Anthropological Insights for Missionaries

I am currently reading a really good book for my "Cross Cultural Evangelism" class called "Anthropological Insignts for Missionaries" by Paul G. Hiebert. Thought I would share two articles from the book I found particularly thought provoking and helpful. They are actually quotes from Missiological magazines, so that's why there's the little blurb at the end about the copyright etc.

The Viable Miossionary: Learner, Trader, Story Teller

by Donald N. Larson

As I see it, there are three roles that the missionary can develop in order to establish viability in the eyes of the national non-Christian: Learner, trader and story teller. I would first become a learner. After three months I would add another: trader. After three more months, I would add a third: story teller. After three more months, while continuing to be learner, trader and story teller, I would begin to develop other roles specified in my job description.

Let me elaborate. From his position as an outsider, the missionary must find a way to move toward the center if he hopes to influence people. Some roles will help him make this move. Others will not. His first task is to identify those which are most appropriate and effective. Then he can begin to develop ways and means of communicating his Christian experience through these roles in which he has found acceptance.

Learner

More specifically, as learner, my major emphasis is on language, the primary symbol of identification in my host community. When I try to learn it, they know that I mean business - that they are worth something to me because I make an effort to communicate on their terms. I learn a little each day and put it to use. I talk to a new person every day. I say something new every day. I gradually reach the point where I understand and am understood a little. I can learn much in three months.

I spend my mornings with a language helper (in a structured program or one that I design on my own) from which I elicit the kinds of materials that I need to talk to people in the afternoons. I show him how to drill me on these materials and then spend a good portion of the morning in practice. Then in the afternoon I go out into public places and make whatever contacts are natural with local residents, talking to them as best I can with my limited proficiency - starting the very first day. I initiate one conversation after antoher, each of which says both verbally and non-verbally, "I am a learner. Please talk with me and help me." With each conversation partner, I get a little more practice and a little more proficiency, from the first day on.

At the end of my first three months, I have established myself with potentially dozens of people and reached the point where I can make simple statements, ask and answer simple questions, find my way around, learning the meaning of new words on the spot, and most importantly, experience some measure of "at-homeness" in my adopted community. I cannot learn the "whole language'' in three months, but I can learn to initiate conversations, control them in a limited way and learn a litle more about the language from everyone whom I meet.

Trader

When my fourth month begins,
I add a role - that of trader,
trading experience and insight
with people of my adopted
community - seeing ourselves
more clearly as part of mankind,

not just members of different
communities or nations. I prepare for this role by periods of residence in as many other places as I can, or vicariously, through course work in anthropology and related fields. I also come equipped with a set of 8 x 10 photos illustrating a wide range of ways to be human.

During the second three months I spend mornings with my language helper learning to talk about the photos in my collection. thus I build on the language proficiency developed in the first month. I practice my description of these pictures and prepare myself as best I can to answer questions about them. Then in the afternoon I visit casually in the community, using the photos as part of my "show and tell" demonstration. I tell as much as I can about the way others live, how they make their livings, what they do for enjoyment, how they hurt, and how they struggle for survival and satisfaction.

At the end of this second phase, I establish myself not only as a learner but as one who is interested in other people and seeks to trade one bit of information for another. My language proficiency is still developing. I meet many people. Depending upon the size and complexity of the community, I establish myself as a well-known figure by this time. I become a bridge between the people of the local community and a larger world - at least symbolically.

Story Teller

When I begin my seventh month, I shift emphasis again to a new role. Now I become a story teller. I spend mornings with my language helper. Now it is to learn to tella very simple story to the people whom I meet and respond to their inquiries as best I can. The stories that I tell are based on the wanderings of the people of Israel, the coming of Christ, the formation of God's new people, the movement of the Church into all the world and ultimately, into this very community, and finally, my own story of my encounter with Christ and my walk as a Christian. During the mornings I develop these stories and practice them intensively. Then in the afternoon I go into the community, as I have been doing for months, but now to encounter a people as story teller. I am still language learner and trader, but I have added the role of story teller. I share as much of the story with as many people as I can each day.

At the end of this third phase, I have made acquaintances and friends. I have had countless experiences that I will never forget. I have left positive impressions as learner, trader and story teller. I am ready for another role, and another and another.

