I had some really interesting mentors when I became a Christian in 2004. My introduction to Jesus was through a couple of cigar smoking, bearded, weightlifting, beer drinking Bible college students -- who carried around physical Bibles wherever they went and prayed for an hour in the car before church services. They listened to conservative preachers like Paul Washer and John MacArthur; made a serious business out of confessing and repenting of sin; and they didn't shy away from any opportunity to share Jesus with others. They were my first examples of Christian faith.
If this sounds like a strange combination of things to you, the term for it is called theologically conservative and culturally liberal. Theologically conservative means doctrine is well defined and strongly defended, while culturally liberal means that there is openness to taking in certain books, music, beverages, vocabulary, movies, TV shows, and more that some Christians would consider off limits. If you ever stumble in to a church where the pastor is covered in tattoos and frequently references popular movies and books in his sermons, but also talks about predestination and quotes the works of dead theologians, you've probably landed in a theologically conservative but culturally liberal church. Extra points if they also host a weekly Bible study at a local pub. People in this group tend to like Mark Driscoll, The Reformed Pubcast, and the website Monergism. They're a distinctive group in church culture, both for things that they do and the things they believe.
This was probably my Christian background by the time I fully plugged in to my first regular church after Bible college. (I had floated around and attended a few Bible studies a week and attended lots of places on Sunday mornings and was always in church, but had never fully plugged in to the community of one local church until then.) When I plugged in I found that most church culture is by contrast theologically liberal and culturally conservative. This doesn't mean that important truths are denied, necessarily, but they're often avoided or not insisted on because they're thought of as being potentially unpleasant or divisive. At the same time there's usually a long list of cultural things that aren't considered appropriate, so church events and leaders (while on social media) regularly avoid celebrating certain holidays, eating at certain restaurants, watching most TV shows or movies, or talking about certain games or books. But this helps the greatest number of people, with the greatest variety of different theological beliefs or different cultural preferences, to plug in to the church without feeling alienated by what the church believes or does. That's important if you want to reach out (and we should all want to). By being a little more open theologically most churches create room for more kinds of believers; by being a little more closed to certain cultural things they're avoiding offense that could drive someone away.
If this sounds like a strange combination of things to you, the term for it is called theologically conservative and culturally liberal. Theologically conservative means doctrine is well defined and strongly defended, while culturally liberal means that there is openness to taking in certain books, music, beverages, vocabulary, movies, TV shows, and more that some Christians would consider off limits. If you ever stumble in to a church where the pastor is covered in tattoos and frequently references popular movies and books in his sermons, but also talks about predestination and quotes the works of dead theologians, you've probably landed in a theologically conservative but culturally liberal church. Extra points if they also host a weekly Bible study at a local pub. People in this group tend to like Mark Driscoll, The Reformed Pubcast, and the website Monergism. They're a distinctive group in church culture, both for things that they do and the things they believe.
This was probably my Christian background by the time I fully plugged in to my first regular church after Bible college. (I had floated around and attended a few Bible studies a week and attended lots of places on Sunday mornings and was always in church, but had never fully plugged in to the community of one local church until then.) When I plugged in I found that most church culture is by contrast theologically liberal and culturally conservative. This doesn't mean that important truths are denied, necessarily, but they're often avoided or not insisted on because they're thought of as being potentially unpleasant or divisive. At the same time there's usually a long list of cultural things that aren't considered appropriate, so church events and leaders (while on social media) regularly avoid celebrating certain holidays, eating at certain restaurants, watching most TV shows or movies, or talking about certain games or books. But this helps the greatest number of people, with the greatest variety of different theological beliefs or different cultural preferences, to plug in to the church without feeling alienated by what the church believes or does. That's important if you want to reach out (and we should all want to). By being a little more open theologically most churches create room for more kinds of believers; by being a little more closed to certain cultural things they're avoiding offense that could drive someone away.
I admit my "Christian upbringing" (around 2004 to 2010) was sometimes too open to certain cultural things, and too obsessed with differences in theology. I remember spending a night with Bible college students who were smoking cigars after a prayer meeting and debating about whether Arminians (people who believe in free will) could be saved. You can take a minute to process that. Although there's something neat about going over to a buddy's place to watch a sermon and talk about The Reformed Pubcast, there was also a lot of individualism at work there. It gets easy for people to define themselves by their differences from other Christians rather than celebrating similarities, seeing themselves as superior because their beliefs are more Biblical on the one hand and their cultural preferences set them apart from the 'Pharisaical' church culture on the other. There was a lot of pride with the theologically conservative and culturally liberal group. As well as some cultural practices that weren't really necessary to take part in.
But my brief Christian upbringing and mentors also taught me a huge amount about believing rightly and enjoying well. For that I'll always be thankful. And I do think that a church that takes pride in a few more distinctives could be a good thing, and could possibly sound out a clearer message to the culture about God's generosity and mercy. There are also certain areas where we could stand to tiptoe around each other a little less and just enjoy things, celebrate redemptive messages in culture, and agree to disagree when the Bible doesn't clearly condemn a thing. In 2010 I had a major church culture shock when I realized the way that I had related to God and celebrated my faith wasn't the same as most church people. But in the 6 years since then I've gotten to realize that different doesn't have to mean bad, and that I had some things to learn as well. And maybe that's the lesson: that all of us, from different church cultures and traditions, could always stand to learn something from one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
See you later,
-Sean
But my brief Christian upbringing and mentors also taught me a huge amount about believing rightly and enjoying well. For that I'll always be thankful. And I do think that a church that takes pride in a few more distinctives could be a good thing, and could possibly sound out a clearer message to the culture about God's generosity and mercy. There are also certain areas where we could stand to tiptoe around each other a little less and just enjoy things, celebrate redemptive messages in culture, and agree to disagree when the Bible doesn't clearly condemn a thing. In 2010 I had a major church culture shock when I realized the way that I had related to God and celebrated my faith wasn't the same as most church people. But in the 6 years since then I've gotten to realize that different doesn't have to mean bad, and that I had some things to learn as well. And maybe that's the lesson: that all of us, from different church cultures and traditions, could always stand to learn something from one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
See you later,
-Sean
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