I’ve touched on this subject, previously, in many places, but it deserves more focused attention. Over the centuries the church has established its own culture (negatively speaking), a “Church Culture.” By this I mean, in its attempt to separate the secular from the sacred it has succeeded in many ways only in alienating anyone and everyone outside and without its own culture. It is as if when one is converted, that one is converted to a culture. If that one fits not nicely and neatly into that church culture, then, that one is obviously not converted and in need of conversion. That is to say, “This is Christianity, and if you do not accept this culture, then you have rejected Christ.”

Granted, most in this church culture do not make this explicate claim, but the implications are clear even if the words are not. Those outside of the church and its culture (call them “un-churched” or “de-churched,” unsaved, heathen, pagan, or whatever), as well as newcomers to the faith (and old-timers as well), suffer the confusion and down-right confounding of this church culture. The world rightly views the church as the expression of Jesus Christ on earth. But what is implied in this expression is a certain culture which one must be a part. If that one rejects that church culture, then that one thereby also rejects Christ (or so it would seem). For 1500 years the outsider has had a choice of coldness toward God because of (at least a perceived) rejection, an endless struggle from within oneself of his/her place with God because the culture is not their own, or a complete and total conversional conformity to the culture of the church.

Counter-cultures, therefore, developed which poise themselves against Christ (because of the church culture implication) or at least find themselves indifferent to Christ and the church (and it’s culture). The church culture deems such competing cultures “worldly,” “wrong,” and “of the devil” and closes in upon itself, making itself an exclusive club void, by definition, of any inclusivity. But God; God moved within these counter-cultures to make Himself known. God moved in the hearts of many in the church culture to reach out to the alienated, the marginalized, the forgotten, the broken, the poor and the lepers of the norm. God, if you will, enculturated the Good News of Jesus Christ. God is the God of all (each and every) human being (whether they know it or not). God is the God of all and every culture (whether they know it or not). God cannot be contained by a single nation, a single culture, or a single people.

Today the church finds within itself a reformation – a revolution. It finds itself in the midst of a paradigm shift – a violent collision of accepted norms. There are Christians who have not converted to the church culture, but have been captured by a living Christ. These do not accept the moral/ethical decrees of the church culture but, rather, surrender themselves to the death of Christ, complete the sufferings of Christ, and experience the resurrection life of Christ. They know nothing other than the ever-outstretched arms of Christ, who loves humanity with all-inclusiveness and every form of declension, without exclusion. They do not look like, act like, talk like, walk like, or smell like the accepted church culture, but they are the church nonetheless; deemed so by Jesus Christ, the theology of His cross, and the love of God. This church is not an exchange of culture, but a change of life. It is not a conformation but a transformation. God has not made of all people one culture (sameness), but He has made of all cultures one people (oneness).