Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

by E. Randolph Richards

  A great example of the individualist orientation of Westerners can be found in debates among students, parents and educators over school uniforms. Anecdotal evidence indicates that uniforms reduce bullying and other violence among students, increase academic performance (because kids aren’t as concerned about what their classmate is wearing) and generally make the school safer by making it easier to identify intruders (because students are all dressed alike). As compelling as an increase in safety and academic achievement might be, many people object to school uniforms because they inhibit individuality. Some Americans argue school uniforms limit our First Amendment rights of free expression. Others put this issue more generally and argue that eliminating a student’s ability to choose his or her wardrobe means that “student identity as an individual is lost,” or that “being required to wear a uniform teaches an early lesson in lack of choice—something that is contrary to core American values.”[2] For some, maintaining individual choice is more important than improving safety and education. This line of thought is likely to resonate with most of our readers.

  Collectivist cultures are very different indeed. In a collectivist culture, the most important entity is the community—the family, the tribe or the country—and not the individual.[3] Preserving the harmony of the community is everyone’s primary goal, and is perceived as much more important than the self-expression or self-fulfillment of the individual. A person’s identity comes not from distinguishing himself from the community, but in knowing and faithfully fulfilling his place. One’s goal is not to get ahead or move beyond one’s community; after all, “the tallest blade of grass is cut first.” Rather, members of collectivist cultures make decisions based on the counsel of elders—parents, aunts or uncles. The highest goal and virtue in this sort of culture is supporting the community. This makes people happy (makarios).

  You may remember from the introduction my (Randy’s) shock at discovering that Indonesian elders were considering barring a young couple from church membership because they had eloped, which was considered a grievous sin in their culture. The difference of opinion between the elders and me had to do with my being from an individualist culture and their being from a collectivist one. In individualist cultures, people marry for “love” (or at least that’s what we call it). What we mean is that the only person who decides whom I should marry is me. It goes without saying for us that when it comes to this most important of decisions, I should be free to do what seems best to me. It’s no one’s business but mine (and my future spouse’s, of course).

  Things are not so simple in a collectivist culture. Arranged marriages are much more common in collectivist cultures, because it goes without saying that, in this most important of decisions, the community should decide what’s best for the young people. Marriage is not simply between a man and a woman. One family marries another (which is more true than we Westerners like to admit). And only the community can determine if two families make a good match. This might sound restricting to you. It does to most Westerners. But many non-Westerners view this supervision as helping: How can you abandon a poor twenty-two-year-old to make such an incredibly important decision on his or her own? To do so would be calloused and uncaring.

  Still, we admit that, to us, it seems like meddling. And the meddling begins long before the decision to marry. I (Randy) remember a conversation with a group of parents in a remote Indonesian village.

  “Is it true,” they asked incredulously, “that American teenagers who like each other go out by themselves at night?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “We call it dating.”

  “Wow, you Americans are amazing,” they observed. “If Indonesian kids did that, someone would get pregnant.” I nodded that, indeed, American teenagers are models of self-restraint.

  Indonesians look at the dating challenge differently. For Indonesians, it seems unfair to leave an individual in a situation in which his or her only real protection is willpower. They seem to recognize that willpower is more effective the less you like someone. Ideally then, to be safe, you should only date people you don’t particularly like; then your willpower will certainly protect you. The challenge is that the more you like someone, the less restraining your willpower becomes. I explain their concept this way: when you put sodium and chloride together, you get salt. Whose fault is it: the sodium’s or the chloride’s? Exactly. So it is with young love. My Indonesian friends think that the community should protect the individual. What is Christian community for, they ask, if not to protect each other? Indonesian Christian teens, for their part, have told me (and I am inclined to believe them) that they are relieved that someone else is responsible for protecting them.

  Even though Western culture is individualistic, there are some venues or subcultures in which collectivist mentalities are evident. One is team sports. In team sports, the goal is to work together to achieve a common goal, not to draw attention to oneself. We preserve this ideal in the saying, “There is no I in team.” Another place we see a collectivist mentality is in the military. Personal identity is not celebrated in the military; that’s why new recruits have their heads shaved and everyone wears the same uniform. One is expected to surrender his or her own personal desires and interests for the good of his or her platoon and, ultimately, the country. Of course, even within these collectivist subcultures, appeal is made to individual self-actualization. Team sports keep record of individual statistics and celebrate the superstar. As for the military, one longtime army slogan is “Be all that you can be.” A newer one is “An Army of One”—an admittedly odd slogan, but clearly designed to appeal to an individualist.

