What if your church had no history? What if today were its first day? Just think how eager you'd be to tell the world that God's truth makes people free. Free to be themselves as God created them. Free from sin and injury and hatred and lack. Certainly, there wouldn't have been time to create or preserve religious culture. No ritual or ingrained jargon. All effort would go toward spreading the good news of original Christianity Your ardor wouldn't be held back by past ways of doing things, and your message would probably bubble over into every conversation you had with anyone.
Culture is a significant element of organized religion. Religious culture can be inspiring and beautiful. Yet some have found certain aspects of it smothering. By culture I mean those things that include or represent a particular people's customs, characteristics, and behavior. Culture can include the appearance of the church building, the architecture and windows, the rituals, the particular language—the trappings—of a religious group and its members.
In some cases, culture can begin to supersede religion itself. Tradition and ritual, instead of inspiration, may eventually define a denomination to the public and even to the members themselves. Judgments about the aspects of religious culture that nourish inspiration versus those aspects that detract from it depend on the individual's viewpoint. Yet it seems clear that issues such as deciding on a color for the front door or where the Sunday School students sit shouldn't dominate thought, eclipsing the joy of inspiration and discovery that heals and regenerates.
