I watch the trends in the modern church—not because they excite me, but because I’ve read enough Scripture and seen enough history to know that the so-called “new” is rarely anything more than old compromise with a fresh coat of paint. Sometimes it’s worldly compromise. Sometimes it’s outright heresy. But it’s never new.
A lot of what I see keeps bringing me right back to James 4:4 that feels like a slap in the face: “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.”
It’s not cozy or soft. Nor is it negotiable. James doesn’t say that you can borrow from the world, borrow from culture, or engage with the world so long as you don’t activate its values. He says that if you choose friendship with the world—if you let its priorities and definitions become your priorities and definitions—you have made yourself an enemy of God.
That tension between two kingdoms—the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world—used to be the beating heart of evangelical conviction. When the early church sang of Christ crucified and risen, they were speaking of a power that subverts the world’s wisdom, not one that accommodates it.
When Paul wrote to the Romans that the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God, he spelled out the inevitable consequence of loving the world’s frame of reference. It cannot submit to God’s law and cannot please God.
That’s a spiritual law, not a subjective opinion. But somewhere along the way, much of what calls itself “Christianity” began to think it could rewrite that law to suit the world’s comforts, applause, and cultural currency.