Imposing Cultural Change

In the last 24 hours I happened to read two things that are curiously related. One was the recounting of a squabble between Jesuit missionaries and Dominican and Franciscan missionaries in the 17^th century regarding work in India and China mainly. I’ll quote a bit from Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity (Later republished under the title Introduction to the History of Christianity):

“Most Catholics demanded that converts should make a complete break with their ethnic culture. They held that local customs and practices were rooted in non-Christian religion. They should be tested by the gospel, and cleansed of any trace of paganism.”

While it’s true that lifestyle should be tested by the gospel, unfortunately what that meant to many at the time was that anything besides looking and behaving like good europeans was pagan. The Jesuits had a much wiser approach and sought to preserve and celebrate cultures. In that time and in more recent days, one can find many stories of how the Gospel informs and completes a culture like a puzzle piece previously missing. Unfortunately, there are always folks who are blind to this who truly believe the only way to secure a soul’s salvation is to make that soul look and behave exactly like themselves.

After remarkable progress in China, in 1704, Pope Clement XI banned the Jesuit methods. It didn’t take long for the growing church to shrivel.

Fast forward a few centuries to the other thing I read yesterday. An unbelieving person left a comment on the blog of a Christian. A Christian reader of this blog followed the link back to the first commentor’s blog and found out just enough to form an impression of what they were like. Then, curiously, instead of engaging that person by commenting in that person’s own blog, the second commentor went back to the Christian’s blog and left a comment addressed to the unbelieving visitor. This person was trying to say how much love was available by hanging out at this Christian blog site, but there was an amazing tone of arrogance and judgment in the words claiming one would find no judgment there! The 17^th century squabble was about a disagreement regarding cultural imperialism. This blog comment showed me that we are now dealing with cultural imperialism in ignorance. I am certain this person had the best of intentions in trying to reach out to someone without Christ. But the presumption and belittling was appalling. The person said they would pray for the unbelieving person. I prayed too. I prayed that this particular unbeliever would never return to read the comment addressed to them. I prayed they would run into someone who would give them an irresistable whiff of the sweet Holy Spirit and not deal with this person who would no doubt drive them even further from truth. We will never get a hearing for the Gospel if we insist on the onerous notion that to become a Christian, one has to look just like us. History has proved it just doesn’t work. But you have to know you are doing it. And there is the rub. God help us.