Seminary CM8: Global Christianity

This is the eighth post on the Contexts of Ministry in my Seminary in a Nutshell series. See the bottom for the previous posts in this unit, "The Person and Contexts of a Minister." I have completed one other unit in this series,The Pastor as Leader.
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1. When we founded Wesley Seminary in 2009, one of the books students read in the second class at that time, Cultural Contexts of Ministry, was Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom. The purpose of this reading was to give students a sense of the shifting demographics of Christianity in the world. In particular, it was to give these ministers a strong sense of the shift of Christianity from what used to be called the "first world," the so called "Western" world, to what we might now call the "two-thirds" world.

Perhaps we should not assume that the background of our current situation is known to any degree among ministers in training. Beginning in the late 1400s, Europe began colonizing the rest of the world, looking for gold and other items of value that they might then sell back in Europe. The "New World" was discovered by Europe as Christopher Columbus sought to find a shorter route to the East Indies.

Some of the precious goods that were imported from Africa were slaves. The slave trade begins and black as a race is born. Before that point, you had distinct African people groups. Now, Europeans come to dub all Africans as black and, thus by contrast, dominant Europeans become "white," another new category.

2. Spain will conquer what becomes known as Latin America, from present day Mexico down to the tip of South America. The Portuguese will take what is now Brazil. The French, Spanish, British, and Dutch will fight over North America until first the British prevail. Then the French will eventually sell out. Finally the new States will push Mexico to its current boundaries.

In Sub-Saharan Africa the French, the Dutch, and the British will parcel up the land. After World War I, the British will watch over the Middle East, as they had already what is now India and Pakistan. The French, Spanish, and British will dabble in Asia, with the British taking the continent of Australia, the French being in Vietnam, and the Spanish in the Philippines.

3. In the twentieth century, these European powers, these "colonial powers" will slowly withdraw from these lands. They have left their traces in the languages that remain. All of Latin America speaks primarily Spanish or Portuguese. English is a predominant language in India and its surrounding countries. Various countries in Africa speak either French or English.

The relationship these European colonizers took to the peoples of these lands was that of master to subservient, superior to inferior. This colonization brought missionaries to these lands as well. Many of them will become Christian lands at least in name. These missionaries had little or no training. No doubt they came largely unable to distinguish the cultural aspects of their faith from its kingdom core. No doubt many if not most of them came with the same sense of superiority than the political colonizers brought with them.

So these missionaries also served to colonize these lands with Western culture, this term itself a sort of construct for the culture of Europe. They came with "benevolent" intent but probably did not, for the most part, view the indigenous peoples as equals in the sight of God. For most of them, these peoples were "poor," "unfortunate" types. Even in the United States in the days before and after the Civil War, few of those in the North actually viewed the slaves as equal individuals created in the image of God. They might "help" those poor folk but most were not looking to make them equal.

4. The language of these days found itself in a time when the industrialized world was called the "first world." Then these largely unindustrialized, colonized lands, including pretty much all of the southern hemisphere, were called the "third" world (cf. Bandung conference of 1955, p.69). The shift to refer to these lands as the "two-thirds world" shows the dawning awareness that the vast majority of the world is not Europe, North America, or Russia.

In the 1970s, my own church, The Wesleyan Church, made a move that I thought at the time was the right move to make morally. Rather than have the rest of the Wesleyan church world be subservient to North America in our general conference, why not empower them to have their own general conferences? Then all of these general conferences would come as equals to the table in a Wesleyan World Fellowship.

The first such conference to break away from North America was the Caribbean, then the Philippines. Canada began the process of breaking away this past year (2016) and Australia has been at least partially separate for five years, I believe. These last two seem to indicate that the principle is sound and in good faith. I will not try to parse the moral complexities of the sense that other general conferences should be financially self-supporting and that this should be the goal of all domains outside North America.

If the motives of The Wesleyan Church (TWC) were mostly pure in making this distinction, the situation is now much more complex in relation to a church like the United Methodists. The UM church never made the kind of separation that TWC made in the 70s. When TWC made the distinction, there seemed to be a genuine sense of empowerment and enabling.

But the situation has changed, as Jenkins' book indicates. Christianity is rising in the two-thirds world much more quickly than in North America. The "global south," as it is sometimes referred to, will eventually have more voting power in the UM church than the North American church. Already in the Episcopal fellowship, Anglicans from Africa are increasingly marginalizing American Episcopal congregations that support the ordination and appointment of practicing gay ministers.

The UM church has been facing the same struggle this decade. If I read the situation correctly, the bishops of the UM church in general seem to support the ordination of practicing gay ministers. The majority of US congregations probably favor unity over schism over this issue. A sizable minority of US ministers view this issue as a "make or break" one. That is to say, if the church in the end ordains and appoints practicing gay ministers, then they will break away from the church.

Until this most recent general conference (2016), I had assumed that a split would involve the conservatives leaving. But the rise of the two-thirds world within the UM church suggests that, if a split delays long enough, the conservatives will eventually have the majority and it would be those in favor of practicing gay ministers who would more likely be forced to leave.

An attempt to separate global Methodism administratively from the North American church, much as the Wesleyans did in the 70s, failed this past UM general conference.

5. So what insights might we gain from Jenkins' book? Let me give quotes and comments from the book that have stood out to me:

Demographics

• "In 2050, 72 percent of Christians will live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and a sizable share of the remainder will have roots in one or more of those continents" (xi).
• "Over the last century, the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably away from Europe, southward, to Africa and Latin America, and eastward, toward Asia" (1).
• "By 2050 only about one-fifth of the world's 3.2 billion Christians will be non-Hispanic whites" (3).
• "Far from Islam being the world's largest religion by 2020... Christianity should still have a substantial lead and will maintain its position for the foreseeable future" (6).
• "Members of a Southern-dominated church are likely to be among the poorer people on the planet" (7).
• "There is no single Southern Christianity" (8).
• "Liberal Protestantism has never represented a mainstream of Christianity, or even a majority, and as time goes on, the relative significance of that tradition will decline even further" (11).
• "Conservative theological or moral stances often accompany quite progressive or radical economic views" (19)
• Christianity in the global south often has a strongly charismatic flavor and sometimes focuses on the potential economic prosperity of believers.
• "Almost one Christian in five worldwide is neither Protestant, nor Catholic, nor Anglican, nor Orthodox" (76). Note--he is not including Pentecostal under Protestant.
• The number of Chinese Christians is currently 65-70 million, about 5% of the population (88).
• India has more Christians than most European nations (91).
• "By 2050, six of the world's twenty most populous nations will be on the African continent" (107)
• By 2050, eight nations could each have a hundred million Christians or more... only the United States is from what is presently considered the advanced industrial world. 
• These countries are USA (estimated to have 350 million Christians in 2050), Brazil (234 million), Philippines (162), Ethiopia (160), Congo (150), Mexico (130), Nigeria (127), Uganda (106), China (85), Russia (70), Germany (52). See p.113.
• "The number of African Christians in 2050 will be almost twice as large as the total figure for all the Christians who were alive anywhere on the planet back in 1900" (113).
• "Most of the global population growth in the coming decades will be urban" (116).
• Most of the growth in Christianity that will take place in the United States and Europe in the coming decades will be a function of global Christianity. That is to say, it will not be among "white" American Christians. 
• "Perhaps three-quarters of Arab Americans are in fact Christian" (133).

At this point I might mention that Jenkins is not asking whether or not these are truly Christians. That is to say, he is counting what we might call nominal Christians. For example, he would count a Mormon as a Christian in his statistics. Who is truly a Christian is of course a matter for God to decide (also see next post).

It may be uncomfortable for American Christians to come to grips with the approaching loss of power within the trajectory of Christendom. The election of Trump was arguably just one sign, at least in part, of one section of white America having difficulty coming to grips with a dominance slowly and inevitably slipping away (think Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin). This struggle will likely continue for the next few decades in the US until we reach some kind of racial equilibrium.

Another observation is that these shifts are not necessarily about truth. The seemingly inevitable cycle of "liberal" Christianity's demise says nothing of whether it is right or wrong on this or that point. In the same way, the coming dominance of two-thirds world Christianity only speaks of numbers and power, not of correctness. One of the observations Jenkins makes repeatedly is that many of the theologies emerging from Africa and South America are not entirely "orthodox" in the historic sense (e.g., "African Independent Churches" or AICs--66-68).

