A Cultural Musing on Our Many Expressions of Christianity

When Christian Traditions Become Cultural Silos

It’s interesting to think about how we, as Christians, often live out our faith through distinct “cultures.” When you’re a Protestant, you start speaking a kind of Protestant lingo, using certain terms, and doing things the “Protestant way.” When you’re Roman Catholic, you have your own set of practices, rhythms, language and jargon. And sometimes it almost feels like we’re living in separate worlds — as though we don’t share the same faith at all.

But I’ve been thinking lately about how wholesome it can be to approach the Christian faith in a way that honors its many traditions.

For example, imagine a woman who was raised Roman Catholic. One day, she walks into a Protestant church — maybe out of curiosity or hunger to learn more about Scripture — and she stays because she’s being spiritually fed there. Yet, she never had a dramatic “conversion” moment or renounced her Catholic upbringing. She simply continued following Christ, as she always had, just within a different setting. In fact, when she walked in, she wasn’t aware of the distant nuances between both traditions. Perhaps that’s a bit naive, but she just thought of herself as a Christian trying to find a church where she fit.

Here we have a situation in which the walls between two expressions of the same faith were not initially a deciding factor. She didn’t stop being a Christian; she didn’t need to abandon or renounce everything she once knew. Maybe she still uses her rosary — not in a traditional Catholic sense, but simply as a way to focus in prayer. Maybe she still treasures aspects of her Roman background while also learning from Protestant or Reformational preaching and community.

The walls were down—at least until she stayed long enough to realize there were some very real differences. Not only in theology, but in cultural expression, in the human texture of faith. The longer she remained, the more she noticed them: a different aesthetic, different songs, different lingo.

To me, though, that kind of openness still feels like a fuller, more wholesome way of being Christian. It might be naive, but sometimes I wish we could all worship our same God under the same roof.

I once witnessed this kind of openness in the life of a close friend’s parent. She had been raised Roman Catholic but found Christ in a new and personal way outside of that tradition. Still, she never fully left Catholicism. She simply felt drawn to the Protestant way of expression and worship.

That makes her story unique: she can still pray in Roman Catholic churches when she travels, in any country around the world. For her, there is a kind of ongoing cultural exchange between both traditions — a blending, not a betrayal.

Now imagine if we had that same kind of cultural exchange between Christian traditions on a more corporate level. What if, despite our differing dogmas and teachings, we still considered one another as fellow Christians? Ironically, that kind of subconscious unity might run deeper than many of our formal ecumenical efforts. It would mean seeing each other as brothers and sisters in Christ rather than “others” to be corrected, converted, or dismissed.

Contrast this with the American religious landscape, where the opposite often happens. Many evangelical Christians don’t consider Roman Catholics to be Christians at all. There’s a fascinating use of terminology at play here: each tradition names the other differently. Roman Catholics may acknowledge evangelicals as Christians, but they’ll still often refer to them as Protestants—a label that many evangelicals don’t even use for themselves anymore.

In North America, the term Christian has largely been monopolized by the evangelical world. And yet, across the broader Christian tradition, there’s such a rich and diverse family of faith expressions — each with its own history, beauty, and theological depth. What happens if we all came together as one, as we will be in heaven? Of course, this is difficult because there are some very real theological differences, and I have noticed that humans are not very good when to officially draw the line or to prioritize unity. It is indeed the reality of exercising spiritual discernment.

I suppose what I am speaking of is something that sits at the intersection of theology, anthropology, and lived faith.

I wonder what might happen if we saw those differences not as barriers, but as languages — different dialects of the same worship, each shaped by culture but all directed toward the same God.

Because the truth is, we do develop cultures and subcultures, even within one shared faith in One Lord. It’s part of being human. Each Christian tradition naturally forms its own language, rituals, and expressions — and those aren’t inherently bad. In fact, when used rightly, they can be rich tools to glorify God. Naturally, there can be beauty in our diversity, yet it is sad when that diversity builds thicker walls between us. What saddens me is how often we let those cultural differences harden into walls. Someone moves from one tradition to another, and suddenly they feel pressure to “look,” “sound,” and “act” like everyone else in that new circle — as though they’ve switched religions instead of simply continuing to follow Christ. These new self-identifying converts often do verbalize this transitional experience in this way, because understandably it is a new identity and transformation, but it again, almost feels as though they’ve converted to an entirely different faith (even though both expresses the same Lord), simply because the cultural expressions — the visuals, and aesthetics, the sounds, the songs, the very atmosphere — are so different.

Now, I completely understand that there are genuine theological differences — sometimes even dealbreakers that require separation for the sake of truth if truth is seriously being compromised.

Do not misunderstand me: I’m not making an argument for staying in a heretical church that refuses to submit to the Word of God, just for the sake of unity. We are unified in the Lord, yes — but if a church is not actually living in submission to Him, no matter how much they might say they are, that becomes the most grievous of spiritual battles. And often, at least on the Protestant side, it ends in a split.

On the other hand, when theological error is tolerated for the sake of maintaining outward harmony, the result can be an accumulation of traditions and teachings that lack uniformity. Over time, these can drift so far from their original convictions that they hardly resemble the faith they once claimed to uphold — as we’ve often seen, for example, in the long historical development of certain traditions on the Roman side.

But I also wonder how often our divisions are more cultural than doctrinal, more about semantics and misunderstandings than about the gospel itself.

Church history is full of examples. Think of the early schisms — like between the Coptic Orthodox and the other Eastern churches — where later scholars realized that what once seemed like insurmountable theological divides were, in some cases, differences in language or emphasis. I think of the historic division over Dyophysitism and Miaphysitism, which most theologians and scholars today will admit that the difference in reality is really very minimal. Eventually, orthodox Christians saw that there was far more unity than they had recognized in the moment. Yet history made the split, and to this day, it remains fossilized within our collective and inherited cultural memory.

What if we could be simply Christian — grounded in the gospel, yet open to learning from the riches of different Christian traditions? What if it were normal to attend a church that nourishes your faith best, without feeling like you’ve betrayed your “side”? Of course, this is the naive goal always, which at times in the pursuit of this has ironically led to more divisions. Now we have certain denominations saying you can only worship or take part in the church if you profess adult or believer’s baptism. I’m not really sure this is a theological hill that Christ or His apostles ever wanted us to die on. Isn’t it better to strive for unity rather than create unnecessary divisions — especially when the majority of our core beliefs are shared?

I wish there were more cultural, spiritual, and theological exchange among our churches — more mutual respect, more prayer for unity. Because at the end of the day, we worship the same God. We are one body in Christ, even if we often live as though we aren’t. (I am aware that this alone is quite a classical Protestant belief, which is ironic).

So this is just another musing — a cultural reflection on how we express our shared faith differently. Spiritually, we are one in Christ, but culturally, we often build walls. (Again, a very Protestant take— I am aware). Maybe it’s time to start building bridges instead.

Soli Deo Gloria.