THE CHURCH AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION

Greetings all. It’s been too long once again since I’ve posted.

Much has been happening for our family not the least of which is that I stepped down from my position at the medical school I was working with. Long story. I am now focusing more of my attention on the Health for All Nations and on developing the Fountain School for Community and Global Health within the Health for All Nations structure.

I had posted the blog below last DEC but forgot that we had shifted the blog to the Health for All Nations site so am re-posting again. The link below will take you to another great posting by Darrow Miller and his team at DNA. You can read it here:

http://darrowmillerandfriends.com/2013/12/03/church-new-way-understand-what-is-real/
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It brought to mind a discussion I had some years ago with a friend who works in Honduras. There he has been working on a ministry (excellent and dangerous work I might add) that focuses on exposing and dealing with corruption in the government. By all accounts they have been pretty successful despite the fact that Honduras is considered one of the most violent countries in the world. (San Pedro Sula is considered the most violent city in the world by many)

The question I posed to him was, How critical can we, the Church, be of other institutions when we ourselves are so full of corruption? How much of our focus should be on “transforming” the culture around us (how much energy and thought should be invested on pointing out the flaws of secular entities) when the social indices within our own body are not so very different than those in the culture within which we operate? I am not advocating that Christians neglect following a calling to work in the secular world as a counter-cultural agent for change but I am calling into question the balance of where our energies are placed. I would simply point to one factor that goes largely ignored but which would transform our Church and its simple witness would transform our world. That being men (who call themselves Christian) loving their wives as Christ loves the Church. I have never actually even heard a sermon on this topic. I’m sure others have, at least I hope that is the case. This would be a great starting point for any church to focus on and it is an encouragement I make to all men who count themselves as true followers of Christ. This of course requires that we (Christian men) become invested in relationships with other men where we are truly opening up to our brothers and sharing our struggles and allowing ourselves to be lovingly confronted with tough questions about our personal lives. Can you imagine the impact on our culture if a majority of men in the Church were involved in this type of accountability if it caused us to truly love our wives as Christ loved/loves His bride?
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Next we’ll start a series on “Health” and what it is from a Christian worldview.