Churchianity: An Important Call To Christians To Change The Culture

Today I released a book that’s quite outside of my general comfort zone, but I find to be one of the most important topics in the culture today, the corruption of the church, especially in America, because of the lure of trying to appeal to the ever-coveted and elusive “modern audience” through social justice.

One only has to look to the Middle Ages to see that the church was once a leader in the culture, and not a follower. All of the great art, literature, works of philosophy, music, architecture, and more were inspired by or even directly commissioned by the church. When Christ’s bride on earth held to its standards and traditions in unity, it literally built Western civilization.

Something changed in the 20^th century, where churches decided to let go of their influence, become more casual, and follow the cultural trends of this world. While it often starts with good intentions, wanting to draw more into the body, it always ends in equivocation of values and descent into irrelevancy.

You may know me as a science fiction and fantasy or comic book writer, or just from my articles here on pop culture and books, with most of my work staying in a certain field, but I’ve had experiences with Churchianity directly that led to this being a topic heavy on my mind for years.

I was a part of a church that modernized itself, watching as they remodeled a sanctuary into a minimalist modern design with big screens, a nice speaker system, and coffee and bagels to make everyone comfortable in the morning. The pastor got up on stage in his hot new Air Jordans. I was even part of the worship band that was playing the new, modern-influenced electronic rock as their keyboardist.

It felt good because at first, the place had a lot of energy. As a musician, it was gratifying to be able to play in front of crowds of thousands every weekend, when my favorite bands on tour couldn’t draw that many people. But that was ego speaking, not worship.

The changes came slowly. Switches to a focus on “online services,” followed by silly messages that say very little, like “love is real.” Corporate slogans and music with intro videos opened every service. Then, the politics came.

It was easy to get wrapped up in it in 2020. First, it was a shutdown of the church to follow COVID procedures. Then the pastor used Instagram to take a knee for George Floyd in the middle of the town park and post pictures in solidarity with the grifting organization Black Lives Matter. This was in the middle of riots where blacks were looting and attacking our town, where one person even got shot.

The double down came soon enough as, with the online services making him bold, he held up an evil book called White Fragility from the pulpit, tears in his eyes, urging the congregation to read it and declaring there is no greater sin than racism.

I wrote a letter to the church to admonish what they were doing. I volunteered for 12-20 hours a week for years, was well-known in the community, and knew many of the people heavily involved. The pastor couldn’t even take the time to call me or talk about it. They knew what they did was wrong, and he sent a woman to text me instead and send me a link to some YouTube videos about racism before she removed me from their mailing list.

It was beyond insulting, but it was obvious the pastor couldn’t face a member of the congregation armed with a knowledge of church history and a deep understanding of Biblical concepts. And therein lies the whole problem with modern Churchianity—the flock is being led by cowards who are pushing for their own fame, not for the glory of God.

I tell his story in my new book and more as I go into the depths of what happened to corrupt the modern church with social justice, and urge a return to tradition. I hope I did honor to God with this work, because it’s very needed in these times.

You can read the book here, and thank you, everyone, for doing so. We need to make Christianity the leader in culture again, and it starts with righting our own house.