Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Homogenous Unit Principle: Time for a Rethink?

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Matt Stone

2007-11-21

I have been rethinking the value of Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) based mission strategies over the last few months, and particularly over the last few weeks, and think its maybe time I started letting this cat out of the bag.

It has more than a little to do with my shift towards deeper local church involvement.

Here is an article which highlights some of the issues that concern me:

Rethinking HUP thinking: Confessions of a Homogeneous Unit Principle Advocate

Basically I have come to question how transferable the Homogenous Unit Principle is to pluralistic western contexts, particularly given the fluidity of our society. Once upon a time I thought sub-culturally contextualized groups were the way to go; that overseas mission methodologies were fully transferable. But over time I have been forced to concede that our subcultures just aren’t homogenous enough. It’s extreme diversity all the way down with the most pluralistic of the pluralists. There is no homogenous unit, not even at the level of the individual, not when plurality becomes internalized.

So maybe its time to give up experimenting with homogenous-translocal groups; maybe its time to re-examine the possibilities of hetrogenous-local groups; to shift from demographic focus back to geographic focus. Is that incarnational-mission heresy? Does that smack of a return to one-size-fits-all for some of you? I don’t know how you might interpret this to be honest, but that’s the way I’ve been shifting of late. Essentially, I believe we need models that respect multiple diversities, extreme diversities even. That’s not sub-culturally contextual church, but its not Christendom church either. It’s something else.

Tags Diversity

8 responses to “Homogenous Unit Principle: Time for a Rethink?”

sally

2007-11-21

I think one of the difficulties in following the HUP is that we are in danger of fragmenting our churches and communities even more than they are fragmented at the moment.
There is an inherent danger in reaching like with like, which may cause us to preach only that part of the gospel message that will sit comfortably with one particular group, it also denises our wholeness as people forgetting that we belong to numerous sub-cultures. Although there are positive sides to following HUP, I fear we loose more than we gain.

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Matt Stone

2007-11-21

That well articulates some of my concerns, increasing fragmentation, ecclesiological apartheid, etc.

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brad

2007-11-21

I can understand the past missions emphasis on HUP in a world where multiple groups together often led to dynamics of domination/subordination. It made sense then to protect a “tribe,” whether that tribe was based on DNA or on virtual demographics, so its members could express church in their own ways that made sense in their culture [singular].
However, I agree with both of your suggestions on potentially destructive side-effects of fragmentation by using the HUP in a globally heterogeneous world, where “liquid identity” or “multifaceted identity” is becoming the norm. I’m not sure the term “indigenous” means the same thing anymore, when individuals frequently identify themselves with cultures [plural]. Does HUP mean anything when a single person potentially represents a microcosm of cultural connections?
Might I suggest a paradoxical in-between process? Micro-contextualization of the gospel and a spiritual formation trajectory, based on individual or small-culture cluster cultural identity – AND – encouragement of interaction with “the other” in multiple-culture contexts leading (Lord willing) to interculturalism. The former requires us to listen carefully to the individual/cultural cluster and establish a transformational connection – often beyond our own comfortability level. They start on their journey from their own starting point, not ours. The latter (integration) requires them (and us) to engage beyond their (our) comfortability levels in order to fill up more of the fullness of image of Christ.
If we are all moving toward the goal of personal Christlike character and “Kingdom Culture” (the social outworking of Christlikeness), then we need to learn from others who are coming toward the same goal from very different trajectories. In my understanding, each already embodies some kind of “spiritual spackle” that I need to fill in the gaps in my soul and culture …
Anyway, looking forward to reading the article soon as I can get my head cleared out from reviewing Reveal and all that is going on with that …
Blessings –
Brad