So North American Christian conservatives are happy to have the southern hemisphere support them on a number of theological struggles, but they may be uncomfortable with the progressive social stances that may also come in force. For example, "liberation theology" has had a significant foothold in Latin America, which advocates at the very least economic liberation and at times political revolution. These socialist and at times communist flavored values will be as distasteful to American conservatives as the southern position is appealing on the ordination of practicing gay ministers.

One take-away I have is that the current shift in dominance is likely to make all of us from the former hegemony uncomfortable.

6. The Situation Past and Present

• "The whole idea of 'Western Christianity' distorts the true pattern of the religion's development over time" (22).
• The church of Ethiopia today claims some 25 million members, after lengthy conflicts with Muslims and Marxists, roughly the number of all the Methodist related denominations in North America (26).
• Had the Mongul invaders, with a Christian queen, have defeated the Turks in Palestine in the 1260s, much of the Middle East might be Christian today (34).
• Christians have until recently had a significant presence in the Middle East despite Muslim dominance. Ironically, a large percentage of Palestinians have historically been Christian (as opposed to Jews). There has been a significant minority of Syrian Christians in Syria and Chaldean Christians in Iraq. Coptic Christians have been a significant presence in Egypt. 
• British and American actions in the Middle East over the last century have inadvertently resulted in forces that have brought persecution and diaspora to these groups. In Palestine, for example, American Christians have strongly supported the Israeli dominance over the Palestinians, even though far more Palestinians have been Christian.
• During the colonial era, Westerners tried to impose their own ideas of Christianity as it should be to the world. Gradually, indigenous peoples moved beyond the colonial matrix. Finally they adapt and incorporate native ways and form wholly new churches (70). This of course is what happened when Christianity came to northern Europe as well.

A central take-away from these insights is the way evangelical Christians have often blindly participated in political forces that have, unintentionally, had harmful repercussions to Christians in the Middle East. America's blind support of Israel has hurt Christianity among Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqis. The blind assumption that all Arabs or Middle Easterners are Muslim has only made things more difficult for Arab and Middle Eastern Christians, whose Christianity is far more ancient than American Christianity.

Another potentially sobering possibility is that what we consider orthodoxy may have elements of European (as opposed to the pre-Constantinian Christian) culture. A theological construct of which I am very fond--consensus Christianity--is vulnerable to the charge that the consensus of which we speak significantly involves the culture of the European Middle Ages. Are there elements that are similar to when holiness missionaries to Native Americans had them wear buns and skirts, while stopping all forms of dancing?

7. Looking to the Future
Some final quotes:

• "As Christianity becomes increasingly Southern, it cannot fail to absorb the habits and thought-worlds of the regions in which it is strongest" (140). It has always done this, and that is okay. "London's St. Paul's Cathedral almost certainly stands on the site of an ancient pagan structure" (138).
• "Hispanic theology is acutely concerned with issues of liberation, suffering, and social justice, while matters of race are also paramount" (144).
• "A black or brown Mary would be a powerfully appropriate symbol for the emerging Southern Christendom" (147).
• "The practice of healing is one of the strongest themes unifying the newer Southern churches, both mainstream and independent, and perhaps their strongest selling point for their congregations" (157).
• Many Southern churches appropriate the OT more directly and literally than the West has come to do (this was also true of frontier churches in the US in the 1800s, as we see in traditions about the Sabbath, circumcision, tithing, and verses relating to appearance).
• Churches are fundamentalist and charismatic by nature (169).
• "The greatest change from present assumptions is likely to involve the Enlightenment-derived assumption that religion should be segregated into a separate sphere of life, distinct from everyday reality" (171).
• Politics and religion tend to align in the two-thirds world. Of course this happens in the US as well.
• "Religious loyalties are at the root of many of the world's ongoing civil wars" (201).
• Catholicism is not so much waning in the southern hemisphere as changing. For example, charismatic and Pentecostal elements are on the rise.
• Immigrant churches are on the rise in the US and Europe, and two-thirds world countries are increasingly sending missionaries to Western lands. 
• By 2050, it seems likely that "whites" will make up less than half of Americans. Over half may be Hispanic, a quarter black. Asians not quite a quarter.

Jenkins is a sociologist of religion. He is not saying what should happen, only what he thinks has and is going to happen. What this means is that we who are in the church need to engage a dialog with "the other" as equal participants. This must not be a dialog of a supposedly "superior" Western Christian "schooling" the "inferior" global Christian. It should be a dialectic. Each side raises concerns and makes points. A synthesis will emerge over time. I believe this is also the most profitable way to move forward whenever any two or or more groups are in tension or conflict.

The alignment of political party with religion is something that European Christianity and indeed world Christianity has born the scars. History has emphatically shown the need to align Christianity with principles rather than political party. When Christians persecute Christians, something is wrong. Similarly, we can debate whether the strong alignment of American evangelical Christianity with the Republican party is in the end a healthy situation for American Christianity in general.

8. For the moment, he notes that Christianity is alive and well among the poor and persecuted (275), and the truly persecuted do not live in the white portions of North America.

No doubt the future will throw some wrenches in these prognostications. As G. K. Chesterton once said, future humanity listens respectfully to prophets and prognosticators, then goes on to do something different after they are nicely buried. Jenkins is convinced that the shift of Christianity to the southern hemisphere is taking place. He is less willing to commit to what that will end up looking like.

The currents of history are always alterable, especially through violence. For all we know, God could let the world destroy itself before the next election.

Next Sunday: Culture 9: The Rise of the Nones

The Calling of a Minister

• The Domains of Ministry
• The Calling of a Minister
• Ministerial Calling in Scripture
• Ministerial Calling in History
• God can call anyone he wants into ministry.
• A Theology of Calling

The Person of a Pastor

• Intro to the Pastor as Person
• Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
• Sacred Pathways
• Individual Spiritual Disciplines
• Corporate Spiritual Disciplines
• Some Formational Reading

Contexts of Ministry

• Kinds of Context
• The Making of Meaning
• How Culture Works
• The Cultures of the Bible
• The Kingdom Core
• The Church and Culture
• A Culture Map

Gen Eds LC4: How to Learn a Language

1. I have dabbled in a number of languages over the years. I consider English the only language I am really fluent in. My spoken German is not horrible. Mi Español es horible. Perhaps I could order a meal in French.

As far as written languages are concerned, with enough time I can read German, French, and Spanish, as far as living languages are considered. I am good at biblical Greek. I can make my way well enough in Latin and Hebrew. Aramaic is close enough to Hebrew that I could take a shot.

As far as languages I have studied but remain fully incompetent at, there is Akkadian and Sanskrit. I have started Arabic, Coptic, and Ethiopic. I know a few phrases in several other languages.

So I have some experience at least at starting to learn languages (I have colleagues that far surpass me). How would I recommend going about learning a language?

Learning Style
2. A question you will want to ask early on is, "What kind of a learner am I?" For example, do I remember best by hearing? Do I remember best by seeing? Do I learn best by speaking? Do I remember best when I understand why? How do I best learn stuff?

Frankly, you're pretty much going to need to do all of these if you're going to learn a language. There is the question of writing or speaking. Why am I learning this language? To go on vacation? To become a spy or work for the NSA? Am I just wanting to read scholarship in other languages?

Google Translate leaves me speechless. Yes, it often comes up with weird stuff from the perspective of native speakers. But, dang, if this stuff had existed when my brain was young.

If you are visiting a country that speaks another language, it makes sense to get some basic pleasantries down. It's really common courtesy and you will get a lot more cooperation if you can say "Please" and "Thank you." The arrogance of many an American overseas who expect everyone to speak English and conform to their expectations is embarrassing. No, we don't put ketchup on our "fries" here. Go home if you can't deal with it. You're the foreigner here.

I personally do not learn well merely by sound. You can tell me verbally a hundred times and it means nothing. In one ear and out the other. I have to see the words written down and hear them. Then I need to speak it. And my rate of learning increases exponentially if I understand the structure of the language.

The best learning software these days has you listen, repeat back, read, and write. That gets you to a certain point in learning the language. Beyond that, you need to engage the real stuff. You need to engage people who really speak the language. In the end, you really need an immersion experience in a country where that language is the language.

3. Not everyone will be able to learn another language proficiently, although everyone can try. I've known of missionaries who struggled with a sense of defeat because they were not able to master the language of the people. In the future, a person probably should not go as a missionary to a country whose language they cannot learn. Never say never, of course.

