Confusing Faith and Culture

Throughout history Christians have often made the mistake of confusing faith and culture. Just because we do things a certain way in our culture, doesn’t make them biblical, Christian or right. It’s a mistake to try and super-impose Western culture in the name of bringing the gospel of Jesus.
Historically we have taken non-Christian symbols and activities and Christianized them. One is the Roman cross. We have taken what was a symbol of hatred, pain and condemnation and turned it into a symbol of hope, love and eternal life. The German Yule tree has been renamed a Christmas tree and the celebration of the winter solstice has been replaced by the celebration of the birth of Jesus in the third week of December. We refer to the hymns written by John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist church, as traditional Christian music. We forget that the Wesleys used the contemporary music of their day. They wrote Christian lyrics for the tunes that were popular in the pubs of England.
Christian missionaries have sometimes gone to other cultures and insisted that they dress the way that we dress; sit in chairs as we do; gather together for worship on Sunday morning as we do and worship with our kind of music. None of that is biblical. It has nothing to do with true worship. What matters is bringing people to the point of trusting in the one true God – and in Jesus Christ, his only son, who came into this world to save sinners from every culture.

Related Scripture: John 3:16-21

© 2007 Leith Anderson