Are You a Christian?

We often talk about the Bible Belt as the place in our country where Christianity is thriving.

Pastor Dean and Sarah says that may not be accurate. The Bible Belt is somebody who loves Jesus, but their loving Jesus is more of a country music Jesus than it is the actual Jesus of the Bible. This is somebody who wants enough of Jesus to be personally identified with, but not enough to be personally inconvenienced. So I would say a lot of Bible Belt folks don't really have a saving faith.

Jesus is just kind of part of life. They all claim a church, you know, they don't go to one. And usually that means that's their grandmother's church and they go on Mother's Day because it means a lot to her is what they're told by their mother.

It's kind of a pressure type of thing. It means so much to your nana if you came to church on Sunday. We please come, it's Mother's Day. Of course, yeah, of course we'll do that.

They'll show up, see some friends, never come back again until the next year. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. Depending on what you mean by the word Christian, Dean and Sarah says we have some people who are saved Christians and some who are unsaved Christians. We'll talk more about what he means by that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. You used a phrase, what did you call it, a creaster? A creaster? Come on, you've heard of creasters. I'd heard of CEO Christian. You'd heard of CEO Christian? Yeah, same thing.

Yeah, Christmas and Easter only. So that's what CEO stands for. But that's what you're talking about, a creaster, right? Right. But it's also what Dean and Sarah is talking about, a little bit.

That's one of the categories he talks about in his book, The Unsaved Christian. And we're going to continue our conversation that we've been having with Dean this week here in just a minute. But before we get to that, we've got a special announcement from the president of family life, David Robbins. 2020 has been a vivid reminder of why we need to stay really deeply rooted and connected and committed to Jesus and double down on the vision and mission God has given family life. We want to keep living out the passion of reaching every home with the gospel.

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So again, help us take advantage of this matching gift and make a year-end donation today online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a donation. All right, let's talk about what we mean when we talk about unsaved Christians. Dean and Sarah is joining us again today. He's the author of a book by that title. Dean, welcome back to Family Life Today. Good to have you here.

Thank you. Dean is the pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida. And this book, again, a provocative title, but you're trying to get to the heart of the fact that there's a difference between a person who says I'm a Christian and a person who really is a follower of Jesus.

Yes, and it's hopefully equipping the church to be able to reach these people who I believe are part of the largest mission field in America, which are people that claim to be Christians, but the Christianity they claim is not the Christianity of the Bible. It's sort of an American hobby or superstition or type of approach. In the mid 1970s, back before you were born, I remember the governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, who was running for president, who made a big deal about the fact that he was a born again Christian. Well, it entered the vernacular. All of a sudden, people are like, what does this mean?

What is a born again Christian? And there was a dividing line. Do you remember this?

Oh, I do. Where people would say, so are you one of those born agains? That's exactly how they would say it. It was almost heretical. Yeah, it's like one of those born agains and like, are you one of those nut jobs?

Yes. One of those crackpots. My mom actually asked me that.

She used that term. I became a follower of Christ my junior year in college, came home on fire, just fanatical. Everybody's going to hell. You got to, you know, I became an evangelist and she said, are you one of those born agains? My family said, you're not one of those born agains, are you? Because the idea of that was that you were kind of off the deep end when it came to Christianity. And the presupposition was we need to keep our Christianity moderate. We don't need to be extreme about our Christianity.

My dad said to me, let's not get carried away in this thing. In our day, I think there's a little different phenomenon going on, which is like, are you an evangelical? And what that means to a lot of people is, are you a Republican? You talk a little bit about this in the book.

I do. So how do we deal with that when a friend says, so are you one of the evangelicals? How do you answer that in a way that gets through the clutter? That's a loaded question, isn't it?

I'm ready to rock and roll on that one. The first response, it must be, what do you mean by that? And that's not a cop out. Because it's so confusing now about what is an evangelical, what is not. And somehow over history, what has happened, and when I read through it and look back, it seems like it's a little bit of a, maybe during the communist reign, that this kind of became a thing where we equated being an American with being a Christian. Is that Christianity defined by the blood of Jesus on a cross and his resurrection?

