CHAPTER3

A PERSPECTIVE ON CULTURE

INTEGRATIONAL THOUGHT

We live our lives largely according to the rules and patterns we have been taught by those of the

previous generation who brought us up. These rules and patterns, our culture, have been produced and

modified by generation after generation of our forebears and represent the accumulated knowledge of

our predecessors. We are taught to trust it (and our predecessors who produced it) as an adequate set of

guidelines in terms of which to live our lives.

Most people consider their customs and the assumptions that underlie them to be correct, sacred, and

often even absolute. This was the view the Hebrews took toward their customs. They saw their culture

as given to them by Yahweh (even though it can be proven historically that most of it was in place

before God made His covenants with Abraham). They thus considered it obligatory to obey these sacred

customs to express their commitment to God.

The normal Hebrew word for their culture is usually translated "Law." This term signifies Hebrew

tradition or culture. In the excellent play (and movie) about Jewish life, titled Fiddler on the Roof, the

lead character, Tevye, exults over these traditions. Tradition is what tells us who we are and what God

expects, he says at one point. Then he sings and dances his joy over these traditions. Similarly, the

Psalmist writes a whole psalm (Ps 119) of rejoicing over his involvement with these commands and

customs, at one po int exclaiming, "How I love your law!" (v. 97).

People today may not sing and dance in exultation over their customs, but they may be just as

attached to their customs as the Hebrews were to theirs. This fact must be recognized at both ends of the

communication process. We may be so attached to our ways that we cannot imagine other peoples not

wanting to do it our way. And they may be so attached to their customs that they may be quite resistant

to changing them.

The Apostle Paul tackles the problem of extreme reverence for custom in the Letter to the Galatians.

He is appealing for freedom from the tyranny of a legalistic commitment to a particular set of customs.

The Galatians had apparently started where Abraham started with a covenant relationship with God

(Gal 3:6--9). H aving started well they then turned back to their commitment to H ebrew custom. n
I

condemning this behavior, Paul says,

Tell me this one thing: did you receive God's Spirit by doing what the Law [= Hebrew custom] requires or by hearing the gospel and

believing it? How can you be so foolish! You began by God's Spirit, do you now want to finish by your own power?...Does God give

you the Spirit and work miracles among you because you do what the Law requires or because you hear the gospel and believe it? (Gal

3.2-5).

Relationship precedes custom in God's ordering of things. We and the people we minister to are to be

free from legalism, and this is true whether our legalism be cultural or denominational. We all need

customs, but not somebody else's customs. We all need a certain amount of ritual, but not somebody

else's ritual. Our customs, no matter how valuable to us, are not to be imposed on others. And their

customs, no matter how sacred they may be to them, are not sacred to God.

Cultural structuring is important. We all need it, both in church and in all of life. But when it gets in

the way of the freedom we have in Christ to develop customs that spring out of our relationship with
Him, cultural structuring becomes an obstruction.

INTRODUCTION

The term culture is the label anthropologists give to the complex structuring of customs and the

assumptions that underlie them in terms of which people govern their lives. Every society has its own

cultural way of life. Apparently, human beings cannot live without such structuring. At least, no group

of people has yet been discovered without culture.

A culture may be likened to a river, with a surface level and a deep level. The surface is visible. Most

of the river, however, lies beneath the surface and is largely invisible. In a river, what happens on the

surface is both a reaction to external phenomena and a manifestation of the deep-level characteristics of

the river. For example, if something is thrown into a river, there will be a splash as the surface of the

water is affected by the external phenomenon. That item, however, will in turn be affected by

subsurface phenomena such as the current, the cleanness or dirtiness of the river, the presence of other

objects in the river, and the like.

S o it is with culture. What we see on the surface of a culture is the patterning of human behavior.

This patterning or structuring of behavior, though impressive, is the lesser part of the culture. In the

depths are the assumptions we call worldview (see chapter 4), in terms of which the surface level

behavior is governed. When something affects the surface of a culture, it may result in a change at that

level. The nature and extent of that change will, however, be influenced by the deep-level structuring

(worldview) of the culture.

With humans, unlike with rivers, there is a still deeper level. We will call this the level of person.

Culture (including worldview) is a matter of structure or patterns. Culture does not do anything. Culture

is like a road. It provides a surface with boundaries on which people may walk or drive. People may

choose to walk or drive off the road. They may creatively forge a new path, develop a new custom that

may or may not be fallowed by others. If that new custom is fallowed by others, it becomes a part of

their culture, as well. If not, it remains idiosyncratic and dies with the person who invented it.

Ordinarily people govern themselves by habit. Though people are creative and some very creative in

devising new strategies, most of what we do and think is more habitual than creative. It is our regular

habit to follow the cultural guidelines (roads) taught to us as we were growing up. The apparent power

of a culture to govern a person's behavior lies in the human propensity to live by habit. Culture has no

power in and of itself The interaction between people and cultural structuring will be explored further

below and becomes an important part of the undergirding of our whole treatment.

I am frequently asked, Where did culture come from? And how did there get to be so many cultures?

My assumption is that God both created into humans a culture-creating ( and modifying) capacity and

gave Adam some kind of culture to start with. Since we know of no language without a culture, the fact

that Adam spoke a language would seem to indicate that he also had culture.

As for the vast number of cultures in the world (probably more than the 6 , 0 0 0 languages that have

been counted), my theory is that the primary reason for such diversity is human creativity ( a part of the

image of God in humans). In spite of our propensity to behave habitually, humans are just too creative

to continue to do things, think things, feel things, say things in the same way(s) all the time. People

innovate, and enough innovation and isolation (geographical or social) over a long enough period of

time results in cultural and linguistic divergence and splitting.

CULTURES ARE TO BE RESPECTED

We cannot live without culture. It is that matrix within which we "live and move and exist" (Acts
1 7 : 2 8 ) , the nonbiological, nonenvironmental part of our lives that we learn from our elders, that we

share with our community, and in which we are totally submerged from one end of life to the other.

Cultural structuring is both outside of us and inside of us. We relate to it in many ways as a fish

relates to water (though it is more influential in our lives than even water is to fish). But we are usually

as unconscious of it as fish must be of the water in which they exist or as we usually are of the air we

breathe. Indeed, many of us only notice culture when we go into another cultural territory and observe

customs different from our own. Then we often feel sorry for those people and, if we are able, seek

ways to rescue them from their customs.

