Intercultural Relations in Light of the Bible

“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord,” are the words of a worship song that is sung in many evangelical churches.  We greet one another – especially if we have not yet learned someone’s name – as “brother” or “sister.”  We want to emphasize the unity of the body of Christ even when, sometimes, we do not interact with one another until the next church service.  In every way, we want to feel that we are all equal before Christ, that social or cultural differences do not exist or are not important.  Of course, on one hand, we all have to interact with people who neither share our feelings nor treat us as equals.  On the other hand, if we belong to another socio-cultural group, we often feel pressured by or, in the majority of cases, avoid those who treat us as “different.”

There are those who imagine that the existence of diversity among human beings is a result of the fall.  That sin is the reason we speak different languages, that the rebellion of humanity is the reason we have different customs and ways of thinking.  “If not for Adam and Eve,” we would all be equal.  How boring, insipid, and monotonous the world would be if not for cultural diversity!  We should never think such things of God, nor of God’s creation.  The Bible reveals a God so marvelous and of such varied taste that He created a universe with all the colors, flavors, feelings, sounds, and the whole range of human possibilities.  In our approach to the sacred text, we will discover that God, the Designer, takes pleasure in human cultural diversity.

Only One Fallen Race

The story of creation establishes the unity of the human race.  The author of Genesis affirms that God created only one human race as a unique work of God, and in that race, imprinted His own “image” (Gen. 1:27).  This divine image, shared equally by man and woman, is a work that has no equal in any other part of creation.  We are a unique work!

Genesis not only establishes the uniqueness of the human race and its origins, but also the fundamentally sinful condition of human beings as a whole.  The apostle Paul argues, based on Genesis 3, that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).  That is, sin has distorted the image of God in all humans.  Thus, we can conclude that one ethnicity is not superior to another because the sinful condition is a global reality.  The Bible is clear: every human being, of every nationality, race, or social group is a fallen being and under the condemnation of God.

Despite God’s disillusionment with his creation, culminating with the flood, the author of Genesis states, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8).  The following chapters tell how God used Noah as an instrument to save a remnant of humanity, as well as animals, and charged him to exercise responsible stewardship (Gen. 9:1, 7), just as Adam had been charged in the garden of Eden.

A Multicultural Race

It is legitimate to note that the pact with Noah required that his descendants repopulate the entire earth.  This repopulation implies a scattering of people, the formation of clans, tribes, and nations, as well as the distribution of the land on which people live.  The tenth chapter of Genesis provides an “Index of Nations” before describing in the following chapter the judgment of God on the nations that resisted the order to repopulate and spread out over the earth.  From this perspective, the multiplicity of human cultures is not a consequence of sin or resistance to God, but the expressed desire of the Creator.  At the end of each genealogy of the three sons of Noah, the text repeats that they populated a particular area, each with their own language, according to the families in their nations (10:5, 20, 31).  The chapter ends by repeating the affirmation that was given to each one individually: “These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations.  From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood” (10:32).  We should emphasize that the biblical authors used repetition to stress those truths that they considered to be the most important.  That is, the multiplication of the nations and of human languages is not only divinely approved – it is God’s express plan.

But, chapter 11 tells of the failed attempt to construct a “tower that reaches to the heavens” in order to make a name for themselves and “not be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (11:4).  We hold the perspective that chapter 11 reflects a human proposal that is contrary to the divine plan, in the sense that humans are seeking to establish homogeneity while God is promoting diversity and multiplication in order to inhabit the whole earth.

Indeed, this was the intent of the people in the plain of Sinar.  They believed that with their common front, homogenous culture, and architectural (or, perhaps, technological) achievement, they would be able to impress and even do without God.  But God, who always has the last word, said “none of this,” and forcibly scattered them throughout the land by making communication impossible.  It would not be unreasonable to conclude that, in the same way today, God opposes any human effort to destroy cultures of nations, either through genocidal wars or through forced assimilation.

A Redemptive Nation

The election of Abram out of the idolatry of Ur of the Caldeans (Gen. 11:31) gives evidence of God’s will to provide a redemptive plan for humanity that depends neither on the particular qualities of the individual nor on a socio-cultural background.  The sovereign God, Master of creation, is who establishes the means of redemption.

