culture

On Cold-Call Evangelism and Cultural Appreciation

January 31, 2019 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

While I’m at it, let me give another example of how we decide whether to fight over behavioral questions.

One of the things I’ve learned on frequent short-term mission trips around the world is how different cultures are, and how important it is to know and respect those differences if you’re going to minister effectively.

Cultures are different, and that’s something to celebrate. My favorite example of that is eating a meal at someone’s house. Here in the US, we were all trained as children that when someone has you over for a meal, you eat everything on your plate. Why? Because turning away food means you don’t like it, and it’s rude to say that to the person who has prepared that food for you.

In China, though, you must not eat everything on your plate. Why? Because eating it all says that your host didn’t give you enough—and that’s rude too. You should leave a little bit, and if he offers more, say, “I am very satisfied, thank you.”

Isn’t that cool? Two different cultures have attached opposite meanings to the very same action, and both meanings make perfect sense. Cultures, consisting of humans made in the image of God, are reflecting God in their creativity—even when they don’t recognize him as God. Yes, that’s cool.

Something else to notice is that cultures develop their convictions for very surprising and sometimes trivial reasons. Let me give you an example.

Back in the early 20^th century, houses had porches. The main reason was that in the summertime, when it got hot, it would often be warmer inside the house in the evening than it was outside. Families would sit on the porch in the cool of the day, enjoying the breeze and escaping the stuffy heat inside.

As a consequence of that, people sitting on the porch saw their neighbors and the people walking by, and since they were just sitting around, it was common for the others to step up onto the porch and engage in conversation.

Then something big happened.

Air conditioning.

Now there was no need to sit out on the porch in the summertime; it was more comfortable indoors. And furthermore, with TV to watch (it had been around since 1939, but it became ubiquitous in American homes in the 60s), there was no time to talk to the neighbors and the passersby, or so we thought.

And so we quit dropping by one another’s homes.

Seriously. When some stranger knocks on your door, what’s driving your thinking? Getting rid of said person as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And as a result of that, what we used to call “door-to-door visitation” is largely ineffective today. I know of churches that still engage in it aggressively, but I know of none that can claim any significant amount of response—I’m thinking particularly of evangelized church members—for all their efforts.

So most American evangelicals don’t spend time with cold-call evangelism. The preferred approach today—for those who evangelize, and shame on those who don’t—is “relational” evangelism, forming relationships with neighbors or co-workers or retail workers with the goal of living and speaking grace and gospel in a way that woos them to Christ.

Are these Christians weak on evangelism? Not if they’re really doing what they say they are. But what about Acts 20.20? Doesn’t that verse say we’re supposed to go door to door? No, it doesn’t. It might say that Paul did, but he was living in a culture different from ours, and those differences matter.

Now, let me moderate that just a bit.

The porch illustration I’ve given here is specific to American culture—and modern, suburban American culture at that. The US has always been a mix of cultures; even in pre-colonial days the Oneida were different from the Cherokee, who were different from the Apache, who were different from the Tlingit. In the Colonies, Massachusetts was very different from Georgia. We even had a civil war as a result of sectionalism and the cultural divide that sectionalism represented. And today, all four corners of the country—I’ve lived in all of them—differ from the middle.

Today door-to-door visitation works in some places in America, and in even more places around the world.

Know your culture. Appreciate its strengths. Address its weaknesses. Represent Christ in it with wisdom and grace—and strategic smarts.

And again, don’t sweat the small stuff.

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On Coffee

January 28, 2019 by Dan Olinger 7 Comments

In my just-finished series on When We Fight and When We Don’t, I spent a lot more time on the doctrinal side than the behavioral side. I thought I’d share an experience I had a few years back that got my thinking developing on how we approach behavioral issues.

About 25 or so years ago, I noticed something odd. Every weekend, I would get a headache. Fine all week long, but every Saturday morning, like clockwork, headache. Sunday too. Then Monday I was fine again.

I tested a lot of variables to try to find out the cause. Sleeping in? Nope. Breakfast? Nope. Location-based allergies? Nope.

I guess you can figure out from the title of this post what the cause was. Every day at work I drank coffee. The departmental coffee pot was literally right next to my office, and I made good use of it. Weekend mornings, though, I didn’t make coffee at home.

Well, what am I gonna do about these headaches? I did what any sensible person would do.

I bought a coffee pot, and I made sure I had a cup on Saturday and Sunday mornings so I wouldn’t get a headache.

After I’d done that for a while, I got to thinking.

The headache was a caffeine withdrawal symptom. I was chemically addicted to caffeine.

But it’s not as bad as cocaine—and certainly not as bad as opioids—so it’s OK, right?

I skipped merrily along down that path for a bit longer, and my conscience really began to bother me.

I was a drug addict. Gotta have my hit. Every day. Or I won’t be able to function at my best.

And I thought of Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “All things are lawful unto me, … but I will not be brought under the power of any[thing]” (1Co 6.12).

My schedule and activities were being dictated by a physical addiction.

My conscience continued to bother me. And Paul also says that it’s a sin to violate the restrictions of your conscience (1Co 8.7)—even if the thing isn’t sinful in itself.

