Christianity and Culture: Part 3

The Early Church and Cultural Expansion

Christianity and culture is something I talk about because I love cultural expressions of worship to God. I love standing in a service and hearing various languages praying and worshiping to the same God. It's a beautiful picture of what I believe heaven will be like.

Church in Nepal

Christianity began with Jewish converts, but quickly spread. The beginning of this spread began with Peter, who is one of the main leaders of the early church, on a roof and a strange vision. You can read the account of this in Acts 10. The basic story is that Peter went on the roof to pray while dinner was being prepared. He realized he was hungry, and had a vision of a sheet being lowered from heaven with all different kinds of animals on it. Peter hears a voice that tells him to kill and eat. Peter refuses to eat because the animals on the sheet have been declared unclean by Jewish law. The voice comes back and tells Peter that what God has called clean, let no man call it unclean. The Bible says this happens 3 times, and then Peter awakens from his vision.

So what's the point? Well Jews considered Gentiles (all non-Jews) to be unclean. God was calling Peter to go preach to people who were not Jews to share the message of Jesus. In the vision, God was teaching Peter that he should not refuse to go where God was asking him to go simply because the people were not Jewish. God's comment to Peter about not calling unclean what God has called clean was not really about the animals, that was just a visual illustration. The comment was about people. It was time for the message of Jesus to spread beyond just the first group of Jewish converts and to begin its spread outwards to different groups of people.

Sudanese Christians

 
Once Peter awakens from his vision, there are 3 men waiting to take him to the house of a Roman centurion (army general) named Cornelius. Peter goes to Cornelius' house and is able to share about Jesus and the presence of God falls on the people there. This is the second mention of the presence of God or Holy Spirit coming. (The first is Pentecost-See Acts 2).

 The next situation that happens to further the multiculturalism of the church is found in Acts 15. A group of Jewish converts to  Christianity were teaching that in order to believe in Jesus, all  people had to follow Jewish law. The news of this spread up to Peter and Paul and others who were part of the early church leadership. This teaching did not sound right to them so the leaders gathered together to decide how to deal with this situation. At this point most of the Christians came from Jewish background, but as we discussed above, Christianity was spreading to those who weren't Jewish. The leadership needed to decide how to include this new cultural group and what was required. This leadership council decided that Gentile Christians were not required to follow Jewish law, but gave them a few guidelines to follow. This was the first official opening of the church to all cultural groups.

Korean Christians

I think that Acts 15 is the precursor for how Christians today should confront Christianity and culture. There is no reason that Christianity can't be expressed in culturally relevant ways as long as we still hold true to Christian core beliefs and values. It is a beautiful expression to God when we can celebrate Him in our own languages and through our own cultural expressions.

Christianity and Culture- Part 2

Who would you say this is a picture of? Most of us would not identify this as Jesus of the Bible. The picture that most of us are used to is the one of a tall, lean, light skin, curly light brown hair. Several years ago, Popular Mechanics did a story on what was then the emerging field of forensic anthropology, and how they reconstructed what could have been the face of Jesus. The picture they believe is what Jesus could have looked like. If you want to read the article for yourself, click here.

I have obviously been thinking about culture a lot, and recently turned my sights to Jesus and what it meant for him to be part of Jewish culture. He was born to poor parents who were not supposed to be parents because they weren't culturally married yet. He came to a people who rejected him because he wasn't the Messiah they were expecting, and he constantly crossed social boundaries in terms of the people he interacted with. He spoke to a Samaritan woman which was a definite social taboo. Samaritan people were the descendants of  Jews intermarrying with non-Jews. The Jews saw themselves as better than the Samaritans, so that interaction would not have been a social norm. Jesus hung out with tax collectors who were basically dirty businessmen and not to be trusted. He helped those who were considered unclean, cared for the Roman soldiers who persecuted the Jews, and challenged the religious people to make sure they were actually loving God and not just following a set of rules. He didn't let little children be brushed aside, but made them feel important by welcoming them to him. He stood up for women when they were considered little more than property. The point is that Jesus was not afraid to reach out to people no matter what society said of them.

Jesus is the example for who Christians are to be and for how people are to be treated.Christianity itself has continued to spread across cultural lines. My next post will talk about the beginnings of the church and the cross-cultural impact. Stay tuned.

Conversation with a Stranger

Last Saturday, I went to a conference at a large area church called Science and Faith. I applauded that the church isn't running from tense topics like this and was interested in the content so I took my Saturday and spent part of it at the church. It turned out to be a really good conference with discussion on topics such as bioethics, global warming, astronomy, and creation.