There is a strong temptation not to immerse oneself even when you are in a country that speaks a foreign language. If you are there with family, the temptation is to speak English at home and only speak the other language when you have to in public. This is death to language learning.

Being on an English speaking military base or being in a business context where you have a translator is almost like not even being in the country. Certainly forget about really learning the language. This is not immersion.

I spent two months in Germany in 95. I was alone and so had no native English speakers to speak to. My German friends would only speak English to me if I broke down, which I did very often. I had learned German for reading and no doubt they wondered if I knew any German at all. (By the way, I believe some Asian countries used to teach English in this way, which is why I suspect some Asians in the past used to receive the same reaction as my German friends to me).

But at some point in those two months I reached some sort of critical mass so that more and more of the conversation was in German. A highlight of one stay in Germany was when I gave a ride to a Dutch hitchhiker and it took a few minutes for us both to realize that neither of us was actually German.

It is my personal opinion--to which I welcome correction from experts--that having an ear for music is a great help in language learning.

A Basic Learning Sequence
4. Let me set out a basic sequence for learning a language to speak:

• Learn the alphabet
• Learn the basic conversation phrases
• Understand the type of language--how does it work?
• Learn 1000 words.
• Go through a basic software package on it.
• Start going through a grammar.
• Start listening to native speakers on radio and/or internet. 
• Read the Bible in that language.
• Start having immersion experiences in a relevant country.

More on these in a moment.

5. For the academy, most languages are taught for reading and they are taught in a compressed, grammatical manner. I learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in order to read texts. Accordingly, I did not learn conversational tidbits. My learning of German and French was similarly first to be able to read scholarly books. So there was no conversational German or French in my graduate, one semester courses in these languages. It was memorizing grammatical tables.

You sometimes hear people mock this approach to learning ancient Greek or another language. "If I could only learn it like I learned English or some other language," I have heard. I actually think this response itself lacks understanding. How many years did it take you to learn English--sixteen to get to the English level that the Greek New Testament is at? And the child's brain is far more spongy than our brains the older we get. I hate my 50 year old brain more every day.

The fact of the matter is, the way dead languages and languages for scholarship are traditionally taught is the fastest way to cram in those languages for reading. If someone ever comes up with a conversational way to learn ancient Greek, let's see how many years it takes you to get as far as a concentrated grammar class can get in two semesters. It's called grammar, baby.

1. Alphabets
6. So let's say you really want to learn a language. You want to speak and read it.

The first step I would take in learning a language is the alphabet. For most European languages, this step is a cinch. I was surprised when I first learned that Spanish and German have letters that are not in the English alphabet. At the beginning, I naively thought that all languages have the same letters and sounds and that it's just that some languages write them differently.

Not so!

• Spanish has the ñ (enye), which is pronounced with an "ny" sound. Spanish and French also have letters with accents on top. Some English speakers get annoyed, "What's the difference, it's an e?" Well, él means "he" in Spanish, while el means "the." Just because you don't know enough to tell the difference doesn't mean they don't.
• German has the umlaut letters (ä, ö, ü). We have difficulty hearing these sounds that are completely obvious to a native speaker. My wife had a prolonged exchange with a bus driver in Tübingen, Germany, trying to get to Bühl. "Bool?" she said. "Was?" he said. "Bool?" she said? "Was?" he said. "Bool?" she said. "Ah, Bühl," he said. "Ja, wir fahren nach Bühl."

 7. Of course the further away on the branches of Indo-European languages you get, the more likely that the "script" will be different.

• The Greek alphabet is not too difficult because many of the letters look similar. Others we learned in math and science: α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, σ, τ, υ, φ, χ, ψ, ω.
• The Russian alphabet was based in part on the Greek alphabet: а, б, в, г, д, е, ё, ж, з, и, й, к, л, м, н, о, п, р, с, т, у, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ъ, ы, ь, э, ю, я.
• The Hindi alphabet hangs its letters from a line: क, ख, ग, घ, ङ, च, छ, ज, झ, ञ, ट, ठ, ड, ढ, ण, त, थ, द, ध, ऩ, प, फ, ब, भ, म, य, र, ऱ, ल, ळ, ऴ, व, श, ष, स, ह

The Semitic languages get a little more complicated because they sometimes have one form of a letter for the beginning of a word, another for the middle of a word, and yet another for the end of a word.

• The Hebrew alphabet is: א,ב,ג,ד,ה,ו,ז,ח,ט,י,כ,ל,מ,נ,ס,ע,פ,צ,ק,ר,ש,ת. Hebrew is different from the other languages above in that it reads from right to left and, in a book, from back to front (by English reckoning).
• The Arabic alphabet is:
    ا ,ب ,ت ,ث ,ج ,ح ,خ ,د ,ذ ,ر ,ز ,س ,ش ,ص ,ض ,ط ,ظ ع , غ ,ف ,ق ,ك ,ل ,م ,ن ,ه ,و ,ى Like the Hebrew alphabet, you read from right to left.

8. One of the challenges of Chinese is that it does not really have an alphabet. Rather, as an analytic language, it puts together individual bits of meaning. There are over 100,000 variations of its characters, but if you know about 2600 of them, you know over 98% of what you would need in everyday language.

Interestingly, different Chinese languages pronounce the characters differently. So someone who speaks Mandarin and someone who speaks Cantonese would not be able to understand each other's spoken language, but they might be able to understand each other if they wrote down what they were saying.

2. Basic Phrases
9. As I go through the various languages and cultures in this series, here are the conversational phrases we will learn:

• Hello and Goodbye
• Good morning, afternoon, evening, and night
• Yes and no
• How are you?
• Please, thank you, sorry, excuse me, you're welcome
• My name is... Pleased to meet you.
• I don't speak ____. Do you speak English?
• I do not understand.
• I would like...
• Where is...
• How much?
• I am ...

3. Type of Language
10. At some point, if you are going to get serious about learning the language, you will need to know how it works. This relates to the previous post. Is it basically a matter of learning words and putting them in the right order (analytic)? Great. Then learning vocabulary is going to be the big deal.

Is it an inflected language that changes the endings? Oh boy, you're probably going to need to memorize some charts. Is it an agglutinating language? Then you'll need to learn a lot of meaning bits that get stuck inside words.

Vocabulary
11. I hate to say it but you're just going to have to learn some words to get a language. This is where I am at with several languages. If you don't have a critical mass of words, you're not going to understand much. I wish I could say I was the master.

There are no end of flash cards, ranging from apps you can download to your phone to the old traditional box of 1000 that I have tried to use. A word a day seems puny, as it would take three years to get through the stack, but it's better than nothing. Sometimes I take these flash cards on long car trips. Barron's AP Test study tools have boxes more along the lines of 500 words.

When I'm in a foreign country, I usually learn vocabulary intensively. As I encounter words or want to use a word, I write it down and then review my vocabulary for the day in the evenings. A journey of a 1000 words begins with the first flashcard. In theory, you could have a "Spanish day" here where you try to think of the Spanish words you would say.

Software
12. There are tons of free apps you can download. Then there are the conversational CDs you can buy. If you are going to a country for a week's vacation, why not listen through one of the conversational series in preparation?

If you are more serious, there is Rosetta Stone and other tools like Babbel. I find Rosetta annoyingly repetitive. But it will reward the plodder.

Grammar
13. At some point you will want to buy a serious grammar of the language. How do you make a past tense? How do you make a future tense? This is when you are getting serious about learning the language.

Immersion
14. Start reading a book like the Bible in the language you are learning. Your familiarity with the content will help accelerate your understanding. I have found that I can more easily understand a sermon in a foreign language than I can the radio. This is because of the common church language I share with the preacher. You can probably find sermons online in your language of choice.

My friend Norm Wilson listens for hours on end to French and Spanish radio. With the internet, we can listen to all the real speakers of a target language that we want.

Of course you will eventually want to go there. Try not to speak English while you're there. Try to think in the new language. A moment of crowning significance will be when you dream in the new language!

Next Week: Cultures 5: Spanish and Spanish Cultures
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This is the fourth post in a series called, "World Language and Culture." This is the fourth series in an overall project called Gen Eds in a Nutshell. The other series so far include 1) philosophy, 2) world history, and 3) a math and science series, which is a little over half-way.

