In God's design, is cultural appropriation good or evil? Why?

Cultural appropriation has been in the news lately. It actually means taking elements of another culture, but lately has been used to mean a majority culture taking elements of a minority culture. There have been many articles written about it such as the Washington Post's siracha sauce article which claimed that the Chinese are having their identities robbed because Chinese food has become trendy. Such articles caused a high school girl wearing an elegant Chinese dress to her prom to make national news at a time when we're about to have peace talks with North Korea. I think she just liked the dress and thought it would be fun to wear it to the prom. The kids at my grandchildren's school decided to wear high top converse shoes with their formal dresses and tuxedoes. Thank goodness there's no minority cultural which wears high top converse shoes with formal wear or maybe they'd be all over the news, too.

I checked to see what the Bible and churches are saying about cultural appropriation.

"The pain caused in someone by cultural appropriation is caused by what they perceive to be an assault on their personal identity. For example, the Washington Post Siracha sauce article from earlier hinges on personal identity being tied to cultural identity, and that cultural identity being tied to the food being appropriated by foodies.

But this is where the Bible can come to bear on the issue. As Christians, we ultimately identify as Christians, not as Cantonese or American or African American. In salvation there is no distinction between Greek or Jew, barbarian, scythian, slave, or free (Colossians 3:11). We are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:21), created for particular good works foreordained for us by God (Ephesians 2:10). Our personal cultural identities are secondary, and we can lay them down as necessary for unity in the body, loving others, or better serving God, much as Jesus called us to hate even father and mother (Luke 14:26). I do not mean to assert that cultural identity cannot be a part of a Christian’s identity, but I do want to stress the importance of laying down our preferences for others and becoming all things for all men.

Now most importantly, we know that Christians are called to love others, even love their neighbors as themselves, and we know that love believes the best, love is not easily provoked (1 Corinthians 13:5-7). Thus a Christian who feels he is the victim of cultural appropriation is bound to believe the best and not unnecessarily react against a perceived slight. Especially if he feels he is being attacked by believers, he is called to moderation, excusing their actions as unintentionally offensive until further evidence comes in, and dealing with the matter (if he needs to deal with it at all) with grace and love.

But for Christians in the “majority” culture, there is still biblical advice. We are to become all things to all men (1 Corinthians 9:19-23):

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

Surely the principles of laying down our preferences for the sake of others extends to cultural sensitivity.

To move towards my closing point, however, it should be noted that cultural appropriation is a very minor issue. Occasionally there is some outlandishly offensive and ignorant act that goes viral on social media, but generally cultural appropriation, while still something we should be aware of in our attempts to love our neighbors, is the definition of a first world problem. Most of it is not racist, merely ignorant. A lot of it is completely trivial. Some of the furor is so unjustified, being furious at the furor is natural. Taking offense at, say, someone using your native language when their native language is English is completely unjustified. There are many other more pressing issues at hand. That is, in fact, why I am writing this post: I wanted to show you the Bible comes to bear on this controversial issue, but more importantly I wanted to point to bigger priorities.

Satan would love it if Christians wasted their time bickering over cultural appropriation. I am quite sure the devil is using more secondary controversies such as these to distract the world, and even Christians, from much more pressing issues. America is a country where infanticide is legal, and often performed by not only tax exempt but tax supported entities. America recently decided to redefine marriage and rebel directly against God’s plan for the family. The past century has seen the decline of God’s three created human institutions in America: the family, the church, and the state. Religious liberty is probably on borrowed time in our country. Fighting cultural appropriation is pretty low on our priority list when secularization has made the need for evangelism so abundantly clear. We have a kingdom to fight for, our personal holiness to pursue, a church to love and care for, the lost to win, a commission to fulfill. Cultural appropriation is can wait.

At the same time, I love the opportunity to think about cultural appropriation, because it becomes a time to think about how I can better love and care for people of various cultural backgrounds by thinking about how other people think and how they feel about certain things around us. And that is absolutely critical to fulfilling my mission as a Christian on earth.

But there is another take away. Culture is not morally neutral. No matter what culture you come from, there are bends in it and identity issues associated with it that can jeopardize your love and unity within the church or even cause you to unintentionally stray from the directives of God’s Word. I’ll close with that caution, inviting you to join me in self-examination."

https://citizensandsons.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/t...

Another article discusses how people are losing jobs over the current cultural appropriations witch hunt. https://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2017/06/...

In answer to your question about whether cultural appropriation is good or evil in God's design, I think the only thing that's evil is the way some are reacting to it. They are reacting with anger and hatred towards people who eat various ethnic dishes, learn different languages, listen to music from other cultures. Our identities should be as Christians, not nationalities. We should learn from each other, share with each other, and love each other.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Anybody ever heard that???

"Cultural appropriation" isn't even real. It's nothing more than a hastily invented excuse for use by individuals who just want to get their names in the news and possibly legal settlements. In other words, they couldn't find anything better to whine about, so they had to make something up.

God created and loves all people

God is love and if we're in His will we reflect this love

God instructs us to love our neighbour as ourselves

God tells us be slow to anger and take offence

If you can follow these things with sincerity of heart "everything is permissible"

its good if its in god's design

No one has a clue because God never even mentioned cultural appropriation.

Good question. First, would it be God's design to have cultural appropriation? If we were to agree that God is the Christian God we know that his WILL is for all of us to be one with him. And if the elements of the appropriation were purely Christian, then the appropriation would confer with his will.

But his PLAN also includes free will. So I can't confidently say that it would be his design. And since he did give us free will I would imagine that limiting us with cultural appropriation would be the opposite of free will. And if his plan (which includes free will) is good, then cultural appropriation would be evil.

More liberal solutions to problems that don't exist. Fake outrages over nothing...in the name of 'social justice'. Because professors need to keep their phony baloney classes full of young and impressionable paying students.

Michael Savage said it best. Liberalism is a mental disorder. At least that is what it looks like to most normal people.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

https://youtu.be/wvSfvpEbZqc

Can you imagine The Bangles without "Walk Like An Egyptian".?

Now, not everybody thinks the Bangles are "good", but they're not "evil" either.

Reference material:

https://youtu.be/Cv6tuzHUuuk