Are our spiritual values cultural or scriptural?
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 9:56AM Some of what we may think are biblically-informed perspectives of ours may in fact be more culturally-formed than biblical. This happens to everyone: whether you're comfortable in the organized church or not; whether you're a staunch defender of doctrine, or part of the grace movement. It happens to each of us.
- For example, if you were born before WWII and think it's your duty to serve Christ -- because after all, he's forgiven you and you owe him your sacrifice -- then your convictions may have more to do with you being part of the "Builder" generation where duty and sacrifice were values. You may have a difficult time understanding the radical nature of grace.
- On the other end of the spectrum, if you believe Jesus allows multiple ways to God and that his grace allows for a variety of paths, this may have more to do with postmodernity's infiltration into your consciousness -- particularly the decades of the freethinking 60's and 70's. Within the church in recent decades, there has been a resurgence of unconstrained and unfettered thought, in part arising out of post-modern ideas of 'freedom': "Don't you dare tell me how to think, or what conclusions I should draw. Jesus permits 'all things' now."
This shaping happens to everyone. Me? I'm a 'Tweener' born in the gap between the Baby Boomers and the Busters. I don't belong anywhere - yet inherit values from both.
Now, I'm way oversimplifying the complexities here. There are more factors that influence our thoughts -- for example, our experiences and our wounds will color our thoughts about God. On the other hand, some of our convictions are clearly revealed to us by God and are true to his self-revelation.
But...it ought to at least move us to identity our assumptions and their sources. After all, we are interested in what is real and true, aren't we?