Historically, many have reacted to other people's customs by trying to rescue the people from them.

They responded to other people's ways like the monkey in the Southeast Asian story of the monkey and

the fish. It seems Monkey and Fish got caught in a flood. As the waters rose higher and higher, Monkey

found a tree and climbed to safety. As he got above the water level, he looked down and saw his friend

Fish still in the water. So, out of concern for his friend, he reached down, rescued Fish, and held him

tight to his chest as he climbed higher in the tree. This, of course, was the end of friend Fish, since he

cannot live outside of water.

Human beings, like fish, can live inside a culture but not outside of one. Thus, any persons "rescued"

from one culture can only survive if they are quickly immersed in another. Some from the Two-Thirds

World are studying or living in America, feeling they've been "rescued" from the culture into which

they were born, since they no longer fit there. When they're in their home country, they don't any longer

feel at home. They have been pulled out of their home culture. The sad thing is that, having been pulled

out of one culture, they have usually not been made to feel completely at home in the other. They feel,

as one of my Nigerian friends put it, like the bat-they don't get along either with birds or with animals.

The way of Jesus is, however, to honor a people's culture, not to wrest them from it. Just as He

entered the cultural life of first-century Palestine in order to communicate with people, so we are to

enter the cultural matrix of the people we seek to win. If we are to witness effectively to human beings,

we have to take account of the culture in which these human beings live. If we fish for fish, we have to

know whether the fish are swimming in deep water or shallow water, in water that is running rapidly or

is stagnant, in water that is clean or dirty, cold or warm. We have to know these things if we're going to

fish for fish. This text is designed to help us learn about the cultural water in which people live and

move and have their being and without which we are not human beings.

We who are missionary anthropologists believe that we really can't do what we seek to do very

effectively if we live in ignorance of the cultural dimensions of human beings. Much good Christian

witness has resulted from the activities of perceptive people who, though working cross-culturally, have

dealt with people sympathetically and understandingly in terms of the kinds of principles we are talking

about. As Eugene Nida states, "Good missionaries have always been good "anthropologists"' ( 1 9 5 4 : x i ) .

What he means is that good missionaries didn't need a basic anthropology course to alert them to these

things. They did the right things naturally. Unfortunately, too many of us, like those who have sought to

rescue people from their cultures, don't do the right things naturally. We need books like this to inform

us concerning the relationships between people and their cultures, to enable us to be the kind of cross­

cultural witnesses we intend to b e .

A POSITIVE OR A NEGATIVE VIEW OF CULTURE?

An important basic concern of Christians who take anthropology seriously is whether we should take

a positive or a negative attitude toward culture. As I have suggested above, I believe God takes culture

seriously and, as I will discuss further in chapter 6, is pleased to work through it to reach and interact

with humans. Culture is seen here as usable by God and us to fulfill God's purposes on earth.
 But is culture good, bad, or neutral? Some have felt that when John refers to the "world" as

something we should hate in 1 John 2:15-17, he is condemning culture. Recently, Sherwood

Lingenfelter of Biola University has published a view of culture that takes this position and challenges

the view I stated in Christianity in Culture ( 1 9 7 9 a ) :

I see cultural structuring . . . as basically a vehicle or milieu, neutral in essence, though warped by the pervasive influence of human

sinfulness. Culture is not in and of itself either an enemy or a friend to God or humans. It is, rather, something that is there to be used

by personal beings such as humans, God, and Satan . . . .

Culture is seen as a kind of road map made up of various forms designed to get people where they need to go. These forms and the

functions they are intended to serve are seen, with few exceptions, as neutral with respect to the interaction between God and man.

Cultural patterning, organizing, and structuring of life, the functions they are intended to serve, and the processes cultures make

available to human beings are not seen as inherently evil or good in themselves ( 11 3 ) .

Lingenfelter says, however, "I reject the notion that culture or worldview is neutral," adding, in at

least partial contradiction of a view he once participated in,

Analogies such as Kraft's "map" or "a tool for communication and interaction" (Lingenfelter and Mayers 1 9 8 6 : 1 2 2 ) are inadequate to

capture the pervasive presence of sin in the lives and thought of human beings. Using the tool analogy, culture is more like a "slot

machine" found in Las Vegas' gambling casinos than a wrench or screw driver. Culture, like a slot machine, is programmed to be sure

that those who hold power "win" and the common players "lose" . . . The structures and organizations of cultures are not neutral; people

define and structure their relationships with others to protect their personal or group interests, and to sustain or gain advantage over

others with whom they compete ( 1 9 9 2 : 18 ) .

A page before this statement, Lingenfelter had said,

[T]hese social systems and worldviews become prisons of disobedience, entangling those who hold them in a life of conformity to

social images that at their roots are in conflict with God's purpose for humanity as expressed in Jesus Christ. Paul suggests that human

beings are in a prison, a cell of disobedience: "God has imprisoned all human beings in their own disobedience only to show mercy to

them all" (Rom 1 1 : 3 0 - 3 2 NJB). He repeats the same theme in Galatians 3 : 2 2 , paraphrasing Psalm 1 4 : 1 - 3 . He observes that "the whole

world is a prisoner of sin." God has penned up all people in their self-created cells of culture, including Jew and Gentile, pagan and

missionary ( 1 9 9 2 : 1 7 - 18 ) .

Lingenfelter contends that "the gospel contradicts society and worldview" and that Jesus' "good

news' brought conflict and change," challenging the system operated by the power brokers of His day,

inducing them to react in defense of that system in such a way that the Christians experienced "great

distress" ( 1 9 9 2 : 1 9 ) . In response to my position that God wants to transform people by enabling them

first to live up to their own ideals, then to transcend them to approach scriptural ideals ( 1 9 7 9 a : 2 4 5 ) ,

Lingenfelter holds that "the Scriptures will inevitably contradict the ideals of a culture ( 1 9 9 2 : 2 0 , italics

his). He concludes that while I and Mayers hold "a 'high' and neutral view of culture," his "is a 'low'

view," a view that sees culture as "inextricably infected by sin" ( 1 9 9 2 : 2 0 ) .

