EMQ » October–December 2018 » Volume 54 Issue 4
[memberonly folder=”Members, EMQ2YearFolder, EMQ1YearFolder”]Robert Strauss
“Tell This Man We Were Sleeping”
Reza Aslan’s recent history of Islam, No god but God, tells the story of a train conductor confronting a young American couple on a coach bound from Casa Blanca on the Atlantic to the interior city of Marrakesh.[1] The conductor, upset, speaks loudly in Arabic, falling at times in anger into his Berber dialect. Long an economic center in West Africa, Marrakesh dates from the Berber Empire. Its current population is about a million people.
Living now in California but from Iran, Aslan tells the story as a visitor in Morocco for several months. He is awakened out of a rumbling slumber by a thunderclap of conversation from the adjacent compartment, loud enough to penetrate the train’s roar. It sounds like a Moroccan authority reprimanding someone, asking for passports. Aslan’s story goes something like this. Although I reconstruct it here from the conductor’s perspective, the essence of the story is true.[2]
The conductor had seen the young couple enter Car 2’s first-class compartment just after 8 in the evening. The train would depart the Casa Voys station at 8:50, and after four stops would arrive in Marrakesh at midnight. Most passengers slept on this last run of the day. At first, the conductor did not know for sure but merely assumed the couple was American. Both were tall with long hair. The woman wore a long, thin skirt and a tank top. Her shoulders were bare. Her hair—blond, disheveled—was uncovered. They had backpacks. The man also carried a medium-sized box.
Settling into his seat, the young man opened the box. He pulled out several books. The conductor immediately recognized them—Christian Bibles. His fury was abrupt, at the proselytizing, of course, but at the couple’s apparel, too. They looked fresh from a nightclub. The foreigner handed a book each to his compartment companions, who graciously accepted. The conductor knew what to do but waited until the train was fully boarded. Mostly businessmen filled Car 2. Another man—a Persian?—caught the conductor’s eye. This man seemed to carry himself comfortably. Maybe he also spoke Arabic?
Shortly after departing Casa Blanca, the conductor confronted the couple. They had nestled in the corner of a seat near the window. Though the conductor knew some French, even a few words of English, he spoke to the foreigner in Moroccan Arabic. He knew he must be forceful and uninterrupted.
Flushed, the foreigner responded at first in French but quickly reverted to American English. The conductor knew it! They were Americans! He paid no attention to the foreigner’s responses. He fervently urged him to stop distributing material offensive to Allah. As the conductor admonished him, the American responded in defensive anger. The conductor demanded their passports.
The conductor had not noticed his flank, but promptly the Persian businessman was at his side, speaking Arabic softly. The Persian begged the conductor to understand. The foreign man and woman were married, he said. They were Americans. The Persian said that the man was attempting to tell the conductor that they were simply sleeping and meant no mischief. Indignant, the conductor countered, “This is not a nightclub!”
Again, the American nervously beseeched the businessman, “Will you please tell this man we were sleeping?” The young woman cried out in panic, and the American began taking out money to pay off the conductor so he would leave them be.
The Persian intervened once more and assured the conductor that he would stay with the American couple to make sure they did no further harm. With extreme reluctance, the conductor complied. In disgust, he walked away. But as he did, he turned and spat in English, “Christian!”
From a distance, the conductor saw the Persian businessman move into the compartment. He spoke with the American couple. They seemed to be sharing some explanation with him. What he could not hear was that they told the Persian they were missionaries enroute to the country of Western Sahara through Marrakesh. The box they brought was filled with New Testaments translated into Arabic. They were distributing them on their way as a means of sharing their faith with the people of Morocco. They did not speak Arabic and only a few words of French. They intended to share the Gospel in Western Sahara, also a Muslim nation where Arabic and Berber were spoken.
The conductor turned away, revolted.
Awaken to The Cross-Cultural Context
There is more to the story. In his Prologue, Aslan (2011) tells part of it, including a bitter history throughout the region that not all understand, especially those coming in from the outside. Malcolm and Jennifer, the American couple on the train, had no lingering memory of the colonial endeavor, the “civilizing mission” that went hand-in-hand with Christianizing efforts in the past.
