As I have been privileged to visit different people around the world my questions about culture have grown. I have seen the result of the "Ugly American" type missionaries who try to impose their culture--seemingly never seeing the evil inherent in it--on other people. Likewise I have seen the idea, that comes from the swing of the pendulum to the other extreme, that all cultures are equal--perhaps that "primitive" cultures are even more equal--and no attempt should be made to change them.
A friend of mine is involved in a pioneer work among a group of people whose way of life is a great deal different than mine. In a recent communication he said, "... it is really exciting to see these people honestly grappling with the issues from their own world as they are beginning to measure their culture against the Word of God, and to ask “Where do we need to change?”
Wow, it seems to me that my friend's observation represents a truth that is trans-cultural. Because culture is the accumulation of a people's ways of explaining and dealing with the world--things like food, language, work, standards of maturity, enforcement of mores, etc.--all cultures are marked by two Theological realities.
- Because of common grace every people group in the world has qualities that are in keeping with the fact that these God's creation. In other words the image of the Creator can be seen in aspects of the way they live.
- But because all the people of the world are children of Adam, we share in his fallenness. Sinful people do sinful things and because culture is made up of patterns of behavior practiced across time by sinful people, all cultures have elements of sin within them.
The folk my friend is working with are asking the right questions. He goes on to say, "Their questions may not be the same ones we would ask. The question is, are we asking? Are we evaluating our culture against the Word of God, or are we just letting it shape us into its mold?" (Check out Romans 12:2, on that.)
It's STTA
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