I really find it annoying how so many Christians uncritically reject everything that doesn’t fit within their inherited western paradigm and subsequently limited Christian paradigms.

There is so much truth and wisdom for living in Africa and the East. I so wish we could capture much more of it.

Thanks for your post. It seems that blogging and drawing at 3am has got the best of me. I meant to remove the religion block or modify the drawing to link past the emerging culture to the divine. I guess I’ll “go back to the drawing board” or so to speak.

When my knees give in I am probably going to take up yoga. I have every confidence of G-ds omnipresence in this practice. I also trust my own judgement to discern what dangers might lurk there. There are strengths in an eastern worldview which I will critically adopt if I perceive them to be helpful and worshipful.

Your thoughts about responsible sacrelising and de-sacrelising are very useful. I do think we make sacred what we deem sacred, more than what is told us is sacred. This seems to be Pauls view in Romans.

Whereas it might be appropriate to accept and submit to a tradition or an authority wholeheartedly at some point in our spiritual walk, we are caled to move from being the “Children of God” to the “Adults of God”. This is not to diminish the injunction to “become as little children” at all, but just to say that we need to take responsibility in the creation of meaning. McArthur wants everyone to be a Child and he wants to be their Father who knows best.

The diagrams (which I can now see) are very interesting. The last one is quite hard work tho – I don’t get why Religion (2nd row up) is where it is?

Rather than stating one particular view over another, it might be helpful for us to think more broadly and with cross-cultural missiology in mind. Missiology can be helpful in helping us sort out various cultural issues.

Sometimes evangelicals identify given practcies within culture as purely religious and therefore off limits, without considering whether a given practice can be recontextualized and problematic religious issues removed and new meanings imbued within the form. Thus, it is not necessarily an either/or, all or nothing issue, but a complex and complicated issue much like those that missionaries overseas have had to wrestle with for years as new converts come to Christ. The challenge is avoiding syncretism, and yet not being so fearful of syncretism and unaware of our western cultural blindspots that we forbid certain religious practices or impose Western Christian practices in the name of our allegedly pure theology and praxis.

My two cents.

Thanks for the posts and for being open about your own journey from a blanket rejection of yoga to a more critical acceptance.

I’m quite aware of how we Christians are fond of black n white approaches to everything. I think its fair to distinguish between human input into or toward something and the divine/spiritual source’s input toward something.

The whole subject of “energy” takes on a new light here with a move toward “sources of energy” and how the human being along with reality itself consists of both matter/molecules and spirit/energy while pure energy beings, like angels, gods and demons, also exist (the one with the capital “G”, i.e. God/ess, is a whole nother category on Her own).

I’m also reminded of how all religions, in one way or another, deal with the human condition and predicament, i.e. what the bible references as “sin” and its expressions. Hence, we can attain a “measure of salvation” through all worldviews that deal with the human predicament and condition.

As the ultimate root lies in disconnection from Godself, and we can only attain that connection through Christ, ultimate salvation is only guaranteed by receiving the deposit of the Spirit as the promise of what is to come.

I think that’s the wrong question! I do believe Christianity is true, and that Jesus is indeed Lord. But the Kingdom of God isn’t yet the dominant reality of our world – many people simply don’t know. It’s a lot like The Lord of the Rings, after Aragorn has been crowned King. Merry and Pippin return to Hobbiton – which is within the realm of the king’s sovereignty, but the hobbits just don’t know it yet.

So back to the “false religion” thing – other major world religions (like Judaism and Islam) have as their central premise: love God and love others. See http://www.acommonword.com where prominent Muslim theologians have said exactly this, and said that this is the common ground on which we should work together. Logically, anything which shares this commonality with Christianity cannot be 100% false.