The Western Captivity of the Church: Christianity as a Social Club

Christianity, in the Western world, is a social club. We fancy ourselves a community, a church, but the Western cultural captivity of the church betrays our best intentions.

Every culture has its blind spots that are obvious and yet elusive. Elusive because our own ethnocentrism prevents us from seeing with different eyes. We are blind as to how our Western cultural values takes over Christianity and transforms it into what is was never meant to be.

The Acculturation of Christianity
I'm not trying to say that the acculturation of Christianity is something bad. I believe Christianity should incarnate into the culture wherever the gospel is preached. Instead of having a carbon copy of Christianity in the entire world, every culture shines a light on different aspects of the faith, and in doing so, it remains distinct from one another and yet universal.

The problem is, however, that in the Christian west, our cultural values have come in its full force, hijacked our faith, and overshadowed the person of Christ on whom it is supposed to be established on. Both the Christian right and the left are equally guilty of this.

This is most evident in the way we present our faith to the world.

Christian Witness According to the Clubs of Conservative Christianity & Liberal Christianity
In my experience, when conservative Christians witness their faith to the world, they do so from their cultural values. They promote all the political and cultural values associated with the right: pro-life, traditional family values, personal responsibility, personal freedoms from government, and oddly enough, gun rights and capitalism.

On the other hand, liberal Christians are guilty of the same thing, and when they witness their faith to the world, they do so from cultural and political values associated with the left: concern for the poor and marginalized, feminism and pro-choice, egalitarianism, self expression, gun control and regulated market.

Both the Christian right and left are reactive to one another, and they base their identity as negative characteristics of each other..."thank you God that I'm not like those..."

In my opinion, as I have expressed in past posts, both are guilty of the same thing, that is, finding their primary identity in their cultural values, instead of who they are in Christ.

We might find ourselves particularly drawn to the values of the right or left, or perhaps a combination of the two. I don't think that's wrong, and my point is not to argue the validity of one set of values over the other.

My point is this: our Christian witness should not be based on our cultural values. The left and right can't sufficiently tell us who we are as individuals and as a people, and so we should not base our identity in those values.

In Christ Alone
When I first came to Christianity, it was because of the fascinating, intriguing, and incredibly attractive person of Jesus. As I learned more about Him, and as I communed more with Him, my heart was more and more captivated by Him.

The most beautiful thing we can share about Christianity is the person of Jesus. No cultural value, however noble or just, can come close to His radiant glory. There is nothing more beautiful we can present to the world.

Our witness should be motivated by the person of Jesus. He is fascinating enough. He is attractive enough. There is no need to cover gold with silver in order to make it more attractive. In the same way, there is no reason to dress up Jesus with our cultural values and present them as the reason to come to Christianity. Show them Jesus, and the rest will take care of itself.

Why do we witness from our values? Is it because we are afraid that Jesus is not enough? Is it that we are embarrassed to be confused with some fundamentalist group and so we feel the need to cover Him up with our social and political values?

What brought me to Christianity was not its stands on abortion, traditional family values or its care for the poor and feminist egalitarian views. What brought me to Christianity was the person of Jesus. He was relentless in His pursuit of me, until I allowed myself to catch a glimpse of His beauty, and I never wanted to turn back again.

Let us stop selling the world short of who we are. Let us evangelize not by our opposition to Planned Parenthood and gay marriage, or our opposition to the free market or the 1%.

Those issues are important, but they should not be absolutized to the point that they become central to the faith.

When we evangelize, we should be motivated by this: the love of Christ for the world.