For those of us who have been around for a while it is apparent that Christianity in America has evolved into a very different image than we grew up with. I am speaking now of at least a fifty year perspective. Customary and normal Protestant Christianity in the fifties and sixties had a very conservative and non-worldly image. This was most especially true of the “fundamentalists”. The fundamentalists at this time often bore the criticism of being legalistic. As I look back it seems that that criticism was earned, though the word “legalistic” was a poor label to describe what was going on then.
It seems to me if we are to describe the all-to-often situation in those days, it would better be described as hypocrisy. While there were very strict rules regarding outward behavior and habits, the people themselves were often characterized with envy, bitterness and often a general condition of cantankerousness. The children of that generation in throwing off that hypocrisy, rather than accepting a noble and fully appropriate conservative and Christian lifestyle and adopting a sweet Spirit-filled faith, instead seem to have endorsed a worldliness. In great measure they are greater hypocrites than their parents, for they have attempted to adopt the doctrine of Christ while shedding any obligation to live within the standards of Christ.
It has left us in many quarters with a form of Christianity that is such in doctrine only, with no distinction of merit in the lifestyles of those who endorse that doctrine. It is a “no-boundaries” faith.