Thus far in the Language and Culture series are:

• World Language and Culture Overview
• Culture Classification
• The Languages of the World

Parsing Organizational Confusion

Hidden Cultures in the Academy

I recently worked through Erin Meyer's The Culture Map. While this book is about working across cultures primarily in the area of business, it occurred to me that I may have observed some of these cultural differences even within my own university.

Because we are talking about assumptions, it occurred to me that one reason why various professors and administrators may talk past each other, not to mention past potential students and stakeholders, may be a reflection of cultural differences. And as universities aim for greater diversity, these sorts of underlying tensions are only bound to increase.

Here is a list of contrasting priorities that may underlie some organizational conflicts:

1. Explicit versus implicit communicators
Some people are wired to spell out things clearly and in detail. I have experienced times when my repetition has crossed a line of annoyance. After reading this book I realized that some cultures consider it insulting when you spell things out too explicitly. "What, do you think I'm stupid?"

2. Why versus how people
America at large is wired to the "how." As I read this contrast, I remembered times when one set of faculty were thinking, "Just tell me what to do," while someone else felt it was essential to explain the why and give extensive background.

Similarly, there are many professors who think if you do not give extensive theoretical background, you are not yet ready to talk about relevance or concrete implications. Suffice it to say, as prevalent as this "culture" is for academicians, it rubs against the broader culture of the majority of students, who want to know what to do with what is being taught.

3. Egalitarian vs Hierarchical
I have observed within the academy varied assumptions about hierarchy. So I have known some leaders who are very hierarchical. For them, you communicate through the hierarchy. A professor should not contact the president and a division chair should not contact a Dean from another school. Same level communicates with same level.

But others have a much more "egalitarian" sense of communication. We used to call one of the presidents at Asbury Seminary the "open door" president. One president at IWU used to say, anyone can contact me but I will respond through the established channels. Suffice it to say, there is great potential for conflict if everyone is not on the same page about these things.

4. Who makes decisions?
Another cultural difference has to do with who makes decisions and how set they are once they are made. Some faculty bodies are very consensual. They want to reach a consensus before a decision is made. In other situations, a leader gets input from everyone but it is understood that the leader will make the final decision.

The German-Dutch-North European model is a consensus model. You do lots of ground work, the team (including the leader) reach a consensus, then you stick with the decision. I have observed faculty following this sort of a pattern in recent years. "Shared governance" seems to mean, we collectively make all decisions rather than, we have authority in some areas and the administration has authority in others.

The adaptability of decisions is another area where people differ. For some a decision made is done. Others view decisions more as adaptable if new information or factors arise.

Again, a lack of clarity on such matters is bound to lead to confusion and unnecessary conflict.

5. In-your-face conflict?
Many academic cultures are very conflictual. This gets at another cultural variation--how much negativity is considered appropriate and how damaging is such negativity. For some personalities, in your face conflict is perfectly normal. For others, it is deeply alienating.

6. Relationships vs. Tasks
Some people want to build relationships. It's important to eat together and like each other. How can you work together if you do not ever go to lunch with each other? Others are about getting the job done. You do your job and I'll do mine.

People may assume it's one or the other. Which is it for your team?

7. Keeping the Schedule
It is possible as universities get more diverse that we will see conflict over the question of schedule. How important are deadlines? How important is it to be on time?

At the top is a chart that may capture some of these often unexamined assumptions.

Gen Eds LC3: The Languages of the World

By Erkumbulant - Own work
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is the third post in a series called, "World Language and Culture." This is the fourth series in an overall project called Gen Eds in a Nutshell. The other series so far include 1) philosophy, 2) world history, and 3) a math and science series, which is a little over half-way.

Thus far in the Language and Culture series are:

• World Language and Culture Overview
• Culture Classification

1. Linguistics is the study of how language works. One fascinating area within linguistics is "comparative" linguistics, where we compare languages to each other. In fact, languages cluster together like various species belong together in families and have a common history.

There are three predominant types of language: analytic, inflected, and agglutinative. English is mostly an analytic language, which is a language where each word gives you a single bit of meaning and the letters of each word are not changed. [1] The order in which the words come is very important for the meaning. For example, "Ken hit the ball" means something quite different from "The ball hit Ken," even though the words are exactly the same.

Chinese would be an even better example of an analytic language, because English still has traces of changing the letters at the end of its words.

Most languages in the European stream are inflected (also called "fusional") languages. An inflected language changes the endings and forms of words to tell you the specifics of what the word is doing. [2] These endings usually reflect more than one implication for meaning. They also make it such that the order the words come in is less important.

Take the following sentence in Latin: amo manducare panem, "I love to eat bread." While the word amo means "I love," the ending o is what tells you it is I love. If it were amas, it would mean "You (singular) love. The ending tells you both that the subject of love is singular and "I." Similarly with the other words, a change of the ending changes the meaning.

Meanwhile, you could put the words in any other order and the sentence would still be "I love to eat bread." manducare amo panem, panem manducare amo, amo panem manducare, manducare panem amo, panem amo manducare--all of these orderings translate as "I love to eat bread," although the word that is emphasized in each case varies a little.

The final major type of language is agglutinative. [3] Like inflected languages, they vary the letters within a word to change the meaning. The difference is that each change only reflects on bit of meaning. Words in Turkish are thus like a string of beads, with each bead in the word telling you one bit of meaning.

2. By one reckoning, the ten most spoken languages in the world are:

• Chinese
• Spanish
• English
• Hindi
• Arabic
• Portuguese
• Bengali
• Russian
• Japanese
• Punjabi

See also this article. In terms of the number of countries where a particular language is spoken, the top five are: 1) English, 2) Arabic, 3) French, 4) Chinese, and 5) Spanish. It seems to me that if you could learn seven languages and wanted to be able to cover as much of the globe as possible, these are the ones to learn:

• English is spoken in 101 countries. It is the third most native language in the world. It will open the door to you in North America, India and Pakistan, and in much of Africa. It seems to me that, from a strategic perspective, it is the most valuable language to know currently in the world.
• I would secondly suggest Chinese. It is the language spoken by the greatest number of people in the world and knowing Chinese opens the most doors in east Asia.
• Thirdly I suggest Spanish, the second most spoken language in the world. Spanish directly opens up almost all of South America and Latin America. Since I am not putting Portuguese on my list of top six, Spanish is close enough at least to help in Brazil and Portugal.
• Next I suggest Arabic. It is the fifth most spoken language, spoken in 60 countries, and will open up the Middle East and to some extent countries like Turkey and parts of north Africa.
• I feel like Russian needs to be on this list because of the sheer geographical area that it covers, even though it is eighth on the most spoken list. 
• Strategically speaking, French would be on this list. It's not because most people speak French as a primary language. It is because French opens up to you the rest of Africa.
• Hindi really deserves to be much higher up on this list because it is not less than the fourth most spoken language, perhaps even the second. It is related to other languages that are also in the top 10: Bengali and Punjabi. The only reason I have put it seventh is because English is the official language of India and Pakistan, so it is less important if the goal is to be able to cover the most territory with the fewest languages.

There are over 7100 languages in the world currently, half of which will die out by the end of the century. Globalization has taken once isolated peoples and connected people in ways that make smaller languages less spoken.

Indo-European Languages
3. If you look at the chart at the top, over 46% of the world's speakers speak an "Indo-European" language. This is a family of languages that originated around 3400BC in the area around present day Ukraine. Some of this traveling band headed southeast to the region of India. Some went southwest into Greece and Italy. Others stayed put or headed east into Russia. Still others went west into Germany.

One of the earliest known branches of this happy family were the Hittites, who lived in Anatolia (Turkey) around 1800BC. They are mentioned in Genesis 23.

Eastern
In India, Sanskrit is the oldest known representative of this group of language. Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Punjabi, some of the most spoken languages in the world by population, are direct descendants of Sanskrit.

Persian languages are also descendant from this western branch of Indo-European. Today, descendants of this branch include Farsi, Kurdish, and Pashto.

A more recent descendant of this western branch are the Slavic languages. These include Russian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbo-Croatian.

Western
4. The oldest branch in the west was ancient Greek, which of course is the ancestor of modern Greek. In Italy, Latin is another ancient descendant. From Latin come the five Romance languages: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian.

The Celtic tribes made their way from Galatia in Turkey before the New Testament to Gaul of Roman fame, to the British Isles. Scottish, Welsh, and Irish are all descendants.

