The Church of the Crabs

A matter of culture

What do you "normalize?”

The word "normalize" has become popular in recent years. It's used to argue that certain behaviors should go from questioned or challenged to widely accepted.

And when you normalize something, by definition you abnormalize something else. "Normalize self care" is a common refrain, which also means questioning or criticizing self-care would be abnormalized.

This is how culture is created.

Culture is a collection of actions, words, and values that can best be summed up with “That’s just what we do here.” And culture heavily influences who we are as people. The things we accept without thinking twice about them, and the things we don't allow or frown upon, go a long way toward driving our daily behavior.

So, what kinds of things do you accept as normal? What are you attempting to normalize?

In today's world, mediocrity, not trying, and not caring have been normalized. Correspondingly, passion, effort, and excellence are abnormalized.

I’ve written a bit about my journey to fitness and better health. For my entire adult life, I was categorically obese. Upon reaching a much healthier weight, albeit with a few pounds yet to go, I was asked multiple times, “Are you ok? Are you sick?”

Oddly, nobody ever asked me that when I was on track for a host of health issues and (likely) a shorter life span. Why not? Because being dangerously overweight has been normalized, and, therefore, caring about your health is abnormalized.

The same kind of thing happens in the church.

Every time a teenage boy is a dedicated Bible student, what's the first thing everybody tells him? "You should be a preacher!"

Why?

Because actually taking a deep interest in the Bible has been abnormalized. That's not something the average person does, that’s only reserved for a select few people. Not having an interest in the Bible is normalized, so anybody who does must obviously be categorized as an outlier.

Additionally, trying to rise above a minimalist, Sunday morning only Christianity by applying Biblical wisdom to every day life immediately leads to “What abouts” and “You can’t bind thats.” Discussing how to apply Christ’s rule to everyday life in matters like education, relationships, finances, politics, and the like is almost taboo in many places. In other words, theological minimalism is normalized.

Striving for more is abnormal. Complacency is normalized. We have crab bucket mentality, pulling down any who strive to climb to greater holiness because they are a judgment upon the rest of us.

In order to be healthy, we have to flip this script.

Imagine a church where the worldly and the sporadically attending stick out like a sore thumb to the degree that they’re wildly uncomfortable. That discomfort would drive them either to conform or to get out. While we would clearly prefer the former, occasionally they will choose the latter. In either case, the flock is strengthened as the average commitment level is raised through either their renewed commitment or their desertion.

Instead, we have chosen to cater to the mediocre, because mediocrity means better numbers. The strong are going to keep coming no matter what, so if we pander to the weak we can have both the weak and the strong. It’s more people; that’s just simple math.

But this tradeoff costs us. Complacency is normalized, and therefore consumer Christianity rules the day. Consumer Christianity is a useless Christianity that will die out (in fact, it already is).

What we must do is raise the bar for everybody. Church leaders obviously bear the most responsibility for what they normalize and abnormalize. But the choices you and I make matter, too. The level of commitment you bring is one vote toward what will be "normalized” in your church.

Normalize taking up your cross. Abnormalize lazy, consumer Christianity.

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Originally published May 15, 2023

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