  Another way to note the differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures is by how names work. We get our convention of a tripartite name (first, middle and last) from the Romans, but we don’t use it like they did. Our individualism shows up in our usage, while their collectivism is displayed in theirs. Roman citizens were required to have a given name (praenomen), a clan/ancestral name (nomen) and a family/tribe name (cognomen). Somewhat the reverse of North American culture, Romans often used only their family name when they signed their letters. Given names were very common, but they were often just written as an initial. Thus, the famous orator M. Tullius Cicero referred to himself simply by his family name, Cicero. The individual name is even abbreviated: M. for Marcus. In Western culture, we want to differentiate ourselves from our families, so we emphasize our first names; they desired the opposite. Likewise, in the East today, the family name comes first. Americans often mess this up.[4]

  It is difficult to present the values of a collectivist culture in a positive light to Western hearers.[5] We as your authors often struggle to explain a collectivist worldview without sounding critical. In Western cultures, individual choice is to be protected at all cost. Communities that do not protect it are oppressive; individuals who will not practice it are weak-minded. Conformity, a virtue in a collectivist culture, is a vice in ours. Conforming is a sign of immaturity, a failure to realize your full potential, an inability to “leave the nest” or “cut the cord.” Of course, it is equally difficult to put a positive spin on individualist virtues, such as self-reliance, in a collectivist culture. Non-Westerners often consider collectivism one of their finest traits. Such an individualist in the East is described as someone who “doesn’t get along” or “breaks harmony” or “seeks his own glory” or “is self-important.” Obviously, we prefer the idea that we are “self-reliant.”

  The Wrong Idea

  Our individualist assumptions affect our reading of Scripture in many ways, some of them more serious than others. Because individualism goes without being said in the West, we can often get the wrong idea of what an event described in the Bible might have looked like. This can lead to the more serious problem of misunderstanding what it meant.

  My (Brandon’s) acting career peaked in my teen years, when I played Joseph in our church’s Christmas production. I sang a solo while I quieted our restless
baby Jesus (a real live newborn) and looked lovingly at Mary, a girl I knew from youth group. We represented the holy couple as I’d always imagined them: serene and solitary, huddled with the infant Savior in a tidy barn. I don’t remember all the words to the song, but it had to do with being faithful in the face of the daunting and singular experience of fathering the Christ child.

  This goes to show that pretty much the entire Christmas story has been Westernized, a product of Victorian English customs and practices. Since we know from prophecy that Jesus needed to be born in Bethlehem, we don’t ask the obvious question: why in the world would a guy drag his pregnant wife across the country? We assume the Romans must have required it (within the will of God, of course). Sure, the Romans required a census, but they allowed a large window of time for people to register. It wasn’t in Rome’s best interest to suddenly require everyone in the empire to travel to their ancestral homeland during one weekend. It seems clear in the text that Mary and Joseph were traveling during festival time—that’s why all the inns were full. Bethlehem was what we might call a bedroom community, or suburb, for Jerusalem. Joseph, unlike many Galileans, was apparently a regular attender of Judean festivals. This might explain why Joseph wanted to visit Jerusalem when he did. But why take Mary when she was “great with child”? It wasn’t ignorance; ancients knew how to count to nine. The reason is simple: if Joseph was of the lineage of David, then so were all his relatives. So were all of Mary’s relatives.[6] Moreover, in antiquity one’s relatives were the birthing crew. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem when they did because everybody else was going. We imagine Joseph and Mary trudging alone up to Jerusalem, in the quiet of night. Nope. They were part of two large clans—his and hers. (This also explains how Mary and Joseph could “misplace” the twelve-year-old Jesus later. They assumed that he was with his perhaps hundred cousins as the extended family headed home. Only at evening did the boy Jesus go missing.) The birth of Jesus was no solitary event, witnessed only by the doting parents in the quiet of a cattle fold. It was likely a noisy, bustling event attended by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.[7]

  Our individualist tendencies can also give us the wrong idea about how some of the biblical books were composed. We envision Paul writing his letters like we used to write them before email: we plopped down at a desk in a quiet place with pen and paper.[8] We composed, privately, as we wrote. We then signed our name and mailed it off. Our signature indicated that the words and thoughts in the letter were our very own. Ancient letter-writing was different in just about every way. Ancients had no writing desks. Authors commonly stood and dictated while a scribe sat with a sheet of parchment balanced on his knee or in his lap. Paul would not have locked himself away in some private room to write. (It would have been too dark anyway.) He more likely would have sat in a public place: the breezy, well-lit atrium of a prosperous home like Lydia’s, or in an upstairs balconied apartment. Family and friends walking by would have stopped to listen (ancients read out loud) and to offer advice (it shows you care).

  Posture and place were perhaps the smallest differences. Six of Paul’s letters indicate they were written with a coauthor, yet we traditionally ignore the other authors (1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1; Gal 1:1-2; Phil 1:1; Col 1:1; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:1). In antiquity, teamwork and cooperation were the norms. Paul always had a team. When he lost his first team partner, he did not journey again until he had gotten another one (Acts 15:36-41). When he left his team in Berea on the second journey, he went on his own to Athens. We don’t notice, but Luke’s readers would have been alarmed: Paul was alone! As they would expect, Paul had no one to help him when he got into a bit of trouble. Fortunately, when there was trouble in Thessalonica and Berea, Paul had friends to help (Acts 17:9, 14). Luke notes that Paul (wisely) starts work in Corinth only after becoming part of a community with Aquila and Priscilla and, implicitly, their trade guild (Acts 18:2-3).

