by Aaron Dean
I felt sick when I heard the accusations of sexual immorality against an African pastor. Church leaders told the pastor to take his annual leave. A month later, the pastor returned to his ministry and things went on as if nothing had happened.
I felt sick when I heard the accusations of sexual immorality against an African pastor. Church leaders told the pastor to take his annual leave. A month later, the pastor returned to his ministry and things went on as if nothing had happened.
Another pastor fell into immorality. Everyone in the community knew except us missionaries. It went on for a number of years until another problem brought the allegations out in the open. A good African friend, an elder in the church, told me the accusations of sexual immorality were not the main issue that prompted discipline of this pastor. I stood stunned. Did the church feel immorality was not a sin? Why had it not been dealt with earlier?
A young pastor fell into the sin of immorality. The church put the pastor on compulsory leave for a few months and recommended he get married. After his marriage he returned to the ministry.
ETHNOCENTRIC PERSPECTIVES OF SIN
Even with the Bible as the ultimate authority, Western missionaries and the believers in national churches often view sin from an ethnocentric perspective. According to Bernard Adeney, individuals express and prioritize virtues differently and in direct relation to their cultural bias (1995, 15). For example, twenty years as a missionary has revealed that my view of sin is often at odds with the view of my African brothers and sisters. On the one hand, missionaries are often appalled by the seemingly casual view that Africans maintain towards the sin of immorality, labeled as a serious offense by missionaries and clearly condemned in the Bible. On the other hand, African believers are often confounded by the seemingly unnecessary concern that missionaries express towards immorality, labeled as human behavior in their culture. But while missionaries condemn immorality they seem to view anger as an acceptable attitude even though anger and rage are clearly condemned in the Bible.
Missionaries often preach against the sins that seem the worst from their ethnocentric perspective. Likewise, people receiving the Gospel also have their ethnocentric cultural view of which sins are the worst and, therefore, seldom agree with what the missionary is preaching against. Robert J Priest, in his excellent article on conscience and culture notes, "In an inter-cultural situation each interactant will thus tend to condemn the other morally for behavior about which the other has no conscience" (1994, 297).
CULTURALLY-CONDITIONED CONSCIENCE
T. Wayne Dye of the Summer Institute of Linguistics points out that Romans 2:15-16 (NIV) is a key passage in understanding varying cultural views of sin. Paul wrote, "Since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares." Dye’s interpretation suggests that each person, though deeply rooted in his/her culture, is intrinsically aware of what is right, leading to what he calls a culturally-conditioned conscience. He goes on to explain that this intrinsic awareness "still reflects God’s truth" (Dye 1976, 31, 36). Priest would agree with Dye’s statements and further points out that, according to Romans 14 and I Corinthians, the concept of a variable conscious is biblical and applies to Christians and non-believers alike (1994,295).
RATING SINS
Culturally-conditioned consciences affect how Christians view sins. Usually unconsciously, Christians rate sins from serious to minor. Dr. Jon Arensen, professor of anthropology at Houghton College, puts it this way. "Americans rate sins starting with murder, sexual sins, stealing, lying, and end up with the minor sins of anger, jealousy, and covetousness. African Christians would also start with murder, closely followed by anger, jealousy and covetousness-and then end with minor sins such as stealing (they’d call it borrowing), lying (saving face), and sexual sins (which they see as normal human activity). To an African anything that breaks a relationship is a serious sin. Americans are more concerned with breaking the rules" (personal correspondence).
ANGER AS AN EXAMPLE
Western Christians might put anger near the bottom of their list. The Bible clearly calls anger sin. In Galatians 5:19-21 Paul lists "fits of rage" along with other sins. Later, in Colossians 3: 5-9, Paul lists anger and rage as sins. Both of these sin lists also include sexual immorality. A church member will be disciplined for adultery (though in our sex-saturated society this is happening less and less as Western culture drops its moral standards in this area). But people are not normally disciplined for anger because our view of sins is culturally-biased. Anger does not make it very high on a Western list of sins. We would agree anger is sin. If we get angry we should confess it and maybe even apologize for it. But to a Western Christian it is not seen as a big issue.
An African Christian sees things differently. Anger is a big sin because it hurts relationships. Too often, we missionaries justify anger: "It was the careless driving of the bus driver that made me angry." We rename anger: "I wasn’t really angry at the bank, I was just frustrated. I waited for two hours to cash a check and then they told me the signature didn’t match the specimen card on their records. Maybe I sounded angry when I yelled at the clerk, but I was just frustrated because I couldn’t get my money out of the bank." Most times, an angry outburst by a missionary is never dealt with, certainly not at a public level. And that has caused some African Christians to question the faith of the missionaries. How can missionaries claim to be Christians when they are always getting angry?
A few years ago we had to send a missionary home after he slapped an African employee. When we talked with the missionary he felt he had done the right thing because he felt the employee had been involved in inappropriate behavior. We could see wrong on both sides (anger from the missionary and inappropriate behavior from the employee). We dealt with both. The missionary was asked to leave the field. It was not an easy decision. Our African church leaders were amazed that we sent the missionary home for an outburst of anger. But they applauded the decision because anger, a big sin to them, had been dealt with as if it was a big thing. And as a result, when we also suspended the employee from his duties, they supported that decision as well.
