Cultural Constraints

I'm pretty sure this is a record for me.  4 weeks into starting this blog and I've posted something every week!  My poor Poop Engineer blog maybe gets 4 posts per year (hmm, just checked and my last post was in 2017, oh dear, how I've neglected the world of poop treatment)!!!

This is my second post looking at why, perhaps, some people don't trust in Christ: some reasons to not believe. This time I'm focused on the cultural constraints that can make it difficult to take the simple steps to faith.

Of all the reasons I've listed, I think this is the one for which I'm least qualified to comment because it's outside of my own personal experience, though it's undoubtedly a big deal for a lot of people.  If you've been raised in a culture where religion is a big part of what you do as a family or in society as a whole, then it must be really tough to go against those traditions.

The one experience I can retell is of a friend to whom I spoke about the gospel message and he seemed really interested.  To him historical facts about Jesus and His claims made sense, but he was Indian and came from a family with strong Hindu traditions.  If he ever made a decision to follow Jesus, it would undoubtedly cause major frictions for him and his family.  I lost touch with him so I don't know what he did with Christ in the end.

Western culture is, for the most part, secular and so it is tough for us to get our heads around other nations and cultures where religion is more intertwined with everyday life. I'm not going to get into the good and bad of the "separation of church and state" here, but as I've traveled the world I've seen that many other cultures have a more integrated view on the spiritual. In a way it's sad that in separating churches from government (which many see as a positive thing), we went the whole hog and separated moral and spiritual guidance from our society as a whole.

But I digress.  The focus of this blog is on how it's tough to break from your cultural constraints and choose to follow Jesus.  Rather than trying to talk about stuff I know little about, I want to point the reader to a couple of organizations that do know a lot about taking a stand for Christ despite, or in direct opposition to, the surrounding culture.

VOM

The first organization to look at when discussing counter-cultural Christianity is the Voice of the Martyrs. This organization was founded by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand and his wife Sabina back in the 1960's.  Their story is told in the book Tortured for Christ which is also now a movie. They stood for Christ in the face of hard-core Communism in the worst of Cold-War era Romania.  Today this organization helps believers in a whole bunch of countries where it's either illegal to become a Christian or life is made very difficult if you do.  They currently have a list of 41 nations in the world where the government restricts a person's ability to become a Christian.  Many of these nations are OK with you being a Christian and visiting the country, but if you're a local and want to become a Christian then that's actually illegal!  In other nations it's not illegal to become a Christian but your rights or ability to do basic things like renting accommodation becomes very difficult. I encourage you to look at their website for more info. If you're a Christian, I encourage you to sign up for their prayer info.

Poster on my wall from VOM shows nations where it's tough - even deadly - to be a follower of Christ

RZIM

The Ravi Zacharias International Ministries is a group of speakers from around the world who are "apologists" i.e. they are experts in answering tough questions about Christianity and giving compelling reasons to believe. Their tag line is "HELPING THE THINKER BELIEVE. HELPING THE BELIEVER THINK." Several of their speakers come from non-Christian cultures. Most notably, Abdu Murray is of Lebanese heritage and a great speaker on a whole bunch of topics.  Another person to look for is Nabeel Qureshi, who passed away last year. He wrote an award winning book describing his journey from Islam to Christianity. Check out the RZIM website or listen to one of their many YouTube posts for more info.

Is it worth it?

Ultimately a decision to believe in and follow Jesus comes down to the question "is it worth it?" In my little corner of the Western World choosing to follow Christ means some people think I'm a bit odd, maybe a moral person, maybe a hypocrite, maybe "religious," or maybe a bigot, at worst.  But in other corners of the world, choosing to follow Him may mean losing prestige, losing family, or even losing your life.

In talking about the cost of following Him, Jesus said:

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?"

In the same  discussion He says:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

In other words, you need to be willing to give up everything for Him, including your own preferences, desires, wants or needs. Ultimately you have to be willing to give up your life for Him. In some nations today, many believers do just that. They think it's worth it. Or, I should say, they think He's worth it.

Let me finish with something Paul wrote. It's a bit long, so forgive me, but I think it's worth reading it all as it captures well the sentiment of those that understand the benefits and joy of knowing Jesus:

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

 Paul thought it was worthwhile giving up everything to follow Jesus. Many people around the world do too, including me.  Do you?

Whenever you're ready to get off the fence, this website that I posted in my last blog might be helpful... https://peacewithgod.net/