Tuesday, November 09, 2010
God-in-a-Box
Godspace:
I do like the main point here; however. We tend to keep God in some sort of perceptual box - He fits in some, but not all contexts, and He remains a distinct object when he is in those contexts. And yet, Christ permeates all things and defines them.
What boxes do you keep Christ in?
Even when we talk about holism, Westerners think individualistically. When we look at a picture we don’t tend to see the whole picture but rather focus on one object. When we see that object in another context we can still recognize it. Asians on the other hand tend to see the picture as a whole. No one object stands out and if an object is presented in another context they may not be able to recognize it.There is danger in that - becoming Christian in view does not mean becoming eastern in thought, and I also am troubled by the idea that "worship" is the complete expression of faith - mostly becasue "worship is not defined in the piece. Too many people define "worship" as what happens on Sunday morning. "Worship" is the totality of our response to Christ which is expressed in many ways and throughout the week.
I feel that this understanding has huge implications for our faith and understanding of God. We Westerners like to take God out of context. We think that God can be understood outside the cultural context in which God is presented. As a result we get very uncomfortable when people of other cultures start to worship the God revealed in Jesus Christ in very different ways from how we worship this God.
But when we look at God in the context of a culture and see God as integral part of that culture we get a totally different view. God doesn’t get lost, God, the Lord of the Universe infuses the whole picture, the whole culture becomes permeated with God and so what we see as worship changes.
I do like the main point here; however. We tend to keep God in some sort of perceptual box - He fits in some, but not all contexts, and He remains a distinct object when he is in those contexts. And yet, Christ permeates all things and defines them.
What boxes do you keep Christ in?
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