Cultural Conditioning and Social Shifting

Isaiah 55:1-9    1 Corinthians 10:1-13    Luke 13:1-9

Cultural Conditioning and Social Shifting

In 1961, Jackie Kennedy wore a pillbox hat to the presidential inauguration of her husband, President John F Kennedy. Her choice of accessory was to catapult designer and milliner, Roy Halston Frowick, to fame. Every fashion-conscious woman in the USA and elsewhere wanted hats designed by Halston. Halston’s star continued to rise until (so the story goes) Jackie was seen attending an event without a hat on her head. Suddenly women around the globe discarded their headgear and milliners were compelled to diversify their merchandise or declare bankruptcy. 

But interestingly, this did not stop hat wearing activists in the Church from claiming Scriptural support for their position on female head coverings. Quoting from the very letter we read from today, they blasted their nodding parishioners with their arguments…ignoring, of course, any mention of the cultural issues in First Century Corinth.

The wearing of head coverings for both men and women at the time Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians was a common Roman custom. (The Greeks, on the other hand, did not wear headgear.) Roman men were expected to cover their heads during worship in their idol Temples. Married Roman women, like married Jewish women, covered their heads for the sake of modesty. But sometime between Paul’s stay in Corinth and the writing of this letter, a subtle shift occurred in Roman society. Apparently, some married Roman women, especially the more affluent married women, were suddenly allowed to accompany their men to worship services…including the banquets where more than food was consumed…and they dispensed with their headgear to flaunt their so-called newfound freedom.

Now, when one reads the ancient nonbiblical writers reports on such shifts in terms of cultural practices, then one begins to understand what the Apostle was up against. At the time, Christian worship services were open to anyone and everyone, so it was important then, as it is now, to make sure that one was not giving off the wrong signals. If a pagan man came to a Christian service and saw a man covering his head with his toga while praying, he would probably assume that there was little difference between his idol and the Christian God. Likewise, if he saw an unveiled married woman, he would assume that she was as promiscuous as her pagan counterparts. So, more than likely it was for this reason that the Apostle Paul instructed the Corinthian men to unveil themselves and the Corinthian women to veil themselves. But this instruction does not necessarily carry over into the 21st Century because it is a case of cultural conditioning rather than a universally required biblical practice. 

Here’s a more personal example of cultural conditioning. When I was attending my first seminary, we were told that students were not allowed to wear blue jeans. Of course, I had to ask the principal why he enforced this rule. I really can’t remember what he said, but it had something to do with spiritual values. So, I asked him where he thought the demons resided…in the fabric or in the dye. I nearly got kicked out at that time. But, to prove a point, I went to a shop and bought a black pair and a green pair of jeans and, after no censure was forthcoming, I concluded the demons resided in the blue dye. 

Just as an aside, Louise was not allowed to attend a church service in Urk because she and her sister were wearing blue jeans. 

But think about how many other cultural issues have made their way into church rule books…think of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa defending the system of apartheid…think of all the sermons preached on male and female hair length, female trousers, music style…even today, a fast drumbeat can send an ardent supporter of older church music into a rant. Most, if not all these issues, were or still are defended from the pulpit, in Bible Studies, and in books using biblical texts taken completely out of context. The standard reply to any query referring to such defences was an accusation: You must be a liberal!

Now, of course, there are liberals who quite openly rip and tear at the fabric of biblical morality and they ought to be challenged and resisted. But that is no excuse for us to be sloppy regarding our biblical position. We need to be able to distinguish between cultural conditioning and biblical imperatives. Yes, that means that when there are social shifts that challenge us as followers of Jesus, we need to do a bit of homework to examine the supposed threat. Is it real? Does it call for compromise on biblical standards? Or are our protests much ado about nothing?

While Paul was flexible when it came to issues such as the observation of days for worship, the eating of meat slaughtered by pagan priests, and the right to marry or to remain single, he was firm and immovable on several other issues, such as the question of sexual morality and of being the cause for spiritual stumbling, even calling for disassociation and excommunication – words seldom used in the church today. He was equally clear when it came to the issue of so-called spiritual gifts. Whatever is done in the worship service ought to be for the benefit of the rest of the members. In all cases – biblical imperatives as well as cultural practices – love for God and for others had to be the guiding principle for faith and practice in the Church. In other words, my personal rights are subject to the command to love. According to Paul in chapter 13 of this letter, without the regulating standard of biblical love my gifting and my learning and my faith and my actions are rendered meaningless. 

But to get back to the issue of cultural practices and biblical imperatives, any confusion between cultural conditioning and biblical standards will lead to us majoring on the minors while minoring on the majors. 