I have attempted to present Lingenfelter's argument in some detail because it deserves to be taken

seriously. There are problems inherent in taking a positive view of culture. Sin is a fact. The constant

misuse of power is a fact, as is the ease with which those in power are able to manipulate cultural

structures to serve their ends. The selfishness of those in power is a fact. But it is also a fact that

cultural structures are usable by people, both Christians and non-Christians, for good purposes. People

are not determined by cultural structuring (see chapter 1 0 ) . That is, in spite of the boundaries and rules

of culture within which we operate, there is room for choices. As Christians, however, we find ourselves

living our lives within structures that seem to make it easier to do the wrong thing than to do the right

thing. We play, as it were, on an "uneven playing field." It is as if we are playing soccer or football on a

field that is definitely slanted and we are obliged to defend the downhill goal. For our enemies to score,

they move the ball downhill. For us to score, however, we have to move it uphill. S o the playing field is

uneven, the slot machine is rigged. But our experience is that not every game is won by the evil side.

I think, therefore, that picturing cultures as "prisons/cells of disobedience" is misleading. A prison is

something a person cannot get out of. A person is locked up in a prison, totally unable to use most

aspects of his or her environment for positive purposes. Such is not the case with culture. Though

culture may not be as neutral as I once thought it was, it is not the structures of culture that lock people

in prisons but, rather, the sinful choices of people who are continually affected by the uneven playing

field of the structures but are not totally determined by them. Within those structures other people put

pressure on us or attempt to entice us to use our cultural structures sinfully. We may or may not go

along with them. But it is people-pressure and people-choices that determine whether the structures will

be used as instruments of Satan or of God, not the slantedness of the structures themselves.

True, it may be easier for a person to play to the downhill side of an uneven field. It is a part of our

human condition that it is easier to sin than to do what is right. But this fact is a comment on the nature

of persons, not the nature of the structures within which we function. These cultural structures, though

slanted, may either be allowed to become a prison of disobedience for those who are disobedient to God

or be used by Christians, utilizing the power of the Holy Spirit to play effectively uphill, as structures in

terms of which they use options allowed within the cultural structures to express obedience to God.

Though cultural structures are infected, they are not beyond usefulness.

In summary, I can agree with most of what Lingenfelter says with respect to the evilness, conflict,

and misuse of power that surrounds us. But I contend that these are people things, not structure things.

The structures are infected, to be sure, but the real problem lies in the people, not the structures. When,

in 1 John 2 : 1 5 - 1 7 , John warns us about "the world," he is talking about people (what I call "society"

below), those within whom there is a sin nature, not about culture, the structures within which people

operate and which they often manipulate to their advantage. People behave in prideful, manipulative

ways that are displeasing to God, and we are not to love these sinful behaviors of society if we are to

properly relate to God.

Though Lingenfelter and I may disagree as to whether to be negative or positive toward the

structures of culture, the way he finds to escape from the morass of determinism he has fallen into is by

reaching out for the kind of separation between people and culture described below. In his final chapter,

he points to what he calls "the duality of culture" ( 1 9 9 2 : 2 0 4 ) as the way out. This is very similar to the

separation I made ( 1 9 7 9 a ) between what I called "cultural patterning" and "cultural performance," a

concept that is more fully developed below by making use of the distinction between culture as

structure and society as people. Lingenfelter refers to a book by Anthony Giddens ( 1 9 7 9 ) , who proposes

that structure and interaction must be addressed as separate levels for analysis. The structural dimension focuses on the systemic

factors that define the enduring cultural components of relationship, the features that are reproduced over time and provide meaning

for the participants. Interaction, on the other hand, focuses on the actors engaged in communication within the institutional framework

yet with the freedom of individual choice characteristic of social behavior. Actors in every social situation formulate an interpretive

scheme, a modality of the structural and interaction systems available to actors (Lingenfelter 1992:204).

Lingenfelter then refers to a book by Margaret Archer, who makes a similar distinction, calling the

categories "the cultural system" ( cultural structure) and "the sociocultural level" (people) ( 1 9 8 8 : 134 ) .

Critiquing, then, theories of worldview such as Hiebert's ( 1 9 8 5 ) that "have combined or conflated these

two distinctive levels into one unified system" (Lingenfelter 1 9 9 2 : 2 0 5 ) , Lingenfelter agrees with Archer

that this "myth of cultural integration" deludes us into ignoring "the recurring inconsistencies within

every cultural system . . . and the volatility and unpredictability of human behavior" (Lingenfelter

1992:205). Recognizing the distinctness of the cultural structure level from the personal/social level

"allows us to examine much more carefully the interplay of these two and the transforming processes

that occur when the gospel brings contradiction into the life of the individual and into the systems of

cultural and social relationships" ( 1 9 9 2 : 2 0 5 ) .

I agree. Though Lingenfelter chooses to be more negative than I concerning the influence of cultural

structures on human behavior, I believe we are not that far apart with respect to strategy. In any event, I
ffer the approach to culture and worldview presented in this book as a start in the direction both of us

e calling for. In spite of our differences, I am largely in agreement with the thrust of the following

aragraph, with which he concludes his book:

The key to the power of the gospel for transforming culture is an unwavering commitment to the Word of God. Missionary and

national alike are frequently blinded by the relationships and values of their own social environment. While they are committed to a

common Christ and a common gospel, they have integrated that gospel into a cultural system that reflects in large part a transformation

of their preconversion knowledge and worldview. The pressures of the old cultural system and the old social order continually work

against the liberating power of the gospel and the call to discipleship in Christ. By searching the Scriptures for those kingdom

principles that call believers to antistructural relationships, such as freedom from property, giving and receiving at risk, loving family

relationships, and servant leadership, missionary and national discover the "trigger mechanisms" that set them free from the bondage

of their cultural systems and their sociocultural environments (Lingenfelter 1 9 9 2 : 2 1 2 ) .

PEOPLE AND CULTURE

As mentioned above, we need to distinguish carefully between people and the cultural structures in

hich they operate. It has been too common with both nonspecialists and specialists to confuse the two.

or example, it is common to hear statements such as "Their culture makes them do such and such," or

A people's culture presses them into its mold," or "A people's worldview determines their view of

ality, enabling them to see certain things clearly but blinding them to other aspects of reality," or

Their culture doesn't allow them to . . . " Note that the italicized verbs in these statements convey an

ssumption of personal initiative and power on the part of culture.

