Perhaps most exciting about traveling to another country is experiencing the new foods, languages, and approach to life that a different culture offers. We can learn so much from people who live differently than we do. One of the underlying reasons for our differences is a different worldview.
Anthropologists classify cultures in 3 ways, based on their primary moral emotion. Exploring the characteristics of guilt-innocence, fear-power, and honor-shame cultures gives a lot of insight into other cultures. Study of these worldviews can also be an invaluable tool as we seek to minister cross-culturally.
We want to be careful not to overstate these differing worldviews, as every culture has elements of all three. But studying them individually sheds light on our own cultural tendencies even as it gives us greater understanding of people from other places.
Visit http://theculturetest.com/survey to learn your group’s primary culture type. Because culture connects people to a group identity, try to think about how your circle of family and friends would answer these questions. The Culture Test measures a group’s primary response to sin – guilt, shame, or fear, and will send your results as a percentage in each of those categories.
Reflection Questions:
- Give an example of a “cultural miscue,” when you (or someone else) misread a situation because of different cultural values.
- What biblical passage or theological doctrine can be better illuminated by each worldview?
- How might you explain salvation in terms of the 3 different worldview dimensions?
- Which of the worldviews do you resonate with the most? Which is the hardest for you to understand? How can you take steps to bridge the gap?