Lastly, there are the Germanic languages that occupied central and northern Europe. The northern Teutonic languages spread to what is now Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian lands. The western Germanic tribes became German, Dutch, Frisian, and of course English.

When the French Normans took over England in 1066, The Germanic Anglo-Saxon base of the language was invaded by French.

Semitic Languages
5. Because of my knowledge base, I'll turn to the Semitic languages next. These are primarily Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic.

The oldest versions of these language was the East Semitic Akkadian, which was the business language of the oldest Babylonian and Assyrian empires. At the time of Israel's captivity, however, Aramaic had become the "lingua franca."

In the West, there was Hebrew, Canaanite, and Phoenician. An older northwest Semitic language was Ugaritic. In the South, Ethiopic would eventually become Amharic and Tigrinya today.

Arabic, another southern Semitic language, is by far the most spoken Semitic language today. Aramaic is barely spoken and dying, but is still known in Iraq and Syria. Hebrew was reinvented as a language when Israel was refounded in 1948.

Sino-Tibetan Languages

6. After the Indo-European languages, more people speak a language from this group than any other. However, Chinese is the primary example. Other languages include Tibetan and Burmese.

Altaic and Isolated Languages
7. Perhaps most of the languages of the world are spoken by a small group of people without clear relationship to others. Japanese, for example, seems to stand mostly on its own, although Chinese has influenced it. Some suggest it may be part of an "Altaic" family, but this is far from agreed.

On the other hand, Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, and Mongolian are thought to relate to this family of agglutinative languages. This group of languages lies across a horizontal line in the middle of Asia, with one branch stretching up eastern Europe.

Next Week: Cultures 4: How to Learn a Language

[1] English does change some letters. "Book" is different from "books." "Walk" is a little different from "walks." In that sense it is really a mixed type rather than a purely analytic type.

[2] In general, languages that have more than one bit of meaning per word are called "synthetic" as opposed to "analytic."

[3] Another type is "polysynthetic," where words can be quite long because they incorporate many meaning bits, including diverse parts of speech.

Seminary CM7: A Culture Map

This is the seventh post on the Contexts of Ministry in my Seminary in a Nutshell series. See the bottom for the previous posts in this unit, "The Person and Contexts of a Minister." I have completed one other unit in this series, The Pastor as Leader.
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1. In this post I largely want to summarize the ideas of a book by Erin Meyer called The Culture Map. Although the book was written for businesses, it gives some helpful models by which to categorize and understand various cultures around the world.

There have been some in the past who have reacted negatively to terms like "cultural relativity" and "contextualization." Some of this reaction is based in an "all or nothing" mentality. The fact that some aspects of Christian faith are contextual does not mean that all are. That is to say, relativity on some things does not mean relativity on all things!

Romans 14 makes the point. In this chapter, Paul is basically saying that different Christians have different convictions on some issues, and that is okay as long as they hold their convictions with faith. In other words, Paul is saying that--on some issues--right and wrong is relative to the convictions of the individual. Obviously this is not true of murder or adultery!

The same goes with culture. There is no culture were is it okay to murder innocent people from a Christian perspective. The kingdom core of an earlier post applies to all cultures.

But there are also aspects of morality that play out differently in different places. In fact, all morality has to play out in a cultural context because, as we have seen, all humans live in culture. So the gospel always involved contextualization. It is sheer ignorance that some American Christians of the past have unthinkingly assumed that their Christianity was not incarnated in culture just like everyone else's.

"When you are in and of a culture--as fish are in and of water--it is often difficult or even impossible to see that culture" (25).

On the 8 scales that follow, there is no right or wrong. There is just different from my culture.

2. Communicating--High vs. Low Context
The United States is the most "low context" culture on the planet currently. This means that we assume those with whom we are speaking have no context against which to understand our meaning. "Say what you mean and mean what you say." "Tell us what you're going to say. Say it. Then tell us what you've said."

Accordingly, all other cultures in the world are more indirect in their information. You have to read between the lines. In Japanese culture, this is called "reading the air." There will be an assumption that you mean more than you say and a Japanese person will expect you to be able to read between the lines, so to speak. In China there is intentional beating around the bush. In French there is the "underneath understanding."

I find the description "explicit versus implicit communication" a clearer way of expressing this dynamic of different cultures.

3. Evaluating--Direct Negative Feedback vs. Indirect Negative Feedback
Interestingly, how explicit a culture is about information does not correlate exactly with how you give negative feedback. French culture, for example, is not very explicit in general when communicating, except when it comes to negative feedback (see also #8 below). The French, German, Dutch, Russian, etc. are very direct when it comes to sharing negative feedback.

However, United States culture is much more hesitant to give negative feedback bluntly. When it reaches that point, a person tends to be in serious trouble. A French person may not realize how serious the situation is, because negative feedback is readily given in French culture, while positive feedback is rarely given. By contrast, it is customary to say something nice in the United States before giving negative feedback.

4. Persuading--Principles First vs. Applications First
Those from the US tend to be practical and pragmatic--we are perhaps the most pragmatic culture in the whole world. We are most convinced by "how" arguments and inductive arguments. By contrast, many parts of the world (France, Russia, Germany) are "why" cultures in which you give the principles and the background first, then deduce from there.

This section was interesting for me in terms of the academy. For example, Wesley Seminary was founded to be an inductive, problem based learning, pragmatic style learning culture. But professors are almost always trained to be principles first, "why" thinkers. Let's just say the original vision is not likely to last.

If you want to convince someone from Germany, you have to give them the philosophical basis before going for the throat. But in US business, we want you to "cut to the chase." We want to know the bottom line. I've wondered if this gives us an advantage in war.

Meyer puts Asian cultures in a different category she calls "holistic" thinking. This approach sees the interconnectedness of everything. This approach needs the big picture before understanding the specifics.

I experienced some inner conflict in some of these sections because of intra-American debates that reflect these cultural differences. Analytical versus phenomenological approaches to philosophy map to the difference between British and continental cultures. In American theology, there are the presuppositionalists of the Reformed tradition and the Charles Finney types that tend to be more "American" in their approach to evangelism.

I take sides on these issues, but this book is suggesting we are in part talking cultural conflict here.

5. Leading--Egalitarian vs. Hierarchical
Some cultures clearly pay more attention to hierarchy than others. For example, can you skip lines on the organizational chart? Can a janitor have lunch with the president? Do you contact the person on the same level as you?

Again, I've seen some of these issues in the university where I work. Some bosses I've had have been very open to skipping people on the org chart. If you need information from a certain person, you contact that person directly.

Others have been insistent on following the chain of command. If you need information from x but you are on the same level as y, you contact y and he or she contacts x for you. It would seem that there is no absolute answer here but it is a matter of culture and personality.

It does seem to me--a matter of some inner conflict as I worked through this book--that some models accomplish certain goals better (and I realize my American task orientation is at work here). I thus had values in conflict as I read. On the one hand, I want to affirm that there generally aren't right and wrong cultures. Yet it seems that certain cultural approaches are more effective in certain areas than others.

6. Deciding--Consensual vs. Top-Down
Interestingly, even though some cultures like the Dutch or Scandinavian are very egalitarian--the boss is one of the gang, referred to by first name, rides a bike to work like everyone else--how decisions are made can be a quite different thing. While US businesses tend to be more egalitarian, for example, bosses tend to make decisions.

In Germany, by contrast, the team makes the decisions and consensus is important. In the US, the boss may make an unpopular decision, but everyone knows she is the boss. That's what bosses do. This is experienced as very heavy-handed in other cultures. By contrast, while Japanese culture is very hierarchical, decisions tend to be made by consensus.

So hierarchy and decision-making do not always map directly to each other, although they often do.

[More inner conflict. I prefer to be a consensus leader, but recognize that sometimes a leader has to make a decision or at least should. Otherwise you can languish on forever in indecision, which can do more damage than simply making a decision and moving on.]

Another element is how easily a decision is changed once it is made. This relates to the principles-first versus applications-first distinction. In Germany, once a decision is made it is made. But in the US, if new information surfaces, the decision can be altered. Meyer distinguishes between "big D" decision making and "small d" decision making.

Again, this gets at some of my pet-peeves even in US organizational culture. The principles-first approach seems to me philosophically inferior and, in our current climate, just as likely to run your organization out of business in changing times. It certainly seems likely to lose you a war.

