. From cradle to grave the digitally-marked souls of Neo-Babylonians are happily enslaved as dependent-wards, held captive within the Marxist Beast’s Socialistically-Secured UN Global Village.
Uncle Sam’s Social-Secured citizens are indoctrinated to proudly lay down their patriotic lives in militant defense of licentious Lady Liberty’s Masonic Constitution. Under God’s strong delusion they democratically bow their idolatrous hearts, in a worshipful corporate pledge of allegiance, before the Masonic Statue of Columbia’s sacred image—“Old Glory” (see Daniel 3:16). They are brainwashed chattel, not unlike inoculated beef cattle that permanently bear their master’s digital name stapled to their ear. Contently chewing their cud, these deluded beasts fatten up in the eugenic ‘security’ of the slaughter-house feedlot. Oblivious to the holocaust that awaits their numbered souls, they are like the Third Reich’s ghettoized Jews who were numbered, showered, and thrown into Auschwitz’s ovens.
Dude, harsh reality time: You live in a nation - in the world - where the Kingdom of Heaven does not exist yet. You list horrors, for what reason? To say no one knows they happened? Dude! Really? Will you END those who live in the world for being in nations that are not your utopia?? This reasoning just says you don't see God, and that harsh reality is that God isn't YOUR Utopia. Utopia isn't going to happen here. So, get over the lecture of those who write good things about how to deal with a fallen world.
Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr, is a good read on this topic.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I liked your article and agree with many of your criticisms of cultural Christianity because it is Christianity without Christ. By now, you can probably hear the “but” coming.
Two things in the article distracted from your main point. I have heard (Gal 1:6-9) applied to everyone and everything from Mormonism to the Word of Faith teachers and in a general sense it can be applied that widely to include the gospel of Cultural Christianity. But everything in scripture has an intended meaning, which is discerned by the context. The false gospel - the other gospel that is not really another because it isn’t a gospel (good news) is the false gospel of the Judaizers, who Paul was preaching against in Galatia. They were people teaching that Christians need to keep the Mosaic Law. Today you see them in Messianic Judaism, the Hebrews Roots Movement and some people within the New Apostolic Reformation. I think by taking this passage out of that context and applying it to whatever group or sect we disagree with, we can make it mean anything we want. But when we can make words mean anything, we actually make them mean nothing.
The second point I take issue with is the claim of hypocrisy. Maybe we run in different circles but I don’t know a single Christian who holds Andrew Tate up as an example of a fine Christian man. As you point out, he doesn’t claim to be Christian. I’ll leave it to Muslims to decide if they think he is a good example of a Muslim man but many of the same criticisms you might have against Tate apply to the life of Muhammed as well so that comparison isn’t as clearcut as comparing the life of any Christian to Christ.
I’ve heard a lot of Christians claim that those Christians who support President Trump were/are being hypocritical because of his public, personal failings. His Christian supporters have countered back that these charges of hypocrisy are born from a hypocritical, legalistic, virtue-signaling perversion of what Christianity is, but I think those types of arguments, from both sides, are counterproductive.
I’m a Christian and I supported President Trump. I have no delusions about his past moral failings (which he has openly admitted). I have concerns about the “Christian” pastors he surrounds himself with. Paula White and Franklin Graham are some of the last people I would want to have the President’s ear. But I didn’t vote from Trump to be my pastor or an elder in my church.
What I do know is that in the 50 years I have been voting no President has done more for this Country and causes many Christians care about, than President Trump 45 and in his first month as President Trump 47 he has far exceeded my wildest dreams of what he could accomplish.
I also know that as a Christian who was also a businessman I made every effort to run that business honestly and ethically but I don’t know that my life or that business would have survived the level of scrutiny that President Trump has been put under for the past 9 years. Neither do I think most of the people saying that, supporting him is hypocritical, would survive that level of scrutiny either, so that speaks volumes about the best parts of his character.
