American Christianity's Adultery with Secular Culture

American Christianity's Adultery With Secular Culture by Michael D. Lemay addresses the American Church's desire to be relevant to the society around her. I saw the title and some of the contents of this book online, and was pretty intrigued, looking forward to reading it. But, after going through it, I have mixed feelings.  Let me try to explain.

First, let me explain some of what this book is about:  In this book, Lemay goes through and points out many of the philosophical poisons the church voluntarily drinking and diluting the gospel with.  Thinking they're improving it, the modern church is actually making it deadly. The author lists several popular teachers and preachers of our day and points out specific heresies of their teachings.

The author attacks the notion that we need to make God and the gospel more palatable to the unbeliever, and laments that so many Christians are content to not spiritually grow.  He also attacks the heresy that repentance from sin is not a part of God's gift of salvation, and that we are free to do whatever we want in Christ.  "Jesus died to free us from sin, not from obedience."  I especially liked his pointing out that church meetings are primarily for believers, not focused on unbelievers.  I'll quote my favorite part here:  "The early church was a family, not a social club. Christians came to learn more about the Word of God.  They shared meals and possessions when necessary, and they challenged one another and together raised the corporate level of Christian spirituality.  They were committed Christians, not curious strangers.  They didn't send out fliers announcing cleverly disguised outreach events that are just ploys to attract new members.  If you weren't serious about the gospel, you stayed away.  The Word was not reduced to the lowest level of common understanding, allowing the spiritually weak to drag down those who wanted to pursue holiness and righteousness."   I thought that was pretty interesting.  We all are committed to helping each other grow and understand the message, it's not the preacher's job to teach the elementary truths of the Gospel every single Sunday, he is focused on discipling his congregation and having many of them at the level of eating spiritual 'meat' and his congregation will help him teach the elementary truths to new believers.   

Now, as I said, I really liked some parts of the book, but there were others that really bothered me.

For instance, at least at the beginning of the book, the author is very much focused on the American church's relation to the country as a whole.   He apparently thinks that, in their separating from England and setting up a new republic, the founding fathers were inspired by the Holy Spirit.  That kind of shocked me.

   He says things like, "a free republic and a strong church need each other.  Secularists and extreme left-wing  progressives realize this, and their attacks to implement 'hope and change' are a coordinated assault on both the American republic and Christianity in America."

"..American Christianity was entrusted by our founding fathers to be the moral guardian of this nation….We, the professed body of Christ in America, have failed this nation and its citizens."

"The church was  to be the guardian of this nation, providing righteous, moral boundaries to keep this nation 'under God. But the church started to remain silent at a time when our nation needed it the most."'

"our democratic republic is, I believe, the one form of human government that comes closest to getting it right with God."

"We need to become willing partners with God to reclaim the culture from the Enemy."

I'm sorry…but I don't see how one could claim that our Republic is the best form of government before God.  Do I prefer it? Yes.  Am I against it, absolutely not! And I am so grateful to live in this country and have the privileges that I do. And I think that it is a gift of God allowing us to (for the moment), as Christians, to live "quiet and peaceable lives" (1 Thess 4:11). But biblically, I don’t see where, in the Bible, this type of government is promoted by God.  God didn't propose a republic to Israel (No, the absence of a King did not make it a republic, and the times of the Judges were not times of democratic republicanism).  And, remember the statue in Daniel? Which government was the Gold Head? A Monarchy, Nebuchadnezzar's government.  After that, things degrade, and by the time we get to what might be symbolizing the time of our government, we're a mix of clay and iron.  Hardly as valuable as gold and I'm not sure how sturdy that is either.

Of course, someone might point out that the best government is a Theocracy.  Yes, but that is not what America is or ever was. That will only come in the Millennial Kingdom. America might have claimed to be "under God" but she was not ruled by God.  Remember what John said, "We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one." (1 Jn 5:19)  I don't think that has changed. In the past, America might have been more strict about keeping some Christian morals and being mono-theistic, but, as in any premillennial age, her people were still ruled by the god of their age (2 Cor 4:4), even if that "age" looked morally better than ours.  For all we know, America was populated by a bunch of self-righteous mono-theists who attempt to keep the ten commandments. Satan would be okay with that.  And that might be what we get back to by "reclaiming the culture from the Enemy".  We won't be able to do that anyway, and it never will be claimed by Christ, until He comes again. The church is here to make disciples of individuals, not of the culture. 

