What on Earth is Happening - Culture

In lockdown I had time to reflect on places that we can no longer visit. I thought about the motorways in Kazakhstan with missing manhole covers, all stolen and sold for scrap metal. I thought about the meals we enjoyed in Thailand, Slovenia and Croatia. I miss the order of the Netherlands and flash of colours of the trucks and saris of India. In short, I missed the different cultures and I missed the smiling faces of the believers in each place.

Culture is what we live. We wake up in it, we walk in it and we work in it. And all the time were creating culture and consuming culture. How we act and treat people, contributes to a workplace culture. Parents that order family traditions and set a pattern of living, are creating culture. When we logon to twitter or watch television, we are consuming someone else’s culture, and when we post on Facebook, we are creating a small piece of the culture for our readers. The greatest impact on modern global culture, comes through TV, media, and movies. While we are made to feel emotion at movies or the laugh at sitcoms, our values are slightly, sometime imperceptibly changed, but changed they are.

When the culture of a group or individual changes, due to contact with a different culture, it’s called acculturation. Like the way American culture has changed New Zealand culture. Think coke and Mac Ds. Culture shift happens. Just as well, or we would still be cooking on fires and living in Raupo huts. Technologically advanced cultures affecting more agricultural or primitive cultures, is inevitable and, in a few cases, unfortunate. Historic global exploration and modern migration has impacted every culture in varying degrees, changing values, technology, language and food choices. We all love a good curry!

The Bible covers 6000 years of human history, including primitive Aramaic, Egyptian, Israelite, Babylonian, Greek and Roman cultures. Each culture reflected what they understood about the natural world and what they believed about the spiritual world. Their tools, clothes and the food they ate, was determined by the technology of the day, their climate, geography and resources. What was good, evil or moral was determined by their nature of their gods and any contact they had with the spirit realm. Some cultures saw spirits as forces of good and some were fearful of their powers. In Nigeria the Yoruba people once saw twins as an evil occurrence, believing the only way a woman could give birth to twins was for the woman to have had been with two men at the same time. This often resulted in infanticide to cleanse the community. Whereas now we know that twins are caused by the egg being fertilised and then dividing. Ancient cultures often suffered from their lack of scientific knowledge or beliefs in gods that were cruel.

My ancient ancestors were the indigenous inhabitants of Scotland before the Romans invaded. Apparently, they used to run around in skins their faces painted blue and white, and sacrificing children to appease ancient Celtic gods. While it is interesting to know how my ancient forebears lived, I don't want to live like them. I prefer a car to horse, and an insulated house to a pile of rocks. My Scottish ancestors’ ancient beliefs were not helpful or true. It is great that the Scots are trying to keep our ancient language alive and it is important to acknowledge our ancient culture, but to encourage a return to the ancient spiritual beliefs, would be backward step into a world of myths and fear.

Culture is not sacred; people are sacred. Some cultures are repressive, violent and oppress women. Some cultures perpetuate prejudices against others and have attitudes that keep them in poverty. All people deserve to be freed from cultures that don’t lead to actual personal and societal freedom.

Ten years ago, I met a man in Punjab who was an alcoholic. When he was drunk, he terrified his family and abused his neighbours. One day he met Christ and his life was changed. Was he still Indian? Yes. Did he still eat rice and roti? Yes. Did he still speak Punjabi? Yes, but his heart was changed. Was his culture changed completely? No. Was it changed at all? Yes. The way he acted, the way he spoke to people, the way he treated his family, his mental state, was all changed for the better.

Augustine said that culture is not a reflection of a people's ethnicity, politics, language, or heritage but it is an outworking of people's creed. In other words, culture is the manifestation of people’s faith and values. In fact, the word culture comes from the Latin word for reverence “Cultus.” Culture then is formed by what people revere, value, or worship.

When Jesus came to earth, the Roman culture existed alongside the Jewish culture. In Roman culture, the husband had absolute power over his wife and his children; he could punish them at will, abuse them, sell them as slaves, or even put them to death. The culture reflected their beliefs about their gods (which were violent and immoral), and the things they valued - or not. Greek homes had a “gynaecium,” rooms where Greek women were kept secluded from men and visitors to the house. The Jewish culture at the time of Christ, also treated women poorly. Men could have more than one wife and divorce them on most trifling grounds. Jesus teaching of the Kingdom of heaven, was in direct opposition to the culture of the day. Women and children were to be included, valued and given a voice. After modelling heaven’s culture of love and sacrifice for others, He left the Church the task of continuing to reveal heavens culture, to an antagonistic society. Like Jesus, they had no sword, only a servant’s robe. They had no authority to force change; they could only influence. And they did. Over the next three hundred years, by their loving sacrifice, courage under persecution and care for the poor and weak, they influenced the godless, hate filled, sordid culture of Rome for good. Patricide (the killing of new-born babies) was outlawed, hospitals and schools were started. Women were respected, slave were treated justly, and even emperors became believers. It is interesting to visit the Roman ruins but thank God we have moved on from its culture.

The Church is still called to engage with culture, defend culture, and to create culture.

We engage with the culture and people by works, words, wonders, wisdom and worship. With good works, we can model the culture of heaven by serving the city. With words we can tell how Jesus has changed our life. By wonders, as the sick and demonised are delivered by His power. By wisdom like Daniel displayed, through divine insights in the workplace and ultimately by our worship. Worship needs to change us first, for the character of people in any culture, never rises above their view of God.

We are to defend the culture of heaven. As “preserving salt,” in a pre-Post Christian era, we have a prophetic task to call people back to God and his ways. Salt does not just act to preserve but it emphasises the good flavours too, so we affirm culture where we can. With wisdom we honour Christ and seek to change what needs to change, while loving those who think differently.

We are to create culture. At work, in school, in our relationships we are to create culture. Some will have the opportunity to creature culture through music, movies, and business. Christians are not the only people on the planet that are creating good culture. Others go to work to serve others, build bridges, paint art, etc, and all this creates good culture too, and we honour them.

In the final analysis, culture is not something that should be protected from change or critique. Neither is culture mostly a matter of clothes, tools or food but a matter of creed. Dr. Martin Luther King said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character”. To judge our culture, we must do more that look at the contents of our cupboards and wardrobes and look at the content of our hearts. We should act to preserve cultures in respect of their unique language, clothes, food and customs, but more importantly, we should also ask which beliefs and which character values do we want to preserve? People’s lives and people’s culture will only be a free as their beliefs and values allow them to be. Faith in Jesus, and His power to change hearts, brought liberty to the ancient Roman and Jewish people who believed in Him. Jesus freed my friend from addiction in Punjab and has changed the hearts and values, of a few billion others around the globe. So, He will continue to liberate all those that make him King.