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TL;DR
Around the world, cultures interpret sin and righteousness through different moral worldviews or lenses. Some Christian anthropologists and missiologists use three overlapping frameworks to describe cultural responses to wrongdoing: honor/shame, guilt/innocence, and fear/power. These categories overlap—no culture fits only one. Each blends shame, guilt, fear, power, honor, and innocence in unique proportions. The gospel can restore honor, innocence, and power across every culture.
Mission Briefing: Ideas that affect world mission outreach today
The gospel confronts shame, fear, and guilt in three different cultural worldviews by restoring honor, power, and innocence through Christ.
Some influential nineteenth-century anthropologists ranked societies on a supposed developmental scale using the categories "savagery," "barbarism," and "civilization." Anthropologists have since rejected that hierarchy.
Today, one way Christian anthropologists help people minister cross-culturally is by teaching them to identify the lenses through which cultures view wrongdoing or sin and right living or righteousness. Being aware of those cultural lenses and the ways people respond because of them can help outsiders understand what people of a particular culture most need to hear from Scripture.
Three categories of cultural viewpoints regarding sin and righteousness have emerged:
These categories—particularly honor/shame—are widely discussed today. The underlying ideas have been discussed for decades. An influential early presentation of these categories appeared in linguist Eugene Nida's classic book Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for Christian Missions, first published in 1954, with a second edition released in 1975.
People in cultures in which honor/shame responses are prominent feel strongly responsible for the corporate well-being of their group. Interconnectedness and solidarity are core values. An individual's actions are seen as bringing honor or shame on those connected to that person as well as on the person actually doing wrong or acting righteously. Honor/shame dynamics are prominent in many Asian cultures.
On the other hand, guilt/innocence cultures tend to be individualistic and often regulate behavior through established laws and rules. Wrongdoing is often understood as violating a law or moral standard, with attention focused on individual responsibility, guilt, and innocence. Many cultures in the West, including the United States, are predominantly guilt/innocence cultures.
Fear/power responses can be especially prominent in communities where spiritual beings are believed to influence daily life. People may seek protection from harmful spiritual forces through rituals or relationships with spiritual beings.
Shame, guilt, and fear occur in every culture. All six elements—shame, guilt, fear, power, honor, and innocence—interact and overlap. Each cultural worldview reflects a distinctive blend, although one framework may be especially prominent.
What is a worldview?
Canadian pastor Tim Challies has summarized how Scripture speaks to all three types of cultural worldviews. He explains that Christ bore shame to restore our honor, defeated spiritual powers to address fear, and took our guilt upon Himself to give us innocence. Thus, the gospel restores honor, power, and innocence. [Source]
—Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
This article on a key issue in world missions outreach was one of the 20 articles in the "Mission briefing" series published in Engage, an online monthly magazine. Articles in that series dealt with topics such as unreached people groups, contextualization, indigenous churches, dependency, sustainability, leadership development, those who go and those who send, culture shock, and globalization.
These examples illustrate varied responses to wrongdoing; they do not correspond neatly to the three frameworks discussed above.