Culture Matters

I have been reading two books at once these days (one audio book as I work out and another "regular" book.  I can recommend them both. 

Mel Lawrenz's recommendation of "The Mission of the God's People" by Christopher Wright is a good one.  Wright argues that from near the beginning, God's intention has been to restore the entire creation and all people to himself.  His calling of specialness for the people of Israel to a special role in that restoration reminded me of my days as a fire fighter.  I had a special role to secure safety for those in trouble. If I did not do my role well, the Captain had every right to be angry and discipline me. If I did things outside of my firefighting responsibilities that made me unfit for the special role of securing safety, then similar discipline could be expected.  But a no time should I ever have seen my role as a firefighter as more valuable or more prepared for safety. In fact, my role was to put myself at risk to ensure the safety of others.  Wright argues that this is what God called Israel to do.  They often got all distracted by their shiny uniform, equipment and prominent place in the community parade, requiring divine correction.  So too the church needs to be about the firefighting, world-saving role to which it has been specially called. It is in at sense primarily that God acknowledges a specialness for us. 

Bruce Shelly's "Church Language in Plain Language" is a great tour of how we got to here from the first century.  It is one of those dot-connecting aha books that explains a lot of undercurrents of the modern church. But equally, it is helpful for understanding where the church has missed it's special calling. 

I met this week with International Center alumnus Navin Theyagaraj (Santhini Baskaran's brother) and his family.  We broke all Mullen rules of safety riding on the back of a motorbike flying down the highway along the eastern Indian coastline in monsoon rains. Elephants, monkeys, water buffalo, geckos, crocodiles, and bobble heads (do they understand the irony of a bobble head Ganesh statue on a car dashboard?) were prominent features. My work took me into rural India, visiting rural healthcare clinics.  I witnessed my first caesarean section (65% of Indian babies are delivered this way). But what was an aha moment for me was seeing the Hindu temples dotted over the country side. My read through the bible plan took me through biblical wanderers who had to confront local temples and gods as a part of their journeys.  It made the references all the more poignant as I made my way through the reading.  I wonder if the ancient peoples that the children of Abraham displaced were the tribal people that now inhabit Hindu India. 

Since Labor Day, I have been in a different country every week.  Though the contemporary world tells us to accept and celebrate diversity, I am beginning to believe that that from empirical evidence, culture matters. Culture drives values, hygiene, government, productivity, faithfulness, education, curiosity, joy, community, health, and so much that people call the stuff of life. I really am becoming to believe that the mission of the church has to be about changing culture if our mission is to reach all people the restorative mission of God.