Is the Gospel Compatible with American Culture?

Do you assume that your Christian faith fits naturally within American life? We speak easily of “values,” “freedom,” “equality,” and “success,” yet rarely pause to ask a deeper question:

Does the Gospel truly align with the way American culture forms us as human beings?

Do you tend to see this only as a political or social issue? Does it not also concern what kind of persons we are becoming?

American culture largely shapes us around autonomy, comfort, productivity, technology, rationalism, consumption, and visible success.
The Gospel shapes us around love, humility, meekness, repentance, communion, self-offering, and eternal life.

These are not minor differences. They represent two fundamentally different visions of life.

American Cultural Values

Observers and scholars have long noted several defining traits of American society:

• Individualism and personal autonomy: my rights, my privacy, my beliefs, my identity, my choices—the self becomes the final authority.
• Freedom defined as doing whatever one desires: no restraint, no obligation, no authority; happiness and comfort are treated as rights rather than goals requiring discipline.
• Consumerism fueled by material accumulation: my wants, my lifestyle, my convenience, my image—we learn to express identity through what we buy and consume.
• Hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure, entertainment, and comfort, with suffering viewed as meaningless and something to be eliminated at all costs.
• Equality that flattens meaningful distinctions: no higher wisdom, no spiritual authority, no binding tradition—every opinion carries equal weight regardless of experience or holiness.
• Technological progress: faster, smarter, easier—efficiency replaces wisdom, convenience replaces patience, and control replaces humility.
• Success measured by productivity, status, and achievement: worth is determined by output, income, and recognition.
• Secularism: the quiet removal of God from public life and daily consciousness, reducing spirituality to a private preference rather than the foundation of reality.

These are not always explicitly chosen values. They shape our daily habits, expectations, and desires. They quietly teach us what to value, how to measure success, and what it means to be free. Most of us did not consciously choose them—we absorbed them simply by living in this culture.

 And yet, we still call ourselves Christians. 

So we must ask honestly: How does this way of life compare with the way of life revealed in the Gospel?

The Gospel Vision

The Gospel offers something radically different.

It does not aim to produce independent individuals pursuing private happiness.
It seeks to form persons in communion with God.

Where culture says, define yourself,
Christ says, deny yourself.

Where culture says, follow your desires,
Christ says, take up your cross.

Where culture says, succeed,
Christ says, become humble.

Scripture is clear:

• Humility: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition… Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:3–5)
• Meekness: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
• Purity of Heart: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)
• Peacemaking: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
• Love of God and Neighbor: “You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39)
• Self-Denial: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily.” (Luke 9:23)
• Communion with God: “Abide in Me… without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4–5)
• Repentance and Transformation: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15); “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
• Eternal Life as the Goal: “This is eternal life, that they may know You.” (John 17:3); “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

The Gospel consistently redirects desire away from autonomy, pleasure, and worldly success toward humility, repentance, communion, and eternal life.

I see two central beliefs driving modern American life: an exaggerated idea of equality that rejects authority, and a notion of freedom defined as doing whatever one wishes. Together they undermine obedience, truth, and spiritual authority. Truth becomes subjective, the self becomes the final authority. The result is extreme individualism, leaving little room for the Church—or even for God.

The Gospel presents a radically different vision. It proclaims universal Truth grounded in the reality that we are creatures lovingly created by God. Made in His image, we are called to love as He loves. This earthly life is temporary—a journey toward perfection in divine love. God sent His Son to overcome death and transform us, offering eternal life through His Kingdom. He gives us a way of life through Christ’s example, the sacraments of the Church, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit planted within us.

Without universal Truth, society has no stable foundation. We become subject either to political power or personal opinion. So we must ask ourselves: if we confess the Gospel, can we continue living by these cultural values? Are we guided by patriotism, comfort, pleasure, and success—or by Christ?

Two Definitions of Freedom

American culture defines freedom as limitless choice and pursues happiness through consumption and technology. But the Gospel defines freedom differently—as liberation from sin and the passions, a freedom that enables us to love God, follow His commandments, become like Christ, and be prepared to enter eternal life.

Modern society removes restraints in the name of self-expression, rejecting hierarchy and even the Church’s apostolic order. Christ, however, teaches restraint of the passions so that we may become truly free.

Consumer culture says, You are what you own.
Christ says, Life does not consist in possessions (Luke 12:15).

Technological progress promises mastery over the world and feeds utopian dreams of eliminating suffering and even death—now increasingly invested in AI.

The Gospel offers something different: the healing of the heart. When we are freed from passions, we encounter divine joy and glimpse a greater life beyond this world—eternal life without sickness or death.

The world measures worth by productivity. The Gospel teaches stillness, prayer, and inner transformation. Culture emphasizes doing; Christianity emphasizes being. American progress is external, while Christian progress is inward.

From Consumers to Sons and Daughters of God

Orthodox Christianity understands salvation not as self-improvement, personal success, or the preservation of individual freedom, but as participation in divine life. It stands completely apart from consumer culture’s pursuit of accumulation, comfort, and pleasure. 

As Alexander Schmemann writes in For the Life of the World, secular society reduces life to consumption, while the Church reveals humanity’s true vocation: to receive creation as gift and offer it back to God in thanksgiving.

American culture trains us to become independent consumers—cogs in an invisible system where work becomes burdensome and meaning feels distant. Even great wealth rarely brings peace. The Gospel calls us instead to become humble sons and daughters of God, participants in His grace.

Culture asks, What can you achieve?
The Gospel asks, Who are you becoming?

Conclusion

The question is no longer whether Christianity can survive in America.
The real question is whether we can survive spiritually while uncritically absorbing American values.

We cannot serve both the Gospel and autonomy.
We cannot pursue Christ while clinging to comfort and self-definition.
We cannot confess eternal life while organizing our lives around temporary worldly success.

Christ does not come to improve our lifestyle.
He comes to crucify the old self—and to raise up a new one.

The Gospel is incompatible with any culture that places the self at the center.
It calls every culture—including our own—to repentance.

So each of us must decide:

Will we live as consumers who occasionally pray—
Or disciples who are being transformed?

Will we follow the American dream—
Or will we follow Christ?

Neutrality is not an option.

Christ says:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me… For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

Christ does not remove the yoke; He gives us His. And His yoke is light because it is carried in communion with Him