the U.S. American context, when one compares U.S. Americans with people from other nations (such as the Japanese, for example), “it becomes clear that certain attitudes and behaviors are much more characteristic of the Americans and others are far more typical of the Japanese.”35 Claude Fischer writes that in spite of the “changes, spikes, sideways moves, and reversals” that may be discerned in U.S. history, “continuity is a striking feature of American culture,” so that “what seemed socially distinctive about America in the eighteenth century still seems distinctive in the twenty-first.”36
This does not mean that all Americans think and act precisely the same. There is variation, uniqueness, and divergence. And yet there are also some deep-seated convictions and behavioral tendencies that permeate much of the U.S. American context.37 The available literature about U.S. American cultural tendencies illustrates a large number of things that one might say are important for understanding the U.S. American context.38 To be as concise as possible, however, I will limit my comments to the two cultural dimensions that are most pertinent to this project. At later points in the book, I will introduce additional U.S. American tendencies that are germane to specific topics being discussed at those times.
By far, the most pervasive and impactful dimension of the U.S. American context is the passionate stress on individualism. Robert Bellah talks about the strong emphasis in the United States on the “sacredness of the individual conscience, the individual person.” He traces this emphasis back to the sectarian religious groups that landed on American shores in the seventeenth century. They brought an intense commitment to “the absolute centrality of religious freedom, of the sacredness of individual conscience in matters of religious belief.”39 Since that time, the emphasis on individualism has expanded to include not only a focus on individual conscience, but also on an understanding of the individual self as distinct and unique. In this regard, Steward and Bennett write, “Americans naturally assume that each person is not only a separate biological entity, but also a unique psychological being and a singular member of the social order,” so that “me and my” is “one of the sharpest dichotomies of American culture.”40 Asitimbay asserts that one of the reasons this individual stress is so robust in the United States is that Americans are immersed in this reality from a very early age. She notes that “the notion of individual needs coming before the needs of others is taught before you can even talk.” Moreover, children are taught that they have freedom to make choices. “You choose. This is what you hear, like an echo, from every corner of the United States.”41 Individualism is a driving force (most likely the driving force) of U.S. American culture. You will encounter multiple references to the impact of individualism in this book.42
The second dimension of the U.S. American context that is germane to this project is privacy, and it grows out of the emphasis on individualism. Because we conceive of the individual self as a distinct and unique entity, we also therefore view ourselves as separate from all others, and hence we attach a strong value to privacy. Since we are different from everyone else and have our own unique identity, we “tend to assume that most people ‘need some time to themselves’ . . . to think about things or recover their spent psychological energy.”43 We have already noted that individualism makes it difficult for people to respond fully to God’s intentions for them to live as relational beings. In a similar fashion, privacy makes it challenging for people to embrace God’s intentions for their Christ-following journey to impact the exterior, public spaces of their lives. The public impact of the full life that God intends for us in Jesus will be addressed more fully later in this book.
1. I describe some of the pertinent characteristics of the U.S. American context later in this chapter.
2. Dongell, Joseph. “Biblical Theology as a Whole.” Lecture. Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY, May 7, 2009.
3. Klein, “Leben–neues Leben,” 91–107.
4. Non-Christian or non-believer will be used throughout this book to refer to those persons who are not actively and intentionally following Christ. Some scholars prefer the term pre-Christian because it honors the fact that most people in the West are outside the influence of Christianity and the church (see Hunter, How to Reach Secular People, 13–39). However, in this project I envision the “realm” of evangelism to include not only persons who have little or no knowledge of Christianity (or Christians), but also those who do have knowledge of Christianity (or Christians), and have not yet chosen to become Christ-followers. In this context, non-Christian includes but is not limited to those persons whom other scholars would designate as pre-Christian. Non-believers will also be used on occasion to honor the Johannine emphasis on believing in Jesus so that we may have life.
5. Hunter, Church for the Unchurched, 53.
6. I prefer Dongell’s use of full life to Klein’s use of new life. Full life includes new life, but I conceive of it as moving beyond the newness of our life in Christ at the beginning of our relationship with him, which includes relationship with God, other persons, and creation (more will be said on the relational nature of full life in Christ throughout this book), so that it includes a growing awareness and embrace of all that God intends for us in him, throughout our lifetime and into chronological eternity.
7. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, 430.
8. Bultmann, “ζαω,” 870.
9. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 148.
10. Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion, 32.
11. Ibid., 33.
12. Ibid., 33–36.
13. Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion, 34–35.
14. Sweazey, Effective Evangelism, 60.
15. As one example, Evangelism Explosion engages in a follow-up process in which a life of discipleship is encouraged, but this new life of discipleship is predicated on the evangelistic emphasis on heaven. Thus, discipleship is fueled by our gratitude for the gift of heaven (“The reason for living a godly life is gratitude . . . I’m saying ‘thank you’ for the gift of eternal life Christ has given me.” Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion, 49). This is an appropriate focus, but it is also a limiting focus that makes it difficult for persons to capture and experience the full-life dimensions of Christian living.
