The Word of God Without Cultural Bias

The late 60's and through the 70's our country was in great turmoil over social issues. I spent some of those years in a missions oriented Bible college. Social issues concerned those young Christians too. However, aside from the more public issues of race and fairness, were cultural issues of their own. Many were studying missions with a hope to become missionaries in some foreign land. That was problematic because many of the countries that used to accept the missionaries had since thrown them out and banned Christian missions from re-entering their country. You now had to come in as a teacher, nurse or doctor or something professional and promise not to proselytize for your faith. Why?

Our own Bishop K. C. Pallai had the answer but was shunned by many churches in this country for his out spoken teachings of why foreign missions were expelled. No official church mission organizations wanted to hear the truth about it. He summed up the whole of it in a phrase, "rice Christians." Dr. Wierwille saw it for himself when he visited India. Interestingly, Dr. Wierwille was accepted and invited to return yet he did nothing but minister the Word of God. Yes, but he did it without trying to make the Indian people American.

Yet, the reasons for being expelled were uppermost on the minds of the Bible college missions students. Missionaries were thrown out due to "Westernizing" the locals or just giving them hand outs of cloths or food which was usually rice hence Bishop Pallai's term. Worse many missionaries required a certian dress for their converts and some even required them to learn English to be proper Christians. To make matters worse, the missionaries lived in compounds, separated off from the local villages and towns which most of the locals called "Little America." The missionaries had worn out their welcome, not by spreading Christianity but by spreading their cultural bias at the same time. Most of the missionaries didn't know the difference.

This manner of missionary work was so entrenched that if a missionary tried to go against that norm and adopt local dress and customs, he was accused of "going native." and recalled off the mission field. My own anthropology professor at the Bible college was one such recalled missionary. He had committed the offense of GOING NATIVE.

Because of these problems, the students at the missionary college had a fundamental question, "What is the core gospel without the cultural bias?" Ah ha, I had that answer. It was called "Power for Abundant Living." I witnessed to my fellow students about the power of God without the attachments of Sunday School, pews, mid-week prayer meetings or even proper "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes. I shared with them how open The Way Int. accepted young people without judgement about their dress, habits or even smoking preferences. Why? Because we see the person, without all the cultural stuff. Witnessing to that need got results. I started alone but after two years, we had an active Way Fellowhshp and had run three PFAL classes out of the student body at the Bible college.

Witnessing the Word of God without cultural bias is the key to ministering to people on their level. What value is it to tell a man how to not live vicariously if you cannot enter his vicarious places? How many first heard the Word of God in a bar? Most missionaries and religious people could not have witnessed there. If that is how to reach people, how did Christendom get so far astray? Would the place or situation have bothered the Apostle Paul? Likely not. He witnessed to crowds where it was a crime to do so!

Christendom failed mostly because the adversary is more subtle than humans. What was the lie that did us in? In a phrase: We forgot about love and grace. It is the natural proclivity of humans to fit in. We are by instinct, herding creatures, we run in crowds. We want to be accepted by our peers. This instinct is how we get things done, by cooperating in groups. The adversary uses that against us by convincing us that this instinct applies to being accepted in the household of God and ultimately to God himself. This is the small step to legalism. We think it, or practice that we must act or dress in certain ways to be fully accepted in the household and ultimately with God. It should be a lie. Yet, haven't we all experienced household believers who some how disapprove of us because of youth, dress, speech or some other habit?

Have you ever felt that you were expected to be different? That's the pressure of legalism. That's the subtle influence of the spirits in this world doing their work to put you and the Word of God you hold into their little boxes. Does it work? Actually most of the time it does. We conform a little here and a little there and over time we are talked out of the Word of God having any great influence. We get more concerned about fitting in with this world than fitting into the Word of God.

Read Acts 15. It is about cultural bias among Christians. What did they conclude? Read verse 20:

Their conclusion was to live morally, yet the whole question, the reason for the church conference, was the objection that the gentiles were not living by the law, the culture of the Judeans which was the culural norm in Jerusalem. The Judean Christians had not let go of their cultural bias. It kept them from embracing the gentile Christians as part of the household. It was the Apostle Paul that opened the doors to reveal that the cultural bias didn't apply to anyone born again of holy spirit. The Judean Christians couldn't accept it but at least they didn't condemn the gentiles over it any more. Practicing a cultural bias and calling it the Word of God doesn't work today either. It's just the same old legalism lie.

How do you see it today? It might be expressed in just how loose or uptight we are about pop cultural things. Do some of the things in our popular culture upset you? Cultural bias.

Does God care about culture? Not really. He cares about witnessing the Word of God and deliverence. If you are so far outside of your subculture that the message is lost, it's wrong. Because of culture? No. Because the message will not be heard.

Be careful of what you think is right and proper... it may be your cultural bias, not the Word. Can you back you personal preferences of habit and dress with the Word of God? If you can't, it doesn't make you wrong. Just class that item as culture and allow it to be changeable. You should never be stuck on culture, just the Word of God. May we all GO NATIVE!