...Plus some other thoughts regarding those who departed from the faith and/or embraced the good the bad and/or the ugly
Back in the day various Christian circles embraced the purity culture. Now that very purity culture and the chickens that it produced is coming home to roost. Some have renounced the Christian faith and others while they did not renounced Jesus Christ altogether they did trade one apostasy for another.
Joshua Harris is the latest person to walk away from the Christian faith and based on what he said on his Instagram he has now a free-thinker leftist and supports loose sexual morals coupled with his present support of the LGBTQ movement. Harris grew up in a conservative homeschooling family and was raised and trained in the ideal that courtship is the better bet than dating different women. The purity culture has proved to be not workable if not fake with certain promises that turned out empty. Above all its really been proven to be just a part of modern Christian pop culture and that very culture is stating to crack and fall. While the Christian pop culture coming apart is a good thing at the same we are seeing a divine command being renounced as well. That part of this purity culture deconstruction is not a good thing. It only magnifies the modern Sexual Revolution and the progressive ideology which has been accepted in many of todays churches. God has not changed his mind about men and women about abstaining from sexual relations until marriage. The purity culture might have embraced things that are not Biblical but that does not means we throw the ideal of being sexually pure...no matter how difficult that might be.
Their are those who were born in the 1980s who have been rebelling against the values and faith that their parents tried to instill into them. Granted Harris is a GenXer like I am but you hear more about those who were born in the 1980s calling the bluff of their upright and uptight Christian parents and/or guardians than the GexXers who more/less held up the Christian pop culture which the Baby Boomers ushered in. Two of them that I am about to point out stayed in the Christian faith and/or did not leave the Christian Church altogether. They just turned to the mainline church who upheld the historical worship liturgy and embrace certain ideals of progressivism.
Jonathan Aigner grew up in a Southern Baptist Church that was embracing the Church/Worship machine called Hillsong and had to put up with a short song whos chorus was repeated for five minutes give or take and apparently sung every week (Shout To The Lord). As soon as he could leave the nest (by the way he was home-schooled) Jonathan would put a clear distance between himself and the Christian pop culture (including the purity culture) that his parents tried to emerge their son in. Jonathan found sanctuary in historical worship in its liturgy and hymnondy. He makes a great case for these very things in Christian worship but at the same time he is also passionate about killing the Christian pop culture once and for all and that not only includes Contemporary Worship Music (which control the music selections in most churches these days) but the overall Contemporary Christian Music genre as well. Aigner holds Larry Norman in contempt for his love and rock music and Jesus coupled with Chris Tomlin who is for sure hands down part of the Worship Machine. Norman just wanted to sing about Jesus and play rock music. He really hates CCM THAT badly kids but for Ainger the only Christian music he prefers is Classical oriented music including choral music hymns etc.
While Ainger embraced classical and historical liturgy he also embraced the apostate in other areas including the ordination of women in the church not just as pastors but as deacons and elders. Based on some his writings if Ainger had it his way every church would be required to ordain women as pastors and ignore Gods order through Paul in 1 Timothy 2 regarding the roles of women. He also thinks that women should be able to bare their chests to breast feed within the four walls of the church...modesty be damned...the womans dignity and autonomy trumps that.
Rachel Held Evans like Aigner also got fed up with Christian pop culture and turned to a mainline Episcopal church in Cleveland Tennessee. She also became progressive in her political beliefs and supported the election campaigns of Barack Obama (voting for Obama twice) and Hillary Clinton while renouncing evangelicalism due to its close association with the Christian Right." Like many other progressives Evans also support government taking care of the people even at the expensive of what the founders of our country envisioned. Sadly Evans passed away this year in May at age 37.
Evans was close friends with Nadia Bolz-Weber (Gen Xer) who was ordained in the Evangelical (in name only) Lutheran Church in America. Bolz-Weber called upon her fans who got turned off by the purity culture to send in their purity rings so she could make a sculpture of womens genitalia and give that to longtime feminist activist Gloria Steinem who herself is a God hating humanist.
While Aigner and Evans embraced progressivism they did not renounce the Christian faith completely. Sadly they did embrace pagan teachings based on their worldviews and how they think the world should be ran and operated both in the church and the macro world.
Another well known person and more famous (if not a household name) than any of the other people I listed here so far and actually turned on the Christian faith was none other than Katy Perry (born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson). Katy was born to parents Maurice Keith" and Mary Christine (nee Perry) Hudson who both became pastors and later traveling evangelists" in the charismatic and Pentecostal circles and both coming out of a wild lifestyle." The Hudsons did what they could to keep their children from embracing that wild lifestyle" but for one of them that effort would be in vain.
Katy would record one album in the Contemporary Christian Music genre under her real name Katy Hudson but the Christian music label she was signed to folded before the albums release. Eventually she adopted her mothers maiden name Perry and became what her parents picketed for years. In spite of all that has happened in the Hudson family neither Katy or her parents have ex-communicated the other and are still in close contact with other as well as her siblings. It should also be noted that Keith and Mary appear in the music video of Katys hit single from 2008 Hot n Cold."
Still Katy thought she could rely on her former Christian pop sub-culture to score a hit and get away with it without giving credit where credit is due. Her song Dark Horse" was proven in a court of law that the main electronic riff was lifted from the rap tune Joyful Noise by Christian Hip-Hop artist Flame (born Marcus Tyrone Gray) and he did not like his tune being corrupted by black magic and witchcraft." Hearing both songs myself I would agree with Flame that Perry Dr. Luke and those who were involved in writing Dark Horse" indeed were trying to give Flame a raspberry of sorts. Flame however pushed back and won. Granted certain songs might inspire others and maybe you never heard a certain musical pattern...but this was hands down plagiarism. Will this finally humble Katy? We can only hope and pray. Her parents for sure are.
I had a crisis of faith in the mid 2000s. It took the death of my mother (who like my father both had a crisis of faith) to come back myself. I can honestly say that I truly had my come to Jesus" moments.
The $64000 Question here; Did everyone I talked about had their come to Jesus moments? All of us if we want to be with Jesus forever must truly become born again...hands down. That is what will get us into Heaven and not the fads that many Christians may embrace.
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