While some may perceive my writing as only criticism of American Christianity, that’s not my intention. I respect those who disagree with me or prefer Christianity as it is. My focus is on addressing why younger people and marginalized groups are leaving, which isn’t inevitable. Like searching for a unified theory in physics, I’ve considered various issues—rationality, hypocrisy, political influences—but see them as symptoms of a deeper problem: the codification of traditions and Culture.

As a CEO, I would value expert advice to strengthen our corporate culture and customer relations. In contrast, religion focuses on defending and maintaining existing traditions.

After leaving and returning to Christianity, I spent over a decade active in organized churches, hoping to make a difference. My ideas weren’t welcomed, except at one church in Stewartville, Minnesota, where I taught Sunday school, including a candid course on church history and involved in starting an outreach program.

I believe religious cultures resist change mainly because their traditions and cultures are codified, or made sacred.

The Impetus

I am working on two books. Agony of a Woman is finished and being pitched to agents; it explores abortion from societal, Biblical, and church history perspectives, challenging both Pro-life and Pro-choice views. How Cancer Taught Me to Swear examines the history and cultural perspective on forbidden language, pushing readers to rethink their stance. Both works, like my previous seven books, question established cultural norms, particularly in American Christianity.

As I thought about these books, I concluded that the underlying principle of all Christian mistakes, in my opinion, centers on the codification of culture. In simpler terms, taking culture and making it sacred as absolute laws from God, which cannot be reconsidered.

About Culture

Culture emerges from repeated social habits and becomes second nature. For instance, a neolithic tribe forms a tradition of sunrise hunting after finding it effective. As deer adapt, one person successfully hunts in the afternoon and proposes change, but the group rejects it, believing their custom is sacred and condemning those who challenge it. Morning hunting is what the gods want, and to challenge that is an afront to their gods. This is how culture works. Making a behavior, which was logical at one point, into a sacred must forever, is the codification process.

Fifteen years ago, started a Sunday school class with teenagers, asking them to sort “Christian things” into God-ordained essentials or traditions. They considered every item I listed as essential and God-ordained, with none seen as human-derived or just culture. Not only that, but the pastor also fired me as a Sunday school teacher because some of the teens told their parents what we were doing, and the parents were mad. I had violated their code (codification). Most of those teenagers today are “nones” having no religious affiliation.

Christian Minimalism

I was going to list those items from the Sunday school class here, but it would be much simpler if I wrote what I think are the God-ordained essentials to Christianity. According to the Old Testament and the New Testament, the essentials are: 1) Believing in a personal creator. 2) Believing that Jesus lived, that he was the messiah sent to save humanity, was crucified, and rose from the dead. 3) Regarding behavior, the Old Testament says that our required behavior is summed up in doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. The New Testament, the words of Jesus, declare that we are to follow Christ, become unselfish, be willing to bear hardships, and love other people as we love ourselves. Full Stop. Everything else is extraneous and human culture. Paul makes a suggestion that Christians should get together to encourage one another. Pastors have told me that if they even dare change the time of a Sunday morning service, or the type of music, they get hate mail, always defaulting to the way things are, is the only way God wants it.

The Problem

While I know that recent polls have suggested that the rapid decline in Christianity has flattened for the last two years, there are reasons, too long to discuss here, that I think those numbers are a fluke. In my own life, and in the lives of countless people I’ve spoken to who have left Christianity, none of them have mentioned the essentials, which I just listed, as the reason. Not even the requirement to be unselfish. They have always listed cultural things for rejecting Christianity.

The Solution

To illustrate the freedom available in church life, I will share an account of a group of Christians who would be my ideal church. One size does not fit all, and I understand that.

I read about a church in Oxford, UK, whose group met in a pub on Saturdays. They valued honesty and openness over traditional worship and believed obedience to God outweighed ritual. Encouragement was central to their meetings, with a preference for support over criticism. No one was condemned for what they said, even those with serious doubts about God, or Christianity. Many members, possibly Oxford professors, respected human reason as a divine gift but did not accept philosophical trends without scrutiny—no fake miracles. Deeply felt encounters with the divine, but no spirituality for the sake of spirituality. Their focus was on providing loving service, both within the group and to others. All walks of life were accepted. No participation in culture wars. They also respected God’s two books, scripture and nature, respecting science and where evidence leads them.

I believe if all churches were like this, the future would be bright.

Many times, I have wanted to create a small group version of the above. In a church in Marquette, Michigan as an elder, I tried to create a group that met on Saturday nights in a bar. The pastor supported my efforts; however, the head elder, who had most of the power in the church, was furious at me and claimed I was working for Satan. From that point forward, my efforts were thwarted at that church. This is the push back and browbeating I’ve witnessed, with the present culture fixed in stone or gold as God’s code for humanity, even if it fails.

Respectfully, Mike