Feast: Handwriting on the Wall: Cultural Christianity
#FT24-00
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 16-Oct-24; 50 minutes
transcript:
The church of God has a long history of spotting various flavors of false Christianity. Just as Jesus Christ commends the church at Ephesus in Revelation the second chapter for their labors in discerning evildoers and false apostles, the modern church has kept its eye out for false churches, false teachings, and even false revivals. Because we believe that we are a remnant of that apostolic church down through the centuries, with teachings as close to the first century church's teachings as we possibly can, we are always on the lookout for Satan's counterfeits.
One counterfeit Christianity that has popped up recently, and it is not hard to spot as even secular journalists have written long articles about it, is what is being called Cultural Christianity. What is Cultural Christianity? Well, we talk a lot about worldly Christians and worldly Christianity, and Cultural Christianity is part of that. It is worldly, it is carnal, it is something that is not of God. It is something that has come out of this world.
However, it sits in its own niche, if you will, as a Christianity that emphasizes its positive impact on Western culture and values. That is the main priority of people who are Cultural Christians. They glom onto Christianity, if you will, because they see that it has positive traits and these positive traits have essentially made civilization what it is, at least in the Western world.
However, Cultural Christians, while they may have converted or been baptized into a denomination, have done so not because they agree with Christian teachings, but some of their principles you might say, and the effects of those principles on culture appeal to them. They like what Christianity produces. They like some of the morals of Christianity and believe that that strength has made Western civilization superior. And so they give Christianity the credit for those sorts of things, but not necessarily the doctrines. Now, how they can separate them is a good question to ask, but they manage to do so.
In other words, even atheists like Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, he has styled himself as the Church of England atheist. I did not know they cut them so fine, but that is what he called himself. And Elon Musk; we all know Elon, right? These men identify as Cultural Christians because they hold an affection for its cultural efficacy. That is the only reason that that it draws them.
Other people, like Jordan Peterson, many of you may know Ayaan Hirsi Ali or heard of her. She was a Muslim, now she is a Cultural Christian just like Jordan Peterson. He does not say he is a Christian, but he espouses Christianity in all of his lectures. As a matter of fact, I recently read his book about The 12 Rules For Life and I went on Goodreads after that just to see what people were saying about it, some of the criticism, and all the one stars all said, "I felt like I was listening to a sermon. He read so much Scripture and he could not get away from Eve in the garden." And, you know, other things that are a basis for some of his thinking. And I do not know if you are aware, his wife just recently converted to Catholicism and who knows how long Jordan Peterson will be unaffiliated.
Now, perhaps some recent high profile celebrity conversions could be placed here as in the camp of Cultural Christianity as well. Many of you probably know that Russell Brand of all people converted to Christianity. Rob Schneider, Shia LaBeouf. He really likes the monasticism, the liturgy, I think it is, of the Catholic Church. Britney Spears, J. D. Vance. You have been hearing a lot about J. D. Vance. He was an atheist, now he is a Cultural Christian. Candace Owens can also fall into this group and others who appear to have converted, and most of these have converted to Catholicism, which is interesting. They like the liturgy of Catholicism. They like the order, they like the pageantry and all that. And they feel like since it is the oldest church, well, not truly, but they think they are, that they feel like there is the history there and they have the right approach to it.
But the fact is that they are really not converting to Christian doctrine. They are converting as a reaction to the radically changed culture and/or political landscape that is present right now rather than for any traditional religious reason. Like, I need to be saved, I need my sins forgiven. I want to go to heaven, as they would say. No, they are converting because Christianity to them represents the foundation of Western civilization which has produced this culture. Have they looked at this culture?!
For instance, let me just give you an example here. Atheist extraordinaire Richard Dawkins said in a recent interview, "I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. And I feel that we [he is talking about the UK] are a Christian country in that sense." They are a Christian culture, a Christian culture country because they have good hymns and Christmas carols and they have a kind of Christian ethos. Oh, okay. Fine.