Such statements represent what has been labeled a superorganic view of culture or "cultural

1perorganicism." People who subscribe to such a view picture culture as if it were an enormously

owerful being that molds and pushes people around, determining or at least strongly influencing their

eliefs and behavior, sometimes helpfully, sometimes harmfully. A culture, from this point of view, is a

ving organism, existing independently of those who practice it, with great power to influence their

ves.

Those who hold to a superorganic view of culture are attempting to deal honestly with a big problem.

he question they seek to answer may be stated as follows: How do we explain the fact that people

rithin any given society behave in incredibly similar ways? All anthropologists have to answer that

uestion. Some choose to see the source of such conformity in culture. Some choose to see it in the

eople themselves. I choose the latter.

For this reason I attempt to make a clear distinction between culture as structures and patterns and

eople as the active agents either in maintaining those structures and patterns or in changing them. This

osition has great theoretical significance both for our approach to anthropology and for our approach to

hristian witness.

As I have written elsewhere in a treatment of worldview,

Culture is not a person. It does not "do" anything. Only people do things. The fact that people ordinarily do what they do by following

the cultural "tracks" laid down for them should not lead us to treat culture itself as something possessing a life of its own. Culture is

like the script an actor uses. He follows it most of the time. But occasionally, either because he has forgotten his lines or because he

thinks he has a better way of reaching the goal, he departs from the script and does something else.

The "power" that keeps people following the script of their culture is the power of habit, not any power that culture possesses in

itself. People ordinarily follow the patterns of their culture, but not always.

Cultural (including worldview) patterns, then, do not force people to follow them. It is force of habit that keeps us following

custom. But even a habit can be changed with some effort. If the change is considered serious, however, others in the society will

exert great pressure on the one who is deviating to get him or her to conform. If the deviation is not considered serious, little or no

pressure may be exerted to get the person back in line (1989:56-57).

The distinction we are making is embodied in the contrast between the words culture and society.

ulture refers to the structured customs of a people. Society refers to the people themselves. Note in the
final paragraph of the above quote that it is the pressure of people (social pressure) that is brought to

bear to keep people obeying certain customs, while the lack of such pressure leaves them free to make

changes. There is no power in culture to press for confonnity.

PERSONAL BEHAVING CULTURAL STRUCTURING

EAVING PATTERNS O BE#AVIOR

s
u Habitual Behaving
R Overt (Doing. Speaking. Emoting Overt Custom that Pattern Doing, Speaking,

F Covert (Thinking. Feeling Emoting. ete

A
Creative Behaving
c
Overt (
Doing Spealing, Emoting) Covert Custom that Pattern Thi.ling
E
Covert (Thia.ling, Feeling Feeling, et

AS8
UMIN( PATTERNS 0 WVA8UMP'TON

(Usually Habitual, Often Creative)

Primary-Level Arming Putter Underlying Primary Behavior

Willig (Choosing) Wiling (Choosing

Emoting Emoting

eoing Reasoning

Auming Motivation Deciding Motivation

D
Assuring Predispositions Being Predis
posed

E
Assigning Mearing Patterns ofMeaning Assignment

Interpreting Way of Interpreting

E
Evaluating ys of Evaluating/Validating
Wa

p
Responding to Aimed Meaning Pattern of Response to leaning

Explaining Ways ofExplaining

CocnrittingPledging Allegiance Ways of Committing/Pledging Allegiance

Relating Ways of Relating

Adapting Way ofAdapting

Regulating Wa
ys of Regulating

Seeking Psychological Reinforcement Wa ofGetting Psychological Reinforcement

ving toward Integration/Consistency
Stri Wa
s of Integrating/Attaining Consistency

Figure 3.1 Surface and deep, personal and cultural

The chart above summarizes the distinction I am making between the behavior of persons and the

cultural structuring of that behavior. Note that on the left (personal) side of the chart, we describe the

activities by using verbs. People behave and assign meaning. On the right (culture) side of the chart we

use nouns to indicate the static nature of the patterns people learn, by means of which they guide their

behavior. Note the distinctions made between habitual and creative behavior and between overt

behavior (doing and speaking) and covert behavior (thinking).

I have included the deep structure (worldview) part of the chart to give the whole picture even

though we will not deal with the specifics of worldview until the next chapter.

We may liken the interaction between people and their cultures to that between actors and their

scripts. In preparation for performing a play, an actor memorizes his script. During the performance he

speaks his lines as creatively as possible within the limits set for him by the script and the physical

setting on the stage. There are, however, conditions under which the actor will depan from the script.

For one, he may forget some lines or make a mistake and have to improvise. For another, one of the

other players may miss a cue or do something the first actor hadn't counted on, requiring him to

improvise. Or some external circumstance (a prop misplaced or falling over) might motivate him to say

or do something other than what he has memorized. Or he may simply create something new right on

the spot to spice things up.

Though cultural lines are carefully memorized and most of the cultural performance proceeds

according to habit, there is also room for creativity. When people follow the patterns, whether by habit

(ritual) or by conscious choice, they are, in a sense, "performing their culture." They are following the

cues. When they make mistakes or innovate, they are also performing, but in a more creative way. This
kind of performance relates to the cultural script but does not follow the guidelines exactly.

In the drama of cultural performance, it sometimes seems good to change the script. This is done by

agreement between the parties concerned: director, actors and actresses, stage manager, and so on.

Cultural patterns (scripts) are both maintained and altered by the people who use them. The

performance of people as they use their cultural patterns results in the continuance of most of the

patterns, though always with some changes.

CULTURE DEFINED

Culture may be defined as the "total life way of a people, the social legacy the individual acquires

from his group," a people's "design for living" (Kluckhohn 1949a:17). Or, to be more specific, we may

see a culture as a society's complex, integrated coping mechanism, consisting of learned, patterned

concepts and behavior, plus their underlying perspectives (worldview) and resulting artifacts (material

culture). Diagrammatically, this definition is shown in figure 32 below.

Let's look more closely at our definition.

