Dear EFC Subscribers:

Hello from Merced, California.  We began the church planting here almost seven weeks ago. It has been an arduous journey, sharing our faith with many hundreds of people, starting three different Bible groups, preaching, teaching, and all the bureaucratic “stuff” that comes with starting a new church. But we are loving it. We are being stretched, for sure, but being on the edge, spiritually, is the place to be as far as we are concerned.  If you are interested, you can find all the lessons and announcements at www.mercedchurch.com or even follow us on instagram at ao_merced. Please pray for us.  Please consider supporting our work (at the web site), and please consider coming to Merced to join the team.

This month, I am going back to including essays from volume IV of my series on church history, The Christian Story: Finding the Church in Church History.  The book is in final editing and will be available by Sept. 1 at www.ipibooks.com.  The essay this month is on the Americanization of Christianity.  See below.

2022 Renewed Vision Discipleship Conference in Orlando

John Oakes will be giving four classes at the ICOC Renewed Vision conference July 31-Aug 6 in Orlando Renewed Vision

The titles are King Jesus, Human Philosophies, Traditions and the Kingdom (8/1)

You Want Mission Opportunities Now and During Retirement (8/4)

A Deep Dive: The Blessings of Being In Christ (8/5)

Science That Takes You to a Deeper Faith (8/5)

We will be posting the notes, power point and audio after the conference.

New Material from Dr. John Oakes

I gave a six hour class on Genesis for campus interns.  Class on Genesis.

And a four hour class on Daniel for another intern group.  Class on Daniel.

Also, I am doing a series of sermons from Acts (with one from Malachi sprinkled in there.  Sermons in Merced

Here is the promised essay:

The Americanization of Christianity

One theme that we have seen throughout this series on the history of Christianity is that the relationship between the Christian Church and culture is a two-way street. Christianity has influenced culture and culture has influenced Christian belief and practice. It seems that the influence of Christianity on culture is mostly a good thing, but what about the influence of culture on Christian belief and practice? To what extent is this a good thing as we “become all things to all people?” On the other hand, what are some ways that we need to guard carefully against the pernicious effects of culture on our Christian view of the world.

A classic case of this is the Americanization of Christianity which began during the Second Great Awakening, and continued inexorably through the twentieth century. In the following pages, you will see how it is that Christianity in the young United States, but later across the world, has been highly influenced by the fundamental American myths. Americanized Christianity has, to a large extent, become world Christianity, as American-style practice, belief and even theology have become normative. Two excellent treatments of this phenomenon are Myths America Lives By, by Richard T Hughes, and America’s God by Mark A. Noll.[1]

Aspects of Americanized Christianity include a stark individualism. Becoming a Christian is a matter of one “accepting Christ” and having a “personal relationship with God,” rather than being accepted into a Christian community. Church shopping to meet personal needs is part and parcel with this way of thinking, as is the emphasis on the individual’s right to interpret the Bible as they so choose. Other assumptions which are accepted without question include the idea that democracy and capitalism are the natural political and economic systems in a Christianized world. Another almost uniquely American Christian assumption is that Christians are naturally aligned with conservative political causes. All of these assumptions are either not particularly Christian or even outright unchristian.

Americanized Christianity has spread across the world. It pervades Christianity in places as diverse as Korea, China, Ukraine, Guatemala and, perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, in Africa. It is less influential in the Philippines, Egypt, Ethiopia and Italy, but, as with the English language, American assumptions about Christian theology and practice are widely dispersed and have huge influence generally.

We would do well, then, to ask ourselves how Americanized the Christian group we associate with is. The effect may not be all bad, but at the very least, it deserves careful attention and a willingness to question our church culture. Do we do church this way because we are Americans or because American culture is informing how we view the Bible? The American political and cultural environment is not the ideal model for a Christian worldview. Let us have open eyes when we consider how our Christian life is affected by American assumptions.

[1] Richard T. Hughes, Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories That Give Us Meaning (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2018), and Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)