As we keep in mind the necessity of resisting compromise with the culture around us, we can be encouraged that this challenge is not unique to our day. Christians have always faced the problem of being influenced by the culture, and the solution remains the same—to stay close to the Lord and to His Word.
Throughout history, non-Christians have pressured the church to conform to the practices of the culture. In our day, the church in the Western world faces a particular kind of pressure as Western culture moves from centuries of pro-Christian expressions to hostility to biblical viewpoints. While it may seem that the most significant hostility to the church is in areas of morality, we must understand that cultural compromise has come to the core purpose of the church in the world—worship and discipleship. Christians can miss this danger because of the nature of the compromise in this area that the world demands.
Underlying the cultural challenges of our day is a change in technology and how we live. People in the modern world have a mobility that has never been seen before. People can travel great (or short) distances much more quickly and easily than they could in the past. The internet has made information available at the touch of a key. Audio, video, and live connections with people far away from us have changed the way we buy things, learn, and even communicate. All this has exacerbated an already dangerous trend from the twentieth century—consumerism. For the church, this means that people don’t even have to attend corporate worship anymore. It used to be that churches competed with each other within thirty minutes’ driving distance. Today, a church can lose attendees to a live stream from a thousand miles away. Consumerism is a greater pressure than ever for the church.
In the West, the church has responded to cultural consumerism not by challenging it but by pandering to consumers’ preferences. Churches no longer shape worship liturgies in accordance with God’s commands as they are found in the Bible. Even tradition has been jettisoned in favor of a focus on the preferences of potential attendees. Churches do not ask whether worship practices please the Lord or are found in the Bible; the overriding concern is whether they will draw in and retain new attendees. Far too many churches have decided that success is primarily determined by the number of attendees at their services.
Historically, churches have established the elements of worship in accordance with God’s express commands. The center of the worship service was the preached Word, surrounded by readings from Scripture, the singing of praise that was rich in theological content (while allowing for variance in instruments and tunes), and a variety of prayers (adoration, confession, petition, and thanksgiving). Such an approach has been termed the “regulative principle of worship,” and the overarching idea is that God is the One who gets to determine how He is worshiped.
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