Reconceptualizing indigeneity in minority ethnic groups

Abstract

Models of indigeneity and contextualization tend to overlook the impact of surrounding cultures on the culture and sense of identity of minority ethnic groups. Recent debate about ethnic groups and their cultures in anthropology provides essential theoretical foundations for examining this issue. This article begins by exploring these foundations and their implications for missiological conceptions of indigeneity and for fostering indigenous expressions of faith. Then, drawing on theories of acculturation, the dynamic and multifaceted influence of other (particularly more dominant) cultures on minority groups is discussed, using the case of the Turkish-speaking Millet in Bulgaria and their western European diaspora to illustrate this. The consequences of failing to recognize outside influence on minority groups include miscontextualization and misapplication of principles of indigeneity. These are illustrated through the case of the Millet. Finally, implications for missionary practice are drawn out.

Keywords

Indigeneity ethnicity identity minorities Gypsies Roma Millet culture people groups

Introduction

Training for cross-cultural mission has traditionally focused on helping missionaries understand and engage with the culture of a particular people group they go to serve. The indigenizing principle (Walls, 1996: 53–54) supports this focus by encouraging missionaries to help people become Christians in such a way that they do not have to sacrifice their home identity and culture. Models of indigeneity and contextualization, however, have had a tendency to overlook the impact of surrounding cultures on a group’s ethnicity and culture. Minority groups in particular are deeply influenced by the more powerful ethnic groups they live among. Missiologists therefore need to extend their conceptualization of ethnicity, culture and indigeneity to include the impact on minority groups from surrounding, and especially more powerful, cultural groups.

As missionaries who served among the Millet (a Turkish-speaking Roma subgroup) in Bulgaria, our initial concepts of indigenous contextualized churches and leaders were focused solely on the Millet themselves. We did not consider the impact of neighbouring, more powerful ethnic groups on Millet culture and emerging Christianity. As our understanding of this people group grew, however, we began to see the profound impact of Turks and Bulgarians on them.

This article explores the influence of surrounding groups on minority people groups. First, current anthropological and missiological thinking about ethnicity and culture is reviewed. Then, the influence of surrounding ethnic groups on minority groups’ identity construction and culture is examined and illustrated by the case of the Millet in Bulgaria and in western European diaspora. Implications for missionary practice are then drawn out.

The Millet

The Millet are a Turkish-speaking subgroup of the Roma, who, until very recently, have almost all considered themselves Muslims. Like other Muslim Roma (of whom there are around 6 million across the world), they have received relatively little attention from researchers (Marsh, 2014: 234).¹ One Millet man from the northern Bulgarian city of Dobrich describes the Millet well when he writes:

I am a Roma, living in a community of Romany speakers, but which uses the Turkish language, as well. We are referred to as ‘Millet’ (a word that is different from the same word in Turkey, where it means ‘nation’). In our situation ‘Millet’ (with a capital ‘M’) denotes a person who is a Roma, speaks Turkish and generally perceives himself or herself to be a Muslim. (Robins, 2010: 661)

In the 1990s, many Millet came to faith in Christ and joined evangelical churches, nearly all of which were Pentecostal. The Association of Romani Pastors in Bulgaria estimated that there were 50,000 Roma Pentecostals in 2008 (Slavkova, 2014: 60). Of these, we estimate that around 6000 were Millet (Hibbert, 2013). In addition to more than 120 Millet churches in Bulgaria, there are more than 80 churches composed entirely or predominantly of Millet scattered across western Europe (European Turkish Christian Network, 2020). Finding faith in Christ and joining an evangelical church has resulted in an ongoing transformation of identity, as well as a reaffirmation of many aspects of Millet culture and identity (Delgado, 2014; Hibbert, 2008; Slavkova, 2014).