No. It more is just sort of twist of marrying patriotism and this kind of idea of family values with this religious aspect that we call Christian. And it really is problematic, not problematic to love your country. I think that's a wonderful thing. I think gratefulness is a Christian posture.

So I think we should be grateful for the things that we have here in our country and for those who have fought to defend it for us. At the same time, for many, I call God and country Christians, if they move to Poland tomorrow, it would drastically affect their faith because their faith is so wrapped up in this sort of nationalism, this sort of patriotism that is not a Christian faith. And they forget that the Bible was written before Thomas Jefferson's great, great, great grandparents were even born, where America wasn't even a concept, not even sort of kind of a concept. So we just have to make sure we realize that this is a global faith and this is not some sort of, we use things like America being a city shining on a hill, but that's, no, the church is a city shining on a hill.

It's not America. Hey, I think it'd be fun. At the end of your book, you list eight different cultural Christians.

I think it'd be helpful for people. I'll read your title and you define it. You already did one of them, but let's just start at the top. The first one you say is the country club Christian.

Yes. When people think of country club, they think snobby, and that's not what I mean by that. I mean, the country club Christian is someone who is just a member of the organization and all they have to do is just pay their dues when it comes to the local church.

There's never a challenge their needs are catered to. The second their needs aren't catered to, they'll go move to another country club that lacks church membership. Where joining a church doesn't mean anything outside of just paying your dues has really impacted and really allowed cultural Christianity to flourish. Where being a part of a church means nothing, demands nothing, nothing changes. And if I pay my dues, I can use the facilities from time to time when I have a wedding or a funeral or something like that comes up. Yeah, you're part of the club. Now, I just realized this could be hard to do because you want to stop on each one of these and talk about it.

And so maybe let's do them and then let's go back if there's something, Bob or Ann, you guys want to talk about. Second one, Christmas and Easter Christian. Here's what to understand about Christmas and Easter Christians is that for them, there's nothing really spiritual about the holiday. It used to be that way, but now going to church on Christmas and Easter is no different than wearing green on St. Patrick's Day, than eating turkey on Thanksgiving, than going trick-or-treating on Halloween, than giving mom flowers and a card on Mother's Day. It's just what you do as part of the celebration of that day.

It has no religious significance whatsoever. So I encourage pastors especially, don't rail and attack these people when they actually show up on Easter and Christmas for not coming the rest of the year. They're not Christians. But the people you've prayed, we've prayed, God, please bring unbelievers to our services and please bring them and they actually show up. God answers our prayers, then we give them a hard time for not being there regularly.

It's like, well, they're lost. And we have to realize that. So we have a massive Easter crowd every year. We have it at Florida State's basketball arena and like fill the arena, it's incredible. And people say, wow, y'all must be these outreach gurus.

I'm like, no, we're not. Everybody who claims they go to our church just shows up on the same day. And that's all what really happens. Because again, in their superstitious kind of celebration of the days, this is what you do. You wear green on St. Patrick's Day or someone's going to pinch you, is what you're told growing up. You shoot fireworks on the 4th of July. You go to church on Easter and Christmas. That's all it means.

It has no theological significance whatsoever. Wow. Next one, God and country.

That's the one we were just talking about, right? Yeah, someone who marries their faith to their patriotism. That's really troubling because that is so cultural.

That would not work if it was in another country. Your love for America should almost be a separate category. And that's definitely also subordinate to your love for God.

But the problem is no one thinks they have an issue with that. This is going to poke the bear a little bit here, but go to an evangelical, very conservative church on what I call the high holy days of cultural Christianity, which are Memorial Day, 4th of July, Veterans Day, a lot of times it's Sunday after September 11th. And you will see a greater celebration than you saw on Easter Sunday. Oftentimes I see uniformed military personnel get a louder ovation than returning missionaries from the mission field. That's not to say we shouldn't appreciate and care.

Again, gratefulness is a Christian posture. It's really become problematic. I can talk about anything. And the one thing that gets pushed back, I could do sermons on divorce and on sexuality.

