I've heard that one of the concerns of some ethnic groups about becoming Christian is that it means becoming westernized. Many Christians retort back by saying that it is not true. Christianity is not originally a western religion.

I have thought about this issue and I have come to the conclusion that becoming a Christian really does entail going against your own culture. This going against culture can look like becoming "westernized".

Take for example an Asian person whose parents value affluence. The parents may expect this person to pursue a career that will be stable and high-paying. If this person, questions the parent's values, he will be going against the expectation of his culture, that children put parents above everything. If this person becomes a missionary, for example, he will outright be rebelling against his parent's values. If this is called being "westernized", then so be it. Jesus calls Christians to put Jesus above everything, including relationships with parents.

I am not saying that western values are more close to Christian values. Many westerners, including some Christians, will do well to honor their parents more, not just act as if they do not exist. Jesus, in complete agreement with the fifth commandment, values honoring parents. He critiized the Pharisees for allowing a system where a pledge to God prevents a person from supporting his parents. Love for others and Love for God are both God's concern.

Becoming a Christian entails a change in culture. This culture is neither Western nor Eastern. It is a holy culture dedicated to the worship of God and the living out of God's values. I invite Christians to examine themselves that they live in this holy culture. 

I was reading an article that was titled something like "Do's and Dont's for job interviews" There are also other do's and dont's articles in the world wide web.

In the "Do's and Dont's for job interviews" one of the dont's is exaggerating your qualifications, the reason being that the interviewer will not hire you.

I am concerned about this focus on rules. This is because following rules does not help a person become a better human being. What is a "better" human being? To know what it means to be a "better" human being means is to know the purpose of a human being. A good human being has good character, displays good virtues.

I am already concerned by the rationale for not exaggerating your qualifications. Is it all just about getting the job or not? Life is not just about getting what we want. If that is our main concern, then we are displaying selfishness and this obsession with following rules feeds this selfishness. There is a God out there who calls us to become people who display good virtues.

To refrain from embellishing our qualifications is to develop the virtue of honesty. That should be even more important for a person than getting the job. Developing virtue should be an end in itself and not a means to an end. On the other side of the coin, bad habits (embellishing qualifications) make it hard to develop the virtue of honesty.   

Why should we care about virtue? One reason is that it helps us be at peace with other people. An honest person do not have to hide his intentions and do not have to be afraid of being discovered. More importantly though, we must care about virtue because there is a God who calls us to virtue. He calls us to virtue because he is virtuous. God calls us to humility because he is a humble God. He was not ashamed to come down to earth and wash the apostles' feet. May we grow in manifesting humility and other virtues, thereby becoming more like God.

    A while ago,  I was listening to Rev. Billy Kim at this recent Founder’s week and have found one of his statements troubling. Rev. Kim mentioned Paul Yonggi Chou whose church boasts 700,000 members (I sensed a spirit of envy in Rev. Kim’s presentation of Rev. Chou as it sounded like he lamented having only 20,000 members). The speaker was exhorting Christians to have a great prayer life. He said he asked Rev. Chou how he got a church that big and Rev. Chou answered that he prayed many hours of the day. Basically the message is, if you pray more you will get more results.      First, I thank God for the things he has done in his life, bringing him to Christ and giving him his ministry. I want to commend Rev. Kim for his call for the American church to pray. Prayer is an act of reliance upon God and a lack of a prayer life can be a sign of self-reliance. The reality is we are always reliant upon God every second of the day for life, success, everything. Self-reliance is a denial of reality and an attitude that must be repented of. Rev. Kim is right to call the church to prayer. However, his presentation troubled me in two ways.

 1.     To commend Rev. Chou for his prayer life is troubling to me. Rev. Chou, by his response, seems to correlate his success to his praying a lot. Prayer should not be seen as a way to gain but a statement of the heart that says “I am dependent on God about everything, my life- my future, my relationships, everything is in his hands”. To use prayer as a means to manipulate God to make us successful in anything we do is tantamount to using God’s name in vain. Paul warned Timothy about some people using “godliness” as a means towards gain, whatever gain means. It is God who blesses by his grace.   