Reaffirming and refining ethnicity and culture: ‘anti-anti-essentialism’

Michael Rynkiewich (2011, 2016) urges missiologists to jettison essentialist conceptions of groups and their cultures as fixed, static and clearly bounded entities, and to embrace a more fluid model of ethnicity and culture. Building on this plea, Peter Lee and James Sung-Hwan Park (2018) call missiologists to re-evaluate the notion of people groups. A growing number of missiological publications are engaging in this re-evaluation (Gill, 2018; Howell and Zehner, 2009; Rynkiewich, 2016; Tienou, 2016). The outcome of this scrutiny has been to refine rather than throw out the concept of people groups. There now seems to be consensus that earlier missiological formulations of people groups, such as Donald McGavran’s (1955) in The Bridges of God, were overly essentialist. But they are also understood to have been a necessary step in bringing missionaries to an awareness of how group identity influences the spread of the gospel (e.g. Gill, 2018).

Much of today’s anthropological wisdom concerning people groups (in the sense of ethnic groups) is based on Frederick Barth’s (1969) seminal work. He convincingly argued that ethno-linguistic groups are socially constructed entities, formed largely by self-ascriptions of the members of that group and the ascriptions of members of other groups. He also showed that ethnic groups maintain their existence by constructing relatively stable boundaries based on a relatively small set of cultural traits – that is, they establish their identity by how they differ from surrounding groups, defining themselves in contrast or even opposition to others. Certain specific traits become a locus for protecting group identity, for excluding people from membership in the group, and for discriminating against others. Most contemporary theorists hold to a ‘constructionist’ view which sees ethnicity as a subjective sense of belonging to a group that is based on belief in a common ancestry and ‘shared blood’ (Cornell and Hartmann, 2007; Scupin, 2003).

Rather than throwing out the idea of people groups as fundamentally flawed, then, current anthropology recognizes the importance of ethnicity as ‘one of the most powerful identities that humans develop’ (Guest, 2018: 154). Social identity theory, a branch of social psychology, has highlighted that people define themselves and ground much of their sense of well-being from the groups, including the ethnic group, they belong to (Dunaetz, 2015: loc. 3433). Despite the intensification of globalization and the increasing number of multi-ethnic societies, ethnicity remains crucial partly because it ‘counters the dehumanizing bent of globalization’ (Adeney, 2003: 94).

Scripture also affirms the importance of ethnicity.² Ethnic groups were initiated by God in Genesis, chapters 10 and 11, with his creation of multiple languages as well as ‘clans’, ‘lines of descent’ and ‘nations’ (Gen. 10:32). The double appearance of ‘every nation, tribe, people, and language’ in the Book of Revelation also suggests that God affirms them (Rev. 5:9–10, 7:9; cf. Jacobs, 2000: 323).

Along with the idea of ethnic groups, the concept of culture has been under intense re-evaluation and has been refined in the process (Howell, 2009: 14–15; Ortner, 2006: 12, 50). The idea of cultures as homogeneous, integrated, clearly bounded and unchanging essences – ideas that can result in negative stereotyping of cultural others – has been rejected. These unhelpful aspects of ‘integrated concepts of culture’, to use Robert Schreiter’s (1997: 47–53) term, do not account for the situations of conflict and change that characterize poly-ethnic societies, immigrants and diaspora groups. There has also been an increased emphasis in recent anthropology on the agency of individuals, an emphasis that corrects the tendency of classic anthropology to view culture as completely determining people’s behaviour (Jenkins, 2008). Cultures and the individual agents who belong to them are now understood to influence each other in a dynamic two-way relationship (Brubaker, 2004; Ortner, 2006: 132–133). Along with this emphasis has come an awareness of and empirical evidence for intra-cultural variations between individuals in the extent to which they express or hold to various cultural values and practices (Dutta-Bergman and Wells, 2002; Rynkiewich, 2011: 39; Yip, 2014).

Despite these modifications to the concept of culture, the idea that culture is a ‘more or less integrated system’ continues to play a vital and powerful role in helping us understand human behaviour (Ortner, 2006: 12, 50, 112, 114; Schreiter, 1997: 49–50). Newer constructivist conceptions of culture do not replace integrated models, but instead add to them by better accounting for cultural shifts that arise from interaction between cultural groups (Schreiter, 1997: 55).

