Modern Christianity seems to spend a lot of time and effort trying to culturally adapt, and I think in many ways, that causes it to trip into pitfalls that have it become of the world, not just in it.
One of the bigger problems it has lately, is that if a Christian establishment or production gets big enough, it will start to make concessions here and there in the name of attracting a wider crowd. Chick-fil-A did it during BLM, The Chosen had that LGBT flag on its production, and now, professed Christians Chip and Joanna Gaines seem to have buckled as well.
According to The Federalist, the Christian couple has a new show, and prominently featured is a gay couple with adopted children:
Only a few years later, they moved from quiet complicity to outright endorsement with their latest show: Back to the Frontier. The show’s premise is simple enough: take modern-day city slickers out into the wilderness and see if they could make it as 19th-century pioneers. The trouble comes with the show’s choice of casting. The Gaineses, who are professing Christians and attend a church that preaches the biblical definition of marriage, chose to cast a gay couple who have two sons through surrogacy.
When Christians spoke out, Chip Gaines doubled down, pointing out that listening and learning are too much for American Christian culture:
“Talk, ask qustns, listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never It’s a sad sunday when ‘non believers’ have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian,” he posted on X.
Talk, ask qustns, listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never
— Chip Gaines (@chipgaines) July 13, 2025
It’s a sad sunday when “non believers” have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian💔
Well... that's definitely a response.
The Gaines family has caved to modernity, not just with the show, but through the blanket accusation that Christian culture is too judgy to ever understand, too loud to ever learn... what? What is it we're supposed to learn about here?
If you read the comments to Gaines' post, you'll see a lot of Christians not responding with vitriol and rage, but even-handed reinforcement that this is not the way a Christian should be going about their business. It's not just assisting in the normalization of homosexuality, it's endorsing adopting children into that environment.
To be clear, Christians don't hate LGBT people as we're not called to do that, and we may even have friends and family in those communities that we love dearly, but we do recognize sin, and we don't take part in it. We don't elevate it, either. The command from Christ was to "go and sin no more," not "elevate the sinner and make his sin seem like it's okay."
This isn't a question up for debate. This was our command from Christ, and the Gaineses are absolutely defying that command.
But, again, this is the trap Christianity falls into when it tries to keep up in the modern world. It believes that what we think is acceptable in modern times should be displayed and taken part in to a degree. Too many Christians believe that this will help make Christianity more approachable, or worse, it will tell itself that welcoming these things in will give it more success by which it can then elevate Christ more. Then there's another tier which involves people professing to be Christian, then seeming to forget all about it when the cameras come on.
This is the wrong approach, but I can see why Christians fall into this trap. It's because we fundamentally don't understand how to approach the modern world without dressing like it.
Long-time readers will know that I'm highly critical of Christian media, and that one of my bigger problems with it is that it too often tries to produce things that either lack realism and lean too far into idealism, or they abandon Christian principles in order to look more accommodating and welcoming.
Read: Christian Film is Garbage and We Have to Take a Different Approach
What Christians should be doing isn't necessarily to try to meet people where they are, but start being brutally honest about the world around it. I don't just mean speaking the truth, even when it's wildly unpopular to do so, either. I mean that, even in our storytelling, we show the world as it is, not what we wish it could be. We depict people as they are, not the done-up version that gets nods of approval from the front row of the church.
Let's look at it this way.
David is a story that, if told accurately and without censorship, would be a story of blood, lust, betrayal, war, and madness that would honestly look like a Game of Thrones spin-off more than PureFlix film. Telling his story in its entirety would be gritty and oftentimes unpleasant to watch, but still incredibly gripping.
And to be honest, that's a lot of the Bible. The story of the flood isn't the happy one you often saw depicted in your children's illustrated Bible books, where Noah and his family are smiling as the animals surround them. It was horrifying, tragic, and the ordeal sent Noah into a tailspin that saw him become an isolated substance abuser. This was a moment that unmade the world in a way that defied believability.
Lot tried to harbor two angels in Sodom, and a gang of men showed up demanding they be able to rape the strangers. In an effort to save everyone, Lot actually offered up both of his daughters instead. The story ends with God nuking the city from orbit — so to speak — and the destruction was so severe that Abraham could see the smoke from where he was, an estimated 30 to 40 miles away.
Oh, and Lot's wife turned to salt.
What part of that screams pleasant?
The point is, the Bible is very real about its storytelling because it doesn't shrug off the real world. It doesn't skip the details to stop you from fainting or clutching your pearls. It's raw and unapologetic, and even while it's telling it like it is, it's still not stopping to say "hey, it's cool if you sin though."
The Bible maintains relatability without sacrificing realism.
The Bible is raw and terrifying to the point of being cosmic horror, but what makes it so spectacular is that in the midst of all that horror is God and His love. Christ's sacrifice shines brighter than the fear that this hostile universe instills in us, and that's the point. We can show the world for what it is, in all its terrifying, sinful, and overwhelming darkness, and it only makes the impact of God being bigger than all of it hit harder.
We neuter ourselves creatively and cave to the here and now, then wonder why people aren't getting the big picture.
