InContext

Reflections on the life of faith in human context.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

"If you just be yourself, you'll get along fine with people from any culture" (anonymous)

Do people really believe this?

Mideast Mag: I am a follower of Jesus and an Anthropologist. As such, I am learning to love people, and learning to embrace cultural difference. I come from a more or less monocultural Scandinavian background (depending on how different you consider Swedes and Norwegians to be from each other!). I grew up "Christian," in a Midwestern U.S., Swedish background Baptist expression of that broad category. In college I got turned on to Anthropology and the wonder of understanding the role of culture in human life. After grad school I moved to the Arab world, and began a process of discovering my own culture (and myself) in the context of the culture of Arab Muslims. I also ran into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, learning about it from various (Arab, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Palestinian and Israeli) perspectives. I have grappled with where Jesus fits in all of this (life, culture, and encountering the different "other"), and what it means for me to follow him in the midst of the (socio-cultural, religious, political, historical) context that I have encountered. It has been an enriching journey.

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