Common Christian Culture

Christian Nationalism is being debated ferociously. Not the label that is applied to anyone with orthodox Christian beliefs, but the internal, Reformed Christian debates about Christian Nationalism as a legitimate theological view or a gateway into apostasy.[1]

Into the Christian Nationalism (CN) discussion there can be a small assumption that can be overlooked. The assumption is that cultures of people before they go to church dominate their Christian cultural identity afterwards. So the idea of white culture and white people as an ethnic group can be assumed to remain in the church, as it was before becoming Christian.

Partly this is true because of the part that remains. No matter the ethnicity, a husband has a wife whom he loves exclusively compared to other women. His children he loves more than his brother’s children or his cousin’s children. This core series of loves drives him to make sacrifices. He will even make sacrifices of his own life for the sake of his country (patriotism) because of his duty to his family.

So these family ties create a family culture that everyone has. It may or may not be ethnically based, but it is based on family. When I do pre-marital counselling, I talk with the young couple about their respective family cultures. They don’t need to be a couple of mixed ethnicity to have different family cultures. A Texas family and a Newfoundland family with Scottish-origin last names can still have very different family cultures.

So the family cultures of sinners come into the church. The marriages remain. The children remain. The extended families remain. But something changes, or it ought to. The common church culture affects everything.

Common Culture Created By the Church

In the church, Nigerian family cultures along with Newfoundland family cultures are changed. The families are not broken up, the priorities of love are not removed, and the exclusivity of a family’s way of doing things is not abandoned. Yet the family’s culture is changed through a common order which they submit to as confessing members of the local church. They submit themselves to the imprint of the church’s ordering. This is the start of Christian Nationalism if there is a healthy Christian Nationalism to be had. It is simply a Christian ordering of life for multiple households in common cause.

The Promise of a Common Church Culture

When different families and their respective cultures come together in a local church, their lives are re-ordered so that the edges of the church’s order become more prominent in their lives. The church shapes their family culture. So the church calendar shapes the family calendar. The daily routines of the family are re-shaped by the routines taught and shared by the local church. The affinities and friendships of the local church become their privileged affinities and friendships. Their manner of child rearing is dominated by the common teaching and emphases of the local church. The result is that a common church culture develops.

The Last Common Culture

In the West, all unifying, common institutions are being gutted from within and retooled to favor tiny minorities who are being used temporarily as levers for power. This is the Marxist “march through the institutions” and the use of “identity politics” to create wedges in society. The result is that today there are few places in Western society where a common culture thrives. The common culture of the West’s history is incessantly attacked, shamed, rewritten, or erased. The churches are the last remaining cultural institution where different people come together in a common cause. As the last common culture, the church is under immense pressure from both the outside and inside.

Church Under Pressure.

The outside pressure the churches face comes from the Marxist campaign wearing the façade of Sodom (LGBTQ+).[2] This pressure will be directed at all common culture religious groups. Even the recently privileged groups such as Muslims will not be able to retain their common culture unless they compromise with Sodom. For example, in the clash of identity groups witnessed at the protests against child mutilation, Muslims were being denounced for bigotry by allies of Sodom.

So churches are told they need to be gay-affirming, or to craft complex sophistry to promote normalized homosexuality in the church (cf. “Gay Christians”).[3]  These are ways that the church is facing an outside pressure and is in danger of capitulating.

The inside pressure is different. Because churches possess common cultures, the last common culture, they are the only cultural power left that can resist the Marxist assault. So Christians think that the power of the common culture in local churches should be wielded in a cultural-political conflict. The result, many feel, is that the institutional church must be obligated to take the political lead against the Marxists. The internal pressure for the church to be the political breakwater is intense.

This internal pressure is part of the reason there is a re-shifting of support for Evangelical leaders. The pressure for the church to act culturally and politically means that those who wish to float with the Marxist tide are deemed traitors. Those who are calling for the church to marshal its cultural power to resist are called Christian Nationalists, while those who are emphasizing that the gospel should be preached and the saints equipped for the work of the ministry are deemed to be dead weight, naïve, or not understanding “what time is it?”

To be continued.

The second installment of this series on Common Culture will look at the Cultural Power of the Local Church.

[1] The term “Christian Nationalism” is debated, and it may not be helpful to even employ here. However it is a term of broad use (and misuse) which I am generically using to label any effort to have Christian ethics applied to the public square.

[2] I choose to use the term “Sodom” to refer to the cultural and political movement of the LGBTQ+ because it accurately reminds the reader of what the acronym is advocating. The acronyms tend to mask the degree of degeneracy which they affirm and support.

[3] See the Revoice Conference as a major proponent of so-called, “Side-B Gay Christians”.

ACTIONS🥅🥅🥅🥅

• Do you see the divisions in Evangelicalism along these lines, corresponding to these pressures? If not how do you see the divisions lining up?

• Talk to your pastor about his views on these subjects. What does he advise you to do as a Christian in these dark times?