Through what glasses do you see the world?

In the midst of living in a distinctly different culture for a brief time (brief in the bigger picture, anyway), and in the midst of taking a class called Cultural Dimensions of Mission, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.

I think a lot anyway, so maybe I should specify that I have been doing a lot of thinking about a particular topic.

How do you honor both a culture and the gospel (or can you? or should you?)? How do you differentiate between what is coming from your culture, and what is coming from your Bible? How might someone who knows nothing of the background of this picture see this picture (above)? What are some things in your culture that might seem offensive to another culture? Are these things offensive because they are unbiblical, or because they go against your culture? Can we recognize the difference? Do I act and think the way I do because I am a Christian, or because I come from the Midwestern United States?

Anyway, those are some of the things I have been thinking about.