ACTITUDES Y MOTIVACIONES FRENTE A LAS TIC

Establishing a worldview is a subjective discussion and needs a point of comparison.

This research question does not necessitate understanding the worldview of the Mano and Gio, except at the point that the worldview addresses the theological issues of conversion. The spiritual perspective of the people impacts how they might receive and respond to the Gospel message. This section will define an understanding of a biblical worldview based on Roland Muller’s¹¹⁰ theory and apply that theory to the framework of both evangelization and measuring the extent of evangelization.

The term worldview was coined by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Later, Richard Kroner wrote a book about this called Kant’s Weeltanschauung, published in

110 Roland Muller is a missiologist who writes about the transmission of the Gospel from one culture to another and how the message is understood. His more recent works have been towards an understanding of how Muslims receive the biblical message (Understanding Islam: Through History, Theology and Daily Practice. 2nd Edition, 2012). Muller has had 30 years of missionary experience and developed missionary apprentice programs. He states that few missionaries function in a mono-cultural environment so it is necessary to understand basic ways that the Gospel is received, but not limiting that recipient by perceptions. He states that the first two barriers involve having credibility as a valid messenger and being able to share a culturally appropriate message that considers the recipient and the community in which they live (2006:i-ii).

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Germany around 1914 and translated into English in 1956. It was through this and later translations that worldview came into more common usage (Muller 2006:130).

There are many definitions of worldview. The Webster’s New World Dictionary defined worldview as “a comprehensive philosophy ultimately founded upon four institutions.” The four concepts given of identifying worldview were religion, politics, economics and science. According to Muller, a more descriptive definition of worldview would be a profile of the way a group of people live, act, think, work, and relate. Worldview becomes a method or a map to illustrate social, religious, economic, and political views and that shape the core of relationships.

Anthropologists refer to the process of constructing worldviews as ethnographic interviews. Ethnography is a description of the behavior and lifestyle of the people and their community, society, and culture (Muller 2006:130).

Muller (2006:130) classified his understanding of the three critical issues for the cross-cultural church planter in The Messenger, The Message, and The Community.

In The Message, he addressed the Gospel and the interaction that occurred with the perception of a particular people. Muller stated that once a hearing has been gained by the messenger, there must be the knowledge of culture that allows the message to be effectively presented across the cultural divide necessitating an understanding for whom the message is being presented.

There are many models for discerning worldviews to illustrate different perspectives.

In discussing models of worldviews, there has been confusion about how a worldview is applied. There has not been a consistent set of criteria for mapping worldviews and the views of the researcher must also be taken into account. If the researcher has strong Marxist beliefs, he may include such things as classes and class struggles in society, while a person with strong religious perceptions may include belief in or perception of God, sin, and salvation in identification. Worldviews can be approached in many ways. For the purpose of this research, a presentation of Muller’s biblical worldview model was utilized (Muller 2006:131).

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Muller (2006:140) created a model that he classified as a biblical worldview. He began by defining biblical criteria and observed people through that lens. The worldview he espoused incorporated two chapters of Genesis, describing all people as living under the influence of sin that shaped our view. The study of sin, hamartiology, was the basis from which Muller derived his biblical worldview. His driving statement was that sin impacts perception of humanity and the responses to sin provides greater understanding of how to more clearly share the message of the Bible. The three effects of sin that Muller describes from Genesis 1-2 are guilt, shame, and fear. He then uses those responses to form the framework of a worldview.

According to Muller, every culture exhibits each of these responses of sin, but cultural segments of society tend to be affected at a deeper level by one more than the other.

Each manifests itself in culture and that it would be inappropriate to generalize entire cultures as being only guilt, shame, or fear based.

Honor and Shame (Muller 2001) is a book that illustrates this concept in a specific arena, but he is careful to indicate the need to resist the temptation to label people or groups. The concepts are designed to identify a more contextual understanding of a presentation of the good news within a people grouping. All cultures encounter the impact of sin and the transmission of the Gospel must overcome these manifestations.

The first biblical worldview Muller (2006:141) utilizes is referred to as a guilt-based worldview. Guilt is associated with guilt or innocence or right and wrong. Western Christianity and theology generally examines life from a perspective of man’s guilt or innocence, placing a high value on how the Bible and salvation engage guilt.

