The Cult of Culture
Culture is a cult.
Today, sin is defined not by our Bibles, but by our culture. If you are found guilty of what culture has said is sin, there is no forgiveness. This is what many mean by “cancel culture.” Most of the time, it’s previously inoffensive actions being reinterpreted though an ever changing moral lens and redefined as a cultural sin which leads to excommunication from society.
Because everybody knows there is no forgiveness, there is a silent but constant desperation to be classified as virtuous. Enlightenment toward the modern moral sway of culture is now the only way a person can be saved. People will now do and say all kinds of things, not because they actually believe them, but because they desperately want to do and say what they have to so they can be seen as good.
It’s a works religion.
“Do these things and you might be saved...for now.”
On the flip side, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Let those words wash over you. Jesus did the work. Jesus paid it all. We simply put our faith in Him, and then obedience becomes our joy and worship, not our ball and chain. We then don’t have to strive to conform ourselves to culture, but rather we grow as we are being watered by the Spirit to be made to be more and more like Christ.
The lie that people seem to fall for is that somehow, if you do and affirm all the right things and hide your past well enough, that you can be good. Jesus completely knew nobody could, which is why He went to the cross. The Bible tells us that even while we were ENEMIES of God, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7-8) Culture is a false god who would never sacrifice for you. For those it claims to care about, it simply uses to get more of what it wants - power and influence. It preys upon our fleshly desire to be liked and wanted.
The sad part is, the persuasion and pervasiveness of culture even has professing Christians putting down their Bibles, considering their relationship with God to be fine, and picking up all kinds of modern sociological books so they too can figure out how to be deemed as good by our culture. All the while, culture uses these mediums to ask the same question asked of Eve in the garden - “Did God REALLY say that?”
The living and active Word of God is not just authoritative in what it addresses, it’s fully sufficient for anything and everything we may encounter in this life and beyond. We don’t have to fear being cancelled by culture, not because it won’t happen - it certainly can and probably will at some point - but we are covered by the blood of the lamb. We are saints, eternally sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the universe’s creator to be risen and redeemed forever.
Don’t trade down because you don’t want your temproral comforts to be threatened by that which will take it away anyway. There is no rest for the weary by trusting the world. Only empty promises and utter disappointment. Jesus is the only true rest in existence. There is no other name under Heaven or earth by which we must be saved, and that name is COMPLETELY incompatible with culture - which shouldn’t cause us to fear.
You may be cancelled by culture - but Jesus will never ever cast you out. (John 6:37)
You may be deemed evil because of what you believe - but Jesus said that WILL be the case. He sees you and eternally has your back. (John 15:18, Philippians 4:7)
SO - stop trying to have both. Stop it. Culture and Christianity cannot marry. They are ideologically opposed on a critical number of levels. On the levels they seem to align, the motives, problems, and solutions to those problems are absolutely not aligned. Don’t get caught on culture’s side of morality with ANYTHING as it always leads to godlessness. The world has said on so many things that what God has said about sin is wrong, and rather than stand firm, we begin to align with the world on that? Why for any other reason than fearing man? Define your life by the heart of God - His Word, and embrace that there will be temporary consequences.
At some point, and it’s already there for many, that the chasm between having a foot in culture and a foot in Christianity will become too wide. What ends up happening is rather than offloading culture to conform to biblical Christianity, many offload Christianity until it’s no longer recognizable - and that, would be the ultimate version of cancelling yourself. You may have the whole world, but at the cost of your soul?
Compromise is just one small step at a time.
