When Truth Gets Twisted: How Secular Culture Is Rewriting Christianity from Within
“My dear Wormwood, I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian . . . There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy’s camp and are now with us.”
—The Screwtape Letters, Letter 2
Why Unshakable Faith Matters Today
A few years ago, I was trying to enjoy a long-awaited vacation, but I couldn’t. Names kept flooding my mind: Friends from high school. College classmates. Ministry peers. People who once followed Jesus passionately but had since drifted away.
Eventually, I gave up trying to block it out. I grabbed a notebook and started writing down names, one after another and page after page. As the list grew, so did the ache inside me. I put down my pen and wept.
So. Many. Names.
And this list was just my peers, people I had grown up with and served alongside. It didn’t include those I’ve pastored over the last twenty years. That list would be much longer.
For decades I’ve watched too many of God’s people walk away. Again and again, I find myself weeping and praying that they would turn back to the God who is waiting to receive them with open arms.
But before I go any further, I need to make a confession: I’ve been part of the problem.
Unshakable Faith Requires Intentional Discipleship
The Discipleship Crisis
I used to think my job as a pastor was simple. Get people in the door. Win them to Christ. Connect them to a small group. Lovingly serve our city. I thought if my church did these things with excellence, we would influence our city for Christ.
But here’s what I learned: It doesn’t matter how many people you get through the front door if you aren’t concerned about how many are walking out the back.
Many Christians are compromising their faith or leaving it altogether—not because they’ve rejected Jesus outright, but because they’re being shaped more by secular culture than by the historic Christian faith. In other words, they are becoming secularized “Christians”—still professing Christ, but being shaped more by culture than Scripture.
What I’ve come to realize is this: If the church doesn’t disciple people, the world gladly will.
And right now, the world is doing a better job.
War is being waged. It’s not a physical war fought with weapons. It’s not a culture war fought with clickbait or sound bites. It’s a spiritual war—fought over what is true and false regarding the one true and living God.
And the battlefield? It’s the hearts and minds of people in my church and city, and in yours.
Casualties are stacking up. And I don’t want you—or the people you love—to become one of them.
How Secular Culture Challenges Unshakable Faith
For much of my ministry, I thought the main challenge was making the gospel relevant.
But here’s where I went wrong: Relevance isn’t the same as faithfulness.
In my efforts to make the gospel feel accessible and inoffensive, I unintentionally softened its edges. Under my influence, my church highlighted the parts of faith that aligned with cultural values and downplayed the parts that required deep repentance or countercultural obedience.
Over time, that compromise creates a vacuum. We begin to neglect deep discipleship. We stop asking hard questions. And as a result, many look elsewhere for answers—not from mature spiritual mentors, but from Instagram therapists, TikTok influencers, or cynical deconstruction threads on Reddit.
Unshakable Faith Stands Against Expressive Individualism
Expressive Individualism
The enemy’s lies don’t appear in a vacuum. They are delivered through culture—and one of the primary delivery systems today is what sociologists call “expressive individualism.”
It’s the belief that authority lies within your own experience and interpretation of the truth. You get to decide for yourself what is best and morally good.
At its core expressive individualism is the conviction that individual freedom is the highest good. Anything that restricts that freedom—tradition, religion, even biology—is seen as oppressive and must be dismantled.
The problem is, when autonomy becomes your highest good, following Jesus becomes impossible—because He said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
Autonomy was the original sin in Genesis 3. The serpent’s question—“Did God really say . . . ?”—invited Adam and Eve to become their own judges of truth.
Keep poking holes in the gospel, and eventually you’ll end up with a Bible full of them.
I’ve been around the block long enough to see many people land in a place where they no longer believe the following:
- Christ is the only way to salvation.
- The Holy Spirit provides supernatural gifts.
- The Bible is the written Word of God.
- Heaven and hell are real places.
- We are sinful and need God.
- Christ’s death on the cross accomplished something literal, not just metaphorical.
The enemy is deceiving millions—not through bold denials, but through a slow erosion of truth, one belief at a time.
Building Unshakable Faith Through Biblical Truth
Only Unshakable Things Remain
All throughout history, God has used moments like this to refine His people. To distinguish between those who simply wear the label “Christian” and those who live it—daily, courageously, sacrificially.
In a strange way, the growing hostility to biblical faith is actually helping. It’s burning away cultural Christianity. It’s revealing who’s in and who’s out. Those who are drifting, deconstructing, or disengaging from faith have a short window to make up their mind who they will serve. They will not be able to stand much longer in this sea of secularism.
Jesus warned that this deception would happen. In Matthew 7, He spoke about false prophets. He wasn’t describing outsiders. He was talking about insiders—people who speak the language of faith but twist the truth to fit their desires. Those who sound spiritual but live with no real surrender. People who preach tolerance but never call for repentance. Who know how to speak of love but quietly mock the authority of Scripture.
That’s the kind of drift we’re seeing today. And not just out in the world, but inside the church.
These voices don’t always sound heretical. That’s what makes them dangerous. They sound wise. Nuanced. Compassionate. But over time, they lead people away from the narrow path.
And here’s the sobering part: It’s often not intentional. The slide into false teaching rarely begins with rebellion. It begins with reluctance. A reluctance to say what’s true because we don’t want to offend. A reluctance to believe that God’s Word is still trustworthy. A reluctance to draw a line when culture demands we blur it.
And slowly but surely, we trade clarity for confusion.
Unshakable Faith Leads to Revival and Renewal
But I have good news: Revival has always come when the church regains her clarity. When we return to what is true, what is right, what is holy—not in anger or arrogance, but in humility and surrender. We don’t need louder voices. We need deeper roots.
Revival doesn’t begin somewhere out there. It begins here. Now. In hearts willing to say yes. It may begin unseen. It may begin small. But it never stays that way. Because when the Spirit breathes on surrendered lives, what seems small becomes unshakable—rooted, resilient, and impossible to ignore.
The author of Hebrews warns that “only unshakable things will remain.” But then challenges us: “Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe” (12:27–28, NLT).
This is your moment—not to drift, but to stand firm. Not to shrink back, but to rise up. Not to be discipled by the culture, but to confront it with the truth of the gospel.
The only questions left are: Are you ready? Will you say yes?
Adapted excerpt from Unshakable Faith by Aaron Graham. Copyright © 2026 by Aaron Graham. Published by Multnomah, an imprint of Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group, LLC. Used by permission.
About the Author
Aaron Graham is the founding and lead pastor of The District Church, a vibrant, multiethnic community in the heart of Washington, DC. He is the author of Unshakable Faith: How to Stand Firm in a Culture of Lies, and he holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a doctorate in missiology from Fuller Seminary.
