JOURNAL OF BIBLE STORYING
iSSUE 13, January 2015
iSSUE 13, January 2015
Role of Worldview in Story Selection
Many years ago I recall a friend with another mission group saying to me, “You Baptists are loose cannons. You come into a new culture and assume it is just like your culture and based on your assumptions you choose what and how to communicate the Gospel.” He said this in a half joking manner as we talked. But he was right. With my background in radio broadcasting I knew about market research and how a good understanding of radio listeners could guide the programmer in choosing how to present programs and how listeners might respond when hearing the programs. But I had not given much thought to the matter beyond the media work I was sent to do. A wake up call came when the missionary advisor to the local student center in Manila sat down with his Filipino director and the two of them and staff assessed the typical spiritual worldview of Filipino students and then developed a witnessing approach that was sensitive to the typical student’s worldview. Each student as they applied for a privilege card to use the center was presented this witness. What was amazing was the high percentage of students professing Jesus as Savior as opposed to previous approaches that followed typical worldview assumptions for witnessing. During this time the radio programming and follow-up staff in Manila was learning from listener mail many things about their spiritual worldview and even their life felt needs. This information was used to develop a new drama format based on listener letters that proved to be very effective in listener response mail that provided many opportunities for follow-up mailouts like direct mail and witness. I had all this background in my mind when introduced to Chronological Bible Teaching that later evolved into Chronological Bible Storying with a primary emphasis upon the told Bible story. The missionary that popularized Chronological Bible Teaching listed a general description of the characteristics of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Satan as well as that of sinful man. It was a kind of generic doctrinal guideline but not necessarily specific to the tribal culture of the people he worked among. He was successful at least in part because he lived among the people and had everyday contact with them. No doubt he had learned how to work intuitively among his people. When I read his conference materials I followed his general spiritual issue guidelines but soon found that I needed both more specific knowledge and adaptable guidelines for the several very different worldviews I worked among. I knew about Chronological Bible Teaching but had not really been exposed to the methodology or thought how it might be applied to my ministry among different peoples. This came when copies of the God and Man Bible story lessons that had been prepared for a specific people group in the Philippines were shipped to Bangladesh along with a set of Bible teaching pictures. The missionary staff in Bangladesh received the materials but did not know what to do with them. As the designated media person (I suppose because of the pictures) I was asked to go there and provide an overview of how to use the Bible story lessons and pictures. My newness to the methodology and real lack of experience or knowledge in adapting the resources provided a pretty cloudy picture of how to use the Bible story lessons from the Philippines in that country. Response by pastors and missionaries to my presentation was lukewarm. Not long after this request I was invited back to go into selected rural areas to provide personal training for pastors and believers in how to use the God and Man lessons. The places were a mix of animistic, Hindu background and occasionally Muslims background peoples. The story lessons worked reasonably well among the animist worldview tribal people, but not as well among the others. Soon I learned that similar materials sent to Thailand did not fare well among Buddhists. I was puzzled as these stories were from the Word of God and should be powerful to teach and convict of sin and lead listeners to professions of faith. While puzzling over what to do, several things came to my attention. First was a paper written by four New Tribes missionaries in the Philippines that was titled The Ibaloi Barriers[i] that listed and gave detail about four significant worldview barriers to the Gospel among the Ibaloi people. If anyone is interested I still have a copy of this paper. Shortly afterward a friend in Japan sent me a report of the papers from the Hayama Missionary Seminar in Japan. The booklet was titled The Gospel Encounters the Japanese Worldview: Bridges or Barriers.[ii] Besides getting some good insights on the Japanese worldview I really benefitted from the classification of issues into bridges or barriers that could be related to specific Bible stories. Colleague Jim Slack had shared with me a handout from a demographic and worldview conference in neighboring Malaysia. This added a list of categories to use in determining cultural, demographic and spiritual worldview information. I had a copy of James P. Spradley’s The Ethnographic Interview[iii] that talked about gathering information about a culture. And finally I ran across an article by David (Dubby) Rodda in SEEDBED Journal of Arab World Ministries titled “Sharing the Gospel with Muslims: a Chronological Approach”[iv] that compared in a simple chart the West African Muslim beliefs with those of the Disciples. Then he addressed Major Points of Difference with Muslims and Basic Christian Doctrines Necessary