Culture: April 2023 Archives

A recent tweet from Jeremy Tate, founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT):

Classical education is fundamental an educational [sic] it what it means to be fully human. It is not a politically conservative alternative to the already politically hijacked mainstream education. Instead, it is an education in timeless texts with the aim of cultivating universally agreed on virtues (justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, kindness, generosity, self-discipline, diligence, honesty, etc). Anyone who argues that other people groups have a completely different moral code is just being silly. You cannot find any culture or society anywhere that values lying, stealing, cheating, betrayal, harshness, impatience, cowardice, etc.

My thoughts immediately went to the book Peace Child, missionary Don Richardson's first-hand account of taking the gospel to the cannibalistic Sawi people of western New Guinea (also known as West Papua or Irian Jaya). The Sawi highly valued betrayal and cheating. I wrote about the book many years ago, when I had been reading it to my 8-year-old as a bedtime story.

The book begins with stories of Sawi intrigue that took place prior to the Richardsons' arrival, illustrating the value the culture held for treachery -- "fattening with friendship for the slaughter." You might invite an enemy to your home, feed him and treat him with honor for weeks or months before springing the trap on your trusting victim. You have him over for dinner... and then have him for dinner....

...Richardson feels he has enough of the language to attempt to explain the story of Jesus to a group of Sawi men. He is shocked to find that they see Judas as the hero of the story and Jesus as his dupe -- the ultimate example of fattening with friendship for the slaughter. The realization causes Richardson to feel hopeless that he could find a way to communicate the gospel to this culture. But he prays and God provides in a surprising way, and that's the rest of the story....

When progressives hear conservatives condemning multiculturalism, they wrongly assume that conservatives wish to eradicate other cultures, other languages, other folk customs and force conformity to bland Anglo-Saxon suburbia. In fact, conservative Christians may be doing more than anyone else to preserve dying languages and musical traditions, through the work of groups like Wycliffe Bible Translators. The practice of the evangelical mission community is to translate the gospel into the "heart language" of every people group and, as they come to faith in Christ, to express their faith in their own music.

Richardson's account of the Sawi way of life allows us to draw an important distinction. Multiculturalism insists that we suspend all value judgment of another culture, and so we must not condemn the cannibalistic treachery of the Sawi -- live and let live. A Bible-believing Christian would say instead that there are aspects of a culture which are morally neutral, aspects which are positive, and aspects which are -- let's not mince words -- evil, aspects which disfigure the imago Dei borne by every human of every tribe, tongue, and nation. While every culture in this fallen world has negative elements, some cultures have a built-in engine for reform and improvement, while others may only shed negative elements under outside encouragement or pressure, and so we ought to reject a false moral equivalence between cultures.

One could argue that our own modern western culture values and rewards "lying, stealing, cheating, betrayal, harshness, impatience, cowardice, etc." above the cardinal virtues and other values that Tate lists. The Great Books tradition elevates the literature of the West because of the distinctive western values, rooted in Jerusalem and Athens, that built a great civilization. These values can be found in non-Western cultures to a greater or lesser extent, what C. S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, calls the Tao, but nowhere else in the same proportions. If the Tao is the common heritage of all mankind, a law written on our hearts, clearly many human societies have abandoned entire segments of it. A culture that admires treachery will not be capable of the mutual trust required for great endeavors.

MORE: Don Richardson recalls his early encounters with the Sawi, with this amusing anecdote from his efforts to document their language:

The first order of business was to learn the language without any book, teacher or translator. He started by pointing at things hoping someone would tell him the word. But every time he pointed at different objects, they always said, "redig." Eventually, he realized "redig" means "finger." The Sawi don't point with fingers; they point by puckering and aiming their lips.

A 1972 short film based on Peace Child, featuring the Richadrsons and the Sawi: