Scripture Alone

1Jhn2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

So what is Cultural Christianity?  What Cultural Christianity is not, is Christianity!  It is directly opposed to the foundation of what Christianity is founded on.  And, what is Christianity founded on?  The Person and work of the Lord Christ of course; His advent, His life, His miracles, His death and resurrection, and the apostles doctrines that were received directly from Him via the Holy Spirit.  So, whilst seemingly many of the Cultural Christian Churches (CCCs) will with all confidence declare that they wholeheartedly believe in Christ Jesus as fully God and fully human, and will have a statement of faith that reflects an orthodox teaching, or claim to adhere to an orthodox Confession or Catechism of some kind, the fact remains that their actions and teachings are in direct opposition to the plain teaching of our Lord and His apostles. 

So, as to what Cultural Christianity truly is – it is a Church that claims Christ as it’s head, and then proceeds to engage in the culture of the world at large de jour, both within the sanctuary of their church assembly walls and without the assembly walls in the day to day activities of the members of the Cultural Christian Church.  In essence, a Cultural Christian Church is the world at large de jour in the guise of Christianity. The CCC literally claims that which it deems culturally desirable for herself and appropriates it as being Christian.  She does this with little more than an assertion that goes like this – “Well, since we are Christians, and we like this sort of cultural thing, then it must be okay.”.  Some factions of the CCC will also assert that they have Scriptural basis’s for the appropriations of the culture de jour into their theology. Also, many within the CCC truly feel as though they are Christianizing the world by engaging in the culture of the world.  And, for many others, they simply wish to justify their fleshly desires by claiming that they, as Christians, are bringing the light of the Gospel to whatever that worldly desire is of which they are self justifying.  

Despite the rank heresy and apostasy of the CCC, we do not deny that God has preserved and is preserving some of His saints from within the confines of these Cultural Christian churches.  What we are focusing our investigations on are the organizations, the leaders, and the methods employed by the Cultural Christian Churches, not the individual church goer himself.  Wether a professing Christian is a Christian or not we make no judgment outside of preserving ourselves from those with seemingly spurious professions; for there are many Simon Magus’ in the Church and we don’t want to take any chances with those who exhibit the marks deceitful belief whose intentions may solely be for selfish and evil purposes; wether they are sincere or not, we care not.  But, as for the teachers within Cultural Christianity, we especially have no sympathy and no remorse; for, the judgment that the Scripture casts upon them is great; for, they will have the greater condemnation in the day of judgement. (James 3:1)  These are they that claim to study the Word, claim to have been educated in the Word, and claim to have been called by God, and claim to have been approved by men, (who also claim to be called by God) to do whatever it is they believe that they are doing.  Yet, what they truly are is a representation of the culture de jour, of which they have been brought up in, and of which their respective organizations have approved for them to embrace as useful tools taken from this culture de jour in carrying out their duties, as they have been assigned to do in their respective denominations.

Now the extent of what aspects of the culture de jour by which these men have been approved to use in their churches is very broad indeed, for “…broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:”(Mat 7:13) So broad in fact, that we are constantly surprised by some of the cultural annexes that have been appropriated into these Cultural Churches.  It seems that every other week we hear of another aspect of worldliness being adopted, as it were, into the orthodoxy of this Cultural Church family.  Wether it be another of the worldly forms of music being adapted for what this CCC generation calls worship, or the latest form of psychology viz. neuroscience; or even psychiatry and the treatment of mental illness, viz. addictions counselling of all kinds.  Or, as recently we’ve been educated that there are very many Seminaries that are offering courses in understanding how to make applications for teaching Scripture via themes found in popular pagan authors.  This is not even the tip of an iceberg, it seems that anything that the world accepts is also accepted in the CCC, to varying degrees by this denomination or that, but they are all on the same slope heading into the same icy waters.

