Urban Life #5

In the last installments of Urban Life, Urban Life #2, Urban Life #3, and Urban Life #4 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 some more of the solutions to these reasons of conflict.  This is Part 5 of a 6 part series on Cross-Cultural Conflict. 

Language

            How do we deal with the issues of language within our cross-cultural relationships in order to avoid conflict?  I think there are several practical things.  The first is the priority of the relationship.  As Elmer alludes to in his book: relationships are foundational to conflict resolution; with the priority on relationships when someone says something off kilter, odd or rude (to the hearer) the person can know (because of a good relationship) the person probably didn’t mean what was said in the way it was interpreted.  DeYmaz in his book: Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church he brings to light a simple language misinterpretation.  He states: “For instance, a White woman recently asked an African American woman, “Is that your hair?”  Fortunately, the two had developed a friendship over time—one that enabled the Black woman to view the inquiry more as a faux pas than anything else” (DeYmaz, 2007, pg. 85).

            It was the relationship that secured the ability for the White woman to ask an offensive (to the Black woman) question and not result in conflict.  We must become people who seek after relationships with others in order to be more understanding of others and going right away to understanding rather than anger when something might slip by that is offensive.

Conflict Resolution

            Most of Elmer’s book Cross-Cultural Conflict deals with several different ways in which to handle conflict resolution with people of different backgrounds.  In essence it boils down to educating oneself on the world and understanding there are several different ways to go about this.  The main thing a Westerner needs to understand is that two-thirds of the world does not do or handle face-to-face confrontation well.  Elmer makes a good and bold statement about America in his assessment on its people’s ability to resolve conflict: “If the nation is to have a future that includes peace and prosperity, all of its peoples must not only coexist but learn to value, affirm and build upon each other’s diversity” (Elmer, 1993, pg. 34).  Again, here comes the key to relationships, we must be able to learn how to speak each others conflict resolution language.  In his book, Elmer lays out several ways to go about conflict resolution with non face-to-face people: Mediation and Mediator, a One-down position of vulnerability, telling stories and proverbs, inaction, misdirection, silence and indefinite persons.  There are chapters dedicated to each idea but the ideas are solid and would work well with two thirds of the world.

Understanding of God

            This one may be the easiest to rectify within ourselves, because we have interacted with folks who love Jesus but who see God a bit differently than we ourselves do.  Here, we need to hold to sensitivity, love and the dedication to the relationship as pinnacle ideas.  God sometimes needs to be described different ways in order for Him to be correctly understood. This ties into the ideas that go with language and how nuances in verbage can change an entire sentence and cause it to mean something completely different than what was originally intended.  Understanding God can happen in much the same way.  Matriarchal societies maybe need to hear of God as Mother before anything else and Patriarchal societies need to hear of God as Father before everything else.  We need to be aware of different (not inherently wrong or bad) understandings of God and seek to speak to the understanding of the people we are speaking to.

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Urban Life #4

In the last installments of Urban Life, Urban Life #2, Urban Life #3, we looked at some normative reasons for cross-cultural conflict.  This post will look at the last few reasons.  This is Part 4 of a 6 part series on Cross-Cultural Conflict.  I thought I could cover this in 4, but I can't...so it's 6 installments!

Helpful Solutions to Normative Reasons

            In the book Ethnic Blends Mark DeYmaz and Harry Li have great advice as to how to overcome many of these reasons for conflict.  Much of the solutions portion of this paper stems from their thoughts on the subject because they speak both practically and biblically on the matter.  The overarching idea they present in Ethnic Blends is: “…when working together with others who have a different ethnic, economic, or educational background, always remember that your way is just a way and not the way to approach or resolve an issue” (DeYmaz and Li, 2010, pg. 126).

