Not Like Other Churches: Why Reformed Churches Fear the Guilt of Association
What are these pseudo-Reformed churches distancing themselves from?
The area in which I live is largely devoid of theologically sound churches.
That may sound like an overgeneralization—but given our proximity to New York City, it shouldn’t be surprising. I don’t blame secularism or liberalism, though. Churches have always preached the gospel in pagan cities since the days of Antioch.
The real problem in regions like mine doesn’t come from external opposition—it comes from internal wear and tear.
To be fair, I’m grateful for the broader evangelical presence that has allowed many churches to be planted nearby. There’s no shortage of options—Methodist, Baptist, CMA, CRC, PCA, and more. While doctrinal purity matters immensely, there’s a kind of cultural preservation that even nominal Christianity upholds. It’s part of the reason the tide of secularism hasn’t fully overtaken our majority-blue town. That’s a mercy.
But for those churches that claim to care about doctrinal precision—those that identify as Reformed or confessional—there always seems to be something holding them back. While they’re Reformed on paper, there’s often an unspoken effort to distance themselves from the culture, history, and full implications of confessional Reformed theology.
Embracing the risk of being politically incorrect: I believe the meme-ified spirit of “I’m not like other girls” is alive and well in the modern Reformed church. There’s an insecurity—an image to manage.
“I’m not like those other churches”.
They’ll proclaim the five solas with boldness. They’ll rightly reject the prosperity gospel and affirm the doctrines of grace.
But on issues outside of soteriology, the volume immediately dips. Complementarianism becomes “soft” complementarianism. Cessationism becomes “soft” cessationism. Every controversial stance gets walked back with qualifiers.
It’s not that these churches don’t have convictions. They do. But those convictions always tend to land somewhere between two abstract extremes, as if the goal is to avoid being mistaken for the wrong type of Reformed person. Carefully moderated positions are constructed that feel less like theological conclusions and more like image control.
I am lightly speaking about the Tim Keller-ite impulse toward “third-wayism.” That framework, which seeks to transcend the binary of left and right, is particularly tempting for urban or suburban churches trying to survive cultural hostility without losing social credibility.
But at the same time, I don’t think this is just about Keller’s influence. These churches constantly feel the need to distance themselves from something.
Not just theological extremes, but from any group that might carry cultural baggage: conservatives, fundamentalists, reconstructionists. Pick your poison. The fear of guilt by association outweighs the courage to own their confession.
What’s worse is that this distancing instinct often leads to distorted interpretations of Scripture—not necessarily out of malice, but from an anxious need to differentiate.
A church wary of Peter Wagner-style hyper-charismaticism won’t move toward Richard Gaffin’s thoughtful cessationism. Instead, it lands somewhere in Wayne Grudem’s brand of soft continuationism. John Stott’s “complemegalitarianism” is another common one, and much more could also be said about liturgy and the casual treatment of the regulative principle.
Often, their approach to interpretation begins with the question: “What would the bad kind of Reformed person say?”—and then works backward to avoid sounding like that caricature.
This is not to say that there are no genuine believers of those views, but for many, their hermeneutics have become purely reactionary. Many pastors grew up in churches or institutions they now want to avoid being mistaken for. So they teach what they believe, but spend just as much time clarifying what they’re not. “We’re complementarian, but not patriarchal.” “We’re Reformed, but not cage-stage.” The result is a church culture built on allergy rather than clarity.
This instinct isn’t just psychological—it’s ideological.
In 1965, Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse introduced the idea of “repressive tolerance.” He argued that real control doesn’t always require censorship. Instead, you allow all opinions to exist, but quietly promote one while keeping the others in the background. Over time, the promoted view becomes dominant—not because others were banned, but because they’re no longer taken seriously.
The modern evangelical ecosystem—especially in urban Reformed circles—has done something similar. It marginalizes robust, historic Reformed theology not by banning it, but by making it look cringe, fringe, or extreme. Even those who believe it feel compelled to soften the edges. They don’t want to be associated with the wrong tribe. They want to be taken seriously and respectable.
But Christianity was never meant to be respectable by the world’s standards. Our calling is not to say, “We’re not like those other churches,” but to say with our lives, “We are like Christ.”