However, most of the time, locals do know and remember the whole story, and with fervency. There are Muslims who resent the West and are suspicious of its people. In the Muslim world, some believe that there will be an inevitable collision between the United States (and Israel) and Islam.[3]
So it makes sense that one would not abruptly go into Morocco from the West. If one did enter the country, one would want to (re)build relationships, learn language, and (re)earn trust. Gifting New Testaments in a local language would not likely be a first step.
I have heard the details Aslan tells only once. But it’s a familiar story—one we have heard countless times all over the world. Aslan’s anecdote crystalizes the context of modern Christian expansion.
Even if we are aware that a local story already exists, to what degree do we demonstrate respect for it and its role of making meaning and shaping a future in that locale? Respect across cultures requires time, relationships, trust, and the ability to effectively carry on human exchange with people who may think you, the outsider, are strange. A key line from Aslan’s story is when Malcolm, the well-intentioned young American, says, “Will you please tell this man we were sleeping?” Malcolm may not have realized he was speaking metaphorically. The conductor already knew he was “asleep,” asleep to history, asleep to the local story, asleep to damaged relationships. He and his wife were also asleep to an effective approach to cross-cultural ministry.
In intercultural communication, we need to awaken to the cross-cultural context. Culture is more powerful than we first realized and assumed. A locale’s current culture derives from a region’s shared stories, often ones that have been told and retold for hundreds of years. Locals know the story—both the individual tales that get passed down and the larger narrative that gives poignancy to those tales. Culture, history, and story are inseparable. Today, some in missiology tend to downplay culture, but this imperils intercultural communication. This tendency itself is a byproduct of culture. In the Global West, we value bottom-line-up-front (BLUF) communication. We prize efficiency. We expedite everything. We seek innovation. We assume everyone is the same. Sometimes, political correctness prevents identifying and understanding true differences. Such values stem from the guilt/innocence pattern of our culture, based on objectified written codes, pervaded by a strong sense of right and wrong.
Honor cultures do not downplay culture. People in the Global East share a strong sense of history, tradition, and shared story. People are high-context communicators. All this takes time. Relationships are prized. Everything is slowed down. Everyone is not the same.[4] The train conductor in Morocco was raised up in an honor pattern of culture. He valued time-honored traditions. He would interpret abruptness as disrespect, even when no disrespect is intended.
Those of us who have been raised up in the Global West need to awaken to culture. Abruptly entering the cross-cultural context is a mistake. Not knowing the local history and its accompanying stories reveals, at best, our ineptness. Attempting to communicate intimately apart from relationships is ill-mannered. Assuming authority as a communicator comes off arrogant. Thinking the biblical story automatically trumps local culture is not only inaccurate anthropology but also bad theology.
There is More to the Story
Throughout the global mission community, storytelling has supplanted topical teaching. At one time in the not so distant past, the former method of delivery—outlines of sensibly arranged topics with accompanying PowerPoint bullets—was implemented far and wide, including in intercultural environments.
Tom Steffen, former cross-cultural worker in the Philippines among the Ifugao people, describes the turning point in his new book Worldview Storytelling.[5] Beginning in the early 1970s, cross-cultural workers began teaching chronologically through the Bible rather than communicating prescribed topics of systematic doctrine. Their work opened the door for storytelling as a preferred method of communication. Interestingly, it was already the preferred method locally and beyond.
The advent of storytelling worked. Communication improved. But cross-cultural challenges remained. Abrupt entry is still a mistake, whether to outline topics or tell stories. Not knowing the local history and its accompanying stories as one tells a rival story is still clumsy. Not building relationships is outside the biblical norm. Urgency is the enemy of necessity. Despite the advent of storytelling, challenges still exist. We still need not merely stories, but story-strategic methods.
Not least of these challenges is that of human need. It stands at the forefront as a barrier to effective communication about the Kingdom of God and especially the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:11–25 describes the difficulties. They are daunting. The biblical author laments that we are by our own nature futile in our thinking with a darkened understanding. Apart from Christ, we are separated from God and hard heartedness blocks our way back to him. A cross-cultural communicator does not hurriedly bypass this human challenge. Abrupt entry only worsens the situation. In Ephesians 4, the emphasis is on teaching, and, no doubt, these efforts to minister take time.
