Culture Quote of the Day - the limits of cultural relativism

"Anthropologists continue to express strong support for cultural relativism. One of the most contentious issues arises from the fundamental question: What authority do we Westerners have to impose our own concept of universal rights on the rest of humanity... [But] the cultural relativists' argument is often used by repressive governments to deflect international criticism of their abuse of their citizens.... I believe that we should not let the concept of relativism stop us from using national and international forums to examine ways to protect the lives and dignity of people in every culture.... When there is a choice between defending human rights and defending cultural relativism, anthropologists should choose to protect and promote human rights. We cannot just be bystanders."

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, quoted in Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

"If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists. This leads us to a crucial question. If a premise ('There is no God') leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ('Napalming babies is culturally relative') then why not change the premise?"

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

The challenge of the interface between the "relative" and the "absolute." It is heartening to see an Anthropologist wrestle with this issue.

On the one hand, there is the issue of ethnocentrism, seeing things (only) from our point of view, not realizing that there may in fact be different visions of good and right, at work in different cultural contexts. The role of women in society, for example, is a challenging one. What one group considers "repressive," another group finds rooted in their understanding of God and His ways for them. And I'm not talking (only) about Muslims, from a Western perspective. Even in the West, Christian groups differ on issues about the role of women (e.g., whether women should be allowed to be in positives of church leadership or not), not to mention the difference in perspective between Christians and secularists. We can argue over whose perspective, whose interpretation, is "right," but the problem is, we can't agree...

This relates, too, to the area of law, because ultimately, laws are passed based on an idea of what people should not be allowed to do (e.g., rape women, murder people, steal others' belongings, produce child pornography, go nude in public, etc.). There is no society without a code of ethics and morality, without law. But societies do differ in what is prohibited (and prescribed). Western societies prohibit a man from having more than one wife; Islam allows up to four. Many societies ban homosexual marriage; some societies it. There is no end of the examples we can come up with, where what is morally wrong for one group or society, is considered fine by another.

The question arises, when societies differ, what do you do about it? Does one nation or group have a "right" to intervene and enforce their moral code or view of law or right? Who decides? Where is the "line"? (And note that this may look different if you are on the "giving" or the "receiving" end - no group or society likes another group or society stepping in and enforcing their morality.)

And then another dimension of the issue raised in the above quotes: in the U.S., law used to be based on the Bible, which gave it an "absolute" foundation (allowing for the differences in interpretation and application of the Bible). A change eventually took place, and law was "cut loose" from its biblical foundations, and now rests on what the society (majority, or Supreme Court) determines to be the guidelines. Keller points out that in a secular worldview, with no absolute (God, or the Bible), there is really no firm basis for believing in rights. And Fluehr-Lobban's quote shows that even Anthropologists (I'm not sure if she's "secular" or not) struggle with understanding what is "true" or "right." 

I wouldn't say that people who believe in God or in Scripture have the right to impose their understanding on others (add in the question of whose God or vision of God, and whose Scripture); God himself does not impose His will on people, but gives us choice (for which he will one day hold us accountable). But the question of who does have the right to intervene, in what circumstances, by what guiding principles, is a critical one.

Should we seek to prevent child pornography, sexual slavery and other forms of abuse of women and children (and others), ethnic cleansing, etc.? Absolutely. But when we move away from the extremes (which most people will probably agree upon), it becomes harder to navigate the boundary between what is culturally relative and what is not. As a person of faith, I need to admit that the cultural dimension needs to be taken into consideration; and Anthropologists need to admit (as Fluehr-Lobban does) that it's not so simple as to say that everything is culturally relative - it's fairly easy to show that everyone has a core of what they believe to be "true" or "right," and a sense that some of those values at least have reality outside of (across) cultural boundaries.

Culture Quote of the Day - "the real culture war"

“There is no way out of this conundrum. The more we love and identify with our family, our class, our race, or our religion, the harder it is to not feel superior or even hostile to other religions, races, etc. So racism, classism, and sexism are not matters of ignorance or a lack of education. Foucault and others in our time have shown that it is far harder than we think to have a self-identity that doesn’t lead to exclusion. The real culture war is taking place inside our own disordered hearts, wracked by inordinate desires for things that control us, that lead us to feel superior and exclude those without them, and that fail to satisfy us even when we get them.”

