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The Cultural Transformation of Evangelical Christianity — Changes Without the Right Process: A Test Case for the Series
The Extent of the Change
One of the most conspicuous transformations in professing evangelical Christianity has occurred in what people often call cultural issues. Churches, schools, colleges, ministries, and Christian institutions that once held markedly different standards or positions from the world now resemble the world around them. Changes include dress, music, entertainment, recreation, the relationship between men and women, how people obtain a life partner, and the general understanding of worldliness and separation from the world.
These changes did not happen all at once. They occurred over decades, often gradually and without a formal announcement. A church might retain its doctrinal statement and continue preaching what it considers the true gospel while changing its music, worship atmosphere, dress expectations, social practices, and standards for Christian conduct. Eventually, people who joined those churches after the changes occurred would assume that the new practices were normal Christianity. They might not even know that their institutions once taught and practiced something considerably different.
This is a significant test case for the right process of belief change. If a church changes its beliefs and practices, it should be able to explain why. It should identify what it previously believed, what it believes now, what Scripture requires, and how it reached its new position. If the change was right, it should be able to demonstrate that from the Bible. When a former position was wrong, it should acknowledge that error. When a new one is wrong, it should be willing to correct it.
The Bad Way Changes Occurred
Instead, in many instances, the changes just happened. The new practices became normal, the old practices became strange, and the institutions eventually treated their present positions as though they had always held them. The people who questioned the changes could be characterized as backward, legalistic, out of touch, or unnecessarily divisive. The institution did not need to demonstrate that the new position was biblical if it could make the old position seem unreasonable.
The issue is not whether every former institutional rule was biblical. Some standards may have been poorly explained, inconsistently enforced, or based more on tradition than Scripture. The issue is whether the process toward change itself followed Scripture. A bad former rule does not justify an unscriptural replacement. If an institution previously added to Scripture, it should remove the addition because Scripture requires it. If it previously upheld a biblical principle, it should not abandon that principle because the surrounding culture has changed.
The Original Basis of the Series Applies to Cultural Change
Teaching About Change
This series began by identifying the problem of institutions changing beliefs and practices without explaining how or why. A process should precede a change. Recognizing error should lead to examining Scripture, not simply to a new preference or an accommodation to pressure.
Revelation 22:18–19 warn against adding to or taking away from the words of God’s prophecy. Although the immediate context concerns changing the words of that prophecy, the warning shows how serious it is to change something that God has revealed. God does not authorize human beings to add to His Word or subtract from it. If a church adds a requirement God did not make, it should correct that addition. If it removes something God did make, it should restore it.
In Accordance with God’s Purpose
Romans 8:29 identifies God’s purpose for believers:
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
God’s purpose is to conform to the image of His Son. That conformity does not exclude ordinary areas of life. It includes what believers think, desire, say, do, wear, sing, watch, and practice. Sanctification does not stop at a doctrinal statement or a profession of the gospel. God intends for His people to become like Christ. Romans 12:2 also addresses the relationship between believers and the surrounding world:
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Paul commands believers not to conform to the world. He instead calls for transformation through the renewing of the mind. The contrast is important. A believer does not determine what is right by observing what the surrounding culture accepts. He renews his mind through God’s truth so that he can discern and do God’s will.
This principle applies to the distortion of evangelical Christian culture. When churches adopt the world’s music, entertainment, fashions, social practices, and assumptions about relationships, they should not assume that these changes are harmless because they occur outside a doctrinal statement. They must examine whether the changes conform to God’s Word or to the world.
The Change in Dress and Appearance
According to Principles That Govern Dress
Dress is one of the most visible examples of cultural change. Churches and institutions once maintained dress standards that distinguished their members from the surrounding culture. Men and women were expected to dress modestly and in ways consistent with biblical distinctions between the sexes. Over time, many of those standards weakened or disappeared. Clothing once unacceptable in a church or Christian school became ordinary. In some places, people now regard the former standards as embarrassing or extreme.
The biblical question is not whether one generation wore the same clothing as another. Clothing styles change, and Scripture does not prescribe one universal wardrobe for every culture and century. However, Scripture does establish principles that govern dress. 1 Timothy 2:9–10 say:
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
Paul addresses women professing godliness. Their outward appearance should correspond to their profession. The words “modest apparel,” “shamefacedness,” and “sobriety” communicate principles that cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to Christian life. Paul is not simply discussing fashion styles. He is requiring that a godly presentation accompany a godly profession.
1 Peter 3:3–4 similarly directs attention away from outward adornment as the primary source of beauty and toward the hidden man of the heart. The passage does not teach that outward appearance is meaningless. It establishes the priority of inward character and the kind of adornment that should characterize a godly woman.
Change in Distinctions
Deuteronomy 22:5 also establishes a distinction between male and female appearance:
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
The principle is that God intends for the sexes to remain distinguishable. The passage does not provide a complete wardrobe for every society, but it does not permit Christians to treat the distinction between male and female as meaningless.
The right process for change would begin with these texts and their principles. If an institution believed that a particular standard of dress was biblical, it should explain why. If it later determined that its former rule went beyond Scripture, it should explain that correction. But it should not move from a serious concern about modesty and sexual distinction to a position in which virtually anything is acceptable.
Instead of Adapting to Surrounding Culture
Many places did not undergo a careful scriptural reevaluation. The surrounding culture changed, clothing became more revealing or less distinguishable between the sexes, and churches gradually accepted what people already wanted to wear. Eventually, churches treated the new standard as normal Christian practice.
Some might justify the change by saying that it isn’t a gospel issue. It is, though, because true conversion does produce a distinct Christian culture. The Apostle Paul says that the Christian way of living adorns “the doctrine of God our Savior in all things” (Titus 2:10). Churches have often abandoned this Christian way of living without showing that Scripture required the change. They first changed the practice and later changed how they spoke about the practice. With the right process, biblical explanation will precede the change.
