QFT. A strong correlation between the use of the terms "Christian" and "American" are not good for either Christians or America. Christianity is an internal phenomenon that knows no national boundaries. To say that we are Americans is to comment on our outward circumstances, not our inward states.
About 30 years ago, I was stationed in Okinawa. While exploring the local town, I ran across a storefront Christian church, which looked much like a USO, so I went inside.
I wound up in a very pleasant conversation with the Japanese man working there. He wound up inviting me to dinner in his home, which extended our conversation into the night.
We talked about all the deep issues of life: Love and hate, good and evil, honor and dishonor...and it was all from the perspective of Christ. Even though his English wasn't perfect and my Japanese was non-existent, even though he was born (the first time) and raised on the other side of the planet from me, I was amazed at how perfectly we saw these things eye-to-eye. We had the same worldview, the perspective of the world from Heaven.
Tick.
A few months later, I was back in the States. I found myself in a very similar conversation with someone who--outwardly--was very much like me. But we saw
nothing eye-to-eye. Our moral perspectives were utterly different. In fact, our world views were different.
It made me wonder: Certainly, "native culture" is more than one's taste in food. If we disagree on the basics of morality, how can we claim to be of the same culture or even of the same nationality?
Tock.
Which man was my true fellow countryman? What was even my true nationality? I realized then at the gut level:
This is not my home, this is not my culture, these are not my fellow countryman. That guy in Okinawa was my fellow countryman.
Now, I have had the useful experience of having spent 13 years in the Far East, walking amidst cultures that were clearly alien to my own upbringing. So I have already had the experience of looking at the practices of the local natives and saying, "That's not my culture" and having a detachment from it, even if those native practices were physically pleasant. "That's not how we do things in my home."
I carried out my mission in those places and never invested myself into them. I did not "go native."
Over the last 30 years, I've taken the same attitude in the United States. I can see things happening in American culture and realize, "Of course this does not seem right...it's not
my native culture." And can look at it with a measure of detachment--because I realize this is not my home--and see how American culture has
always been wrong.
American culture did not just recently stop being the culture of my home...it's
never been the culture of my home, and the fruit it bears today comes from the seeds planted 300 years ago and cultivated until today. Nothing is being reaped that had not been sown.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the aliens dispersed throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, [United States, Japan, England, China, and India]
Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. -- 1 Peter