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

Is Christianity "Transcultural"?

“For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that Christianity is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that it would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. If Christianity were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place…”

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

Two questions arise in my mind, as I think about this quote.

1)      Should he (we) be talking about “Christianity,” or something else?

2)      What might be the nature of “transcultural truth” and how would it relate to culture (the human sociocultural context)?

Are we really talking about “Christianity”?

Here are some definitions which I found online at various sites, of “Christianity” (feel free to substitute your definition):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

Christianity (from the Ancient Greek word Χριστός, Khristos, "Christ", literally "anointed one") is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings. Adherents of the Christian faith are known as Christians.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/christianity

The religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Christianity

The Christian religion, founded on the life and teachings of Jesus.

These definitions call “Christianity” a religion based or founded on the life and teachings of Jesus or derived from Jesus based on the Bible.

My question is, where did it come from (either the concept of “Christianity” or the content of what we see as “Christianity,” or both)?

If people of faith are concerned with God – knowing Him, worshiping Him – then I presume we want to know what He has in mind for us, for humanity. Thus, I ask, did “Christianity” come from God? Is this what the New Testament is about, revealing a religion?

It seems to me that the essential message of the New Testament is that people can have life through Jesus (or, you might say, reconciliation to God through the forgiveness of our sins, based on faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus – but that is simply the detail of what it means to have life through Jesus). As I read it, the New Testament is not calling anyone to a religion, but to receiving life through Jesus, and learning to love God and love our neighbor, as we live in and through Him. (You can say more, but this is the heart of it.)

The Meaning and End of Religion

If you want a detailed discussion of the history of the ideas of “religion,” “Christian religion,” and “Christianity,” I recommend Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s excellent book, The Meaning and End of Religion. Here are just a couple of statements Smith makes, relevant to whether we should be talking about “Christianity”:

“It is as Christians’ faith in God has weakened that they have busied themselves with Christianity…”

“One has even reached a point today where some Christians can speak of believing in Christianity (instead of believing in God and in Christ); of preaching Christianity (instead of preaching good news, salvation, redemption); of practicing Christianity (instead of practicing love). Some even talk of being saved by Christianity, instead of by the only thing that could possibly save us, the anguish and the love of God.”

“A Christian who takes God seriously must surely recognize that God does not give a fig for Christianity. God is concerned with people, not with things. We read that God so loved the world that He gave His Son. We do not read anywhere that God loved [or gave] Christianity.”

“God, we have said, does not reveal a religion, He reveals Himself; what the observer calls a religion is man’s continuing response.”

W.C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion

(Can you understand, and if you consider yourself a “Christian” can you accept, what Smith is saying?)

So what should we (or Keller) be talking about, if not “Christianity”?

To address that question, let me ask, from the perspective of the New Testament, what might we say is “transcultural,” i.e., existing outside of and unbound by human culture? It seems to me that the answer must be God Himself; and given the New Testament teaching that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, one with God (and the Spirit), I would add, Jesus. (The New Testament teaches that Jesus is alive today, that He lives in us and gives life to us; that He transforms our life as we follow Him. An implication of New Testament teaching is that He enters into different human (sociocultural) contexts, and impacts them from within.) We might also consider the Bible (or its message), as the inspired word of God, “transcultural,” with an origin and substance outside of or in some way apart from human agency.

This would be the essence, the content, the transcultural – God Himself, Jesus as one with the Father (the incarnate Word), and the message of God as revealed in the Bible.

In my opinion, the working out of the life of faith, e.g., the particulars of how we worship God, meet with other believers, even how we celebrate “Communion” or practice Baptism, how we organize community life (the church), etc., are cultural rather than transcultural – they are our working out of our life of following Jesus, in our sociocultural context (i.e., they are what we might call our “contextualization” of the life of God, as we follow Jesus).

