There was a post on the Resonate List this morning that really stuck out to me by Jamie Arpin-Ricci.
When I visit my Sikh friends, I will not expose the bottom of my feet to them because, in their culture, it is hugely inappropriate.
Nothing wrong with the bottom of my feet, nor does the Bible speak of it. But in their context, it is inappropriate.Now, consider a school that has 50% Sikh kids, 50% non-Sikh. What is the context there? We don’t live in a vaccuum. In our increasingly multicultural, post-denominational world, these questions get far more complex. To say it has nothing to do with Jesus/bible/God/faith isn’t really fair. Try ministering the love of Christ to Sikhs while flashing them your feet. Or serving the Hindu community while eating a cheeseburger. Or feeding the poor while investing our lives & dollars in the system that makes and keeps them poor in the first place.
So, while I agree that context needs to play a big role in wrestling with this issue, to say that they are unconnected to issues of faith is to deny the inevitable. Just a thought.