Note #9093 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06051 Feb. 2, 2006
Educator says good communication is mostly a matter of R-E-S-P-E-C-T
APCE conference participants told to mind their own 'icebergs'
by Jerry L. Van Marter
ST. LOUIS - "Respectful" communication is essential if Christians' cultural differences are going to be constructive rather than destructive, renowned Episcopal Christian educator Eric Law said Thursday during an address to the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE) annual conference here.
"How many of you go to meetings only to convince others that you are right and they are wrong?" Law asked the ecumenical gathering of about 1,000 church educators from the United States and Canada. "What happens is that the 'convincers' lob arguments back and forth at each other, while the listeners feel like they're watching a game of ping pong."
Such a dynamic is contributing to the decline of mainline denominations, Law said.
"The two extremes argue while the majority listens endlessly, getting more and more bored," he said. "And so they finally leave."
Law outlined a different approach - "respectful communication," based on seven principles:
* R - take Responsibility for what you say and feel without blaming others * E - use Empathetic listening * S - be Sensitive to different communication styles * P - Ponder what you hear and feel * E - Examine your own assumptions and perceptions * C - keep Confidentiality * T - trust Ambiguity
The key to constructive conversation and change, he said, is to recognize cultural differences and recognize that there is tremendous diversity within cultures.
Most important, however, he said, is to understand one's own culture - both the external, observable facets of it and, more importantly, the internal, subjective aspects. To illustrate he offered what he called his "iceberg analogy."
One's cultural reality is like an iceberg, he explained - 20 percent observable, like the part of an iceberg that is visible above the water line.
Components of the external part of one's cultural "iceberg" are explicitly learned, conscious, easily changed, and based on objective knowledge (obtained through sight, hearing, taste and touch).
The internal components, he said - 80 percent of a person's cultural makeup - are implicitly learned, unconscious, difficult to change, and based on subjective knowledge (obtained through beliefs, values, patterns, myths).
It is essential, Law said, to address the whole iceberg in developing intercultural understanding. Citing attempts at forced integration in the 1950s and '60s, and Anglo congregations' frequently troubled attempts to host "nesting" Korean congregations in their buildings, he added: "If we attempt purely external solutions to situations that are 80 percent internal problems, we run a great risk of making those situations worse, not better."
For example, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, he said, needless friction arose because various groups disagreed about whether racial motives were at work in the response to the disaster. "Was it racism at work, or simply people getting trapped? If we just argue over who's right, we never understand the whole reality," he said.
So the first step in becoming interculturally sensitive, Law concluded, "is to know your own iceberg before you try to understand the other's. If we don't understand our own iceberg, both the external and internal aspects, then we crush other cultures, rather than developing constructive relationships with them."
To learn about one's own iceberg, he said, requires discipline to look inward at one's own assumptions, beliefs and values; willingness to engage others constructively; becoming knowledgeable about cultural anthropology; and choosing to consciously behave in a different way "and see how it feels, how it affects your iceberg."
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