This week’s topic has the power to be an absolute gamechanger. In my line of work, I regularly meet men who have “prayed a prayer” for salvation but have never seen a transformation. It’s not that they didn’t want to change, but no one took them under their wing to show them the ropes and disciple them. So, they continue to build on the shaky foundation of their own best thinking.

 Often by the time I meet them, they have spent (or wasted) the last five, ten, or more years living by their own ideas. They might on occasion read the Bible for comfort, but they read the Wall Street Journal for direction. They are men on the fringes of the church—either barely inside or just outside the door.

Take it from me: Not one of these men is doing well. They are hurting, disillusioned, and exhausted from running the rat race, and they aren’t the only ones—their wives and children are in pain too. They’re thinking, Is this all there is? There must be more to life than this. There’s got to be!

I know because that’s exactly how I felt at the ten-year mark in my spiritual journey.

Confronting the Truth

My philosophy used to be “money will solve my problems, and success will make me happy.” Was I ever wrong! No matter how much money I made, it was never enough to satisfy my deepest longings. Like King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, the more successful I became, the more I hated my life.

Desperate for the kind of Christianity my friends were experiencing, I called a timeout to reevaluate. That’s when God said, “Now that I have your attention, there are some things I’ve been wanting you to learn.”

God started opening my eyes and, over the next couple of years, He continued to show me truth through the Bible, Christian literature, grace-based preachers and teachers, and time spent with other men who also wanted to grow and change their lives.

One day I was reading the Parable of the Sower in which Jesus describes four kinds of seeds (people). Characterizing the third seed, He says, “The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

I felt tasered. That was me. That was my life. I had been pursuing the God I wanted, not the God who is. I had become a cultural Christian, not a biblical one.

“Unfruitful”: The Pervasiveness of Cultural Christianity

I’ve come to see that my experience is the norm, not the exception. Many, perhaps most, professing Christians are cultural rather than biblical Christians—and they hate it. Theologian Oswald Guinness has called men like this “the un-discipled disciples.” This pervasiveness along with its destructiveness has earned cultural Christianity the #13 spot on the alphabetical list of 70 things every man needs to know.

Cultural Christians are men who have not fully yielded their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Instead, they’ve merely added Jesus to their calendars as another interest in an already busy schedule. Their worldview tends to be a jumbled concoction of ideas cherry-picked from church, YouTube, self-improvement webinars and podcasts, the “manosphere,” and Harvard Business School. (The technical term for this is syncretism.) Their lives are shaped more by the herds of commerce than the footsteps of Christ.

In biblical terms, they’ve allowed the yeast of culture to work through the whole batch of dough (see Galatians 5:9). They’ve done that which is permissible but not beneficial (see 1 Corinthians 6:12). And they’re at high risk for a great crash because they built on sand and not on the rock (see Matthew 7:24-27).

But the good news for men is this: While it may be pervasive, it needn’t be permanent. No one has to continue walking out a cheap knock-off version of the Christian faith, where they only know enough about God to be disappointed in Him.

The solution for you, me, and all cultural Christians? As someone said, “No matter how far you have gone down a wrong road, the only solution is to turn back.”

For reflection and discussion:

1. 1. Are you happy or unsatisfied with how far along you are in your faith journey, and why?
   2. Read Matthew 13:22, Galatians 5:7-9, 1 Corinthians 6:12, and Matthew 7:24-27. Based on these readings, are you a biblical or cultural Christian?
   3. If it’s true that “no matter how far you have gone down a wrong road, the only solution is to turn back,” what will you change this year to turn back toward a more biblical expression of Christianity?

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Patrick Morley, driven by his search for meaning and a deeper relationship with God, started a small Bible study in a bar in 1986. It grew into a global ministry, Man in the Mirror, impacting thousands of churches and millions of men. Inspired by these studies, he wrote The Man in the Mirror, named one of the 100 most influential books of the 20th century. A leading authority on men’s issues, he has authored 22 books and over 750 articles, with his works translated worldwide. Patrick holds degrees from the University of Central Florida, Harvard Business School, Oxford University, and Reformed Theological Seminary. He and his wife live in Winter Park, Florida, with their family. Patrick’s latest ministry for men can be found at the Patrick Morley website.

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