7. Trusting--Task-Based vs. Relationship Based
This is the distinction between "peach" and "coconut" cultures. Americans tend to share a lot of information with complete strangers until you get to a certain point, the peach seed. We tend to be task-based in our business relationships. This relates to the principles-first versus applications-first issue.

Other cultures are more like a coconut. A gruff exterior means nothing. It takes relational work to get beneath the shell. Once you are there, however, there is deep relationship. If you want to make a business deal, you had better build a relationship. Spending time together eating is not a waste of time but an essential part of the process in these cultures.

8. Disagreeing--Confrontational vs. Avoids Confrontation
If I were writing this book, I might have put this section right after the one on negative feedback. Some cultures are very aggressive when it comes to confrontation, but it does not mean what it means in US culture. Two French individuals may be very negative and confrontational toward each other and yet hold hands walking out of the room.

For the US, however, this level of confrontation tends to break relationships. In Asian culture, there is also a strong need to "save face" in public. In the US, we confront individuals in private.

9. Scheduling--Linear-Time vs. Flexible Time
Many of us will know the stereotypes of hot versus cold cultures and how time in some cultures is much less of a thing than it is in others. In US military and business culture, "on time is late." But when my sister was a missionary to the Philippines, we used to talk about "by and by" time. "We'll get there when we get there."

There's a tendency to put a moral judgment on such things. "Being on time is a sign of virtue." But this is not true in many cultures.

10. A very interesting book. Very eye-opening, yet also difficult. It seems to me that there are some betters and worse to achieving certain goals in certain contexts (that is my American task-orientation speaking) yet I also want to affirm that these are not moral evaluations. Different cultures are just different.

What I had attributed to personality differences in an organization now face the complication of possibly being cultural level differences.

Next Sunday: Culture 8: Two-Thirds World Christianity

The Calling of a Minister

• The Domains of Ministry
• The Calling of a Minister
• Ministerial Calling in Scripture
• Ministerial Calling in History
• God can call anyone he wants into ministry.
• A Theology of Calling

The Person of a Pastor

• Intro to the Pastor as Person
• Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
• Sacred Pathways
• Individual Spiritual Disciplines
• Corporate Spiritual Disciplines
• Some Formational Reading

Contexts of Ministry

• Kinds of Context
• The Making of Meaning
• How Culture Works
• The Cultures of the Bible
• The Kingdom Core
• The Church and Culture

Gen Eds LC2: Culture Classification

This is the second post in a series called, "World Language and Culture." This is the fourth series in an overall project called Gen Eds in a Nutshell. The other series so far include 1) philosophy, 2) world history, and 3) a math and science series, which is a little over half-way.

Thus far in this current series are:

• World Language and Culture Overview

1. Today's goal is to provide a framework for describing the various cultures of the world. The series on world history was primarily "diachronic." That is to say, it looked back in time and focused on cause-effect relationships over time. This series is primarily "synchronic." It aims to look at the current languages and cultures of the world at this present moment. [1]

Meaning is a function of minds. The world knows matter and energy, cause and effect. But significance is for God and humanity.

We share many things in common as humans, which suggests that there will be some matters of common significance among all people across time. Some of these include love, justice, loyalty, ambition, pleasure, and family. Christians believe that God has assigned a significance to these for all the universe.

On the other end of the spectrum is individual personality. Among us are extroverts and introverts. There are those who act more on their intuitions or on what they can see. There are some who act more on what makes sense to them and others who do more what they feel. Finally, there are those who like to leave things open-ended and those who delight in finishing what they start.

There is no right and wrong when it comes to these personality preferences. A person is not better because they prefer to be around other people, versus those who need time along. Each personality has its strengths and weaknesses.

2. Culture is like the personality of a group of people as a whole in a particular place and time. Again, there is no right or wrong culture, although no doubt each has its strengths and weaknesses. To say this is not at all to say that there is no right and wrong. It is to say that there are a lot of variations among cultures that are not a matter of right and wrong. [2]

In this series I propose to use seven categories in order to categorize the different cultures of the world. These categories are:

1. Language--what are the dominant languages of a particular culture 
2. Identifying stories, symbols, and rituals, and beliefs. N. T. Wright calls these the four components of a worldview.
3. Social structure--I am going to pack into this category a number of features, such as ethics and/or racial composition, class systems, and whether a culture tends to be more hierarchical or egalitarian.
4. Group structure--In this category I will cover family structure, as well as whether a culture tends to be more individualistic or collectivist. Also, how is gender and age treated?
5. Economic structure--how does a culture handle money and resources
6. Communication--Is a culture more implicit or explicit in its communication? Does it tend to give principles or the big picture first or the details and concrete specifics?
7. Operating mode--This gets at some of the hot versus cold culture dynamics. Is a culture more relationship or task oriented? Is it more linear and time-conscious or flexible and laid back? Is it focused more on being or doing?
8. Moral focus--Here I am applying Jonathan Haidt's six moral categories in The Righteous Mind. These include a) care/harm, b) fairness/injustice, c) loyalty/betrayal, d) authority/subversion, e) sanctity/defilement, and f) liberty/oppression. [3]

3. It is important to recognize that the meaning of many actions and words is completely cultural. To raise a middle finger is quite significant in the United States, and we have exported this action around the world. However, there are still places in the world where this action has no meaning whatsoever.

What is considered modest is extremely cultural and sometimes even subcultural. A woman without a veil would be immodest in a number of Arab countries, while a woman without a top might not be considered immodest in some parts of the world. It is hard for us to imagine that such values could differ because they are so fundamental to our culture, but these are learned values, not innate.

Living in another person's shoes is one path on the road to enlightenment. This is true both of people in our own culture and people in other cultures. Hopefully this series will help us on this journey to see ourselves more clearly because we can see ourselves as we appear to others outside our context.

Next Week: The Languages of the World

[1] See another attempt to present how culture works here.

[2] Most of the rhetoric on absolutism and relativism is very superficial. On the one hand, people often blur epistemological absolutes (which have to do with truth) and moral absolutes (which have to do with ethics). Additionally, a false alternative is typically posed between either believing in truth (absolutes) or not believing in truth (relativism).

Absolutism, properly defined, means no exceptions. By contrast, most moral norms are universal with exceptions, which is neither relativism nor absolutism. All people consider some matters of morality relative (we used to call them "convictions"). Nihilism is the proper term for a disbelief in morality altogether.

All that is to say is that most of the tired rhetoric you hear on this subject is overly simplistic and generally a mess of bad thinking.

[3] This last one actually is distributed among the others, but I thought it was worth singling out.

Gen Eds LC1: World Language and Culture Overview

1. A little over a year ago, I started a series called, Gen Eds in a Nutshell. To be honest, it has been a humbling series, to realize how much I don't know. It didn't take me too long to wander through philosophy, because I've written a philosophy textbook and taught philosophy for years.

I started a Friday math and science series. I'm over half-way through it. I've decided to take my time in the home stretch and read some books I've been wanting to read as I finish it. I'm trying to come to grips with having a 50 year old brain. It's not pretty.

Then last week I finished a world history series. It was far more challenging than I thought it was going to be.

So I'm a little surprised to find myself starting this post at 10 at night. I had read material from another book thinking I would be posting some summaries from it. But it lifted my spirits to make this post instead.

2. The next topic I had in mind for the series is "World Language and Culture." Part of a general education is usually some sort of intercultural experience. Although it is often not practical, an ideal liberal arts education would involve learning another language. The purpose of such learning in large part is to become more aware of yourself.

Americans in particular tend to be incredibly culturally ignorant. We assume we are smarter and better than everyone else in the world. We assume not only that other cultures do things the wrong way but that people who are different from us in our own country are stupid. At worst, we dub our cultural blindspots "Christian" and then assign a negative spiritual connotation to other cultures for not being like we are.

We go on a mission trip for a few days and think we have mastered another culture. Maybe we live on a base in another country and think we therefore know a culture we only encountered on our own terms and in our own language. While people in other cultures in the world often know several languages, we can hardly speak English correctly. Little do we know how those elsewhere often joke about much we think we know about them when we know almost nothing about them.

When I lived in England for three years, there were constant jokes about how shallow (and loud) Americans were. When my family was in Germany, an Ethiopian asked my wife at a laundromat, "Why is it that I know so much about your country, and you know almost nothing about mine?" Of course these jokes slowed down considerably after Bush invaded Iraq.