Compounding this spiritual need are other challenges inherent in any cross-cultural context. The storyteller from the Global West is individualistic, a low-context communicator, direct in speech, dichotomistic, time conscious, task oriented, and raised up in a justice pattern of culture. Most often, hearers are very different: group oriented, high-context communicators, indirect, holistic, relationship oriented, and raised up in a different pattern of culture, such as, honor, reciprocity, and/or harmony.[6]
The challenges of intercultural communication are complex. The cross-cultural chasm is real. There is no fairy tale in which sprite or fairy dust closes the cultural gap. So what do we do?
Strategic Storytelling
What is a solution? We must not abandon storytelling. We are already on the right path. However, we must be more strategic, remembering the insights from venerable researchers in the past. The option never has been story or culture. It always was culture and story. Strategic storytelling rests on four assumptions related to intercultural communication:
- Storytelling is a locally familiar form and function in communication.
- Local culture trumps outside rival stories.[7]
- Effective storytelling across cultures requires experience and expertise in cross-cultural communication.[8]
- Effective storytelling—in fact, any communication—requires credibility. Credibility or trust takes time, relationships, and shared experiences.
This article will not expand on the assumption related to storytelling. Few need to be convinced of its power and precedence. Everywhere one goes, it is there. John Cosby, the Latin American Consultant with Worldview Resource Group, is researching and writing about the particular forms and functions of story across cultures. Stories do not always have the same form. They are delivered uniquely depending on the local culture. And their function may vary from setting to setting.
For over a decade, the consultants with Worldview Resource Group have argued that storytelling is not a panacea. Simply telling the biblical story does not supplant local cultural assumptions, values, institutions, and behaviors. On the contrary, local culture trumps rival stories from the outside, even the biblical story.[9]
Effective storytelling across cultures still requires experience and expertise in cross-cultural communication. For a brief period of time, as storytelling was establishing itself as the preferred medium of communication in the Great Commission community, several incorrectly mused that understanding culture may not be part of the equation. Abundant evidence from out in the field shows these musings to be mistaken.
Lastly, the credibility of the messenger, the storyteller, is paramount. Strangers are viewed with suspicion. Outsiders are seldom trusted. Trust is either earned or transferred. Gaining trust requires time, relationships, and shared lived experiences. Beware of shortcuts! In my book, Introducing Story-Strategic Methods,[10] I expand on these topics. There is more to the story. In what ways are we asleep? How can we awaken to more effective engagement across cultures?
Robert Strauss is President of Worldview Resource Group, an organization that equips mission leaders in a story-based worldview approach to cross-cultural ministry. With a Doctorate of Missiology from Biola University’s School of Intercultural Studies, he is also a member of the International Academy for Intercultural Research. He is Lead Faculty in the College of Business and Economics at Regis University in Denver, Colorado.
Endnotes
[1] Aslan, Reza. No god but God: The Origin, Evolution, and Future of Islam. New York: Random House, 2011, pages xviii-xxi.
[2] Retold with kind permission of Reza Aslan and Penguin Books
[3] Funk, Nathan, and Abdul Said. “Islam and the West: Narratives of Conflict and Conflict Transformation.” International Journal of Peace Studies 9 (Spring/Summer 2004), 1-28.
[4] I address the dilemma of acknowledging cultural differences but avoiding biased essentialism in the chapter “Essentialism and Universalism” published in The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, edited by Young Yun Kim.
[5] Steffen, Tom. Worldview Storytelling. Richmond, Virginia: International Orality Network, 2018.
[6] See Four Overarching Patterns of Culture: A Look at Common Behavior by Robert Strauss, to be published in 2018.
[7] To understand the incomparable role story plays in making meaning, interpreting reality, and communication, see Michael Matthews’ new book A Novel Approach: The Significance of Story in Interpreting and Communicating Reality. Published by Tellwell Talent and available through Amazon.
[8] Be aware of the tendency in the West to assume that if the Gospel is shared in a capital city or coastal region, those from there will effectively retell the stories elsewhere. While this may sound logical and appear sensible from a distance, in local settings the assumptions are flawed. Porteños from Buenos Aires go across cultures when they venture toward the Mocovi people near Salta. A colleague from Chennai, in the South of India, does not speak Bengali in Kolkata, where traditions and norms also differ. In these circumstances, local nationals go across cultures within their own countries. The challenges are ever present for them as well.
[9] Also see Hiebert, et al. in Understanding Folk Religions: A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999. Page 40.
[10] Strauss, Robert. Introducing Story-Strategic Methods: Twelve Steps Toward Effective Engagement. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2017.
