Negative Connotations of Church Culture

negative church cultureThe Christian church does not operate in the same way as secular society in many ways, giving it a decidedly unique culture. Unfortunately, many aspects of Christian culture serve as a source of resentment for the secular world. Christianity is not a popular culture in the current climate of the Western World because it is so strongly tied to the unethical parts of its history and present. Some dislike of Christian culture is blatantly discriminatory, but many criticisms are fair and worthy of attention from members of Christian society.

One major complaint of the secular world about the Christian world is its pattern of hypocrisy. The claim is that Christians preach love, forgiveness and selflessness, but engage in hateful attitudes toward certain groups, judge and retaliate against those who wrong them and put themselves before others when it comes to security and comfort. Sadly, these negative practices do exist within Christian culture. Approximately 75-percent of people living in the United States identify themselves as Christian. Any culture with that many millions of people belonging to it is going to have an incredible range of diversity within it. Just like any other widespread culture, Christianity contains ethical members, who love, forgive and put others first, and unethical members, who hate, punish and put themselves before other.

Another dislike of mainstream culture about Christian culture is how it has been historically tied to imperialism and colonialism. Ever since the dawn of the Christian church, the practice of Christianity and the presence of Christian culture has largely been found in white, Anglo-Saxon regions. These regions also became world powers in the same time, and fought for global take over, as world powers have done throughout human history. The birth of Christianity has always been connected to global take over.

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