What is our intent?  It is not our intent to do anything more than to point to certain facts that can be easily ascertained from Scripture and from history; both Church and secular history are always important when seeking discernment in things like these; but, Scripture above all!  And, as Christians, we have the right to point to these errors for the sake of the body of the Elect in Christ; for, we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that (we) should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called (us) out of darkness into His marvellous light:”(1 Peter 2:9)  For, the Apostasy, of which Cultural Christianity is, can be and has been troubling to us.  But, now we rejoice, for we know that all things are according to God’s plan and that no matter how troubling the spectacle of Cultural Christianity might be to look at we have greater things to focus our mind, soul, and wills upon.  We know by Scripture that this is exactly how is has to be; and, in fact, it is what we have been taught by the Lord and the apostles how it is going to be; so we rejoice for this.  We also rejoice because “The night is far spent, the day is at hand:”(Rom 13:12), and the day is the day of our Lord and we are nearer to His advent than we were yesterday.  The world is utterly hopeless on its own and is  continually being condemned by God; it is impossible for it to continue going on by its own power, for, of a truth the world has no power of its own.  In fact the only reason that the world is still even here is due to the common grace by which God brings sunshine and rain upon the just and the unjust.  But, when that majestic day of the Lord shall come, when our Lord finally puts all His enemies down as His footstool, all of us who are in the faith and have been planted in our Lord will rejoice every one with the other.  And, what we shall rejoice in is the very fact that we will finally be free from the pollution of all sin, both in the world and in our flesh, and that we will finally see our Lord face to face and be able to freely and sinlessly worship God eternally, alleluia!  So, though we point out the errors of this great apostasy, we do so not out of spite against those who are guilty of apostasy and heresy, but out of a love of truth and for our Lord and His name of which is at the centre of the controversy.  We are Christians and we have this name Christian because Jesus Christ is our Saviour, Lord, King, and High Priest; when someone disrespects and misrepresents the glorious name of Christ, then they disrespect and misrepresent all of us who are of the family and have the surname of Christian.  We do not intend to sit by idly and be silent as the history of the Devil and his world attempt to bring our glorious inheritance into disrepute.  We do not have an inheritance in this world of the Devil, we look not for a city to dwell in upon this earth, but, we look toward a city of God.  A city of which our Lord has gone to and prepares for us a room in the house of His Father.  It is completely contemptible to us that the CCC go about using our name, of which we have received by the the purchasing of the Lord by His blood, as though it means anything more to them than an excuse to engage in the delights of which the Devil has for all who dwell in his world. We also know and rejoice in the fact that we are not alone as Christian observers of this great Apostasy.  Where ever our Christian brothers and sisters might be at this moment we rejoice to know that they too are bearing witness to the Apostasy.  We would like to acknowledge that the body of Christ’s believers, that no matter how troubling this time of the Apostasy may be and how great the tribulation that has been , is, and is still to come, that this body of believers is safe and sure in Christ.

At times we are made to feel as though we are the dissenters from the faith, like we are the ones who have “forsaken the assembling of the saints”.  But it is not true!  Indeed, the history of the Church and God’s very providence in His Church are conclusive in this matter.  Wether it be the Roman Church’s apostasy that prepared the way for the Reformers of the 16th century, or the 17th century falling away from evangelicalism back towards Romanism that subsequently prepared the way for the Puritans to seek Christian liberty in America or in Holland, or the Great Awakening of the 18th century in America and England that followed another dark period of departure from evangelicalism, that was especially epitomized in the ministries of George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley.  When we look at these revivals and reformations of Biblical Christianity we find that they only occur as the result of God’s Providence in the world and that God uses men that He calls to preach His gospel of His dear Son in an effectual manner by which the Holy Spirit works in the regeneration of mens souls.  We also notice that times of revival occur after periods of dead orthodoxy, legalism, and heresy.  And, we especially notice that the revivals, though seemingly large in scope and affect on the souls of men, really only amount to very few that remain as seeds that take root good ground and produce fruit unto God, as opposed to the very many who are immediately snatched away, or spring up with excitement without roots, or are choked by the world upon their first trials. (Mat. ch. 13 parable of the seeds)  