Marginalized groups like the Millet are reclaiming the notion of their own distinct ethnicity and culture. Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge (2016: 131) cite the example of a Mohawk woman who asserts that her culture precedes her gender in its importance to her identity. While critics may dub these kinds of affirmations as essentialist, approaches that downplay culture and ethnicity are rightly rejected by minority groups because they deny the lived experience of people from non-majority cultures (Clifford, 2003: 65; Collins, 2009: 298). James Clifford writes:

a rigorously anti-essentialist attitude, with respect to things like identity, culture, tradition . . . is not really a position one can sustain in a consistent way . . . Certainly one can’t sustain a social movement or a community without certain apparently stable criteria for distinguishing us from them. Certain key symbols come to define the we against the they; certain core elements of a tradition come to be separated out, venerated, fetishized, defended. (Clifford, 2003: 63)

Clifford proposes an ‘anti-anti-essentialist’ stance which recognizes essentialism’s weaknesses but does not throw out the reality of groupness and the identity and belonging that come from it. Rather, it affirms that there is a measure of fixity in ethnic groups – at least the fixity of boundaries. According to this view, each ethnic group forms its identity by ‘building a collective we’, which enables it to engage with other groups (Collins and Bilge, 2016: 130). Carol Silverman (2020: loc. 5747), an anthropologist who has focused her work on the Roma, draws on these ideas to argue that Roma groups are continually finding new ways of articulating their cultural identity – ways that ‘are not stuck in the past, but reference the past in relationship to the future’.

Since ethnicity and culture remain crucial realities, missiologists and missionary trainers who teach the next generation of missionaries need to re-emphasize the importance of in-depth learning of language and culture (cf. Rynkiewich, 2011: 9). While anti-essentialist rhetoric has been associated with several helpful corrections to the concepts of ethnicity and culture, it can be taken too far. What is needed is an ‘anti-anti-essentialism’ which acknowledges that ‘the concept of ethnic group may be a blunt instrument, but it’s good enough as a first approximation’ (Brubaker, cited in Gill, 2018: 181).

The influence of surrounding groups on Millet identity and culture

Twenty-first-century missiological concepts of ethnicity and culture recognize that cultures change over time and that a key factor stimulating such change is interaction with other ethnic groups (e.g. Howell, 2009; Rynkiewich, 2011; Yip, 2014). As members of minority groups like the Millet interact with surrounding groups, they proactively engage in an ongoing process of identity construction, modifying their collective identity by including elements from surrounding cultures and interpreting the cultures of the groups around them. They do this in terms of their pre-existing system of cultural ideas, feelings and values, combining elements of the new culture with elements of their pre-existing culture into new configurations by stretching their cultural categories to incorporate new elements from the dominant culture (Barnett, 1953).

As ethnic groups such as the Millet interact with other groups, their ongoing construction of their identity is likely to follow one of three possible trajectories that are described in acculturation theories put forward by anthropologists like Marshall Sahlins (1985) and Joel Robbins (2004) and cross-cultural psychologists (e.g. Benet-Martinez and Haritatos, 2005; Berry, 1997; Burke, 2009; Van der Werf et al., 2020). First, they might reject the influence of surrounding cultures and separate themselves from them. Second, they might adopt another culture through a process of assimilation, rejecting their own culture in the process. The third and most likely possibility, which is already evident in Bulgaria and in the early stages of the Millet’s acculturation in western Europe, is that they mostly hold on to their own culture but also incorporate a few elements of the dominant culture.

Acculturation theory predicts that the acculturation trajectory that a minority group follows depends on features of both the minority and the majority group. Several factors make the integration of a minority group into mainstream society more likely. Two are particularly significant for the Millet: (1) the degree of proficiency they attain in the dominant group’s language – Bulgarian in Bulgaria and western European languages where they have migrated – and (2) the attitude of the majority group(s) towards them, together with the quality and quantity of the minority–majority group interaction (Burke, 2009; Liu et al., 2018: 228).

