Foundations of Orality
Module 1
Explore God’s design for communicating among people created in His image. How can we communicate with higher impact and scale? We will discover how orality affects every aspect of communication.
Lesson 6 – Ways of Relating
This lesson will focus on the cluster related to ways of relating, namely the orality traits of identity, respect, and environment.
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Identity
🔗 Check out identity on
Delaminating groups
But you are a chosen people, set aside to be a royal order of priests, a holy nation, God’s own; so that you may proclaim the wondrous acts of the One who called you out of inky darkness into shimmering light.
1 Peter 2:9, VOICE
😃🤔🤯 Peter cites verses from the Old Testament that clearly distinguish Isreal from other nations and applies these characteristics to the Church. What are these distinguishing characteristics and how are they significant for the early church?
📔 Read Acts 15:1-35.
The early church struggled for unity and to find its new identity that could not be defined by kinship, economy, status, religion, politics, ethne, etc.
Different cultures (even those opposing each other) suddenly found themselves worshiping together. To make it possible, each side had let go of some of their cultural baggage.
🎞️
Watch this explainer video about the Social Identity Theory
😃🤔🤯 Think about a group in your community, like a sports club or religious organization, just to name two examples. With that group in mind, what distinguishes them from people outside of that group?
Self and others
Constantine Sedikides and his coworkers researched the concept of the three selves.1
Individual self
🙋🏻
Who am I?
These are the individual attributes of every person, like gender, talents, physique, and achievements.
Relational self
🙋🏻↔️💁🏾♂️
Who am I in relation to others?
These attributes are only apparent when individuals interact with others. One may be a teacher, father, disciple, or boss.
Collective self
👩🏾🏫👨🏾🏫👨🏾🎓
Who are we?
These attributes define groups. It is what makes them unique compared to other groups. Natialolity, kinship, or club membership are some examples of such groups.
Book or storyteller?
HOR: Generally, people emphasize the group over individuals.
LOR: Typically, the focus is on individuals and not the group.
One explanation for this distinction is that “Oral tradition is based on relationships. After all, it takes two or more to communicate by speaking. This relational aspect of orality helps us understand why many oral traditional cultures are also group oriented cultures.”2 Unlike reading, oral learning is always interactive.
🎞️
Watch The Bible Project video about Public Reading of Scripture.
Until I get there, make sure to devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching.
1 Timothy 4:13, VOICE
😃🤔🤯 Think about some benefits listening to Scripture together can have for your congregation.
Breaking ties
Low orality individuals often maintain numerous weak connections across various facets of life, like kinship, economics, politics, and religion. Breaking one tie does not have a big effect on other areas of like as replacement can reality be found.
HOR cultures generally possess fewer relational threads, yet these connections tend to be significantly stronger as they encompass multiple areas of life.3
😃🤔🤯 Imagine an individual whose kinship, political, economic, and religious connections all converge on just a handful of individuals. Cutting one tie could potentially isolate them from all other connections. What implications does this scenario hold for ministry among such people?
Respect
🔗 Check out respect on
Ascribed vs. achieved
Elihu had withheld his words from Job because he was younger than all four of them and knew it was improper to speak until each of them was heard, but when Elihu (Barachel’s son from Buz) realized the three men’s words were spent, his anger inflamed him.
Job 32:4-6, VOICE
😃🤔🤯 In your community, would people rather get advice from younger experts and experienced elders? Explain why.
Respected sources
HOR: In general, respect is ascribed due to status, age, or lineage.
LOR: Normally, respect is earned or achieved through academic titles and expertise.
😃🤔🤯 Find other examples in your culture and in the Bible of the clash between these 2 views.
In oral cultures, knowledge is transmitted from person to person, not books. Knowledge and experience accumulate the longer someone lives.4
In some cultures, prestige may be given just because of the family in which a person is born.5
Where learning from text is dominant, newly graduated university students have had years of exposure to the newest research in a field.
Instead of putting trust in words, sources, and research,6 oral people who say it can often outweigh what is said.7
The apostle Paul was aware of this dynamic when he gave tips to the young Timothy, who was assigned as pastor over Ephesus, possibly the most influential church of the time.
Don’t let anyone belittle you because you are young. Instead, show the faithful, young and old, an example of how to live: set the standard for how to talk, act, love, and be faithful and pure.
1 Timothy 4:12, VOICE
😃🤔🤯 Read Esther 3:1-10, 6:1-10 and underline all instances of respect and memory.
Written law vs. community relations
In honor-shame cultures, value is placed on social status and reputation, with behavior aimed at preserving honor and avoiding shame.
Guilt-innocence cultures prioritize individual responsibility and adherence to moral standards, with guilt resulting from wrongdoing and innocence from obedience to those standards.
😃🤔🤯 Before reading on, reflect on the differences and see how these differences fit LOR and HOR cultures.
📔 Read Daniel 6.
Language in Western theology is often centered around the law.8 The emphasis on guilt-innocence in Western culture can be traced back to the Roman Empire, where the emperor was subject to the law. Many early theologians, who were also lawyers, emphasized guilt-innocence in their theological teachings.9
🎙️
Listen to this podcast with Werner Mischke titled Honor and Shame Meets Orality.
While Western theology emphasises the law, the Bible (even Paul’s letter to the Romans) uses more terminology around the theme of honor-shame.10
Shame is not just a subjective feeling but is affects the relationship with each other and ultimately with God.11
😃🤔🤯 Enlist 5-10 passages from the Bible that focus on honor-shame and how it affects relationships to others and to God.
Power distance
🎞️
Watch Geert Hofstede talk about Power Distance.
