{"id":21153,"date":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/1999\/10\/01\/east-meets-west\/"},"modified":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","slug":"east-meets-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/east-meets-west\/","title":{"rendered":"East Meets West"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/strong>n a bookstore near my home, I inquired about the books in the religion section.\nThe clerk, twenty-something with a butterfly tattoo on her arm, explained,\n“We sell a lot of books on Eastern thought and spirituality, not as many\non Western religion.” Then, as if correcting herself, she said, “Not as many\non Christianity. I guess that is the only religion based on Western ideals.”<\/p>\n\n

I realized again how we, the church, have painted ourselves into a corner.<\/p>\n\n

In May I toured the MTV studios at Times Square with a group of young pastors.\nAfter we bumped into singer Jewel, veejay Jesse, and rockologist Matt Pinfield,\nsome executives shared that in a recent survey of MTV viewers, 99 percent\nsaid they believe in God.<\/p>\n\n

Record numbers want to know God, yet Christianity is seen as the religion\nof the West in a postmodern world that is re-embracing Eastern thought. Yet\nChristianity is rooted in the East. We worship a savior who spoke an Eastern\nlanguage, whose birth was signified by a star seen by magi of the East, and\nwhose lineage is a who’s who of the ancient Near East. Yet our faith\nseems to be inseparably intertwined with Western ideals.<\/p>\n\n

The poisoned Tootsie Pop<\/strong>\nIf you have any doubt that Christianity has swallowed Western thought whole,\nvisit the counseling section of your local Christian bookstore. The assumptions\nbecome clear. When times get tough for modern Christians, we look at the\nBible through the lenses of Rene Descartes, the father of modern psychology.<\/p>\n\n

As you browse the racks of books, you will find yourself climbing Maslow’s\npyramid of self-actualization. Most of us are so accustomed to interpreting\nScripture through the lenses of our own needs (as told by Maslow) that\nwe’ve created a Christianity customized to my own priesthood as<\/em>\na believer.<\/p>\n\n

A recent fictional work has captured the spiritual essence of our time. The\nCelestine Prophecy<\/em> by James Redfield sold 8.5 million copies, making\nit the best selling work of fiction in hardcover in modern publishing history.\nIt spent three years on the New York Times<\/em> bestsellers list.<\/p>\n\n

Redfield’s narrative describes a shift to a spiritual culture. The\nawakening, he says, “represents the creation of a new, more complete worldview\nwhich replaces a 500-year old preoccupation with secular survival and\ncomfort. … The slavish devotion of the modern world to science and reason\nhas (until now) left little room for mystery or true spirituality.”<\/p>\n\n

The New Age movement has met the growing spiritual hunger. This new spirituality\ndoes not have real staying power; it falls short. New Age philosophy is heading\nin the same direction as transcendental meditation and harmonic convergence.\nIt misses the most attractive feature of Eastern philosophy, the value of\ncommunity.<\/p>\n\n

This neo-mysticism fully embraces the fatal flaw of the Western world: unbridled\nindividualism!<\/p>\n\n

The autonomous individual reigns. He chooses theologies and frameworks that\nsuit his tastes, stirring together an eclectic, personalized spiritual potpourri.\nIt’s Descartes in tie-dye, same stuff in the middle. It should only\ntake a few licks to get to the center of that Tootsie Pop. You will find\nit laced with the same hedonistic poison that proved fatal to Western modernity.<\/p>\n\n

Bending, but not bowing<\/strong>\nThe Christian community is the hermeneutic and the apologetic of our faith.\nAs we re-enter an Eastern worldview, the Bible calls us out of individualism\nto be a chosen people, a family that functions together as a body. The church\nmust pray for eyes to see ourselves as the whole body and escape the\nself-centered, needs-based Christianity that asks questions like “Am I being\nfed?” or “Are my spiritual needs being met?” Let us ask instead, “Are we\nloving God and our neighbor?”<\/p>\n\n

God has not called us to a Western worldview or an Eastern worldview, but\nto one that is Christian. This is intrinsically a missionary worldview.<\/p>\n\n

We must become immersed in the culture without caving in to it. Hans Kung\nsays there are two fatal flaws the church can make: (1) become sectarian\nby pulling away from the world, and in its isolation lose any effectiveness\nin changing the world; or (2) fall into syncretism by combining Scripture\nand the truth of who God is with culture until they are so intertwined that\nwe can no longer tell them apart.<\/p>\n\n

As postmodern missionaries, \nwe must push beyond our logical, \nWestern boundaries into a \nnew place of mystery and wonder.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

We walk a fine line. It is our missionary dilemma. We can easily fall off\non either side. Instead we must seek to understand the emerging culture and\ntransform it.<\/p>\n\n

Daniel is a perfect picture of how to live immersed in an unbelieving culture\nand yet stand for truth. Young Daniel was a 4.0 student in the school of\nBabylon. He was ten times wiser in the subjects of sorcery, astrology, and\ncultic ritual than the sages who taught him. Daniel even took the Babylonian\nname Belteshazzar; yet he refused to defile the Most High God by eating unclean\nfood, bowing to idols, or ceasing his times of prayer.<\/p>\n\n

Completely familiar with his culture, Daniel still discerned truth amid pagan\nteaching. As postmodern missionaries, we must push beyond our logical, Western\nboundaries into a new place of mystery and wonder. It is our history with\nits Eastern roots that will carry us there.<\/p>\n\n

One of our greatest obstacles is that the people we refer to as “the lost”\nmay be more spiritual than most of us pastors. It is difficult to teach spiritual\ndisciplines of prayer, study, and meditation to people who are seeking to\nknow God with more clarity and passion than we are.<\/p>\n\n

Christian mystics like Saint John of the Cross and the Desert Fathers can\nlead us toward a complete faith that encompasses silence and meditation,\nand puts us on a journey to know and experience God. Truth cannot be limited\nto propositions. Christ said, “I am<\/em> the truth.” If the truth of the\ngospel is to be experienced, the church must embody it. In a postmodern culture,\nthe effort to know Christ must fully engage the head and the heart.<\/p>\n\n

It seems that Redfield and MTV are correct: we are moving toward a more spiritual\nworld, one that faces East. The question is whether Christ or karma will\nbe the focus of our spirituality. I think my sales clerk at the local bookstore\nis voting for karma. I told her that Christianity is also an Eastern religion.\n“Hmmm,” she replied. “I dunno, but it’s not gonna be found in the Eastern\nsection of this bookstore.”<\/p>\n\n

Chris Seay<\/strong> is founding pastor of University\nBaptist Church in Waco, Texas. He is planting a new work, Ecclesia, in\nHouston.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today\/Leadership<\/em> Journal.\nClick here<\/a> for reprint information on Leadership Journal.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a bookstore near my home, I inquired about the books in the religion section. The clerk, twenty-something with a butterfly tattoo on her arm, explained, “We sell a lot of books on Eastern thought and spirituality, not as many on Western religion.” Then, as if correcting herself, she said, “Not as many on Christianity. Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[1127],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[663,664,156],"tax_ctp_tags":[3726,4033,4662,4679,5065,5154,5190],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-21153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-chris-seay","tax_publications-1999-leadership-journal","tax_publications-fall_1999-leadership-journal","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-future","tax_ctp_tags-pop-culture","tax_ctp_tags-prayer","tax_ctp_tags-spirituality","tax_ctp_tags-theology","tax_ctp_tags-trends"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\nEast Meets West - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a bookstore near my home, I inquired about the books in the religion section. 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