Culture Quote of the Day - learning to love

"What do you do when you encounter someone who isn't like you? How do you feel? What goes on inside you? How do you relate to him or her? ... Few things are more basic to life than expressing love and respect for people who look, think, believe, act, and see differently than we do. We want to adapt to the barrage of cultures around us while still remaining true to ourselves. We want to let the world change us so that we can be part of changing the world. And we want to move from the desire to love across the chasm of cultural difference to the ability to express our love for people of difference. Relating lovingly to our fellow human beings is central to what it means to be human..."

"The billions of us sharing planet Earth together have so much in common. We're all born. We all die. We're all created in the image of God. We eat, sleep, persevere, and care for our young. We long for meaning and purpose, and we develop societies with those around us."

"But the way we go about the many things we have in common is deeply rooted in our unique personalities and cultures. So although we have so much in common, we have as much or more about us that's different. Asian. European. Tattooed. Clean-cut. Male. Female. Old. Young. Pentecostal. Emergent. Republican. Democrat. Suburban. Rural. Urban. These points of difference are where we find both our greatest challenges and our greatest discoveries. And as the world becomes increasingly more connected and accessible, the number of encounters we have with those who are culturally different are growing daily. Most of us are more comfortable with people like ourselves. But seeking out and loving people of difference is a far greater challenge. Therefore, learning how to reach across the chasm of cultural difference with love and respect is becoming an essential competency for today's ministry leader."

David Livermore, Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World

The world is shrinking. Even areas of the world which were traditionally "homogeneous," with little diversity of any kind and little contact with "foreigners," have changed and are changing. Diversity is everywhere. When I grew up in white, middle class, suburban Minnesota, I experienced very little diversity (cultural, racial, ethnic, religious). Now, several decades later, when I visit Minnesota I encounter people who are different than "my people" on every hand - Lebanese at the grocery store; Arab, Indian, Vietnamese and many other restaurants and delis; a Tunisian woman working in the coffee shop of the university I attended; a second hand shop we frequent, in which I now hear Spanish more than English; Jordanians, Lebanese, Indians, and more, in my brother's suburban neighborhood; Somali and Ethiopian taxi and shuttle drivers; and more.

As Livermore points out, we have a sense of sharing much in common with other people; but the similarity is clothed in some deep cultural difference, which tends to make us uncomfortable. I remember Tom Brewster, who taught language learning and cultural adaptation, saying "people like to hang out with people of their own ethnicity." And so the question becomes, how will we respond to the difference around us, which is increasing "bumping into" us? Will we seek to run and hide from it, or will we learn to engage "different" people in constructive ways?

I like Livermore's emphasis on love. For those who have Jesus as a model and guide in life, love is the great imperative (and remember, the example Jesus gave to illustrate his command to "love our neighbor as ourselves," was the despised religiously and ethnically/racially different Samaritan, people that the Jews of Jesus's day would avoid at all costs).

Indeed, as Livermore concludes, "learning how to reach across the chasm of cultural difference with love and respect is becoming an essential competency" - for all of us.

Can Christianity and feminism be reconciled?

A friend recently posted something which caught my attention:

A couple days ago someone told me and my classmates that he thought it pretty much impossible to reconcile Christianity and feminism. He said some people believe they do, but “I think it’s amazing what some people can believe.” To my ears that is like saying one cannot reconcile living in a patriarchal society with being a feminist, or one cannot reconcile being a philanthropist with being an atheist. To be honest, I go back and forth on how I identify myself in relation to faith. If by “Christianity” one means the “Christianity” that makes the news for wanting to burn Korans and blow up women’s health clinics, or the Christianity that says women should be subordinate to men, then no way, no how, nah-uh can one be a Christian and a feminist. But since the people who introduced me to feminism are all self-identified Christians who have had to honestly and painfully come to terms and redefine the terms of their faith, I have to with all due respect level at such an over-generalized accusation, “How...would you know?”  (for the full article see http://confectionaryfeminist.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/the-dance-strong-language-warning/)

I agree with Kohleun that our answer has a lot to do with how we think about "Christianity." My perspective and conviction, as a person who "believes in" Jesus (i.e., embraces him and seeks to follow his teaching), is that he did not bring the (or a) "religion" of "Christianity." People who have followed him, through history, have constructed "Christianity" from Biblical and extrabiblical texts (as they have sought to work out the implications of his teachings). 

So in response to the implied question, can Christianity be reconciled with feminism, I would reply:

1) Yes, one can read the teachings of Jesus and the rest of the Bible in a way that is consistent with feminism - i.e., one can construct a "Christianity" that is feminist. This is, in fact, being done by many people. Implied in this, of course, is that what has in various times and places gone under the name of "Christianity," is not necessarily absolute, or final, or consistent with what others (in other times and places) would see as accurately reflecting the teachings of Jesus. (You can note views on race and slavery, and even views of how people should relate to their government - i.e., whether they should revolt against perceived unjust leaders - as other examples of a different reading of the Biblical texts leading to different views of what "Christianity" should be all about.)

2) For me, it's more helpful to stop talking about "Christianity," and focus more on the idea of what it means to be true to Jesus (if you want you may refer to that as "being 'Christian'," but that tends to lead to the confusion that what we're talking about is "Christianity," i.e., a religion). The question I would therefore pose is, can one love and embrace and follow Jesus and his teachings, and be a feminist? And to that, I would say the answer would almost certainly have to be a resounding "yes," whether others who follow Jesus, in any time or place, would agree or not. Because Jesus seems to be remarkably resilient, able to walk with people in our diverse contexts and convictions, bringing his light and life to bear in and through us as we are.

(Please note: I have not defined "feminism" here, which would of course be necessary for a deeper and more adequate consideration of the question at hand. And it is another question, worth asking, whether Jesus would actually lead us in the direction of feminism. If we are talking about valuing women as much as men, as equally created in God's image, and all that follows from that,I would again argue that not only would the teachings of Jesus be consistent with feminism; he would actively lead us in this direction.)

Carry on, Kohleun, and Karith, and everyone else out there who is wrestling with understanding how to be be true to yourself, to humanity, and to Jesus, in this complicated (and messed up) world we live in.


(P.S. This does not mean that I believe that there is no truth. But clearly, our understanding of the truth seems to be continuously developing through history. Another way of saying what is above is that the problem isn't with "Christianity," it's with our human understanding of what exactly "Christianity" - by which, here, I mean, rightly understanding and living by the teachings of Jesus - means.)