Basically, we would do well to be forced to live somewhere else for a year, be forced to learn their language and do things their way. It would end a lot of the foolishness going on in politics right now. I won't be able to capture the benefit of knowing world languages and cultures here. But I'll do what I can.

3. In the other series, I've tried to capture the subject in ten general headings. Here's my map for at least the next 10 weeks. With history, these ended up expanding to multiple posts on each. I have arranged them somewhat in order of my familiarity (meaning I'll have to study more the further down the list we go). Chinese is actually the language spoken by most people on the planet, so if I went in that order, it would be much closer to the top. Similarly, three languages in the Indian region are in the top ten languages spoken in the world.

Here is my outline for the next weeks:

• Culture Classification
• Mapping World Languages
• English-Speaking Cultures
• Spanish-Speaking Cultures
• European Language Cultures
• Russian and Slavic Language Cultures
• Semitic Language Cultures
• Indian Language Cultures
• Asian Language Cultures
• African Language Cultures

Seminary CM6: The Church and Culture

This is the sixth post on the Contexts of Ministry in my Seminary in a Nutshell series. See the bottom for the previous posts in this unit, "The Person and Contexts of a Minister." I have completed one other unit in this series, The Pastor as Leader.
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1. In 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr published what soon became a classic work of theology and mission, Christ and Culture. In this book, Niebuhr suggested that the various ways in which Christianity interacts with culture can be captured in five basic approaches.

1. Christ against culture
The first is Christianity in opposition to the surrounding culture. Those with this approach typically try to withdraw from culture as much as possible. Culture is seen as antithetical to Christianity.

2. Christ of culture
A second approach virtually assimilates Christianity to the culture. The values of the culture become the values of Christianity. This approach blurs into whatever the surrounding culture is and does not have a clear or distinctive Christian identity.

The other three approaches are mixtures of the first two and are together categorized by Niebuhr as "Christ above culture."

3. Christ and culture 
Niebuhr calls this one a synthesis of Christ and culture, so we might call it Christ and culture. It tries to combine Christ and culture in some way that considers them both valid in various ways. I have often thought of the American impulse to "civil religion" as an example of this sort of synthesis--baseball, hot dogs, and Jesus waving an American flag.

4. Christ and culture in paradox
The opposite impulse toward a synthesis is to keep Christ and culture separate without trying to synthesize them. Perhaps one is Christian in church but Christless the rest of the week. We are both sinner and saint at the same time.

5. Christ the transformer of culture
For Niebuhr, this is a "conversionist" approach. We accept in culture whatever we can accept and then work to transform the rest to conform to Christianity.

2. Understandably, these categories--and Niebuhr's implementation of them, have been substantially critiqued over the last fifty years. For example, it is impossible for someone to remove him or herself from culture. All human existence is enculturated, "incarnated," as it were. The question of withdrawal is one of degree of removal and the question of assimilation is one of degree of assimilation.

So the Amish are not completely removed from the surrounding culture. In many respects, they have simply locked themselves into a past time when they were more acculturated. That is to say, they tried to stop changing with where culture was at in a previous point in history, at which time they were far more acculturated than they are now. Some holiness groups have followed a similar path, locking themselves into the dress standards of an earlier era in the early to mid-1900s. At that time, however, they were more acculturated in their clothing.

In this respect, Christianity at any time and place is always on some level a synthesis of the kingdom core with the surrounding culture.

3. A second observation is that different times and places call for different stances toward the world around us. "For everything there is a season" (Eccl. 3:1). You could argue that we are always in exile because the world stands under the power of Sin and thus we are always "strangers and exiles on the earth" (Heb. 11:13). Similarly, you could argue that we are always meant to be a force for good in the world, both in spreading the good news (Matt. 28:19) and in just plain doing good (Gal. 6:10).

But the degree to which we engage or withdraw will differ from time to time and place to place. There is a time to mostly blend in (1 Peter times) and there may be a time to conquer the land (Joshua times). In this respect, there is probably not a single stance that the church will take toward culture in every time and place.

4. Let me suggest some of the different stances toward culture that Christians may be called to take at various places and times.

1. Cultural Take-Over
There certainly have been times and places where Christians have taken over the culture or at least tried. [1] In ancient Israel, Joshua was commanded to take over the land of Canaan, and throughout the monarchy, Israel was in control of its land. After Constantine and Theodosius in the 300s AD, Christianity became the dominant force in the Roman Empire, and Christianity dominated the culture of Europe from then till the present.

In Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin made his understanding of Christianity the law of the city. Similarly, in Puritan, New England, the Puritan understanding of right and wrong was the law of the land. Many fundamentalist Christians in the United States are zealous to see American law mirror various elements of their moral understanding.

There's an important caution here. Since true Christians are strangers and aliens on the earth, since narrow is the way and only a minority finds it (Matt. 7:14), it seems unlikely that the true people of God were never coterminous with Israel, Geneva, New England, or American fundamentalism today. That is to say, only a minority of Israelites were truly the people of God. Only some of those in Geneva and New England were true Christians. And we must reckon with the likelihood that most of those who have called themselves Christians in America probably are not. The rise of the "nones" today may in part simply be a peeling away of those who were never true believers in the first place.

Most of those who to take over a culture probably do not really represent God. When any religion takes over a culture, oppression is usually close behind. Whether it be sharia law in Muslim contexts or fundamentalist law in America, these impulses largely amount to power-hungry human beings using religion as a tool to control others.

God does not rule the world in this way at this time. When people reject him currently, he "lets them go" (Rom. 1:24, 26). The very fact that most in the world are not Christians proves that God does not rule this world with an iron fist at this time. Those Muslim extremists who use terrorism to exact destruction on the world are missing a fundamental fact--if God was as they think he is, he would not need their help. If God wanted to take over the world, he would. The fact that he lets evil continue shows that his way is not at this time to force the world to follow him. The same observation follows for fundamentalists whose agenda is to make US law mirror their understanding of the Bible.

On the other hand, when we see others being oppressed or others are in danger, this can be a time to step into culture and intervene. When the abolitionist movement tried to put an end to slavery, that was arguably an appropriate time for Christians to work for change. When Christians work to end abortion, this is arguably an example of Christians acting to protect others from harm. Even in these cases, though, there are different ways Christians can go about working for change.

2. Extreme Assimilation
You could argue that complete assimilation to the culture ceases to be Christian at all. "Liberalism" is sometimes painted into this category because "conservatism" and fundamentalism resist cultural change. But you might just as well say that conservatism mistakes the culture of the past for Christianity, that it is just as much an assimilation but to the culture of the past rather than the culture of the future.

In truth, liberalism and conservatism often both are emphasizing core Christian values--they are just emphasizing different ones. Those who emphasized the fundamentals in the early 1900s were emphasizing Christian values, namely, those of orthodox belief. But those who preached the social gospel--helping those in need--were also emphasizing a Christian value.

So it is today. Republican Christians tend to emphasize God's justice, God's stance for life, and for a biblical sense of family. Democratic Christians tend to emphasize God's love and his concern for the needy and marginalized. Both at least think that they are standing true to the essence of Scripture.

I would argue that it is actually the "Christ and culture in paradox" perspective that reflects the real assimilation danger. This is when a person says Christian things on Sunday, but it has no impact on his or her life during the week. This person may say the right things in church, may even see themselves as a defender of ideas. But when it comes to the kingdom core, it isn't present in their lives.

3. Principled Assimilation
1 Peter represents a different kind of assimilation situation. 1 Peter was written at a time of Christian suffering. Rome is pictured as "Babylon," that foreign power that once destroyed Jerusalem (5:13). The suffering was so bad that Peter talks of the judgment having begun with the house of God (4:17). The key verse of the letter instructs its "strangers and exiles" to live good lives among the nations in this time of suffering (2:11-12).

Accordingly, 1 Peter is a kind of defensive strategy. [2] It instructs slaves to endure unjust masters. It instructs wives of unbelieving husbands to be good first century wives. That is to say, Peter instructs Christians to assimilate to the culture of the first century without compromising their faith.

There is no sense of changing the culture to the kingdom ideal. That simply wasn't in the cards. Rather they assimilate in a principled way.

