Gilded Christians: Christianity As Status Symbol

Charles Spurgeon would be rolling in his grave if he could see the Baptists today....It's the Down-Grade Controversy 2.0. The Southern Baptist Convention is losing its collective mind. This post is going to be a long one so buckle up.

Although I do not know why many reputable churches, pastors and theologians are abandoning sound doctrine left and right lately, I have a theory. I recently read an article from a man named Rob Henderson a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. At first, I dismissed the article as intellectual hubris from another Ivy League hack. Then I realized he might be on to something.

His thesis boiled down to the fact that he believed there were status-seeking Americans that had what he called ‘luxury beliefs’. They were beliefs that had become fashionable status symbols. Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the status seeker on the richer of the social spectrum at very little cost. Meanwhile it takes a hefty toll on the lower class. He borrows the idea from the book The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) about the rich of the 19th century’s Victorian and Gilded Age. Henderson didn’t specifically tie the idea to Christianity only to a monopoly in general on ideas and ideologies. I will tie it to Christianity in this article. The idea that belief in a belief only if it brings social gain.

In the past, people flaunted membership in the ‘upper class’ with material trappings. But today, luxury goods are more affordable to the plebeians and working class. Social stratification has lessened. People are less likely now to receive validation for the material items on display. This is a problem for the status seekers or those above the upper-middle class and those who wish to arrogantly distinguish themselves from others. So, how do the ‘well-to-do’ broadcast their high social position? Henderson says the status seekers have detached social status from material goods and reattached it to ideas or ideologies. Specifically, metaphysical beliefs and intellectual leanings. Academia and Religiosity.

Some of those beliefs aren’t just the hipster debutante and trendy religions like Buddhism and Taoism either. I believe the gilded aristocracy invaded the mainline Protestant churches during the last generation and it is now invading the hard-line Reformed churches (especially Reformed with their focus on study and sound formal education). Because the status seeking aristocracy are often also the highest tithers or leaders, they are having a damaging and negative effect in the entire congregations they are associated with. The leaders and highest tithers have the most influence on a church’s theology and doctrine. I believe it is part of what we’re seeing in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) right now and other orthodox denominations. In a culture increasingly attaching itself to academia and other earthly status-oriented institutions we see the church increasingly use earthy measures of success and improvement. They use cultural signposts for the measure of their success. I believe that is why we’re seeing the downgrade of the SBC and mainline Christen churches even in my area. They’re using the wrong measuring sticks and abandoning sound doctrine simultaneously.

If the theology of the leadership or highest tither is social gospel oriented, culture friendly or unbiblical… so will be the theology of that church unless sound biblical teachers are either on that church’s board or have the ear of that church’s board. Even if the teaching and leadership is sound, the sheer weight of cultural influence en masse within said church can still have a negative impact. They’re not coming to church to be changed, they’re coming to change the church to what they want it to be. That is why we are seeing the shift in people like Mark Dever, Al Mohler and J.D. Graeer. I believe they’ve been inundated by the power-brokers of culture and politics for so long (Dever is in D.C.) that through attrition they have been worn down to acquiescence. They've switched from the authority of Scripture to there own authority or as the Pulpit and the Pen website states:

 “On one side are theological heavyweights who have pined for the applause and appreciation of a lost and fallen world, who are cloaked in a coat of political correctness, and who in the name of “Gospel” have made progressive talking-points into their own political but pseudo-theological agenda...

...On the other side, which values gospel clarity over fads leading to theological haziness and accolades of the political left, lie very few men of renown."

Henderson also states that people become more preoccupied with social status once physical needs are met. Yet simple observation shows status (respect and admiration from peers) is more important for well-being than economic well-being and status in many cases. We feel pressure to build and maintain social status, and fear losing it. Do we suppose Christians are immune to this effect? I doubt it. When times are good people get lazy. The necessity of sound doctrine seems to dissipate. People aren't dying for what they believe. They go soft. I believe we saw similar things occur in the Victorian Era and Gilded Age around the time of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Any of his writings about the Down-Grade Controversy or those in The Sword and the Trowel reveal this. Unfortunately, they were harbingers of much darker things that laid right around the corner for the church and the world in general. Liberal Theology, WWI, The Great Depression and even WWII when entire States abandoned God completely like Germany and the Soviet Union.