2.     Prayer flows from a heart attitude. This means that setting up more prayer meetings or even setting up more personal time to pray does not really solve the problem of a lack of a prayer life. Without that proper heart attitude that says “I am dependent on God about everything, my life- my future, my relationships, the life of the world, everything is in his hands” a prayer life is just an outward trapping and should not be commended at all. It should be condemned as legalism and it is draining to the person. I think a better way is to cultivate an attitude of dependence towards God. The person who has completely grasped his and the world’s dependence on God will pray without ceasing. He will be connected to God whether he is spending time alone, with a group, or at work.        

     The western church needs to be more like the third world church with its strong piety, its refusal to back down in the face of persecution, its zeal for proclaiming the gospel, and its strong stance on social issues (homosexuality, abortion). However, the third world church should not judge the western church as somehow wanting as Christians. The whole church has problems, whether it is legalism, antinomianism, consumerism, etc. Until the Lord comes, the weeds will coexist with the wheat.  When the eastern church looks at itself as somehow better than the western church, they are doing what the Donatists of old did, refusing to be in communion with those who succumbed to persecution but were repentant. The church, east and west, must acknowledge sin and welcome in its midst those who are repentant. This is the movement of the kingdom of God- the proclamation of the reality of the Grace of God in the midst of human sin.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was criticized for mentioning that the provision for medicare paying for end-of-life counseling would lead to having govenment death panels who would decide who continues to be cared for.

Although it seems far fetched, we should heed the former governor's foresight as a warning. Before I look at this issue, I have an objection to this special provision for end-of-life counseling.

Forgive me for my lack of familiarity with this issue but there may be other issues to consider. Families always make end-of-life decisions together with their doctors. They sometimes even involve clergy and trusted friends. What would be the purpose of this counseling then? Is it to make sure families have information about pallative care options, including hospice? If that is the concern, I don't see it as a good use of taxpayer money to push for hospice. Don't get me wrong, I believe that pallative care is a good thing, and I am not for letting life go on at all cost. Life-saving measures are not always comfortable, and there is sometimes no hope for a decent quality of life. Let hospice advertise for itself.

Let me tackle now the former governor's warning. It may not be apparent but there are considerations that may lead to her concern that government would someday decide who lives and who dies. Remember that whoever is footing the bill gets to decide how money is spent. I can foresee a case where medicare, because of lack of funds, may instruct the counselor to push for pallative care when there is still hope for healing using aggressive medical treatment. The counselor would then apply pressure on the patient to give up the possibility of healing. It doesn't matter what the doctor says in the end because the government holds the money and can choose to withhold it if its desires are not granted.

Some may say this is preposterous. However, remember that the government values the good of "all". The value of different bureaucrats vary. There may be bureaucrats who don't value human life as much as other bureaucrats. Therefore, they will be more willing to trample on the rights of the individual for the good of "all." The good of "all" is having enough resources for everybody.

I believe that everyone should be educated on end-of-life issues. However, we should not depend on government to get that information across. Private organizations, like the church, should step up and take responsibility for talking to people about end-of-life issues.

     I heard on the news about a cemetery that was defrauding people. What they did was to dig up the plots, take away the corpse, and then sell the same plots to other customers.

     Some people, to deal with this issue, suggested better licensing standards. This makes me think, does having better licensing standards solve the problem of bad ethics? If there are better licensing standards, would the management of this cemetery not stop their deception? Some people seem to think so. A corollary to this way of thinking is to say that better educated people have better ethics. Basically, the thinking is that education makes for better character.

     If education (or being paid more for that matter) makes for better ethics, why then do some well-educated people commit fraud? It seems to be in the nature of human beings to try to make things work to his advantage. It does not matter whether a person is well-educated or well-paid. Some are just bolder in taking advantage of others, just like the owners of this cemetery were.  

     The state cannot control people's hearts. The state can only attempt to regulate people's actions, giving positive and negative consequences.

     Scriptures say that "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Education or having money does not fix the heart. Do the management of that cemetery really need tougher licensing standards to know that what they are doing is wrong? Education and money does not fix the heart problem, and may even make people better at being deceitful. The solution to the heart problem is a supernatural solution. God has to take away the heart of stone and change it into a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19).

