Cultural religiousity

This morning during Sunday school our teacher spoke about the church of Smyrna that was being persecuted viciously. Our teacher noted that if the church was American they would still have endured persecution because they chose to obey God rather than to be integrated in the culture. We were rebuked for being too much like our culture and so avoiding persecutuion. I must admit that I disagree with his assesment of why American Christians are not generally persecuted. Practicing Muslims stick out more and suffer less persecution here in the USA than do the most timid Christians in most of the world. Americans are sensitive to those who stick out so that skin colors and religious practices that do not fit with cultural expectations are noted and made to feel uncomfortable outside their cultural context. American Christians who strictly adhere to certain dictates that they find in Scripture will miss out on certain opportunities such as Sunday sports and social gatherings that involve alcohol, but they cannot begin to call this persecution. Those who are vocal about things such as sexual perversions and abortion will find themselves further shunned, and perhaps targetted for mistreatment, but this I not the result of general obedience to Scripture but the living out of a personal sense of calling.

While I don't think the lack of persecution is reason for American Christians to feel like failures the fact that American Christians do follow the lead of culture in what parts of Scripture they obey should be cause for concern. The fact that Christians do not treat their Sunday as a Sabbath, do not keep women from speaking in the assembly, and no longer advocate slavery is not the result of persecution, but responses to a sense of cultural inconvenience. Doctrine in Scripture has not changed in the last two thousand years, but how we apply it often the outcome of cultural pressures. This fact makes me wonder how much I really appear to be a true Christian in comparison to men like Peter, Paul, and Stephen. I find myself constantly re-examining why I do what I do and believe what I believe.