Let me try rephrasing Keller’s quote,

“For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that [Jesus Christ and His teaching, or you could say the message of the Bible] is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that [Jesus or Jesus’s teaching or the message of the Bible] would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. If [Jesus or Jesus’s teaching or the Bible] were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place…”

The danger of the term “transcultural”

Finally, let me return to the idea of the transcultural. From an anthropological perspective, I am somewhat hesitant to use the phrase “transcultural,” because as I’ve heard people use the phrase, I have often heard it used to describe phenomena which are essentially cultural, but which are being promoted as being somehow outside of culture.

To be human is to be culture-bound, and one of the issues we face, I believe, as people of faith, is that we experience that which is of God with our human selves and context, and tend to deify what is of us (our understanding of God, of life, of the church, of how to live out aspects of faith like baptism or communion, etc.), proclaiming that what is our way of seeing and doing things, is “from God.” This is a constant danger, I think (look at what is done to others in the name of God), which we must guard against.

Nevertheless, if we believe in God, God Himself is obviously outside of human culture (though our understanding of Him is within our minds and language and thought forms and context).

People who do not believe in God might take issue with this idea of what they might see as “religious faith” (which they might see as a human construction) being “transcultural”; and they might deny the idea of the transcultural. In that, they are promoting a different view of reality, than that which people of faith experience. But to try to bridge the gap of worldview, I think a parallel could be other “reality” that we might think of existing outside of human culture, e.g., nature, and natural law. The “law of gravity,” for example, might be considered transcultural. Whatever people called it, or even if they didn’t acknowledge or talk about it, it would exist “out there” in reality. Peoples’ ways of talking about science and scientific principles and natural laws might vary (and thus, be connected to a cultural context), but the essence being understood and talked about could be seen as being transcultural.

To come back to Keller’s quote, then, I agree with the heart of what he is saying and aiming at (as I understand him), but think we need to be careful in our use of terms, and that talking about “Christianity” is misleading and does not help people to connect with what they really need to connect with, the reality of life in God through Jesus.

Culture Quote of the Day - "Christianity Isn't Culturally Rigid"

“Christianity is also reputed to be a cultural straitjacket. It allegedly forces people from diverse cultures into a single iron mold. It is seen as an enemy of pluralism and multiculturalism. In reality, Christianity has been more adaptive (and maybe less destructive) of diverse cultures than secularism and many other worldviews.

“The pattern of Christian expansion differs from that of every other world religion. The center and majority of Islam’s population is still in the place of its origin – the Middle East. The original lands that have been the demographic centers of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism have remained so. By contrast, Christianity was first dominated by Jews and centered in Jerusalem. Later it was dominated by Hellenists and centered in the Mediterranean. Later the faith was received by the barbarians of Northern Europe and Christianity came to be dominated by western Europeans and then North Americans. Today most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Christianity soon will be centered in the southern and eastern hemispheres.

[The author then gives two “case studies,” the growth of the Christian population of Africa and in China, and quotes Lamin Sanneh as to the appeal of Christian faith in Africa.]

“Why has Christianity, more than any other major religion of the world, been able to infiltrate so many radically different cultures? There is, of course, a core of teachings (the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments) to which all forms of Christianity are committed. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of freedom in how these absolutes are expressed and take form within a particular culture. For example, the Bible directs Christians to unite in acts of musical praise, but it doesn’t prescribe the meter, rhythm, level of emotional expressiveness, or instrumentation – all this is left to be culturally expressed in a variety of ways. Historian Andrew Walls writes:

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith…in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christians didn’t have to enter Jewish culture…. The converts had to work out…a Hellenistic way of being a Christian. [So] no one owns the Christian faith. There is no ‘Christian culture’ the way there is an ‘Islamic culture’ which you can recognize from Pakistan to Tunisia to Morocco…

“Contrary to popular opinion, then, Christianity is not a Western religion that destroys local cultures. Rather, Christianity has taken more culturally diverse forms than other faiths. It has deep layers of insight from the Hebrew, Greek, and European cultures, and over the next hundred years will be further shaped by Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Christianity may become the most truly ‘catholic vision of the world’ [A.J. Conyers], having opened its leadership over the centuries to people from every tongue, tribe, people and nation.”

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

Yes, this quote is long, and so will be my response to it.

Areas of Agreement

I agree with Keller on what I see as the heart of his argument – the adaptability (Sanneh uses the phrase “translatability”) of Christian faith, and that Christian faith (and Jesus himself) is not the enemy of pluralism or multiculturalism (that’s a topic for another post).

