When someone states that someone suffers from, or has adopted a ‘Hero’ mentality we immediately think of those internet memes of grown men side by side their wives, and a younger version of themselves with a parent excited for a superhero movie reboot.
Or perhaps those people who devote their lives to cosplay at comic-cons each year and how they are have this love for being a hero by dressing like one. But what is really being described is called, ‘Ethnocentrism’ and it literally translates to the belief in the inherent superiority of one’s own ethnic group or culture, or a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one’s own. If you grew up in the United States you are probably familiar with this way of thinking or have encountered it being mocked on the internet but it’s not an American or Western only worldview. It exists on both sides of the fence and leads to the formation of stereotypes, single stories, single story journalism, and ripples out creating culture of it’s own. As Christians we set to bridge the gap between culture and the kingdom but how do we avoid being ethnocentric, and actually help communicate cross culturally?
“Depend on it. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. He is too wise a God to frustrate His purposes for lack of funds, and He can just as easily supply them ahead of time as afterwards, and He much prefers doing so.” -Hudson Taylor
Paul’s message at the Areopagus in Acts 17 is rich and deep picking in verse 22 on how evangelism should be modeled. From a glance we enter the Apostle Paul in recess from preaching to evangelize some religious Greek’s who at a place that enshrined other gods. In verse 23 we observe Paul noticing the ‘unknown god’ that the Greeks acknowledge as their inclusion of other worldviews, philosophies, gods, magnification of humanity was dually noted. He then approaches them and addresses this then expanding on the structures they’ve constructed, and he then quotes a famous poem in verse 28 opening up the conversation from the unknown, the physical boundaries God exceeds to then presenting his closeness, and his reign and supremacy above the other gods they acknowledge. Presenting a really great case for God above all and then presenting a case for his coming and he does this without using Christianize words, jargon, or mentioning the name of Jesus. Paul speaks their language by demonstrating through reason, culture, and leads with his cultural knowledge of the Greek culture to share with them the gospel that speaks into the cultural narrative of Greece. The cultural framework that Paul establishes in this conversation impacted how he expressed himself (Saylor. Pg3) The framework then built up brought to the point where Paul then presents them with the Biblical absolute of repenting of their sin, and their ignorance and leave behind what they were submitting to as it was futile and follow after God alone.
A lot of American Christians struggle to communicate outside of it’s own boundaries let alone speak to the cultures of others. Paul makes it look effortless by having a conversation which it is when you have enough background about another culture to be able to bring the supra cultural nature of the gospel into it. Cultural Intelligence contrasts ethnocentrism in how it forces one to not just intake information but it’s meant to draw us out of our comfort zones, bubbles, and routines and understand how another worldview thinks, eats, drinks, and breathes. Cultural intelligence should breed a healthy softness of heart, and humility that allows us to reflect on the people apart from the stuff that they have or do, have and or don’t have versus what we possess.
It moves us to enter into a place where relationships can blossom while Cultural Intelligence brings us to a place where we can prepare our hearts and take inventory of culture. It doesn’t account for relationship where as reading an article on Facebook, or watching a YouTube video on somebody explaining to you what a person is in another country. It doesn’t make up for the experience that building a relationship within those cultures, or with those people cultural intelligence without relationship breeds ethnocentrism on both spectrum’s. As one can develop a hero complex and think that they have the answers based on information that hasn’t been verified in the reality of those cultures. Or the opposite of this is the activism complex like reverse pride is still about us and everything we aren’t because of our lack of relationship. So how do we bridge this gap, and keep our heads above the water?
The first step in building any relationship is to listen; active listening allows you to hear, process, download information the old fashioned way in these sense you will find yourself weeding out presuppositional stances you have. You will be able to partner with people as uproot indifference and place yourself in a strategic position where you will be able to act from rather than working towards acting for. Anyone can Google anything and find out things that go on within a cultures walls but you only do so from a place that is remote and lacks and every culture defines relationships differently and so the impact of what goes on doesn’t resonate with someone from the outside. Listening, and partnering with people builds equity that you can’t do an internet search on, and therefore provides better access and away from ethnocentrism.
“The evangelist is the world’s hopeless romantic, and just like a hopeless romantic, he must hope for the miracle of God more than the romance itself.”- Criss Jami
When you watch a superhero movie, read a comic book you always find someone like Superman or Spider-man you always find them in the middle of meeting people where they are. They immerse themselves into the problems, situations, the culture of the people they are reaching, and so when there is false information then spread about them it’s easy to side with them and know it’s not true. This is how a single story fuels ethnocentrism and actually feeds the real life ‘Hero’ complex people, missionaries, and those who work cross culturally adopt. Without the supporting information to broaden the scope of the situation anyone reporting on the subject, people, or story at hand can paint anyone in a certain light fueling stereotypes. So when we visit the lovable character Spider-man who risks his life for the city of New York he is always slandered by the news paper he secretly works for. Who seek to paint a picture of him to suite the views, and bias of the chief editor who plays an antagonist role in the story. We have to be careful of this if we are looking to reach others across cultures as we can only maintain our cultural intelligence, and our relationships by being objective and exploring all angles.