~From Missiology 6 (April 1978): 158-161~

Omodo

By Walter A. Trobisch

On one of my trips I worshipped in an African church where nobody knew me. After the service i talked to two boys who had also attended.

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I asked the first one.

"Three."

"Are they all from the same stomach?"

"Yes, my father is a Christian."

"How about you?" I addressed the other boy.

He hesitated. In his mind he was adding up. I knew immediately that he came from a polygamous family.

"We are nine," he finally said.

"Is your father a Christian?"

"No," was the typical answer, "he is a polygamist."

"Are you baptised?"

"Yes, and my brothers and sister too," He added proudly.

"And their mothers?"

"They are all three baptised, but only the first wife takes communion."

"Take me to your father."

The boy led me to a compound with many individual houses. It breathed an atmosphere of cleanliness, order and wealth. Each wife had her own house and her own kitchen. The father, a middle-aged, good-looking man, tall, fat and impressive, received me without embarrassment and with apparent joy. I found Omodo, as we shall call him, a well-educated person, wide awake and intelligent, with a sharp wit and a rare sense of humor. From the outset he made no apologies for being a polygamist, he was proud of it. Let me try to put down here the essential content of our conversation that day which lasted for several hours.

"Welcome to the hut of a poor sinner!" The words were accompanied by good-hearted laughter.

"It looks like a rich sinner," I retorted.

"The saints come very seldom to this place," he said, "they don't want to be contaminated with sin."

"But they are not afraid to receive your wives and children. I just met them in church."

"I know. I give everyone a coin for the collection plate. I guess I finance half of the church's budget. They are glad to take my money, but they don't want me."

I sat in thoughtful silence. After a while he continued, "I feel sorry for the pastor. By refusing to accept all the polygamous men in town as church members he has made his flock poor and they shall always be dependent upon subsidies from America. he has created a church of women whom he tells every Sunday that polygamy is wrong."

"Wasn't your wife heart-broken when you took a second one?"

Omodo looked at me almost with pity. "It was her happiest day," he said finally.

"Tell me how it happened."

"Well, one day after she had come home from the garden and had fetched wood and water, she was preparing the evening meal, while I sat in front of my house and watched her. Suddenly she turned to me and mocked me. She called me a 'poor man,' because I had only one wife. She pointed to our neighbor's wife who could care for her children while the other wife prepard the food."

"Poor man," Omodo repeated. "I can take much, but not that. I had to admit that she was right. She needed help. She had already picked out a second wife for me and they get along fine."

I glanced around the courtyard and saw a beautiful young woman, about 19 or 20, come out of one of the huts.

"It was a sacrifice for me," Omodo commented. "Her father demanded a very high bride price."

"Do you mean that the wife, who caused you to become a polygamist is the only one of your family who recieves communion?"

"Yes, she told the missionary how hard it was for her to share her love for me with another woman. According to the church my wives are considered sinless because each of them only has one husband. I, the father, am the only sinner in our family. Since the Lord's supper is not given to sinners, I am excluded from it. Do you understand that, pastor?"

I was entirely confused.

"And you see," Omodo continued, "they are all praying for me that I might be saved from sin, but they don't agree from which sin I must be saved."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the pastor prays that I may not continue to commit the sin of polygamy. My wives pray that I may not commit the sin of divorce. I wonder whose prayers are heard first."

"So your wives are afraid that you become a Christian?"

"They are afraid that I become a church member. Let's put it that way. For me there is a difference. You see they can only have intimate relations with me as long as I do not belong to the church. In the moment I would become a Church member their mariage relations with me would become sinful."

"Wouldn't you like to become a church member?"

"Pastor, don't lead me into temptation! How can I become a church member, if it means to disobey Christ? Christ forbade divorce, but not polygamy. The church forbids polygamy but demands divorce. How can I become a church member, if I want to be a Christian? For me there is only one way, to be a Christian without the church."

"Have you ever talked to your pastor about that?"

"He does not dare to talk to me, because he knows as well as I do that some of his elders have a second wife secretely. The only difference between them and me is that I am honest and they are hypocrites."

"Did a missionary ever talk to you?"