for Salvation. At last I had a collection of information that pointed to a way I could use in selecting Bible stories and preparing dialogue learning sessions that could benefit from worldview knowledge about my listeners. This led me to select some different stories to add to those I was using and in some cases to replace several stories with what seemed to be better choices because of local worldview. This definitely improved my teaching as listeners related to the carefully chosen stories better. I also learned that some stories that were good substantial stories at times needed a pre-story to prepare listeners for the main story, and perhaps a follow-through story or two to show consequences or outcome of the major story. While this was coming together I was being invited more and more to tell the Bible stories in villages where there were significant Muslim populations. These, too, were educational as I encountered many questions and comments that indicated topics and events that were difficult for listeners to accept or understand. In these all day Bible Storying sessions the men would gather near me while women came and sat on the periphery to listen, but not to participate in discussions. I noticed that the women often talked among themselves, and then a story or some event in a story would catch their attention, and they stopped talking to listen. Then at some point the women would lose interest and resume talking among themselves. What was triggering their interest and attention? Again the Lord was gracious to provide access to initial women’s worldview information. First was a book titled Birth Ritual in Rural Bangladesh.[v] The book was a goldmine of worldview information for both Hindu women and Muslim women in that country. I shared this information with several women Bible storyers who then helped me to gain additional worldview information through their informants. A synopsis of the significant issues were then used to select and prepare the Bible stories and the dialogue learning activities used in the God and Woman[vi] story set. Another book that I no longer have in my possession was about rural agriculture in Bangladesh and why many development projects failed due to prevalent worldview and culture issues among farmers. An understanding of these issues, even though about agriculture, had clues about change in general that applied in many cases to spiritual change as well. Through using the women’s story set my team learned that still some worldview issues were not being addressed. A key issue was related to the need for belief in Jesus as Savior and not just acceptance of him as a caring person who was kind to women, and the matter of Paradise or the life beyond for women. A sequel soon followed titled Heaven is for Women[vii] that contained for the new missionary an overview of beliefs regarding Paradise for women. The women needed a stronger emphasis on relationship with the Father through Jesus, the prospect of benefit for the believer in their everyday life and needs, and the assurance of God’s desire and place for women believers in heaven. I am sharing this journey into a working knowledge of listener worldviews to show how it changed the way that I developed Bible Storying strategies that were informed by listener worldview that was sensitive to, but not driven by that worldview, as this needed to be theologically driven to accomplish the evangelism, church planting and discipleship tasks. I was grateful for the invitation to join Jim Slack in both East and West Africa for a series of Bible Storying training sessions for missionaries and national leaders. There I was introduced to African Traditional Religion in biblical perspective and from the African worldview. I’ll not list these books, many which were purchased in Africa and contributed to my understanding of both generic and specific worldviews common among the peoples. Of course, the teams were also encountering the folk Islam of Africans that along with Traditional Religion was mixed with animism. A later discovery for East Africa was a book by Gailyn Van Rheenen, Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts,[viii] Van Rheenen used his experience with the Kipsigis people of Kenya to explore an animistic worldview and then to compare it with a Christian worldview. What is a Worldview? Worldview is a distinctive way in which a people define reality which shapes their cultural allegiances and provides interpretations of the world. This worldview forms basic assumptions about reality which in turn inform cultural beliefs and behavior. Michael Kearney says, "The worldview of a people is their way of looking at reality. It consists of basic assumptions and images which provide a more or less coherent, though not necessarily accurate, way of thinking about the world"[ix] It is their “set of images and assumptions about the world (Kearney, 1984, p. 10). David Hesselgrave in Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally[x] gives several definitions of worldview along with chapters describing typical major worldviews. I used a diagram in my early teaching in Africa in an attempt to conceptualize how to integrate worldview and other cultural information into the Bible story and learning/ teaching activities. I prepared two diagrams that illustrated the typical missionary’s worldview that I depicted as an “I” to show that our worldview and spiritual beliefs used in teaching were ours and were integrated without reference to listeners’ worldview. Then I devised a second diagram that was shaped like a “Y” that separated out the listeners’ worldview and culture separately