4. Separation ("In but not of")
The situation was not that dire when Paul wrote his letters. Nor were matters at a flash point when Jesus was ministering in Galilee. Yet Paul and Jesus had no agenda to take over the secular powers of their context either. Both of them modeled what we might call an "in the world but not of the world" approach.

Paul saw matters of the church and matters of the world as two separate worlds but he only really belonged to one of them. His citizenship was in heaven (Phil. 3:20) even though he was a Roman citizen. It was his job as an apostle to exercise authority on his churches, even to participate in judgment, but it was God's job to judge the world at this point in time (e.g., 1 Cor. 5:12-13).

Paul thus does not try to stop sexual immorality in the world. He does not try to get the Romans to enact laws against divorce or homosexual practice. But he insists on stopping sexual immorality within the church.

Jesus similarly divides the earth into two kingdoms. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (Mark 12:17). Jesus is not legitimating the Roman empire. He is simply pointing out that its parallel world has nothing to do with the kingdom. It is a different world. Followers live in both worlds but really only belong to one of them.

5. Withdrawal
Some of course take the separation in identity of #4 and take it to a physical withdrawal. The Shakers, the Oneida colony, other Christian groups have removed themselves physically from the surrounding culture.

In the Bible, Israel itself is an example of this withdrawal, in a way. This is what the conquering of the land was about. This is what the food laws were probably about. Not eating pork was not probably about hygiene, but about distinguishing Israel from the Philistines and their gods.

It seems that this option is rarely open for believers, although there may be a place and time for it. If we are to be witnesses to Christ in the world, it is hard to see how this option fulfills that task very well.

6. Influence
At all times and places, Christians are thus witnesses. We should not often try to take over the culture. We should never assimilate ourselves into oblivion. We are never "of the world" even though we are in it. We should not often completely withdraw.

But we should always be witnesses. We should always be trying to lead others into the kingdom of God. We should always stand against oppression. We should always be a positive influence on the cultures we are in, whether they are hostile to us or threaten to allure us with their comfort.

Next Sunday: Culture 7: Our Global Context

[1] My category here is an extreme version of Niebuhr's conversionist "Christ transformer of culture."

[2] Scot McKnight, 1 Peter. NIV Application Commentary.

The Calling of a Minister

• The Domains of Ministry
• The Calling of a Minister
• Ministerial Calling in Scripture
• Ministerial Calling in History
• God can call anyone he wants into ministry.
• A Theology of Calling

The Person of a Pastor

• Intro to the Pastor as Person
• Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
• Sacred Pathways
• Individual Spiritual Disciplines
• Corporate Spiritual Disciplines
• Some Formational Reading

Contexts of Ministry

• Kinds of Context
• The Making of Meaning
• How Culture Works
• The Cultures of the Bible
• The Kingdom Core

Seminary CM5: The Kingdom Core

This is the fifth post on the Contexts of Ministry in my Seminary in a Nutshell series. See the bottom for the previous posts in this unit, "The Person and Contexts of a Minister." I have completed one other unit in this series, The Pastor as Leader.
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1. Cultures differ significantly from each other and the biblical cultures differed significantly from us. Is there not some "kingdom core" that transcends culture? Is there not some timeless truth and practice that applies in all times and all places?

We cannot reiterate enough the fact that all human thought is ensconced in culture and that all biblical thought was incarnated in culture. What we are really talking about here are truths and practices that apply to all cultures rather than ones that transcend culture. We are asking about omni-cultural truths and practices.

Perhaps more importantly, we are asking about standards by which we can judge elements of culture. The danger here is that we so very often cannot distinguish our culture from this kingdom core. It seems beyond question that a large amount of what Christian missionaries from the United States have exported to the world over the last couple centuries has had as much of American culture in it as it has the gospel. No doubt we can attribute some contemporary mission failure to an inability to discern cultural elements in the way the mission was conducted.

2. So what is the kingdom core? It is perhaps easiest to address ethics and practices first, rather than beliefs. The reason is that the New Testament is so clear on what the fundamental Christian ethic is. From Jesus to Paul to John to James, the New Testament is unanimous in its sense that loving God and loving our neighbor/enemy is the kingdom ethic. [1] It is not its core. It is the whole of the ethic.

Any appropriation of the Bible that conflicts with the love of God and the love of neighbor is a misappropriation of Scripture!

Love is a universal human value. All cultures have some sense of what love is. It is thus an omni-cultural ethic. To be sure, different cultures understand it slightly differently. What is considered unloving can differ somewhat from culture to culture. American culture right now probably has a very weak sense of love, one that befits our world of vast convenience and ease. We thus probably under-appreciate the harder aspects of love that are intrinsic to cultures and sub-cultures where life is much more difficult.

Another warning applies to the impulse to use the concept of loving God as a way to wiggle out of loving our enemy or neighbor. Someone might say, "I cannot show love to my enemy at this point because my love of God trumps it here." This is a trick of Satan. Love of God never requires us to act hatefully toward our enemy, although a misinterpretation of the Bible might.

Love has to do with bringing good to others. It has to do with action rather than feeling. I can love someone that I do not like. Justice does not conflict with love. Justice can be redemptive toward an individual. And justice can be protective of a group of people. Finally, justice can be protective of the order of things. In none of these cases is justice unloving.

The love of God is about giving him priority in all things and in letting nothing in our life get in the way of loyalty to him. However, God is not threatened by the disobedience of his creation. In the mystery of his will he has created the world with the possibility of such disobedience. He thus does not always shut down opposition to him immediately, nor does he command us to do so. Nevertheless, the love of others suggests that we will help them find God and will protect others if we can.

3. So the "law of love" is at the essence of the kingdom core--what our attitudes and actions should be. How that love plays itself out will differ somewhat from time to time, culture to culture, sub-culture to sub-culture. For example, it is hard for me to imagine that the law of love can play out very well in American culture in a way that insists men must rule over women. In my world, love insists that husband and wife be of equal value and authority in the home.

Yet it was not universally so in the world of the New Testament. The household codes of Colossians and Ephesians, the instructions of 1 Peter to a persecuted church, these were accommodations to first century culture. The kingdom core suggests that if we find ourselves in a world where we can more fully implement Galatians 3:28, we should.

Yet there are many cultures around the world where the household codes seem to fit the cultural context neatly. Husband-headship in those contexts does not conflict with the love of neighbor. Accordingly, Christians in each time and place must "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). Those of us from different cultures will often not be able to see what love exactly looks like for them.

4. What of beliefs? Certainly Scripture is a sacrament of transformation for all cultures. No matter where we live, God will help his people see what they need to see in Scripture.

There is however a core, a commonly held set of beliefs derived from Scripture that Christians have agreed on for millennia. These are especially found in the core creeds of Christendom.

• God exists and is active in the world (cf. Heb. 11:6).
• Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus in fact is God (e.g., John 1:1). 
• Jesus is the only mediator between God and humanity (1 Tim. 2:5). Humanity stands under the power of Sin and under the prospect of judgment (Rom. 3:23), but through Christ, God has provided a way of salvation from final judgment (Rom. 6:23; 10:9).
• There is thus eternal life to be gained through Christ (John 3:16).
• Those who have the Spirit of God within them constitute the people of God (1 Cor. 3:16).
• Scripture is the canon, a divinely appointed meeting place for God to inform and by which to form us (2 Tim. 3:16). The Bible is the primary source of our story and our symbols as Christians.

5. The way these beliefs play themselves out in various cultures may differ a little. The symbols that speak the most strongly may differ. Indeed, these things differ from denomination to denomination in my own culture. The impulse to say, "This is the core," is almost always more restrictive than it is for God.

It is ultimately the charge of Christians in a particular culture or sub-culture to determine how the gospel might play out. The importance is that those decisions are made full of faith. And of course, we can be wrong!

Next Sunday: Culture 6: The Church and Culture

[1] Cf. Matt. 22:34-40; 5:43-48; Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14; 1 John 4:7-8; Jas 2:8.

The Calling of a Minister

• The Domains of Ministry
• The Calling of a Minister
• Ministerial Calling in Scripture
• Ministerial Calling in History
• God can call anyone he wants into ministry.
• A Theology of Calling

The Person of a Pastor

• Intro to the Pastor as Person
• Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
• Sacred Pathways
• Individual Spiritual Disciplines
• Corporate Spiritual Disciplines
• Some Formational Reading

Contexts of Ministry

• Kinds of Context
• The Making of Meaning
• How Culture Works
• The Cultures of the Bible