Corrections

His representation of Islam is not strictly accurate. Islam, like the Christian faith, spread over the centuries from its heartland to the “ends of the earth.” Islam, like the Christian faith, has had different peoples and cultures who were dominant in the worldwide community over time, from the Arabs to the Persians to the Turks and many others. Only perhaps 15% of the world’s Muslims are Arab. The largest Muslim nation today is Indonesia. The Muslims of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh comprise 30% of the world’s Muslims.  It is not correct to call “the Middle East” the area of Islam’s origin – the area of origin was clearly the Arabian Peninsula, and the expansion to other linguistic and cultural areas changed the Muslim community in significant ways over time.

Islam vs. Christian Faith

Having said that, I see some significant differences between Christian faith and Islam. I think that Muslims would agree that there is something of a “Muslim culture” – or at least there was, or there were significant elements of a culture, in the Shariah, which was understood as prescribing a total way of life, in all the details. I agree with Keller that there is no such thing as a “Christian culture.” This is one of the ways in which Christian faith differs from Islam. (Having said this, it is important to acknowledge that Islam, too, has adapted culturally in different regions of the world – the ethos / “feel” of Muslim life, though marked by similarities from one place to another, is also colored by local cultural flavor.)

As I read the New Testament, following Jesus is about inner transformation which works itself outwardly, but not through prescribed ways of living. The great commandment is to love God and to love one’s neighbor. The heart of Christian faith is thus relational – relationship with God, and relationship with others. What is prescribed is essence, not form – kindness, goodness, patience, honor, purity, etc., which can work themselves out in different ways, in different cultural contexts.

From a Muslim perspective, the Qur’an is defined by content and form – it is only truly the Qur’an in Arabic. A translation is typically referred to as “the meaning” of the Qur’an, but not as the Qur’an itself. Christians believe, in contrast, that the Bible is about content or essence, which can be translated into any language; and that God is able to speak to people through a translation in any language. This belief is partly rooted in the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), in which God did speak to people in their native languages. And it is also rooted, I believe, in the fact that the parts of the Bible were revealed through different languages, i.e., Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Thus, it was never bound to one particular language.

This is just to say that when it comes to Christian faith, it lends itself to a process of an inner essence being worked out in different contexts (what some refer to as “contextualization”).

Are we talking about “Christianity” or about something else?

Finally, I can’t avoid getting into the issue of whether what we’re really talking about is “Christianity.” I think not. Muslims do believe that God revealed the religion of Islam, that it exists, and that Muslims (and all people) are meant to know and follow the religion (though scholars like Wilfred Cantwell Smith will talk about the origins of Islamic religion the same way they talk about the origins of Christian religion, with a starting point of faith in God and belief in certain precepts and truths, and the gradual growth of the religion over time).

Do Christians believe the same about “Christianity”? I.e., do we believe in the existence (in the mind of God, I would suppose) of a religion, that was revealed to mankind through Jesus (and perhaps clarified by the Apostles and the early church)? I can make the sociological and historical argument for Christianity as a religion, but do we make the faith argument for it – that this was the intention of God? Or to put the question another way, did Jesus intend to start a religion? As a believer in and follower of Jesus, I don’t think so.

So, then, what are we talking about, if not “Christianity”? That, too, will have to wait for another post…

Culture Quote of the Day - What is Christianity?

In talking about the relationship between faith and culture, or about what some call "contextualization," i.e., how does a person of faith live out that faith in a particular context, we inevitably get into defining the faith we are talking about.


I am within the Christian tradition. It has a long history, and a wide range of phenomena which come somehow under that broad ("Christian") heading. In talking about a particular person or group of people, one might ask, "what does it mean for me (us) to call ourselves 'Christian'?" And another question which inevitably arises is, "what is 'Christianity'?" (I'm somewhat surprised by the degree to which Christian authors refer to "Christianity," but they do, and thus the question arises.)


