Review: "Anthropological Insights for Missionaries" by Paul G. Hiebert

The Rev Alan Morris

Anthropological Insights for Missionaries by Paul G. Hiebert

18 April 2004

A Review by the Reverend Alan Morris

In his introduction, Hiebert states, “Today the young Churches planted by the early Missionaries are speaking out, calling us to be more aware of human cultures and their differences, and reminding us that God is not a tribal god, but the God of the world; that the gospel is for everyone; and that the Church is one body that breaks down the walls of ethnicity, class, and nationalism that divide humans into warring camps.” (pg. 9) The purpose of this book is to equip new missionaries with the basic tools for understanding other cultures and for understanding themselves adequately as they enter cultures new to them.
Hiebert begins this work in chapter one with the defense of his proposition that the appropriate understanding of the science of Anthropology is a useful tool in the hands of the missionary of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, providing insight and understanding to the human response to the gospel and the reasons behind its acceptance or rejection. As the title implies, he believes that the missionary who understands the ground in which he is planting seed will see an improved harvest. He is also a proponent of understanding the gospel within its cultural or anthropological setting first as a preface to being able to understand the gospel as it relates to a culture in which the missionary may be called to serve. We do not have an accurate gospel message if we do not understand it in its cultural setting and we have no relevant or meaningful message if we cannot understand ourselves and others in our respective cultural contexts. (pg. 14)
Of the five contributions (pg. 15-16) that he proposes anthropology can make to missions, his discussion of the assistance that the understanding of respective anthropologies can be toward the ability to understand and to build bridges of understanding with other cultures is for me the most compelling. Relationships are the bottom line of Missions. “The gospel calls us to see people as human beings, and any effective mission action begins by building relationships, not programs.” (pg. 24)
A missionary according to Hiebert is, “anyone who communicates the gospel in a cross cultural setting.” (pg. 28) A missionary is not a missionary until there is a culture other than his own in which he is communicating and there are no cultural problems until there are converts in that other culture. “So long as there are no converts, it is easy to continue the work” (pg. 29) The missionaries problems begin with culture and so, the need to understand missions anthropologically.
Hiebert begins our understanding of Anthropology with a discussion on the concept of culture. He defines culture as “the more or less integrated systems of ideas, feelings, and values and their associated patterns of behavior and products shared by a group of people who organize and regulate what they think feel and do.” (pg. 30) Culture has three dimensions; Cognitive, Affective and Evaluative. “Taken together, cognitive, affective and evaluative assumptions provide people with a way of looking at the world that makes sense out of it, that gives them a feeling of being at home, and that reassures them that they are right.” (pg. 47) The Cognitive “has to do with the knowledge shared by the members of a group or society.” (pg. 30) the Affective has to do with the feelings people have in common about their surroundings. The evaluative dimension is the values a society holds regarding good and evil, moral or immoral, right or wrong. “Missionaries must keep the three dimensions of culture in mind in their work, for the gospel has to do with all three of them.” (pg. 34) “Western missionaries and Church leaders tend to stress the cognitive aspects of the gospel. (pg. 34) We often fail to emphasize feelings and emotion. “Too often western Christianity has had little appeal to Africans and Asians because it appears joyless, colorless and drab in comparison to the religions they already have.” (pg. 35)
In the second chapter Hiebert points out that cultures are held together not only by economic, social, and political organization, but also-at the deepest levels-by fundamental beliefs and values shared by the people. Much of the knowledge in a culture is explicit and is therefore easy to identify. But, the very foundations for the culture may be largely unchallengeable implicit knowledge and is therefore out of sight and not immediately obvious at all. The missionary must take the time and invest the effort in comprehending the culture even at this implicit level in order to be effective.
“Each Christian community is tempted to equate the gospel with its own culture.” (pg. 53) The misunderstanding of what is culture and what is gospel has historically been devastating to the spread of the gospel. “By equating Christianity with western culture, we have used the gospel to reinforce our sense of cultural superiority, and we have made the gospel foreign to other cultures by asking the people to convert to our culture to become Christians.” (pg. 53) This is exactly what has happened in Uganda from where we just returned. Another example of this is in the Native Americans. Both cultures were asked/forced to convert to our culture to become Christians.
Hiebert points out that the gospel is Gods revelation and as such “it can be adequately expressed in all” cultures. The gospel will be in tension in every culture since every human culture contains elements both useful and therefore helpful to the message of the gospel and elements contradictory and therefore harmful to the message. (pg. 56) There are three principles we need to examine to help us understand the tension between the gospel and human cultures.
First of all, “the gospel must be distinguished from all human cultures. The failure to differentiate between culture and gospel has been one of the greatest weaknesses of modern western mission. Too often western missionaries have confused the gospel with their own western culture to the determent of the gospel and the confusion of the recipients. As a result, the gospel has been rejected often not because of the rejection of the Lordship of Jesus Christ but because to accept Jesus meant the loss of a societies cultural and social foundations.
