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Elyse Sandberg
Dr. Howell
Anthropology 116
25 April 2014
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
perspective of living critically by renewing my mind will help me to live as a more faithful
Works Cited
Barker, John. Ancestral Lines: The Maisin of Papua New Guinea and the Fate of the
Howell, Brian M., and Jenell Williams. Paris. Introducing Cultural Anthropology: A