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Mike Lowe

2007-11-21

I’m right with you here Matt. My understanding of God has been going in a direction that is increasingly relational and I believe that discipleship requires us to work out our relationships with people who are different.
Actually, when you scratch below the surface, everyone is different (as you point out). But because we find difference challenging, a lot of the time it suits us to pretend that we are the same. When we think we are relating with someone who we think is the same as us we are deluding ourselves. This is not relating at all, just self-talk. We need difference to be challenged, to grow and to learn to listen to the God whose ‘thoughts are not your thoughts’ and whose ‘ways are not your ways’ (Isaiah 55)
Diversity is hard. It is really hard. I think the story of the Tower of Babel speaks to the fantasy that ‘if only we all spoke the same language think how much more we could achieve’. But God isn’t interested in that kind of achievement – he wants us to struggle with our differences and learn to live with them because only by doing so can we step beyond our egoism.

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Chris

2007-11-22

I think that most people who use the HUP as an excuse to stay within their own culture miss the point of the guy who observed it and called it what it is. Donald McGavran (and his protoge, George Hunter) both write that the HUP is no excuse to remain inside closed borders, it merely points out that we get along best with those “like us.” Church planting thus has to have to it a certain amount of understanding with respect to the HUP because we must speak the language of those we are trying to reach.
For example, imagine going to Brazil, to some tribe in the middle of nowhere, and trying to tell them about Jesus in English. They wouldn’t understand you. But learn their language and their native customs and tell them about Jesus in a way they’ll understand, and they have a much better chance of believing the gospel.
But in order to apply the HUP you have to move across cultural borders.
It’s the paradox of the thing, yes, but let’s not discount the thing entirely. Just because culture today is so fluid doesn’t mean that the HUP doesn’t still apply, it just means that the communities we found will have different qualifiers as the primary homogenous unit. Whereas before it might have been “white and american and upper-middle class”, the primary qualifiers might now move towards “likes this sort of music and live in town-A and know these people.” In doing so we may move across traditional boundaries – socioeconomic class, racial divides, whatever – but we’ll still be following the HUP. Boundaries are necessary for the world to have more than one culture; a culture DEFINES itself in relation to OTHER cultures, by what it is NOT. And so by virtue of having what you called a “heterogeneous” culture, you are still making a sort of “homogeneous” culture – culture that is “not homogeneous.” Like I said, all you’re doing is shifting the borders and defining characteristics of the Homogeneous Unit, not banishing the principle.

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Steve Hayes

2007-11-24

I was deeply suspicious of the “homogeneous unity principle” when I first heard of it, because at that time apartheid was the official policy in South Africa and Christians rejected it as not merely a heresy but a pseudogospel, advocating salvation by race, not grace.
I can see some point in the homogeneous unit principle for outreach in certain circumstances, but segregated churches are an abomination.

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Peggy

2007-11-25

I really resonate with this, Matt, as well as what Brad was saying…and this is very much what CovenantClusters is about: going back into the geographic neighborhoods and taking Christ with us!

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Matt Stone

2007-11-26

Yeah, I think Brad is very much in tune with what I am saying and where I am going with this. I am not questioning the need for contextualization, on the contrary I am suggesting that the situation is becoming so fluid that our contextualization models need to become equally as fluid.
The HUP acknowledges cultural diversity, but only in terms of fairly static forms of cultural diversity.
Chris, in saying “But in order to apply the HUP you have to move across cultural borders” I am not sure you appreciate the sort of situation I am talking about. We are planning on running a neighbourhood Christmas party in two weeks, to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and if it is anything like last year, we can expect multiple families from multiple religious, cultural, socio-economic and language backgrounds. We can expect Hindus, Sikhs, an Eastern Orthodox priest, lapsed Seventh Day Adventists, an old Buddhist lady, and some neo-Pagan friends. If we invited people a little further afield we could expect some fundamentalist Christian Sudanese refugees and some agnostic drug users. I cross cultural half a dozen culture boundaries just inviting a few locals. My four year old son is learning Punjabi just to play with the girl next door! Try to apply the HUP to that! There is lost of diversity, lots, but there is little structure to it.

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