In our Epistle reading for today, Paul mentioned the Israelites who had been delivered from slavery in Egypt as an example of what can go wrong when social shifts are not dealt with properly. Remember, these people had been culturally conditioned as slaves…slaves who were not free to make their own decisions. Consequently, when liberated, they expressed their former dependency in the form of rebellious complaints, which they paid for dearly and frequently, and then later at the foot of Mount Sinai, they celebrated their new freedom with total moral abandonment. The social shift from slavery to freedom caused nearly an entire nation to stumble in the wilderness. 

Now, Paul says these things were recorded so that we might learn from what happened to them. In other words, no challenge is to be considered unique. What happens today has happened before. There is no modern-day trial or temptation that does not have its ancient counterpart. As such, this passage demonstrates the power of story…when we read about the ups and downs of biblical characters who are people just like us, we learn that God always provides us with the solution. It may not be an easy solution. What biblical solution has ever been easy? Satan always wants us to take the easy way out…as he did with Jesus…but Jesus knew that the divine solution was the cross…and so he pressed on because he knew that any form of compromise would be disastrous. 

But we need to realise that not all church practices are crosses, as Paul shows in this letter to the Corinthians. There are some things that exist outside of moral categories…things that in and of themselves are neither in need of biblical approval nor of biblical censure or condemnation…but there are other things that are foundational to biblical faith and practice and these things ought to be unapologetically non-negotiable for the followers of Jesus.

All we need is wisdom to know the difference. Wisdom and humility.

There is a man today who openly declares himself a devout Christian.  He was secretly baptized by his mother at 18 months of age at a time when Christianity was still basically outlawed in his country.  As a child, he was taught the Orthodox faith, and he is still deeply committed to his Church.   When he assumed power, he renounced, on behalf of his people, the previous atheistic culture and he has done more to spread Orthodox Christianity in his homeland than any other head of state before him.  He has taken religious pilgrimages over the years and spends his vacations attending small, rural parishes. He attends church services on a regular basis and is well known to the Orthodox Patriarchs.

But we have all witnessed this man’s military brutality in the past as well as in the present. So, how do we make sense of this apparent spiritual schizophrenia? 

Well, besides the fact that devotion to a particular denomination does not in any way mean that one is a follower of Jesus, this man is able to disconnect his faith from his actions because he has been culturally conditioned in a way that makes him think that what he is doing is the will of God. If you remember, the Apostle Paul once had the same problem…and he mercilessly persecuted the Church prior to his meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. 

This type of cultural conditioning is far more serious than the wearing of hats or blue jeans. This type of cultural conditioning can be deadly, literally and metaphorically. 

So, how would we avoid this confusion as we try to deal with the shifts in our society today? 

The first and most important lesson to learn from observing the Israelites in the wilderness, the believers in Corinth, and our modern-day example, is that we, as followers of Jesus, must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Word of God ourselves. This is what the gardener did for the fruitless fig tree in our Gospel lesson. He dug around it, fertilised it, and nurtured it. The Word of God must be known and obeyed if it is to be the guide and governing principle of our lives. As Isaiah tells us: God’s way are not always our ways…in fact, more than often His thoughts are very different to ours. We need to cultivate the mind and hearts of Christ and we can only do that if we truly know and apply His Word. Too many have held to strange and unhelpful practices because they have been culturally conditioned to believe that what they were doing was what God expected them to do.

Louise and I personally witnessed the death of a perfectly healthy baby caused by the parent’s refusal to consent to surgery. They were afraid that a blood transfusion might be needed if the mother had a caesarean section. This was one of the most difficult funerals I have ever had to do.

So, firstly, we must learn the Scriptures, know the Scriptures, breathe the Scriptures, memorise the Scriptures, obey and live the Scriptures if we are to avoid unnecessary heartache.

But secondly, and this is equally important, we must recognise that Scripture was written at a time when cultural norms were different to ours and therefore, we must be diligent in sifting through that which is peripheral and that which is fundamental to biblical faith and practice. If we do not learn this principle, we run the risk of majoring on a minor and we may end up doing more to harm Christianity than to help spread the gospel. 

Thirdly, we need to learn that the principles behind some cultural practices may, in fact, be timeless. For instance, modesty is still required of both men and women in the church mainly because of whom we represent. Here we need to be sensitive and must avoid being a stumbling block to others. Love and concern for others and always esteeming others better than ourselves must guide our decisions, our speech, and our practices.

Dearest beloved brethren, there will always be shifts in society and there will always be shifts in what is considered culturally appropriate and what is not. We need not panic or be fearful as these things have challenged others before us and we can learn from their responses, both their good responses and their bad responses. But, if we are to act wisely in our responses to social shifts, we need to be biblical well-informed, so that when the winds of change blow our way, and believe me they will, we will know what is chaff and what is wheat…what to let go and what to hold onto.

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022