Cultural Conditioning

Although I’ve not been blogging, I’ve been able to read other people’s blogs and one that I enjoy is Arthur Sido’s The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia.  A recent post he put together on the influence of Western thinking in how we read the Bible is one I strongly recommend reading.

Without going into too much detail in this post, I will say that what Arthur highlights is a large issue that is not readily acknowledged in the church circles that I’ve knocked about in.  There can be such a dogmatic clinging onto traditions, routines and rituals as if they are scriptural and God-ordained when they have more to do with the culture we come from than what the scripture actually says.  That’s a problem for those individual readings, but it’s even more hazardous when we completely miss the spirit of what the council of scripture tends towards.  It’s like I said about missing the point, not so long ago.  There has to be a brave attempt to acknowledge our cultural leanings – it’s not a bad thing all the time – and then be clear on what things are truly sacrosanct, and where we’re just holding a party for the background we come from.

It will not be the last I touch on this subject …

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd