Along the lines of yesterday's post about de-emphasizing morality, I've had some realizations recently about the reality of cultural Christianity.
By this, I don't mean the people who call themselves "Christians" and only go to church on Easter and Christmas. I mean the people who attend church on a weekly basis. The ones who are involved with the ministries. Sometimes they work for churches. They devote their lives to church. They talk about new programs they are doing or others are advocating. They love the number of people saved or baptized each week. They live pure, moral lives.
Yet God is rather absent in all of this. In Forgotten God, Francis Chan talked about the fact that a church could be run and draw people without God. I didn't realize the true reality of this until recently.
We often assume good, moral, church-attending Christians are really lovers of God. Some are. Some also don't necessarily know God at all. Again, morality can be and is a good thing. But it's not the end-all, be-all. The thing that differentiates true Christians from cultural Christians is not morality, but intimacy with God. Isaiah 58 seems to echo some of these concerns, too. At least that's some of what I think. What say you?
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