Because of this and some other things that the author said and pushed that I did not think were biblical,  I didn't like it well enough to give it a high rating. 

Thanks to the folks at Aneko Press for sending me a free review copy of this book. My review did not have to be favorable.

My rating: 1 out of 5 Stars

This book may be found at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

The Cultural Backgorunds Study Bibl

The Cultural Background Study Bible is a Bible that contains a lot of information about the times in which the various sections were  written.  It has many pictures, maps and diagrams, and of course, commentary.  The Bible is pretty large and heavy, but that is to be expected with so much extra content being added to it. 

I must say that this Bible, or rather the extra content of this Bible, had a lot of unnecessary things, and even absolutely indecent things.  First, the pictures.  I don't remember if I've ever reviewed a Bible that had so many indecent pictures in it. There's the obligatory Adam and Eve (as usual, depicted before the fall of man with conveniently placed leaves), there are ancient artistic depictions of women exposing various body parts, including the lower half of the body,  there are ancient depictions of men being circumcised…and so on.  And get this, there's even a clay depiction of a woman bathing (not very detailed at all, but still…) from around, and I quote, the "eighth-sixth century  BC, a few centuries after David saw Bathsheba"! I’m sorry people (sarcastically said), but this is absolutely absurd.  Why would Christians think that looking at photographs of naked people are wrong but that it's okay to stare at a painting, statue, or etching of a naked person?????  I don't care how "ancient" the depiction is, or even how undetailed, it's still wrong.  Hasn't any one considered that some of the stuff might even be ancient pornography?  Whatever the case,  It's a denial of the fall of mankind, it's a denial of original sin, it makes it seem as though it is okay to not be ashamed to stare at other people's nakedness/shame, as long as it is ancient or artistic, and it also provides possible "stumbling blocks" to other Christians.  My understanding of the Bible is not enhanced by looking at unclothed people. 

Second, some of the commentary actually seems blasphemous. Just look at this commentary on  Isaiah 46:9:  "'I am God, and there is no other. ' The Assyrians saw their god Ashur as being the god from whom all other gods derive…In the Hymn to Aten from New Kingdom Egypt, Aten is hailed as the 'sole God beside whom there is none.'  In an environment where numerous other deities claimed power, Israel's God is not making an absolute statement of uniqueness, though he could, according to Israel's theology, rather, he is saying that the readers know his uniqueness through past experience, and this will be confirmed through future fulfillment of God's plans."  WHAT????????????? God is "not making an absolute statement of uniqueness"?  But what does God say in the VERY NEXT STATEMENT IN THAT VERY SAME VERSE ?  "I AM GOD, AND THERE IS NONE LIKE ME." This is simply shocking.  Let's look at another one:  The commentary on Proverbs 3:19:  "'By wisdom the Lord laid the earth's foundations.'  It is not unprecedented that creation is said to be the product of a deity's wisdom, in the 'Memphite Theology,' the Egyptian god Ptuah is said to produce the world through his heart and tongue, standing for his wisdom and his speech…" Sections in the Bible like this seem to be actually making the case that there WERE/ARE actually other gods like God, without taking into consideration the CONTEXT of the rest of the Bible, and even the evidence of the archeology, that states that other so-called 'gods' are not even gods at all, but rather wood and stone.  Essentially the commentators appear to think it valid to compare God to the attributes that man in his stupidity has ascribed to elaborately carved sticks and stones, and then finding "similar", though imaginary, attributes attributed to those sticks and stones they declare that God is not a unique 'god' and that He is compatible to a rock and a piece of wood.  I hope that they do not mean to do so, but this is STRONGLY implied. 

This is very awkward to say, but I don't like this Bible.  Or rather, I don't like some of the commentary and other additions to this Bible.  I don't know if I've ever said this before, but I'm saying it now:  Don't buy this Bible.  The back of this Bible says, in bold letters: "CONTEXT CHANGES EVERYTHING".  It certainly does.

I received a free review copy of this book from The BookLook Bloggers Program (My review did not have to be favorable).