The “Just Be Yourself” Paradox
Posted by C. Holland on Apr 21, 2009As we were preparing ourselves to enter the mission field, I was concurrently studying an unrelated topic at a secular university and was required to take an intercultural communications course. While the book and course were clearly aimed at the business student who may have to negotiate a deal abroad, I found that it helped me understand how an action or word usage so innocent in my culture could be interpreted by another culture as anything from rude to insulting to demeaning.
It was a broad-based book, covering multiple cultures by explaining how negotiating a deal in one particular culture required the first offer to be double of what you wanted because there was a mandatory first refusal. It was understood that your second offer would be rejected because culturally they would only accept on the third offer. Strange to someone from my culture, but if it’s explained and expected you could still be successful in the negotiation.
So when we were fact-finding in our part of Western Europe, we felt we had to ask the nationals’ opinions about what some missionaries had done wrong here to cause offence. And, boy, did we get a laundry list of slights, insults and other things, some of which were rude even from the States’ perspective, but much of it was lack of cultural sensitivity or understanding. As we were mentally keeping track of things not to do, most every person would always end their list with, “But don’t worry. Just be yourself.”
I feel that the “just be yourself” line is a bit of a paradox, first for the Christian and especially for the missionary. If the Christian walk is about “new life” and becoming a new creature in Christ, then it obviously begs for change at some level. Even if you’re not struggling with vices or “bad behaviour”, your focus on Christ and not on self would bring about a noticeable change such as in priorities or perhaps how you may treat people. Every situation would be slightly different, but I still believe some part of “being yourself” would be changed.
Likewise, a missionary coming from one culture to another is going to run into differences. Again, specific situations would call for different actions, but the point is: how can I be myself when actions learned in my original culture will offend those in my mission field? For instance, the culture of the States would encourage outgoing, gregarious interaction including speaking in a louder voice. Here this is interpreted as rude and obnoxious. My original culture emphasises organisation, minimal personal interaction, and future-thinking. Here the culture doesn’t understand organisation or planning, will spend four to eight hours at someone’s house just drinking tea, and definitely lives in the moment, not for tomorrow.
Certain personality traits would be, I believe, universally pleasing to most cultures such as honesty, integrity, caring, listening and helping. However, if I acted exactly as I did in the States, it would put most people here off of anything I have to say about Christ or any subject, for that matter.
Would I describe myself as being deceptive or untrue to my nature? Absolutely not. But I would say that, to fit into a culture enough to be heard, one would have to be willing to change the non-essentials that were culturally an impediment to sharing the Gospel.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related posts:
- You Said What?! The Importance of Context in Culture
The Double Life of The Missionary
Pulling Your Hand Out of a Bucket
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