Counter-cultural or Cultural Christianity?

"I wasn't ready yet to accept that environment compromises values far more than values do their number on environment."
--Sidney Poitier, speaking of his young years
For the past seventy years I have been in church on Sundays most of the time. For the past sixty years I have noticed the words and lives of church members. For the past fifty years, I have observed the regular contrast between the words and lives. For the past thirty years I have gotten into sharp focus that the surrounding culture influences the life and thought of church members far more than the Bible they pledge allegiance to, the sermons and lessons they hear, and the hymns and songs they sing.
It is painful to accept the truth of Poitier's statement. It is dangerous to refuse to accept the truth of it. It is also dangerous to live the truth of it, because Christ-ianity always moves at cross-purposes with its surrounding cultures. We live at cross-purpose with our family, workplace, community, or the larger society's conventional wisdom, values, and standards, only a great risk.
Thus, we face a dilemma: either we risk our one brief life with our social environment, or we risk our one brief life with God. If we risk society's displeasure, we will, at best be social misfits. If we risk God's displeasure, we may be sorted with the goats, with the tares, or with the bad fish when that "Great day [is] coming . . . when the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left. Are you ready for that day to come?" Thus the conclusion of our dilemma is that will be, at best, social misfits or we well may hear God say, "Depart from me, I never knew you."
God's people will either become a counter-cultural community, or they will be like the salt that has become non-salt, thus worthless to God or the world.
Carlyle Marney once observed that God's church "has been through many desert places, but it has always come back to be the church." It is time we started back. As the old Russian proverb advises: "No matter how long you have been traveling down the wrong path, turn around."