Don't Be A Churchian
What do you call someone who wears a cross, attends services, and speaks Christian language—but lives like an atheist when it comes to actual obedience to Christ?
A Churchian. Someone who has adopted Christian culture without Christian transformation. Who conforms Christ to their preferred lifestyle rather than conforming their life to Christ's teachings.
The danger isn't that Churchians are intentionally deceptive—most genuinely believe they're following Christ. The danger is that modern church culture has made it possible to look Christian externally while remaining spiritually unchanged internally. We've created systems that reward religious performance over authentic discipleship.
It's time to ask hard questions: Are we following Yeshua, or following a sanitized version that doesn't threaten our lives of sin?
The Churchian System
Churchianity thrives in our current religious infrastructure. You can attend services, tithe regularly, serve on committees, and never be challenged to actually die to yourself or take up your cross daily.
Modern church buildings themselves can enable this disconnect. When we call buildings "church" and "God's house," we unconsciously create a sacred/secular split that early Christians never had. Church becomes a place you go rather than people you are. Faith becomes something you do on Sundays rather than how you live Monday through Saturday.
This "edifice complex", as theologian Frank Viola calls out, makes it easier to compartmentalize faith. You can be spiritual in the sanctuary and worldly everywhere else. The building becomes a safe space for religious feelings rather than a launching pad for radical discipleship.
I've seen this in multiple denominations—people who can quote Scripture but live according to secular values. Who sing worship songs but pursue wealth, status, and pleasure with the same intensity as non-believers. Who speak of loving God while remaining attached to systems that profit from human weakness.
The Cost of Authentic Following
Real discipleship costs everything cultural Christianity promises to protect.
Your comfort with sin. Following Yeshua means constant interrogation of your heart, your habits, your entertainment, your relationships. Churchianity lets you keep your favorite sins as long as you feel bad about them occasionally.
Your social acceptance. Authentic Christianity puts you at odds with both secular culture and religious culture. You're too radical for the world and too challenging for comfortable Christians. See: Sever Your Ties With Modern Culture.
Your control over outcomes. Discipleship means trusting God's timing and methods over your strategies and plans. Churchianity offers prayers as magic spells to get what you want.
Your identity as a good person. Following Christ requires admitting you're spiritually dead without Him. Churchianity lets you see yourself as basically good with minor flaws.
Your comfortable, adult cynicism. True faith requires childlike wonder and trust—believing God's promises with the excitement of a five-year-old who knows Dad has everything handled. Churchians have learned to sound spiritual while maintaining adult skepticism about God's actual power and goodness. You can feel it in their spirit—the absence of real faith, the lack of genuine expectation that God will move. See: Childlike Faith for what authentic, joyful trust in God actually looks like.
The narrow path isn't narrow because God is exclusive—it's narrow because most people, including most church attenders, choose the wide road of comfortable compromise.
Building Authentic Discipleship Infrastructure
What worked for discipleship in previous eras may not work now. We're swimming in sinfrastructure—systems designed to make sin easier and righteousness harder. See: Recognize and Resist Sinfrastructure. Dating apps commodify relationships. Social media monetizes pride and envy. Entertainment normalizes what God calls abomination.
We need new discipleship infrastructure for this moment:
House-to-house gatherings where participation replaces performance. Where everyone can see, hear, and speak. Where roles rotate and hierarchy stays flat. Where authentic transformation happens in living rooms, not auditoriums.
"Truth Circles" that wrestle with real issues through Scripture. Where people discuss Gaza, AI, and relationships honestly rather than hiding behind Christian clichés. Where testimonies become content that shows the world what authentic faith looks like. See: Study Wise Spiritual Elders.
Accountability that goes beyond surface behaviors to heart transformation. Where spiritual fathers and mothers can honestly assess readiness for ministry rather than promoting people based on enthusiasm alone.
The early church turned the Roman Empire upside down meeting house-to-house without buildings, budgets, or professional clergy. What practices or perhaps more importantly principles can we adopt from these earliest church fathers and mothers?
Theosis: Becoming Like Christ
The goal isn't better church attendance—it's theosis. Becoming like Christ in character, heart, and action. Experiencing the divine nature rather than just talking about it.
This requires constant questioning: What's getting in the way of actually following Christ's way? What traditions have we inherited that hinder rather than help transformation? What would it look like to live an embodied version of Christianity in this technological age?
For me, this nascent theosis journey has required severing ties with sin culture and completely changing my life. I lived most of my life as an atheist, including years focused on humanitarian impact. But atheistic humanism is not the same as dying to self and living for Christ. A life dedicated to Yeshua is categorically different. As a result, I’ve carried along very few friends and lifestyle habits from past versions of my life. It’s been difficult, but necessary. See: Sever Your Ties With Modern Culture.
Reflection and Practice
Ask yourself as you evaluate your faith:
- Do I conform Christ to my lifestyle, or my lifestyle to Christ?
- Would my life look significantly different if I stopped believing in Christ?
- Am I building my identity on religious performance or spiritual transformation?
- Do I seek God's will or God's blessing on my will?
Don't be a Churchian. Be a follower of Yeshua. The difference is everything.
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." — Matthew 7:21