Why American Christianity Is Not Classical Christianity
Walk into most American churches on a Sunday morning and you’ll find the lights dimmed, the stage set, and the congregation invited to “experience” something. It is a strange hybrid—part revival tent, part self-help seminar, part concert hall. But if you stepped into the worship of the early Church, or into a medieval cathedral, or into the gathered saints of the Reformation, you would meet something different. Less consumer, more consecrated. Less entertainment, more encounter. Less about “me and my feelings,” more about God and His holy presence.
The Drift From Christ to Consumer
American Christianity has been shaped by the same forces that shaped the nation: individualism, capitalism, optimism. We measure church by numbers, pastors by charisma, sermons by how “practical” they feel, and worship by how much of an emotional lift we get.
Classical Christianity never asked: “Did you like it?” It asked: “Was it true? Was it holy? Did it conform us to Christ?”
The Apostle Paul writes, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2, NKJV). But in the American church, we often determine to know everything except that—leadership strategies, political talking points, motivational slogans.
How did this happen? When faith was woven into the American story, it took on the myths of the frontier and the marketplace. Jesus became less the crucified Lord and more the rugged pioneer, less the Lamb of God and more the mascot of our national dreams.
The Loss of Liturgy and Memory
Classical Christianity is rooted in memory—prayers that stretch back centuries, sacraments that anchor us in Christ’s death and resurrection, creeds that remind us who we are. To kneel and confess the Kyrie eleison is to join voices with saints across millennia.
American Christianity tends to trade memory for novelty. “Fresh” and “relevant” become the watchwords. But if every Sunday we must invent worship anew, what happens to our roots? We become like trees in shallow soil—green for a season, easily toppled when storms come.
Augustine once prayed: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” But the restless heart of America often refuses rest in God; it seeks constant stimulation, constant production, constant movement. We turn worship into another thing to consume, not a holy rest in God’s eternal presence.
The Cross vs. the Brand
At the heart of classical Christianity stands the cross—a scandal, a stumbling block, a death before resurrection. At the heart of American Christianity often stands the brand—the church logo, the pastor’s personality, the merch table in the lobby.
Do we proclaim Christ crucified, or do we market Christ optimized?
Do we carry His wounds in our body, or do we sell His name like a product line?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned of “cheap grace”—forgiveness without discipleship, baptism without obedience, communion without the cross. This warning rings loudly in a culture where “faith” is often treated as a lifestyle accessory, not a call to die and rise with Christ.
What Then Shall We Do?
We must repent—not only personally, but corporately, ecclesially, nationally. The call is not to make America more Christian, but to make the Church more Christian.
That means:
Recovering the Sacraments – not as empty rituals but as encounters with the living Christ.
Relearning the Creeds and Confessions – to remember we belong to a communion far larger than our nation or denomination.
Re-centering on the Cross – not as decoration but as the very shape of our life.
Reclaiming the Church as Pilgrim, not Empire – strangers and sojourners, not chaplains of national power.
A Prayer in the Wilderness
O Christ,
strip from us the idols of our land,
the nationalism that dresses itself in your robe,
the consumerism that merchandises your Name,
the entertainment that silences your Word.
Plant us again at the foot of Your Cross.
Give us back our tears,
our prayers,
our hunger for holiness.
And teach us to remember—
we are not Americans first,
but Christians forever.
Amen.
Embodied Takeaway
This week, find one practice from classical Christianity—praying the Lord’s Prayer slowly, reading a Psalm aloud, kneeling in silence, reciting the Nicene Creed, or attending a liturgical service—and let it re-root you in the communion of saints. Trade novelty for memory. Trade consumption for consecration.