I could cover so many controversial topics, abortion. But if I poke a bear on the God and country issue, that's the number one thing I get pushed back on. I'm not too sensitive about it, but it shows us a problem.

I have gotten the same thing. Really? It's interesting.

It really is. Yeah, I know pastors get a really hard time for not doing enough on Memorial Day. It's like, well, we prayed for people and we acknowledged the day, but they want extravagance. And it's like, well, this is... Also, if you're from another country, the gospel is for every tribe, tongue, and nation, and you walk into our services and it's America, it's on display, what are you thinking? Yeah. That's a problem. And some might go, well, they should adjust.

It's like, no, no, no. This is for every tribe, tongue, and nation. It shouldn't be confusing. Right.

All right. Liberal, social, justice, Christian. Yeah, that is somebody who really believes the faith is simply a humanitarian effort and that they almost exist now to hate the president and to hate all things Republican party. It's almost the opposite of a God and country person. With all the problems we have with God and country, also in God and country, there's this unwavering allegiance to all things Republican and to the president, which is also very problematic for people of faith. I'm not trying to say who you vote for.

I don't care about that. I'm talking about the unwavering allegiance. The same is true for the liberal social justice Christian, that everything is about just humanitarian efforts and also just this generic idea of love, not the love of the Bible, just this generic love that makes everything okay, everything permissible. You think the answer is just to love, love, love, love, but what they mean by that is that nothing is wrong. You're never going to hear them talk about any of the moral issues we have going on in our nation or in the church or anything like that. Everything's okay.

Everything's fine. Let's just love everybody. I saw a pastor on Twitter recently who said, I heard someone recently say the message of the gospel is that God cares for the disenfranchised and for the marginalized people in our society. And the pastor said to his Twitter audience, what do you all think about that?

So how would you, what do you think about that? Is that the message of the gospel? No, those are implications of the gospel.

And naturally I get confused. I think that is the gospel. So what happens also is they get, what I think is really kind of ungodly bitterness and angst and attack towards people who might have some affluence or they become very envious. They attack people like the 1% rather than going, well, maybe God's blessed these people and maybe they're being generous with their money and maybe it's been earned honestly. And so it really becomes, it can become an ungodly effort, but it's all done in the name of Christianity. It just becomes very problematic because it's just as political as the right-wing people they criticize.

It's just as political. Can I ask about the next one? Because I've used this phrase.

Go for it. A dozen times, maybe more than that in our church. Not in your sermon. I have in my sermon.

I've talked about. Talked about what it means. The moralistic, therapeutic, deist approach. And this is from Christian Smith, the sociologist at Notre Dame who did this study.

Explain what a person who's a moralistic, therapeutic, deistic Christian is. Yeah, and I think this is probably the most prominent. I think you're right. And one that extends outside the South. So it's easy to think cultural Christianity is a Bible belt issue, but really it's a nationwide issue when you understand this. And this, again, is a God who is very vague.

He's very generic. He's not really involved in the affairs of men and women. There's no sovereignty. There's really no sin. There's no punishment for sin. No judgment against generic, big guy upstairs kind of God who wants us to be good people. And who wants us to, we can go to him for kind of superstitious kind of reasons. It's, again, that kind of Jesus take the wheel kind of idea. There's more to it than that.

That's kind of the big snapshot picture. Again, we may make sure as Christians we're clear in these conversations that our God is not vague. He's not generic. He has made himself known. And the book of Hebrews chapter one, it starts out the letter by saying that in the past he has spoken to us by the prophets through the law. Now he has spoken to us by his son. So there's no understanding of God apart from an understanding of Jesus Christ. The shorthand I've used is there's a really nice God who made everything.

He wants you to have a really good life and if you'll just keep some rules that he's laid down, everything will be cool. And a lot of people think that's the gospel. That's not the gospel.

That's the moralistic, therapeutic, deistic gospel and it's not a saving gospel. We had that conversation with my dad for years of him saying, I am a good man. And he was. He was a good guy. And when we would explain the gospel of there is no one that's righteous, we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, he would say, but I am so much better than that guy over there that says he's a Christian.