  It is very natural, then, that just as partnership was assumed in ministry, so also it was assumed in composing a letter. When it was time to write back to the church in Corinth, Paul most likely gathered his beloved team members around him to discuss the needs in the Corinthian church and what they should say to them. After discussing the sticky issues at length, it was time to start the letter, with a secretary (probably hired from the market) and stacks of wax tablets. The resulting letter would have been a collaborative effort. Even if we notice the coauthor in the letter’s greeting at all (Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians and Timothy in 2 Corinthians, for example), we are likely to assume that they were passive participants. Surely Paul is the creative and theological genius behind the letters, we think: the single, solitary, individual source of the letter’s content. Doubtful. It is more likely that the letters were composed with the coauthors actively contributing. Paul’s missionary endeavors were a team effort. This is more than just a bit of trivia. Scholars have debated for centuries whether all the letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament were actually written by him. Many will argue that Paul couldn’t have written certain letters because they don’t have Pauline characteristics—that is, they don’t “sound” like Paul. But if Paul regularly worked with coauthors and secretaries, if they actively contributed content and turns of phrase, then this might explain why Paul’s letters have variations in style. They bear the marks of his partners. The Spirit’s inspiration covered the entire process.

  “Me and Jesus”

  Our individualist assumptions can influence our reading of Scripture in more serious ways. In Western individualist cultures, the decision to become a Christian is a personal and individual decision. This is illustrated clearly by a song many of us grew up singing during the invitation at the end of a church service, when lost sinners were invited to accept Christ in faith. “I have decided to follow Jesus,” we sang, “no turning back, no turning back.” The individual nature of the decision is evident from the first stanza: “I have decided.” But our individualist perspective is even clearer is a later verse. “Though none go with me,” we sing, “I still will follow.” Certainly even for Westerners, the prospect of isolation because of the faith is not comforting. Yet it is in some ways natural. We are used to our decisions, and thus our conversion, being personal and private affairs.

  In collectivist societies, conversion is not strictly an individual decision, so it is often not an individual experience. This may seem strange and even unbiblical to Western Christians, who emphasize a personal and individual decision to follow Christ. But in non-Western cultures, group conversions—when whole families or tribes come to faith at once—are not uncommon. Granted, Jesus makes it clear that the decision to follow him may at some point put a believer at variance with his or her family. In what is surely one of Jesus’ most difficult teachings—no matter where you’re from—he claims, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26). But there are other times in Scripture when it is clear that whole households come to faith together. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas are miraculously freed from their chains in prison. The jailer, apparently recognizing what happened as an act of God, asks the men, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Their response is striking: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household” (Acts 16:31, emphasis added). Three more times in the passage, the “whole household” is mentioned. The apostles share the gospel with the jailer and “to all the others in his house”; they baptize him “and all his household”; and they rejoice that he believed in God with “his whole household” (16:32-34). (See also Acts 10:2; 11:14; 16:15; 18:8.)

  For many Western readers, what goes without being said about the conversion of the jailer’s household is that we assume each person in the family must have been convinced independently and privately of the truth of the gospel and must have made a personal decision to follow Jesus. Many Christians will assume further that it was only the adults i
n the family who made this decision, since only adults could have expressed their will in the matter. But this is not necessarily true. As the illustration from The Samurai above illustrates, conversion to a new religion is a serious decision for someone from a collectivist society. Duane Elmer, a professor of missions and intercultural studies, explains in his book Cross-Cultural Connections that when he shared Christ with Asian adults, he “was constantly told that they could not make a decision to follow Christ without asking a parent, uncle, aunt or all three.” At first he thought this was an evasive maneuver, a ruse to avoid making the hard decision of faith. Over time he realized that this is simply how collectivist cultures work. People “do not make major decisions without talking it over with the proper authority figures in their extended family.”[9] This is hard for us Westerners to understand. We believe they are simply doing what the authority figure(s) said and not making the decision for themselves. This is not necessarily so. My (Randy’s) Asian friend speaks of his conversion this way: “My father is wiser than I am. If he says Jesus is better, then I know Jesus is better.” My friend has a faith as strong and rooted as mine. His certitude about Jesus came a different way than mine, but it is as firm. When the wise matriarch Lydia decided Paul’s god was best, her household was convinced as well (Acts 16:14-15).

  Individualism, Collectivism and the Church

  Of course biblical interpretation plays out in Christian practice, so that there is something practical at stake in this discussion. In the West, the concept of family continues to constrict, so that it often now refers only to one’s parents and/or children and select other near kin or close friends referred to as “aunt” and “uncle.” We seem to be happiest when we can choose the people we identify as family. In the East, by contrast, family is often identified solely based on bloodlines. Once the relationship is determined, culture then outlines the expectations and obligations of each member. Essentially, then, one’s identity and duties are defined by one’s family: “Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” (Mk 6:3), and similarly by one’s hometown: “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (Jn 1:45). The way the Bible portrays the family—specifically the expectations and obligations placed on family in collectivist cultures—challenges the way Westerners understand our identity and duties as the church, the “family of God.”