High-context cultures and Low-context cultures

Having expanded on what I mean by glocal Christianity, I would now like to explain the differences between high-context cultures and low-context cultures and explore what this means for discipleship in globalised locales.

But first, what the heck are high-context and low-context cultures? The term comes from anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s theory of cross cultural communication, which has been summarised by others as follows:

High-context cultures (including much of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South America) are relational, collectivist, intuitive, and contemplative.  This means that people in these cultures emphasize interpersonal relationships.  Developing trust is an important first step to any business transaction.  According to Hall, these cultures are collectivist, preferring group harmony and consensus to individual achievement.  And people in these cultures are less governed by reason than by intuition or feelings.  Words are not so important as context, which might include the speaker’s tone of voice, facial expression, gestures, posture—and even the person’s family history and status.  A Japanese manager explained his culture’s communication style to an American:  “We are a homogeneous people and don’t have to speak as much as you do here.  When we say one word, we understand ten, but here you have to say ten to understand one.”  High-context communication tends to be more indirect and more formal.  Flowery language, humility, and elaborate apologies are typical.

Low-context cultures (including North America and much of Western Europe) are logical, linear, individualistic, and action-oriented.  People from low-context cultures value logic, facts, and directness.  Solving a problem means lining up the facts and evaluating one after another.  Decisions are based on fact rather than intuition.  Discussions end with actions.  And communicators are expected to be straightforward, concise, and efficient in telling what action is expected.  To be absolutely clear, they strive to use precise words and intend them to be taken literally.  Explicit contracts conclude negotiations.  This is very different from communicators in high-context cultures who depend less on language precision and legal documents.  High-context business people may even distrust contracts and be offended by the lack of trust they suggest.

So western Sydney, where I live, is what you’d call an extremely low-context culture. It’s heterogeneous and pluralistic, both culturally and religiously and economically, and if you want to be understood you need to communicate fairly clearly and succinctly. You would have seen me mention ‘context’ many times on this blog? It’s typical of low-context communicators to clarify context rather than assume it.

But, and here’s the confusing bit, while my local community can be extremely low-context on the large scale, it can be extremely high-context on the small scale. Why? Because many of my neighbours are immigrants from places like rural India and rural Sudan, which are high-context cultures. So, while communication between families can be low-context, communication within families can be high-context. Friends can be a mixture of both. This can make Christian community very interesting.

Now, some of the people I disciple come from esoteric backgrounds and I have friends interstate and overseas who also disciple people from esoteric backgrounds, in places like Nimbin and Salem. So you’d think we’d disciple in similar ways. But you’d be wrong. Why? Because, relatively speaking, they’re discipling in higher-context cultures than myself.

You see, in a place like Nimbin and Salem, where NeoPaganism is extremely popular, there is more than enough people sharing a common background for higher-context group communication to occur. So you can share symbols and stories, so you actually dream of contextualised church in places like that. Not so here. Here, yes, I may have a former occultist or two in a group, but at the same time I also may have former Hindus and secular Aussies. Being a former occultist myself I can communicate to former occultists in highly contextualised ways when speaking one-to-one, but in a group situation that opportunity evaporates.

So for me, when I’m talking church contextualisation, I’m not talking messianic Paganism or messianic Hinduism in some highly contextualised way like some missional Christians do. Rather, when I’m talking church contextualisation, I’m talking about diversifying for a diverse environment. I’m talking about esoteric types feeling welcome, not because they find churches with people like them in them, but because they find churches where everyone is the same in being different in some way. It’s the irony of diversity. When everyone is different, no one is.

This, then, explains why I emphasise the importance of one-to-one discipleship (or personal mentoring if you’d prefer that word). Because for me, as a glocal or polycultural Christian, high-context communication is largely limited to personal conversations, not group discussions.