It’s reasonable to conclude that even Christians are interested in obtaining status or status money and prestige can attain. So too spiritual capital. In truth society is nothing more than a status-seeking pecking order. That pecking order gets carried into the Church (and it shouldn’t). When material goods no longer provide this, where does one turn? They turn to the intangibles. People wish to be surrounded by people just like them—their peers and competitors who are also ‘intelligent’ status-seeking equivalents that they can surpass. They persistently look for new ways to move upward and avoid moving downward in other people’s eyes. Even if it means lying about beliefs or changing beliefs to fit in. Hence the heretical wearing-away of dogmatic doctrinal statements in mainline churches and the illusion of religiosity in many status seekers who could care less about Jesus Christ, His theology and His Church. Perception of how well-off you’ve become financially via your ‘spirituality’ is more important than actually having any material or spiritual indicators of it.

So, since material good no longer is the benchmark for affluence where does one turn? Influence peddling in people’s belief systems, that’s where. Not only do the status seeking class want their kids to be millionaires-in-the-making; they also want them to be the image of moral righteousness. For status seeking social elitists, luxury beliefs offer them a new way to gain status. And downward goes theology and doctrine…

The whole point of status symbols is that they are so often difficult to obtain and costly to purchase. If you continue to change the ‘law’ or ‘doctrine’ so that only you can meet it…you’ve achieved another unattainable symbol.

That’s why heretic mystical belief is often so sought after in circles of religiosity. It is a form of modern-day Christian Gnosticism. The arcane mysterious ‘feelie’ woo-woo Christianity that is peddled by the likes of Beth Moore and Social Gospel adherents. “Listen to me because God talks directly to me!” (but not you). It is the kind of religious prestige/status that can only be gained by having an upper hand on the competition or special ‘hotline’ to the One in charge. That isn’t biblical. God favors no single man over another (James 2). The only one with status over another in Christianity is Christ. God is no respecter of men and their status. The hierarchy is the other way around folks. The last will be first and the first last. Christ emptied Himself, God exalted Him (Philippians 2)

The chief purpose of superfluous heretical ‘luxury beliefs’ is to indicate evidence of the believer’s social class and education. Their ability to peddle influence even in religious circles. Every church has them. Even James recognized this as one of the first writers of the New Testament.

James 2:1-9 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.

We see it constantly in and outside the sanctuary. The status seeker's influence peddling. They advocate for Christians to be ‘woke’. To change their theology to allow for unprotected ‘open borders’, to ‘deliver in love’ (not necessarily truth), push for dubious norms, or uses the term “white privilege” …because it’s what Jesus would do. Admit it, they are engaging in a status display. They are literally 'virtue signalling'. They are trying to tell you, “I am morally and ethically better than you.” They’re attempting to assert superiority over you. In so doing they are causing division and its bad theology. Its not Scriptural at all. Advocating for being ‘woke’ and ‘delivering in love’ is just another way of advertising your membership in the ‘elite’ club. You can then use your status and social connections to get even farther ahead. Meanwhile cutting the divisions in the church even deeper.

Over time, luxury beliefs are embraced down the social ladder—at which point, the upper class abandons its old luxury beliefs and embraces new ones and tithe accordingly. Which explains why the beliefs of the upper class are constantly changing and why churches that constantly try to adapt to them fail. It is a perishable model based on the world.

In the end any church that falls into this becomes obsolete. These luxury beliefs are similar to luxury goods. Attaching status to luxury belief and financial standing means the system is self-limiting to man-made worth. A capricious measurement.  Therefore, there are self-limiting restrictions put on that church right from the beginning. The framework of their own destruction is built right into the edifice. The status seeker flaunts their new belief. It then becomes fashionable among her peers, so they abandon it otherwise they’re no longer unique. Then a new stylish belief arises, while the old belief trickles down the social hierarchy and wreaks havoc. Inevitably drifting into obscurity. So goes the doctrine and theology of the churches. Chasing vanity into irrelevance.

As Shindler concluded in his first paper on "The Down Grade" in Spurgeon’s The Sword and the Trowel….

"…. it is all too plainly apparent men are willing to forego the old for the sake of the new. But commonly it is found in theology that that which is true is not new, and that which is new is not true”