Here is one from Elon Musk. Elon Musk told Donald Trump in an interview that he was not a Christian but believes in the principles of Christianity. Alright. And Ayaan Hirsi Ali's conversion was deeply rooted in what she called the "menacing foes facing Western civilization, Islamism and woke ideology." She became a Christian because of Islam and what it is doing and because of the progressives and what they are doing.
However, we should not think of this as a necessarily new thing. Cultural Christianity has been around for a long time even in a general form since the beginning. In fact, some historians believe that most Christians historically have been church members either because culture demanded it or for what being a Christian could do for them in the culture. I think I agree, especially in those churches. They were not there for the religion but for the social benefits, cultural benefits.
For instance, just recent history, a little before my time but not much, modern British prime ministers, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee. They were back to back right after the war. So they were prime ministers from 1945 to 1951. They were both Cultural Christians. Churchill described himself as a "flying buttress," supporting the church from outside. Have you ever seen Notre Dame? It has flying buttresses and the walls are held up from outside with the stone buttresses. And actually they are a fine architectural detail. But in Christianity you are supposed to be inside, not outside. Clement Attlee said (and this is a good one), he "believed in the ethics of Christianity" but not the "mumbo jumbo." We will get a little bit to that in a little bit.
Founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, both deists and rationalists, took the same kind of stance. They thought Christianity was good for the nation and so they supported it but were not really into it, if you will.
Now, the new elements in Cultural Christianity are 1) It is a Christianity stripped of Christ and His demands. And 2) It is a syncretic Christianity marshaled to shore up a declining culture, not to help converts to salvation. Those are important distinctions. They take out Christ, they take out obedience to His doctrines, and then they use it to try to correct culture.
We have a tradition in this church, in Church of the Great God, to begin each Feast of Tabernacles with a sermon titled "The Handwriting Is On the Wall." My dad began this practice, believe it or not, in 1994. We have been hearing a lot of these sermons in the 30 years since. And these sermons highlight a trend that illustrates that Jesus Christ's return is right on schedule because of what is happening in the world.
My offering this year will highlight a sign of the times and you already know what that is: Cultural Christianity.
Let us go to Daniel the fifth chapter and just see the background of this.
Daniel 5:1-6 Belshazzar the king made a great feast for one thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the one thousand. While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. In the same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall in the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
And having tossed a few back, he was probably shaking in his shoes or sandals or whatever kings at the time wore.
Daniel 5:22-28 [Daniel is speaking as part of the explanation.] "But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. Then the fingers of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written. And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and the Persians."
In Daniel's day, a literal hand appeared and wrote on this wall that was near him. But in our day, the phrase "handwriting on the wall" suggests reaching a point in which the outcome—and it is usually negative—is patently obvious. Here is an example of its usage: The handwriting was on the wall when Congress passed the subversive and misnamed Respect for Marriage Act to legitimatize same sex marriage. Here is one for all you Carolina fans: Once he began to revert to his collegiate tendencies, the handwriting was on the wall for Panthers quarterback Bryce Young. Poor guy. I hope he gets a chance.
The hand that wrote on the wall was a sure sign of Babylon's defeat. That is the background of these sermons that we have given all these years about the various things that have happened in our culture that tells us that God's plan is moving forward.
Let us go to Luke 12 to see a New Testament example of this.
Luke 12:54-56 Then Jesus also said to the multitudes, "When you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, 'A shower is coming'; and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say, 'There will be hot weather'; and there is. Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?"
So Jesus gives us a New Testament equivalent of a handwriting on the wall but here it is discerning the signs of the times. He castigates the crowds that are following Him, and they represent all mankind, for being so self-absorbed and blind that they missed the whole point of His work. Here was the very Son of God standing in front of them, preaching them the truth, and they were totally misunderstanding who He was and what His gospel was, and what He was trying to do. He had done this right under their noses for 3.5 years (or however long it was at this point), with all those miracles and everything that He did and a strong authoritative preaching, but they could not see it. They were blind.