The influence of Turkish culture and Bulgarian exclusion on Millet identity and culture

Millet culture and sense of identity in Bulgaria have been profoundly shaped by their interaction with Turks and Bulgarians. Turks have had a particularly strong influence on both the culture and identity of the Millet, with whom they share their heart language, their Muslim identity and many cultural traits. The Millet aspire to be Turks, as evidenced by their representing themselves to outsiders as Turks, partly because this gives them a higher status in society (Marushiakova and Popov, 2016b: 27–33). Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic (2017) describes the same craving for Turkishness among the very similar Muslim Roma in Macedonia. But despite Millet aspirations, Turks in Bulgaria do not accept the Millet as Turks. Rather, they look down on them, referring to them using pejoratives such as esmer vantadaşlarımız (‘our dark-skinned citizens’) and perdesiz ağızlar (‘people with undisciplined tongues’). These epithets suggest two features of the Millet – one racial (skin colour) and the other cultural (way of talking) – that Turks use as boundary markers to exclude them. As a further example of this exclusion by Turks, Oustinova-Stjepanovic (2017: 341) reports that Muslim Roma in Macedonia ‘bore a grudge against the “Turks” for stigmatization of “Gypsies” as flawed Muslims’. Another distinguishing feature is the way the Millet speak Turkish, which is significantly different to the Bulgarian Turks’ dialect (Kyuchukov, 2016).

Bulgarians have also influenced the Millet, primarily by excluding them from mainstream society, segregating them into ghettoes, lower-quality ‘special schools’ and low-paying jobs along with other Roma. During the 1970s and 1980s, Bulgaria also engaged in what Miroslav Volf (1996: 75) has identified as a second form of exclusion – the exclusion of assimilation that says: ‘You can survive, even thrive, among us, if you become like us; you can keep your life, if you give up your identity’. The Bulgarian government tried to assimilate the Millet by forcibly changing their Turkish names into Bulgarian ones, with the aid of the police and the army where the Millet resisted (Boneva, 1995). These two forms of exclusion have resulted in a lack of meaningful relationships between Bulgarians and the Millet.

Being excluded from, and marginalized and stigmatized by, mainstream society has deeply shaped the Millet’s sense of identity. Their enforced segregation and subordination, as much as their cultural characteristics, have become a key component of their identity (Gheorghe and Acton, 2001: 58–59; Marushiakova and Popov, 2016a; Rostas, 2020: loc. 3961). The Millet are looked down on by Bulgarians as people who avoid work and civic duties and abuse social benefits (Kentos, 2020: 19; Marushiakova and Popov, 2016a: 159–160).

The Millet have internalized their accumulated experiences of being discriminated against and devalued, and have developed a ‘built-in trauma of the personality’ and lack of self-esteem, which leads to troubled relationships with Bulgarians and Turks (Rostas, 2020: loc. 3961; Szalai, 2020: loc. 1613). One Millet friend recently explained that he and his friends grew up with very poor self-esteem because they and their families were so consistently put down by Bulgarians: ‘Lying and stealing and deceiving people becomes normal, because that’s what people think you are anyway. So you start to look up to and respect people [in your group] who are able to deceive others, particularly outsiders’.³

The influence of Turkish culture and Bulgarian exclusion on the Millet is shown in Figure 1 by the large area of overlap between Millet and Turkish circles and by a green semi-circular exclusion barrier and the double black line between them and Bulgarian society. The large arrow represents the Millet’s aspirations to be Turkish, while the smaller arrow represents the Millet’s desire for greater integration into Bulgarian society.

Figure 1.

The influence of Turkish culture and Bulgarian exclusion on the Millet.

Possible trajectories of Millet identity and culture in western Europe

Since 1995, when there was estimated to be about 400,000 Millet in Bulgaria, there has been an accelerating wave of migration from Bulgaria to many countries across Europe (Tomova, 1995: 23). Many tens of thousands of Millet now live and work in Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, France and the UK. Many end up working for Turkish employers (who migrated decades earlier) in Turkish coffee shops, restaurants and construction companies. Because of the time they spend in Turkish environments, their shared language and their aspirations to become Turkish, the main cultural influence on the Millet continues to be from Turks, as it is in Bulgaria (Maeva, 2008: 238).

