Jason Stellman explains why he likes his Christianity salty:

“It seems to me that the evangelical church gets things precisely backwards at this point. Rather than being distinct from the culture on Sunday and part of the culture the rest of the week, they seek to be as distinct from the world as they can during the week, but as familar and non-threatening to the world as possible on Sunday. Hence the demand for Christian T-shirts and bumper stickers in order to stand out from the culture when they should be participating it it, and hence the market-driven desire to supply tailor-made worship experiences for Christian consumers (be they traditional, contemporary, or emergent) when they should be expressing their otherworldliness. Michael Horton is spot-on when he describes this approach as “ecclesial apartheid.”’

via De Regnis Duobus: Cult, Culture, and the Christian’s Dual Citizenship: I Like My Ecclesiology Salty and Subversive.

He is spot-on in criticizing the narcissism of market-driven worship and shallow attempts to solve our identity crisis using externals. However, I think he is wrong in identifying the solution. Christians are to engage in the cultural discourse, learning to speak its language and live relationally with their neighbors. But Christ also clearly taught a way of life that is remarkably different than our culture: Self-denial, and loving our neighbor. It was a radical concept in 1st century Judea, and it still is today.