This doctrine of the remnant is expressed in Scripture from beginning to end and history is a witness to it.  Able was a believer Cain was not.  Noah and seven other souls saved out of 7 billion (by many accounts) who perished in unbelief.  Abraham chosen out of all the nations of the earth to form a new nation called Israel, and, this Israel would be a direct type of the New Testament Church.  And, then we learn that Israel was always mostly unbelievers; we see this in the wilderness and at Sinai especially; and, ultimately only two of the original million that were taken out of the bondage of Egypt are allowed to enter the promised land.  Elijah was one man of God as compared to the 850 false priests of Ahab and Jezebels’ apostate state church.  And, as Elijah bemoaned his belief that besides himself there was not a Christian in the entirety of the church of Israel God revealed to this same Elijah that He Himself had preserved “seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”  Seven thousand of millions was all that was left of believers in Israel at that time.  And, the examples go on and on, very few prophets sent of God and killed, tortured, and persecuted by the false teachers of the ruling class of the religious self righteous.  Even the day of Pentecost there were very few converted.  People of the Church today will point to Acts chapter two and say “what a marvellous revival in the Church, three thousand were added to the Church that day!”, they will say; well, the fact is that there were over a million in the city of Jerusalem for the Jewish festival and a mere three thousand were converted!  What we have briefly expounded here is the  doctrine of the remnant.  This is the fact that at any time in the history of the Church, from the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, through all the history of Scripture and from AD 70 until this very day in AD 2024, the number of true believers amongst those who call themselves believers yet are not true believers, has always been a ratio of very few to very many.  And, here we are today in the exact same scenario as all of these examples of which we have cited.  We believe that the greatest difference between today and the examples cited (if there is one at all) is that the Cultural Christians of this world truly believe that they are Christians in the Biblical sense of what Christianity is;  and to this we comment that at the time of our Lords first advent the Jewish religious teachers, leaders, and those in their religion thought the very same way about themselves as do the Cultural Christians of today.  At our Lords first advent there had been a removal of God’s revelation from the Jews of some four hundred and sixty years or so; and, in that time the Jews had quite handily created their own religion out of that which was revealed to them by God.  So to today, we would say that the downgrade of God’s revelation to the New Testament Church began in the 1830’s and now nearly two hundred years later we feel that there is not a Church organization either denominational or independent that is true to the faith once delivered to the apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ. We hope that there are a few congregational (truly independent) churches that are true to the faith, and, we know that there are by the example of Scripture alone; it is just that we are not aware of where they are at this moment.

This similarity of which we have just stated in comparing the Cultural Church of the world today to the Pharisees, Scribes, and the other religious sects of the Jewish religion at the time of our Lord’s advent, is something of great interest to us.  For, Paul in writing to the Thessalonians in his second letter chapter 2 and verse 3 tells us all that “that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;”, this translation is missing the definite article, it should read the falling away, or the apostasy, or the leaving of the Christian faith, as it were.  But, what would all the Church going people leave Christianity for?  The world and the lusts thereof; paganism, heathenism, atheism, humanism, you name the ism and the Christian Church of this world culture has embraced it, all the while retaining the name Christian on their Churches, Chapels, Schools, and T-Shirts; yet farther from the Christian faith they cannot be.

To sum up our argument then,- every Christian Church so called, aside from God’s preserved remnant, of where we trust He only knows they preside (for we do not), has fallen away from the teaching of the apostles doctrines and perverted the faith by means of adopting the culture of the world at large de jour into their religion.  This adoption of the culture de jour completely nullifies any and all right that they have to call themselves Christian. We are taught in Scripture that these Cultural Christian Churches are indeed deceived and deceiving the souls of themselves and of the world at large.  They do not represent the name of Christianity and we reject them whole heartedly as being completely apostate and separate from the faith of the Living God.  This is what we mean when we use the term Cultural Christianity or Cultural Christian Church.