Hierarchies exist in every culture.12 Hofstede’s power distance concept explores how high-power-distance cultures accept and expect significant inequalities in power distribution, while low-power-distance cultures tend to minimize such inequalities.13
High power distance
Low power distance
🎞️
Watch Oliver Phillips explain the difference of High vs. Low Power Distance.
😃🤔🤯 How does power distance affect teaching, churches, and ministry?
Environment
🔗 Check out environment on
We are the land
🎞️
Watch the documentary We are the Land.
When I die let me lie with my ancestors. Take my body away from Egypt, and bury me where they are buried.
Joseph: I will do as you ask, Father.
Genesis 47:30, VOICE
Many people groups in the world see a deeper connection to their land than just their utility value. The above verse and many other verses in the Bible also show a more significant connection to the land.
HOR: Generally, the connection to the land is more significant than its utility. People also tend to include the immaterial world as part of their environment.
LOR: The primary value of the land is its utility. Usually, there is a distinction between the visible and the invisible worlds.
(Sacred) places and conduct
Schools, offices, and other settings often require specific behavior. Depending on the environment, a particular dress code might be expected. In different cultures, dress codes and behavior standards can vary, even for similar types of places.
Most cultures have sacred places, which often come with specific rules for dress, behavior, and conduct. These expectations can vary widely. For example, while many Muslim and Jewish men are expected to wear a head covering during prayer, Christian men typically remove theirs as a sign of respect.
😃🤔🤯 Draw a picture illustrating improper behavior in a specific setting from your culture.
The unseen
📔 Read one of the following stories:
- Balak and Balaam (Numbers 22-24)
- Saul and Samuel (1 Samuel 28)
- The Ark’s Power (1 Samuel 4-6)
- Elisha and his servant (2 Kings 6:8-23)
- Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20)
😃🤔🤯 What can we learn about the connection between the visible and invisible worlds? Write down your observations.
🎞️
Watch this short introduction to Animism.
Some basics of animistic worldview:14
- All visible things exist as immaterial double.
- The immaterial double is a lookalike of the real thing.
- The immaterial double is indestructible.
- The visible and immaterial worlds are interconnected but separable. They are not the same.
- The visible material thing incomplete without its immaterial double.
The animistic view of human nature:
- The immaterial double is experienced in dreams.
- Some languages use the same word for the immaterial double, one’s shadow, and reflection.
- The immaterial double of humans has its own SEIC (Seat of Emotion, Intellect & Character).
- The immaterial double of the dead continue to exist as good or evil spirits.
- The immaterial double of humans and the soul are not the same. Many similarities may exist, but both concepts are different.
Animism isn’t a religion; it’s a belief system based on oral principles and practics. It often blends with other text-based religions like Christianity and Islam, creating a mix known as syncretism.
Cross-cultural workers must address these issues using oral practices as a way to avoid syncretism and the so-called Folk Religion Orality Gap 🐸.15
😃🤔🤯 Is syncretism a problem in your ministry? How can you find out more about what your people believe about the immaterial world? Interview 3 persons and let THEM explain what THEY believe about the invisible world.
Footnotes
- 📃 Constantine Sedikides, Lowell Gaertner, and Erin M. O’Mara, “Individual Self, Relational Self, Collective Self: Hierarchical Ordering of the Tripartite Self,” Psychological Studies 56, no. 1 (March 2011): 98–107. ↩︎
- 📖 Teresa Janzen and Gary Teja, “Church Planting in the Context of Oral Cultures,” in A World of Gods: Planting Churches in a Pluralistic World, ed. Gary Teja and John Wagenveld (Sauk Village, IL: Multiplication Network Ministries, 2021), 338. ↩︎
- 📖 Michael A. Rynkiewich, Soul, Self, and Society: A Postmodern Anthropology for Mission in a Postcolonial World (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 70–72. ↩︎
- 📖 Jack Goody, “Oral Culture,” in Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications-Centered Handbook, ed. Richard Bauman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 16. ↩︎
- 📖 Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally: A Model for Effective Personal Relationships (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2016), 82. ↩︎
- 📖 George R. Knight, Philosophy & Education: An Introduction in Christian Perspective, 4th ed (Berrien Springs, Mich: Andrews University Press, 2006), 23. ↩︎
- 📃 Timothy Hatcher, “Orality as Contextualization in South Asia,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2022): 21. ↩︎
- 🎙️ Cameron D. Armstrong and Werner Mischke, “Honor and Shame Meets Orality: A Conversation with Werner Mischke,” Audio podcast episode, Orality and the Mission of God, n.d., 0:09:45. ↩︎
- 📖 Roland Müller, Honor and Shame: Unlocking the Door (Philadelphia, Pa.: Xlibris Corp., 2000), 27–34. ↩︎
- 📃 Tom Steffen, “Minimizing Crosscultural Evangelism Noise,” Missiology: An International Review 43, no. 4 (2015): 413–28. ↩︎
- 📃 Jackson Wu, “Have Theologians No Sense of Shame? How the Bible Reconciles Objective and Subjective Shame,” Themelios 43, no. 2 (2018): 205–19. ↩︎
- 📃 Stephen Darwall, “1 Respect as Honor and as Accountability,” in Honor, History, and Relationship: Essays in Second-Personal Ethics II (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), 10–29. ↩︎
- 📖 Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind; Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival, Rev. and expanded 3. ed (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 53–88. ↩︎
- 📖 Lothar Käser, Animism: A Cognitive Approach, trans. Derek Cheeseman (Nürnberg: VTR Publ, 2014). ↩︎
- 📃 Jay Angeles and Danyal Qalb, “Deterring Syncretism: The Use of Orality to Close the Gap between Formal and Folk Religion,” Journal of Asian Mission 23, no. 2 (2022): 39–63. ↩︎
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