Transforming Congregations through Community

Faith Formation from the Seminary to the Church

Boyung Lee

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781611643671
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

In this helpful book, Boyung Lee offers an encouraging vision of the mainline church's future. Lee grapples with some of the greatest challenges facing the mainline church, offering compelling responses to recurring questions: What does faithfulness to the gospel look like in this changing world? What is our distinctive voice in the larger society? How does theological education have to change if it is to serve the needs of a new century?

Lee argues that the church's future is a promising one if the church can offer a richer and deeper definition of community--one that moves beyond the excessive individualism of western culture and that helps mainline Christians understand their solidarity with one another and with all of God's people. Lee further explores the crucial role of faith formation at the congregational and seminary levels. More than mere schooling, theological education must engage all aspects of educators' and students' lives to prepare seminarians for the challenges that lie ahead.

While not dismissing the mainline church's challenges, Lee offers congregational leaders and seminary educators a vision of a church transformed for the 21st century.

PART 1

UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY AND A BIBLICAL CALL FOR COMMUNAL FAITH

Chapter 1

Individualism, Collectivism, and Communalism

What Do We Mean by Community?

“Is this OUR husband?” “I am so glad to meet you, OUR husband!” These were words used by some of my students when they meet my late husband. To introduce communal cultures’ view of community and compare it with that of many North Americans, I often frame my class discussions using Korean communal linguistics. Although Koreans have words for “I,” “me,” “my,” and “mine,” we seldom use them. For example, the most culturally acceptable way to introduce one’s spouse is by saying, “This is OUR husband,” or “This is OUR wife.” Although “my husband” is grammatically correct, using “I” language is culturally awkward.

Korean communal linguistics originated in a communal worldview. Koreans, like many African, Hispanic, Native, and other Asian American cultures, view the person as a part of a whole. In contrast, most European American cultures see the person as an independent and autonomous entity. These differences in the view of the person are reflected in each worldview’s concept of community. In communal cultures, community is generally identified with people’s solidarity, regardless of their individual circumstances. In individually oriented worldviews, the community is constituted of individuals who share similar interests.¹ For example, a Korean word for “group,” moim, originated from the word mom, “body.” Thus “group” in Korean means people within the same boundary; those who identify themselves as one body. Conceptually, this is very different from its English counterpart, which connotes a relationship between their units instead of organic wholeness.

In this chapter, I compare concepts of community. By focusing on different notions of the person, I invite readers to identify the concept of community used in their faith communities. Throughout, I frame this discussion with observations by social scientists, especially their research on anthropology; namely, I ask what it means to be an individual, and, more importantly, what identity an individual has relative to others, and whether “others” connotes a group in the Korean linguistic sense or many individuals.

SMALL AS BIG

For religious institutions, small groups are the rage. According to Robert Wuthnow, who studied small groups in American religious settings in partnership with the Gallup organization, about 40 percent of adult Americans are currently involved in some form of small group, and approximately 60 percent of these members belong to a group formally associated with a church or synagogue.² In other words, almost half of adult Americans across racial, gender, age, class, and geographic lines regularly participate in small groups. Although the number of mainline Christians involved in small groups is not as big as that of conservative Protestant Christians,³ small groups are a growing phenomenon in the mainline church. Cell groups, home groups, covenant groups, ChristCare groups, in addition to Bible studies, which constitute the most widespread small group, cut a noteworthy swath across the mainline.

Regarding this phenomenon, Wuthnow observes that small groups provide a sense of community and family in the midst of “turbulent upheaval.” According to Wuthnow, the average family moves at least once every three years, and half of those families are restructured by divorce.⁴ Lonely Americans find support and encouragement for life in small groups as they care for each other, pray with one another, and share stories of life together. The American church’s increasing attention to small-group ministries may be a response to an apprehended yearning for community by its constituency. It also may be an effort by churches to calm angst about changes in the social order. Sadly, though, the traditional ministry of the church, which greatly depends on clergy leadership for spiritual growth, arguably is inefficient and inadequate to respond to these changes. Weekend services are no longer convenient for many Americans because of members’ demanding careers and family lives, so both conservative and mainline churches find small groups to be efficient alternative ministries. Small groups waylay the cost of physical plants and are attractive to those looking for support groups, ones that sometimes make few demands.⁵

Based on Wuthnow’s observations, one could argue that the popular notion of Americans as alienated individualists is no longer valid: that Americans are becoming communalists like those in other parts of the world. However, if one looks closely at the nature of small groups, one easily sees that small groups typically exhibit what I call “collectivism,” rather than communalism. The sense of community undergirding the current American trend in small groups is far different from that of communalists for they lack solidarity and kinship-like relationships; rather, the notion of community in mainline small groups is more like a gathering of individuals in reciprocal relationships. These groups are made up of individuals who share similar needs and interests. Individuals purportedly gather on a regular basis to develop their personal spirituality. Members support and pray for each other, especially for those who are in crisis. They even make occasional sacrifices for other group members. However, if they find the group burdensome or unfulfilling, they frequently abandon it.⁶ Wuthnow’s observation about group identity is directly on point:

Members are not people who are disproportionately oriented toward community or toward fitting in, helping others, or bending their interests toward the will of the group. They are strong individualists who bring their individual needs and interests to their group.⁷

Hereto, group identity is predicated on personal attainment, which rarely entails sacrifice. I will present my own research findings shortly, ones that parallel Wuthnow’s observations. In the interim, I turn to a discussion about how individualism and communalism view the world and community differently.