     A few days ago, I saw an article that says that the Federal government bailouts are working and the recession is lessening.

     I can foresee in the next presidential election, the president's supporters will proclaim that the President fixed the economy. The supporters may be right in some respects, that the President's policies helped fix the economy.The president's opponents on the other hand will say that it was done at the cost of raising the deficit which would have to be paid for by the future generations. The opponents of the president would be right.

     I can foresee the opponents of the president pointing the fingers at the president saying that he has caused a deficit. Would this be a right way to look at the situation? I think there is a lack of humility among people involved in politics, on the left and on the right. They refuse to acknowledge that their opponents are just as concerned about the issues they are concerned about and that whatever they did, they thought it was the best solution. There must be an acknowledgment of the opponent's good intentions if we are to live in a civil political climate, or world for that matter. To refuse to acknowledge that others have good intentions is slander. We might not agree with a solution, but we must believe that the one who offered a solution thought it was for the best, unless we have evidence to the contrary. If President Obama's plan causes a bigger deficit, that doesn't make him a bad person and I'm afraid that his opponents would paint him as such. I am not an Obama supporter but I believe in giving him the benefit of the doubt, that whatever he is doing, it is what he thinks is best for the country at the moment. I am sure it would cause a deficit, but is there a better solution?

     In the last presidential election, I heard one person say that they will vote for Obama because he cares about children. Is this implying that McCain does not care for children? Its terrible that some people think that way. Both candidates do care about issues, if not they will not be going into politics. However, remember that their ways will be different and that does not make one person better than the other. 

     Recently, the Presbyterian Church USA, for the third time, upheld the position that practicing homosexuals cannot be ordained in the denomination. Why is there so much push for the legitimization of the homosexual lifestyle? Where did the church go wrong? Christians who support the move toward legitimization try to say that if the homosexual union is monogamous, then it is a covenant relationship blessed by God.

     I understand the concern for proper pastoral care for Christians who are suffering from homosexual tendencies. It is true that homosexuality has been treated in conservative circles as somehow a worse sin than any other sin- gossiping, being unwelcoming, etc. That stigmatization of homosexual tendencies as the “big” sin has to be stopped. All have sinned and fell short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). The gossiper is in the same boat as the homosexual. We are all in need of God’s grace and without God’s grace; no one can stand under God’s judgment. That is true even if we think our sins are small.

     Back to the question “Where did things go wrong?” I believe that, among other things, what went wrong is that we have lost the virtue of repentance. Because of the undervaluing of repentance, God’s grace has also been undervalued. Therefore, the good news of God’s grace towards sinful humanity has become irrelevant to most people in the culture.

     In the debate about homosexuality, instead of bringing homosexuals to repentance, churches have found ways to reinterpret clear passages of scripture that condemn homosexual practice. The goal is to legitimize a practice that is clearly condemned in scripture, a practice that is never affirmed. There are some who reason that it is cruel to expect abstinence from a person who has a homosexual orientation. Would it also be cruel to expect abstinence on a single woman who longs so much to have a husband? There are more women than men in the church; therefore, it is more challenging for a single woman to find a husband in the church. Could we just allow polygamy so the single woman who is longing for a husband can have her longings met? Affirming a sinful practice is not the answer to unfulfilled longing if we are to be faithful to God.

     Homosexual practice is not the only sin that some churches fail to speak against. In conservative circles, this is probably not an issue. However, churches must ask themselves, “are you willing to speak against this things and call people who practice this to repentance?” This list is not exhaustive.

1. Working long hours to maintain a certain lifestyle, thereby neglecting emotional responsibilities towards the family
2. Treating children as if they are a nuisance, not respecting their feelings.
3. Disrespecting parents because they are not “Christians”
4. Cheating taxpayers by getting undeserved benefits
5. Slandering our leaders whether they are on the right or the left of the political spectrum. It is wrong for Christians to speak dishonestly and/or destroy the reputation of those whom they perceive to be enemies.

I urge those of you who are Christian leaders to encourage a repentant lifestyle among those who are under your care. Encourage them to make their life line up with God’s expectations. Never make a loophole to assuage guilty consciences. Instead, point them to the cross, where guilty sinners can find peace with a holy God.