The Change in Music and Worship
Another Significant Test Case
Music provides another significant test case. Many churches once with congregational singing characterized by psalms, hymns, and reverent, sober musical practices have adopted popular, worldly styles. They switched to amplified bands, rhythmic patterns associated with popular entertainment, performance-oriented singing, and music that mirrored the surrounding culture. This is not simply adding instruments or a different arrangement.
Music communicates. It affects the imagination, emotions, expectations, and understanding of worship. Music can reinforce either a true or false view of God, man, sin, holiness, and spiritual experience. It can also teach people what they should expect when they gather as a church. Ephesians 5:19 says:
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
Colossians 3:16 says:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
These passages establish that church singing is not merely entertainment. It involves the Word of Christ, teaching, admonition, and singing to the Lord. The content, purpose, and singers all matter. The music’s character should match the spiritual activity Scripture describes.
Wrong Reason for and Method to Change
Churches should not have changed their music to attract a different demographic, appeal to young people, imitate successful churches, or create a more emotionally engaging atmosphere. Those reasons do not establish biblical legitimacy. A church should examine what it sings, how it sings, what the music communicates, and whether its practice agrees with the Scriptural purpose for congregational singing.
Why did churches adopt the musical forms they now use? Did biblical examination precede the change? What did they believe about worship before the change? What did they come to believe afterward? Did they test the new practices by the whole counsel of God?
A church may claim to have a biblical gospel while its worship communicates a different understanding of Christianity. People do not receive their entire understanding of God from doctrinal statements. Their imaginations are also shaped by what they repeatedly see and hear. A church that uses the world’s musical language will form expectations and affections like the world. This destroys biblical worship.
Changing the music will eventually change doctrine and practice. It will make a worldly atmosphere seem normal in the church, weaken the distinction between worship and entertainment, and encourage people to evaluate a church by how it makes them feel rather than by the truth it teaches. A church trying to sound like the world also has a corrupt process for change. It is neither Scripture nor Christ.
The Change in the Relationship Between Men and Women
Ephesians 5:22-25
Another major cultural change concerns the relationship between men and women. Biblical Christianity teaches distinctions between men and women while also affirming their equal value before God. The modern world increasingly treats the sexes as interchangeable, resists distinctions in responsibility, and regards traditional biblical expectations as oppressive or outdated.
Professing evangelical Christianity has often accommodated these assumptions. In some churches, men have relinquished responsibilities Scripture assigns to them. In others, women have been encouraged to assume roles or patterns of conduct that blur distinctions Scripture maintains. Even where churches formally retain complementarian language, their practices may increasingly reflect the surrounding culture’s assumptions. Ephesians 5:22–25 says:
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Paul establishes a relationship between husband and wife that reflects the relationship between Christ and the church. He commands husbands to love their wives sacrificially, as Christ loved the church. He also does not present the wife’s submission as inferiority, but as an order God established for the marriage relationship.
1 Corinthians 11:3
1 Corinthians 11:3 states:
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Whatever further explanation a person gives of this passage, he cannot honestly treat it as though Scripture makes no distinction between the responsibilities of men and women.
Changes in this area did not begin with a fresh examination of these texts. They have followed cultural assumptions about equality, autonomy, personal fulfillment, and individual choice. Churches sometimes changed to avoid conflict with contemporary attitudes. The right process requires asking whether a proposed change agrees with what Scripture teaches about the sexes. Institutions and their leaders examine the Bible, not modern social expectations. If a church changes its teaching or practice, it must explain the biblical basis for doing so.
A church cannot retain the language of biblical authority while allowing the surrounding culture to determine what its members believe about male and female roles. That is not submission to Scripture. It is accommodation to another authority.
The Change in How People Obtain a Life Partner
Not Adopting the World’s Methods
The way professing Christians obtain a life partner has also changed substantially. Many churches once expected young people to pursue marriage only with the involvement, knowledge, and counsel of parents and other mature believers. They emphasized purity, intentionality, and marriage as a serious covenant. Men took responsibility to pursue women honorably.
Today, many professing Christians instead adopt the world’s dating culture. They use the same applications, follow the same patterns of casual romantic involvement, accept the same forms of physical intimacy, and often treat relationships as temporary experiences that may or may not lead to marriage. They may call the practice Christian dating, but the underlying assumptions often come from the surrounding culture.
Scripture does not prescribe a modern dating system, nor does it provide one universal method for finding a spouse. It does, however, give principles that govern the process. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says:
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
Even if the immediate context concerns an unequal yoke with unbelievers, it still establishes that a believer must not enter relationships that compromise his allegiance to Christ. This has direct application to marriage. A Christian should not seek a marriage relationship with someone who does not share his faith and submission to Christ.
Maintaining Purity
1 Thessalonians 4:3–4 say:
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
Paul connects sexual purity to sanctification. The believer’s body and conduct are not available for whatever the surrounding culture accepts. The process must honor God rather than follow the world’s expectations for romantic and sexual experience. 2 Timothy 2:22 also commands:
Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
This instruction is especially relevant to young people. They must flee youthful lusts rather than arrange their lives to accommodate them. The goal is not merely to avoid an undesirable outcome. It is to pursue righteousness and purity.
Parents and churches should therefore teach biblical principles for relationships, marriage, and sexual purity. The world’s dating culture doesn’t become acceptable just because Christians attach religious language to it. The process God ordains protects purity, encourages wise judgment, honors parents and appropriate authority, and pursues marriage in a manner consistent with God’s Word. Without reliance on a biblical method, worldly practices became normal in the church, and people who questioned them were regarded as strange.
More to Come