{"id":146,"date":"2010-02-11T16:03:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T21:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/crooked-culture"},"modified":"2010-02-11T16:03:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T21:03:38","slug":"crooked-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/crooked-culture.html","title":{"rendered":"Crooked culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83524c19a69e2012877911341970c alignleft\" style=\"margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; width: 183px; height: 250px;\" alt=\"CrookedTree\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/6a00d83524c19a69e2012877911341970c-320wi.jpg\" \/> &#8220;So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe&#8221;<\/em> (Philippians 2:15 NIV).<\/p>\n<p>What is culture and how did it get crooked?<\/p>\n<p>While there are\u00a0many ways to define\u00a0the word &#8220;culture,&#8221; the definition that we will be using is as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\"><p>&#8220;Culture is the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another&#8221; (Dictionary.com).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With this meaning in mind, we may say, &#8220;I love Greek culture.&#8221; Or, &#8220;I am a Southerner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Both of the statements above\u00a0refer to a certain way of life developed by people living in that particular time and\/or geographic area. When we speak of culture in this sense, we must include the following aspects\u00a0(List borrowed from the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Language:<\/strong> the most sophisticated medium of expression.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Arts and Sciences:<\/strong> the most advanced and refined forms of human expression.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Thought:<\/strong> the ways in which people perceive, interpret, and understand the world around them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spirituality:<\/strong> the value system transmitted through generations for the inner well-being of human beings, expressed through language and actions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Social activity:<\/strong> the shared pursuits within a cultural community, demonstrated in a variety of festivities, feasts and life celebrating events.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Interaction:<\/strong> the social aspects of human contact, including the give-and-take of socialization, negotiation, protocol and conventions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, culture is a man-made reality. It&#8217;s how we accent our language and how we spice our food. It&#8217;s the music we play and the entertainment we enjoy. It&#8217;s the lens through which we view reality&#8211; it&#8217;s our worldview.<\/p>\n<p>But the Bible warns that the culture of this world is &#8220;crooked.&#8221; There&#8217;s something not quite right in the world and our inner compass can sense it. There&#8217;s a thorn on the rose, a worm in the apple. The family portrait over the mantle is hanging a little&#8230; crooked. Sure there&#8217;s beauty and good \u00a0in the world, but it&#8217;s mixed in with a morass of ugliness and evil. Human culture is crooked.<\/p>\n<p>How did it get that way?<\/p>\n<p>Sin.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the human twist that bent the culture crooked. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, the world that God had declared &#8220;good&#8221; was affected\/infected too. God&#8217;s grace and goodness still glistens through, but humanity and this world have been crooked ever since. There are weeds in the garden.<\/p>\n<p>How do we respond?<\/p>\n<p>We shine. But more on that later&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe&#8221; (Philippians 2:15 NIV). What is culture and how did it get crooked? While there are\u00a0many ways to define\u00a0the word &#8220;culture,&#8221; the definition that we will be using<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061,1,2062],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}