What cultural values shape your priorities and actions?

I have heard it said that western (european and north american) societies are based on an "Innocence versus Guilt" mentality, wheras eastern (middle-east, far east, and northern africa) societies are based on an "Honor versus Shame" mentality, and that tribalist (southern africa, rural tribes in all other parts of the world) societies are based on a "Strength vs Weakness" mentality.

In many anthropological and missiological circles, this is taken as established fact and rarely questioned.  And there are good reasons to see these basic differences as real.   For example, see this anecdote (http://www.iculturelink.com/pitfalls-for-westerners-in-a-shame-based-culture/) and many other such published anecdotes.

Westerners, so the theory goes, are very concerned with doing what is "right" and avoiding what is "wrong".  Those in Oriental cultures however, says the theory, are more concerned with doing what will bring honor... not only to the person themselves, but to the person's family.  These cultures are more focused on the group / the collective in general, as opposed to more of an individualistic focus in Western cultures.   For this reason the concept of "saving face" is more important in Eastern cultures.

I think there's a fair amount of truth to the generalization.  However, I have a few thoughts.

1. Often these categories are brought out by people who are trying not merely to describe, but to prescribe.
That is, when someone like David Marantz writes his book "Afrian Friends and Money Matters", although they generally try to stay neutral ("this is how an African thinks about friendship"), they sometimes slip into persuasion mode ("these are the problems with how Americans conceive of friendship").
Likewise with these categories.  The persuasion can be mild and innocent, as in trying to help someone understand a non-western culture so as to not offend people when he/she travels there, or it can be subtle/deadly, as when someone suggests that the understanding of the Gospel that emphasizes Christ's substitutionary propitiatory atonement for individuals' sins is misguided and is superseded/overshadowed by the Bible's teaching about ethics and personal morality or the global kingdom-of-God teachings.
In other words, if one is simply pointing out differences between societies, fine.  But if one goes beyond this and indicates that we shouldn't be so focused on guilt/innocence because that's a culturally myopic "Western" perspective on the gospel, I say in response that the Bible itself is our only absolute standard...   And what if, in fact, the Bible has had a historically larger effect on "western" society than on "eastern" society (e.g. when Paul the apostle was directed into Europe by the Holy Spirit rather than into Asia, in Acts 16)?  Our goal is not the average of all cultures, but conformity to the Bible!
Learning about other cultures' subconscious/ingrained values can be helpful in understanding our own cultural glasses, but there is an equal danger of uncritically adopting other cultures' values.  The Bible alone is the perfect truth....

2. Is it really true that the Western value system is "guilt-innocence" based?   I think it might more accurately be characterized as "pleasure-pain" based instead.  In other words, Westerners seem to put highest value on personal pleasure, and avoiding personal pain.  "Doing the right thing" is not quite as important, subconsciously, it seems to me.  Pleasure comes in different forms - money, shopping, technology, entertainment, movies, sex, and most importantly, health...

3. The question is asked by others - how best may the Gospel be wrapped in a presentation that most appeals to the subconscious values of people in different cultures?  Paul talked about "becoming all things to all men so that I might by all means save some", referring to following Jewish cultural traditions when talking with the Jews, Greek cultural traditions when talking with the Greeks, etc.
Missiologists today talk about presenting the Gospel to Oriental Muslims in terms of "Christ the Victor who triumphed over sin and death and the devil and was brought to a position of supreme power and glory by His Father (Philippians 2)".  In other words, emphasize the parts of the gospel that most resonate with the cultural values of the person you're witnessing to.  Missiologists talk of couching the Gospel to tribalists in terms of the absolute power of God who raised His Son from the dead, "since it was impossible for Him to be held captive to it", and His absolute superiority and supremacy over all the evil spirits.  In the New Testament, whenever Christ commanded a spirit to do something, it had to obey immediately.
This understanding of cultural values has some usefulness, since the Bible does talk about these other "perspectives" on the Gospel...   But there are some pitfalls to be careful about.  Eventually the full counsel of God MUST be presented... and before the person 'converts' too! ...or else how will he/she be able to knowledgeably 'count the cost' of following Christ?  If the cost is not understood, there will be many initial converts, but most of them will fall away.
For example, the Oriental Muslim must understand that the way of Christ is characterized by extreme dishonor... "You will be hated by all men on account of My name," said Christ.  They will bring dishonor and shame upon their families.  Christ's own exaltation came after His extreme descent into degradation and dishonor (Philippians 2 again!).  The tribalist must understand that the way of Christ will be accompanied with extreme weakness (2 Corinthians 4).... "My grace is sufficient for you... [My] strength is perfected in [your] weakness..." said God in 2 Corinthians 12:9.

4. Perhaps the way to avoid the pitfalls is to focus on heaven!...
Will Jesus' disciples receive honor?  Absolutely... but it will only surely come in Heaven.  Before that, it will come and go capriciously.  On that day, the honor will come from God Himself.  John 5:44 - "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?"
Will Jesus' disciples receive power and be "set securely on high" forever (and get to judge the angels)?  Absolutely.  But there will be many valleys of weakness in this earthly life before we finally get there.
Will Jesus' disciples receive "pleasures forevermore"?  Absolutely.  Not here.  There.

