For a while, I must say that I didn't have a problem with Christian Culture (CC). I grew up in that environment, and for the majority of my life I was either quite fond of it or had a neutral stance with it. Church was there on a Sunday. I went to it, fellowshipped with others like I would at school -- I said what I was supposed to say but all the while still felt like the odd one out because I felt if I was myself, I wouldn't be accepted at all (or understood). This always ended up in the result of me coming across as shy, or not very talkative. Socially, church and school were equivalents of one another; I felt comfortable being more reserved and isolated, and I stayed this way up to my final year of high school. Because I kept myself hidden and was in a place where I knew what I was supposed to do, I ironically felt at home more often than not. High school was different, but nonetheless I still felt like I had a firm faith in Jesus Christ (and in God).
I now go to ORU, a university notorious for CC -- and the strange part is it's actually quite different from the churches I went to back in L.A. Being at this university has taught me that CC is not exactly the same everywhere you go (although the similarities remain), CC in California is different from that in Oklahoma or maybe even Texas and other southern states. I must say that the culture here is pretty antagonistic to my personality and my upbringing at times. Many people would view many aspects of my beliefs as conflicting with those of CC here, and would thus question my faith in Jesus Christ.
The clash didn't just happen purely because of a change in location -- being more independent now has taught me to think for myself, to blaze my own trail in life. Instead of just accepting things the way that I knew them, I now am seeking out the truth on my own, trying to resolve conflicting thoughts in my head rather than ignoring them. It has taught me a lot. It has taught me that culture and common attitudes are different from one place to the next, that many people's beliefs are shaped by the society around them and not by personal experience or by thinking globally, and that people are afraid of change even if their current way of living causes them grief and unhappiness, or is illogical. It has opened my eyes to a lot of truths that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. And now, some of these truths conflict with traditional teachings of the CC.
Because of this conflict, there are times where I feel like I'm not a Christian. The reason for this is because when the people in the society around me call themselves Christians, I believe them more often than not, even when, more often than not, they don't act like such. I'm not saying people in the CC are bad or evil -- they're definitely not going to be your next Hitler or all grow up to be terrorists. What I'm saying is that the word "Christian" here doesn't even mean what it originally meant anymore, and often times I find myself very confused at that. This leads to it causing me to feel like I'm losing my faith, or that I myself am not a Christian.
What happens is this: the society around me communicates its definition of "Christian." According to this popular definition, a Christian is a loving and outwardly friendly soul who goes to church every Sunday, reads his or her Bible every morning, prays at least one prayer every day, and says the commonplace phrases "Praise God!" or "Amen."
But here's the problem I run into: most of the things that members of the CC do is actually not found in the documentation of the disciples' lives in the Bible. The disciples didn't have the Bible back then so they couldn't have possibly read what many of us CC folks read today, and (correct me if I'm wrong), it doesn't mention them going to church every Sunday morning. Jesus didn't go to church on Sunday. And although he went to the temple on the Sabbath, it was a Jewish temple -- not a denominational one like the "Baptist" church or the "Pentecostal" church. And it's peculiar to note that many modern Christians don't go to Jewish temples even though they preach that we should follow Jesus every step of the way. This example of reasoning, along with many others, has led me to conclude that members of CC and members of the "secular world" have many common similarities -- they pick and choose what they want to believe even if the beliefs contradict one another, rather than believing or discovering universal truths about God and humanity. The god they believe in is the one they've created and assembled from scouring a buffet of comforting beliefs.
However, I don't always remember this conclusion when I'm interacting with those in CC. So, on occasion, I will believe a person when they communicate or act out their pure and holy lives. Consequently, it will make me feel less righteous -- and at times, cause me to doubt my faith in Jesus Christ. How this happens is as follows (and I reason this way): if they say they're Christian, then how come I'm different from them and have different beliefs? Therefore I'm not a Christian.
The good news though, is this: this voice that whispers into my head, "You're not a Christian," is speaking less and less these days, due to me becoming more grounded in my beliefs. Also, getting to know people in depth causes me to see them for who they are more and more.
(The one example I shared is actually just one of the many cases where I clash with Christian culture. More to follow -- I will continually blog about the truths I've discovered, and the new questions that have arose as a result.)
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