Written by: Julie Dodge on April 11, 2014

I was grading papers earlier this week – it’s something I do a lot of this time of the semester. These particular papers were about each student’s cultural identity. One paper in particular stood out. At first, as I was reading it from my linear, academic, and western perspective, I was frustrated. Instead of directly responding to the points of the assignment, as would a person from a linear, print oriented culture, this student told stories. Multiple stories. You see, this student’s culture is based in oral tradition. As I backed up and re-read her words, I realized that all of the answers were embedded in her stories. Her stories were beautiful! And in using story to write this paper, she presented a great example of her real cultural identity, likely without realizing it. It was simply normal to her.

At least half of the world’s cultures are rooted in oral tradition, and nearly two-thirds of the population’s cultures are relationship focused. This is a stark contrast to the western, linear world in which we emphasize print media and task (work) over relationship. The western cultures do not represent the majority of the world’s population, yet they do represent the greatest influence in terms of economy and power. In the current economy, five countries represent the greatest global influence: The United States, Japan, Germany, Britain and France[i].  Interestingly, Japanese culture is relational and group focused, but also adaptive to other settings.  I raise these thoughts intentionally as a pre-cursor to my reflection on Jardine’s book, The Making and Unmaking of Technological Society[ii]. Jardine acknowledges his emphasis on western society, I assume in part because of the power and influence represented by western society. I suggest that this limitation also limits his work.

Jardine presents a discussion of western civilization that goes as far back as pagan times, and works forward to the present day. He argues that western civilization is facing a moral crisis based on its inability to make sense of its capacity to create. He argues that Christianity both created the capacity for our technological advances, and its inability to deal with it. Finally, Jardine argues that Christianity must itself be transformed in order to correct the current course of society.

I was quite excited about Jardine’s premises. Jardine takes the reader on a wild ride through history, philosophy, political and economic theory, and theology. He suggests a theology of society that rests on several key points. First, the spoken word allows us to create. Just as God spoke/created the earth and all that is in it – and it was good – when He made man in His image, He passed on this capacity to create. That said, as mere images of God, our capacity to create is limited. But like God, it is through the spoken word that we create[iii].  Second, the Christian virtues of faith, hope and unconditional love lay a foundation both for our ability to create and to guide the moral structure of society. Third, human beings need an identity that is located in place. Place is best described as our need for community, as opposed to geography; it is in our relationship with God and one another that we find our identity.

Jardine’s recommendations for the application of this theology is when it started to break down for me. Jardine argued that Christianity needs to help society create new space for the spoken word (to create) through creating place (planned neighborhoods and cities), redefining the value and time spent in work, and caring for our aging population. I do not necessarily disagree with his recommendations, but rather find them limited. Jardine recognizes his own limitation, writing, “My argument represents not a blueprint for the good society, but simply a contribution to a conversation about what a transformed Christianity would imply socially and politically”.[iv] Based on his own acknowledgement, I thought I might add to the conversation.

With regard to the spoken word, perhaps another way to create room for this is to invite those cultures that are already adept in the spoken word into the conversation.  In my annual Christmas letter, I extended the greeting, Sawubona, which is a Zulu tribal greeting in South Africa that means, “I see you.” If I said that to you, you would reply, “Sikhona,” which means:“I am here”.  As I am told, such an exchange is not like the western, “Hello. How are you? I’m fine.”  It is a reference to being known, that when a person is greeted, they are seen and known in a personal, life bearing, way. The response speaks not merely to presence and place, but to being. Because I am here with you, I am. I share this not to imply that I am some kind of expert, but rather to say that there are many cultures that are already skilled at the spoken word, the meaning of story, and perhaps we westerners might offer some humility and allow ourselves to be taught by others.

Second, with regard to the development of intentional neighborhoods and communities, I found several limitations, but also offer options. I was reading about multi-zoned, planned neighborhoods and communities twenty-five years ago while taking urban planning courses as part of my master’s degree. I am also fortunate to live in a city where these concepts are already being applied. In fact, in my class this evening I showed this short video about the Portland Plan to demonstrate the results of social planning. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eckjmv_mpVc – it’s only 3 minutes, you have time to watch.)  Portland is a city that was built on a grid, and has clearly defined neighborhoods. However, it does struggle with single zone planning. The plan proposes multi-zone communities, park space, community centers, and other concepts supported by Jardine.

The limitation of such planning is tied to the physical environment. The premise behind such planning in part is to create community and opportunity for spoken conversation through walking. This is a great idea. But another aspect of community development is recognizing the realities of the physical environment. In climates where it rains or snows nine months of the year, walking does not facilitate increased conversation. In such climates, outdoor conversations are more likely to be brief, direct, and impersonal, at least when it’s cold or raining. Some cultural experts have implied that the direct and impersonal communication style that dominates western society is a product of cold climate, occurring long before technological advancement.  Thus, simply creating walking space will not increase our ability to share the spoken word. For that we need to gather around the fire, so to speak. We need to create meaningful gathering places.

The other limitation of this model is that it lacks intentionality in terms of communicating the Christian virtues of faith, hope and unconditional love. The organic and house church movements offer some direction in this regard. As my church adopted a house church model, we met with a number of house church “experts” to help guide our process. Each of these presented a model for church community development with intentions similar to the neighborhood development planning presented by Jardine. Each noted that the house church is geographically specific. Planting new house churches should occur via developing relationships with people who live within 5-10 minutes walking distance from each other. This creates more opportunity for casual meals, assisting one another with home or yard projects, and other community gatherings. Ultimately, the argument is that it is more sustainable and effective.

Our challenge to this approach, as a church, mirrors the challenges of the neighborhood planning Jardine advocates. We were an established church. We already lived miles away from each other. Since we could not change where our members lived (though I know of some churches that have encouraged people to move into common neighborhoods), we decided to create our “place” through intentionality such as shared meals, small group discussion, and interactive teaching and serving. However, as we consider new house church communities, we do look to identified neighborhoods, such as the low income, older adult trailer park where we facilitate Bible searching and discussion every other week. Based on my church’s experience, I might suggest that we be intentional in creating community in our existing geographic realities, and when given opportunity to create new community, look to models as Jardine proposed.

I end this discussion with another student story. This afternoon I was meeting with a student who is an immigrant from Mexico. We were reviewing her grant writing assignment. It was a great proposal, full of passion. I could feel her commitment to this project as I read her words. As we talked, she related a story from earlier in her college career. One of her writing professors had commented that she wrote differently than her American peers. This professor observed that other professors will try to take that away from her; to get her to write precisely and technically. He wisely told her not to let us do that. It seems to me that it is we, the western society, that needs to learn how to tell the story again. It is we who need to humble ourselves and learn from others about the meaning of relationship and story. It is we who need to allow the 2/3 world to seep into our lives, our communities, our society, and perhaps help us rediscover who we are.

About the Author

Julie Dodge

Julie loves coffee and warm summer days. She is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Concordia University, Portland, a consultant for non-profit organizations, and a leader at The Trinity Project.