5. Perhaps John Piper (known for his teaching of "Christian Hedonism") is a good example of wrapping the gospel in a message that is aimed directly at the pleasure-seeking hearts of Americans (including myself of course).   All his dozens of books are perfused with that thesis:  the eternal pleasures that come from God are eminently WORTH.... anything/everything/putting-Christ-first-and-obeying-Him.

6. I wonder if the cultural values of the so-called "Generation X" or "Generation Next" (the young generation of current Americans and Europeans) might be slightly modified from pleasure-pain....  namely, excitement-boredom.   In other words, having a life that is "fun" and "exciting" and "happening" and "in the center of the action" and "not-out-of-the-loop" might be a cultural value that is pervasive across American youth (and conversely, the thing to avoid at all costs is having a "boring" life).  Similar in some ways to the Roman culture right before they fell.... circuses, gladiators, people thrown to the lions in the Coliseum, etc...
Perhaps this is a slight shift in American cultural values...?  Or perhaps this is just the age factor, and the youth of all cultures would evince more of this than the elders?  But I wonder if the technology of America has exacerbated this trend.... e.g. Hollywood movies, television shows, video games, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

7. And so the challenge to the next generation of American evangelists....  what does the Gospel of Christ have to offer to excitement-hungry teens?   Is there any excitement to look forward to in heaven, that can sustain a disciple of Christ through the boring backwaters of God-focused earthly life?

I was reading John Mortenson's blog tonight, while reading more on the internet about the postmodernist/emergent controversy stewing at Cedarville University these days (about which I had already heard an inside perspective or two).  Specifically this post and especially the three other previous posts linked from that one.

I am so heartbroken to see my friends embracing postmodernism and "teaching others to do the same".  (I revived my similar post below from October of last year... same thoughts once again... these same thoughts burn through my mind increasingly more frequently).

I am delighted to see the love and acceptance which friends like Mortenson pour out on the needy people around them, and I seek to do this more myself.  But I have "great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart" when I see postmodern friends avoiding the exclusive and absolute teachings of God's Word (the Bible) and and allowing the culture to dictate the Church's perspective on the Bible, Christian life, and God Himself.

I will tread as lightly as possible as I quote below from Mortenson's earlier post:

"We go outside and he smokes. He is way across the yard from the children and worries that he is smoking too near them. He asks my permission to speak freely, meaning, can he swear in front of me. He says bullshit and watches to see if I will condemn him."...
Eddie comes by. Eddie is on the same road, but much farther gone. Eddie is deeply lined in his face, and skinny, and walks unrhythmically. He shakes hands with everyone over and over. Yeah, hey, hi, you’re a gentleman, thanks a lot, great to be here, shake my hand. He works a crowd like a politician. But this isn’t Eddie; this is Eddie’s robot, the mechanical part of him that the addiction needs to keep going. The addiction gladly kills all that is human, keeping only the smooth scheming parts, the clever negotiating parts, so that the body can get a little food and live another day and keep the addiction alive.
Ray knows this will be him.
He tells me where the crack houses are in this neighborhood, and then says this place gets bad after dark and he wants to leave now.  Gets bad? What could you meet that is worse than this?
He shakes my hand, not scheming like Eddie, but heavy and slow and sad. He walks away.
What Bible verse would you read to Ray?  ...
“Jesus of Nazareth…went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

There is an extremely fine line to walk.   It is good to be brokenhearted on behalf of others, to "weep with those who weep."   Yet there are words by which we are told to "comfort one another".   Jesus of Nazareth certainly did go about doing good and healing, but He also called people "broods of vipers" and even told some people "Go and sin no more".

Job's three friends sat with him in his misery for seven days without saying a word.  Then they opened their mouths.  The emergents/postmoderns say they should have kept their mouths closed-- that's where they went awry.

But I disagree.  Their problem was that they lost sight of God!   They "knew not the scriptures, nor the power of God".  They went astray not in their confidence about who God was, but in the content of their incorrect supposed knowledge.  They should have known from Genesis (Abraham's story, Joseph's story, etc) that God is not a cosmic karma machine.

The postmodernist will say, "But that's exactly it Tim - don't you see, Job's friends thought they knew God, but actually they were mistaken.  Herein is the lesson for us, never to speak with full authority or confidence on our interpretation of the Scriptures, because we might be wrong.  We ought never to rule out any perspective- be it McClaren, McClaine, or Bin Laden... because we might arrogantly miss some aspect of the truth that they could teach us."

