Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburger Part II…With Fries on the Side


            I think to begin to unravel the mystery of how to address issues of Church and culture there needs to be an understanding of universal and particular sin.  Universal sins are those specifically addressed in the Bible, murder, hatred, fornication, adultery and the ever troublesome eating food sacrificed to idols.  These sins are universally prohibited to all who call themselves Christians.  There are other activities that may be engaged in simultaneously by two different Christians, one sinning and the other not.  These we will refer to as particular sins.  As image bearers of God who have been quickened by the Holy Spirit of God we have been given a conscience that is a guide to the way we are to live our lives.  True issues begin when we attempt to apply our own convictions to particular sins or cultural issues universally.  There are many Christians who claim that the Bible says Christians shouldn’t smoke; that it is a sin to do so.  This can be extracted from knowing that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and it would be a sin to defile that temple, I find it ironic that most of these preacher are terribly obese and don’t the hypocrisy.  To some this may be a sinful act but it is not specifically addressed in the Bible so we must user our conscience given by God.  These sins have become pets of our church culture; it would be amusing if it was not so costly to the Kingdom of God. 

           

            There are many issues besides sin, which are not specifically addressed in the word of God.  These fall into issues of culture, many of our traditions and ways of doing things in the church are just that, tradition.  There is nothing inherently wrong with following those traditions they are rich in value and worthy of our attention, however they belong to a culture that is not entirely our own.  The church has a culture and a life all of its own and I find it is this culture that most people wish to avoid like prostate exam back to back with and IRS audit, I guess they are the same thing when you get down to it.  It is not Jesus that repels people it is the culture of the church that drives them away like lemmings over the cliff.  We must begin to understand our own culture to unravel it from the gospel to know what is what.  Unfortunately they are so closely entwined even to those of us in the mix it is almost impossible to tell the difference but it must be found if we are to discover how to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people around us and present it in their culture instead of demanding they come into ours to meet Jesus…

 

If you have any ideas please post them in the comments…


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