Truth

My co-worker raised the issue of cultural relativism yesterday as we finished up our contracts. He told me that he disagreed with many ways in which our students approached life. He felt that there was a higher moral ground. All the ways our students used their influence to push the boundaries, he felt was wrong even though it worked for them in their country. He didn't ask me what I thought but I don't think I knew what stance to take.

You see the trouble with a moral high ground stance is that when you believe that such a state of being exists, ever so slightly the idea creeps in that one culture has managed to come closer than others. How else would one discover and understand this moral high ground unless it could be seen among the nations. So you end up with this idea that most likely "we" are morally in the right more so than "them" or "you". It places a sense of superiority to every relationship you form with people who are seemingly more 'savage' than you.

So you might be like me and prefer the other route of cultural relativism. However it has its fair share of troubles too. Being able to celebrate and understand cultural differences is definitely key to being human but it becomes very difficult to separate and draw the line where cultural relativism ends and injustice begins. It is accepted that murder is wrong and sitting on the floor and eating with your hands is understandable but what if it comes down to saying that a man may take more than one wife. Or a problem that we are encountering now in Afghanistan where they want to make a law that makes it lawful for a husband to rape a wife if she doesn't consent to sex with him. Where does our understanding and acceptance of culture and its sibling, religion, come to and end and we say enough is enough because in God's name human beings have murdered, tortured, persecuted and died.

Some will expect Christians to take the moral high ground stance as they believe in absolute truth but I suspect that therein lies great dangers and snares. "Because Christians have been given the good news and the truth, they need to take it to the world" brings in many forms of oppression, superiority and an idea that if you are not culturally the same as the strand of Western Christianity, than you are either a savage or worse, spiritually dead. This idea that Christians are suppose to descend from a higher place to bring good news to the lower ones brings too much of a conquering ideology.

We can see from Jesus' example that he did not come from above but was born among us and grew up like we did to show that there is a better way. It is a way that brings truth and justice but does not need stamp out difference. It is a way that sits in protest when differences cannot be tolerated because they oppress the weak.

And the way is narrow.

I was coming back on a plane from Hong Kong in March and there were a lot of Indians on the plane. Many of them were wearing their traditional clothing and I could not help but feel like they were dirty or second class. Somehow like I had been 'westernized' and subscribe to something called science where all they knew was tradition and religion. This is the kind of resentment and discrimination that ruins a relationship before it can even begin. How can you love someone when you've already chosen to hate the idea of them in your heart.

A few weeks before school ended, I went with one of my classes to an Afghan restaurant and we sat on cushions and the food came. They asked me politely if I would like a fork and knife as they knew that it was not polite to eat with their hands in Canada. I told them that I would prefer to eat it their way, with my hands even though I usually avoid getting dirty.

It was a difficult and awkward experience. I dropped rice all over the cloth. The yogurt was cold and made the rice all gooey. I could only use my right hand as well which made things even more difficult but for an instant, we were one. We had transcended cultural barriers to grasp that common humanity that we share.

That common humanity that Jesus saw in the beginning and said was good.

And that common humanity that he came to die for.

I can only hope that there will be more of those in my life and less hatred and judgement because truth is truth but we must be careful on how we carry it.