In the South the ‘go along to get along’ culture present in each of the evangelical ‘isms’ or denominations has produced people who cannot hear the scripture outside of their groups regulated strictures for thought.

When freedom of thought is lost, speech that is contrary to the unspoken practices of ‘go along to get along’ is oppressed and rejected. Cultural Christianity is comfortable with, and compromised by, the contradictions present in their practice of faith. Intelligent critique, constructive thought, and insightful reading of biblical texts are rejected and ignored.

So, a person who exercises freedom of thought and articulates valid critiques on the religious beliefs of cultural Christianity is quickly assigned the status of an outsider, a troublemaker, and is identified verbally as ‘one of those’.

The ‘go along to get along’ culture of the South causes the living faith of Christianity and its call to enter the Kingdom of God to be corrupted with compromise, ignorance, and reduces the scripture to pedantic answers void of insight and erudite interpretive practices.

The deification of human institutions is inevitable in the bed of cultural Christianity. Idolatry rises in those perennial realities that plague humanity and the church. To align God, the Lord Jesus Christ and Christian Faith with the wealth of empire, military might, or the pride of self-sufficiency is Idolatrous.

Hosea wrote out this prayer for the people of his time.

14: 2 Take words with you and return to the LORD; say to him,

“Take away all guilt; accept that which is good, and we will offer the fruit of our lips.

14:3 Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; we will say no more, ‘Our God,’

to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.” -

Briefly verse 3 is identifying

The wealth and power of Empire (Assyria) shall not save us. (materialism)

Horses are symbols of war (militarism)

We will say no more ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands (self-sufficiency exhibited in excess spent on Idolatrous religion)

In the text, Israel is orphaned by God because of their idolatry. Israel's status as Idolaters began when they ceased to be merciful to society's weakest members, the orphans.

Today, God’s mercy hovers over the church awaiting her repentance. She will have to remember the Orphan