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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Blinded
By Our Cultural Lens I have been legally
blind since birth. I see about
three percent of what a 20/20 sighted person sees.
One of my sons can read me a one inch letter from twenty eight feet
away. My eyes must be two
inches from that letter in order for me to read it.
My wife sees a black squirrel digging in our lawn.
I see a dark blob, not knowing that it's digging in the lawn.
We both say we see the squirrel but if we could print a photograph
of what we see, they would look completely different, mine looking unreal.
My photographer wife has
a variety of lenses through which she views what her camera captures.
Similarly, we all have a variety of lenses through which we view life,
many being cultural lenses. Those
in the West are immersed in an individual rights culture that is the lens
through which they view life. Those
in the East are immersed in a honour shame communal culture that is the
lens through which they view life. I believe that our
western-world individualistic cultural lens, although very important,
distorts the Bible's view of church. Church
was completely transformed when the Holy Spirit entered the lives of
certain individuals as we read in Acts 2.
If we can remove our individualistic cultural lens, the
individual's experience of receiving the Holy Spirit became more than an
experience uniting the individual with God. When
the immaterial Spirit of God who is everywhere simultaneously entered the
individual's life, the individual experience became a communal experience.
Since the Holy Spirit entered each individual, He united each
individual with each other,
creating a community. It's
what I believe Paul meant when he wrote that "we were all baptized by
one Spirit so as to form one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13). The word
"baptized" in "we were baptized by one Spirit so as to form
one body" cannot refer to water baptism since there is no contextual
support for that. The word
"baptized" is translated from the Greek word "baptizo"
that simply means "immersed."
I can legitimately say, then, that we were all immersed by one
Spirit so as to form one body, the church.
Church is a community of individuals whom Jesus has immersed
alongside each other in supportive friendships as they individually and
corporately accomplish God's will. It's
this communal aspect of church that our individualistic cultural lens
distorts, causing us to see a fuzzy view of church.
It's like me seeing a dark blob instead of the squirrel. We in the West shop
around for a church of our choice. If
we find one we like, we attend its meetings until we don't like it.
Then off we go on another shopping spree.
Consider God Himself.
He is a community of Father, Son, and Spirit. He
instituted marriage, a community of husband, wife, and children that over
time becomes an extended family community that forms the base to our
ethnic and national communities. Community
is central to God. It's just
natural for it to be central to His church. There's absolutely no
doubt that the individual is vitally important within the context of
community, but when individualism dominates, we lose community, as is lost
in many aspects of western culture these days. It
is our individualistic cultural lens that blinds us from seeing the true
nature of church. Church is God's community of individuals existing in
supportive friendships as they individually and collectively pursue God's
will. This is my view through
my not so blind spiritual eyes. Post
Script Clearly, the Eastern
honour shame cultural lens blinds its adherents from seeing the
individualistic aspect of community. What
is left, then, is communism. I
guess we all have difficulty finding a balanced cultural lens.
I detail this issue in
my book "The Organic Church" (my commentary on 1 Corinthians 12)
found on all Amazon sites.
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