Here is one author's attempt to address that latter question:


"What is Christianity? For our purposes, I'll define Christianity as the body of believers who assent to these [the Apostle's, Nicene, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian] great ecumenical creeds. They believe that the triune God created the world, that humanity has fallen into sin and evil, that God has returned to rescue us in Jesus Christ, that in his death and resurrection Jesus accomplished our salvation for us so we can be received by grace, that he established the church, his people, as the vehicle through which he continues his mission of rescue, reconciliation, and salvation, and that at the end of time Jesus will return to renew the heavens and the earth, removing all evil, injustice, sin, and death from the world.


"All Christians believe all this - but no Christians believe just this. As soon as you ask, 'How does the church act as vehicle for Jesus' work in the world?' and 'How does Jesus's death accomplish our salvation?' and 'How are we received by grace?' Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians will give you different answers. Despite the claims of many to be such, there are no truly 'generic' nondenominational Christians. Everyone has to answer these 'how' questions in order to live a Christian life, and those answers immediately put you into one tradition and denomination or another."

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

A couple of reflections on this quote:
1. I find the use of the term "Christianity" awkward. I still find myself thinking that I don't believe in such a thing as "Christianity." Perhaps - and this would fit with the second paragraph above - it would be more appropriate to speak of "Christianities," i.e., the various working out by different people calling themselves "Christian," through the ages. I myself do not see "Christianity" as something which descended from heaven, i.e., which exists in the mind of God, a religious system that has been given to mankind to follow, etc.


2. Keller himself immediately switches from "Christianity" to "Christians," and talks about what Christians agree on and where they differ. I think, both from an anthropological perspective and from a faith perspective, that this is more productive.


3. I would be more happy talking about "Christian [or Christ-centered] faith" (by which I would mean the faith of people who follow the Bible and specifically the teachings of Jesus), than "Christianity" (which, again, smacks of religion or a religious system); or, of Biblical faith, which takes us back to a specific reference point, the Bible, and what we find in it.


All of that aside,
4. This is an interesting attempt to show what you might see as the "essence" or heart or core of Christian faith (the faith of those calling themselves Christian), and how that essence might be worked out in different human (sociocultural, historical) contexts.


5. Note that in choosing the Creeds, he is defining Christianity by belief. One might argue for other definitions, e.g., defining Christians by relationship with Jesus (Jesus himself said, "if you love me, you will obey my commands," and talked about "following" him and other relational and behavioral terms, in addition to talking about believing in him). Is this, then, a comprehensive and adequate definition?


6. I also wonder, would all Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians agree with this definition? Some of the language sounds distinctly Protestant, perhaps even evangelical. And I'm not sure it expresses the essence of Jesus' teaching and mission completely. For example, take the phrase, "Jesus accomplished our salvation for us so we can be received by grace." What is meant by "salvation"? I know of Christians who might say something more like, "Jesus came to usher in the Kingdom of God, offering 'life' to those spiritually 'dead' to God - a life that begins now, as we experience the transforming work of God's spirit, and that continues on after death..." Is this just another way of saying "accomplished our salvation for us," or is it something more? It's difficult, it seems, to concisely define the essence of Christian faith / Jesus's teaching; and it is certainly impossible to escape our cultural vantage point and perspective, in attempting to do so.


But perhaps that's what makes it so interesting to think and talk about...

Is it ethnocentric to claim that claiming that one religion is right, is ethnocentric?

"Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the 'sin' of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, 'Our culture's approach to other cultures is superior to yours.' We are then doing the very thing we forbid others to do."

"It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (name that all are equal) is right."

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

 I have various thoughts about this quote of Keller’s. On the one hand, I respect his reasoning, and I think his book is excellent.

On the other hand, I do not totally agree with this statement about ethnocentrism.

Yes, it is true – and good to think about – that it is impossible to escape our human situation. That is an irony of us trying to “step outside of” our situatedness, to develop a model like Bennett’s DMIS, discussing what it is to be rooted in one way of experiencing and seeing the world (what we call “ethnocentrism”), and what it is like to “grow” or “develop” to a point of knowing our own culture in the context of other cultures and worldviews, etc. (what Bennett calls “ethnorelativism”). Any model, as Keller indicates, is still rooted in a human tradition, a human vantage point, and is subject to critique.

But is Keller rightly using the term “ethnocentric,” and is he accurate in his critique?

