Tag: anthropology

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Unclothed Cultures

What about unclothed cultures? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s really sad that this is in the book that Frost decides to cite other sources. When he’s talking about the Bible and archaeology and other such things, he cites no sources. When he gets to talking about anthropology, he does.

What Frost cites are reports from the late 1800’s about places around the world where nudity was supposedly the norm and yet people were quite virtuous.

I’m not an anthropologist nor do I play one on TV. However, that being said, I want to make a few observations.

First off, natural law applies to everyone. Everyone has some standards of right and wrong and there are universal moral truths that we all know and can’t not know. Some of us can suppress them and usually we try to redefine reality to fit our moral beliefs. Hence, when it comes to abortion, you’re not aborting a human person say defenders of the practice, you’re aborting a fetus (Supposedly taking that to mean something non-human) or a parasite.

Second, there was a tendency to try to break away from biblical morality at the time. Consider works later on like Coming of Age in Samoa which was found to be massively wrong later on. The goal of many was to show these people didn’t have biblical morality and yet they lived in a paradise and it was much more closer to the idea of free love.

Third, I get suspicious that all of these sources are dated to the late 1800’s. Is there nothing from more recent research that can further back and expound on this? Have these societies now somehow become totally corrupt?

Fourth, all societies have some kind of modesty standards in what behavior is acceptable for men and women. There is not a society out there that is “Anything goes.” All of them have a morality of some kind that is to be upheld. Someone like Frost can say it is different from ours and to be sure, it could be, but it is still a standard.

Right now, I am also thinking of the second time I went to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. We had a speaker that spoke of witnessing to a tribe whose name I can’t remember right now, but he talked about bringing the gospel to them. At one point, there was a man among them who converted and after he did, he was given a name that meant “Does not chase after women.”

Bringing a society clothing will not ruin them. If you think clothing leads to a downfall in society, you’re missing the main point. Sin leads to the downfall of a society and the only way to eliminate that problem is not by going nude. It is by turning to the cross and coming to Jesus. If a culture can be Christian somewhere in another country and have different clothing codes than mine and still honor Jesus and honor the marriage bed, good for them. In the same way, we can honor Jesus in our clothing culture and honor the marriage bed just as much.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: 3D Gospel

What do I think of Georges book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

3D Gospel

If you have an interest in missions, buy this book.

If you have an interest in understanding other cultures, buy this book.

If you have an interest in understanding the Bible and how it would be read in its own context, buy this book.

If you have an interest in seeing the Bible beyond your own cultural perspective, buy this book.

So yes, I want you to buy this book.

The 3D Gospel refers to the three different types of cultures we see in the world. Here in the West, we live in a guilt-innocence culture. Unfortunately, we often think so does the rest of the world, including the world of the Bible, and read our modern culture, perspectives, and individualism into the Biblical text, which can often produce disastrous results. There are two other kinds of cultures.

There are also honor-shame cultures. These are cultures where honor and shame are the main forces at work as people live seeking to cover up shame and claim honor. In these cultures, what happens in the group is of utmost importance as you want to maintain not just your honor, but the honor of your group, and you do not want to be shamed by the people of your group. What you do reflects on everyone who identifies with you. This viewpoint is in the Middle and Far East.

Then there are fear-power cultures. In these cultures, unseen powers play a big role. This is not just God, but also demons, angels, spirits, dead ancestors, etc. In these cultures, you seek the means to gain power over the unseen world and the defenses to protect yourself from what happens in this world, such as following what steps it takes to avoid curses, perhaps visiting someone like a shaman. This is in some southern nations and tribal nations.

It is important that we learn how to interact. As Georges says on location 161, “For cross-cultural workers, a truncated gospel hinders spirituality, theology, relationships, and ministry We unintentionally put God in a box, only allowing him to save in one area.”

And this is the main theme throughout. Georges writes this so that we can understand the Gospel better and realize that it has something to say to all three cultures and we dare not just go by ours alone. If you go to a culture that is honor-shame and start talking about the Gospel in individualistic terms, you will not get much of an audience. You will need to appeal to the need of honor for people, You will need to relate to them passages about honor and shame in the Bible and about seeking the honor of God rather than the honor of men.

If you go to a fear-power culture, you do not want to talk about gentle Jesus meek and mild. You need to talk about the warrior Jesus. You need to talk about the warrior Jesus who in Colossians 2 disarms the powers that are against us and triumphs over them by the cross. You might also need to be prepared for some real work with prayerful preparation as you could really encounter darker powers in places where this viewpoint is prevalent. What we call power evangelism really plays a role here.

This book is also not long. You can read it in a day easily. That will be a day well spent as you will get some excellent insight into how these other cultures work. Note of course that this is just a start. From there, you need to move on to the best works of scholarship in the field, but if you want to get your feet wet, this is an excellent start in order to do that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters