Honor 101

At the University of Minnesota about 5 years ago, there was a Chinese couple who were interacting with a number of Christian groups. They seemed to be true believers. They upheld all of the creedal tenets of historical Christianity. Naturally, we asked them if they wanted to take the next step and be baptized and they said “no.” We were startled.
“Why not?” Their answer was to be a revolution to our worldview.

They said they did not want to be Christians! We replied, “why not? You believe everything that Christians believe. You are in our minds already a Christian. Why would you not want to get baptized and be a Christian?” But they were insistent. They simply would not yield and follow up their faith with baptism.

Later we found out why. The term “Christian” was a negative and pejorative term to them. They heard us saying, “don’t you want to be baptized and become a Westerner?”
To them Christian meant to be a profane part of western culture. The dishonoring culture that we are used to was anathema to them.

They come from a culture where honor plays a very important part. We come from a world that has a street word for its dishonoring ways. By now all of us know what it means to “dis” someone. It means to disrespect them. Our kids disrespect their parents and our citizens disrespect their government, teachers, bosses, and employees. If this is what Christianity is then they wanted nothing of it.

We learned a lot that day. Maybe I will write more on this later.