Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures: Biblical Foundations and Practical Essentials
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
Many a Westerner has had a cross-cultural experience of honor and shame. First there are those stuttering moments in the new social landscape. Then after missed cues and social bruises comes the revelation that this culture—indeed much of the world—runs on an honor-shame operating system. When Western individualism and its introspective conscience fails to engage cultural gears, how can we shift and navigate this alternate code? And might we even learn to see and speak the gospel differently if we did?
In Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures Jayson Georges and Mark Baker help us decode the cultural script of honor and shame. What’s more, they assist us in reading the Bible anew through the lens of honor and shame, often with startling turns. And they offer thoughtful and practical guidance in ministry within honor-shame contexts. Apt stories, illuminating insights and ministry-tested wisdom complete this well-rounded guide to Christian ministry in honor-shame cultures.
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- Helps us decode the cultural script of honor and shame.
- Assists us in reading the Bible anew through the lens of honor and shame.
- Impacts the theory and practice of missionaries and local leaders in unprecedented ways.
Georges and Baker have taken the seeds of previous work on honor and shame in the environment of the biblical world and in modern cultures and cultivated them into fruitful insights and guidance in the areas of theology, crosscultural engagement and, especially, missions. They provide a culturally sensitive reading of Scripture and of modern non-Western situations, significantly advancing the question of how awareness of this dimension of the texts and our global community can improve our interactions with people living from a decidedly different axis of values and in our thinking about the contextualization of the gospel.
--David A. deSilva, Ashland Theological Seminary, Trustees' Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek
What Georges and Baker have done in this wonderfully helpful volume is unprecedented. They have plumbed the depths of current scholarly discussions on honor and shame from multiple sources (biblical studies, theology, anthropology, and intercultural studies) and have made such information wonderfully accessible for the practitioner. Intelligent, informed, and culturally perceptive, this resource will impact the theory and practice of missionaries and local leaders in unprecedented ways. Throughout, the writing is critical yet engaging. The appendixes (“Key Scriptures on Honor-Shame” and “Biblical Stories Addressing Honor-Shame”) will prove to be exceptionally helpful resources. Those working in the global world of today must read this book. To not do so would be a true shame!
--Christopher Flanders, Abilene Christian University
I was so glad for this book to stretch my heart and mind. Baker and Georges gave me new tools and hope for ministry, not just in a Majority World context, but in Western contexts that are increasingly both secular and globalized. Their experiences and thoughtfulness as missionaries give particular power to their call for us to love and care for people ‘old’ ways.
--Mako Nagasawa, director, New Humanity Institute