Exactly what do you mean by the term "Christian subculture"? What I mean by this term is that the new mentality that many Christians of today have chosen to live out in the name of doing "God's Will", "obtaining a super secret special blessing", and to "deliver themselves from evil". We have leaders within Christianity that love to propagate via their TV / radio programming, magazines and literature, and their Internet web pages the "Official Christian Perspective" of how to live a life that God would approve of. Where the original intent was probably a noble one to start with, the end result has been a breeding of a 'controlled' Christianity that has produced 'dumbed down disciples' who will not think, analyze, and pray for themselves but instead only trusting what the leaders of the "Official Christian Perspective" have stated as being from God. The term "Official Christian Perspective" is an application to many of the personal ideologies made corporate theologies propagated by ministers such as Dobson, Robertson, Falwell, and others where real Christianity is dictated by how much and how well you subscribe to the "Republican, feminized Promise Keeper, butterfly kissing dad, married to the stay-at-home mom who drives the wood grained minivan with the soccer ball sticker on the gas tank and the 'stop abortion / vote republican" stickers on the rear bumper, calling themselves "single income" but the mom sells Avon, Tupperware, vitamins, mega metabolizers and nutritional supplements, Amway, etc. at night, homeschool the seven kids who look like the Precious Moments Figurines living in the Thomas Kinckade gingerbread houses in the meadow next to the brook where the deer pants reminiscent of Little House on The Prairie" where the environment appears to be "sanitized", "isolated", and "overprotected". To disagree with some or all of this concept in public, in forums, in the local church, etc. causes one to be labeled as "bitter", "heretic", "bigoted", "narrow-minded", etc. by the leaders and the followers who love to dictate the "Official Christian Perspective".

I do not have a problem with many of these characteristics and concepts such as Republicans, homeschooling, and extra-incomes in and of itself. If you want to homeschool your children, fine. If you want to register politically as a Republican, fine. It's your right to do so. The problem I have is when people who call themselves ministers of the Gospel have stated, implied, etc. that failure to be or follow through those characteristics deems one as a "fake" and / or "inferior" Christian whose children will be demoniac drug pushers impregnated / impregnating at seventeen while those who do are "real", "anointed", and "superior" Christians who will receive the 'super secret blessing in their heavenly crowns'. I have received numerous stories via e-mail, MSN, and ICQ where Christians were called "Satan Incarnate", "Ichabod", "heretic", "You blasphemer, you're going to Hell", or lost leadership positions because they did not participate in, disagreed with, or decided to choose to see beyond these man-made requirements instead choosing God above the personal ideologies made corporate theologies.

The Christian subculture goes well beyond the philosophies I mentioned previously. This subculture is fueled by a well-oiled and well-financed marketing machine within Christianity that uses and implies fear, castigation, shame, scorn, the popular Nation of Islam tactic of 'by any means necessary', and any other tactic that will imply via 'prophetic guilt' that by not participating in the latest Christian fad, or even speaking out against it, one will miss out on the 'last days revival' that will bring forth the 'end time harvest'. The marketing machine of the new Christian subculture has spread forth to all forms of Christian media today from television, radio, news, magazines, and Internet to propagate the philosophies that many deem as God's will but so often, the personal opinions of the few Christians that control the media outlets. That happens is that many Christians are duped out of fear into believing that these are the only sources for truth via fair and balanced journalism when the reporting is an equal bias from the opposite extreme of thought. We wonder why a church has a special singing and nobody comes while mumbling that 'they advertised on Christian radio, on Christian TV / and in the free-for-all bulletin board at the Christian bookstore, etc.'? I will let people in on a little secret here.