            This practical advice can and will go a long way to resolutions of conflict among people from different ethnic backgrounds.  As I stated previously I have messed up greatly in my own assumptions and my own thoughts on my being the way and frankly it hurts the process entirely.  Elmer, DeYmaz and Li all would say that sometimes as Westerners, we feel we have the corner market on all things, even God and we wrongly would assume that our way is not only right but the only biblical way to go about doing things.  In fact Elmer says: “I suggest the Bible supports several means of handling conflict in addition to those used in Western culture” (Elmer, 1993, pg. 46), which tells us Westerners to not think our interpretation of Scripture can or should be applied in every cultural setting.  This will take a lot of work in a lot of Western hearts because truthfully for some reason or another many of us believe our way of thinking, interpreting and resolving conflicts is the very best there is.  In so thinking we become arrogant, rude and hard to deal with to the rest of the world around us.  I think first off, if we can humble ourselves to the realization that we do not have the corner market as Westerners on thinking we will start off well.

            Before I go into resolving the issues mentioned before, I desire to throw another blanket over the whole issue.  This blanket comes from the book Ethnic Blends and has been an eye-opening and helpful tool to myself personally.  Mark DeYmaz in this book looks at several of Paul’s cross-cultural run-ins and gives some great practical and biblical advice as to how Paul handled these situations.

            Mark points out three directives we can get from Paul’s exchange in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23.  I will state the three directives and then unpack them. The directives are: “You Must Surrender Your Rights (Preferences); You Must Extend Yourself to Others; You Must Not Be Dogmatic” (DeYmaz and Li, 2010, pgs. 154-163).

You Must Surrender Your Rights (Preferences)

            The way we always want things done, the preferences for worship, interaction, time, style, conflict resolution, understanding God, the way we preach the Gospel all must be surrendered to God.  Realizing we don’t have the corner market, realizing we might be wrong on some things and realizing there are different ways to go about things are all key to surrendering our rights and preferences.  DeYmaz says: “When Paul says he is free in Christ (1 Cor. 9:19), he is emphasizing that neither his worship nor his ministry are bound by the religious customs or cultural traditions of any single group” (DeYmaz and Li, 2010, pg. 157).  His styles, and preferences are free to change and mold as they have to, as long as it doesn’t go against Scripture.

You Must Extend Yourself to Others

            When we are “others” focused, we tend to look past certain things like time, style, understanding of God, new ways to preach the gospel and conflict resolution because the person is more important than being right or proving someone wrong.  Our hearts should be for people like us, but also for people unlike us.  We must be people who seek to love the world and to do so, we must focus more on the person than anything else.  Learning the person will teach us how to interact with them where we can be best understood.  We will seek to learn their ways in order to love and care for them.

You Must Not Be Dogmatic

            Methods need to change in order for us to win others.  DeYmaz states: “Finally, in this passage (1 Cor. 9:22) Paul shows us that he is ready to do whatever is necessary to win those who are different from him to Christ and to his church” (DeYmaz and Li, 2010, pgs. 162-163).  We can’t hold to just our modes and methods if we plan on reaching others for Christ, we need to be people who love enough to adjust and shift to reach those who desperately need Him.

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Cross-Cultural Missions

In Acts 17:16-34 we see Paul entering into a world vastly different from his own; here in Greek culture sex was a way of worship, many deities made up the pantheon of worship, men slept with men and woman with woman, and the mind was the central point of being. These Greek truths were the antithesis of Jewish understanding. The heart was the central point of being, men married woman, then slept with them, one God was worshipped and sex other than within marriage was sinful and punished by death. Paul was colliding in complete opposition with this culture, yet he sought to use a communication style which would speak to the people he tried to persuade towards the Gospel.


First, we see Paul being spiritually “provoked…as he saw that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16b ESV). He allowed the Spirit of God to provoke him righteously to action. It doesn’t say he was repulsed by the people, nor does it say he was shocked and decided not to defile himself. The Scripture says he was spiritually provoked by what he saw. There is a difference. The response to repulsion and shock would be hatred, the response to a spiritual provocation is love. Paul was hurting for these folks. We then see that he took time to reason with them (Acts 17:17-20 ESV) and he took time to explain, discuss and dialogue about Jesus and the Gospel. It doesn’t say that he forced them to believe, it doesn’t say that he bitterly argued with them, but rather that he reasoned with them. When I think of reasoning, I think of a father gently trying to teach his child something. I think of this father showing the ideology of the child to be off a bit, but in a loving manner, not a demeaning or hating manner.