OVERCOMING ETHNOCENTRISM
Even though our conscience may be defined by our culture, the Bible is the final authority. It gives God’s standards for sins regardless of culture. But even the way we look at the Bible is affected by our own cultural worldview. Adeney points out:
The first step to overcoming ethnocentrism is the recognition that my own values are not necessarily the same as God’s. All Christians hold many values derived from their culture. A second step is to understand that our own interpretation of Scripture comes from a particular cultural context. A third step is to see that God’s values may be enfleshed differently in another culture from how they are in my own" (Adeney 1995, 15).
Following these three steps, we need to take a fresh look at God’s view of sin. We missionaries need to examine our cultural values and our interpretation of Scripture. I think we would find that our cultural excuses for not dealing with certain sins would crumble under the scrutiny of God’s Word. Anger would move high up on our Western list of sins to stand next to murder. That is where Jesus put it.
After we examine how we view sin in our home culture, confess our sins and change those views to come in line with the Bible, we can analyze the culture of the group we are working with. But we cannot just ask how they rate sins. Most groups really do not have a conscious list. We need to ask questions like, "What would you do if your husband slept with another woman?" Or "How do you deal with a man who beats his wife?" "What happens to a man who becomes angry and attacks his friend?" As we ask these types of questions, we will gain a better understanding of how that culture views various sins. Then we can sit down and help the spiritual leaders in that group compare their cultural view of sin with God’s view from the Bible.
SEARCHING FOR GOD’S VIEW ON MARRIAGE
I plant churches among a people group who have come to Christ in the past five years. The purpose is to disciple these new believers and to try to get them to understand that the Bible has universal standards by which we must measure all our cultural values. Adeney says, "Christians believe that what is good is determined by the will of God, not by culture. The goal of ethics is not cultural conformity but transformation into the likeness of Christ" (Adeney 1995, 15). No culture is perfect. There are things in my American culture that I, as a Christian, have to avoid because they are sinful according to the Bible. In areas where our cultural practices fall short of God’s Word, we need to adjust our behavior to meet God’s standards.
Two years ago during a week-long seminar, our church group tackled issues of marriage and immorality. For several days I just asked questions on how the men viewed marriage and husband-wife relationships. The men eagerly answered until we had pages of notes about what they felt was a proper view of marriage from their culture. It included paying a bride price. It involved circumcision of the girls as well as the boys. It allowed for polygamy. Sharing your wife with a visiting age-mate was okay. Beating a wife for disobedience was the norm. I do not think we explored all the issues, but we had a good sense of what they believed about marriage in their culture.
Much of what they told me differed from my view of marriage. But I had to be careful not to start giving them my Western-filtered view of what the Scripture teaches on marriage. As Adeney states, "Christians believe that the Bible is the primary, authoritative guide to faith and life. Cultural conventions do not have authority that overrules Scripture. When Christians differ, whatever the culture, they rightly search the Scriptures to find wisdom" (Adeney 1995, 79).
For the next day or two we read Scriptures that applied to marriage, adultery, immorality, honoring and loving wives. Then we prayed and asked them to decide if there were any of their cultural practices that might need to change according to what they had read in the Bible. Bride price seemed to be very biblical, so they felt no reason to change that. Female circumcision was not mentioned in the Bible and since they felt it was shameful to marry a girl who had not yet gone through the rite of passage to become a woman, they felt they could keep that. They agreed that sharing your wife with an age-mate, acceptable in their culture, would be sinful according to the Bible. To their surprise, wife beating had to be ruled out. Some of the older ones shook their heads at that one, not sure if it was possible. Most agreed polygamy should no longer be practiced, but they did not feel they should divorce any wives they had already married.
Our marriage seminar had a big impact on how these new Christians view sins such as adultery. I believe the Holy Spirit spoke through the Word of God and led them to make some decisions about cultural practices they would have to leave as they turned to follow the Lord. It takes time for the decisions of a group of men to filter down to the community at large, especially when many in the group are not yet believers. But change has started.
CONCLUSION
Our cultural perspective does affect how we view sin. Missionaries need to be careful not to pass on their cultural view of sin instead of the biblical standard. Recognizing how difficult this process is, Priest lists seven important points that missionaries should consider when attempting to do this (1994, 308-368). Some key examples, (1) culture plays a role in the formation of conscience; (2) conscience, informed by scripture, will change over time; and (3) discipling of church members and implementation of biblical standards must be grounded in Scripture and maintain a serious respect for the consciences of believers. We need to examine and redeem our own cultural spin on sin first. Then we can help others analyze their culture’s treatment of sin and bring it into line with the Bible.
In Matthew 6:41-42, Jesus taught us to remove the plank from our own eyes before attempting to help others remove the speck of dust in their eyes. Often we ignore sin-warped views from our own culture and try to repair or rebuild morality in another culture. The other culture may have a speck. We may see the speck as a plank. Whatever it is, it hurts. It does need to be removed. They need help. But Jesus says the planks we have in our own eyes hinder us from seeing exactly how to help others. His message is clear. We are still blinded by sins from our own culture. Take care of our own sin first. Examine our own eyes first. We must bring our cultural views into line with what the Bible teaches. The eye is symbolic of how we view things. We need to have our own eyesight mended by the great physician before we can try to nurse others back to health.
References
Adeney, Bernard T. 1995. Strange Virtues. Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press.
Arensen, Jon, Ph.D. Personal Correspondence.
Dye, T. Wayne. 1976. "Toward a Cross-Cultural Definition of Sin." Missiology 4 (January): 27-41.
Priest, Robert J. 1994. "Missionary Elenctics: Conscience and Culture." Missiology 22 (july): 291-315.
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Aaron Dean is a pseudonym for a missionary who has worked in East Africa for the past twenty years.
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