I love the south; it is the only home I have ever known. I may often poke fun at its less appealing attributes, but I still love my town and state and the values that most Southerners hold dear.
That being said, I fear that Southern culture and ideals have twisted Christianity into something it is not. The reality of sin and the beautiful truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ have been worn down to mere ethical traditions.
In Hank Williams Jr.'s 1981 song "Country Boys can Survive," there's a line that goes like this - "we say grace, and we say ma'am, and if you ain't into that, we don't give a damn." That really epitomizes my entire point here and I could just stop talking, but as I have a lot more thoughts to vent, I won't. If you read my recent post "I don't like camouflage," you have an idea of my background - of my struggle to conform to the definition of manhood as held by my generation of Southerners. In that time of personal conflict, I found that a huge part of what my peers, and even most older people, consider "Biblical values" and "God-given rights" were merely slightly varied applications of Southern tradition. Many have even gone so far as to equate a "country" way of living with a Christian lifestyle, as made evident in the "I love Jesus and sweet tea" and "Southern by the Grace of God" tee-shirts (most of you reading this probably own one of those. Yes, I am saying you should burn it).
In my preteen and early teenage years, in times of loneliness and desperation, I reached out to multiple churches and received no response. The Biblical knowledge of my peers did not go any further than John 3:16 and the Romans Road, and Christianity was nothing more than a mental belief in an omnipotent creator and a system of ethics based on being polite, telling people you'll pray for them, and blessing people's hearts. Many of them had parents who were prominent in their respective churches, and they too were oblivious to the true messages of Scripture. Church was regarded merely as a weekly salvation bill. The older people in the church had absolutely no problem allowing their sons and daughters to go mudding with a bunch of other half-naked teenagers or listen to country music that objectified women or spoke of getting drunk and waking up in Mexico. Heaven forbid, however, they listened to a song by Foo Fighters or Moses Mayfield that elaborated on true human emotion. In many churches in the South, as long as a boy wears jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt, he can do pretty much anything he wants and face no discipline. He's just a good ol' boy, never doing no harm. He could come home at 16 with the smell of alcohol on his breath, have a carton of cigarettes hid under his bed, or be regularly having sex with five different girls, and the reaction from his parents would pale in comparison to the reaction he would get if he came home with a mohawk, tattoo, or holes in his ears.
We have all seen it. Our priorities are severely distorted, guys. This message is mainly geared towards parents: your child is not perfect. I don't care if he says sir or ma'am, how clean she keeps her room, how polite she is in her language, or how elegantly she dresses. God is not a middle class farmer with a John Deere license plate and a hankering for sweet tea. He honestly has absolutely no regard whatsoever for how downright proper you are or how much you love the American flag.
He wants righteousness. Righteousness we can not possibly achieve. Thus, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
All of that being said... it was the kids with crazy hair cuts and pierced ears that showed me the love of Christ in those times of hardship; that instilled in me a knowledge of Scripture and gave me loving discipline where necessary.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
