{"id":5165,"date":"2011-04-11T10:51:31","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T15:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/?p=5165"},"modified":"2011-04-11T10:51:31","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T15:51:31","slug":"the-bible-the-church-and-culture-guest-post-ed-cyzewski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/the-bible-the-church-and-culture-guest-post-ed-cyzewski\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bible, the Church, and Culture: Guest Post, Ed Cyzewski"},"content":{"rendered":"

I asked my friend, Ed Cyzewski<\/a>, to guest post this week. I knew the topic on church and culture, in his \u00a0book\u00a0Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life <\/a> would make an excellent companion post for the class I’m currently teaching. I urge you to get a copy, by clicking the title above; or read a chapter here<\/a>. This Sunday, we’ll cover how the influences of culture effect how we enact<\/em> the Gospel message and walk with God. How do we best navigate this ground?<\/p>\n

Let’s hear from Ed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

When We\u2019re Blindsided by the Bible
\n-Ed Cyzewski <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Saying that the church exists in a culture is the kind of obvious statement on par with saying we breath oxygen. But actually knowing what to do about the influence of culture on the Bible and how we interpret it isn\u2019t always as obvious as taking a deep breath.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Growing up in a wonderful Baptist church in the Philly suburbs, one of the most important sermons I ever heard explained the importance of being poor in spirit based on the Gospel of Matthew\u2019s account of the Sermon on the Mount. The Holy Spirit spoke to me about pride festering in my life. I often return to that sermon for guidance.<\/p>\n

However, years later I read some books by theologians from South America who had experienced severe poverty and injustice. One particular theologian wrote about the Sermon on the Mount from Luke\u2019s Gospel which says that the poor are blessed. In other words, the poor are blessed just because they are poor.<\/p>\n

This was quite jarring for me to read. How had I missed something that jumped off the pages for Christians in Latin America?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I soon realized that I was encountering a cultural perspective on the Bible that was illuminating an angle that I\u2019d neglected. In fact, I was poorly positioned to spot it.<\/p>\n

While enjoying the affluence of America, pride can become a significant problem. It\u2019s no mistake that a sermon on being poor in spirit connected. However, I was not prepared to read about God\u2019s concern for the poor.<\/p>\n

The more I interacted with theologians from South America, the more I noticed that one of God\u2019s most important concerns throughout the Old Testament is justice and equity for the poor.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: my reading of Matthew was not wrong. However, it was limited.<\/strong> By interacting from another perspective, I could see more in the Bible than I could have ever found on my own. This is because we read the Bible in a cultural context that can be both friend and foe.<\/p>\n

We learn about God and follow Jesus in a cultural context. Certain ideas and metaphors will make more sense to us than others. We approach God from a particular perspective that is shaped by our time in history, our nation\u2019s values, our experiences, our language, and the thousand other things that go into American culture in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Some folks write about our cultural context as something that is dangerous. As if we need to fight it. If our society says that truth is hard to find, we need to fight that by saying that it\u2019s easy to find. Why, it\u2019s right in the Bible of course!<\/p>\n

Others say that our culture is right. We should listen to it. Truth is hard to find, and we\u2019d better not get too attached to anything we read, and nurture our doubts about God and the Bible.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, a cultural setting shaped the writers of the Bible. They used the cultural tools of their times when they added clarity, such as calling Jesus \u201cThe Word\u201d or \u201clogos\u201d in Greek. However, when it came time to confront the Greek pantheon, they declared that there is one God who made heaven and earth, and God proved it by raising Jesus from the dead\u2014resurrection being culturally off the map for Greeks.<\/p>\n

The tension of Christianity is one of being in a culture with values, conventions, and experiences that may either make us either more receptive, or combative to the ideas in the Bible. Saying that culture is all good or all bad overlooks important elements in both directions.<\/p>\n

We need to remain culturally aware so that we know there is more to God than we could ever find on our own. Our perspective has its limits. We can learn a good deal more about God by interacting with Christians from other denominations, Christians in other nations, and within our traditions. By learning to interact with culture, we won\u2019t be blind to its influence and submit to its every whim.<\/p>\n

To read more from Ed,\u00a0click <\/a>here.<\/a> <\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I asked my friend, Ed Cyzewski, to guest post this week. I knew the topic on church and culture, in his \u00a0book\u00a0Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life would make an excellent companion post for the class I’m currently teaching. I urge you to get a copy, by clicking the title above; or read … Continue reading The Bible, the Church, and Culture: Guest Post, Ed Cyzewski<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4642,6,13,15,747,885,887,1079,1472,1520,1626,4640,4639,41,2016,2067,51,2536,2621,4547,68,3195,85,4641,90],"class_list":["post-5165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","tag-american","tag-bible","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-coffeehouse-theology","tag-cultural-context","tag-culture","tag-ed-cyzewski","tag-god","tag-gospel","tag-hermeneutics","tag-influence","tag-interpretation","tag-jesus","tag-life","tag-logos","tag-ministry","tag-perspective","tag-postmodernity","tag-route-66","tag-scriptures","tag-spiritual-formation","tag-theology","tag-word","tag-worldviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5170,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165\/revisions\/5170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}