He's not moral in the least. And so it was this back and forth and I think so many people think that I'm a good person. Yeah, I believe. And when you're having that conversation, because I've had this conversation as well and I've failed at this in the past, we have to keep in mind that when we talk about the gospel and the need for Jesus, the other person is often hearing us say, I'm better than you. Exactly. And so when they say I'm a good person, they're trying to say, you're good, I'm good too. And we have to go into this saying, look, this is not, I'm no better than you. In a lot of ways, I'm worse than you. I just recognize I need Jesus and I think we all need Jesus because it's real easy for them to get defensive and go, are you saying I'm not a good person? And are you judging me?

Right, right, yeah. What's the next one, Dave? Next one is the generational Catholic.

That is part of my story. I was not raised generational Catholic, but my whole entire dad's side of the family is generational Catholic. And these are very difficult people to reach because being Catholic is the goal.

Not the gospel, not God, not the Bible, not Christianity, just being Catholic. My grandfather, Italian Catholic, we went to the Notre Dame Miami football game in 1990 in South Bend, Indiana. It was like the grandest trip.

It was really neat, really special. And my grandfather and I had never had a spiritual conversation ever. He might every now and then do the cross of himself before he eats his meal. So we go to South Bend and right when we get there, we go into the cathedral, so beautiful. Go into the cathedral because we wanted to say a prayer.

I never heard my grandmother talk about prayer in my life. At the time, I was a cultural Christian, didn't realize it. And we went into the cathedral and he knelt down and said a prayer. So we're walking back out on the way to the stadium and I said, what did you pray for? And he said, well, I prayed for the game today. And I said, okay. So we're driving back and I asked him, I said, Papa, that's why I called him, why are we Notre Dame fans?

Why do we like Notre Dame? And he said, because we're Catholic. And I went, oh, okay. But that was the end of the conversation. Well, years go by, I've come to faith in this time.

I'm an adult by this time. And we're sitting down years later. He's almost 90 years old at this time and we're watching Notre Dame football. To this day, when they come on, I remember him. He died about 10 years ago.

He brings memories instantly to my grandfather. Again, great man, World War II veteran, dissolved to the earth in terms of by secular standards kind of guy. And he randomly in the middle of the game, asked me a question. He goes, hey, why aren't you Catholic? I'm pastoring in church by this time.

And I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, why aren't you Catholic? I'm Catholic. Your dad's Catholic. Your uncles are Catholic. I said, Papa, my dad's not Catholic.

Go across the room and ask him. My uncles aren't Catholic. One is a professing atheist.

Like he has like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins books on his bookshelf. Like he's like a proud atheist. And my other uncle is agnostic. He said, no, they're not, they're Catholic. I said, okay, I'm not going to fight my nine-year-old grandfather. But like Papa, they are not Catholic.

Like you can go call them right now and they will tell you. He insisted. And then when the conversation went nowhere, so I just ended it. But here's what I learned that day. For a generational nominal Catholic, being Catholic is more important than believing Catholic. And that's the huge barrier you have to get through. If you were baptized as a Catholic, you're a Catholic.

And that lasts forever, no matter what you do, right? We will have Florida State students. Florida State's in the town where I live. A lot of Catholic students come to Florida State and we'll have them get baptized because they'll come to faith in Christ on their own. They'll choose to get baptized. And they will ask us not to post it on social media because they don't want their parents to see it. And the first response is, wait a second, won't your parents be excited that you have faith and that you're a Christian and you're in college following Jesus at a secular university? No, it's not Catholic.

And it's like, let's talk. That's intense. That's a real, that's not an extreme example.

That's a real thing. How do you get beyond that barrier? Because we've had so many people at our church that have given their lives to Christ that have surrendered.

So how do you help them bridge that gap and get beyond that barrier? We tell them in conversations with their family to be very respectful of how they were raised, not to concede to their beliefs, but to be very respectful. They're not anti-Catholic, they're not resentful, but this is what I have come to realize is true of the very Bible that you wanted me to learn and believe in.

They never touched it, a lot of them, their entire lives. So let me ask you with some folks who are listening to us right now who say, I am a born-again Catholic. You're a Baptist preacher.