Theologians point out the meaning of scapegoat in Leviticus, the guilt offering, sacrifice, and atonement as pointing towards a perspective of right or wrong. Western cultures tend toward a guilt-based worldview. The movement of the boundary of right and wrong manifests itself when society convinces itself of the rightness of something that was previously viewed as wrong. If that issue becomes acceptable in

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society, the right and wrong boundaries are moved. In this worldview, the ultimate determining factor is whether something is right or wrong.

The second worldview model described is one of honor and shame. The shame-based worldview processes through the lens of honor and shame. Muller (2006:136) cites Genesis 3:8 in stating that after a sinful act, Adam and Eve hid themselves because they were naked and ashamed. Matthew contrasts the holiness of walking with God with the action of sin as producing this sense of shame.

Anthropologists and sociologists have pointed out that many cultures around the world focus on the aspects of honor and shame rather than innocence and guilt as the primary guiding factor in life (Muller 2006:141-142). Middle Eastern cultures hold honor as a high value, so that someone might be put to death because they have shamed the family and the question of right or wrong is not the central tenet.

Practices such as honor killings come out of this concept even though not easily understood from a Western perspective. The Middle Eastern and some Eastern cultures embrace a shame and honor based worldview. It is not uncommon for certain African cultures to reflect this worldview as well.

The third worldview model is one of peace and fear. According to Muller, fear was the third influence that went into effect with original sin. Genesis 3:9-10 (HCSB):

“So the LORD God called out to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” Fear entered into the human race through sin. Adam and Eve walked in the presence of God, but after the entrance of sin, fear entered and the peace of God was lost.

The biblical message of the good news of salvation is that Christ in us is our peace. 1 John 4:18 concluded that the perfect love of God casts out all fear. Many books about Christian theology written from a Western perspective completely miss this key point.

Missionaries encounter the fear-based worldview among those who hold a higher awareness of spiritual realities for centuries, yet often start at the point of right and

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wrong with evangelistic tools like The Four Spiritual Laws.¹¹¹ Missionary messages started at the point of right and wrong have often been missed by the hearer who searched for eternal peace. A more relevant approach to this worldview would be a contextual message finding peace with God (Muller 2006:141-142).

Using Muller’s model, it would be understood that the Mano and Gio people live in a society structure that governs through the use of spiritual imageries and fear of spiritual reprisals are generally inclined toward a fear-based worldview. Zetterstrom (1976:83) states that the Yamein Mano have few thoughts about how God functions and there are limited concepts of life after death. The worldview of the Mano and Gio is not necessarily based on what would be commonly referred as the African Traditional Religions, as much as in the societal structure of the Mano and Gio.

Zetterstrom emphasizes that witchcraft plays an important role in the overall culture of the Mano and Gio (:90), but that it is difficult to understand how it functions in the society and which parts of society it primarily relates to.¹¹²

This type of worldview may have emerged out of a religious paradigm, witchcraft, or of the societal structure. This researcher is inclined towards social structure (Poro and Sande Society) as the source of the resulting factors of fear. There were many expressions of fear, including fear of the unknown, reprisal, dissatisfaction of the spirits and of the secret society. Using Muller’s model, the Mano and Gio seem to be more influenced by the sin response of fear than of shame and guilt. In theory, the evangelization of the Mano people must penetrate the controlling structure of fear, the

111The Four Spiritual Laws. 1993. New Life Resources. Campus Crusade for Christ.

112(Sanneh and Carpenter 2005:45-62). Van den Berg considers culture, Christianity and witchcraft in the West African context. Van den Berg states that beliefs in witches or witchcraft is not universal, but can be found in many cultures and settings. These beliefs tend to involve accusations, suspicions, and explaining evil. This contextual view may be also used to define social values, create social cohesion, and engage personal guilt (:51-52). Though the case study is of the Longuda, his discussion of the cosmology of evil and sin (:56) in this context seems relevant to the Mano and Gio in regards to the view of the devil, witchcraft, and evil that perpetrates a view towards fear. This places the primary impetus towards this worldview with the social role of witchcraft and evil, not implying that this is the result of traditional religion or religious beliefs.

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religious control of devil reprisals, and the prevailing assumption¹¹³ that real peace is unattainable. As this research examined evangelization, it considered the impact of a worldview of fear. There was also a thread of the honor and shame paradigm as honor was important in the social governance structure of the Mano and Gio.