from the doctrinal truths and task that the missionary attempted to do. The original “Y” diagram looked to some like I was putting listeners’ worldview on an equal footing with biblical truths. So I revised the diagram to lower the worldview leg below the biblical truths and to show it informing the story selection process, but not driving the process. I don’t use this diagram much anymore in training, but it was helpful for deciding how to relate the worldview information to a subservient but important informing role. Since I presented my thinking during a training conference in Lomé, Togo. The name became attached and stuck as the Lomé “Y”. I would be happy to share either or both these diagrams to anyone interested. Do listeners know what their worldview is? The answer probably is, “No.” Worldview is so integrated in our culture and beliefs that it takes someone on the outside to observe the differences. Listeners to Bible Storying simply believe and do what is natural, intuitive and normative in their culture without questioning what is so. We do that, too. Did I teach worldview to the listeners I worked among? “No,” I did not because they do not separate concepts like this from common practice, and they just do and believe things that seem rational and practical to them. Part of the Bible Storying task is to transform listeners’ worldview by providing a better and related or integrated worldview that supplants a worldview that is in error or lacking with gaps in knowledge. Some ask the question: Isn’t the Bible generic or universal enough so that it is not important to spend time considering worldview? This has led to selection of story sets that are purely based on our rational presentation of Bible stories or truths. This can work, and in some cases works fine. But let me illustrate an example. I recall a rather complete presentation of the Plan of Salvation. The listener seemed to follow the logic. When I asked for their response it was, “But I am not a sinner!” In the person’s worldview they were not accountable to the Christian God, but only to their own culture. I found that sin was most often described in India as failure to fulfill your caste birth expectations. One day while out with my interpreter, I saw a young man carrying a heavy burden on his back. He was bent over struggling with the weight of the burden. A rope was tied around his neck and a man following close behind was holding the rope and from time to time beating the boy with a stick. I was appalled and asked my interpreter what was happening? What had the boy done to deserve that treatment? My interpreter casually informed me that the boy was bearing the family sins to the temple to have them expunged! I continued to struggle to get a definition of sin in that culture until I learned that a heart need of many was to have true peace. Also there was a concern regarding ritual defilement. Sin is that which separates us from our Creator God because of disobedience. And when this happens we have no peace in our hearts. And sin defiles us so that we are unclean in the presence of a righteous holy God. I am quick to say that I am not an expert in all the Asian worldviews that I have encountered. But I will say that I have a much better understanding of the belief systems that the people had and how these affected the hearing and understanding of new information challenging their existing beliefs. When working among pastors training them to know and use Bible stories in their ministry I gave time for discussion. Their questions often high-lighted worldview issues. When I questioned their choice of stories at times, they responded that their story spoke better to their people than one I had chosen based on my knowledge of the people. I watched for these patterns and learned from them. I did not always understand the “why” but did accept the pastors’ choices as filtered through their intuitive worldview and that of their people. We often arrived at local worldview-sensitive story sets by teaching a wide pre-selection of stories, associating a teaching picture with each story, and then spreading all the pictures out on a table and letting the group I was training select the stories they thought best spoke to their people and best presented the Redemption Story. When I questioned some of their choices, most could not tell me why, but could say that their choice was better as they understood their people. Back to the question of a generic biblical worldview, or the need for selective choices that related to typical worldviews of listeners. If we work among a people long enough, we as Bible storyers or church planter missionaries begin to do things intuitively that we have learned through trial and error. This is fine for us because if we fail in our teaching we simply revise and try again. But a common worldview issue I encountered is that of shame when a person fails in their objective. In one country where I worked even pastors would shy away from witnessing again to people who did not respond the first time. There were many reasons for this like shame in failure. Many important decisions are made communally with the consensus of all the community. Other decisions are put off until a person has time to think about the implication for themselves, their families, their community, and as I discovered in Bali, a concern for the response or retribution by their former deities. Sometimes we shy away from using certain stories because we may abhor them due to our own culture or worldview. I don’t particularly like the story of Jephthah’s Rash Vow when Jephthah vowed to sacrifice whoever came out to meet him