This reasoning caused a curious uprising to occur, people desired to know more about what he was talking about. They were hungry to know this new “philosophy” or this new “religion”. It had something to it that caused them to wonder what else was lying within it, so they brought Paul to the Philosophers where they asked Paul to share it with them.

Paul then discusses with them from his observation of the people. Dr. Dirks says “One of the tasks of the cultural worker is to observe what is present in a culture, its beliefs, values and objects, and use these to build bridges to the truth about God” (Week 2 Lecture notes, Dr. Randy Dirks, 2010).

Here we see that Paul cared enough about the people of this different culture to observe them, to study what they study and to share with them his findings of themselves. He took time to understand their culture. Culture as described in the book Intercultural Communication is: “…stored in individual human beings, in the form of their beliefs, attitudes and values” (Rogers, E.M. & Steinfatt, p. 81). He opens with an exhortation of the people for being very religious. He then comments on a deity he saw in the marketplace which said: “To and Unknown God” on the inscription (Acts 17: 23). Paul realized that the people were so afraid of missing a god they were supposed to worship that they made idols to god’s unknown so those gods would be appeased. Paul then uses that portion of culture as a launching point of describing the unknown god, who happens to be the only God they need to worship. He breaks it down using their own philosophers and writers of that day. Warren Wiersbe in his book The Bible Exposition Commentary says this about the following portion of Acts 17:

“Here Paul quoted from the poet Epimenides: “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” Then he added a quotation from two poets, Aratus and Cleanthes, “For we are also His offspring.” …This led to Paul’s logical conclusion: God made us in His image, so it is foolish for us to make gods in our own image! Greek religion was nothing but the manufacture and worship of gods who were patterned after men and who acted like men. Paul not only showed the folly of temples and the temple rituals, but also the folly of all idolatry” (Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Ac 17:16).



Here, Paul used a form of cultural exegesis to show the people the folly in their worship of idols, and the importance of worshipping the only God who is the God-Man Jesus Christ. Paul took time to understand them enough to quote back to them their own philosophers to use those portions of culture to point to Jesus.

We should look at preaching the Gospel in such a way as Paul did: it is for all people and we must become all things to all people for the sake of saving some (1 Corinthians 9:22). This means that if we desire to speak to a certain people group the truths laid out in the Scripture, we must study that culture, we must observe them and become wise people as to how they live. We must figure out how to best communicate the truth to them to ensure that they receive it. If we fail to study people of different cultures and fail to see how it is we can best communicate to them the truth of the Gospel, we will have done wrong. We, like Paul need to have a spiritual provocation to action, then we need to start learning as much as we can about those we expect to teach.

For example, I am a youth pastor; it is my job to effectively communicate the gospel to teenagers. If I have no references to their culture and know nothing of their language, they will hardly listen to a word I have to say. They will blow me off as another “adult” who “doesn’t understand them”. So, it is them I must study, them I must learn from, them I must understand or at least seek to understand. If I fail to try, I am in the wrong and they will rightfully ignore me. This is why I studied youth culture for 4 years and continue to attempt to do so. It is important to keep up to speed to live missional lives, for that is what God calls us to and if we’re living missional lives, we will bump into people different from ourselves. It is then we must study, and get to know them in order that we might show them the truth of Jesus Christ.

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Jesus- Boundary Breaker

Jesus hung with a lot of people that most of his culture wouldn’t hang out with. One such occasion happens in John 4:7-26. In Jesus’ culture, women were looked down upon, as were Samaritans. This was a “double no no” for Jesus. Jesus style ministry breaks down these “boundaries” and goes straight to people’s hearts. It didn’t matter her cultural background, it didn’t matter she was a woman and it didn’t matter that she was a sinner.