In the Abrahamic Covenant, God offers blessing, an inheritance, and descendants.  But, the descendants of Abraham, the nation of Israel, repeatedly forgot their election, even though the covenant clearly pointed toward a coming redeemer: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3).

God renewed the covenant with the nation of Israel in their exodus from Egypt, upon their arrival at Mount Sinai.  There, God established specific conditions for His relationship with this nation.  God offers blessings and cares for them as “a treasured possession,” but Israel always has the responsibility of being “a kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation” (Ex. 19:4-6).  This priestly function of representing God before the people, and the people before God, models the holiness of God before the nations; Israel was to be the primary vehicle that God would use to bless the surrounding nations.  These patterns are also evident in the New Testament, as the apostle Peter reworks them to apply them to the New Israel (1 Pet. 2:9-10).

In his prophecies, Isaiah reminds the nation that God made Israel to be a light to the nations, a task they repeatedly resisted (Is. 42:6; 49:6; 60:3).  In the same way, the prophet Jonah reflects in a personal way, and as a model of Israel, the perennial resistance of the Nation of God to fulfill their prophetic function among the nations, a theme that is affirmed in many ways in the Psalms.  See, for example, Psalms 2, 33, 66, 72, 96, 98, 100, 117, and 145.  Of course, the responsibility of going to the nations was never given to the nation of Israel as it was given to the New Israel in the New Testament.  But, being a paradigm of the redemptive work of God would fulfill their mission.

God foresaw that cultural diversity would be a reality in Israel, and established laws for special protection of “the alien.”  The law demanded that Israel not oppress the alien, but even went a step further – God required that they be treated as one of the family.  What’s more, God said, “You will love them as yourself.”  How incredible to treat ethnic minorities as part of the dominant culture! (cf. Lev. 19:33-34).

And, lest this warning be understood only in relation to protection of the aliens’ civil rights, God makes clear that, under the same statutes and laws, “foreigners” also have the right to participate in corporate worship (Num. 15:14-16).

When Moses repeated and contextualized the law for the new generation that would take possession of the Promised Land, he reaffirmed God’s concern for the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner (Deut. 10:17-19).

Just as the prophets Isaiah and Jonah denounced Israel for their failure to be a blessing to the nations, Jeremiah, the last prophet of Judah, preached to the nation concerning their mistreatment of the foreigners in their midst (7:3-7; 22:1-3).  Ezekiel, for his part, proclaimed that “in [Israel] they have oppressed the alien,” as one of the reasons for which God led the nation into exile (22:7).  The condemnations of Ezekiel are particularly alarming when we remember the daily martyrdom of immigrants in this nation, and the manner in which some believers justify these actions.

The New People of God

It is an historical reality that Jesus lived as a Galilean Jew in first-century Palestine, practicing the religious and social customs of a nation dominated by the imperial Roman superpower.  Christians believe that while Jesus was fully human, he was also God incarnate.  In fact, to establish the new redemptive nation, God identifies Himself with the cultural realities of first-century Jews; that is, He completely submerged Himself in a particular culture.  He never rejects the culture per se, but he does repeatedly denounce the chronic sins of that particular culture.

Referring to the exclusivity of his mission to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt. 15:24), Jesus seems to affirm the Jews’ prejudices against and rejection of the Gentiles.  This may appear to support the idea of a superior or more worthy race or culture.  However, a careful study of the prophecies about the Messiah, of the announcements of his incarnation and, finally, of his commission to the disciples, reveals that God in Christ always had and has the intention that all people and all nations worship the living and eternal God.  The exclusivity of the mission to the Jews is justified in his desire to give them the opportunity to reclaim their original call to be that redemptive nation that God had promised through Abraham.

On Pentecost, God dramatically confirmed his intention to bless all nations (Acts 2:7-8).  The Church of Jerusalem could not interpret the transcultural significance of this new paradigm, although apparently a number of Gentile believers were incorporated into the community.  However, these believers were probably already some of the proselytes who had assimilated to the Jewish culture, particularly its liturgical aspects; that is, despite their language and foreign cultural background, they had adopted the Jewish customs necessary for acceptance by the Jews.

