Culture vs. Christ
VERY GREAT TOPIC AND DISCUSSION!!!!!!
I have truly been blessed and challenged by the discussion. The issue of Gospel music going "too far" is an interesting one. What is "too far"? How do we determine it? From the posts I've read, it seems that too far is meant to be "too worldly"(i.e. doing the same dances that an unsaved person would do or the music having the same beat as some secular music does). So the issue here is "what is the culture of the church?" Some people would argue that the culture of the church is the culture of the people of the church. There are Arabic Christians, European Christians, African Christians, and African-American Christians, etc.. This means that people are going to relate to God and their worship experience in different ways. Some Caucasian people have a very liturgical approach to worship (everything scripted and they are more reverent in their worship) while many African Americans are more emotive and expressive in worship (more free and improvisational). I see the body of Christ welcoming all people and their different ways of worship. I just caution people on believing that one way is "truer or more authentic" than the other. What we see here is not differences in Gods worshiped or spirits present, but simply different cultures. I have seen file footage of whodun people in Haiti and some West African Muslims who get the so called "Holy Ghost" (working themselves up in a frenzi and expressing themselves with dance that seems uncontrollable). Often times we as African Americans confuse this with an infilling of the Holy Spirit. The bible teaches us that the fruit of the Spirit (the evidence of the spirit's infilling) are kindness, longsuffering, love, peace, joy, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22). Not a specific dance or anything that we can only do in a church building or setting.
Many times when I hear people talking about things going too far, it is about a cultural difference, not a spiritual or biblical fallacy. Dancing is subjective. There are certain things that different people would deem inappropriate, the same with beats in music. Now if you limit your worship to the Sunday morning worship experience, then I could see where this would be a major issue. Rap is a cultural phenomenon which can be used to reach people, Paul uses the greek philosophical sayings to reach some greeks with the Gospel (read II Corin.). Is it appropriate in Sunday morning worship? I think it should be up to the individual and the body of Christ should recognize its diversity. The more intriguing question is is the use of rap music and hip-hop culture wrong, not whether it goes too far. But that is another thread.
AGAIN, THANK ALL OF YOU FOR THIS TOPIC!!!!
Blackwatch!!!
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