Lots of people are going to read this and say “No, this is just normal Christianity”. But why?

Because in the US, white culture has contoured Christian theology to fit white respectability, not Biblical orthodoxy... https://twitter.com/socofthesacred/status/1358834106356948996

Example: Evangelicals in the Gilded Age. It’s telling but not surprising that Moody & Torrey’s concept of “Christian work” reflected industrial-revolution-era capitalism. The outcome was a theology that made a “factory floor” concept of God—mechanical, contractual.

Here’s a current example: is your Christian faith really being “persecuted” if the American government ruled tomorrow that AR-15’s are illegal? The way many argue from CN, yes. But does Xian theology elevate owning an assault weapon over Jesus’ “turn the other cheek” ethic? No.

It’s true: we can’t separate our cultural moment from an encounter with Jesus. We’re all bound to our cultural moment by space & time. But Christian discipleship divorces us from the “respectable” spirit of our age and towards the renewing Spirit of Jesus.

We can’t allow for a cultural contouring—a smoothing out—of the gospel’s jagged edges, the points that shred the fabric of white respectability. Theologian Lesslie Newbigin says it this way: “We have to say both ‘God accepts human culture’ and ‘God judges human culture’.”