A Christian who realizes he’s sinning is supposed to stop.

So I did. Cold turkey. Three days of blinding headaches.

I got clean.

As follow-up, I would try a cup of coffee every few months just to see if the headaches returned. They did, so after a series of lengthening test periods I quit testing and just stayed clean.

Nowadays I find that I’m OK with a cup of decaf (which has a little caffeine, but not much) maybe 3 days a week without headaches. And I really love good coffee, so I’m happy about that. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it (1Co 10.26), and we ought to enjoy whatever he’s placed here for us, the best we can.

Now. What do I do about my Christian friends who drink full-bore, drug-fueled coffee? Shall I become a prophet, crying in the wilderness against the evils of the demon bean?

Nope. Though I will say that it troubles me when my Christian friends declaim on social media about how they can’t live or function without their morning coffee. If they’re telling the truth—if they’re really physically addicted to caffeine—then I’d suggest that they think about whether maybe they ought to do something about that. Whether maybe they ought to be free—and might rejoice in their newfound freedom.

But short of addiction? Nope. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. If they’re drinking coffee and enjoying it, and especially if they’re thanking our good and gracious God for the joy it brings them, then I rejoice with those who rejoice.

For my first several years on the Bible faculty at BJU I shared an office with a long-time friend who’s a coffee aficionado. He roasts his own beans, as close to the time of consumption as possible; he grinds just a cup’s worth of beans at a time; he waxes eloquent on the specifics of crema. Every afternoon about 3, he’d say, “Well, time for a cup of coffee!” And the grinder would surge, and the office would fill with the most delightful aroma of fresh-roasted coffee beans. I couldn’t drink what he made, in good conscience, but I enjoyed the daily routine, and the aroma, and his pleasure in the simple experience of a good cup of coffee.

He’s not sinning. There’s nothing there to fight about, even though we’re behaving differently, for significant theological reasons.

What about you? Have a cup for me, my friends.

Just don’t get addicted.

And don’t sweat the small stuff.

In this outrage-addicted culture, here’s something we can disagree about, for substantial reasons, without being outraged.

How about that?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Application 1 Application 2

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On Asking about Ethnicity

September 6, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In his column at National Review last week, Jim Geraghty thought out loud about a New York Times book review of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s The Lies that Bind. (Did you follow all that?) Appiah raises concerns about the way introductions work. Pretty much everybody, on meeting somebody else, asks questions about him—where are you from? where do you work? Appiah suggests that this tendency to want to categorize people might often imply a sort of racism or at least stereotyping.

Geraghty thinks that identity politics might be contributing to that. Immigrants. Wall Streeters. NRA members. Police officers. We react instinctively to certain groups, positively or negatively, depending on where we are on the political or cultural spectrum. He observes that this kind of thinking contradicts the very idea of America as a place where anybody can become anything with enough hard work and perhaps a little luck (or providence). Upward mobility. No feudalism. All that.

I think Geraghty is right, and based on his description of Appiah’s book—which I haven’t read—I suspect that the latter is right on that point too. I’ve found myself making assumptions about someone I’m meeting, based on his occupation or his appearance or some other information he offers about himself. We shouldn’t do that. People are individuals, not merely members of a class.

My ethnicity is German—as is obvious from my last name. But I’d think anybody who gave me a Nazi salute was just plain weird. I was born in Washington State, but I’m not a liberal Democrat. (In fact the area of the state where I was born is rock-ribbed conservative Republican, largely for reasons of physical geography—which, while interesting, is completely off our topic.) I spent my teen years in Boston, but I don’t park my car in Harvard Yard, and frankly, I’m tired of hearing about it from people who think they’re being original and clever. I live in the South, but I’m not an advocate of the Lost Cause. I don’t like being stereotyped, and Jesus tells me that in that case I shouldn’t stereotype others.

But just a minute here. If we shouldn’t stereotype the person we’re meeting, then observers of the conversation shouldn’t stereotype the person asking the questions, either.

Sure, sometimes people ask those questions in order to put the stranger into a box—to stereotype him. But not everybody does.

On a good day, when I ask a person what he does, it’s not to prejudge him—it’s to find a point of contact, to further deepen the relationship—which so far is pretty shallow.

You’re a pilot? I love that! My Dad was a private pilot, and I got to do a lot of flying when I was a kid. There’s nothing like the top side of a cloud.
You’re a waiter in a restaurant? I did that for a year. Hardest work I ever did. Good for you. Are people tipping better these days than they used to?

And that goes for geography too.

You’re from Boston? What part? Ah, Revere. Love the North Shore. Ever get up to Gloucester and Rockport? Boy, I miss the fish!

Here’s the sad part. Because of a lot of past sins, Americans are really, really sensitive about race—or as I prefer to say, ethnicity. You can’t talk about it without feeling like you’re stepping on eggshells, and if you talk about it much, people tend to wonder what you’re up to.

But I find ethnicity just as interesting as occupation or birthplace. If I’m meeting a black person, and I detect what sounds like one of many African accents, I really, really want to ask where he’s from. And sometimes I do. If I were to meet Dr. Appiah—Geraghty mentioned that he’s Ghanaian—I’d be all over that.

