The first group of articles will look at how God communicates to man through creation and conscience. Then we will look at how man responds to God through the development of its laws and its cultural memory. By cultural memory we mean its festivals, memorials and forms of worship contained in a culture. We will compare creation myths with the Biblical narrative. The view espoused by this work is that a creation myth is not told solely for the purpose of a local understanding of creation but is a remnant of the creation story handed down to Adam and written in the Hebrew scriptures by Moses. It will be argued that creation stories are developed within a geographic frame work, that they support the worship of God in a locality and provides opportunity for men to find Christ. In addition the geographic areas that God leads men to will be considered sacred trust given to them by God. There retention is maintain by God as long as basic precepts of family, work and worship and just laws are retained a within the examined people group.
I will then consider the generations from Eden to Flood. The redemptive purpose of the individual, the family, children, and work, and worship will be explored as foundational constructs that all generations of men must embrace in order to find their redemptive purpose. The pre flood generation’s failed use of long life, creativity, and their failure to see God’s glory in creation will be discussed. Their growth in violence and its effect on the world around them will be contemplated. Its application to world history and our contemporary generation will be considered. Noah life will be discussed from the perspective a man who lived many years before and after the flood and what that transition meant for the generations that followed.
I will next address the development of cities and nations. The importance of leadership’s use of their gifts and talents to support God plan to fill the Earth within specific generations will be evaluated. Special attention will be given to the leadership of Noah, Nimrod, and Abraham as types that have contemporary or historic parallels.
The nature of father and son relationships as they support or hinder the development of God centered worship will be considered. Abraham and Isaac, Gideon and Joash, David and Absalom, will be case studies that will be examined. The effects of cross cultural models in China, and the negative effects of polygamous filial relationships, especially sons will be sited.
False religions will be seen as the primary killer of redemptive gifts in individuals, cities, nations and empires. Religion, or a cultures view of God, will be seen as the reason that men embrace or reject the foundational structures I am calling redemptive gifts. These gifts are; the value of the individual, the purpose of family, the gift of children and the redemptive nature of work. The fruit of these gifts is sacrificial worship and the development of just laws.
These series of articles will conclude with a discussion about the unique opportunity that our modern pluralistic culture provides us for examining and incorporating the redemptive gifts of individuals and people groups into the life of the Body of Christ. I believe that it is important that I make a bold and clear statement at the beginning of this work. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the babe born in Bethlehem is the creator of Heaven and Earth. His atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins is the only means of salvation for all men. My premise is that the best means for men to find Christ is within an indigenous cultural context that that includes ideas and constructs found in creation and conscience that inform native faiths. I am also arguing that this method was employed by Paul the Apostles and others who were the first cross cultural evangelist. This work is also an effort to fight the type of syncretism that presents half a Gospel. The following quote by Harold Turner’s sets excellent parameters around the limits that must be set around syncretism.
“If what is drawn from local sources retains its original religious meaning, and is merely amalgamated with other Christian elements, we have a religious syncretism. This is a hybrid or mixture in which Christ through the Scriptures does not control all elements, and at best it is only partly Christian.”
The real issue that I am responding to is not the definition of syncretism or its counterpart contextualization. Syncretism is usually seen as a negative term, contextualization as a positive. The key issue is outcome as it relates to Christian orthodoxy.
“Given the belief of Christians in incarnation and the importance of the translation of its scriptures into vernacular languages, mixing with the symbols and practices of cultures and their religious expression is part of conversion and contextualisation. The issue is not mixing as such, but of where those symbols and practices point, and whether they function to enable Christian faith to take root in a particular culture, or instead confuse Christian identity and loyalty towards Jesus Christ.”
God has made us for a specific places and purposes. There are two ways to frame this thought the first is we have a generation to which we are born, a geography in which we are placed and genealogy to which we are born. Stated another way, there is a when, where, whom that encompasses our life that is unique and determined by God himself. He did this in order that we may find our indispensable place and live there in freedom. “For in Him we Live and Move and Have our Being. Acts 17:28” Ephesians 1:11 states, “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will”
What the Lord is accomplishing through mankind is diversity of expression with uniformity of worship. It is to be uniformed in the object of worship, God himself. However worship should be diverse between culture, place and time. It was indeed to grow and reflect the places and the times in which God placed men. Men of the sea could sing of the glory of the deep, while men of the plains could sing of the Glory of God reflected vast places. Men of mountains could reflect His glory in the highest of heights, and His name would be great in all the Earth. One generation could use a ten stringed instrument, another, a lute, others organs and synthesizers. Instead men gathered together to build towers of idolatry in defiance of the God who called them to worship. The first tower to fall was not in Babble but in Eden. Adam’s sin, Nimrod’s sin, and all of mankind’s sin since the fall have been the sin of false worship. Our sin has marred our work and made the accomplishment of our redemptive purpose difficult, but what is impossible with man is possible with God.
“Syncretism" in Stephen Neill, Gerald H Anderson and John Goodwin, eds., Concise Dictionary of Christian World Mission, London, Lutterworth, 1971, p.580. http://www.roxborogh.com/syncretism.htm
http://www.roxborogh.com/syncretism.htm
http://www.roxborogh.com/syncretism.htm
M. Morris, Henry God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 38
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