An Eastern Family in a Western World

The Bible is an Eastern book. It has Eastern culture, economics, social stigmas, literary style, etc., at its core. I believe that without this contextual “lens,” the ultimate meaning of the Bible at best is less impacting than in Jesus’ time.

However, some aspects of the Bible’s Eastern flavor seem to find their way into our lives without searching for it. Two of them are 1) the Eastern understanding of family roles and 2) the Oriental emphasis on shame and honor. It’s significant to me that there are technically two types of “shame” in Eastern societies. One is negative and the other is positive. The negative one condemns inappropriate behavior and the positive one helps individuals “save face” when confronted with a difficult situation. For example, with the persistent friend in Luke 11:5-8, Westerners assume that the friend banging on the door late at night has commited a cultural taboo. But actually, it’s the man who refuses to open the door and provide food for a town visitor that would have infuriated Jesus’ listeners. He violated basic Oriental cultural standards of hospitality.

Though these Eastern ideas don’t make it into our Bible interpretation very often (which means we usually miss the intended point), the Christian family can easily adopt these Eastern cultural norms for their own simply by reading the Bible together. My family did. We were different than other families I knew just based on emphasis of lifestyle. Though it certainly had to do with our Christianity, it also stemmed from living like an Eastern family in a Western world. Just by studying scripture, my brother and I absorbed Eastern understandings of right and wrong. We valued time, honor, authority, family rank, and so on without really understanding that the cultural emphasis for these concepts came straight outta scripture (not Compton). When I went out with friends or on a date at age 16, I fully understood that my family’s name and honor were on the line with each decision I made. I understood “losing face” without knowing what to call it. That was a greater deterrent than any punishment that may have followed an infraction. My other friends often saw themselves as individuals apart from their families – doing their own thing. I saw myself as part of a larger picture. Honestly, it made my decisions look weird to my friends.

Sometimes, those same cultural understandings, though appropriate for a family unit with children, become burdensome later in life if parents still enforce them on their adult children. But that doesn’t invalidate their usefulness during the parenting years. In fact, they may be vital to helping a child understand the impact his/her decisions have on others. Some of those “Eastern” family practices are still used with my two daughters now. Others aren’t. But I know this much: families with an Eastern understanding of honor are aware of one another. They respect each other more. And that makes them treat one another better, something all families could use a little more of.