Red Letter Christians?
One of the most impressive things about Christianity through the ages, is its ability to retrofit itself to changing times and circumstances. This is largely because it is not "linked" to a place, as is the case with other religions. The "Kingdom of God," Jesus announced, "is within you." You don't have to go to Mecca, Jerusalem, the Himalayas or the Ganges River to get close to God. If you are born-again, He's in your heart!
Yet, too often contemporary culture has had an inordinate influence upon how the Church functions and sees itself; despite Paul's warning...
...do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is. [Roman 12:2]
Peterson may have come closest in summarizing Paul's thought when he wrote, "Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
There is the incumbent danger that the salt will lose its savor, the light will be hidden, and our talents will get buried, rather than be invested in the Kingdom.
If you look at art over the past 2000 years, it's obvious that the church has never had a dress code; other than the one Billy Graham recommended: "Dress as the world dresses; not as the world undresses."
Fabric fashions change almost as fast as moral, philosophical & theological fashion changes. One hundred years ago the socialism of Marx, Hitler & Mussolini were all the rage. Yet time revealed that they were bad ideas because bad ideas always lead to bad consequences. Nevertheless, philosophical failures have never stopped people from coming up with new bad ideas. For two reasons:
1) The Creator, who made us in His image, made us creative. Not only does this separate from the animal kingdom, but it propels us to create. Smart people have creative imaginations. Unfortunately, their creativity is not limited to art or fashion. They also like to recreate God after their own image, based upon their own imagination!
2) Secondly, there is a "fly in the ointment" of human imagination: SIN. Unlike Kepler who said our intellectual purpose was to think God's thoughts after Him, these revisionists think it is our job to decide what God can and cannot think. Most theologies and religions say more about their founders & proponents, than it does about God.
This is why Christianity has always been subjected to distortion. Intelligent, imaginative, creative individuals, create variations of revealed Truth, that conforms with their perceived agenda, rather than God's stated purpose.
A current example is self-described as Red Letter Christianity. It is the invention of a group of men who share some common views about the culture, the Church and the Bible:
1) They hold a low view of Scripture. They will refer to it as God's Inspired Word because its authors were inspired, but not necessarily by God. They believe that the Bible writers viewed the world through the lens of their times, and therefore we need to reinterpret Scripture through the lens of our times.
2) They object to Christians being involved in politics; especially conservative politics. Their solution is to focus on social justice issues, which they have concluded, conservative Christians don't. Ironically, I am yet to find a hospital, college or benevolent organization that was founded by liberal or progressives. They were all founded and funded by Bible believing Christian. These progressives prefer the heavy lifting of virtue signaling or actual service and sacrifice.
3) They believe in Universalism: Ever one goes to heaven, because essentially, all religions believe the same thing; as Steven Turner explained in his classic poem, Creed:
We believe... that Jesus was a good man just like Buddha
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
his good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation sin heaven hell God and salvation.
Calling themselves Red Letter Christians is an attempt to elevate their voice and to give it a greater authority. They applaud misguided comments about unhitching the Gospel from the Old Testament; realizing that doing so wholly eliminates the meaning and significance of the Cross.
The bottom line is that they have replaced the reverential reading of Scripture with human imagination. This is not new, as Jeremiah reminds us...
Thus says the LORD, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; they speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the LORD. [Jer. 23:16]
If a literal reading of text, makes good sense, then seek no other sense, lest you end up with non-sense.