Had I chosen for my subject: Christian culture, most persons would expect very different content, notwithstanding that the root of ‘culture’ and ‘cultivate’ is the same. ‘Cult’ and ‘cultic’ have taken on altogether different connotations the way we use language today. Both are diminutive and derogatory in their every day application and utterly divorced from the expansive blossoming implied by Jesus’ parable of bread: It is the little that leavens the lump. The broken body that gives rise to the mystic body.
Our understanding of fragments and remnants needs to be informed by the vision of the Christ Paul claimed to be the All in All. The John 17 Jesus and the Matthew 10:35 Jesus may seem irreconcilable; an ecumenical spirit and a zeal for purity of faith and doctrine incompatible. This is the divide we discuss with a view to expand our perspective and approach both to fellowship and faith.
My sister Donnette Norman recently wrote, extolling the witness of Watchman Nee and his apostolic contribution to the church not only in China, but wherever his life and doctrine have made impact through his writings and work. In the article: Worshiping or Butchering Jesus, (click to read.) I used the movement he started as a case study in cultism – how a spiritually impactful movement can degenerate into schism rather rapidly emphasizing the need for self examination, both of yeast and dough, (whichever we conceive ourselves to be) lest we miss entirely the point of our most holy faith and the Bread of life that supports it.
In our zeal for ‘purity of doctrine’, we may choke the life-giving conceptions of diversity given us by Jesus as he speaks to us about his Father’s many mansions and sheepfolds and fail to realize that his nemesis in life were not those that did not share his core beliefs or doctrines but rather his core values. The Samaritans, the Roman colonialists, the so called moral reprobates (in his time: tax collectors, thieves, adulterers, prostitutes, ) were all compatible with his faith and vision and many were moved by his ministry (the equivalent groups today perhaps might be the scammers, the gangs, the LGBTQ community – all other forms of fornication having lost their stigma in our times.)
His condemnations were reserved it seems for those who shared his Jewish cult … or culture as may be preferred. How do we justify our abrasiveness to the Mormon church, which can produce men with moral clarity like Mitt Romney when our own evangelical or Catholic tradition in the same space spews out such pharisaic hypocrites as would Jesus condemn so strenuously?
Why do we quibble with the Armstrong-ites who inspired an Ian Boyne to exemplary national service? For some of us, our irritants might be the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God whom we accuse of making pacts with demons and child sacrifice, regardless of the many daily lives transformed and renovated through what appears to us as strange rituals and twisted doctrine; or is it the tongue talkers or Jesus-only baptizers, the Seventh-day Sabbath keepers, wrap=head revivalists or followers of whichever Apollos might not fit our brand – Gino Jennings, Alph Lukau, Passion Java, or is it the Mary-worshiping Pope now prepared to bless same sex unions, infallible head of the world’s largest christian cult, or culture as may be preferred, of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics strong.
Is doctrine weightier than character with God, or only with us?
Many might be aware of my celebration, more than any other minister of the gospel of any faith tradition in modern times, of the life and impact of TB Joshua. Yes, I am aware towards his end, he was one of the wealthiest pastors in Africa according to Forbes Magazine, I am aware he had the most extensive impact – his video channel at its heights being the most watched religious ministry on youtube with 2 million subscribers and well over half a billion views, I am aware of the spectacular daily signs, wonders and miracles attested to by presidents and paupers, Africa’s elite and celebrities in every field including science, medicine, law and government that made his church an international magnet both for the sick and needy as well as spectators with conflicting worldviews who had to behold the phenomenon for themselves, which made his church, the Synagogue church of all nations, the number one tourist attraction in all Nigeria, I am aware and have documented his profound personal and political impact for good on several African nations whose presidents and kings revered him as a modern prophet of God; None of these are the reason I have so highly esteemed him as an authentic and faithful witness of Christ and an exemplar of the possibilities of Christian culture in the spiritual formation whether of person, community, nation or region.
The following video explains it all. Beyond doctrine, beyond signs and wonders, in fact the reason for both : Christ fully formed (cultivated) in one’s character. Pictures preach louder than words:
YeKengalé 
Is doctrine weightier than character? Character grows out of doctrine and the latter has many strains and traits like chromosomes in a genetic pool… you can never predict the outcome in one birthed from the moral conservatism characteristic of cults springing from Judeo-Christian doctrinal roots.
You mentioned isolated examples of a prominent Armstrongite and a Mormon but these virtuosos of moral conservatism in the public service can’t validate the doctrine of their respective cult. The truth is that cult, cultic, culture and cultivate may be linguistic ‘brothers’ but in terms of eternal salvation it is a case “In Isaac shall thy seed be called” as distinct from his brother Ishmael or in the case of brothers, Jacob and Esau, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated”.
No doubt, hypocrites abound in every “cultus” (a linguistic brother of the ‘cult clan’ from a latin mother) and the apostle Paul challenged those Jewish one in the 1st century Roman church with these words “17 [a]Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest[b] on the law, and make your boast in God, 18 and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, 19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. 21 You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? 22 You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” Paul was a stickler for sound doctrine and good character.
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Thanks Errol for comment. I suspect you may have read incomplete article. My bad. I published prematurely and added in a later revision. The impetus of the article was in fact to challenge the common religious mindset which imputes greater weight to systems of belief than systems of value in determining religious identity, which nullifies Jesus’ statement – ‘By their fruits you shall know them’. Surely being similiarly indoctrinated lends itself to a kind of affinity as would those who share a common language, but as far as the spirit is concerned or as Jesus would say, the Kingdom of His God, it is the ways embodied in the character of Jesus (which by the way was also the entire focus of his parabolic teaching, not so with most religious doctrine, given to fabulous speculation on many other things, many beyond the purview of religion), the ways of God, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the hidden man of the heart – that is the entire ground of engagement, the field of interaction of real Christianity. As for laws and teachings, purported histories and futures and all the rest of it, is actually immaterial, hence my equal embrace of TBJ and Ian (Boyne) as reflections of Christ we would do well in considering. BTW moral conservatism is hardly a descriptor for the kingdom of God which can be not only radical but revolutionary in varying social contexts as demonstrated by the Christ and his apostles who totally upset in several instances social tradition, moral convention, and established norm. The letter killeth but the spirit gives life.
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