Food For Thought: How do you view cultures and people who are different from you?

Last night, I was reading through Wolfgang Simson's Houses that Change the World. As I read, I was really moved by this excerpt which talks about relating to cultures that are different from our own:


Confusing culture with spiritual realities

Some young Christians from the USA were reporting in the Asian church about some outreach they were doing in Calcutta. They had genuine brokenness in their eyes as they talked about the people worshipping dead idols in temples, and yet these young people did not recognise the endless hours of TV in their country as worshipping living idols of sport, music or film.

They had broken hearts over the abject material poverty in Calcutta, and did not see the spiritual and emotional poverty of countless millions suffering from loneliness and meaninglessness in their home country. They could not believe that people sacrifice flowers and even animals to their gods, overlooking that it is quite normal to sacrifice even children and whole families on the holy altar of success back home. They marvelled at the smoke and incense-offerings "those pagans do to their gods," and did not see for one moment the smog caused by every individualist jamming the roads with their own car, industry polluting the atmosphere, and cigarette smokers polluting the rooms. They said, "These children here are so dirty!", and yet they did not realize that most children in their own country do not obey their parents and have unbelievably dirty language, harbouring fantasies most children in Asia or the Middle East would simply abhor.

In short, they saw and judged the outside, not the inside. They were shocked by the culture, not by the spirit behind it, and they failed to see that it is no better at home than in Asia. Fallenness and sinfulness only looks different on the outside; its quality is essentially the same everywhere (229-230).


I thought this excerpt was a really interesting and convicting read. It has challenged me to think of what it means to really follow Jesus. Jesus loved people for who they were on the inside and not what he saw or experienced them as being on the outside. He recognized the deeper realities of the human condition and didn't judge people based on external layers or circumstances. What would it look like if we saw people, not as objects or projects to be worked on, but as people with whom we all share common characteristics and qualities? How does this change our perceptions of what it means to love? Even more so, how would this affect the way we respond to Jesus' command to "love our enemies"?