Granger Smith on Cultural Christianity; Says March 2020 is When He Became a Real Believer

When it comes to country music, it’s women, trucks, alcohol and God that are commonly referenced.

While God may get a mention in lyrics off the artist’s album, the lifestyle of the artist might not always reflect it. (The same can be said for many people on Instagram, whose bios have a scripture, but whose lives are in direct contrast.)

If you ask country singer Granger Smith what his life was like before March 1, 2020, he’d proudly admit he wasn’t living for the Lord the way he is now. Just one year prior, the Backroad Song hit-maker lost his 3-year-old son River in a tragic pool accident.

“I’ve called myself a Christian my whole life, but I didn’t become a new creature, I didn’t become a child of God until March 1, 2020. And so I went a long time claiming to be a Christian not knowing that I actually wasn’t,” he began.

“I knew God, but he didn’t know me, theologically speaking. I became a new Christian and realized that I didn’t deserve it, that I was loved unconditionally, not of my own doing, and because of the overflow of that, that kind of gratefulness lead me to want to absorb the Word, want to read the Word, want to feast on the Word, want to take the Gospel to all nations, want to truly serve as a disciple, and I never really had that mentality at all before, which is how I knew through those fruits that I wasn’t really a Christian until then.

The father-of-four went on to describe what’s known as Cultural Christianity; the idea that we act as though we are born into our faith, like it’s just part of our culture and not a choice to surrender to God daily.

“That’s American culture Christianity, where we claim it like a heritage. We claim our religion because it was passed down or because that’s what everyone else is doing. And then we read the Bible and we realize, that’s not at all what it costs to be a disciple. It costs everything.

“And every time Jesus calls someone to be a disciple, he calls them up, he calls them forward, he calls them out, he says ‘follow me.’ He says ‘stand up, do you want to be healed?'” He never says, ‘just stay right where you are. I’m gonna love you right there in the mud.’ He finds us there, but he immediately calls us up every time. “

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Granger Smith (@grangersmith)

In his new Pure Flix film, Moonrise, Granger plays widowed dad Will Brown, who lost his wife 2 years prior and is struggling to move on from his pain.

The film, directed by Vickie Bronaugh, is based off of her own father’s struggle after the loss of his wife and her mother.

Moonrise is streaming now on Pureflix.com.