Even though the Millet are usually looked down on and sometimes mistreated by Turks in Europe (Kyuchukov, 2016), their aspirations to become Turkish seem much more likely to be fulfilled than they were in Bulgaria. The reason for this is that they have markedly more everyday contact with Turks in western Europe (who employ them) than they did with Turks in Bulgaria. They are being exposed to Turkish cultural values and the Turks’ way of speaking Turkish much more intensively than most Millet in Bulgaria. Hristo Kyuchukov (2016) has studied the shifts taking place in the Turkish dialect of the Millet who have migrated to Berlin and found that they are learning the standard Berlin variety of Turkish from their employers. What is more, many second-generation Millet children are attending Turkish language classes and learning to speak perfect Berlin Turkish. These children also consider themselves fully Turks. While the first generation of Millet do not consider themselves Turks, Kyuchukov (2016: 12) writes that their children ‘definitely will identity along these lines’.

Just as Bulgarian culture has had very little influence on the Millet, so the cultures of the western European countries in which the Millet settle are likely to have only a relatively superficial impact on them. Discrimination, segregation, long working hours and the desire to maintain strong links with their ‘homeland’ in the ghettoes of Bulgaria all work together to keep first-generation migrant Millet from developing significant relationships with western Europeans and from being influenced much by western European cultural values and practices. As in Bulgaria, exclusion, marginalization and stigmatization continue to characterize the Millet’s lives. They are, along with other Roma, ‘the most discriminated against ethnic minority of Europe’ (Thornton, 2014: 106; cf. Amnesty International, 2014). In Germany, for example, Roma immigrants ‘frequently suffer verbal abuse and are assaulted’, and racism against them is ‘an everyday occurrence’ (Diehl et al., 2014). In Italy and France, they have been segregated into Gypsy neighbourhoods, characterized by dilapidated housing and poor hygiene conditions, and attempts have been made by the governments in both countries to forcibly deport them back to Bulgaria (Dunlop, 2018; Picker, 2017; Spasovska, 2013).

The Millet may appropriate a few elements of western culture, but, in the process, they will likely reinterpret those elements so that they fit their world view. One example of this reinterpretation can be seen in the way they use pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (cf. Today’s Catholic, 2012). This is an image that the Millet have borrowed from Roman Catholicism. It was displayed in many Millet believers’ homes in the 1990s and currently is used in some Millet posts on YouTube, despite it being highly offensive to Muslims. They have appropriated this symbol as representing the experiential warmth of the love of Christ for them, but they have done so without any of the Catholic traditions or practices associated with it.

A linguistic parallel to this appropriation and transformation of elements from other cultures can be seen in the Millet’s use of Bulgarian words and forms. A century of being schooled in Bulgarian-speaking schools, with no formal education in Turkish, has influenced the Millet’s way of speaking Turkish. Kyuchukov (2016), a psycholinguistics researcher, found that the basic structure of the Millet language is Turkish, but that they regularly insert Bulgarian words into their sentences, tacking Turkish endings onto them so that the sentences are structured basically according to Turkish grammar with a Bulgarian-influenced variation in word order.

Clues to the longer-term consequences of migration for Millet identity and culture can be found in Silverman’s (2012, 2016) studies of another group that is very similar to the Millet: Muslim Macedonian Roma who settled in a part of the Bronx, New York, in the 1960s. Even though the first generation did not at first know English, many now have stable semi-skilled jobs. Some have joined the middle class, and some of the second generation even have college degrees and are pursuing professions. Significantly, though, this change in their economic and employment situation has not been accompanied by cultural assimilation. Many of these Muslim Roma continue to experience the stigma associated with being ‘Gypsy’ (Silverman, 2016: 164). They remain proud of their culture and resist social integration out of fear that this will cause a breakdown in traditional family gender roles (Silverman, 2012: 34). Instead, they retain their cultural practices and values. One particularly striking practice, which they share with the Millet, is virginity testing, which involves the bridal sheet being inspected for blood after consummation of the marriage and paraded in the street (Silverman, 2012: 34–35). If these Muslim Roma in North America have resisted assimilation and maintain their own culture – partly as a result of ‘push’ factors from mainstream society and partly because of the ‘pull’ of their own traditions and values – the Millet are even more likely to do so. This is because they have even more opportunity to maintain strong links with their relatives and friends in Bulgaria – something they are doing through Facebook and video-conferencing, as well as by spending several weeks there each summer (Bojilova and Andreev, 2018).

