Culture Clash

There’s line in the movie, “The Preacher’s Wife” where Whitney Houston (in the title role) as Julia Biggs is complaining to her mother (Jenifer Lewis as Margueritte Coleman) that her husband (Courtney B. Vance as Rev. Henry Biggs) is doing things and making commitments without discussing them with her; insisting that her father would have never done that. The preacher’s mother-in-law says that “…men ain’t changed since Adam; and he gave up one of his own ribs, just so he could have somebody to keep things from.” That’s a great line. I think it’s important to remember that sin has been around almost as long as people have been. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit; Cain killed Abel… People really haven’t changed.
Culture has changed. Some years ago, I had a man ask me if I thought that God created all the people in the Middle East just so He could destroy them. No, of course not. He went on to tell me that by maintaining that Jesus Christ was the only way to God, that was basically what I was saying. The logic behind that escapes me. I asked him to explain, and he said, “It’s a different culture.” Sorry, the logic isn’t any clearer. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a country where Christianity is accepted, generally even encouraged, but I don’t see it. Christianity wasn’t accepted or encouraged in Israel when Jesus showed up there, and yet He managed to reach a lot of people, who in turn, reached many more people. I tried to explain to this man that culture is not a barrier to God, because God transcends culture, but I’m afraid my logic wasn’t any clearer to him than his was to me. In the years since, it has come to my attention that in many Middle Eastern countries, they actually have laws that forbid evangelizing. I have mentioned before that one should obey the ordinances of man, unless they clearly go against the ordinances of God. This is one instance where the ordinances of man are clearly in contradiction. I will admit, it would take a brave soul to witness to people, knowing that he could be imprisoned or put to death for his efforts, yet there are people that do exactly that.
My point is that God deals with people on an individual basis, not through a culture, in fact, many times, in spite of their culture. God called Abraham out of his home city, and told him to travel away, to someplace that Abraham had never been before. Why did He do that, unless it was to separate Abraham from that culture? Maybe I’m missing something, but I think that was at least part of the reason. God was revelating to Abraham about Himself, and He wanted Abraham to be away from anyone or anything that might interfere with that; God didn’t want Abraham to be distracted.
Unfortunately, sometimes we have to deal with culture, anyway. Sometimes, even here in the United States, where we like to believe that our nation was founded on Christian precepts, where we have freedom of religion, our culture tends to be a mishmash of whatever anybody finds acceptable. Many entertainers deliberately ‘push the envelope’ because sometimes it is easier to gain an audience with shock value than with substance. Granted, a lot of them quickly find that they can’t maintain the shock value, and have to fall back to providing substance in order to keep their audience, but, in the meantime, they have raised the bar for the next entertainer who tries to use shock value… Unfortunately, our culture has reached the point where it is difficult to attract an audience simply by providing substance. We, as Christians, have to be able to transcend culture, just as our God transcends culture, while at the same time, reaching out to those who are involved in the culture. We must be in the world, but not of it.

Can a Leopard Change Its Spots?

A couple of things came together in my mind recently: A comment that Arthur Blank (owner of the Atlanta Falcons), and a song introduction.

Arthur Blank said, of Michael Vick's comment that he had turned his life over to God, "God gives us the ability to make choices and what we do with those choices is our responsibility, not God’s responsibility.” Can Michael Vick change? The expression of course, is that leopards can't change their spots, but people are not leopards, and behaviors, even deeply ingrown ones, are not things that we necessarily carry from birth to the grave. Some behaviors are difficult to change; there are many twelve step programs out there to facilitate change. I don't think that Peta has come up with a twelve step program for treating animals humanely, though.

The song introduction was for a song called, "The Potter's Hand." The song title comes from a scripture in Isaiah 64:8. The basic idea is that, just as Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, God has formed each of us for His use, and His purpose. We don't always want to be used the way He wants to use us, but, it's very much like a vase that has been formed by an artisan suddenly deciding that it would rather be a sugar bowl. Let's face it, even though they might be formed from the same clay, and even fired in the same kiln, a vase isn't going to make a very good sugar bowl. You could break the vase into pieces, and then grind the pieces into powder, and then mix the powder into fresh clay and make a sugar bowl, but that's a lot of work, and probably not worth the trouble. Sometimes God has to go through pretty much that same process with us, because we have tried to recreate ourselves in the image that we would like to have and ended up just making ourselves useless...

The bottom line is, sometimes people do change. Not as often as we should, probably, but we do. It is certainly easier with God's help, but, even then, we have to acknowledge that He created us for His plan. Our plans won't always mesh with God's plan, but He has a better view of the 'big picture.' There was a cartoon that went around a few years back that showed a golfer praying for a sunny day, while a farmer prayed for rain. Sometimes it may not seem like God has your best interests at heart, but He does. Give it time, and see how His plan works out, even if that means that you have to change.