by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2024
(Aug. 11, 2024) — A provocative phrase is cruising the internet: Cultural Christians.
Fondness for Christian values isn’t surprising; it appears in Jesus’s parables, which I’ll come to in a moment.
This attraction came to my attention when Elon Musk lamented the feeble response of Christians to the abominable opening of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, in which transvestites desecrated the Lord’s Supper.
Commenting on his X/Twitter platform, Musk said, “Christianity has become toothless. Unless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.”
A flurry of posts and comments followed, linking these remarks to an interview where Musk said, “I’m actually a big believer in the principles of Christianity. I think they’re very good. I would say I’m probably a cultural Christian. I was brought up as an Anglican, and I was baptized.”1
Not long before, in an interview this spring at Easter, Richard Dawkins also sympathized with Christian values.
“I call myself a cultural Christian,” he said. “I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we (Britain) are a Christian country in that sense. So I call myself a cultural Christian and I think it would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion.”2
In a matter of months, Musk, the world’s richest individual, and Dawkins, the most renowned atheist, espoused the virtues of Christianity. Their prestige makes Christianity fashionable.
Cultural Christians. The tribe has a long lineage.
Read the rest here.