Jesus vs. America
A Gen X attorney sits down with a millennial and a member of Gen Z to untangle the Christian faith from the influence of the American culture.
For over two decades, we have collectively watched young adults walking away from their faith at an alarming rate. Most Christian resources focus on this exodus from a sociological lens, and we have benefited from the work that has been done in this area.
But as three people with on-the-ground experience working with young adults every day, it is increasingly clear that young adults are not so much reacting to Jesus, his message, or even his plan for the church. Instead, many young people are being repelled by a counterfeit and enculturated version of Christianity, a version of Christianity that commingles the American culture and political ideology with the Christian faith. Jesus told us we could not serve two masters, and yet so many Christians have tried to serve both the teachings of scripture and the dictates of the American culture. Young adults have taken notice, and they want nothing to do with this tainted form of religion. Many may bemoan the loss of so many young people, but we have often given them the reasons they cite when they leave.
Our podcast is designed to first and foremost untangle the teachings of Jesus and the will of God revealed throughout the scripture from the enculturated version of the gospel that has spread to many corners of the church in 21st Century America. In doing so, we hope to validate what young adults have long suspected, while challenging them to go deeper with Jesus rather than bail out on a counterfeit gospel. We want to demonstrate honest questions and to wrestle with doubts while also encouraging young adults to do the work of seeking answers and working to rebuild their faith.
Jesus vs. America
You Asked: How Can Love Ever Be A Sin?
As we work to untangle the influence of the American culture from the Christian faith, we respond to a listener’s question about our culture’s belief that love can never be wrong. Before we work our way toward more difficult topics about love and sexuality, we have to first determine whether we are going to prioritize the teachings of our faith or the desires of our heart whenever they don’t line up the way we expect. Knowing which we give priority to helps us determine whether we are following Jesus, the culture at large, or our own formulation of faith. We also examine one of the foundational assumptions of the Christian faith, that sin has tainted everything in this world, including our desires and our best intentions, and we talk about how strange this sounds to those of us who have grown up in spiritual traditions influenced by the language of therapeutic self-help.