culturally counterproductive to the Gospel.

I had an interesting conversation today with my roommate.  It came up, innocently, as a question to him regarding the stereotyping that koreans receive (he's chinese).  The conversation went somewhere along the lines of this:

Me: So are Koreans really notorious for not treating their girlfriends/wives well?

RM: Yea.  I have a Korean friend who is a girl whose dad basically said he would be ok with her dating a Korean guy or a Chinese guy.

Me: Really?

RM: Yea.  The Korean guy, well obviously because he's Korean.  But the Chinese one, well he basically said Chinese guys treat their women better.

Me: Lol.

And it got me asking him about the difference in cultures between Chinese and Koreans, especially in the Christian context.

By the way, I don't mean this post to target only Koreans or Chinese.  This can happen at any church, anywhere, within any culture.

So, we ended up talking about how the Gospel can be contorted and twisted within cultures and how the true message of Jesus Christ is no longer what is being communicated.

Where do I see this happening?  I think, as a Korean American, and a long time Korean church attendee, that in many ways, the Gospel becomes a way for us to fuel our long time Korean culture identity in a way that is "morally" right, not Gospel-like right.

And ultimately, this leads to the idolatry of certain "moralities" or "values" rather than making Jesus Christ the center and focus of a church.  Not to say that every single person who is in the Korean church is one, but the Pharisees were just as content on making God's law somewhat more important than God Himself because they viewed God as a distant, transcendent being who did not meddle in the petty affairs of human beings every day, even though His prophets would proclaim God who cared deeply about us and wanted to know us intimately.

Jesus came and shattered it all, making his dwelling among us so that we might know the true righteousness of God.  But the temptation still remains.  The temptation to feel that we may be more superior than others because we are more "spiritual" or "moral" or "*insert any other value here*" rather than seeing the worth of every man, woman, and child through the love shown on the cross.  And because of this, the Gospel becomes counterproductive to what its very intent was.

Sadly, I am very guilty of this myself.  Who am I to consider my worth higher than another human's based off of my own works and thoughts when God sent His Son to save all those who would believe?  How many people have I kept from belief because of my lack of grace and love?  Man, that is incredibly sobering.