Cultural Anthropology in Christian Perspective (original) (raw)
begin by telling their journeys as anthropologists both motivated by faith. While Janell's research was about ghetto formation and resident activism like racial and economic issues, Brian specialty is Global Christianity, short-term mission and church organization. A few technical terms were introduced like anthropos which is the Greek word for human and cultural anthropology as the description, interpretation and analysis of similarities and differences in human cultures.
MB 700 Anthropology for Christian Mission
2004
Textbook: Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, fifth edition by Gary Ferraro Readings: Anthropology and Christian Mission: A Reader, Darrell Whiteman (ed.)
MB 830 Anthropology for American Church Ministry
1998
1. John Naisbitt (1982) Megatrends 2. Eugene Nida (1954 or 1997) Customs and Cultures 3. David Burnett (1990) Clash of Worlds 4. William Dyrness (1989) How Does America Hear the Gospel? 5. Edward Stewart & Milton Bennet (1991) American Cultural Patterns 6. Robert Bellah, et al (1985) Habits of the Heart 7. Lesslie Newbigin (1989) The Gospel in a Pluralist
Theology and Anthropology: Time for Dialogue
Theological Studies, 1986
T HE CHURCH has had a love-hate relationship with anthropology since the latter developed as a social science last century. This is understandable. Anthropology had its origins in an atmosphere of Comtism, utilitarianism, agnostic biblical criticism, and the beginnings of comparative religion, an atmosphere which in no way was favorable to religion. Its immediate founders, e.g., Edward Tylor (1832-1917) and James Frazer (1854-1941), were firm believers in social evolution; religion was part of the evolutionary process and it would eventually die away. For both Tylor and Frazer, religion was but an illusion, its place to be taken finally by the all-seeing authority of science. Even today, certainly in Britain, the conclusion of the anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in 1959, then professor of anthropology at Oxford, remains true: the "majority of anthropologists are indifferent, if not hostile, to religion-atheists, agnostics, or just nothing-and a minority are Christians. nl But no matter what the origins of anthropology are or what anthropologists might feel about the supernatural, the Church must come to a love relationship with anthropology. The Church needs the help of specialists in the study of culture, and anthropologists are precisely those specialists. Vatican II turned the Church once more to face the world and its problems and hopes; the Church must understand the world if it is to serve it in a spirit of justice and charity. 2 This means that the Church must understand the nature and complexity of culture and cultures. Not surprisingly, therefore, the word "culture" is used frequently in the Vatican documents, especially in Gaudium et spes. But it is not always immediately clear what particular meaning is being given to the word at a particular place in the texts. For example, the word can be used to signify the magnificent creative achievements of the human 1 "Religion and the Anthropologists," Aquinas Lecture, 1959, in E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Essays in Social Anthropology (London: Faber and Faber, 1962) 45. He adds the interesting comment that of those anthropologists who are Christians "a considerable proportion are Catholics. In fact the situation is more or less that on the one side are the indifférents and on the other side the Catholics with, as far as I am aware, little in between" (ibid.). I suspect his comment remains true. 2 See Gaudium et spes, no. 1. 428 THEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY 429 person. At other times it is used in a descriptive or phenomenological way to refer to customs, structures, and values of people. However, it is Paul VI, ten years after the Council ended, who used the term with an anthropological precision and sensitivity that had never before appeared in any ecclesial document. 3 Summarizing a thrust of Vatican II in Evangelii nuntiandi, he sees the mission of the Church "to evangelize man's culture and cultures (not in a purely decorative way as it were by applying thin veneer, but in a vital way, in depth, and right to their very roots) Evangelization loses much of its force and effectiveness if it does not take into consideration the actual people to whom it is addressed, if it does not use their language, their signs and symbols " 4 The distinction between signs and symbols is significant. We will later see that the distinction marks a remarkable breakthrough, a major step by the Church to understand culture and the contemporary insights of anthropology. About the time Evangelii nuntiandi was published, the expression "inculturation" started to become popular among theologians. The word came out of the deliberate effort by theologians to express the dialectical relationship that should exist between the gospel and cultures. Hence it has. been defined as the dynamic, ongoing, reciprocal, and critical interaction between the gospel message and culture. 6 This is the same type of process that Karl Rahner has in mind when he says that "theology consists in conscious reflection upon the message of the gospel in a quite specific situation in terms of the history of the human spirit (i.e. culture)." 6 While, however, this recognition of the role of culture as the object of evangelization and as being critical to the evolution of realistic theology is encouraging to the concerned anthropologist, theologians have still a very long way to go before they fully appreciate the complexity and the nature of culture. They must tap the rich scholarly research and reflections of major anthropologists. But this is demanding work, espe-3 See analysis of the approach to culture by the Church over the centuries in Gerald A.
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 2006
In his provocative book, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind", evangelical historian Mark Noll decries the lack of an evangelical mind in the academy, and challenges evangelical Christians to consider the importance of the cultivation of the mind as a divine calling. Unfortunately, the Christian mind in anthropology lags behind many disciplines because, among other reasons, there are so few Christian anthropologists. Why is this? According to a Carnegie Foundation survey, anthropology is the most secular of the disciplines. It has a record of hostility to Christianity that is borne out by the experiences by many evangelical Christians. This essay elaborates some of the tensions between anthropology and Christianity and provides a response to some of these tensions. It suggests that evangelical Christians can influence the academy by immersing themselves in it and by pursuing pure research rather than just focusing on more applied concerns such as missions, development and the church. (In some respects, this article is out-of-date, and is not reflected for those in the sub discipline of cultural anthropology called 'Anthropology of Religion'. The sub-fields of anthropology are often silos with little communication between them. Since the time this article was written (early 2000's) and reading it again, it still rings true for me after with more data, examples, and experiences to support it.)
Missionaries did not focus on the people their cultures, language, indigenously; rather their missions were very conservative and not according to the people culture, they came with their own culture and sought to enforce it on the native peoples. It can't be deny the role and social, economic, political changes through Christianity, in fact, in addition it's bring lot of disaster, adversity, tragedy to the Phom-Naga people when we reflect in the cultural issues. Most missionaries assume that western Christianity with its theology, life style and structures was suitable and failed to realize localization that all these were contextually condition to a large extend. People misunderstood their own cultures and forms; therefore their culture was lost and they destroyed certain valuable traditional dresses, culture, song and some of important elements, which was valuable for the people. As soon as they become Christian ignore their own culture, in this situation people adopted foreign life style and culture that made conflict between gospel and culture and mission become stagnant and a predominantly western life style and culture came into existence.