The story of Peter’s vision and his mission to the house of Cornelius is repeated three times in Acts, emphasizing its great importance for the new people of God: Jews and Gentiles, together in one house, worshiping God.  And, what’s more, the Gentiles had not taken specific actions to accommodate the prejudices of the Jews!  Despite these experiences in the early life of the Church, we still encounter today the conflict that resulted in the first church council, as described in Acts 15.

The missionary work of Paul and Barnabas had resulted in the conversion of numerous Gentiles who, of course, had not submitted to the symbolic religious ritual of circumcision practiced by the Jews.  Thus, a missiological conflict emerged: Should evangelized people submit to the cultural customs of those who brought the Word of God?  It was a question of cultural imposition; in this case, religious.

The root of the conflict is a fundamental theological problem that has generated conflicts throughout Christian history.  We can state the problem simply: Is salvation a free work of the grace of God, or is it the result of certain religious practices that are independent of faith in Christ Jesus and the grace of God?   

We can state the question another way: Should daughter churches be subject to the biblical interpretation and normative customs of the life and Christian practice of the mother church or of the missionary?  So much of soteriology, as well as missiology, depends on the conclusions of that first church council.  By the grace of God, and through the wisdom given to the church at the council, it was decided that the civil laws and religious ceremonies given to the Jews were not to be universally extended to all believers.  We treasure this extraordinary statement of contextualization.

The New Eschatological Race
The apostle Paul, who fought so hard to spread the gospel throughout the Roman Empire, was the principal defender of peoples’ rights to maintain their own cultures after coming to Christ.  It was Paul who defended the Gentiles against the cultural imposition of the Judaizers in the Jerusalem Council, as we noted above.  It was also Paul who set an example of cultural adaptation for the purpose of communicating the gospel in a way that is relevant to different people groups (1 Cor. 9:20-23).  However, he also did not allow the message of the gospel to be distorted – his letter to the Galatians does not tolerate alteration of the message.

However, in the same Epistle, Paul recognizes that in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27-28).  To understand this declaration as disregarding the cultural differences between Jews and Greeks, or as a defense of cultural assimilation, would be a tragic misrepresentation of Paul’s message.  Just as we should not discount the cultural realities, neither should we ignore the reality of the differences among humankind.  What we should understand, arguably, is that neither cultural nor gender differences matter before Christ.  In Christ, the differences between races, ethnicities, socio-cultural groups, educational and professional levels, and genders do not determine acceptance, importance, or value, and neither are we able to justify the discrimination of anyone for these causes (cf. Eph. 2:14-16).

While the Apostle refers particularly to the spiritual division between Jews and Gentiles, there is also an eschatological dimension in this passage that emphasizes God’s will to create one human race, joined even with its multiple cultural manifestations.  Again, Paul does not suggest in this passage that neither the Jews nor the Gentiles should cease to exist as a social group and lose their socio-cultural identities.  The principal established here is that above all, reconciliation, unity, and unlimited access to God the Father are more important than cultural and social diversity.

In the greatest eschatological expression of the future glory of the city of God, John sees “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.  And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Rev. 7:9-10).  It would be a farce to interpret this passage without taking into account the cultural and ethnic diversity of the multitude in the presence of God.  In the end times, when the redeemed of God stand together before the throne, in all their glorious diversity, they will finally fulfill the desire of the psalmist: “Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples” (Ps. 117:1).

Far from homogenizing humanity, God will receive everyone at the end in all their glorious diversity.  What God formed at the beginning of creation as one human couple, at the end times, God will return to receive them in their colorful hues expressed in different languages, national backgrounds, and ethnicities.

Conclusion
There are those who say that we need to be more Christian and less cultural, that it is necessary to abandon the customs, values, and ideologies of each social group from which we come.  Implicit in this aspiration is that one cannot exist without some culture, or that some culture or form of being human is better than another.  To this end, generally the members of the dominant cultures believe that their own culture is the best way, the most natural and correct way of living, and that if people from other cultures, nationalities, or ethnic minorities desire to receive the benefits of the dominant society, they should assimilate to that culture.

We should resist every temptation to return to the plains of Sinar to raise false towers.  Everyone, from different cultures and nations, has values that contribute to human existence and the family of God.