Did Paul, Timothy and the Apostle John change the culture of Ephesus? They certainly had a impact but even before the first century ended, according to the letter Jesus sent to Ephesus through John, a form of Christian legalism was threatening the future of the church there. Ultimately it was a rigid Christian legalism that caused God to remove the Christian light coming from Ephesus.
I spend a lot of time disputing false doctrines so the warning to the church at Ephesus hits close to home with me. We can get so busy judging what we think others get wrong that we lose sight of our first love, Jesus and the Gospel of grace which He brought.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
You are correct - Galatians 1:6-9 is not about this particular issue I've mentioned in this article. It refers to Jewish teachers who tried to merge the Law of Moses with the gospel by saying "You have to be circumcised and keep the law to be saved" (Acts 15:1, 5). They were "distorting" the gospel by what they were teaching. I would argue that the application of this passage would include any teaching that "distorts" the gospel of Christ - I think that would include what I've discussed in this article.
As far as Andrew Tate goes, I don't know anyone either who would hold him up as an example of what a good man looks like. But my point had more to do with what Ben Shapiro said about him, the moral standard Shapiro holds Tate to, and how that same moral standard is not held to people within the "Conservative Cultural Christian" movement - like Musk and President Trump.
Personally, I don't fault anyone for voting for President Trump. I think most people just tried to make the best decision they could between two less-than-ideal options.
The point I was trying to make with this article had more to do with calling attention to how flippant and dismissive the "Conservative Christian Movement" is with fundamental Christian teachings - like the identity of Jesus and the gospel of Christ. Many of the leaders in this movement care more about changing culture to be what they want than about the "mumbo-jumbo" (their words) of Christian teaching.
And that's absolutely backward.
Revelation 2:1-7 (church at Ephesus) sounds like a description of “cultural Christianity”!
I used to be a conservative cultural Christian. But now I'm a Christian Monarchist. There's only one King of kings and Lord of lords, Who was raised to life and brought up to the right Hand of our Father in Heaven, Who still lives today.
We must honor our civil leaders, but in the end, every knee will bow to Him 🙌🏼
One of your best
Thank you!
Great article! Thanks!
Scary stuff - thinking you know the gospel and there is something different!
I ran into that but it is so huge of an event that I am catching my breath with the Lord and trying to see if I should write about it. So I am doing some side stuff on the Bible Stories that pointed me to the gospel. Amazing that Absalom, Tamar, Amnon, and David drove me back. And, by the way, I am not "concretive" I am RADICALLY transformed and following Jesus - and wow, that love is transformational. What did 45 years in a pew do for me? Well, it made me wonder what was wrong. What a 2-edged sword that is!
God Bless!
I think examining ourselves, to see whether we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5), is a good practice on a regular basis.
This is an awesome and on time article for all. I also like McAdams's article as well.
Thank you!
'Clement Attlee famously said that he respected the ethics of Christianity but not the mumbo-jumbo.'...the ethics exist BECAUSE of the "mumbo-jumbo"...you can't bake a pie, then take the filling out, and still call the empty crust a pie. It may look like one, and the crust is still tasty, but it's not a pie any more, it's just an empty shell, albeit a good looking tasty one.
Excellent illustration.
Great article!
Amen!
One requirement: Jesus said one must be born again before He or she can even see the Kingdom of God. That puts a real crimp on cultural Christianity. Being born again transforms your life.
RE: Dudess, harsh reality time: You Socialistically secured (SS#) chattel live in Harlot Babylon’s Democratic Socialist nation -within the Marxist Beast’s UN Global Village - where the Spirit of Christ’s holy-theocratic heavenly Kingdom does exist and actually rules within the circumcised hearts of His Bride’s wise virgins (i.e. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego). Dudess! Will you END (i.e. condemn them to be cast into the Beast’s fiery furnace) those martyred wise virgins in Christ’s Bride who joyfully take up their daily cross and obediently COME OUT of Big Brother’s Socialistic Security System during the utopian ‘Digital Age’ of Neo-Babylon’s revived MAGA Golden Age (see Revelation 18:4)?? This delusional eugenic reasoning of the ‘Georgia Guidestones’ just says you don't see God’s Holy Spirit theocratically working within your uncircumcised heart (Philippians 2:13). The harsh reality is that God isn't sovereign LORD of your digitally-marked (SS#) socially-secured soul. The Socialist spirit of Babylon’s Orwellian Utopia is a powerful delusion that has brain-washed the covid-vaxed chattel who are happily enslaved within Socialism’s eugenic Security System. So, get over trying to expose the antichrist lectures of those who, unlike Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, cowardly refuse to take up their martyrs cross and who self-righteously write ‘good’ things about how to idolatrously bow their uncircumcised hearts in patriotic allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar’s idolized Golden Image—or to the sacred MAGA image of Trump’s revived Babylonian Golden Age.
Did you read the whole article? I said: "I’d prefer to live in a society where Christian principles were more embraced rather than less embraced - and I imagine this is probably true for most of us."
My focus in this article is actually connected with something you said in your response - "I would rather have an Elon Musk...[who] agrees with the principles of Christianity."
Someone who thinks Jesus was merely a "good man" and a "wise teacher" does not agree with the principles of Christianity.
And that's the danger of "Conservative Cultural Christianity."
RE: "I’d prefer to live in Masonic Pax Americana’s Judeo-Xian society where Democracy’s lukewarm Laodicean principles were more self-righteously embraced rather than less embraced - and I imagine this is probably true for most of us digitally-marked (SS#) chattel that are happily enslaved within the Marxist Beast’s Socialistic eugenic Security System.
The Marxist Beast’s WHO enforces its “social science-based” eugenics vaccination policies upon the deluded digitally-marked (SS#) chattel that are held captive within the UN Global Village’s inescapable Socialistic Security System. Socially Secured chattel that are unvaccinated will be targeted with threats: No-Jab-No-Mall, No-Jab-No-Church, No-Jab-No-Job, etc, all in the name of “it's for your safety and the safety of others.”
During the Orwellian “Digital Age” of Neo-Babel’s Global Village (i.e. Sodom -Egypt) all global-e-commerce merchandise, including the souls of men, must be digitally-marked with the identification number (SS#; SIN#) of the Marxist Beast’s Socialistic Security System. Mentally engraved within their hearts’ consciousness (the forehead’s memory) and embedded within their hand-held credit card is the digital name of the Marxist UN Beast. No man can legally buy, sell, engage in the cashless global-e-commerce, obtain a drivers license, a bank account, a passport, an airline ticket or be hired for employment without being branded for life with the Beast’s SS#. From cradle to grave the digitally-marked souls of Neo-Babylonians are happily enslaved as dependent-wards, held captive within the Marxist Beast’s Socialistically-Secured UN Global Village.
Uncle Sam’s Social-Secured citizens are indoctrinated to proudly lay down their patriotic lives in militant defense of licentious Lady Liberty’s Masonic Constitution. Under God’s strong delusion they democratically bow their idolatrous hearts, in a worshipful corporate pledge of allegiance, before the Masonic Statue of Columbia’s sacred image—“Old Glory” (see Daniel 3:16). They are brainwashed chattel, not unlike inoculated beef cattle that permanently bear their master’s digital name stapled to their ear. Contently chewing their cud, these deluded beasts fatten up in the eugenic ‘security’ of the slaughter-house feedlot. Oblivious to the holocaust that awaits their numbered souls, they are like the Third Reich’s ghettoized Jews who were numbered, showered, and thrown into Auschwitz’s ovens.
Dude, harsh reality time: You live in a nation - in the world - where the Kingdom of Heaven does not exist yet. You list horrors, for what reason? To say no one knows they happened? Dude! Really? Will you END those who live in the world for being in nations that are not your utopia?? This reasoning just says you don't see God, and that harsh reality is that God isn't YOUR Utopia. Utopia isn't going to happen here. So, get over the lecture of those who write good things about how to deal with a fallen world.