"Yes, once. I told him that with the high divorce rate in Europe, they have only a successive form of polygamy while we have a simultaneous polygamy. That did it. He never came back."

I was speechless. Omodo accompanied me back to the village. He evidently enjoyed to be seen with a pastor.

"But tell me, why did you take a third wife?" I asked him.

"I did not take her. I inherited her from my late brother, including her children. Actually my olderbrother would have been next in line. But he is an elder. He is not allowed to sin by giving security to a widow."

I looked in his eyes. "Do you want to become a Christian?"

"I am a Christian." Omodo said without smiling.

As I walked down the path, the verse came to my mind: "You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel."

What does it mean to take responsibility as a congregation for Omodo? I am sorry that I was not able to see Omodo again, because I had met him while I was on a trip. I just report to you the essence of our conversation because it contains in a nutshell the main attitudes of polygamists toward the church. It is always healthy to see ourseves with the eyes of an outsider.

I asked myself: What would I have done if I were pastor in Omodo's town?

~From Walter A. trobisch, "Congregational Responsibility for the Christian Individual," in Readings in a Missionary Anthropology II, ed. William A. Smalley (South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1978), pp. 223-235.~

Theological Foundations

What are the theological foundations for critical contextualization? First, it affirms the priesthood of all believers. With critical contextualization, decisions are made not by the leaders for the people, but by all of the believers.

Leaders and missionaries throughout history have often felt threatened by this approach to biblical hermeneutics. Since they believe themselves better trained, they claim for themselves the exclusive right to make theological decisions. They are afriad things might get out of hand if the laity were involved in interpreting the Bible and in applying its message to their everyday lives.

What does keep matters from going astray when all are involved in the application of Scripture to the problems of life? Does not the process open the door for wild interpretations of the Bible and Christian practices? There are three checks on such excessiveness.

First, the Bible is taken as the final and difinitive authority for Christian beliefs and practices. Everyone, therefore, must begin at the same place.

Second, the priesthood of believers assumes that all the faithful have the Holy Spirit to guide them in the understanding and application of the Scriptures to their own lives. It is all too easy for leaders to accept this belief in theory, but to shy away from it in practice. To deny young believers the right to be involved in bliblical interpretation and decision making is to deny that the same Holy Spirit we know to be within us and guiding us into the truth is also within them.

Third, there is the constant check of the Church. C. Norman Kraus (1979) points out that the contextualization of the gospel is ultimately the task not of individuals and leaders, but of the church as a "discerning community." Within that community, individuals contribute according to their gifts and abilities. The pastor and missionary have a greater knowledge of the Bible and therefore should provide the exegesis of the appropriate texts within their biblical context. The people, however, understand their own culture and problems and should play an important part in determining the hermeneutical application of the Scripture to their own lives. But they must be subject to the church as a whole.

The church is not an aggregate of individuals, each seeking his or her own interpretation of the Bible. It is to be a true community of people seeking to follow Christ and serve one another. Only then will it become what Kraus calls an "authentic Christian community," a hermeneutical community that strives to understand God's message to it and bears witness to the world of what it means to be a Christian, not only in beliefs but also in life. The church as a body is a "new order." "

~Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1985) pp. 191-192~

Paradigm towards matrimony

A friend sent me this, and I thought it was a very interesting perspective / approach. I thought it kind of funny in light of some conversations I've been having recently with several different people. Hope you enjoy. :-)

Finding a wife the Romanian wayThe Convention of Hungarian Baptist Churches comprises approximately 250 churches, mainly in the northern region of Transylvania. These churches experienced revival during the 1960s and consequently they are strong spiritually if not materially, with some village churches having 200-300 members.

Pal Borzasi is a young man in his mid-20s, who is in his final year at the Hungarian Baptist Seminary in Cluj-Napoca. Pal spent a year in England in 1996-97 studying at the European Missionary Fellowship's School of Evangelism at Welwyn.

Pal got married in the summer to Anna Kiraly. What is unusual about that? When it comes to Christian courtship and marriage, there is a great difference between Romania and Britain.

The marriage prayer list
Marriage in the Baptist churches in Romania is NOT the culmination of a series of broken relationships. This unbiblical approach is unknown to Romanian Christians. In Romania, young men and women do not normally date or form romantic attachments of any kind before marriage. How then do they find suitable marriage partners?

