Lausanne World Pulse – Imitation in Cross-Cultural Mission: Discussions in an African Context
By Jim Harries
Introduction
Learning can occur either by hearing and following instructions, or by imitation. For example, to peel an orange, first take the unpeeled orange into your left hand with the lump facing up. Pick up a knife and, clasping the handle in the palm of your hand, have your pointer finger along the back of the blade. Press the blade forcefully against the skin (outside) of the orange, near the lump, while making a back-and-forth motion.
Or I could say “Do this” and demonstrate. Demonstration is, in fact, how most people learn most of the time.
Learning by Imitating
“Learning by imitating” is very effective. Learning by following instructions in a manual requires a pre-existing detailed knowledge of language, which must itself have been acquired through imitation. It requires learning every eventuality. For example, telling someone to turn the key to start a car engine will not help a novice driver (who has not seen an example to imitate) unless you tell him or her to put it into the hole first, which hole it is, which way to put it, how far in to push it, which way to turn it, how much pressure to apply in turning, not to be surprised by the engine starting, etc.
Westerners attempting to share the good news of Jesus with African people must imitate Africans in terms of language, as far as possible, in day-to-day life.
Careful consideration of human learning will help us realise the vital and dominant role of imitation: watching someone ride a bike, then riding it; toddlers observing adults walking on two feet before trying it themselves; etc. “The meaning of a word is its use in the language,” says Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.1 Surely, then, observation and imitation set the foundation for all subsequent education. Even in the African Church I have seen children kneel, sob, and cry in repentance for their sins—not only because their hearts are strongly convicted (they may or may not be), but also because they have seen adults do so. Even African spirituality, at least to a degree, is learned through imitation.
If learning is rooted as strongly in imitation as indicated above, then we can assume that what is available to imitate will have a determining effect on people’s comprehension, education, and worldview. A worldview is a platform on which subsequent learning occurs. Such a platform, I suggest, resembles a language and is integrally linked to a language. Someone who has received elementary schooling in German is ready to be taught in German at a university. Yet that particular platform is also built on a specific set of imitation experiences that determines the potential for further learning.
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Dr. Jim Harries is chair of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission, which seeks to encourage mission using the language of people being reached through non-subsidised ministries. He is also a missionary to the Luo people of Western Kenya. |