Missions Textbook 28 Recognizing and Analyzing Culture

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

When I was a little girl, my mother taught me that if I were invited to a fancy dinner party, I should always watch the hostess for clues as to which silverware to use and how to eat and drink the things served to me. She was teaching me cultural awareness.

But what is culture? According to Dr. Tom Steffen, former professor of intercultural studies and director of the doctor of missiology program at Biola University,  “Culture is a unique, total way of life for a specific group of people.”[1] Everything people do, eat, wear, talk about, write about, learn about, think about and spend money on is influenced and conditioned by their culture. But all of those things also emerge from their culture, as the people respond to the clues around them. We live in our own culture, and it has many layers. Even a white, third-generation, German will do some things differently, depending upon whether that person lives in the Florida Keys, Oklahoma City, under a bridge in Seattle, or in the mountains of Montana. And although television does homogenize all of us to a certain extent, it still takes some observation and learning to switch areas. We even have different cultures in our local churches, and if we move or change churches, we have to learn new customs and routines.

Dr. Steffen has written a pretty comprehensive chapter on culture,[2] which I will attempt to summarize.

Culture probably begins with our environment. A desert culture is different from a jungle culture, which is different from an inner-city culture. Often the reason why people do what they do began with a struggle to survive.

Culture can be seen in symbols. Flags, sparklers, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Bread and Wine, stained glass windows, a cross – these all immediately evoke a mental and sometimes emotional connection. Certain rituals also are important to culture: Homecoming, communion, pot-luck dinners, a handshake, a kiss, birthdays.

Culture is seen in the arts (paintings, drawings, needlework) and in literature (books, magazines, and online information), or sometimes, just in the spoken word. Stories express and define; those who know the stories are a part of the culture, and those who don’t are outsiders. We have sacred texts (Bible, Koran) and historical documents (Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta), and our conversation often reflects knowledge of these without actually referring to them. We have idioms and sayings, which we often don’t finish because everyone knows how they end (When in Rome….) Our stories come in many forms – verbal, written, movies, news – and our lives are littered with quotes from them (“Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi…,” “Mostly dead”).

Culture includes characters, both individual and collective: heroes, villains, founders, leaders, armies, followers, and spokespeople. Some are historical figures (Jesus, of course, George Washington, Ghandi, Billy Graham, Shakespeare, ISIS) and some are mythical (fairies, Superman, Darth Vader, Pinocchio, Hamlet). Still others are the people who live in our present world, and their relationship to us is defined differently in different cultures: president, king, prime minister. Are they benevolent, freedom-loving, tyrants, ineffectual, or corrupt? What is expected of a teacher, a father, a judge, a policeman, a son? Culture defines these.

Often those characters – and the whole culture – are caught up in opposing themes that create turmoil and danger and even wars. We see a caricature of this conflict in the culture’s stories (Star Wars, Shakespeare’s plays) and history (North and South, East and West, Nazis and the Allies). But they also exist in the present in political intrigues, elections, and in conversations about what is best for any given people group in the world.

Culture changes, and it is changing faster every year. In the Middle Ages, it took the entire ninth century for the stirrup to finally catch on as a part of riding a horse. Nowadays, computers and phones are obsolete within three to four years, as technology zooms ahead to the next invention. There is more computer ability in my cell phone than was in the whole NASA computer building when they sent the first man to the moon in 1969. In spite of all the changes, there are places where life still moves at Stone Age pace. And even in North America, there are people who live “off the grid,” with no plumbing, electricity or computers.

Our culture is learned, but it is learned imperfectly. It distinguishes between “us” and “them.” It allows us to belong and to be a part of a community. If we don’t like the community, however, we may leave and join another one, but we will have to learn how to survive and thrive in that new culture. This is what makes it such a challenge to work with the homeless in our own country, or with illegal aliens. As much as we care and want to reach out to them, culture separates us. When language separates as well, the challenge multiplies.

The apostle Paul wrote: “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (First Corinthians 9:22). He traveled all over western Asia and a good part of present-day Europe. Although he often began his ministry in the local synagogue (Acts 13:5; 14:1), he very quickly adjusted to every culture, making the message of the Gospel relevant. He planted churches, saw leaders rise within those churches, and left them to evangelize their own and to reach out to other cultures as well.

“Cutting through the confusion of another culture will require that the Christian worker become as a little child, for whom everything is new and strange. He or she must become a learner; demonstrating empathy and identification (inward as well as outward) without compromising integrity so that valid ministry can occur.”[3]

[1]Tom Steffen and Lois McKinney Douglas, Encountering Missionary Life and Work: Preparing for Intercultural Ministry, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), p.187.

[2]Ibid., 189-200.

[3] Ibid., 200.

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

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