Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
I always understood WL's exhortation to drop culture as being based on Colosians 3:10-11, where in the new man Christ is all and in all, and there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man. So, in this context Christ is our culture, not WL's culture is our culture.
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I find WL's theme of
Christ vs culture to be a legitimate teaching. It even addresses a problem that might be more prevalent than some Christians would like to think. So where did WL go wrong? I think that his main problem was that he was too quick to point fingers. What I mean by this is that in relation to his teachings on Col 3, what immediately comes to mind are the criticisms of "Chinese churches", "Korean churches", or any Christians identifying themselves by nationality. Again, such a criticism is not without merit, but what is missing from the equation here? The issue as I see it is that WL never took the opportunity to evaluate how culture played a role in the LC.
I'm sure that there were admonishments made for members to not promote or insist on their culture, but what I'm talking about here is more on the institutional level. As an institution, the LC has presumed to have transcended culture, so therefore it is believed that the only cultural issue that could exist is if a individual member or group of members starts promoting their culture.
If members want to take WL's words for things, then it might do them well to ask LC leaders why one of the "Seven Feasts" identifies a certain nationality (International Chinese Speaking Conference), and even corresponds to the Chinese new year. All along, Americans were told that their holidays were so terrible and even some of them are 'pagan'. Why did some cultural things get a free pass, but not others?