(Modesty and Christianity, part 3) A comment came on my previous post- "The United States of America: a melting pot of cultures. I'm not disagreeing with you but when you have a variety of culture in one place what is a human to do. Especially with pushie-people in their own convictions pushing convictions on everyone else because of personal convictions. do you see what I'm getting at?"
An excellent point, and one I have been thinking about a long time. Here is where I think the problems lie, and why I have been posting so much about it: 1) A lot of problems among Christians comes down to a failure to understand the role of culture when living out the gospel. It has been that way since the beginning, actually. The book of Acts tells us that there was trouble between the Grecian Jews and the Hebraic Jews (Acts 6:1). The big blow-up came between people who thought that the Jewish cultural practice of circumcision was valid for all people and not just "cultural," versus the apostle Paul and others who would allow cultural variation without making anything "necessary for salvation" except believing in Jesus (Acts 15). Because of the way Angela and I were almost missionaries, we had been exposed to these ideas about the role of culture, and I had been mulling over posting about it for a year, but never did. Angela's post on modesty motivated me to start, but since I'm still working through it myself, I probably started in the middle instead of providing an orderly explanation. I believe there is a way that God can show us in the Bible what is eternal and what was only for a season, but I am unhappy with the ideas I've seen from others, and am still asking God for more light on the subject. (Which is why I post on it- because it's what I'm wrestling with. The book I have shown as currently reading was supposed to be the big one on the subject, and it has been a great book on Christianity and culture- but so far has wimped out right at the point of showing how we can tell the difference.) 2) Melting pot- I think the reason why culture is such a problem today (think "worship wars," fights over traditional vs contemporary, etc.) is because we are routinely faced with cultural change quicker than at any previous time, due to globalization and increasing mobility. Two hundred years ago, there would not have been much difference between the preferred musical styles of a kid and their grandparent. Now, a kid listens to Metallica while the grandparent still likes Lawrence Welk. You can't go to the nearest big city without being exposed to a bewildering array of people from different cultures. I'm not saying that it didn't happen back then. (The Bible shows that it did.) But I think the pace has quickened, due to the internet, mass media, and such. 3) I think there are biblical answers to the problem, though I haven't found them all yet. A few would be- A) Mutual Submission (Eph 5:21)- I can worship to a hymn sometimes and you can worship to a chorus sometimes, and we can both worship with a liturgy sometimes. But that would mean that at times I would need to "submit," to put your wants ahead of mine. Oh no, can't do that....  Submission aint just for the gals. B) Agreeing to Disagree on Nonessentials ("disputable matters" Romans 14:1)- I won't say that you're deceived by Satan because you speak in tongues, if you don't say that I'm not saved or filled with the Spirit because I don't speak in tongues. (The old battle over tongues was not just a battle over the right way to interpret the Bible; it involved clashes over a great many cultural differences that usually remained under the surface.) Also, I won't call you worldly if your church uses a guitar in worship, if you don't call me a Pharisee or spiritually dead for not having a guitar. How can we "accept one another as Christ accepted us "(Romans 15:7) when each of us is convinced the other guy is possessed, due to doing things differently? C) Bond to Each Other Through Christ and Not Human Things (Eph 4:3-6)- I have seen churches, Bible studies, and home groups all have trouble getting along because people look to make friends and bond through the purely human concept of shared likes and dislikes. Paul tells us that our unity is not over whether or not we all like a certain worship style, or we all like a pet doctrine, or we all root for the Buckeyes, or we all share the same politics. Our unity is built up by the Holy Spirit because we all have the same Lord, same faith in Christ, same God, and are part of the same body (whether we are similar to the other members or not!). D) Focus On Christ and What He Is Doing (John 5:19, 1 Cor 2:2)- What Vineyard calls focusing on "the main and the plain." This goes along with the previous point, but you can't really unite with other Christians over what we all share in common if you spend all your time talking about your latest hobby- whether it be Republican politics or Democratic politics or end-time scenarios or straightening out everybody who doesn't dot their I or cross their T the same way you do theologically. I'm not saying that we should ignore those things. (Shoot, I'd have nothing interesting to blog about!) But I can go for weeks without getting into a discussion over where someone else is wrong... I mean, where someone else disagrees with me over what the Bible says. Well, at least for days, if not weeks. | 