1. First, culture is seen as a coping mechanism. Another term that might be used is a strategy for

survival. Culture is the mechanism by means of which every human group and individual copes with

human biological makeup and the surrounding geographical and social environment. We experience

three basic givens: our person (including biological, mental, psychological, and spiritual components),

the environment in which we live (including both physical and social components), and the culture, in

terms of which we relate to the other two. The latter provides us with the plans (strategies) and patterns

that we employ in dealing with the givens of our psychobiological makeup and those of our

geographical and social environments. We will come to understand more of this coping mechanism as

we go along.

A complex, integrated coping

0ch. Belonging to and operated by a

societ
y (
oeial group) Consisting of

Concept ad behavior that

are patterned ad learned
'
2 Underlying perspectives
(world view)

3. Resulting product, bot.h

oaterial (euo., ritu

al) and material (artifact

Figure 3.2 A definition of culture

2. Secondly, we have labeled a culture as belonging to and operated b

y a social group (society). A

culture is owned by the people who are trained in it and live according to it. As pointed out above, it is a

"social legacy" an inheritance from a people's ancestors. It is very precious to a people and, under ideal

conditions, s
i operated happily and confidently by those for whom it is the only "life way" or "design

for living" that makes sense to them. A people perceives their culture as having been created by

concerned and revered forebears to enable them to deal effectively with the concerns of life.

3. Such a cultural system expresses ideas or concepts. These ideas are where things start. There is no

lever to enable us to move large rocks without an underlying concept, no wheel, no wedding ceremony,

no eating custom, no pottery or basketry, no naming or puberty rite. Underlying every custom, every

cultural strategy and probably historically prior to each, is one or more concepts in the head of the

originator and of each one who practices the custom or employs the strategy.

4. These concepts underlie cultural behavior. Behavior is simply what we do with body or mind,

alone or in groups. It is the most visible type of cultural activity. Some examples are listed in the above

paragraph.
 5. The concepts and behavior of a culture are patterned. In the past, certain westerners (often

Lissionaries or travelers) went to other parts of the world, observed the behavior of the people there,

1d made statements such as, "These people don't have any organization to their life. They just do what

ey feel like, without rhyme or reason to their customs."

As anthropologists and others began to really study other people's cultures, however, they discovered

tat that is not an accurate point of view. Every group of people has rules and regulations according to

hich they live. There is always structuring, always regularity, always system, and a very high degree

f predictability, since most cultural behavior (thinking as well as doing) is quite habitual. People act

abitually and unconsciously according to the patterns they have been taught.

Due to these patterned regularities and the habitual behavior that stems from them, cultural behavior

, interpretable by insiders-the other members of the cultural group. If cultural behavior were random,

ere would be no way for other members of a society to understand what that behavior means.

uppose, for example, a given person greeted others sometimes by waving, sometimes by punching

tern in the nose, and sometimes by disrobing in front of them. Unless everyone in the society agreed

at
t each of these methods was appropriate greeting behavior, this person would be greatly

Li sunderstood. Understanding requires agreement. Agreement requires predictability, which, in turn,

quires patterning. Cultural behavior is (and must be) patterned.

6 . C ulture is learned. W e get it from our parents and others from whom we learn. It is not transmitted

i ologically. N or does it come from the environment. It is a human thing, passed from generation to

e neration very effectively via fa miliar processes of imitation and teaching. M ost of these processes

ke place q uite unconsciously, leading us often to underesti m ate the difficulty of culture learning and

e complexity of what we have learned.

S ometimes I' m as k ed , "H ow come you westerners with all your education and intelligence can shoot

ckets to the moon, but you can't even learn our culture and language, the simplest in the world ? " I tell

t ern we had the wrong mothers ! If we had their mothers, we would have learned their culture and

nguage. But we didn' t. O ur mothers didn ' t know their culture and language and s o didn't teach it to us .

ut there's a fa ir chanc e that these people won ' t understand what I' m saying unl e ss they try to learn

1other culture and language themselves.

7 . C ulture a ls o co nsi s t s o f he underlying perspectives (worldview)

t o n the b a sis o f w hich the cultural

ncepts and behavior we have been discussing are generated. As pointed out already, this constitutes

e very important deep structure of culture.

8 . L as tl y, we point to the products produced by people as they fo ll ow cultural rules and patterns .

hese products may be nonmaterial or material. The majority of the products are nonmateria l. These

clude the concepts and behavior patterns pract ic ed by a people. All the customs and rituals pract ic ed

y a people are nonmaterial cultural products. S o are the ideas that underlie the material artifacts

ro duced by a people. Those artifacts are the material cultural products of a people. These in cl ude the

ls, containers, utens il s, houses, vehi cl es, cl othing, and so on that people use in their cultural

e havior. S ome anthropologists ( e . g . , S pradley and M c c urdy 1 9 7 5 ) would exclude material products

u m a de fi nition of culture, contending that culture is totally a matter of k nowledge and ideas. It has,

o wever, been traditional to in cl ude t hem, and I follow that tradition.

LEVELS AND TYPES OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

The terms culture and society c an be use d at several levels . Though these two terms are often

u elessly used interchangeably, we need to be careful to use culture when refe rr ing to the structuring of

f e and society when refe rr ing to the people who ve by that structuring.
li

S ince each person is immersed in a culture, it is possible to speak of the most speci fi c level of
cultural structuring as a personal culture. At the other end of the spectrum we may lump together large

groupings of cultures that manifest similar characteristics. Such terms as western culture(s), African

culture( s ), Latin American culture( s) are used to label such groupings. Equally appropriate as

designations of the peoples who live by these cultures would be western society(ies ), African

society(ies ), Latin American society(ies ) .

A sequence of terms to designate cultural structuring may be charted as follows:

1 . Personal Culture

2 . Family Culture (or Subculture)

3 . Community Culture (or Subculture)

4. Regional Culture ( or Subculture)

5 . National Culture (e.g., American Culture)

6. Multinational Culture ( e . g . , Western Culture)

Another way of grouping cultures and societies is on the basis of one or more shared characteristics.

Such labels as traditional cultures/societies, peasant cultures/societies, and industrial cultures/societies

are often employed to distinguish cultural structures and peoples on the basis of one set of economic

features. Shaw ( 1 9 8 8 ) , starting from Dye's ( 1 9 8 0 ) economics-based, three-culture-type classification,

has helpfully worked out a more detailed typology. In it, Shaw presents several typically contrasting

characteristics in four cultural "subsystems" (see chapter 8 ) : the economic, the religious, the social and

the political. Shaw's chart on pages 42-43 illustrates this type of classification.

