thinking
::: tonight's bible study on acts 17 -- paul's incisive areopagus address -- was insightful in many ways...our church members drew parallels between paul's athenian audience (many of whom were epicureans who, in paul's day, lived for sensual pleasure or stoics who lived for rigid moral standards and oneness with nature) and similar sectors evident in japanese society...
...everyone participated actively in the study...except one member, who sat quietly until the final minutes...but it's her statement that has us thinking...
..."if someone talked directly to me about God," she said firmly, referring to paul's direct approach to the athenians, "i would never accept that person's words"....
...all the other members around the table agreed...
...the groupthink seemed to be this: a direct, confrontational style simply does not register with positive force among japanese people...of course you can say the same thing about people everywhere (for who wants to be told by a stranger that he or she is going to hell)...but american evangelicalism has a rich history of confrontational evangelism (think back to the great revivals of the late-17th (g. whitefield and j. edwards), late 19th (d.l. moody), and mid-20th centuries (b. graham and h. ockenga))...
...as our church members explained to us, when it comes to japanese people, a high premium is placed on consensus and conformity, meaning that decisions of religious/spiritual affiliation are governed more by group harmony than individual preference (my readings of nakane's japanese society [1998, univ. of cal berkeley press] and nisbett's geography of thought [2003, free press] appear to reinforce this point)...
...consensus outweighing confrontation...wrestling with the import and implications of this dialectic lies at the heart of our work...
...everyone participated actively in the study...except one member, who sat quietly until the final minutes...but it's her statement that has us thinking...
..."if someone talked directly to me about God," she said firmly, referring to paul's direct approach to the athenians, "i would never accept that person's words"....
...all the other members around the table agreed...
...the groupthink seemed to be this: a direct, confrontational style simply does not register with positive force among japanese people...of course you can say the same thing about people everywhere (for who wants to be told by a stranger that he or she is going to hell)...but american evangelicalism has a rich history of confrontational evangelism (think back to the great revivals of the late-17th (g. whitefield and j. edwards), late 19th (d.l. moody), and mid-20th centuries (b. graham and h. ockenga))...
...as our church members explained to us, when it comes to japanese people, a high premium is placed on consensus and conformity, meaning that decisions of religious/spiritual affiliation are governed more by group harmony than individual preference (my readings of nakane's japanese society [1998, univ. of cal berkeley press] and nisbett's geography of thought [2003, free press] appear to reinforce this point)...
...consensus outweighing confrontation...wrestling with the import and implications of this dialectic lies at the heart of our work...
:::
posted by B & C at
10:45 PM
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