Nearly 20 years ago when I travelled across the ditch from New Zealand to settle in a regional community in Australia, and soon met and fell in love with an Aussie bloke, I honestly didn’t think that there was much difference between Australia and New Zealand – except perhaps that the Australian Dollar was more valuable than the New Zealand Dollar.

20 years on…I now see and experience the differences much more easily. 20 years into cross-cultural ministry, particularly with Australia’s First Nation’s people I not only see that there are differences, but I am now also certain of the damage that has and can be caused by ethnocentrism and egocentrism, which David Smith (2009) would define as being collective and individual forms of selfishness.

As Christian’s we have a mandate and fundamental responsibility to love others. But perhaps we can sometimes take the, “do to others as you would have them do to you” and apply this unintentionally in a culturally instrusive and harmful way. This consideration raises two questions – “Who is the other?” And “How should I love others?”

JOY – Jesus first, Yourself last and Others in between

Whether we are engaging interculturally in the field of education or some other life sphere, we are to think of and give preference to the ‘other’ before we think of ‘ourselves’. I think in Australia this means that ‘mainstream’ services should seek to serve and honour its First Nation’s people as a matter of priority in its churches, schools, health services. For some this idea raises palpable alarm bells of fear. When these fears arise within us, our first port of call should be the feet of Jesus – not the security of our own ‘cultural home’.

In order to prioritise and get to know others though, we must first accept and then be willing to loosen the tight grip we have on insisting that our ways are the right ways. We also need to stop ‘telling’ in our almost naturally patronising tone the ways that Aboriginal people need to change or adopt in order to ‘succeed’ and ‘develop’ (as if we, the Westerners, have the upper hand). David Smith shares in his book, “Learning from the Stranger” of a housing development project in Ontario, Canada where the government tried to forcibly assimilate the Anishinaabe people from their traditional homes to suburban-style government housing – it was not only a disaster but caused great harm and demoralisation. David ends this example with these words, “…this is not an isolated instance, but part of a wider pattern of problems arising when housing is designed for and assigned to groups of people without careful consideration. Working to provide housing without cultural sensitivity may do little to provide a sense of home, and once again a desire to serve may end up doing harm.” (p. 100).

We have not only seen this, but experienced this kind of well intentioned paternalism cause the community to become demoralised and left to feel that what they have to offer is ‘not good enough’ and ‘needs to be changed’ in order to be accepted and valued. This is VERY dangerous ground for a follower of Jesus.

We should pause to consider, and ask God to search our own hearts as to whether we genuinely and sincerely believe that we can not only learn about the cultural community in which we are serving, but also (and possibly more importantly!) that we can learn from the people in the cultural community we are serving. Because if we want to engage with them, and effectively proclaim the Gospel, we must first be listeners, secondly learners and then servants.

So near, but yet so far – So similar but yet so different…

It can be easier to consider ourselves as partaking in intercultural engagement when the cultural diversity appears more contrastingly – different languages, different clothing, different styles of housing and community formation etc. Perhaps this is why there has been such difficulty in our community between Western, white Australian peoples and the Aboriginal Australian people. In our part of Australia, the Aboriginal people have been heavily ‘influenced’ (some might argue, ‘forcibly governed’) by Western culture to such an extent that I often say they have been ‘Westernised’. Ugh. I often grieve what they have lost at the hand of white Western “mission managers” over the years.

It is easy for us to sometimes be like a magnet that comes in close proximity to another magnet – the magnetic pull becomes so great that the magnets just adhere to one another without any effort. Sometimes cultures can on the outside appear so similar that the dominant culture will just draw the less-dominant culture into their influence with little effort. We see this in our part of Australia. Assumed culture. Jesus didn’t just save us, he redeemed us and continues His work of redemption throughout all of our lives – and this includes the redemption of our intended cultural identity. As followers of Christ who are involved in intercultural engagement, we too should be seeking to see the redemption of one’s cultural identity – not so that it aligns with our own cultural beliefs and values, but so that it aligns with the person and character of Jesus Christ. When we go to serve in Aboriginal churches and communities in Western New South Wales, we must first incline our ear to the one who created both them and us. Because it is He who gives us the view of the finish line of the race we are running. It is He who will enable us to lay down our cultural assumptions and ideals and it is He who defines what is GOOD for the community, and ultimately GLORIFYING to Him.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

May we press on to serve others by engaging with them in culturally redemptive ways that are faithful to God’s call for each of us believers to sincerely love one another.

References

Smith, D. (2009) Learning from the Stranger. Eerdmans.