Is that an authentic category? Are there born-again Catholics? Yes, I believe so, but I believe a true born-again faith would eventually have to lead themselves away from the Catholic church, not to the Baptist church. I'm not saying that's the right way, but Rome believes a lot of it is very not consistent with the scriptures. And I would tell the same thing maybe as part of the United Church of Christ. That's a different spectrum, but they might have church in their name, might be good people, might even have a couple of good things they believe, but ultimately, many of their beliefs are not Christian. So I'm not saying you can't be saved and be a Catholic. I believe that eventually someone who refuses to leave the Catholic church is either doing so for one of two reasons.

One, the heritage of being a Catholic is more important than they realize it is, maybe even towards the idol, or they think they're being a remnant and staying in it as an evangelist. And I'm just saying that's probably not the best method. Interesting. We have a lot of people in our church that go to our service on Saturday night and mass on Sunday because they really still feel I have to continue to do both.

It's almost like what I do at your church doesn't really count. And also to please family. Yeah. That's the main thing.

Yeah. We did a child dedication where we bring up new babies and pray for them and dedicate their families to the Lord and the church. And we had a family one time bring their child to do that because they go to our church on Sundays.

They're not members. They come regularly. And after that, they ran over to mass with their family to get a child christened. And I'm going, what in the world just happened here? And this kind of conversation brings to mind conversations I've had with people in our church who say I'm going home this weekend to be with my mom and dad. Dad's sick.

I don't know how long he's got. We've had conversations about faith before. And my parents insist that they're Christians. I have questions.

I wonder if they are. And yet the conversations we've had have seemed to go nowhere. And we pray for them and pray for what those conversations should look like.

If you're coaching somebody who's headed into that situation, what's your coaching for them? Well, one, I want them to have some confidence that faith the size of mustard seed, you know, is faith that's acceptable to God? You know, what gets us to Jesus is not a huge faith but our huge Savior.

That's really important to remember. They're also not asking them to be just like, well, our exact representation of Christianity. You know, articulate the gospel the exact same words we use. So that could be where they really do believe that Jesus is the only way and have repented of their sins and believe the gospel that we need to trust God with that. Okay, again, mustard seed faith. They might not have been discipled but at least a conviction of who Jesus is. The criminal on the cross, please remember me in paradise.

Right, he appealed to Christ, not to himself. That's what happened there. But for the one that truly is concerned, going, man, I'm telling you, they think they know they don't know. Well, I get that. I came from that. You know, I've lived that life. This is urgent.

Don't be afraid to sit there and plea. Paul wrote, I plea for you to be reconciled to God. You know, I think we've lost that art. We're embarrassed by it.

It's awkward. We're like actually sitting down and like plea with someone to put their faith in Christ, not manipulation. Like we plead with someone like, like, dad, that's not what this is. Like you keep going back to the fact that you're a good person. You keep going back to the fact that you've done good deeds. Like I need you to understand that those things are rubbish compared to knowing Christ.

Those things do not get you into heaven. Like, I'm not trying to like give an extreme answer there, but those kinds of situations where it really is like literally life or death, don't be afraid to go in there and say, look, I don't want to talk about anything else. Like I'm here because I love you and I'm here because I need to make sure that you are clear on who Jesus is and what he's done for you. And do that humbly. Yes. Do it full of grace and full of love and respect. Don't come in thinking that you got to wield the Bible and preach at him. Yep.

But it is urgent. It's truth and grace. Yeah, it's truth and grace.

It's that balance. And the love is that you're there. You're in the room.

I just flew down from Oklahoma City to Florida to be here with you. And I'm not just coming for fun. Like this is urgent. I think that's important. All right, the last two are big categories.

Maybe you hit them both real quick. Mainline Protestant and Bible Belt. Yeah, mainline Protestant.

I call it the watered-down word. Many mainline Protestant churches just don't have the Bible. So we need to reach those people. It's not sheep-swapping. It's evangelism.

They have a cross above the choir, but they don't preach it. Machom, who was a professor at Princeton back in the early 20th century, wrote a book called Christianity and Liberalism. And in the book, his whole point was they're different religions. Like what is now?