Another set of economic features is in focus when anthropologists designate a people as participating

in an agricultural or settled farming culture or a herding or cattle-herding culture. The people may be

called an agricultural society or a herding society. Sometimes social characteristics are used as the basis

for grouping as when reference is made to polygamous or monogamous cultures/societies or when

peoples are grouped according to family characteristics such as extended family cultures/societies or

nuclear family cultures/societies. Religious designations are frequently used to lump cultures and

peoples, e . g . , Muslim cultures/societies, Buddhist cultures/societies, Roman Catholic cultures/societies,

Hindu cultures/societies.

The above designations are appropriate for labeling differing levels of a type of culture and society

that might be called "natural." A natural culture is one that is owned by a given society, usually

speaking a single language, and that is passed on through that language to those born into the society.

But the term culture may also be legitimately applied in a kind of "horizontal" way to common patterns

exhibited by certain categories of people in many societies. For example, it has been observed that poor

people of many societies structure their lives in very similar ways and develop similar strategies for

coping with their poverty even within quite different cultures. This led to the coining of the term culture

of poverty by Oscar Lewis ( 1 9 5 9 ) . Similarly, we can observe cultures of drug addicts, deaf people,

urban gangs, athletes, factory workers, and any number of other life situations that impose conditions

similar enough to require the development of similar coping strategies.

CULTURES AND SUBCULTURES

A society may be made up of a smaller or a larger number of people. In general, the larger the

number of people, the more complex will be the cultural structures they produce and live by. For

example, a large population will typically develop more specialization than is necessary in a smaller

population. Whereas in smaller societies any given head of a family may serve as a leader in political,

economic, religious, and social matters, in larger societies, there are likely to be specialists in each of

these areas.

Larger societies will also develop more subgroupings. These subgroupings are usually referred to as
subcultures. Since this term is usually employed to refer to the people in the subgroupings rather than to

the structuring of such groups, it would be more precise to call them subsocieties.

A large population such as that of Anglo-American society, for example, will comain such

subcultures/subsocieties as those of youth, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, farmers, even

computer specialists, taxi drivers, clergy, and any number of others.

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In addition, it is common for national and multinational sociocultural entities to contain other

societies (called "included societies"), each with its own cultural structuring. In a country such as

Nigeria, for example, there are hundreds of distinct societies, each with its own language and culture, all

functioning as parts of a larger national society and culture. Likewise, in the United States, there are

included societies speaking Spanish, Korean, various Chinese languages, Japanese, Tagalog,

Cambodian, various American Indian languages, and any number of other languages. In addition, there

are communities of Blacks, American Indians, and the second and third generations of many of the

above language groups who speak English but retain a good bit of their non-Anglo sociocultural

identity. These sometimes class as included societies, sometimes as subcultures/subsocieties within the

larger society, depending on the degree of integration into the mainstream of American society.

MORE ABOUT CULTURE

With this background, let us tum to a series of additional characteristics of culture. Though each of

these characteristics applies primarily to fully formed "natural" cultures, they also apply, to a greater or

lesser extent, to the more limited types of culture discussed above.

1. Culture is complex. All cultures are complex (though some are more complex than others).
nthropologists have never yet discovered a simple culture. Some groups have a simple technology.

heir material culture might even be called "primitive," though this is a poor word to use for their

1lture as a whole. No matter how simple their technology and material culture might be, their ways of

ving, their customs, their perceptions of and responses to the reality around them are patterned in a

mplex way that often defies the attempts of outsiders to learn or even understand them.

2 . We also know that culture tends to show more or less tight integration around its worldview. The

asic worldview assumptions provide the "glue" in terms of which people tie each of the various

bsystems (see below) of culture to the worldview and also to each other. Thus, in addition to their

·lationship with worldview itself, within a cultural system, politics is closely related to economics, and

oth of these subsystems are closely related to religion and social structure (family, social control),

hile all are tightly tied to language, artistic expression, and so on. Tighter integration of these internal

arts of a culture tends to result in a more satisfied people. A breakdown of integration usually increases

people's dissatisfaction and psychological stress ( often leading to breakdown).

3 . The culture of a people provides for them a total design for living. It is comprehensive, dealing

ith every aspect of life. A culture provides a given people with the means of answering the vast

ajority of the questions they feel are important regarding the human problems they face. Such

uestions are usually so well taken care of that the people may not be able to even articulate questions

r answers. They simply accept both answers and questions as their way of life.

Cultural answers are designed to cover all facets of life, whether routine things such as eating or

ressing or less tangible things such as how to decide when to plant or how to think about relational,

dicial, philosophical, or spiritual issues. One implication of this totality of cultural coverage is the fact

Lat when we bring something like Christianity to a people, we should not be misled into thinking we

1n simply add it to their culture as if there were avoid that their culture wasn't filling. Rather, we are

pealing to them to replace something that is already there. We're not coming to people who are not

mmitted to anything. We're asking people to commit themselves to Christ in place of whatever other

rimary commitment they are taught to have. Their society has already shown them what their supreme

mmitment is expected to b e .

4. Culture is an adaptive system or, as mentioned above, a mechanism for coping. It provides people

ith patterns and strategies by means of which they can adapt to the physical and social conditions

ound them. Cultural patterns show great adaptation to the geographical environment. That's why

1ltures in the tropics differ from those in snowy countries. If you're in a tropical area where you can

row food all year round, the cultural patterns show adaptation to that particular circumstance. If you're

L a cold area where you can grow only during a very limited growing season that requires you to store

od for the rest of the year, the cultural patterning is adapted to that.

Cultural patterns also show adaptation to social circumstances. If you're in a situation where you

ave been conquered by another people, your cultural perspectives are adapted to that circumstance. If

ou're in a situation where you're free from that oppression, your patterns are adapted to that

rcumstance. There is also cultural adaptation to biological givens. People of short stature will develop

: least some cultural patterns that differ from those of taller peoples. People whose stomachs cannot

igest sweet (nonsour) milk will adapt culturally to that fact.

5 . No culture seems to be perfectly adequate either to the realities of biology and environment or to

Le answering of all of the questions of a people. There are always areas of life that are not handled

erfectly. Another way of saying this is that while a cultural system is designed to answer all of people's

uestions, it's apparently true that all peoples, of whatever culture, always have some questions left over

Lat are not very well answered.