Or put another way, might we distinguish between an ethnocentric and a non-ethnocentric way of believing that a religion (or a religious truth, or any truth) is right or true? (And is it the same to claim that your culture is best, as to claim that your religion is right?)

To be “ethnocentric,” at root, is to be bound by the perspective of your ethne, or people, in the “ethnic” / sociocultural sense of people; i.e., the people that one grows up among, lives in the context of, is socialized into. To be ethnocentric is to not realize that there are different cultures and worldviews, or to react against other cultures and worldviews, as we discover them, or to act as if they are basically some kind of subset of our own culture and worldview. It is obviously possible for someone who assumes and proclaims that their religion is true or absolute or best, to be doing so in an ethnocentric way – either ignoring others (Bennett’s Denial), denigrating them (Bennett’s Defense), or somehow seeing other peoples’ religion as subsumed under one’s own (Bennett’s Minimization). It is possible for Christians or Muslims or anyone to be “ethnocentric” (in one of Bennett’s phases) as a Muslim or a Christian in general (toward other religions), or, even toward those in their own broader religious community – e.g., to assume that a particular locally rooted expression of being Christian or Muslim is the only right or true version.

For example, I grew up ethnocentrically Christian. The variety of “Christian” that I was raised in, a Swedish-background Baptist Minnesotan church setting, was all I knew. To me, to be “Christian” was to be Minnesotan Swedish Baptist (though I didn’t think this explicitly). Then in school I became vaguely aware of the existence of “Lutherans” around me. I didn’t know anything about them (i.e., I was in Bennett’s Denial stage of ethnocentrism), except that they were different (e.g., the kids had a “confirmation” class, which I didn’t). Then in 9^th grade “Catholics” flooded into the public school. Again, I knew they were “Christian,” but I didn’t know how they were different, and assumed that they were somehow not exactly “right” as Christians (because we were). Then I went to an evangelical Swedish-Baptist background university, but which had some other Protestant evangelical churches and denominations represented. I remember being shocked by some of the ideas, beliefs, convictions, interpretations (of the Bible, of being Christian, etc.), practices, that I ran into. I remember thinking, “those people aren’t good Christians,” and “those people don’t know what they’re talking about,” and “they don’t read the Bible correctly,” and thoughts like that. Ethnocentric thoughts. I was assuming that “Christian” was universally what it was for me, and that anyone who was different, was wrong. This kind of ethnocentric thinking occurs within every group of people and every religious tradition. But is it inescapable? I would say no.

Setting aside the question of whether the truth claim of a given religion may in fact be right, responding to others from a standpoint of ethnocentrism has at least two problems for us as religious people / people of faith (I will proceed on an assumption that what I am saying may apply to any religious people). First, as I have argued previously, relating to people ethnocentrically is not loving, and thus falls short of what Jesus calls the second greatest commandment (after the command to love God; and I have read Jewish and Muslim authors that say that Judaism and Islam share these two great commandments with Christianity). In addition, living in and from ethnocentrism in our view of and relationship with others, is a crippled sort of living, in many senses – we do not truly know ourselves, we do not truly know others, and we do not have the deepest and most positive relationship with those who differ from us.

But perhaps the bigger question (if you will allow the above reasoning to stand) is whether it is possible for someone to believe in ultimate truth, e.g., the truth of a religious faith, and relate to others in a non-ethnocentric way?

One distinction that would apply at least to Christian faith and Islam, it seems, is that they are not tribal or ethnic religions, rooted in / bound to a particular people or place. Where is ethnocentrism, one might ask, if a mixed group of people from around the world, and who are fully aware of the existence and reality of various cultures and worldviews, and who might even have lived in different cultural settings and experienced the adaptation or integration that Bennett talks about as the final ethnorelative stages of experiencing cultural difference, make a universal truth claim about their religious faith (if by “their” faith we mean, not a locally rooted expression of Christianity or Islam, but what all or most Christians or Muslims might agree upon as the historical essence or heart of the faith)?

