Loving your neighbor according to the HUP…?

March 17, 2007 at 11:48 am (Uncategorized)

DAVE GIBBONS is visiting bangkok this week, and with a group of newsong bangkok leaders yesterday, shared a little bit of what he thought about magravan’s homogeneous unit principle. Citing the Good Samaritan parable, Jesus’ answer to the religious leader’s question, “who is my neighbor,” gibbons asked us to consider how the HUP squares with the command to love our neighbor; i mean, if a samaritan’s loving of the wounded jew exemplified this commandment, how does our modern church growth movement square with it? i’ll leave it for you to answer yourselves.

You can read what seems to be a pretty balanced discussion of it here , and a short critique here. some background in my previous posts below.

Just watched Mulan with my kids. can’t seem get this chill off my spine when i see these popular children’s movies; in the case of mulan, “duty to my heart” is more important than all other duties; the impression i get from mulan is that the values of the chinese (eastern) culture are ridiculous, while our western values are “true” or “real”. i’m afraid my kids will grow up with these assumptions, and develop their theologies around them; of course, i’m not sure exactly how culture and theology should relate to each other.

2 Comments

  1. elderj said,

    March 17, 2007 at 9:11 pm

    Thanks for stopping by my blog… as for your thoughts about Mulan, I think you’re spot on. The duty to be “true to one’s own heart” is a prevalent theme in a lots of kids moveis and even more in adult films.

  2. djchuang said,

    March 24, 2007 at 6:07 am

    The HUP is not the best way to fulfill God’s commandment to love thy neighbor; God wants us to love those who are different from ourselves, as well as those who are like ourselves. I think He wants us to love all kinds of others.

    As for how culture and theology relate– that’s a very big question, and a good one that needs to be wrestled with more thoroughly and thoughtfully. In some ways, theology can transform and redeem culture in areas where it falls short of God’s Kingdom ideals, and there are also parts of culture that can be celebrated for being an expression of God’s creativity.

Post a Comment