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Elyse Sandberg
Dr. Howell
Anthropology 116
25 April 2014

Thinking Anthropologically About the Gospel

As Christians living in the world today, we are called not to succumb to culture,

but rather to critically engage with it. Romans 12:2 says, Do not conform to the pattern

of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to

test and approve what Gods will ishis good, pleasing and perfect will. Culture is

defined in Introducing Cultural Anthropology as the total way of life of a group of people

that is learned, adaptive, shared, and integrated (42). In this passage from Romans,

culture is referred to as the pattern of this world, and we are clearly called to not

conform to this pattern, but instead to be transformed through the renewal of our minds.

The way in which we can do this is to think anthropologically about our own culture. This

means thinking critically about the reasons we live and act the way we do. When I

examine my own life, I see this concept as prominent in Young Life, a ministry for high

school students that I am apart of. The anthropological perspective of thinking critically

about our own culture will enable us, as Christians, to more faithfully live out the

Christian life and more faithfully serve in ministries such as Young Life.

Thinking critically about our culture does not entail removing ourselves from

culture altogether, but instead encourages us to live wisely within the culture we have

been placed. It is impossible to live outside of culture. No matter who we are or where

we are, we are somehow influenced by the world around us. This can be a dangerous

thing for Christians if we are not paying attention and thinking critically about the ways

we are being influenced. Instead of allowing culture to form and shape us, we must look
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at God and his word in order to form and shape the way in which we live in culture. In

other words, we must test and approve what Gods pleasing and perfect will for us is.

This concept of thinking anthropologically (or critically) about culture by the

renewal of the mind plays a critical role in Young Life, a ministry for high-school students

that I am apart of. Young Life is a ministry focused on meeting kids where theyre at,

forming relationships with them, and then walking alongside them as you share and

show Christs love to them. I lead a group of about ten freshman girls from a local high

school, and I have found that this concept of conforming to culture couldnt be more

prevalent in their lives. They are at a stage in life where they are being strongly

influenced by the world, and being pressured every day to conform, and unfortunately,

many of them are giving into these temptations. As a leader, through prayers and

encouragement, I hope to have an influence on them to be transformed by the

renewing of their minds.

The ministry of Young Life is enhanced through thinking anthropologically about

culture. As said in Introducing Cultural Anthropology, The anthropological perspective

refers to an approach to social research that seeks to understand culture from the point

of view of the people within that cultural context (4). In order to reach kids in high

school, we have to be able to identify with them and understand where theyre coming

from. To do this, we must think critically with an anthropological perspective about the

environment they are in. We can do this by going where kids are, which is what Young

Life calls contact work. Contact work reminds me a lot of fieldwork. The official Young

Life website says that Young Life starts with leaders who are concerned enough about

kids to go to them, on their turf and in their culture, building bridges of authentic
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friendship. These relationships don't happen overnight they take time, patience, trust

and consistency. Contact work is important because we believe that the beginning of

the journey to reaching kids is reaching out to them. As we say in Young Life, we have

to earn the right to share Jesus with kids. We do this by going where they are and

meeting them as they are.

This concept of contact work reminds me a lot of field work in that it is about

immersing yourself in a different culture (the culture being a specific high school for

Young Life). Distinctly, contact work reminds me of the cultural immersion process that

anthropologists call participant observation. In the book Ancestral Lines, which is

about an anthropologists work in Papua New Guinea, John Barker writes, The basic

idea behind participant observation is that one can learn a great deal about a

community by joining in ongoing activities (17). Participant observation is what Barker

and his wife did in Papua New Guinea in order to learn more about the culture of the

people there. They had to join in the activities of the culture in order to think critically

about why the Papua New Guinean culture was the way that it was. Participant

observation is, essentially, the same thing we do at Young Life. Contact work is joining

kids in there every day activities and events, living life alongside them, seeking to

understand better the way they think about things. Through this method, I am more

equipped to point my Young Life girls to Jesus and teach them a new way of critically

thinking about their own culture from a Christian perspective.

Socrates once said, The unexamined life is not worth living. As Christians, this

concept is paralleled for us in scripture as we are called to examine our lives and

critically engage with culture in order to live more faithfully. We must be able to live in
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the world but not be of the world, and must strive to help others do the same. In my own

life, I can do this through leading Young Life and being an example of how to be

transformed by God instead of conformed by the world. Utilizing the anthropological

perspective of living critically by renewing my mind will help me to live as a more faithful

follower of Christ in this world.

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Works Cited

Barker, John. Ancestral Lines: The Maisin of Papua New Guinea and the Fate of the

Rainforest. Toronto, Ontario: Higher Education University of Toronto, 2008. Print.

Howell, Brian M., and Jenell Williams. Paris. Introducing Cultural Anthropology: A

Christian Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011. Print.