Ethnocentrism

The past four plus weeks my beautiful wife and I have spent in North Carolina at a training for missionaries.  The first four weeks was a class called equipping and we just began a 2 week class for language acquisition.  I wanted to write some ideas I gained from the equipping class to hopefully embed them in my memories before I lose them.

One of the main takeaways I had was the idea of ethnocentrism.  It’s a big fancy word that essentially means when one thinks their ethnicity is better than everyone else’s.  You hear it expressed in sayings such as, “America is the best country this world has ever seen.”  Or, “If other countries were just more like us they would be so much better off.”  

You see ethnocentrism more clearly every time you go overseas, at least in my previous experiences.  The real key is to recognize it in yourself when you’re overseas and take steps to overcome it in your own life before you wreak damage abroad.  It’s a perfectly natural response to being raised in a certain culture and in a certain way.  Of course you think it’s the best, that’s how you were raised.

We had a sort of refrain throughout the four weeks; not right, not wrong, just different.  One of the best things you can do as a missionary is to suspend judgement when you first arrive somewhere.  Realize that other cultures have a completely different way of doing life and that for the most part it’s just different.

One of our facilitators pointed out that ethnocentrism is the dominant viewpoint at our state department.  This leads to a lot of obvious problems; who wants to be viewed paternalistically in diplomatic relations?  If we’re so focused on helping other countries be more like America, is it any wonder many of them hate us?

I served at a Christian youth hostel in Amsterdam back in 2007 for a summer.  I had a wonderful time and remember thinking for the first time America really does some things backward.  However, I feel like I have come full circle to where I can now appreciate some things that America does very well at while also realizing we fall short in many areas too.

The key to overcoming ethnocentrism in my opinion is to learn to value another’s culture.  Be open to the idea that maybe another culture’s way of doing something might even be better than your own.  Look for things in your new culture that you can appreciate as being wildly different but yet can still teach you something.

That’s part of the beauty of the Church as described in the New Testament.  It’s no longer ethnocentric but rather Christ-centric.  There is no longer Jew or Gentile in this Church that Jesus has established.  All are welcome to partake of His body and blood.  In the second coming every nation, tribe and tongue will bow at His knee.  There’s no room for ethnocentrism in this new understanding of God’s people.