Quite often cultural appendages are the toughest things to fight as a missionary, when said appendages are contrary to the gospel.

An example: Friends of ours uses to be missionaries to India. They once gave a seminar on Christian married life to a group of people. One man came up afterwards and asked them,

"Am I allowed to beat my wife?"

The couple explained thoroughly and patiently why this wasn't an acceptable practice for a Christian. The man thought for a while, then asked, quite seriously,

"But what if she needs it?"

Kind of humourous, but true. All sorts of tough situations come up with this sort of thing: What about the tribal cheif in Africa who gets saved, and has 10 wives back at home? Which is worse- divorce of polygamy? What about the South American tribe whose normal apparal is nudity, and suddenly these clothed missionaries show up? I guess each situation is different, and calls for wisdom.

When I think of the cultural appendages we have here in North America, I think we'll get to heaven one day and be shocked at how things look from the Lord's perspective. I think things go much deeper then materialism, or even modernity- down into the very fabric of our western society.

I wonder how often we don't live the gospel as we should because we've become so accustomed to socio-cultural capitulation- fitting in, not wanting to stand out at all.

(Latin phrase goes here.)