Where in Ghana? Accra? I love that city! What do you think of Papaye Chicken in Osu? Do you ever get up north, to the rural areas? What about the Upper West? What wonderful people! The most patient man I ever met was a Ghanaian pastor in the Upper West. And that Volta Dam is a remarkable achievement, isn’t it?

Now, as it happens, Dr. Appiah is of Ghanaian descent, but he was born in London, so he might surprise me by saying, “I’ve never actually been to Ghana.” And that’s fine. We can talk about London instead.

Sure, the person is more than these things. But he is these things, and what else he is, is molded, or perhaps reflected, by these things and many others. What’s wrong with wanting to know him as well as you can?

Let’s take this a little further. I’m intrigued by all the variations in skin color that human genes can produce. I know someone whose mother is Puerto Rican and whose father is Italian. I know someone else whose mother is Spanish and whose father is British. And another whose mother is Mexican and whose father is a New Zealander.

All of this is really cool. Unusual mixtures of genes and cultures and accents and perspectives. I want to interrogate such people about all of that.

Maybe someday we’ll be able to do that without people getting all nervous.

I really hope so.

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On Integrating to a New Culture

August 23, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

On August 10, Martha Bishara was on a lot across the street from her house in Chatsworth, Georgia, collecting dandelions to make salad. She was carrying a knife to get the dandelions. The owner of the lot called the police.

When the police arrived, they ordered her to drop the knife. She didn’t, and started walking away. They ordered her to stop. She didn’t.

So they hit her with a Taser. Failure to respond to police commands, while openly carrying a weapon.

Seems simple enough.

But, as most of you know, it isn’t.

Mrs. Bishara is a (legal) immigrant from Syria, who speaks very little English and so did not understand the officer’s commands.

She’s 87 years old and 5 feet tall, and she has trouble walking.

And they Tased her.

The story has gotten a lot of circulation, generating pretty much universal condemnation. And FWIW, I’m repulsed by what happened as well.

But I think there is a teaching moment here.

I’m not interested in ascribing blame. That’s not my right or responsibility, and people far more qualified than I will address that. Not having been there, and not having police training, I’m ignorant of a lot of what’s necessary to deliver a binding judgment. I have friends who are police officers, including one who used to be a police chief in Georgia, and I have to reserve the possibility that something I don’t know could change my entire perspective on the situation.

Though that’s hard to imagine.

So, no final judgments.

And thus my thoughts turn to how something like this might have been prevented.

There are lots of possibilities. Better training? More, um, common sense? Something else?

One occurs to me.

I’m thinking out loud, in public, and that’s really dangerous. I know that what I’m about to say is going to be controversial, especially to those who are inclined to knee-jerk about The Cause of the Day. I would ask only that you hear me out and actually consider the logic of the idea I’m tentatively suggesting.

Mrs. Bishara has been in the States for more than 20 years. She speaks hardly any English.

Maybe there are good reasons for that. Maybe she has a learning disability. Maybe she’s tried repeatedly and just can’t do it. When she arrived here, she was older than I am now, and I can feel my brain cells dying by the day. I am recognizing my own ignorance by not saying that it’s her own fault.

But her case illustrates one danger of not learning the local language, which is just one part of cultural integration.

Cultural integration, what most people mistakenly call “assimilation,” has gotten a bad rap lately. It’s been equated with imperialism, with cultural elitism. And sometimes, certainly, those things have been involved.

But if you move to another country, it’s just plain good sense to make some adjustments—most critically, to learn the language as well as you can.

I take American students to Africa pretty much every year. Each year that we go to Tanzania, we spend 2 or 3 days teaching the newbs enough Swahili to be able to participate in the daily greetings—a very significant thing in Tanzanian culture—and to buy something in the market. (Starvation, and all that.) Without being able to do those things, they’re not going to be able to show respect to the nationals, to greet them in the ways that the nationals expect; and further, they’re vulnerable out in the city in ways they don’t need to be.

If they were going to stay for more than just 3 to 5 weeks, they would need to learn more.

This last trip, we were on our way to the airport when we were pulled over by a policeman for a random inspection. Our missionary host was driving; I was riding shotgun (without one, fortunately). The officer seemed quite agitated, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Afterwards my host informed me that I had been cited for not wearing a seat belt, and fined 35,000 shillings. (Freak out thou not; that’s about $15.) What if my host hadn’t been there? I could legally have driven myself to the airport; what if I had?

Better learn the language.

I’m not suggesting that one’s personal cultural identity should be sacrificed. I spent about a decade living in Boston, where the North End is famously Italian and the South End is Irish. Both cultures are working-class Catholic, but they have significant differences as well—differences that sometimes have ended in blows. These groups have retained strong ties to the Old World and to their cultural heritage.

Good for them.

But if a cop stops any of them on the street, they’ll know what he’s saying.

Not being able to do that can get you hurt. Or dead.

Respect the culture you’re entering enough to learn to function safely and effectively in it.

In this case, loving your neighbor ends up benefiting you. A lot.

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