Slightly different acculturation outcomes are likely depending on which western European country the Millet settle in. The reason for this is that the level of anti-Roma discrimination varies across different nations. The Pew Research Center’s 2019 Global Attitudes survey revealed that 83% of people polled in Italy had an unfavourable view of Roma, while in Greece it was 72% and in Spain just 29% (Wike et al., 2019). In countries that have a higher percentage of people who are favourably disposed to Roma, the Millet are more likely to be able to develop positive relationships outside their own group and integrate into mainstream society. Bulgarian anthropologist Magdalena Slavkova (2013) found this to be the case when she compared the situation of the Roma in Spain with that in Greece. Those who migrated to Spain, where attitudes towards Roma are more positive, developed more positive ties with people of other ethnicities than those in Greece, where attitudes towards Roma are generally much less favourable.

Missionary assumptions and miscontextualization

Millet followers of Jesus retain their identity and culture as Millet. Strong family ties and orientation to relationships, the protection of the virginity of girls until marriage, deference to elders, the value of hospitality, belief in evil spirits and an emphasis on having a clean heart (which is now seen to be the result of Jesus’ washing of them) are all strengthened by becoming Christians. At the same time, some practices that are widespread in Millet society – such as deceiving and cheating people, alcohol and domestic violence, and folk Islamic practices such as using protective amulets – are rejected. The difference between believers’ and non-believers’ lives is so dramatic that even secular researchers remark on it (Delgado, 2014; Hibbert, 2008; Slavkova, 2014).

Cross-cultural workers who minister among the Millet often mistakenly try to make Christian Millet more Turkish or Bulgarian than they themselves want to be. One reason for this is the path that missionaries follow to end up serving among the Millet. Some spend a year or more in Turkey to learn the Turkish language and culture. Others begin by learning the Bulgarian language and culture in Bulgaria. Each group tends to approach the Millet with a mistaken set of presuppositions. Those coming via Turkey tend to assume that Millet culture is or should be the same as Turkish culture. They therefore treat any discrepancies they encounter as some kind of deficiency in the Millet and try to make the Millet believers more Turkish. They also tend to assume that Millet come to faith and grow in Christ in similar ways that Turks do (which is not the case). Those who come via the Bulgarian culture and language also tend to judge Millet behaviour as deficient and wrong because it does not operate according to Bulgarian norms. Both groups of missionaries, perhaps unwittingly, attempt to squeeze the Millet into the mould of another ethnic group.

This failure to understand the Millet on their own terms has consequences for missionary communication and teaching of the gospel. When missionaries assume that the Millet’s concerns and world-view assumptions are the same as those of either Turks or Bulgarians, they fail to properly contextualize their evangelism and discipling. Another problem can arise when they get involved in developing Millet Christian leaders, as they can mistakenly influence the Millet to adopt either a Bulgarian or Turkish leadership style that is inappropriate for them. Poorly contextualized leadership patterns borrowed from Bulgarians have already led to many Millet leaving churches (Hibbert, 2013). To address these challenges, missionaries need to set themselves the long-term task of working to deeply understand the Millet’s sense of group identity and culture. While this group’s culture and sense of identity have been shaped by Turkish culture and Bulgarian exclusion in ways that are helpful for missionaries to appreciate, they are nevertheless unique to the Millet.

Millet Christians also have a unique sense of identity that is different to that of Turkish or Bulgarian believers because it has been shaped both by Millet culture and by the particular ways God has used to bring them to faith in Christ. Nearly every Millet man and woman who has come to faith in Christ has experienced a miracle of divine healing. Many have also had a powerful personal encounter with Jesus in a dream or vision (Hibbert, 2008; Hibbert et al., 2017). These experiences form the basis for the central feature of Millet Christianity – believers’ absolute confidence in Christ’s unconditional love for them. Indigenous Millet Christian songs, such as the following, celebrate this love:

You were thrown out by people

But I will protect you

Give me your hand and I’ll hold it

I will be with you

Give me your hand and I’ll hold it

I will bring you to heaven.

