Four Degrees of Cultural Separation[i]
Cultural
sensitivity grows out of an awareness of cultural difference. The figure below lists
four barriers to cultural understanding, or what I am calling four degrees of
cultural separation. Going from left to right, the figure moves from the least
difficult barrier to overcome to the most difficult. Ironically the evangelical
Church, with a few exceptions, has had difficulty getting past the first degree
of “cultural fundamentalism.“ 
A.
Cultural
Fundamentalism
There
are two concepts that are growing. The
first is the multi-congregational church where at least two churches with
different cultures worship in the same building. In a multi-congregational church,
where two or more cultures are represented, there is likely to be conflicting
worship and music preference. In our Cambridge church, a Haitian congregation,
started by my predecessor, met during our church service upstairs, in our
church building. The volume of their service would, at times, become too
disruptive for our worship service. These differences were understood by both
congregations. When it would become too loud, a designated person would go
quietly to their sound person to make the Haitian church aware of the problem.
Soon there would be a noticeable lowering of the decibel level. Awareness,
cooperation, and communication were the keys. In Cambridge, with five churches,
a spirit of cooperation by all was also crucial.The second concept that is growing is the multi-cultural church. Because our multi-cultural congregation in Cambridge has been about half African-American for the last forty years, it is also inter-generational. Often, churches with multiple cultures represented, are likely to be almost uniformly young. Many of these churches are composed of the children of immigrants who prefer to worship in English. Since difficulties with the first degree of cultural separation are most often generational, this degree of separation would seem to be relatively easily bridged in these congregations.
Worship and music preferences are most often a product of culture. As knowledge increases it does so exponentially. This means that change will also tend to increase exponentially over time, and new cultural contexts will be created in much less time than we have seen in the past. These new contexts can differ significantly even from the previous generation. The context can, in fact, be so unlike the previous generation that different values and preferences come into play. Thus, we can observe an added aspect of the first degree of cultural separation.
This phenomenon is not new to the Church. In the 1960s, the Baby Boomers were raised in an economically prosperous post-war era by parents who had lived through the Great Depression. The disparities that resulted between the two generations touched almost every area of their lives: lifestyles, worship, and music. Partly due to their parent’s rigidity, the Boomers left the Church (they make up 30% of the population and only 15% of the Church). The Millennials, the children of the Boomers, have grown up in the Digital Age. The explosion of Information Technology is making the emergence of an additional cultural shift increasingly probable. Can the Church keep up?
Churches are by their nature conservative, and tend to equate methods with the message. At this lowest level of separation, one would think that Christian charity would prevail in the Church. Sadly, too often, even these differences are not able to be bridged. If a church wishes to minister cross-culturally, it becomes almost necessary to overcome this degree of separation.
What can the Church do to cross this barrier?
What have you done, in your congregation?
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