Today my Brilliant and Beautiful oldest daughter guest blogs for us about "holiness codes", culture and morality. She is finishing the 2nd year of her PhD at Baylor University in Old Testament, planning to be a University Professor someday.
I remember our first day in Papua New Guinea. We arrived at the Port Moresby International Airport sometime in the evening. What does an airport in a developing country look like in 1990? Let’s just say that hygiene, trash removal, and bathing was not on the top of the list for these folks.Chickens roamed. People and bad smell were EVERYWHERE.
Wide-eyed and culture-shocked, mom and dad herded me and Ruth and our 16-24 suitcases to the side of the large untidy hallway. I stood dutifully by the mountain of luggage while dad went to find a payphone. Ruth, on the other hand, always the free spirit, squatted down on the floor just out of mom’s line of vision. There she found several pieces of previously chewed bubble gum, placed them in her mouth, and began to chew with gusto.
Ru was probably 3 or 4. I watched the whole event from my post and was a little sad that I had not found any bubble gum near me. Ru was having a great time. She would chew then take the gum out and play with it and then chew it again. When mom caught on, she freaked. Ru was in such big trouble.
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| Ruth was a pistol in PNG-- sometimes way to curious! |
I remember being a little bit confused that day. What was the problem here? Mom would let us have gum on occasion and it was always a positive thing. What made this occasion different?
The answer is simple: HOLINESS CODES!!
We don’t know it when we are born but our culture has certain holiness codes that people are expected to understand and adhere to. One famous code is that gum in your mouth is good while gum outside of your mouth is bad.
Nothing about the gum has changed—just its location. Ruthie was partaking in unholy gum because someone had already chewed it and then taken it out of their mouth. Ruth multiplied her sin by taking the gum out of her mouth and playing with it and then putting it back in. That is bad!
Another great one is hair. Hair on someone’s head is good. Trust me, Rogaine, hair plugs, and toupees, are indicators of this fact.
Long luscious locks when they are attached to your head are good and beautiful. Hair that isn’t attached to your head (in hairballs on the floor or when you are cleaning out your hairbrush) is gross!
Holiness codes are built around categories. One of my holiness codes concerns animals. A lot of people have indoor pets. This is something I cannot understand. In my mind, there are these two unchangeable categories: People live in houses, animals live outside. When animals cross the threshold of my living space, I get super uncomfortable. My impulse screams, “This cannot be! That animal is not in its place! My world is falling apart!”
Then I get mad. There is a lady in my apartment complex who has a dog. She thinks it’s just dandy to let it roam around the courtyard without a leash. One day, I had my door propped open to let in some fresh air. Without warning this dastardly hound comes bounding into MY apartment. I grab the dog and shoved it outside (where it belongs!).
I was fuming. My category for animals had been violated. What the H -E double hockey-sticks was wrong with this lady. She had committed a grave sin by letting that dog come traipsing into my sacred space! In my mind she was MORALLY at fault.
You are probably thinking by now that I am crazy. But, I bet if you think about it for a minute you have a holiness code or two. I bet you have some pretty interesting categories in your mind that if someone should violate them, you might cry
“party foul,”… “morally questionable,” … “sinner.”
I study the people of the Old Testament and they had holiness codes too. In fact, holiness codes make a lot of sense out of the weird things they did. They had categories that informed them just like you and me.
For instance, no one was allowed to eat pork because it didn’t fit into a proper category. There were two categories for mammals: those that chew the cud and have a cloven hoof and those that do not. Pigs were an anomaly. They had a cloven hoof but they didn’t chew the cud. This caused the ancient Israelites to say “WHAT IN THE CAT HAIR!!”
They also couldn’t eat shellfish. For goodness sakes, shellfish live in the sea but they don’t swim like fish. Things that live in the sea are supposed to swim. Shellfish walk around like land animals on the sea floor,
YIKES! Scratching their heads, I am sure they said,
“WHAT IN THE CAT HAIR!”
I like the ancient Israelites because they aren’t that different from us
As Americans, we have standards. Our categories don’t have to do with hoofs or scales but pets and livestock. As upstanding citizens, we do not eat dogs, cats, or horses. These animals are pets. Cows, chickens, and pigs, however, are fair game. Try explaining these categories to a New Guinean. They will just shake their heads…and, maybe later, try to eat your dog.
So often, we transfer our holiness codes from a question of preferred categories to a question of morality.
In our first year of marriage, Matt and I discovered we had plenty of holiness codes that the other person did not share.
These holiness codes ranged from how many times one should change the sheets to the proper roles for a man or woman to fulfill while living in the same household. Sometimes we thought the other person was really bad and completely mislead for not adhering to our categories.
Holiness codes are a funny thing. They are good because they help maintain order. You have to have categories for your universe or else everything is just a jumbled mess. But, they can also hurt relationships—especially when you think that your holiness code speaks to a moral issue.
My mom and dad taught me to ask this question in cross-cultural situations, “is it a cultural thing or is it a moral thing?”
I would probably do well to ask this question of my holiness codes as well. Was that lady really a sinner for letting her dog loose in the courtyard and then in my apartment? Well, maybe not. Are other people sinning when they don’t fit into my categories for how they should behave, what roles they should fulfill, or what they should put in their mouth?
Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes it is no. It takes wisdom to decide whether it’s a holiness code based on categories that don’t relate to morality or a moral code based on right and wrong.
And this from Denise:
Take a look today at your own "holiness codes" Ask your self these questions:
1. Is this a "rule' of yours based in biblical/moral truths or culture?
2. If you are visiting or plan to visit another culture soon, especially in a developing country, pay close attention to their "holiness codes" Violating one may be a major mistake on your part.
3. The holiness code Ruth violated by chewing that gum seems also to be a hygiene code. YUCK! That one was pretty simple to decipher. Sometimes they are not so simple. Sometimes culture, morality, and biblical truths can get jumbled up in our brains. The wisdom mentioned above should be peppered with diligent prayer, searching scripture over and over, and a dose of good old fashioned common sense.
If you do this then you may not be
SHOCKED AND APPALLED
the next time you give someone a gift and you receive an email or text as a thank you instead of a nicely hand-written and snail mailed note. Hmmmm..... has your "holiness code" about this been violated?
Might be time to re-think that one.:)
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