Does it make a difference, in regard to ethnocentrism, whether religious people are focused on external forms or on content / substance / essence? Again, it is easy enough to see the ethnocentrism in a particular group of Christians in a specific locale, who have little contact even with other Christians, arguing that a certain way of organizing their worship or doing church government, is the Biblical or Christian way (with the implication that all other Christians around the world and through history are wrong). But what if we “stripped down” the truth claims to content rather than form or structure? What if, looking across the breadth of ways of working out being Christian, through history and across the world, we emphasized what all might agree on, e.g., that it is about receiving life through Jesus and following him; that God is to be worshiped; that there are sacraments to be practiced (with the recognition that we might disagree on the number and on how they should be embodied in practice); etc. What if we practiced our best understanding of Christian faith, without judging other Christians as being wrong or less Christian than we are? Is it possible to imagine being committed Christians without being ethnocentric toward other Christians?

I would suggest that it is.

But what about between religions, then?

Bennett argues, in his model, that ethnorelativism entails adapting to another culture, learning to see the world from a different perspective, and to adapt behavior appropriate to that setting. It involves coming to see another cultural setting as viable, another way of being human. It does not involve assimilation, i.e., giving up one’s own culture for the other. And it does not involve losing one’s own sense of values, giving up value judgments. 

So is it not possible for a Muslim, living in a Christian cultural setting, to remain a fully convinced Muslim, convinced that s/he is on the right path, that the Qur’an is the final revelation from God and that Muhammad is the final Prophet, etc., while at the same time experiencing what it is to accept and adapt to/within the Christian cultural setting? Is it not possible for a Christian, living in a Muslim or some other (Jewish, Hindu, etc.) religious setting, to remain fully convinced that Jesus is the crucified and risen Lord and Savior, the giver of life, the one who reconciles people to God, etc., while at the same time experiencing what it is to accept and adapt to the culture of the other?

It would be ethnocentric for me as a Christian to look at Islam through a Christian framework (which is, I would suggest, where all Christians start out, in looking at Muslims or others). But what if I grow in ethnorelativism, in acceptance and adaptation and integration, entering into the world of Muslims, learning to understand their faith and practice (and broader culture) from within, to see the world from their vantage point, to see how it makes sense, how they interpret and generate behavior, etc.? But what if I still remain convinced that Jesus is the source of life, that he is the incarnate Word of God, that He gave his life to reconcile people to God, that He rose from the dead and will return again, etc.? What if I believe He is relevant to all people, offers life to all? What if I bear witness to that, to Him, to Muslims (without forcing anything on anyone, or condemning or judging anyone)?

Is it necessarily ethnocentric for someone of religious faith to live their faith, even to share it with others (in terms of “this is what I have found – perhaps you will find it relevant”), if done in a way that does not put down or judge the other, if there is respect for the other’s humanity and freedom and choice, if done with the realization that judgment belongs to God alone, and that we people always “see through a glass darkly,” may get one thing or another wrong, etc.?

I would suggest that if Bennett or any non-believing anthropologist claims that to have any sense of anything being ultimately true, is to be ethnocentric, in that case I would agree with Keller that that anthropologist (or whoever) is indeed being ethnocentric, imposing his/her secular social scientific worldview on the rest of us. And I would say, thank you, Dr. Bennett (or whoever), for the model and the concepts, but we are not limited by how you define ethnocentrism (or reality).

This reflection, though long, is just a beginning, just scratching the surface of a complex and I would guess controversial subject. If you have thoughts or questions or insights, feel free to post them. More will come from my side, as well.

And at the end of this long reflection, I’ll leave it to the reader to judge, am I agreeing or disagreeing with Keller’s statement about ethnocentrism?

Culture Quote of the Day - is it ethnocentric to talk about people being ethnocentric?

I interrupt this discussion of ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism to bring you a different perspective...

"Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the 'sin' of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, 'Our culture's approach to other cultures is superior to yours.' We are then doing the very thing we forbid others to do."

"It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right."

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

I will be commenting on this quote, but at this point will put it out for your consideration. Is he right? Does he accurately portray "ethnocentrism"? Is talk of ethnocentrism, itself ethnocentric? Is there possibly a difference between an ethnocentric and a non-ethnocentric way for people of religious faith to relate to others (i.e., to believe that a religion or belief system is true, but not being ethnocentric about it)?