Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Jesus a Colonizer? | Who Is Jesus?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Before we jump into today's episode, I want to invite you to read the Gospel of Mark with us beginning in January. I love the first of the year because I'm the kind of person that likes to set new goals. I don't tell people about them because I often fail in my goals, but I like to do it. And sometimes I even succeed. And one of the things I always want to do is grow in my real.

Starting point is 00:00:34 reading of the Bible. And one of the ways that I have a better shot at succeeding is if I do it with other people. So is there somebody in your live friend, coworker neighbor, I don't know, who you would like to invite to read the Bible along with you? And not even the whole Bible, just the Gospel of Mark. We've got a great little study guide that we are including a link to in the show notes. And I think you'll really benefit from going through that study guide to help you understand what's happening in the Gospel of Mark. Anyway, we'd love for you to join us in that if you are open to it, and all that kicks off at the 1st of January. So let's jump into today's episode. You may have heard claims that Christianity is an imperialist religion. A lot of times

Starting point is 00:01:17 that comes up in the context of conversations about colonialism and the kind of damage colonialism has done in the developing world. Some charge Jesus with being a colonizer, a cultural imperialist. If that came up in a conversation you were in, how would you respond? colonization or cultural imperialism, and I'm going to use those two words interchangeably, well, it's the belief that one culture is superior to others, and therefore the inferior culture should be replaced by the superior culture. Through the use of violence or economic coercion, powerful cultures force themselves on vulnerable cultures, causing them to change, or perhaps even eradicating the culture. Many would say that it's colonization that led to the near

Starting point is 00:02:02 eradication of Native Americans in our own country. Now, these questions about whether Christianity is a culturally imperialist religion received national attention a couple years ago when a 26-year-old man named John Allen Chow was killed while trying to tell the Sintelese about Jesus. The Sintelese live on a protected island off the coast of the nation of India. The people on this island are known to be violent and suspicious of outsiders. They literally have no contact. with the outside world. Everyone simply leaves them alone. And based on the conversations that Chow had had with his friends and other people, based on the things that he had written, it's obvious that he knew that the sentilies were violent toward outsiders. In other words, he knew the trouble he was likely to

Starting point is 00:02:50 face as he went to talk to them about Jesus. Now, when this story hit the news, the press asserted that Chow, and by extension, Jesus, was a cultural imperialist. It quoted people charging him with attempting to violate the sentinelese human rights. Others were offended by his hope that these people would convert to Christianity. Now, if sharing the message of Jesus is cultural imperialism or makes Jesus a colonizer, then, well, I guess it is what it is. I mean, we can't deny that Jesus said he's the way, the truth, and the life, and then no one comes to the Father except through him.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Jesus believes that truth transcends culture, which is why he told his followers to make disciples of all the nations. So while I get that many people are offended by Jesus's claim that he's the only way to God, I'm not sure that qualifies him as a cultural imperialist. But there are other reasons, I think more legitimate reasons, to assert that if not Jesus, at least the Christian Church, has acted in sinful way. consistent with cultural imperialism. Some Christians have united evangelism with American expansionist policies. Maybe an example will help. When President McKinley was in office, he told a group of Methodist pastors that God had shown him that the United States should, quote, take them all, in other words, take all the

Starting point is 00:04:23 Christian missionaries, and to educate the Filipinos and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace, do the very best we could buy them as our fellow men for whom Christ died. Close quote. So I'm sure you hear the mixing of national expansion with Christianity. It sounds a lot like this. In the name of Christ, we're going to take over your country and make you more like us. There was undeniably a cultural arrogance that believed that indigenous people were barbarians or savages that needed American help. And the kind of help America had in mind, at least at that point in history, was a blend of military action, government policies, and Christian teaching. But in general, American missionary societies and Christian leaders, both on the more conservative side of the faith and the more liberal side of the faith, have backed American expansion as a boon for missions. One Presbyterian minister said that he believed in imperialism because I believe in foreign missions.

Starting point is 00:05:29 Now, again, all this is in the history of the United States. It's not something that is practiced now, at least not this blatantly. One older religious magazine called the Missionary Record even claimed Jesus for the cause of the empire. It says this, quote, has it ever occurred to you that Jesus was the most imperial of the imperialist? they ask. So if people want to argue that Christianity has a strand of cultural imperialism in it, if people want to argue that there have been seasons in American history when Christians have given in to uniting themselves to government expansion, national expansion, at the expense of indigenous cultures, well, they have some grounds to do that. But I just want to consider this

Starting point is 00:06:21 magazines quote for a second. It asserts that Jesus was the most imperial of the imperialist. Is that true? Is Jesus a cultural imperialist? What I mean by that is did Jesus teach cultural imperialism? When Christians acted in sinfully inappropriate ways, were they acting out the faith that Jesus taught? Or was their behavior inconsistent with Jesus' teaching? Well, let's consider it for just a second. Jesus and the early church reached out to people of different ethnicities, races, and language. There is Jew and Gentile, the Ethiopian in Acts 8, Simon the Cyrene. Cyrene, by the way, is where he's from, and Cyrene was located in North Africa. So Jesus and the early church are consistently reaching out to people of different races,

Starting point is 00:07:14 different ethnicities, located in different places, with their own cultural customs. And what they share with them is the truth that salvation is found in Jesus alone. But there's never any hint of taking people's culture away from them. There's never any hint of making people conform to a foreign cultural expectation. Christians, wherever they live, they live by this sermon on the Mount, however they dress, whatever kind of food they like to eat, whatever their cultural norms are, what Christians haven't common is that we believe that Jesus is Lord, he's king, and that we live by God's kingdom ethics. It turns out that Jesus is comfortable in every culture. Christians have worn kimonos and business

Starting point is 00:08:06 suits, togas and loincloths. They've spoken Mandarin and Arabic. They've been punctual ordering their lives around the clock, or they lived on the more flexible island time. Now, sinful churches, have done some bad things, including telling people that following Jesus meant becoming more like the missionary or the culture the missionary is from. But you've always got to remind yourself that we're not here to follow churches. We're not here to follow sinful traditions of human beings. We're here to follow Jesus. So I think the magazine got it wrong.

Starting point is 00:08:43 Jesus is not a cultural imperialist. Jesus died for all. He calls all people to live for him. But how they live for him, what that looks like in their own culture will vary from place to place. You don't have to become a westerner. You don't have to become an American to be a Christian. And that's good news to all the people in the world. Because right now, the place the church is growing the most is in Africa, Latin America, Asia, not in Western Europe, not in America. God's heart is not to make people Americans. God's heart is to make people followers of his son Jesus. Hey, quick reminder that, like I said, at the beginning of the episode, we are going to be reading through the Gospel of Mark beginning in January. So download the study guide. You'll find the link in the show notes. Think about who you could invite to do it with you and maybe even invite them to listen to the podcast with you. Hope you'll take advantage of this. Take care. Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 00:09:47 If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Jesus a Colonizer? | Who Is Jesus?

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