A Travel Guide for Christians Traveling into Foreign Cultures and Religions

Ever since Cain ventured from Eden into the land of Wandering, humans have been fascinated by what lies far from home.

While some people are satisfied homebodies, wanderlust often prompts others to buy travel books, sign on with language tutors, and pay the price for a ticket to some place the heart considers its true home. Like geographical journeys, spiritual travels have their share of dangers and emotional satisfaction. There are dissatisfactions also. Let me map out the terrain for you.

Travel Preparations and the Decision to Explore

The typical traveler usually buys a few travel and language books. And many of us, once we begin to think for ourselves, dutifully study the spiritual books of other cultures. Yet we hardly know the varied landscapes of our own homeland. The last time many of us studied our own spiritual culture was when we were kids with limited knowledge, wisdom, and patience. Recently a poll showed that the average American is pretty fuzzy about geography. Hey, how many Manhattanites have actually gone to the top of the Empire State Building? The same can be said about our knowledge of our own religion. We zipped through Confirmation class and Social Studies because the powers said it was time we did so. We weren’t particularly self-aware or world-aware and we saw no use in studies in studying when zits, entertainment, homework, chores, and hormones seemed more significant. In addition, the guide who taught us only passed on what our little minds needed to pass the test. And his own knowledge was idiosyncratic, limited, or biased. (Not that we knew.) Yet we believe we know our world quite well, and we study the subtleties of French culture, language, and literature when we haven’t even tried to understand English Subjunctives. We then declare French to be a lovely language and we hardly understand how beautiful, subtle, sophisticated, useful, and complex English.