if God gave him victory. Who should do it, but his own young daughter. Thankfully the story spares us the grisly details, but infers that the daughter asked for a time with her friends before submitting to her father to fulfill his vow. (Judges 11:31-40) But this story seems to work well in cultures where honor is important. Failure to honor a commitment to a person greater than oneself is shameful. Jephthah had to fulfill his vow to God in order to honor him. The daughter had to submit (honor) to her father so that he could in turn honor God. Actually the story sets up the submission of Jesus who honored God by submitting to the cross. I don’t think the story would work as well in a Sunday school class in the U.S. I get many requests from churches asking about local beliefs of the people they plan to visit on their next mission trip. Sometimes I can provide some general guidelines. Occasionally there is information available on the Internet that needs to be ferreted out of articles that are not specifically describing worldviews. I suggest writing local missionaries to ask typical questions about God, Jesus, sin, salvation, etc. This information not only can suggest certain stories to use, but can also suggest that sometimes one story may need other stories to help set it up or explain it. I go into more detail about this in Oralizing Bible Stories for Telling (Church Starting Network, Amazon) that suggests some story groups that work well this way. I had earlier mentioned classifying worldview information as bridges or barriers. There is another neutral classification we usually call gaps. These are things in local worldview not satisfactorily answered. Let me illustrate. Among the ethnic Burmese who are traditionally Buddhist there is great fear of what lies beyond one’s death. One can never be sure how their karma will affect their future reincarnation. In the course of choosing and using Bible stories the matter of a guaranteed destiny after death was a revelation to those unsure of their destiny. Knowing this points to stories that speak to this certainty. Also in the post story learning time the discussion can focus on this gap. Worldview and culture are entwined and one affects the other. In developing Bible stories for women, since many of them were not literate, the initial plan was to simplify the Bible stories. This often means simply narrating the dialogue rather than chopping up the narrative to insert the spoken words of the story characters. I did simplify stories in this way for the God and Woman resource. The women did not like the result. I still remember one woman saying to the storyer, “The stories have no taste!” What to do? It meant revising 90 Bible stories to reinstall the character dialogue. The women enjoyed hearing the characters talking with each other. And in the process we found that characters could say things in the stories that we could not in the course of teaching without angering some listeners. In the stories of Jesus this was very helpful to allow many persons and even God himself speaking and telling who Jesus was. This little bit of distancing usually had an accumulative effect on listeners. Many missionaries have written me asking what things should they look for when discovering worldview. I complied a rather lengthy list of questions to ask and issues to look into. I call the list a Spiritual Inventory list. I was primarily concerned with the spiritual beliefs rather than the demographic information about a people. That information is important to know, too, but is not always as helpful in selecting which stories to include or how to tell and dialogue them. In the early days some personnel attacked the worldview issues with a zeal. The quest for gathering worldview information became the goal rather than using this information to select and shape presentations of Bible stories leading to faith in Jesus and new churches. While this may be a worthy goal if one is working on a dissertation, it can be an elusive goal. First, worldviews are becoming more dynamic and changing as those who have formerly lived in isolated places are being touched by electronic media and contact with those outside their culture. I saw this beginning to happen among the Iban people in East Malaysia who have lived in isolated jungle longhouses. But as roads are being cut into the jungle so that vehicles can come and go allowing workers to find jobs away from their people, new ideas and change is coming to the Iban people. Fortunately, this has been generally favorable to an openness to the gospel. Even the JESUS Film has had a tremendous impact on the Muslim world. There was quite a bit of early resistance at depicting a prophet. But as the film continued to be screened among a people there has been a growing acceptance of the story of Jesus. I can recall in the early days when the film was still only available on 16 mm reels of showing the second reel with the Crucifixion first and then going back to the first reel and Birth and continuing with the second reel again. Another thing some of us discovered was the need first to tell the Old Testament stories to provide a perspective pointing to Jesus as the Promised One. One other observation is that an outsider can never know everything about a people’s worldview. There are some things the people may not talk about to an outsider. I learned to be a patient student to observe what people did and try to relate the observations to events that were happening. When training new missionaries I suggested learning as much as possible about the past history and events that may have preconditioned people to be