Thus, Christians throughout time have taken stands against alcohol, polygamy, divorce, abortion, and a myriad of other issues. Nevertheless, reaction against culture can be as powerful for identity formation as would be accepting culture. As Christianity continues to find a home in new cultural settings, Christians continue to borrow new languages and cultures to tell the story of Jesus.įor those Christians who take a more guarded approach to surrounding cultures, their message will be one of caution. Jesus did not speak Greek, Latin, or English, yet each of those languages has been used to tell his story and teach his message. Yet even at a more basic level, Christians borrow pre-Christian languages and use them for Christian ends. There are classic examples of this: Christians inherited Roman vestments and German Christmas trees. Christians have a history of taking that which is not Christian, and then filling it with Christian meaning. Those Christians who embrace surrounding cultures use indigenous language, music, art forms, and rituals as potent resources for their own ends. It is in Christians of many and various responses that Christianity gains its unique multi-cultural and polyvocal texture as a world religion. Regardless of a positive or negative attitude toward their surrounding culture, all Christians must respond to their surrounding context. Throughout history, all Christians have lived in specific cultural contexts, which they have, to varying degrees, embraced and rejected. The study of world Christianity begins with the basic premise that Christianity is, and from its very inception has been, a cross cultural and diverse religion with no single dominant expression. Christianity and the World of Cultures Used with permission from Laura James:
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