One of the important things to recognize about Christianity is that there are lots of ways of

pr0aching people with our message. One of the best wavs is to find the questions people are asking
for which their culture is not providing answers. Perhaps the Christian perspective can provide answers

for some of those questions. If they can see that the new approach answers some questions they have

never before been able to answer, they may be attracted to it initially as a supplement to what they

already understand. The local chief in our area of northeastern Nigeria once asked me if Christianity

could provide the answer to a major question his people were asking. This question was based on the

belief of his people that God had gone far away due to a bad mistake they had made in the past. S o he

asked me if I knew where God had gone and how they could get back in contact with Him. We were

able to make use of the felt need for an answer to this question to enhance the entrance of the Gospel

into that society.

6. Culture is learned as if it were absolute and perfect. Before we ( or any other people) knew or even

suspected the existence of alternative ways of life, we as children were indoctrinated into ours. We

learned our customs unconsciously, before we had any ability to compare and evaluate them, so we

often consider them the only possible approaches, the best and only right way. We thus developed an

attitude called ethnocentrism, the belief that our customs are the best. Ethnocentrism is one of our worst

enemies, since it leads us to impose our ways on others. It is, however, a disease both we and the people

we go to suffer from, unless we or they have been intimidated by another people into believing our

customs to be wrong. We will treat this problem in detail in chapter 5 .

7. Culture makes sense to those within it. When we look from our own cultural perspective at other

people's ways of doing things, many times they don't make sense to us. "Why do they do it that way?"

we may ask. "We would discipline our children if they did that." From our point of view, based on our

worldview assumptions, their custom may seem illogical or at least ill-advised. Yet the more we learn

about other cultures, the clearer it becomes that what people do tends to be consistent with the

assumptions they start with. Just as we aim at consistency, so do they. But since their assumptions, their

starting points, differ from ours, naturally what they end up with will differ. Cultural behavior itself

(whether theirs or ours) only really makes sense when you understand the underlying assumptions.

I often wonder how many of the things I did and said looked strange to the Nigerians of the area in

which we worked. If their customs seemed strange from our point of view, ours must have looked

doubly strange from theirs. I imagine them getting a lot of entertainment from their contacts with me.

They didn't have television to entertain them, but they didn't need television as long as they had a white

man around! I'll bet they just laughed and laughed at all the crazy things I did Gust as we missionaries

laughed at the things they did).

One serious mistake I made was to carry my small children on my shoulders. It made sense to me to

carry them that way, especially if we were walking any great distance and wanted to go faster than their

little legs would carry them. That custom didn't make sense to the Nigerians, however, since in their

world only corpses were carried on a person's shoulder!

I'm very thankful to my Nigerian colleagues for being bold enough to tell me about this mistake. I

wonder, though, about the thousands of other times they didn't tell me what they thought and probably

got the wrong impression, not about me only, but about Christianity. How are they going to know what

Christ is like except by looking at me? And when they draw their conclusions from looking at me, how

are they to know that they shouldn't trust their conclusions? Do they know and will they make

allowances for the fact that my behavior is based on different assumptions than theirs? Any given set of

customs makes sense to those who practice them, but not necessarily to people of another culture,

whose behavior is based on other assumptions. Yet we all evaluate what we see others doing on the

basis of our own cultural assumptions. Watch out!

8 . Cultural practices are based on group or "multipersonal" agreements. A social group is made up

of many persons ( i. e . , it is multipersonal) who unconsciously agree to govern themselves according to

the group's cultural patterns. Influenced by the social pressure toward conformity to these patterns they
ordinarily behave similarly and make decisions according to those patterns. Homer Barnett (1953)

called such group behavior "multi-individual." I prefer to call it multipersonal.

Everything underlying culture depends on people's agreements to do things one way or another. The

things people agree are right are considered right. Things they agree are wrong are considered wrong.

Culture is based on those agreements. This fact has particular relevance to those who seek to initiate

change in a culture, for a change of custom or belief is itself the result of an agreement to change. Such

an agreement to change, for its part, is usually the result of individual agreements on the part of the

members of the group to fallow the lead of one or more prestigious members ( opinion leaders) who

have decided to change. That is, prestigious persons ordinarily suggest changes. Others follow, usually

after a period of time devoted to consideration and discussion, so that what appears eventually on the

surface to be a group change has very definitely a multipersonal basis. Those (like Christians) who seek

to encourage culture change need to study this process. We will devote several chapters to this subject

later in the book.

9 . Culture is a legacy from the past. The customs we practice were developed by past generations as

they saw fit to deal with the problems of life. They therefore represent the learning our ancestors arrived

at and saw fit to pass on to us. This fact provides cultural continuity from generation to generation. It

also provides the present generation with wisdom from the past.

Often we can be proud of the cultural wisdom of our ancestors. Their ways of dealing with the

multiplicity of life problems we face serve us quite nicely most of the time. Many of the techniques they

developed have enabled us to thrive and even become great in certain areas of life. All we do is strongly

influenced by and usually built on foundations developed and passed on to us by our forebears.

Some of what is passed on, however, seems to be either unnecessary or counterproductive. Many

things that seem to be no longer useful are preserved in the transmission of a culture from one

generation. The buttons on the sleeves of men's coats would be one illustration of this fact in American

culture. The English spelling system is another. We will further discuss this factor in chapter 2 2 .

In another area, however, the legacy of the past may present those of the present generation with

even greater problems, especially in rapidly changing societies, for what is passed on to us by our

parents is the culture adapted to the problems of previous generations. Thus, many of the answers we

are taught are answers to questions that people were asking in the last generation or the generation

before, and frequently we find certain portions of the last generation's patterns not fitting the current

generation very well. This is what's happening in many rapidly changing situations. Here in America,

for example, we have to learn how to conserve resources such as trees and water. Previous generations

learned to exploit these things and simply use them in their manufacturing. They didn't worry about the

pollution or depletion of such resources; the possibility of a problem never occurred to them. The

answers of the last generation in this area have become problems for us in our generation, and we must

change our cultural habits.