When a Christian young man wants to get married in Romania, he does not tell anyone of his intention, but sets himself to pray for the Lord's guidance to the right young woman. Often, as in the case of Pal, he may have a list of women whom he would consider possible candidates for marriage. This then forms his prayer list which will be used over the next months. He will trust the Lord to direct him by overruling providence to the woman who will be his choice.

Anna Kiraly
Throughout this initial phase, the young woman knows nothing about this process; in fact, for young Christian women to make known their romantic interest in any young man is forbidden and seen as very worldly. If she does have a liking for any man, then she must leave it with the Lord and wait upon his will. 'But how will you ever find a husband if you are not actively looking for one?' someone asked Anna Kiraly last Christmas. Her reply was: 'I am not looking for a husband. The Lord knows who is best for me and he will bring that husband to me if I wait for his timing and his choice.' To Western ears, sadly, this sounds very strange but perhaps it shows how far from the Lord's ways we have strayed.

When the man is sure that the woman in mind is the wife of his and the Lord's choosing, then - and only then - will he privately approach her and make known to her his thinking. Following this, she has up to three months to pray about the proposed marriage. During this time, the matter is kept secret from all others so that should she refuse him, no disgrace is brought to them or the name of the Lord's people. If she refuses his offer, then no one need ever know about it, and the whole process begins again. So how did Paul and Anna get together?

Last Christmas, Anna, who is studying at EMF, came to stay with us as a family for the holidays. Pal, who was over here for the Carey Ministers' Conference in early January, visited us at Ramsey with his ulterior motive, of which she was blissfully unaware, of proposing marriage to Anna. On December 29, Pal made known his feelings to Anna, who was so shocked she could not eat properly for the next few days but spent the time praying and thinking about whether to accept Pal's proposal. She later confided that in her heart of hearts, Pal had been the one young man that she had wanted as a husband but had considered him to be beyond her expectations. He, on the other hand, confessed that he loved Anna so much that he could not imagine what he would do if she refused him. On New Year's Eve, she accepted his invitation to become his wife. After watching the television pictures of the millennium fireworks on the River Thames, they made the joyous announcement to myself and my wife.

The lessons?
What can we as Christians learn about courtship and marriage from the Hungarian Baptists of Romania?

First, dating as we know it in this country, especially among teenagers, is unbiblical and runs the great risk of encouraging emotional attachments which are too close and very painful to break, and which can spoil fellowship between God's people. It is often the case that men and women have left their churches for another because it is too painful to stay because of the presence of a former sweetheart who is perhaps married to someone else. Socialising and sharing fellowship in groups is a much better way for young men and women to get to know each other, without getting too close, until they are ready to consider marriage. Surely it is not the will of the Lord, who 'hates divorce' (Malachi 2.16), to see his children hurting one another in this deepest of all human relationships, the love of one man for one woman? Note that in Bible times, engagement was seen by the Jews as tantamount to marriage (Matt. 1.18-19).

Secondly, for a Christian man to say to a woman: 'I love you', it must be understood as a proposal of marriage from him. He is saying in effect: 'I love you before the Lord and I want you to be my wife.' A profession of love must always be a proposal of marriage and any man therefore who is not in a position to get married or who is not willing to marry the subject of his affections should restrain himself. Christian young men and women, if you are too young to get married, you are too young to have romantic partners!

Thirdly, as believers, we trust the Lord to overrule in all our circumstances for our good and for his glory. Therefore we should trust him to overrule in this most important of matters, namely, whom we are to marry. If we pray and look to him, then he will direct us to the right person at the right time. So until we are ready to get married, we should certainly be aware of potential wives and husbands but wait upon the Lord's timing and choice. We should not make and break relationships, trampling upon each other's hearts until we find the right person; this is not the way of Christ for his people: 'I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the does of the field, do not stir up love nor awaken love until it pleases.' (Song of Songs 2.7).

Mike Daly, the writer of this article, is the pastor of Great Whyte Baptist Church, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire. Reprinted with permission from Evangelical Magazine of Wales, August/ September 2000.

P.S. Pal and Anna were married in Romania on July 15.

© Evangelicals Now - December 2000