Two thoughts in response: first a tiny caveat, then the main point.  Caveat- I agree that "100% certainty" is an unhelpful thing- it can lock one in to incorrect notions from which there is henceforth no possibility of getting out.  However, I suggest that 99.999...% "asymptotic certainty" is not only very legitimate in many cases, but that it can look outwardly indistinguishable from "100% certainty" in many situations.  Where do we ever see Jesus or Paul or Peter or any Biblical character preaching "Thus and thus says the Lord, and thus and thus you should do in response, but I might be mistaken in my interpretation of His message, so let's dialog about this-- what do you think God is saying to you?"    !
I do suspect that Peter and Paul and Jude had "only" 99.999...% asymptotic certainty, but it didn't preclude them from taking a firm, "dogmatic" stand on what God had previously stated (i.e. the very words)... and it didn't preclude them from saying things like "...I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.  For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."

Now the main point:
Notice the Emergent/Postmodern emphasis on avoiding condemnation... as in the quote above "...and watches to see if I will condemn him".    I suggest that the focus in Emergent/Postmodern Christianity is too small... too limited... too terrestial.   My arbiter ought not to be my fellow man.  In fact, if I am looking to peers' approval to make sure I am on the right spiritual track in life, I am committing idolatry.

Rather, my arbiter must be God Himself, through His Word, the Bible (unmediated by human gatekeepers of traditions, but rather aided through the Holy Spirit to understand (cf. Alvin Plantinga's writings on 'warrant')...  yet trusting even no "spirit guidance" except what concurs with the revealed written Word of God, following Jesus' example).

My chief concern should be whether Jesus Himself would want me to confront the swearing man or not... rather than whether or not the swearing man might feel uncomfortably 'judged' by a Christian and henceforth perhaps spurn God.

In the words of the old song, "There's a call going out..."   a call to all true Christians in America and the West... to be broken....  doubly broken... in Christ's service and for His sake.

The first brokenness is an empathetic understanding of our postmodern peers... to seek to understand where they're coming from, to listen to them, to engage in gentle kindness and hospitality to them, to avoid the strident sounds of 'harsh, fundamentalistic, modernistic, arrogant, simplistic, judgmental, thoughtless' Christianity whenever possible as part of 'becoming all things to all men.'  We are called to become 'as postmodern' to the postmoderns.

Yet Paul's veneers had limits, as must ours... and thus comes about the second brokenness.  Our postmodern culture tells us that all perspectives are equally valid, and if we believe differently, we will face ridicule, rejection, and persecution by our peers.   We must be willing to accept this rejection... we must be willing to be broken a second time.  To be villified on the one side by the moralists for our empathy and hospitality, and be villified on the other side by the emergents for our unswerving stand upon God's Word and for the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ.   To be villified by our supposedly Christian brethren on both sides, for the sake of Christ.  As Jesus so poignantly asked the Pharisees, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?"

We must be compassionate and loving, while simultaneously 'setting our faces like flint'.  We must be shrewd as serpents, but innocent as doves.

This is the call...   It is a call to love.  Not tolerance, which is cheap... but real love... tough love... which is excruciating.

We live in extremely challenging times...  God has placed us specifically here 'for such a time as this'.

The question was asked above: "What Bible verse would you read to Ray?"  I suggest that for us who truly follow Christ, this question cannot be a rhetorical one.

Check out my friend WesJanson's site for an extremely representative example of postmodern music.  (Watch the whole video clip.)

Western music progressed from the stately, ordered music of the chants, Baroque, and Classical, through the wild and reactionary Romantic era (as the "Enlightenment" philosophers increasingly rejected God in favor of autonomous humanism), to the even wilder and more reactionary Modern era (as the philosophers began to despair in the dark bleakness of atheism).   After the second World War and the Holocaust, as the shaken elite of the musical world began to try to react against Modernism and its sterile atonicity, there was only one direction to move (since without a transcendent foundation no positive statement of any kind could be formulated) -- ridicule of everything that came before.

Hence postmodern music seeks to elicit a response from its audience through novelty alone.  Novel sounds, novel instruments, using traditional instruments in novel ways... always trying to do the unexpected.  Making fun of everything that has come before.  'Everything is meaningless,' postmodernism claims.

(but that's only the 'under the sun' perspective...  willfully unaware of Him...)

here's a fascinating commentary link about a Nature article... and about the eminent scientists who are outraged by it...

And my thoughts:

The Nature magazine seems to be one of the premiere/avantgarde science magazines, as evidenced by the fascinating phenomena that they seem to be somewhat influenced by postmodernism, while still trying to retain their modernist materialist scientific outlook.  They are trying desperately to remain "mainstream scientific" in the naturalistic sense, without offending their increasingly postmodern constituency which believes that science does not have all the answers and that in fact nobody has ANY absolute answers.  Thus Nature recommends "reconciling" science and belief, by relegating belief to "myth" status.  Or perhaps "pleasant myth" or "traditional myth" or "cultural myth" status, if that floats your boat better.

But there are still some die-hard modernists (read the above article), who will not tolerate this mushiness.  I admire them, in a way.  Even though they come to the wrong conclusions, they are seeking the perfect goal - Truth.  They don't tolerate this "religious truth and scientific truth don't have to mesh" platitude.  "They have zeal, but not according to knowledge."