1 0 . Culture provides people with a way to regulate their lives. It provides people with patterns as to

how to do things: when and how to eat, sleep, go to the toilet, laugh, cry, work, play. Our whole lives

are regulated by what we are taught is appropriate in such areas and in nearly all else, as well. We are

provided, for example, with customs regulating our behavior when we meet someone, when we marry,

when there's a death, when we worship. Usually quite unconsciously, we obey certain rules when we

stand, walk, or sit, when we communicate, even when we think. Whether we are with others or by

ourselves, we regulate our behavior by the cultural patterns we have been taught.

1 1. A culture may be pictured as a maze of roads, and a description of the culture as a map of those

roads. As mentioned above, people ordinarily follow the roads (practice the customs) but may,

whenever they choose, create new ways to arrive at the same destinations. When people create new

roads, others in the society may object and apply social pressure to attempt to get them back on the
established path. Or, especially if the one who innovates is an opinion leader, others may like the new

path better and imitate it themselves. In the latter case, a new cultural road is created that then becomes

a part of the legacy passed on to the next generation. See chapter 24 for more on this subject.

A description of a culture is, like a map, an abstract representation of the reality of that culture.

Knowing the information concerning the cultural patterns enables one to get around in a society, just as

a road map enables one to get around when traveling. Insiders in the society, of course, learn the map

while growing up and conduct their lives' journey according to those patterns. Maps concerning when

and how to eat, sleep, toilet, cry, work, play, think, reason, love, hate are all imprinted in their minds. If

the cultural map is presented to outsiders (in, for example, an ethnographic description of the cultural

patterns), they can learn to negotiate the maze of cultural pathways according to that map.

1 2 . There is conscious (or explicit) culture and unconscious (or implicit) culture. Conscious culture

includes the ways of behaving and thinking that people are aware of and usually can see and explain.

Unconscious culture, on the other hand, consists of those patterns of behaving and thinking that lie

below the level of a people's consciousness. This distinction is not the same as that between surface

culture and deep culture (worldview), though a greater percentage of the latter will be in the

unconscious category, for much surface-level behavior is unconscious, and a fair number of the deep­

level assumptions can be consciously articulated by a people.

If outsiders ask about those parts of a culture the people are conscious of, an insider can usually

describe and explain the customs. These include cultural patterns that parents ( and other elders) openly

explain to children. Many customs, rituals, and even assumptions fall into this category. More difficult

to get at, both for insiders and for outsiders, is unconscious culture. This consists of unconscious habits,

attitudes, assumptions, values, and the like that people learn largely by imitation and inference and

seldom, if ever, discuss.

Not infrequently, insiders are so unaware of such customs that it takes a perceptive outsider to call

them to their attention. Sometimes when an unconscious custom is called to an insider's attention, the

person will either deny that such a custom exists or give an inaccurate explanation of the reason for it.

If, for example, someone asks a typical American why we are so competitive, we may answer (wrongly)

that we are not competitive or we may explain that we are competitive in order to "get ahead." Though

there is some truth in the latter explanation, it masks the fact that we follow an unconscious underlying

assumption that it is right for people to get ahead, even though it involves ( carefully) overriding the

interests of others. The real reason for our competitiveness, as for most of the rest of our customs, is that

we have been taught to be this way. Rational (conscious) reasons for why a people eat, sleep, dress,

speak, and live in particular ways are almost always less accurate than the simple explanation, "We

do . . . this way because our parents/elders taught us to do it this way."

1 3 . There is ideal culture and actual culture. Every people has its ideals. In American society, for

example, we believe that all people are created equal. But an outside observer may notice that certain

people in our society are regularly granted more privileges than others. The reason is, we don't live up

to our ideal in this matter (as in many other areas of life). Instead, we live at another level called?

the "actual" ( or "real") level. This level may fall slightly or greatly below the ideal level.

People regularly idealize their behavior when they attempt to describe it. Often the ideals they

describe are seldom, if ever, practiced. It is probably a part of the effects of sin that we regularly live

below our ideals while claiming to live according to them.

The need to distinguish between ideal and actual relates to this text and our attitude toward other

people's cultures in an interesting way. If we are to respect other people's ways of life, it is important to

try to understand the intent (the ideal) of the customs being discussed. For example, in dealing with the

custom called polygamy (marriage of one man to more than one wife), we need to understand that it can

be defended at an ideal level just as rationally as we would defend monogamy (see chapter 1 8 for the
arguments). Occasionally it is practiced in a relatively ideal way. Usually, like monogamy, plural

marriage is practiced at a subideal level. In comparison ideal polygamy and ideal monogamy each (from

a human point of view) can be quite satisfactory, while actual (subideal) monogamy or polygamy can be

very destructive.

In an attempt to get us to respect other people's cultures, I will frequently direct our attention to ideal

expressions of their customs. In attempting to combat the tendency both of westerners and of

westernized nonwesterners to idealize western customs I will frequently criticize the actual (subideal)

expressions of western customs. Though I take these positions to make important points, we need

always, in considering any given way of life, to pay attention both to the ideals and to the actual

expressions of its customs. This is especially important when we compare one set of customs with

another. It is unfair to compare the ideals of one society (e.g., ideal monogamy) with the actuals (e.g.,

subideal polygamy) of another.

THE SUBSYSTEMS OF CULTURE

Social

Subsystem

(e.g, Family,

Education, Kinship,

Ete. Social Control) Language

Subsystem

WV

Technology Religion

Subsystem Subsystem

Economics

Subsystem

Figure 3.4 Typical subsystems within a culture

To conclude, I want to briefly present a diagram picturing what I am calling the subsystems of

culture. These subsystems are seen as divisions of surface-level culture and, as such, provide various

behavioral expressions of worldview assumptions. Each of these subsystems will be dealt with in the

following chapters, as will worldview.

I will leave a detailed discussion of this diagram until chapter B. It is presented here simply to
complete our overview of culture.

I trust that this chapter has alerted the reader to such things as the nature, extent, and importance of

culture, the various ways in which the term culture is used, and the relationships between culture and

people. Culture is an extremely important factor in human life and, therefore, in any attempt to carry

Christian witness to humans. I hope this chapter helps us see how crucial it is that cross-cultural

witnesses take culture seriously.

If we are 10 reach people, we will have 10 reach them within their culture. We will do this either

wisely or unwisely. It is hoped that by understanding more of what cultures are all about we can deal

with them more wisely than might otherwise have been the case.