THE TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THE PERSON: INDIVIDUALISM AND COMMUNALISM

The topic of individualism and communalism was a major research subject in Geert Hofstede’s Culture’s Consequences.⁸ After analyzing about 117,000 protocols that IBM collected from its own employees in 66 countries, Hofstede defines individualism and communalism as follows:

Individualism pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family. Collectivism as its opposite pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive ingroups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.⁹

Individualism and communalism are two completely different cultural patterns that lead people to view the world and life through different lenses. Harry Triandis, who has done extensive studies on the two patterns of culture, articulates the differences on the basis of ingroup/outgroup dynamics.¹⁰ In communal societies, emphasis is on:

a) the views, needs, and goals of the ingroup rather than those of oneself;

b) social norms and duty defined by the ingroup rather than by one’s pleasure;

c) beliefs shared with the ingroup rather than on beliefs that distinguish oneself from the ingroup; and

d) great readiness to cooperate with ingroup members.

Individualistic societies emphasize:

a) one’s own views, needs, and goals rather than those of others;

b) pleasure, fun, personal enjoyment rather than social norms or duty as defined by others;

c) one’s beliefs as unique; and

d) maximizing one’s own outcomes.

In general, the individualistic cultural pattern is found in most northern and western regions of Europe and in North America, whereas the communal cultural pattern is prevalent in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.¹¹ These cultural differences result in different emphases on relationship and behavior patterns. Individualistic societies emphasize “I” consciousness: emotional independence, individual initiative, right to privacy, and specific friendship. Separated from family, religion, and agreement as sources of authority, duty, and moral example, individualists seek to work out their own form of action by autonomously pursuing happiness and satisfying their wants. Unlike individualistic societies, communal societies stress “we” consciousness: communal identity, emotional dependence, group-minded friendship, group decision making, and particularism.¹² A person in communal cultures is perceived as an adjunct of the family system, and the identity of an individual is neither independent nor important. Group cohesion and conformity dominate the family structure. Therefore the needs and goals of people are often sacrificed for the attainment of the community’s interests. C. Harry Hui and Harry Trandis sum up these characteristics of communalism as “Concern of Others.”¹³

COMMUNAL CONCEPT OF THE PERSON

Communalists view themselves primarily as parts of the whole, as clearly reflected in the Chinese word for person, a notion shared by most East Asians. The word for person in Chinese (

) connotes two people leaning against each other. The pictographic syntax of the word assumes sharing of ego boundaries, and, accordingly, the formation of personhood is in relationship with that of others. The communalists’ notion of person includes the attributes of the group to which a person belongs, whether that group is that of a larger region or of a tribe. For example, whenever unacquainted Koreans meet, it is very common for them immediately to determine their possible relatedness by asking which region they are from, which schools they attended, and to which surname family branch they belong. For instance, if two people belong to the same branch of the Lee family, the next step is to determine their respective generation by determining one another’s own or parents’ and grandparents’ shared generation names. This way a younger generation can show proper respect to older members of his or her family. As soon as Koreans determine their relatedness, the two immediately revere this “we” relationship. Once relationships are established, communalists are expected to accede to the goals of the group rather than to esteem personal goals. One is expected to do what the group expects, asks, or demands, without undermining it or voicing opposition.¹⁴

When conflict exists between the group and the individual, communalists are expected to choose the goals of the group for the sake of its harmony, even sacrificing their personal lives. Since a communalist’s personhood is only defined in relationship with that of others, it is important for communalists to maintain good relationships with ingroup members, even if from a self-serving perspective it is not in their best interests to do so. As long as communalists consistently show loyalty to the group, the group will ensure support and security for each person.

Another example of the communalist worldview is seen in Korean and Japanese linguistics. As mentioned earlier, Koreans use “we” or “our” even when they refer to their own thing: “our house” or “our husband” instead of “my house” or “my husband.” Korean cultural convention expects a married woman, who neither shares her husband with others nor has an intention to do so, to say “our husband” even though “my husband” is grammatically correct. Here, We does not mean the coexistence of I and You as independent individual units; rather it indicates that, for example, You and You and You and I are the same reality. As Soo-Won Lee observe, “I and you exist not as separate units but as a unified one. At the moment when two individuals abandon their own perspective and put themselves in their partner’s shoes, they become one, not a separate two.”¹⁵

A similar example is found in Japanese linguistics. The English word “self” is usually translated by the Japanese word jibun, and vice versa. However, unlike the English word for self, jibun connotes “one’s share of the shared life space”;¹⁶ that is, oneself as an inseparable part of ourselves. So when two Japanese people exchange greetings by asking how the other party is, the customary way of saying it is, “How is jibun?” which literally means, “How is ourselves?”¹⁷

In sum, persons in communal societies ca...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part 1 Understanding Community and a Biblical Call for Communal Faith
• Part 2 A Pedagogy of Communal Faith
• Part 3 The Pedagogical Praxis for Communal Faith
• Notes
• Author Index
• Subject Index