In Matthew 16:1-3, in a similar section, He directs His ire at the Pharisees. So whether it is leaders of people or laymen, if you will, or just common people, without the right perspective and ability to judge righteously, we are as good as blind. We cannot see things right in front of our noses.
Now, we should be very eager as children of God to avoid their example. I would not want Jesus telling me that I was blind. I am, both literally and well, physically and spiritually, I am sure. Not completely. God has opened my mind to a lot of things, but there are still things that would go right over my head. Things that have been in the Bible for all this time. You know, we read over it and it does not make a blip on our radar and then somebody, somebody you may not respect for being very intelligent or whatever, they will say, "Oh, did you know this? I just learned this in the Bible." And you are saying, "How did I miss this all this time? It's so simple!" That has happened more than I like to admit.
But God wants us to be aware of the world's zeitgeist. We all learned that word from Charles, did we not? He loved that word. He tried to cram it into every article I think he ever wrote. But it is the ghost of the times—zeitgeist. Do we know what the current flavor of things are? Or do we understand the way people are thinking? God wants us aware of that. He does not want us to follow it, but He wants us to be aware of what is happening in the world so we can make proper discernment and decisions. He wants us to think about the direction things are headed and the ramifications of events and trends and philosophies that are swirling about and affecting us in the culture every day.
You cannot turn on the radio—well, how often do we do that anymore? You cannot turn on a podcast without being aware of the zeitgeist in the world. And it is usually not good. You cannot go on social media without reading the zeitgeist of this world.
So we need to take care in seeing what is out there so that we can think properly, react properly to what is going on. And as things start to really turn downhill toward the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord, this talent, if you will, this ability to be able to see where things are headed might just save your life. So God wants us to be like a guard on duty, our heads on a swivel, light on our feet, ready to react to whatever dangers may come. And we are told that as we get toward the end, the dangers are going to come faster and they are going to be worse.
Let us go to II Timothy 3, verses 1 through 5. We came here last year in pursuing another one of these handwriting examples.
II Timothy 3:1-5 [Paul writes] But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away.
Now, if you recall last year's Feast, we zeroed in on the attribute here in the New King James that is unloving. I thought the King James Version translated it better. There it is "without natural affection" or without family affection. Tonight, our focus will be on the last characteristic in this list, "having a form or an appearance of godliness but denying its power."
These Cultural Christians are false believers. They claim Christianity, but they, like Jannes and Jambres (which he goes on to talk about in verse 8), resist the truth, have corrupt minds, and are disapproved or rejected. They do not fit the qualifications of a Christian. Their chief problem is right here. Paul spells it out: They reject the power inherent in true Christianity. It is not a form of power they desire because it demands submission to God's power. And you know what? When we submit to God's power, He does the work. Is that not what Jesus said? All these great miracles that He had done? Everybody said, "Look, Jesus, He casts out demons. He heals the sick, He brings food from just a handful of a boy's lunch." And He said, "I didn't do those works. The Father did them through Me." Jesus, even though God had given Him the power, submitted to the Father's power, and God the Father did the works.
Cultural Christians, they want the power, they want to do the works, and they want the acclaim for having done them. In other places, Paul says the gospel is the power of God. In another place, he says the Holy Spirit gives us power. Of course, Jesus tells us that the Father has given Him all authority in heaven and on earth. That is in Matthew 28.
Scripture provides a plethora of instances in which God's power manifests itself in changing minds, healings, exorcising demons, giving blessings, resurrecting people, delivering them from all sorts of various troubles. And I have not even mentioned forgiveness of sin and salvation itself. Just manifestations of power, right and left, that come from God. These are the powers Cultural Christians reject, as Clement Attlee said, "the mumbo jumbo." This is what he thought was mumbo jumbo, the things that God did to heal people or to cast demons out of them or what have you; plus all the doctrinal things.
