Toward a Cross-Cultural Definition of Sin

Abstract

Every culture has some standard of right and wrong. This is not fully discovered in a people's behavior, our author reminds us, but in their ideals. These ideals may, in essence, closely parallel the Decalogue; but this essence may be applied with widely varying emphases in the real life situations of different cultures. If the missionary, jealous for the essence of God's righteous demands, relies too heavily on the applications and emphases of his own culture, he may experience little conviction of sin in his hearers — and confused standards in the emerging church. Fully recognizing the dilemma this imposes on the cross-cultural witness, linguist-translator Dye finds hope and help in an ethnotheological approach to the problem.