In the last installments of Urban Life, Urban Life #2, Urban Life #3, Urban Life #4
and Urban Life #5 we looked at some normative reasons for cross-cultural conflict and #4
started to deal with the solutions to these reasons for conflict. This
post will look at the final solutions as well as conclude the series. This is Part 6 of a 6 part
series on Cross-Cultural Conflict
Time
When it comes to time, patience
and understanding must be applied.
Western culture is one of the main proponents of “on time”, but unlike Western Culture, in many other cultures time is relative and flexible. Many in America would suspect someone’s being
late as rude and uncaring, but this is simply not the case in a more Eastern Culture mindset. As I’ve personally interacted with several
different cultures and the way different people look at time, I’ve had to learn
to be flexible.
Knowing a certain person
will usually be late, you can add in buffer time to your appointment, visit
etc. Make sure you have other things
lined up in the wings to do as you wait so your time can still be
productive.
Also, don’t always point out
the fact that the person is late, because this may serve to shame them and
cause them to pull away.
Several
events have happened where this reality of time occurred, believe me if you
interact with people not of the Western mindset, at first this time thing will
irritate you but always remember the relationship is what comes first. We can’t expect people to bend to our time constraints
simply because we want them to, this is an assumption that will cause much
strife for both parties.
The
Gospel
Overcoming
this obstacle is the largest one I think the American Church is charged with
because people from all over the world are coming to our doorstep and we need
to be communicators of the Gospel message in many different tongues. The thing that above all
impacted my thinking of our Gospel message came from Elmer’s book Cross Cultural Conflict, because it
takes the key concepts of shame, saving face and honor and displays them in how
we are too spread the Gospel among people who see those as high values.
The Gospel offends the
individual and shows them their sins, but in order for this message to be heard
by some Eastern people, the way in which we share this truth is key. The
portion that struck the strongest chord along the vain of sharing the Gospel to
a diverse group was the portion Elmer entitled: “Jesus the Shame Bearer”. Elmer says: “To bear shame for one’s wrong is
hard, but to bear shame for always doing right is an infinitely greater shame”
(Elmer, 1993, pg. 142). Jesus had no
shame of his own to bear, but bore our shame in order to bring us to God. In a culture where bearing one’s shame is the
hardest thing to do, imagining someone doing that instead of you is
astronomical. However, wrongly presented
this could cause people to not even hear the message or the intent of Christ
bearing our shame.
Conclusion
Seeing
these normative reasons for cross-cultural conflict and their subsequent
solutions should spur us on to seek to deepen our relationships with those
different than ourselves as well as our relationship to God. The one thing that continues to reign in my
life as a cross-cultural person is the reality that I find out more about God
because of it. Left to my own devices
and being with people just like me, I would miss a whole scope of God I
wouldn’t even know existed. This benefit
has been a true blessing both to myself and my family because we have been able
to experience God within diverse community and learn that our God truly is
diverse.
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