Has the culture surrounding our faith distracted us from the Christ-centered demands of the faith?
Secular culture tells us one thing. Typically, the Bible teaches us the exact opposite. Living for Christ rather than living for yourself, etc. However, Christianity has a culture of its own. There are Christians who are “cool” and then there are those who perceived as “kind of weird”. And then you’ve got different sub-cultures of Christian culture. The musicians, the pastors, the creative types, the theologians, the writers, the “lay people”, the coffee drinkers. They have their own sub-culture which makes up part of the whole culture. Yes, you’re right, it sounds very strange.
If you are a Christian musician, you must wear these clothes, have this equipment and use this certain type of technology. Its ludicrous. But I’m not standing on a soapbox preaching only to others, I’m screaming at myself here as well. Hear me though, there is nothing wrong with dressing nice, having nice things, or having a certain style of guitar. The Lord does wonders with technology. The danger is that we can very easily find our identity in such items while being completely blinded by our idolatry because we’re spending time in Church. We’re wired to worship something, and if we’re not careful, we can worship Christian culture.
All this may have become with a portion of the Church’s desire to be “so relevant” to nonbelievers. If I here the word relevant one more time, I may puke. The Gospel is already relevant to everyone, we don’t need to change it to make it more appealing. Truth resonates on its own. If I’m trying to bring people to believe the sky is blue, I don’t have to spend weeks showing them pictures of how cool the sky can look and telling them how beautiful it is. I simply need to take them outside and point upward. Making exemptions or additions to Truth is a dangerous path to travel.
So, the question must be asked, “Is what I’m doing/wearing/participating in being influenced by my relationship with Christ or is Christian culture telling me how to live?”.