• The Saturday morning 'religion' section of the newspaper where churches advertise in the name of evangelism and the other churches monitor to offer a better sermon, better singing group, or better fish fry next week..., The sinners are not reading.
• The mega-Christian television network with a gaudy set that looks like Marie Antoinette's reject furniture painted with Krylon gold paint with preachers claiming that disagreeing with them is disagreeing with God therefore bringing curses to the tenth generation. The Praise and Worship network late-night on PAX TV that plays elevator music version of hymns to a nature scene. The low budget church that videotapes their services with a home grade video camera with the audio recorded by the camera's own microphone broadcasted weekly on public-access television where the church gets 30 minutes of time but runs the recording over 30 minutes hoping that God will destroy the digital timer the cable company uses to cue the next program... , The sinners are not watching.
• The Christian radio stations who preach 'right-wing' politics at the 'left end' of the FM dial that either blame the Democrats, the Gays, the Supreme Court, Madylin Murray O'Hair, Roe vs. Wade, and the liberal apostates for all our problems and 9-11-01, have preachers that yell and scream with the 'breath of uuuuuuuuuhhhh' between sentences, play music that sounds like Diet Coke commercial jingles, music that is the rewrite of secular songs done very cheezy and sung by an annoying singer of the band Apologetix, or worship music that has imitated thirty year old songs by the progressive rock band Yes... The sinners are not listening.
• The Christian bookstores which looks like it has been sanitized and disinfected nightly with Lysol needing a paper band around the store similar to the paper bands hotel maids place on the sanitized toilet seat, which sells WWJD trinkets, Testimints, Godchaser's hats, Left Behind T-Shirts, Veggie Tales stuffed animals, and Prayer of Jabez Bible covers made by 'oppressive and sinful' eight year old child labor in China for pennies but labeled with a Christian fish and sold for many more dollars, sells the music by 'Christian Britney', 'Apologetix', 'Christian Blink182', and the books with the prairie land book covers yearning for the Cleaver Family Value System, books explaining 2003 reasons why America is going to die in 2003, books detailing the secret Illuminati plot and which famous rich businessman is the Antichrist of the week, marriage books depicting a 1950's style couple driving off into the sunset in the 57 Chevy convertible, why the latest movie and technology is of the devil, ... The sinners are not consuming these products.
• The Christian personal web pages done with pink backgrounds with yellow lettering playing an embedded MIDI of 'Just As I Am' that you can not turn off while you are listening to 'The Planets' by Gustav Holst or the web page that constitutes a theme of the Victorian era. The Christian church webpages that either are obsessed with Macromedia's Flash or peddling their tapes and books while showing pictures of a large family raking the winter leaves in their Sunday clothes or their Precious Moments figurine looking daughter playing "He loves me / not" with a goldenrod flower alongside the Dutch Boy Paint looking son... The sinners are not surfing.
• The Christian churches built to seat a couple of thousand, state in their mission statements that they exist to reach the lost, provide Christian praise music sounding like U2, are 'seeker-sensitive', provide a gym, rock climbing, or a skateboard park, have 'outreach' by inwardly reaching other Christians in churches lacking a gym and skateboard park, or fighting the drug problem on fourth street only by Spiritual Warfare at the church sanctuary on John The Baptist Drive... The sinners are not attending.
• The Christian Yellow Pages where Christian businessmen advertise their services. Usually with such business names as "Washed In The Blood Cleaning Service", "Living Waters Plumbing Company", and "Mighty Wind Heating And Air Conditioning Company", these companies advertise in these directories with the Christian fish in the corner implying that because they are Christian, they do high quality work and will not rip off the customer... The sinners are not calling these businesses.
• The approved language of Christianity also known as 'Christianese' where we speak so hyper spiritual where we are no earthly good at communicating. The language that makes such terms as 'Slain in the Spirit' and "Addicted to Jesus"... The sinners are not speaking in this language.

If the 'sinners' as we Christians like to call them are not attending our churches, buying our sanitized swag of consumer goods, not listening to our radio, watching our TV, surfing our Internet webpages, not visiting our local churches, etc., then how do they derive an opinion of what 'real Christians' really are? Is it by the reports of the 'eeeville sheckkkyoulerrr news meeedeeia'? I would say that the media has had some influence on the portrayal of Christians. Is it the past moral turpitude and scandals of Bakker and Swaggart in the 1980's where we saw a a hostile takeover of Christian Disneyland, an air conditioned doghouse, and a pair of sweatpants specifically cut open in the crotch? Yes, these poor actions and poor choices called sin done by these two high profile representatives of the Gospel and the church's failure to address the problems instead blaming the problems on the 'eeeville sheckkkyoulerrr news meeedeeia' had some impact and convinced some people that Christians were no better than themselves or the rank sinners of the world. Is it the actions of the "Moral Majority" that cause some imbalanced Christians to bomb abortion clinics, chain themselves to the front doors of the peep shows refusing people to enter in, and deem people who disagreed with them (even other Christians) concerning their utopia world of Jesus the Politician as 'the enemy of the Church'? Yes, this also had an impact along with landmark legal precedents such as Roe vs. Wade and Madylin Murray O'Hair.

However, I would like to expose something fueled by the Christian subculture that has done much more damage and impact on the Christian witness than any of these high profile news stories. I will like to expose the irresponsible actions done by ourselves to others in the name of God.

Please Click here for part three of this article.