I’m fascinated by the discussion going around the blogosphere regarding the marketing of “Deadly Viper: Character Assassins”, a book apparently about Christian leadership. You wouldn’t be able to tell that from the dragon emblazoned on it’s cover, the Asian characters printed by the title, or the subtitle: “A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership”. I’m sure the authors of the book had no idea that their innocently packaged book of positive and potentially life-changing truths would offend so many. If you haven’t gotten around to following the discussion, I totally recommend it. I personally learned about it starting from Pastor Drew Hyun’s blog: http://drewhyun.wordpress.com/ [Side note: Pastor Drew will be speaking for our Epic East Coast Conference...very exciting!]

What intrigues me about this conversation are people’s responses to the basic statement, “your portrayal of my culture offends/upsets me.” These responses have ranged from “why are you offended? can’t you take a joke?” or “you should feel honored that they’re using your culture to promote such great values.” The most interesting response is, “Well, I’m Asian, and I’m not offended, so you shouldn’t feel offended either.”

It makes me think about the verse, “But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Cor. 12:24-26)

If one part of the body considers something hurtful or humiliating, shouldn’t the whole body make every effort to understand why and corrrect it? I’m sure that the writers and publisher of this book have learned a lot through this conversation. Hopefully they’ll be able to present their message in a more culturally-aware and sensitive manner.

As for the authors, I’m sure they have suffered much from all the angry, sarcastic, mean and unloving responses posted on blogs, FaceBook, and Twitter. For that, we need to apologize (which many have already). Let’s suffer with each other, and honor each other….I pray we may quickly rejoice with each other too as we see our culture begin changing for good.