New contextualization

I just read the novel The Attack by Yasmina Khadra, nom de plume of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer. It is a beautifully written story about Amin Jaafari, a Palestinian (non-practicing Muslim) who happens to be a surgeon and Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv---if you can wrap your mind around that complicated identity. The plot concerns the nightmarish revelation that his dear wife has just blown herself up in a restaurant for the Palestinian cause. She had guarded her political zeal and connections even from the marriage bed.

But none of these political issues are the impetus of today's column. Rather, having immersed myself in Middle Eastern sights and smells---the spice markets, the roasted nuts and tahini and hanging legs of lamb---as well as its existential tribulations for a week, I found I emerged, rather unconsciously at first, with a different context for reading the Bible. Yesterday while making my way through Philippians I noticed I was importing a whole new weltanschauung into Paul's letter from prison, his attitude, his boldness, his determination, his unbowed zeal for the Cause. I realized this was more like a modern Palestinian's or Israeli's perspective on life than a modern New Yorker's or Nebraskan's.

One cannot entirely help (but maybe we should try to help it!) filtering one's Scripture reading through one's own culture. But some cultures must be a better fit than others. I feel quite certain that a Taliban man who comes to Christ will see a much more rigorous call to total consecration in the commands of Jesus and the appeals of Paul than I have been wont to see. The upshot of my little cultural wading in the world of Dr. Amin Jaafari has been, somehow, that I understand I have not even begun to live seriously for Christ.

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