It was like really prophetic. Like what is mainline Protestantism now? It's just different religion oftentimes than actual biblical Christianity.

Again, there are some remnant ones that I'm thankful for those, but not enough. And Bible Belt? Bible Belt is somebody who loves Jesus.

Let me tell you what. But their loving Jesus is more of a country music Jesus than it is the actual use of the Bible. This is somebody who wants enough of Jesus to be personally identified with, but not enough to be personally inconvenienced.

So I would say a lot of Bible Belt folks don't really have a saving faith. Jesus is just kind of part of life. It's like America and their favorite college football team and their job. And it's just like another kind of, if you had a jersey that had patches on it for different things of life, maybe like a boy scout uniform that has different patches. Being a Christian, it's just a patch on it.

It doesn't really mean very much at all. And those are people that we reach a lot of. And what happens there is just the light goes on when they're actually exposed to gospel preaching because they go, oh, that's not what I've been doing my entire life. But it's someone who, again, very vague God, very vague Jesus, but very pro those things because it's very socially acceptable to be a part of that. They all claim a church, even though they don't go to one. And usually that means that it's their grandmother's church and they go on Mother's Day because it means a lot to her is what they're told by their mother. It kind of a pressure type of thing, which means so much to your nana if you came to church on Sunday, we please come, it's Mother's Day.

Of course, yeah, of course we'll do that. They'll show up, see some friends, never come back again until the next year. Are you getting pushback on this book, on this message? Not as much as I thought I would. I'm getting a lot of, as I read your book, I had all these people come to mind.

I was at the Southern Baptist Convention and I had pastors stopping me in our kind of walkway in the hallways saying, we're taking our staff to this right now. You just wrote this book about our city. You wrote this book about our town. I've been told by others the book has done is it's helped them create a category that didn't exist before. That's what I was gonna say. Reading it makes me think there's a whole mission field that you often don't think about that is huge.

And you sort of get excited. Think, man, I can be an evangelist to love people that need to be loved. I'm imagining that some listeners are thinking, wow, am I an unsaved Christian? What would you say to those listeners right now that are maybe doubting and wondering? I would ask them, what do you base your idea of being a Christian upon? Like if you are claiming to be a Christian, what is the basis for that? If your basis for that are answers other than the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf that you might not be. I don't say that to make someone doubt, but just to be clear. With cultural Christianity, if it could be defined as just maybe a sentence or two, it is a Christianity that is not dependent on Jesus Christ. And you're not saying memorize the right answer and then you're okay.

No. You're saying that's gotta be the basis for everything you think, believe, and live. Yes, my appealing to myself and my heritage and my actions and my background and my resume. We'll call it my religious resume or my appealing to Christ. I would say you might wanna get a copy of the book, right?

And read a little bit more. We appreciate you writing the book, being here talking with us about it. Thanks for your time.

Thank you for having me. And again, I wanna encourage listeners, go to familylifetoday.com to get a copy of the book, The Unsaved Christian, Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel by Dean and Sarah. You can order the book from us online at familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to get a copy. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And we mentioned this earlier, but a quick reminder, today and tomorrow, the last two days for Family Life to be able to take advantage of the matching gift opportunity that has been made available to us, a $2.7 million matching gift fund. Anytime you make a donation today or tomorrow, your donation will be matched dollar for dollar until we reach the amount that is in that fund and we still have a ways to go. So we're asking listeners to be as generous as you can be today in making a year-end donation to help Family Life Today finish where we need to be here at the end of 2020 and start 2021 strong. You can donate online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. When you do, we're going to send you a copy of my book, Love Like You Mean It, all about 1 Corinthians 13 and how that applies in the marriage relationship and a flash drive with more than 100 Family Life Today programs from the last 28 years, really the best of the best through those years. Those two gifts are our way of saying thank you for helping support this ministry at the end of the year. Once again, give online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329 to make a donation.

That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. Now tomorrow we're going to introduce you to a mom who lived through what none of us as parents ever hoped to live through, a son who in middle school started experimenting with illegal drugs and wound up being hooked on heroin. You'll meet Katherine James tomorrow and hear her story. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.