My most memorable encounter at that conference however, wasn't a speaker or session, but a conversation with a stranger. During our lunch break, I had staked out a table to eat my sandwich and look over the notes. I was open to sharing my table, so kept an eye out for other people who had come to the conference alone. I saw this pretty, blonde lady who was probably in her mid-forties, and it was clear she was looking for a place to sit. I smiled and welcomed her over to my table and she gladly began to settle in the seat opposite me. We began the basic get to know you chat while we enjoyed our lunches. This lady had a particularly interesting story. She grew up in the Catholic church, but through a series of unfortunate circumstances in her church, had casually started going to other churches but hadn't really found one she was committed to. Her husband is an atheist and her three teenage to young adult children are somewhere in between. She had come to the conference to demonstrate the importance of God to her kids, however she felt herself floundering and wasn't sure how to pursue God or what her next move should be. She began really sharing with me the struggle she was having in life with her family and her faith. There was some definite hurt from what had happened at her catholic church and she felt a bit lost without a community to turn to. During her story, she started crying as all the hurt came to the surface. I was amazed that she would feel so comfortable with me to open up with me about her pain.

I felt the need to pray for her. During her sharing, I had reaffirmed her feelings, listened to her struggle, and really felt moved to pray for her. I can't remember what I prayed because I feel like God was praying through me. I remember vaguely praying something like it not mattering where she goes to church, but it mattering more her relationship with God. When I opened my eyes, it was clear that she had been crying during my prayer. This time however, her tears were different. Instead of tears from pain, these were tears from hope. The Lord has met her and brought encouragement and comfort to her. It was really fun to see that change in her face.

I tell that story to show you how wonderful our God is, and also to raise awareness that there are hurting people inside and outside our churches. Our God is so wonderful that He knew this woman's pain and met with her exactly where she was. He spoke works that needed to be heard to encourage her and touch her. I love watching God work. Also, I think it's important for Christians to remember that there are hurting, broken people inside the church too. We know there are hurting people outside the church, but we don't often pay attention to the hurting ones within. As the body of Christ, we need to pay attention to those sitting in church services with us and be willing to pray for them.

Christianity and Culture- Part 1

This is for my dear friends Bill and Uni.

"So from its first years taking root in Palestine to its astonishing dispersion into nations around the world, Christian faith has always had to contend with well-developed and, usually, stable and satisfying cultural systems" Culture Making by Andy Crouch

Sorry for the long pause between blog posts. I wrote and rewrote this post before getting some insight from my husband and getting a better idea of what I wanted to say. Plus I was at a conference this weekend that was an information dump which made me want to dump on you. I'm still learning to write well. :)

I want to start this discussion of Christianity and Culture by talking about the Bible. At Blackhawk Church in Wisconsin, they have a regularly repeated saying that goes, "the Bible was not written to us but was written for us." What that means is that the Bible's original audience was not 21st century readers, but written for a mostly Jewish readership in a specific cultural context. However, it was written for us. The Bible is not a scientific document nor a specifically historical document, but a book written to reveal who God is. I have opened the Bible countless times and gotten a new insight or learned something about God and life as a Christian. The Bible describes itself as 'living and active" in Hebrews 4. However, in order to correctly interpret and apply the word of God, we have to read it through the eyes of the original audience and not through modern eyes. This is the first cultural construct of Christianity. Our Holy Book is written to mainly a Jewish audience, with some exceptions, but it written for Christians of all times.

Professor and author John Walton describes the Biblical account of the creation as "creating a home instead of building a house." What does that mean? He's talking about the creation story not in scientific terms of determining a specific viewpoint, but in literary terms of communicating the magnitude and awesomeness of God. The author of Genesis was speaking, again, to a Jewish audience and helping them, and in turn all of us, understand His goodness, creativity, and love for them by creating a home just for us. A place suitable. This communication of love continues throughout the Bible. If you have grown up in the church, you have often heard the Bible described as God's love letter. I would agree with that in terms of the Bible being the tool God used to reveal who He is to us.

So every time you pick up the Bible, remember that you are reading God's revelation, but also remember to read it through the perspective of the original audience. This may mean that you have to do some research into what Jewish culture is and was back in the time when the book was written. It may also mean you need to read up on your history and find out what was going on in the world around the text. It can be a really interesting study. Remember you are reading words inspired by God but written through and to people. There are many really good commentaries that will help you understand the cultural context of what you are reading. Biblestudytools.com is a good place to start and then move into ivpress.com is a good place to look for published resources. 

This is only the beginning of a conversation about Christianity and Culture. If you have questions, put them below. Please remember that this is a brief survey, and not intensive. I will try to answer them the best I can. Part 2 will probably be about the world of Jesus and the first century church.