Essays in Understanding the Bible (10): Cultural Transposition
In this series of essays, Helen Parry explores some basic principles for understanding the Bible. Since interpretation is not a dry academic exercise but is essential to a proper use of Scripture, each essay is followed by questions for reflection (and discussion with others, where applicable), and suggestions for action.
In a recently-published book, Reading the Qur’an (C. Hurst & Co, 2011), the author, Ziauddin Sardar, looking at the crisis in contemporary Islam, makes the perhaps revolutionary suggestion that the Qur’an should be read and interpreted in relation to the culture both of the time in which it was written and of the time in which it is read. Thus, when considering the teaching on women’s head covering, he points out that the Qur’an was written when, among many of the tribal peoples of the Near East, women would have been scantily clad, so the emphasis was essentially on the modesty of concealing a woman’s ‘private parts’. In the context of a contemporary understanding of gender and human equality, however, the veil, or hijab, may become a symbol not of modesty but of oppression.
Sardar’s approach, acknowledged in Christianity since the Reformation, is rare in Islam, but essential if fundamentalist Islam is not to become the dominant form of that religion. In some eastern cultures, an uncovered head may be perceived as an indication of loose morals, while in the West it has no such connotations. But, looked at another way, might we not see the head scarf as a timely challenge to the immodesty and provocativeness of much contemporary western fashion?
This is certainly the case in cultures where Christians live in predominantly Muslim communities. Even within traditional Christian communities in parts of Africa, women feel more comfortable, when they go out, to ‘tie head-tie’. My mother-in-law in South Wales never went out without a hat, and when I became a Christian in the 1950s, I wouldn’t dare go to church without one, though I would never wear it in any other context. (Incidentally, I had a friend at university who, in protest, used to wear a tea cosy to church. She ended up as a cross-cultural missionary in Spain. But that is another story.)
Are we in the West, who nowadays happily go bareheaded to church, being less true to Scripture? We seem to have succeeded in persuading ourselves of the irrelevance of Paul’s injunction to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:5-6): ‘Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head – it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.’
This example illustrates the differences not only between one age and another but even in the contemporary world between one culture and another.
When we are teaching or preaching, and even in conversation, we have, therefore, to take account of the culture of those we are speaking to. Insensitive cross-cultural mission has, over the centuries, led to terrible misunderstandings, or outright rejection of the gospel. We can learn much from the example of Paul, whose preaching to largely Gentile audiences, in Acts 14:11-18 and 17:16-31, was very different from his Old Testament-based preaching to Jews. We may be surprised that he had read the Greek poets, and took trouble to present the gospel in terms that related to their culture.
What applied to Jewish and Gentile cultures in New Testament times applies equally in our own day, as we seek to communicate with a generation which is largely ignorant of the Bible and has been conditioned by a secular culture whose gods are individual freedom and autonomy. Two opposite approaches may spring to mind: to insist that because ‘the Bible says...’ we must adopt not just its doctrines but also the cultural practices that it describes; or to select from its teaching only what chimes with our contemporary worldview.
John Stott, in The Contemporary Christian (IVP, 1992), helpfully labels these two approaches to any particular cultural practice described or enjoined in the Bible as ‘wooden literalism’ and ‘total rejection’. Thus in the debate about women’s head covering we may claim that it is mandatory – though what Paul had in mind may well have been a veil, certainly not a hat. Even wooden literalists today wouldn’t insist on veils. So many churches insisted on a hat as the nearest equivalent. (But does a hat these days, or even in the recent past, have the same symbolic association with submission as the veil at the time of the early church?)
The opposite view (‘total rejection’) is that now that women and men are equal the notion of submission is entirely obsolete, and head covering therefore no longer has any relevance. The wearing of hats is purely a matter of style and choice.
But is Paul making a more subtle point? Is there in this a principle that we ought to take note of? The passage about head-covering comes in the middle of several chapters of teaching about ethics and, particularly, about communal worship. Paul’s main concern is for order and reverence when God’s people meet together. He bases his teaching on some central scriptural principles and on the contemporary context of the Corinthian church. He reminds the Corinthians of the essentials of the gospel, and of their new status in Christ.
‘Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed’, he writes (5:7). With this reference to the yeast-free bread of the Passover meal, Paul reinforces his teaching on discipline in the church. How this teaching is to be worked out in practice is clearly related to the culture into which Paul is writing. Churches, such as ours today, that are open to everyone cannot necessarily exercise discipline in the same way as Paul advocates in 5:4-5. (Still, the verses might remind us of the danger of becoming too tolerant of ongoing sin in our midst, and the need to tackle it.)
A few chapters later, Paul reminds his readers that ‘...there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and through whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live’ (8:6). ‘Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?’ (10:16). These truths had particular implications for Christians who had grown up in a culture of idol worship. Although for most of us today the specific issue is irrelevant, the principles – that God alone is to be worshipped and the Communion has a deep spiritual significance – should still shape our values and behaviour.
‘Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?... Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price’ (6:15, 19-20). Again, the particular issue here is sex with prostitutes, but Paul widens it out to cover all ‘sexual immorality’. We may perhaps argue about what constitutes immorality, but here the cultural arguments hold little water – if I recognise my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit am I not splitting hairs if I quibble about whether ‘heavy petting’ is okay?
The teaching of the Bible is our guidebook for living. Its doctrines have inescapable implications, the ethical instruction that flows from them. That ethical instruction is inevitably embedded in the cultures into which it was given, but the principles it embodies are for all time and all cultures.
The examples above illustrate the necessity for the third option, which is known as cultural transposition. Compare Jesus’ two commands to his disciples in John 13: ‘Wash one another’s feet’ (v.14) and ‘Love one another’ (v.34). We need no help in knowing what to do with the second: ‘Love one another’ is an absolute, timeless obligation which applies across all cultures. But what should we do with ‘Wash one another’s feet’?
Wooden literalism says, ‘Make people take off their shoes when they arrive at your house, and perform the ministry of foot-washing’. Total rejection says, ‘This is irrelevant and can be ignored’. Cultural transposition asks, ‘What is the principle that Jesus was illustrating? Humble servanthood? Then how can I express this principle, not only to visitors but to everyone, in a form that is culturally appropriate?’
So we return to head-covering in 1 Corinthians 11. Space allows only three observations. First, this teaching is about appropriateness in communal worship. Second, Paul is refreshingly pragmatic: ‘Judge for yourselves’, he says (v.13); use your common sense. However, third, there appears to be a basic doctrinal principle behind it, the idea of headship (v.3). Scholars debate whether this should be understood in terms of ‘source’ or of ‘authority’. Either way, how we can re-express this idea in a form that would have meaning today is the challenge of cultural transposition.
And that is how, in every age and every culture, people can relate to the gospel and seek to apply it to their lives.
For personal reflection:
In reading the Bible, which particular issues of behaviour do we personally struggle with? Is this because cultural transposition has not been consistently applied? Or is it, perhaps, because certain principles of Christian living go against the grain, and threaten our personal liberty?
For group discussion:
Read 1 Corinthians 8:4-13. Identify contemporary issues to which Paul's teaching might be applied, and discuss – in the context of your own culture – what the appropriate application might be.
For action:
Monitor your reactions this week to things you see on television or read in the newspapers. How far are your responses shaped by ‘wooden literalism’, how far by your acceptance of the values of secular society and how far by the principles of Scripture?
Helen Parry
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