Culture is an integrated system of beliefs, of values, of customs, and of institutions, which express these beliefs, values, and customs, which bind a society together and five it a gene of identity, dignity, security, and continuity.

Whenever someone enters into a new culture they face many things, Cultural Diversity, Cultural Walls, Cultural Ignorance, and Cultural Challenges. The first thing someone sees in a new culture is their language, their customs, their race, social organizations, laws, etc. The things which form their culture. What are their holidays? What is wrong in their culture? What customs do they have?

Here is out first Cultural Anthropology: Entering, when you enter you begin to see their forms.

(Sorry the diagrams are a bit rough, but it paint’s a good picture).

Now you get to the heart of a culture. Their world view drives everything they do, believe, and how they view life. This is wear the second point of our Cultural Anthropology comes into play: Understanding. We must get to the heart, the deepest part of a society if we are to really understand its world view, and ultimately if we are going to make any difference.

To many missionaries try to go in and change a cultures customs, etc. Or perhaps they get a little deeper, and try to approach their morality, their view of Good and Evil, say that it is wrong to lie to your neighbor, say that their family really is important, etc.

It is like going to a doctor and finding that you have something wrong with you internally, the doctor however, addresses the symptoms, the cough, the itchiness, give you medication to make the symptoms go away, but hasn’t addressed the real problem. In the same way to many people try to address the issues, the symptoms, the values and forms, without realizing that out of the world view, out of the internal, springs the external.

When you address the internal, the world view, and can bring understanding on that level, then the external values and forms can be addressed, but without the world view being changed, the external is just treating the symptoms.

Even when addressing our current culture, we would do well to understand this chart, and its true implication. The full list for my Cultural anthropology is:

• Entering
• Understanding
• Evangelizing
• Planting Churches

When we go out into our culture, if we understand the world view, and get to the heart of the problem, like the doctor gets past the symptoms, and addresses the root of the problem, then we can address the world view, and the root of the spiritual problem.

Cultural context can be away to get attention, for instance, we celebrate a holiday called Easter in this country, that is a form, a custom. Now putting that into cultural context, we can use that to get someone’s attention, get through the outer layer of the form of the holiday, you can eventually to the world view, why do we even celebrate the holiday, what does it represent?

Overview of lesson:

In every culture we can see the form, the everyday customs, laws etc. Under the from is the value system, which determines the form, views on family, morality, etc.

All this springs from the world view, the world view determines the values, and the forms which we see. The world view is what we need to get at to address the real spiritual problem.