Who Do You See in the Mirror?
Cultural Diversity & Pluralism: Who do you see in the mirror?
Given the rapidly evolving American culture and the fragmentation of traditional religions, this section stands alone in the study of correctional chaplaincy. Chaplains are still being trained with outdated perspectives that are no longer relevant. Contemporary chaplains must be continually challenged to intentionally evaluate their perspectives on the prison population.
Early in my ministry, I encountered the terms “pluralism” and “cultural diversity” while preparing for an overseas missionary trip to Israel. We were asked to read parts of The Ugly American[i] by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Little did I know that this title was a “Pejorative term for Americans traveling or living abroad who remain ignorant of local culture, and judge everything by American standards.”[ii] This exercise helped each missionary evaluate their world perspective, fostering sensitivity to Israeli culture. Reflecting on that experience, I am grateful that it helped me understand a crucial characteristic required of all chaplains—cultural sensitivity.
“Understanding one’s own biblical core values is essential when trying to determine how to interact with others. Appreciating cultural diversity does not mean surrendering one’s core values . . . Cultural diversity is not accepting all theologies, blind acceptance, surrendering core values, or an either/or proposition.”[iii] Practicing cultural diversity is an attempt to understand all religions in a pluralistic environment while maintaining one’s own identity and faith tradition. How is this accomplished?
“It is a mistake to believe that everything about a single culture is right or wrong. To reach others with the love of Christ, we must appreciate their diversity and cultural distinctiveness. We must see them as their Creator sees them—through a lens of love.”[iv] This divine lens is unforgiving of intolerance. Chaplains must be willing to make personal changes for the love of Christ, who wishes that no one should perish.
Chaplains will continually confront many of their own cultural and religious barriers in similar unplanned unexpected circumstances. The three most significant hurdles they will learn to overcome are ethnocentrism, stereotyping, and prejudice.[v] Many ministers cringe at hearing these terms. With full confidence they deny that they are guilty of any of these characteristics. But if there is any place where they will be quickly discovered, it is in prison. They erupt in places, events, and times least expected and will need to be addressed or the chaplain’s ministry will suffer.
Recognizing barriers is the first step in eliminating them. The barriers of ethnocentrism, stereotyping, and prejudice are learned behaviors. We are not born with these tendencies. They ‘rub off’ on us through contact with our family, friends, and mass media.
Ethnocentrism interferes in cross-cultural relationships by ranking people according to their worth. Stereotyping interferes by misleading people into thinking that all people in a certain group are the same. Prejudice, whether overt or covert, undermines cross-cultural relationships by making negative generalizations that are not based in fact. Because barriers are learned, they can be unlearned, leading to positive interactions with all of God’s people.[vi]
Most significant is for the correctional chaplain is flexibility. Flexibility is one of the cornerstones put into practice daily by chaplains in corrections. Daily engagement with diverse cultural settings permits God the Holy Spirit to lead and guide the chaplain in their learning moments. It may take years to break through personal prejudices, stereotypes, and biases to be truly flexible. But giving up in this struggle is not an option.
A significant aspect of becoming culturally sensitive is an intentional willingness to learn. Without continually striving to become sensitive to cultural transformation chaplains will regress to following simplistic ministry formulas for reaching the dissimilar population. They will continue practicing and preaching with whatever makes them comfortable when they minister in the prison.
“The challenge, then, is to be intentional about gaining self-awareness, knowledge, and skills to increase culturally and spiritually effective practice. This work involves diligent and often painful self-reflection, active engagement with disparate worldviews, willingness to suspend one’s need to be right or to function as an expert, consultation and supervision with skilled trainers and mentors, and most of all, a commitment to change.”[vii]
Ironically, pluralism is the very thing that insures religious rights for all chaplains in corrections. Protection of all religions and their rights helps to protect the chaplain’s own faith and cultural practices. With an attempt at global homogenization of religions for the sake of world peace there is a need to protect the religious rights of all Americans. Especially when that faith is not our own or the danger of being mislabeled as a liberal exists.
In conclusion, it was the study of Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians that ultimately altered my perception of other religions and cultures. As Paul states, 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, “Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” (The Message)
[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American - The Ugly American is the title of a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. It became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Asia (that is, Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people, most of whose names have been changed.
In the novel, a Burmese journalist says "For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious." Ultimately, the phrase "ugly Americans" came to be applied to Americans behaving in this manner, while the positive contributions of the Homer Atkins character were forgotten.
According to an article published in Newsweek in May 1959, the "real" Ugly American was identified as an ICA technician named Otto Hunerwadel, who served in Burma from 1949 until his death in 1952.
[iii] Jim Lo, Intentional Diversity, p. 53-59
[iv] Ibid, p. 40
[v] Jim Lo, Intentional, p. 43-51
Ethnocentrism-The belief that one's own culture is superior to all others and is the standard by which all other cultures should be measured.
[vi] Ibid, p. 50
[vii] Ibid, p. 57
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