The second principle that we will do well to remember is that although the gospel is distinct from all human culture, it must always be expressed in cultural forms. “The gospel must become incarnate in cultural forms if the people are to hear and believe.” (pg. 54) The task of the missionary is to present the gospel in the context of the cultural forms of the people that they are sent to serve.
Finally, “the gospel calls all cultures to change.” (pg. 55) The kingdom of God stands in judgment of all cultures. A truly indigenous mission theology is one that not only affirms the positive and constructive elements of a culture but also challenges the evil and dehumanizing elements of the culture as well.
In the third chapter Hiebert deals with the problems of the effects of cultural differences on the missionary. He discusses the actual differences of culture. He discusses culture shock which April and I have experienced and the causes and the cures. He discusses the phenomenon of reverse culture shock which April and I have also experienced. This reentry has been the most difficult since we were gone longer I suspect. He ends the chapter with a discussion of healthy models of adapting to new cultures. Hiebert concludes his discussion of the effects of cultural differences with this very helpful bit of advice. “The most crucial change that must take place in our adjustment to a new culture is to learn to see its people as people-and their culture as our culture. We need to draw a mental picture around them and us and say we.” (pg. 89)
In chapter four Hiebert discusses the stumbling blocks to becoming a full participant in a new culture along the lines of the three cultural dimensions of knowledge, feelings and values and how they can be overcome. The two biggest problems faced by missionaries entering new cultures are misunderstandings and premature judgments. (pg. 111) On the cognitive or knowledge level he discusses the inevitability of misunderstandings in communications of facts and how to overcome them. On the affective or feeling level cross cultural confusion can lead to ethnocentrism which is the normal response of people who encounter a new culture for the first time. This is the feeling that their culture is civilized and the new one is primitive and leads to premature judgments. On the evaluative or value level cross cultural confusion can lead to premature judgments placed on the new culture as we compare it to our own. We place the values of our own culture on theirs before we have learned to value or appreciate the new culture. When we do so, other cultures look less developed than our own.
I found Hieberts discussion of the ‘Emic’ and the ‘Etic’ cultural views very helpful. As we have been led to carefully examine and to understand our own culture in order to enter the new cultures we have been entering with a gospel as uncontaminated as possible, we have been experiencing the difference between these two views. It is good to have names for it. When we began our journeys we were most certainly outsiders in Uganda, where we traveled to and insiders where we came from. Over the last year and one half we have become much more what he describes as bicultural people (pg. 105). While out of the country the last time I found myself needing to deal with the problem of “how can we reconcile them” (pg. 105) meaning, the two worlds I found myself detached from. Hiebert suggests that “an Incarnational approach to missions calls us to affirm both cultures within us—and to build a bridge between them.” (pg. 106) This is working for me. I think I can now understand it as useful even.
I loved the discussions in chapter five of the cultural assumptions of Western missionaries. April and I have examined many of these same issues for some time. A couple of our favorite discussions are wealth and the Christian and the subject of equality. While Hiebert is right that it is not necessary to give up all of our basic assumptions in order to be effective missionaries neither can we afford to leave any of them that we can uncover by careful and honest searching unexamined because many of them run counter to the gospel.
Understanding that communication is the transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver, Hiebert discusses in Chapter 6 the problems of communications cross culturally. He begins with a description of four rules for the effective cross cultural communication of the gospel. First of all, the message must be sent in a form of communication the people are familiar with. Secondly, the message must be interpreted so that the people understand it with the minimum of distortion. Third, the message must be contextualized into local cultural forms and finally, the people must develop a theology in which the Scriptures speak to them in their particular historical and cultural setting. (pg. 141)
Effective communication is central to the task of the missionary. “There is little point to going ten thousand miles if we cannot bridge the final five feet.” (pg. 169) We need to be continually aware of how effective our communications are. We often overlook the most effective form of communicating in another culture because we spend little energy in the study of their “implicit dimensions of communication.” (pg. 169) Hiebert suggests that we need to begin to measure the effectiveness of our communication by what people hear. If they are not hearing us we must change our methods of communicating. In the end he is careful to point out, it is the Holy Spirit who has prepared the hearts of the hearers to receive the message therefore, good communication is first achieved by prayer and by listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all that we say and do.
In Chapter 7 Hiebert discusses the issue of the contextualization of the gospel message. What are converts to do with their old cultural ways that do not conform to the gospel message and how are missionaries to respond to them? “Cultures are made up of systems of beliefs and practices that are built upon the implicit assumptions that people make about themselves, about the world around them, and about ultimate realities.” (pg. 171) Hiebert breaks these beliefs and practices which express the culture into five basic categories; “Material Culture” which are the stuff that they have surrounded their culture with. Second is “Expressive Culture” which are the ways that people express their feelings such as music, drumming or dancing. Next is the “Ritual Culture” that includes rites of passage, marriage and healing ritual. The fourth cultural category he describes are the culture of “Annual Cycles”. These might include annual markers like harvest or the beginning of a new year. The fifth and final one is the culture surrounding “feasts, fairs, festivals and Pilgrimages”.
According to Hiebert there are basically three means of dealing with the problems associated with these encounters with the cultural traditions of a people who are converted to Christianity but, there remain many questions. One method that has been chosen by converts is complete rejection of all cultural tradition. April and I encountered this one on the Native American Reservations. Another option is Complete or Uncritical Contextualization. The proponents of this see nothing wrong in adding Christianity to the pantheon of practices that may traditionally occur in a culture. Of course this approach opens the door to all kinds of syncretism. The third and recommended practice of dealing with cultural tradition is “Critical Contextualization”. This is the practice of careful analysis of the tradition in question not for the purpose of being critical but for the purpose of informing the people and yourself. There is the danger in being critical in that the practice can be driven underground. Once the practice is understood, it can be compared to biblical teaching on the tradition in question and allow the converts to decide the appropriate path to reconciling their tradition with the gospel message.
The final point that he makes in the chapter is that the church is not made up of individuals each seeking his or her interpretation of the bible. “The church is to be a true community of people seeking to follow Jesus Christ and to serve one another.” (pg. 192)
Chapter eight speaks to the problems associated with young churches and whether or not hey should have the right to read and interpret the scriptures for themselves, and if so when? Hiebert refers to this as the fourth self. The three previous “selfs” of self-propagation, self-support and self-governance have been widely accepted for many years. They were originally proposed in 1861 by Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn as a plan whereby young churches might gain their independence form their mission parents.
We are certainly not the only people who can read and interpret the scripture but as evangelicals we tend to think that we are. There is much call these days for the development of and African Theology. What if it doesn’t sound like ours? It is hard to imagine what it might be different like. Hiebert points out hat there are really two kinds of what we call theology. The first is what we speak of to describe absolute truth and the second is what we use to describe explanations of reality that arise out of our reading of the bible. They are not the same. We evangelicals respond with anxiety when we begin to say that our reading of the bible is influenced by culture but, it surely is. When we speak of a self theologizing church we are probably speaking of the latter. How is the gospel actually influencing a culture and how are the people communicating about it is perhaps what we are saying.
The dangers of self theologizing are threefold according to Hiebert. First is the danger of syncretism. The second is the lack of discernment. Not all that any of us do is of the Holy Spirit. Any one of us can be wrong. A third danger lies in setting wrong priorities. We must be careful that our message is the reconciliation between God and humans. The reconciliation between humans is a product of that.
Chapter nine discusses the Cultural Bridge Community; how it is formed who it is and follows with a discussion of its problems and its realities. The Community Hiebert refers to is the third community that forms over time when missionaries from one culture enter another and is formed as members of the target culture join with purpose to the culture of the missionary. As they begin to share experience and feelings they do over time form a culture of their own. This new culture is neither original culture but contains elements of each. Effective mission will always be about relationships. No other form of communication will ever replace face to face relationship as the most effective means of communicating the gospel. This “bicultural community is the bridge by which the gospel crosses from one culture to another.” (pg. 253) “The effectiveness of mission depends to a great degree upon the quality of that community and the relationships within it.” (pg. 253)
The tenth chapter deals with the role that the missionary plays in modern mission work. The question is in this day under a great deal of question. The day of the colonial missionary is over and most countries have churches in them. It is more appropriate that indigenous planters do the work of starting new work. The day of a missionary going to a mission field and spending their life is over. Hiebert does not believe that the answer to how we relate to these young churches is short term mission. Neither should we cut ties with these young churches. What we need to do is to be certain that we are serving their good and not ours. “The heart of the work will continue to be done by missionaries who take the time to learn the language, to identify with them, and to nurture a young church to maturity.” (pg. 282)
In Hieberts final chapter in the book he discusses the challenge we as missionaries face in the world in the future. The colonial era is gone forever and with it access to many of the accustomed mission fields while at the same time there are new problems of population growth and growing social turmoil. Urbanization is a phenomenon that is occurring in the two thirds world faster than anywhere else. 780 million people today are living in absolute poverty. Missions today must also deal with an ever increasing threat of violence. There is a growing interest in non Christian religions in the world. The question is how western churches will respond to these challenges and opportunities. History speaks very clearly to the church in America. Whenever in history the church lost interest in fulfilling the missionary task that God set her to be doing, He found another agent for His good news. The historical landscape is littered with the churches who were once great pioneers and centers of the faith and were left behind historically when their interest in fulfilling the great commission waned. “If we are not faithful to God’s calling to exemplify and represent the Church in witness and life, God will move on to other agents.

Works Cited

Hiebert, Paul G.. Anthropological Insights for Missionaries. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.