This woman was part of a culture that was mixed up. Samaritans had mixed blood, mixed religions and mixed up views about God. For a Jew to be seen with a Samaritan, any Samaritan would’ve been bad, but to be seen with a Samaritan woman (who had an especially bad rap, even among the Samaritans) would’ve been unheard of. His decision to talk to her as well as listen to her was unique and out of the normal realm of possibility. Jewish people were pretty racist against the Samaritans and here we see Jesus deciding not to bow to those cultural pressures, in fact he breaks out of them!

The greatest thing to me about this story is that Jesus initiates the whole thing. The woman was coming out at a time when she didn’t expect anyone to be at the well (the Scripture says she came out at about noon and noon was when it would be the hottest) and there was this Jewish man sitting there. Her plan was to ignore him as a good Samaritan should ignore a prominent Jew, but Jesus asks her for a drink of water.

Jesus then shares who she is and what she has been about, to which she is amazed at his knowing so intimately the details of her life. Jesus then shares with her who He is and the knowledge of who Jesus is changes this woman completely, which is evidenced by her new evangelistic lifestyle (John 4:29 & 39).

Due to the cultural no no’s that Jesus was just committing, when the disciples return to Jesus, they are understandably shocked at the scene they see: Jesus chatting casually with a Samaritan Woman. Jesus uses this moment of perplexity to teach his disciples about God’s heart for humanity. He demands of them to open their eyes and see that people of all cultures and all backgrounds are ready to hear of the Lord’s goodness. He tells them to see the harvest that is available for the Kingdom of God to which they are blind because of their cultural box. In this conversation one can sense the rebuke that Jesus give them. It’s almost like he’s saying: “Hey Blind guys, open your eyes, take off your blinders and see what I see! Stop putting me in a box, stop putting my ministry in a box. There are people out there who need to hear about me and what I came to do and you are hindering that! Open your eyes and get to work on the stuff I’ve prepared for you to do!”

Not only did Jesus say this, but he demonstrated it by his actions. He was a more prominent Jew than his disciples were. He had more to “lose” by hanging around and talking to that woman but he proved he didn’t care and he pointed out their prejudice by showing them how they’ve been blind. After Jesus rebukes them at the end of the scene in John, we see that several people come to believe in him because of that one woman’s witness of him. I am sure he looks at them afterwards and says: “Did you guys see the harvest that we reaped today? There is more than that to come if you can open your eyes. It’s just like I said: the harvest is ready!”

Jesus used this scene well to teach his disciples the importance of cross-cultural ministry and to break them out of their box of prejudice that they were living in. This story is for us, the Church as well because sadly we too box up the Gospel with our own prejudices and deny people access whom we shouldn’t be barring from the grace of Christ. We, like Christ and like the disciples should be reaching across culture to proclaim the good news of Jesus. We shouldn’t be stopped short by our foolish notions of the world.

This story brings many implications to us as a people. One implication is that we should seek the Lord on where we are blind because we are all blind in one way or another. If it’s not racism, it could be sexism or ageism. Somewhere in our view of the world, we are blinding ourselves to the harvest that could be reaped and we need the help of the Holy Spirit to open up our eyes and see where we’ve boxed people out.

Another implication is that we need to fear no cultural taboo that may be out there. Jesus went across the tracks on three accounts: ethnicity, sex and reputation. He let none of those taboos stop him from preaching the gospel to the Samaritan woman. This leads us to a third implication: Make the Word our highest court of judgment. If your culture tells you its wrong to hang with or speak with a certain person, go to the Bible and see what God says. If it isn’t in the Bible, don’t bow to it. Too often we become religious fanatics about extra-biblical revelation as the Pharisees were. We have to be careful to heed God’s word, not man’s addition to God’s word.

Lastly, we can see the implication of Heaven being made up of many different people, not just people like ourselves. Heaven will be a beautiful mosaic that reflects all of humanity, so we need to begin to embrace that truth now, because if we don’t eternity may be hard!

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