So people like him will accept the ethics and the cultural benefits of Christianity, but they do not want to be associated with, to their minds, sketchy, or I have heard this used actually, weird accounts of miraculous interventions, prophecies, or even Christian disciplines like prayer and study and meditation and fasting and waiting and enduring and all those things that God wants us to do. They will only do these type of things if they need to be seen doing them, like attending mass every Sunday or taking communion.
To them, Christianity is a label or a brand. People are big into branding these days and they want to brand themselves as these cultural leaders from the Christian camp. So like I said, Christianity to them is a label or a brand they will support, but do not think they have bought into it sincerely. When people make a brand or a company makes a brand of their services or their ideals, they are not in it as sincerely as you may think. Because the brand has a purpose. It is a purpose beyond just knowing that this little symbol stands for this particular company. Yeah, that is nice. You know, we can see the Texaco star and know that you were getting premium petroleum from Texaco. But you know what that brand is doing? That brand is reaching into your pocket and making you pay an extra 10 or 15 cents a gallon for their premium petroleum products. Branding is done so that it is advertising, right? It is drawing attention, it is drawing money, it is drawing people to participate. They are not in it for your good. If they were in it for your good, they would give you the gasoline. Right? At least that is the way I think, penny pincher and all that.
There are certain good things that come with branding, but on the other hand, they are really in it to make money. That is just what businesses do. And I am not saying it is bad, but it is bad when people become Christians in order to brand themselves and focus the attention on themselves and what they are doing. That is what Cultural Christians are tending to do right now. So they have not bought into the Christian doctrines. They have not even bought into Christ. They just want the cultural benefits of being associated with Christianity.
Let us go to Titus, if you will. It should not take you long.
Titus 1:15-16 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
It sounds like he is talking about Cultural Christians. If you ask me, Cultural Christians want Christian blessings without the God who gives them, without the truth He proclaims, without the reverence, obedience, and covenantal commitment He requires. They want the good without the work. They give lip service to Christ as a great moral teacher. You will hear them talk in such words, you know, how wonderful Christ was to give these parables or this bit of wisdom or what have you. But they reject His divinity out of hand, which C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity calls, and I think correctly, "A fundamental misunderstanding of the faith." In fact, he said, "It is the one thing we may not say." That He is not God. You do not want to say that, you do not want to go to that place.
Here is a longer quotation from C. S. Lewis:
You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool. You can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Yes, He was human, but do not forget the other side. He was God. He was not just a great teacher. He was the way, the truth, and the life. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, writing in his 1889 book, Twilight of the Idols, was similarly uncompromising, speaking contemptuously about Englishmen and their hollowed out Christian beliefs. This is a quote from him.
They are rid [meaning the English] of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means, self-evident. This point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads.
He did not have much respect for the English. But he is right. When you reject Christianity but want Christian morals, it does not make sense. Like he says, you have pulled the rug right out from under yourself. There is nothing for those morals to rest on as a foundation. And the same goes with the teachings of Christ. If you reject Christ, there is no foundation for those teachings. It is all a set, it is one piece. You accept all of it or none of it.
So generally, Cultural Christians want to be seen under the Christian umbrella without buying in fully, but they want to be enough Christian to enjoy its fruits. They want all the goodies without having to do any kind of work or even, you know, be in any kind of "kinda" agreement with what Jesus says.
Now there is a little bit of a change though in these recent Cultural Christians, these recent celebrity converts to Christianity, because they put a little bit of twist on it that most past Cultural Christians did not emphasize. They are using Christianity as a weapon in a countercultural revolution.
A man named David Lafferty, he is an independent scholar who has written for the Catholic right wing website, Where Peter Is, writes this,
When it comes to all the influencers circling around the church, many [I will just say many] of whom make their living having opinions online and seem more interested in 'external displays of piety' than grappling with core tenets of the faith." He says, "It's important to ask, what are they really converting to? Is it belief in what the church teaches and the fundamental principles of Christianity or are they converting to anti-LGBTQ sentiment, anti- globalism and anti-communism?