Listening is a good portion of maintaining our relationships across cultures the Christian message is universal (Hesselgrave. Pg. 149) What we input into maintaining our relationships need to be as little of us as possible and should build upon the concrete, and simple gospel message. What makes our relationships should not reflect what we bring from our culture to another in the way that cultural osmosis works making a new thing. But should reflect the substance of Christ and returning to the examples of Christ with those who he reached in scripture, and who he continues to reach. To the examples of Paul in his approach to the Greeks in ways that takes what we learned in exploring in our cultural intelligence then translating what we have listened to and permeating the gospel into what we communicate. The gospel isn’t a single story as when he appears so shall we (1 John 3:2) and so when our story intersects with Christ’s we then become apart of the larger narrative of Christ. As Christ encompasses all there is no room for single stories and he being the author of our faith he is all inclusive.
Western Culture is an interesting thing as it’s defined much of what the world thinks it knows about the world at least in the modern Western culture we live in today that would be the perception one could gather. But western culture has shifted in the mid 20th century into what’s referred to as postmodernism which can be looked at as a derealization and a departure of traditional identity and constancy. As this affects culture is affects how it then communicates and so there is no truism anymore as truth cannot be defined, and so therefore if there is truth it’s relative to a time, a place, a people and there is this larger narrative to how people belong, interact, co-exist. This then affects hermeneutics as now the truth that scripture presents the knowable bedrock interpretations that have cemented Christianity, western culture, and the Christian worldview that birthed the scientific community. Now has is made relative in an already closed system of scientific, and philosophical system of thinking that bred Darwinism, and it’s integration into Western culture. The impact now provides another layer of cultural jargon that the gospel now needs to wade through to get to a place to communicate. While western culture even in it’s post modern state isn’t a bad thing and doesn’t breed or program people to become these ethnocentric bigots. But left unchecked with no way of measuring it’s own trajectory does lead to slipping into worship by activism the inferiority complex, or the superiority complex.
This relative view has skewed the perception of who Christ is as famously portrayed in the movie, ‘Talledaga Nights’ where Ricky Bobby hilariously says grace and tells his family how he prefers Jesus to be. This is how western culture can breed such ethnocentrism by providing alternatives, options, and the choice to re-define what truth is in an unchecked and without fact check we quickly then can hold onto what single stories become of the rest of the world and other cultures. While Jesus does present us in scripture with the question, “Who do you say that I am” (Mark 8:29) through the Holy Spirit does God validate this question by testifying of himself presenting himself as the archetype of truth.
So if God is the archetype of truth what does this say about the Gospel? The scriptures then are subject to God’s character which is demonstrated by his attributes the first among which is that God is holy. If God is holy then that means that we are not as holy means to be unique and called out of which is the sinful nature of mankind, this world as sin entered the world through one man. Christ being sinless, becoming sin as he knew no sin so by very nature scripture is inerrant because God cannot lie. Because God in Mark 8:29 validates himself then the rest of scripture behaves in a similar fashion by validating itself therefore being the most credible source of truth. Because of this scripture becomes what is called supra-cultural in a sense it surpasses all culture because it by nature is holy and is outside of culture in origin. This allows the Bible to enter into any culture because all scripture is God breathed (2 Tim. 3:16) it’s ability to meet, teach, feed, and guide imitates the nature of Christ coming as a servant and meeting people where they are. (Phil. 2:5-11, Hebrews 2:18) This gospel of Christ becomes the best source of communicating cross culture that it literally eliminates allows for us abandon our own impositions that ethnocentrism would create. Christ becomes our better communicator through the mouthpiece of scripture and can guide us into the very substance we need in order to proceed in building and crossing those bridges so no one has to be a hero on their own.
“All superheroes are shadows of Christ”- John Piper
Being from a culture that knowingly, and unknowingly breeds, and furthers stereotypes we walk a fine line between what we think we can contribute, and what we can give with the resources we have been blessed with. Scripture says that we often pray wrongly when we pray to God while God is the ultimate gift giver, and provider we can wrongly give, serve, and communicate wrongly if we are looking to ourselves. But Christ being the hero to cross for us, and communicate prevents us from falling into the trap that ethnocentric communication, hermeneutics, and missions produce.
As Christians we set to bridge the gap between culture and the kingdom but how do we avoid being ethnocentric, and actually help communicate cross culturally? We confront it by being better students of the word and who Christ in order to engage where are from before we hope to engage others. Ethnocentrism is confronted then from the cultural intelligence we obtain through listening, and exploring what we don’t know versus what we do. We need to be able to navigate by having a good framework, and know how to speak the language we sift ourselves and listen. Building relationships that take what we learn and gain access partnering, uprooting what you think you know and gaining perspective behind the scenes of the outsider content. By doing this we confront this false pride ethnocentrism gives us both superiority, and inferiority and produces a soft heart and a humble posture. Confronting our cultural pride kills the single stories that can easily perpetuate in carelessness that lack of cultural IQ, and humility can carry. We have the ability to be the change that we want to see in how we communicate with others cross culturally but without the substance of the supra cultural nature of the gospel we simply muddy the waters. Muddy waters do not breed clear, and effective communications in the post Babel state we still exist in, and so we need to be diligent in the work we put into bridging gaps.
By confronting ethnocentrism with the gospel we can abandon the adversary that the world plays in our walk, in our work, and in our communities by presenting our savior in every step navigating our way to a better of the way as our first and last resort.
Works Cited
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Aylesworth, Gary. Post-Modernism. Stanford University. Copyright 2015. 7 May, 2019. Web. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/#7>
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Pitzer, Andrea. Narrative Reporting and The Danger of the Single Story. Nieman Storyboard. Copyright 2019. 8 May, 2019. Web. <https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/narrative-reporting-and-the-danger-of-the-single-story/>
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