thailand, family, God

the powerful church tried to supress empirical findings of scientists like galileo; and now we laugh (or mourn) at the attempt; today, i’m wondering if theologians and other leaders within the church try too hard to paint over our biblical interpretations with images of modern science. as a science major, one of the things i learned was that theories AND laws change often.

as a teenager i was taught that jonah’s “fish” or ”sea monster” was a fish and not a whale; now i’m wondering if we are reading our current biological categories into the translation (and interpretation) of an ancient text, regardless of the veracity of our current categories. did the ancient hebrew biology distinguish a “whale” from a “fish”? did they laugh at a layman’s interpretation of jonah’s story when he used the word “whale” by rebutting, “a whale is a mammal, silly, cuz it breathes air”?

i actually did a little research and found this site from liberty. but jonah’s fish is just one example. i am also a little bothered by the religious concern or predisposition on the quest for “life” on mars and elsewhere. scientists are looking for “life” as defined by our current science; what is the biblical definition of life? is there one? and if so are they the same? like other biological categories, the fundamental definition of life would also likely change relatively soon. is anyone trying to tell their congregation that there can’t be life on mars or elsewhere (cuz the bible says so, whatever that means)?

one of my early experiences with scientific arrogance was in college with students, more so than professors; professors and other experts are quick to point out the many questions they have on a subject, while a 20-yr old major is quick to claim satisfactory knowledge on a subject; i was wondering out loud about how mysterious it was that a zygote would turn into a fetus (ie, what in the single cell led to a fully functioning human being?). the biology major claimed, “well, modern biology has answered most of your questions.” it hasn’t!

and christian leaders would do well to interpret the eternal bible without being distracted by, or without trying to appease, the temporal theories of science. if i can live long enough, i’d bet that science as we know it (learned in high school) would seem comical to our descendants.

thought i should say something as a cross-cultural minister about some of the westerners’ shock and disappointment with the coup in thailand last week, cuz similar arrogance and ignorance hinder the work of the gospel in cross-cultural settings as well.

the automatic western response is something like, “but that’s so undemocratic!” “where is the will of the people?” etc.
well, judging from the flowers and the celebrations, the obvious will of the people was with the coup; some call it “military democracy”! of course, the celebrations may diminish if the generals don’t keep their word and try to control the government longer than two weeks.

people here are aware of the “undemocratic” form of the coup, and say it was necessary because the traditional (western) democratic process was being restricted by those in power at the time; hence, it was necessary to restore true democracy.

i think if there is any society that values civil dialogue over violence, it’s thailand, the land of smiles; i think the thais are more civil in this aspect than koreans or americans or the korean-americans that i’ve known.
so, what’s the problem? why did they have so many coups?

well, focus on the issue of contextualization; the western form of democracy was designed for a society with western values (individualism, equality, rational discussion, etc.), not a typical asian society with different, nonwestern values. (think also of the old/new wineskin illustration.) so when you impose a western form of gov’t on an eastern society, you get interesting clips for Mad TV (where asian politicians have boxing matches in the congress).
i feel dismay at the trumpeting of many christians that democracy and human rights are biblical values. so, what passage supports locke?
and also we tell laborers in asia that they can’t work more hours per week cuz that would be a violation of some “intenational” standard of human rights– it’s for their own good that we boycott companies that give them the extra work they’re begging for.

w/o wanting to make a judgment on thai politics myself (since i don’t know the inside story), i ask the readers to suspend their judgments for a foreign culture as well by thinking of these three questions; how democratic was the: 1) american revolution in 1776? 2) american civil war? 3) dropping of the two atom bombs in asia?
maybe it’s time to rethink the whole assumption of democracy, even in usa.