The web site of a Christian worship artist [name withheld] that I recently read suggests that the artist wants to stay true to pure Biblical Christianity and worship as opposed to cultural Christianity - this is either a false dichotomy or a too blunt instrument that doesn't clarify the issue. We all live life and faith in the context of a particular culture. It's idealistic to think you can have pure faith unaffected by culture. In our culture we need parking lots, projectors and sound systems; we wear jeans and tennis shoes; we speak English (mostly); we have a particular history and ethnicity. You can't divorce faith from these things that go with the territory.
Rather than slicing and dicing culture vs. Bible, we should try to avoid empty expressions of worship and faith based on traditions and practices that we don't understand. Redemptive love based relationship creates the heart of our faith. True faith fills life with meaning and mystery (who can really understand it all?). Culture informs and provides context. Culture is not mutually exclusive with a Bible based expression of faith. We should desire purity (Biblical, eh?). But, juxtaposing Truth against Culture as a way of promoting your art to the faithful creates an exercise in marketing that really says "I actually get it, so follow me. A lot of that other stuff is polluted by our crappy culture...". That said, I'm not suggesting the source has a bad heart, just that it's a misadventure in thinking.
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