About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman

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Leave Your American Culture At Home  

I have a very good memory when it comes to what I heard people say in past years.  Upon arriving as a freshman at Elim Bible College in Lima, New York, in 1975, I recall the dean of men laying down the ground rules for us male students.  Concerning female students he was adamant.  "Don't even survey the camp."  Well, sorry to say, he was too late for me.  I had already fallen in love.  Ironically, during the final term of Elim's three-year program its president would routinely encourage the male students to seek out a wife before graduation.  Once again, that was too late for me.  I had already married her after my second year of college.  I'm not a procrastinator.  If I have something to do, I get it done.
  

Another thing I recall spoken while at Elim was spoken by a visiting pastor from Africa .  What he said hit me hard.  "We appreciate you bringing us the gospel, but please, leave your American culture at home." 

It's nothing new.  Our human tendency is to impose our cultural distinctives onto others.  It's what Europeans did when they ventured onto the horizon of the new world.  In the name of their brand of Christian culture, heavily motivated by political and economic expansionism, they conquered those in the new world.

The same is true on a personal level.   I heard one pastor scold his congregation for a lack of visible excitement in Sunday-morning worship.  He asked, "You can get all excited at a hockey game Saturday evening, why not at church on Sunday morning?"  I responded by saying, "I don't get all excited at a hockey game, so why would I at church?" 

The same pastor, while trying to plant a church in another city where the main musician was country in style, said that there would be no country style music here.  That's like planting a church in Nashville and demanding only Italian style opera be the church's musical choice.          

The apostle Paul didn't enforce Jewish culture onto the Greco-Roman world.  He understood that the Kingdom of God had a distinct culture of its own, as did Jesus.  Read John 18:36.            

"Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.'"

Jesus distinguished the heavenly, spiritual Kingdom of God from the earthly human kingdoms of men, which suggests there should be no confusing mixture between the two kingdoms.  Jesus called us to preach the gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 24:14), not a gospel highly influenced by the kingdoms of men.  When we import elements of our earthly nations into our preaching of God's kingdom, we humanize it with our cultural distinctives.  So I agree with the African pastor.  "Leave your American culture at home."  Understanding it is a difficult task, let us try not confuse the gospel of the Kingdom of God by mixing it with our American, Canadian, or any other national culture.      

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