The Good News of Jesus Christ is bigger
than we tend to see, due to our cultural and theological blinders and personal
bent. Seeing the gospel through an honour-shame perspective opened up for me a
richer understanding of all that was accomplished on the cross.[1]
However, embracing insights into the gospel from an honour-shame perspective
does not entail abandoning the important truths of justification by faith and
substitutionary atonement through Jesus’ death on the cross. The
guilt-innocence perspective is still valid and biblical, and of much value for all
believers. Not only so, there are other ways of explaining the gospel that can
be found in the Bible that may resonate better for those for whom the
honour-shame and innocence-guilt explanations are not as effective.
Eugene Nida categorizes human cultures
according to their primary way of responding to “transgressions of religiously
sanctioned codes: fear, shame and guilt.”[2]
While all cultures utilize all three emotional reactions to maintain social
cohesion, different cultures emphasize them differently, normally with one response
dominant over the others. The opposite of each of these is used as reward for
those who adhere to social expectations: innocence[3],
honour, and power.
European
and North American (Western) cultures tend to be primarily guilt-innocence
cultures (though there seems to be a cultural shift in process); Asian and
Middle Eastern cultures tend to be honour-shame cultures; and African,
Polynesian and South American cultures tend to emphasize power-fear. This is a
broad generalization that is tempered by effects of globalization,
urbanization, and technological innovation.[4]
Another way of categorizing worldview
lenses is presented in Andy Smith’s very practical book, Meaningful
Evangelism: Choosing words that connect.[5] Smith
looks at ways of presenting the gospel to people with different values and
experiences that “have shaped each of their views of reality.”[6]
The nine he looks at are Honour, Intellect, Justice, Legalism, Life, Pain,
Power, Harmonious Relationships, and Spiritual Realities. He does not claim
this as an exhaustive inventory of worldview lenses, but does find biblical
language that can be used in presenting the gospel to people holding these
different perspectives.
While
Smith is examining the defining dynamics that shape the view of reality for
individuals, Nida and anthropologists are more interested in cultural
generalizations. Both sets of analysis find that the Bible proclaims the Good
News with a variety of pictures and diversity of language that can speak to a
wide range of life experience and worldview. Georges and Mischke compare the
gospel to a diamond with many facets, and each of us tend to focus on a
preferred facet. I prefer the metaphor of a teapot: Some will see the spout
(and only the spout!) and declare that this amazing spout is the teapot.
Others admire the handle, reveling in its beauty while hardly noticing the
spout or the lid or the base. The reality is that the teapot is all of
these together, and while we may have a preferred view that we default to, the
teapot is more than just a handle or spout or lid.
Such
is the gospel. We in the West (and many Christians in the rest of the world)
have seen the Good News of Jesus Christ almost exclusively through a
guilt-innocence lens. In the Pentecostal movement, a fear-power lens has been
dominant. I am not advocating other lenses as a replacement, but believe we all
will benefit from a broader view of “the whole teapot”, and will miss key
elements of God’s Good News for us if we close our eyes to aspects of the
gospel not as easily accessible through our preferred perspective. We may think
of the proverbial elephant, with blind men feeling over different parts and
defining the elephant by his own limited experience rather than exploring
beyond that which is easily within reach. Yet we must ensure that each
description is of the same elephant, and not tails of two very different
animals.
[2] Nida, E. (1954). Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for
Christian missions. New York: Harper and Row, p. 150. Found in Jayson
Georges, The 3D Gospel.
[3] I suspect a more precise opposite for guilt might be justification,
though it doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely as “guilt-innocence” and is
less of a mainstream term.
[4] This is a personal observation based on my experiences in Thailand
and needs to be researched to be confirmed.
[6] Smith, p. 12.
