Bible and Culture

It is interesting to read in the latest issue of Philosophy Now that a Northwestern University (Chicago) study has found a correlation between the extent to which a country is individualistic and the level of depression experienced by its residents. The study identified Britain, USA, Australia and Western European nations to be the world’s most […]

In Romans 12: 2 Paul exhorts, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world.” The word “pattern” alerts us to the contrast, since being “transformed by the renewing of the mind” involves being “conformed to the likeness of [God’s] Son.” Indeed, Romans 12-13 forms a sub-unit and is bracketed by this emphasis on […]

In What Has Jerusalem To Do With Beijing? Yeo Khiok-khng points out that one of main presuppositions of yin-yang philosophy is that cosmology is more important than anthropology. He comments:
A true understanding of the self is not attained merely by studying oneself, but requires studying the self in relation to the larger whole in which […]

I’ve been reading K.K. (Khiok-Khng) Yeo’s discussion of “Paul’s Theological Ethic and the Chinese Morality of Ren Ren” in Cross-Cultural Paul (ed. Cosgrove et al.) and am finding it very difficult to understand how the concept of dao has helped mould Chinese culture(s). What follows are but ponderings.
Philosophical Daosim/Taoism is also termed daojia. Dao is […]

Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism have long stood against the idea that truth can be apprehended through reason. At best reason is akin to a boat that one uses to get to a certain desired point in the process after which it can be left behind.
Yet even in Western philosophy cultural factors throw considerable […]

It was the view of Ernst Cassirer that humans are unique in the animal kingdom since they are the only beings with a “symbolic imagination and intelligence.” Human symbols transcend the things referred to and involve conception. People mentally react to their symbols. Cassirer argued that “instead of defining man as an animal rationale, we […]

Poseidonius spoke of man’s “second nature” in expressing his view that by nature people are indispensably dependent on culture. Johann Herder followed suit but adding his view that the development of language and culture is necessitated by human deficiencies and incompleteness.
Helmuth Plessner explained the development of culture as arising from what he termed “homelessness” and “excentricity”, […]

In Cross-Cultural Paul Charles Cosgrove devotes a chapter to “Paul and American Individualism”. This necessarily includes a consideration of human rights, for he observes,
In the American political tradition, the primary meaning of individualism is personal rights (80).
John Stuart Mill’s 18th century utilitarianism served as one source of the rights tradition. Mill insisted on the equal rights of […]

The military and political achievements of Babylon and its kings was celebrated in the famous Enuma Elish Stories, compiled from different Sumerian and Amorite stories around 1100 BCE. This is a classic case of the divine being made in man’s image in contrast to the biblical portrayal of people created in God’s image. For example, […]

A hymn to Atum, the sun god, honouring him as their creator and ruler, was sung by Egyptians in various forms from the time of the Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BCE) in Heliopolis to 400 BCE in Thebes. Genesis 1 is polemical in nature and stresses against such worldviews that God creates light and that he created the […]

Paul’s concept of “sufficiency” (Philippians 4:10-13) plays on the Stoic term autarkes. For Paul this means learning to be content in all circumstances, a concept of sufficiency at sharp odds with seeking satisfaction in the worldly success that supposedly results from self-reliance.
Even when Paul urges Christians to work and not be dependent on any one […]

According to Jewett there is a “Eurocentric” tendency “to project a universal Paul who needs no cultural adaptation.” This tradition of Pauline interpretation “is a culturally specific collection of interpretations purporting to transcend culture.” Cosgrove is part of a project to consider how Paul looks from other cultural perspectives, as set out in the book […]

Weiss is part of a project to consider how Paul looks from various cultural perspectives (Cross-Cultural Paul by Cosgrove, Weiss and Yeo). According to Weiss, who is rioplatense by birth, “In Latin America death is an event to be lived intensely, to be celebrated.”
This Latin American orientation with death is illustrated in the way that the fathers and […]

Caudillismo is a political system instituted not by ideas and laws, but by individuals and their personal authority. The original caudillos were those provincial leaders who opposed the creole urban elite, often educated in Spain, who sought to concentrate power in Buenos Aires following the displacement of the old masters in the aftermath of the 1810 revolution.
The […]

The Book of Genesis, recording what happened before the Exodus, is written for a people who have already experienced the Exodus. Consequently, the creation account in Genesis 1 is written with prior knowledge of Egyptian thought and culture. It is therefore not surprising that when we read Genesis 1 we find forms of expression used that […]

Herold Weiss is rioplatense by birth, a native of the River Plate region shared by Argentina and Uruguay. He identifies the gaucho (roughly “cowboy”) as the most important figure, traditionally associated with the facon, the knife he carries behind his back, and his constant drinking of the tea-like mate.
Weiss sees the gaucho especially characterised by […]

Why is the doctrine of creation foundational to multicultural ministry? Because multicultural ministry is ministry to people and all people, whatever their ethnic background, are creatures.
Romans 1:19-20 stresses that there is not a person on the face of the earth who has any excuse for failing to perceive the eternal power and divine nature of […]

In his book Transforming Mission, David Bosch recalls John Stott’s observation that
the Bible does not just contain the gospel; it is the gospel. Through the Bible God is himself actually evangelizing, that is, communicating the good news to the world.
The gospel proclaims the dynamic rule of God (”the kingdom of God”; Matthew 4:23; 13:19; 24:14; Mark […]

Traditionally, many have described Australian cultural identity in a way that stresses and often even encourages self-reliance. Russell Ward speaks of the myth of the “typical Australian”:
a practical man, rough and ready in his manners and quick to decry any appearance of affectation in others. He is a great improviser, ever willing to ‘have a […]

The Westminster Confession (1646) declares that the 66 canonical books of the Old and New Testaments are: “All which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life (I.II). It also adds: “All synods or councils since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; […]