And you know, the man is on to something. They are not converting to the tenets of the faith, they are converting because they want to fight these progressive things. Many of the recent well-known converts are openly using Christianity to accomplish some larger cultural or political goal. Ayaan Hirsi Ali uses it to combat Islam and woke ideology. JD Vance uses it to push the Trump agenda. Elon Musk uses Christian principles, remember, to push his free speech agenda on x.com.
Believe it or not, when I read this I was flabbergasted. Richard Dawkins, remember, he is our atheist extraordinaire, uses Cultural Christianity to make atheists and atheism palatable. He says only on this matter of God are we different. He is so Christian, there is no difference between you and me except this God thing. That is basically what he thinks.
Others use it to persuade the masses that Christianity is the accepting "big tent" where the world can come together under established beneficial traditional values. And this is where things get scary. The big tent idea: that we can cram everybody in the world no matter what they believe into Christianity and move forward into paradise on earth. Sound familiar?
Let us go to II Thessalonians 2. I will read verses 1 through 12. We went through this in my sermons not too long ago, but I want you to hear it again.
II Thessalonians 2:1-12 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains [remember I said that it is better to translate that as "it," only it that now restrains] will do so until he is taken out of the way [or it is taken out of the way.] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Now, I believe today's Cultural Christian, or Christianity, fits into Paul's description of the mystery of lawlessness as the end time religion. It will be headed by the lawless one, the Man of Sin. It distorts Christianity into a kind of mystery religion in which certain moral and religious beliefs are required, but they are entirely divorced from God. They are divorced from His gospel. They are divorced from any indwelling of His Spirit. All that mumbo jumbo, as Clement Attlee called it, is pushed to the side and ignored because that requires submission and it requires a lot of giving of oneself that, "Eh, we don't want the people to have to do. That turns them off. We have an agenda here that we are trying to fulfill, to make successful. And if we ask people to do too much, well, they won't support us. But welcome them in. They can be part of us. It doesn't matter what they believe as long as they are willing to support, give their money, do what we say that works."
This kind of thing evokes Satan's lie to Eve in the Garden that the knowledge of good and evil enables us to choose our own morality, what we believe, and reject God as unnecessary. Satan said, "Your eyes will be opened once you eat that fruit and you'll be able to decide for yourself what is good, what is evil. You do not need to follow what God believes is good and evil. You can decide for yourself. You're going to be a big girl." And she said, "Hey, Adam, we've got a an opportunity here. Try this fruit."
You know, God will not put up with such things for long. How long did it take for Him to boot Adam and Eve out of the Garden and chase them away with a flaming sword? Nothing makes Him react more than casting His Word aside and forgetting Him, sidelining Him.
Let us notice Psalm 50, verses 1 through 7. This may be my wife's favorite psalm. She particularly likes one verse at the end.
Psalm 50:1-5 The Mighty One [notice how he begins here, the Mighty One], God the Lord [you know who we are talking about now], has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its going down. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people: "Gather My saints together to Me, those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice."
You want to be a Christian? You have got to make this covenant. You cannot cast it aside, you cannot decide to join, you have to be called and brought to this point where you are accepting of the covenant and you agree to do what the covenant says.
Psalm 50:6-7 Let the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge. [and that little word Selah, think about this while the music plays] "Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you; I am God, your God!"
So He emphasizes again His place, His power, the center of our lives.
Let us drop down to verse 14.
Psalm 50:14-23 Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." But to the wicked God says [and I have to put the Cultural Christians into this category], "What right have you to declare My statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you can consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. [They just keep on sinning, whatever they want to do.] You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things [this is the the big verse here] you have done, and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you; but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes. [God is going to teach them a lesson.] Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God."
You cannot use Christianity as a brand and get away with it. You cannot take Christianity and make it your own, for your own purposes and for your own aggrandizement. I think this chapter, Psalm 50, gives us the answer to the wickedness of Cultural Christianity. The handwriting says, "Cultural Christianity has been weighed and found wanting, and its days are numbered."
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