Knowing that they are loved unconditionally – something that they have found nowhere else in the world – enables Millet believers to overcome their internalized sense of worthlessness and gives them the strength to endure opposition (Szalai, 2020: loc. 1816). ‘Instead of constantly feeling rejected by everyone and worthless, we find out that Jesus accepts us and loves us’, said one believer.⁴ Even though becoming a Christian adds an extra layer to Millet marginalization – because in addition to being looked down on by the wider society, they are also looked down on by neighbours – knowing the love of Christ for them gives the Millet a new confidence in their identity as Millet. One lady in the church we helped to start illustrated this newfound freedom when she suddenly opened her arms wide and shouted, ‘I’m a Gypsy!’ – something that no Millet would normally dream of saying. A man from a northern Bulgarian city explained that he did not care if he was marginalized by his own people. ‘I don’t care’, he said. ‘I have found the true life, and I am ready to share it with anyone’ (Kostadinov, 2010: 662).

Implications for missionary practice

To be effective in reaching minorities with the gospel, missiology and missionaries need to appreciate the importance of a group’s ethnicity and culture, and the ongoing need to foster indigeneity. Recent refinements in conceptualizing ethnicity and culture suggest that we also must refine our understanding of minority-group indigeneity. This involves appreciating the influence that surrounding cultures have on minority groups, recognizing the agency of minority groups, and building bridges between majority and minority groups as we do what we can to help people from minority groups develop their own indigenous expressions of faith.

Appreciate the influence of surrounding groups on identity, culture and church indigeneity

The power and persistence of ethnic identity means that Andrew Walls’ (1996: 53–54) indigenizing principle – the ‘homing instinct which creates in diverse communities a sense that the Church belongs there, that it is “ours”’ – is as important as ever. Missionaries must continue to do everything possible to nurture the establishment of indigenous churches to which believers feel they truly belong, without having to give up their own ethnic identity or culture. The three-self model of indigeneity and its expansions to include self-identity and self-theologizing remain important signposts for missionaries as they work towards new Christians feeling that the church belongs among them and that it is truly theirs as much as it is the missionar (Hiebert, 1994; Smalley, 1979). But just as we have needed to refine our conception of ethnic groups, we also need to nuance our models of indigeneity to take into account the influence of surrounding groups and their cultures on any ethnic group.

Recognize and support the agency of minority groups

It is the local people who are the active agents in incorporating elements of other cultures into their culture according to their own agenda and reinterpreting these elements in the light of their world view (cf. Cornell and Hartmann, 2007: 208). When we work among people from marginalized backgrounds, it is easy to assume a patronizing attitude and to want to use the power of our cultural heritage and resources to ‘fix their problems’. It is important that missionaries do not perpetuate this deficit mentality. Alternatively, in a zealous pursuit of ‘pure’ indigeneity, sometimes missionaries actively prevent new believers from adopting forms from outside their own culture – for example, by trying to stop them singing Hillsong-style songs or using non-indigenous instruments. Missionaries should instead honour the agency of the local people in determining what the indigenous expression of being a Christian looks like in each specific cultural context.

Act as bridge-builders

Cross-cultural workers are in the unique position of being able to be mediators who can ‘build bridges of understanding and fellowship’ between diverse Christian communities (Hiebert, 2006: 297). Being a bridge-builder is a multifaceted role that requires the cross-cultural worker to spend time with both majority- and minority-group Christians. Missionaries can help majority-group Christians move beyond seeing the minority group only as inferior or deficient, so that they can relate to minority-group believers as brothers and sisters in Christ and even as people they can learn from. They can also build relationships with key people in the majority church and act as an advocate for the minority with the majority. Bridge-building work with the minority includes empowering them through education (cf. Paulo Freire’s (1973) approach to empowering illiterate Brazilian peasants) and helping them understand why the majority group does things the way it does in terms of differing cultural values.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Evelyn Hibbert

Notes

Author biographies

Richard and Evelyn Hibbert worked as church planters and theological educators among the Millet in Bulgaria after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. They have ongoing interaction with the Millet, who are now spread across Europe, by distance from Australia.

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