open or resistant to the gospel. Next was to learn about current events that also predisposed the people toward change or a better way, and also that might be hindrances. And finally the future hopes and desires of the people as well as their fears regarding change and its effect on individuals, their families or communities. There are many sources for this information. But the one that I often enjoyed was a personal exchange of stories and talk that in effect exchanged worldview information. I was careful not to “top” their stories but to share stories they could understand and relate to. Some of the most delightful times were those sharing times with my interpreters. One team I worked with in South India took two years of working night and day with them on the road with radio program follow-up visits and later all-day Bible Storying events until at last we became one—I was accepted as one of them, no longer an outsider, sharing worldview and vision. Jesus and Worldview. Jesus understood the worldview of his people. The Pharisees were proud and self-righteous. They did things to call attention to what they were doing. Jesus said, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do...” (Matt. 6:16) About prayer Jesus said, “But when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.” (Matt 6:5) They valued tradition and resisted anything that seemed to devalue or displace tradition. They valued ritual above meaning. We may read with humor their comments about Jesus’ eating with sinners, or when in Simon the Pharisee’s house and the woman came in to anoint the feet of Jesus, that Simon commented mentally to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:39) But some like Nicodemus had a changing worldview that allowed him to compliment Jesus as a teacher come from God who could not perform the miraculous signs unless God were with him. (John 3:2) Jesus faced a challenge with the disciples he chose even though initially some like Andrew and Peter came to him as they saw in him the fulfillment of the promised Messiah. Changing their faith was challenged on several occasions like Calming the Storm, and the two recorded feedings of the multitudes. This transformation was not complete until after the resurrection and Jesus’ ascension. Likewise, Paul’s Pharaisic worldview had to be shattered and replaced with a Messianic worldview that placed faithfully serving Christ above hardship and suffering. One of the tribal men attending Bible Storying training said to me, “Now that I follow Jesus, what does he want me to do?” Actually his worldview was already undergoing transformation as he now understood that in his country he was a lowly tribal. Now in God’s sight he had status as a child of the King who had a new family of fellow believers. LaNette Thompson, while still serving in West Africa, prepared a set of Bible story lessons that she titled “What Jesus Wants His Disciples to Know and Do.” The lessons provide a study to transform new believers’ worldview. The initial evangelism lessons challenge listeners’ worldview and initiate the transformation. But discipling is needed to continue the worldview transformation to that of an obedient follower of Jesus as Lord. Now a challenge is to provide training for new pastors to continue the transformation of their worldview and to give a solid foundation to avoid syncretism or any negative restructuring of the Bible’s teaching. Worldview transformation comes about through hearing about better beliefs with benefits and consequences if not heeded, through watching the lives and actions of believers, especially to see what they do when times of crisis and need occur. And finally worldview transformation is strengthened by obedience—obeying the new and better teaching that leads to spiritual satisfaction and blessing. One last thought: I am not against use of a generic or universal biblical worldview. It is a beginning point. In one country where I lived and worked it was generally sufficient as many wanted to be a part of the family of God. But in other countries I found that certain Bible truths needed to be strongly emphasized to challenge and displace unbelievers’ worldviews. And by paying attention to these issues it was possible to deepen the impact of the Bible message and listeners’ relation to what they needed to believe and do. When those new to Bible Storying write asking about choosing Bible stories to tell, I begin by asking them to tell me about the worldview of their people. I have faith they already know the spiritual truths leading to salvation. [i] Tim Castagna, Paul Burnham, & Peter Baker, “Ibaloi Barriers Paper,” New Tribes Mission, 1988. [ii] “The Gospel Encounters the Japanese Worldview (Bridges or Barriers), Hayama Missionary Seminar, 28th Annual Report,1987. [iii] James P. Spradley, The Ethnographic Interview, Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1979. [iv] David Rodda, “Sharing the Gospel with Muslims: A Chronological Approach,” SEEDBED, Vol. VII, No. 4, Arab World Ministries. [v] Thérèse Blanchet, Meanings and Rituals of Birth in Rural Bangladesh : women, pollution, and marginality. Dhaka, Bangladesh: University Press, 1984. [vi] J. O. Terry, God and Woman, Amazon. [vii] J. O. Terry, Heaven is for Women, Amazon. [viii] Gailyn Van Rheenen, Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts, Baker Book House, 1991 [ix] Michael, Kearney, World View. Novato, CA: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc. 1982, p. 51. [x] David J. Hesselgrave, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally, Zondervan. 2nd ed. J. O. Terry, Bible Storying Network, [email protected] |