Culture and Ethnicity in Christianity/Psychology Integration: Review and Future Directions

The vast majority of humankind and the majority of Christians now live outside the West. Despite the central role of culture in biblical thought, and its increasing role in psychology in general, the psychology/theology integration literature has paid little attention to this important dimension. Integration has almost exclusively meant the integration of Western psychology with Western theology. We suggest that a lack of a biblical understanding of culture and ethnicity, and a longstanding, discipline-wide, Western ethnocentrism within psychology, is at the core of the lack of response in the integration literature to these global realities. This review article suggests a deeper integrative understanding of the relationship between culture, theology, psychology, and ethics is an urgently needed foundation for a more global and integrative Christian psychology.Understanding the role of culture is central to an adequate understanding of global Christianity and global psychologies. However, since the psychology/Christianity integration dialogue began, the role of culture has not been extensively explored. This lack of attention to culture is perplexing given that the vast majority of humankind (over 85%) lives outside what is commonly called either the "global north" or the "west" (Population Reference Bureau, 2011). In addition, the center of gravity of Christianity has shifted and continues to shift to the global south where 6l% of all Christians now live (Pew Forum, 2011). Since 1980 the leading language among church members worldwide is not English but Spanish (Johnson & Lee, 2009), and by 2050, it is projected that only about one-fifth of the world's 3 billion Christians will be nonHispanic Whites (Jenkins, 2009).Within the past twenty years, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2012) has identified global mental health as a priority. It is our thesis that a lack of a biblical understanding of culture and ethnicity, and a longstanding, discipline-wide, Western ethnocentrism within psychology, is at the core of the lack of response in the integration literature to these global realities. This is despite the accelerating interest, detailed in this issue, in global perspectives in theology and psychology.There has never been a time of greater opportunity and need to broaden the psychology/Christianity integration conversation. The Cape Town Declaration on Care and Counsel as Mission (Smith et ah, 2011), which emerged from the 2010 Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, called for caregivers worldwide "to develop a perspective of relating and learning from local communities; be encouraged to develop culturally appropriate and biblically congruent psychological perspectives, theories, models and resources; be empowered to develop training centers; and be invited to participate in the worldwide sharing of their knowledge and experiences."DefinitionsAs of sixty years ago, Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) counted more than 125 definitions of culture. The following definition by Marsella and Yamada (2007) is comprehensive and contains the breadth and complexity needed to situate the following discussion:Culture is shared, learned behavior and meanings that are socially transferred in various life-activity settings. Cultures can be (1) transitory (i.e., situational, for even a few minutes) or (2) enduring (e.g., ethnocultural lifestyles), and in all instances are (3) dynamic (i.e., constantly subject to change and modification). Cultures are represented (4) internally (i.e., values, beliefs, attitudes, images, symbols, orientations, epistemologies, consciousness levels, perceptions, expectations, personhood), and (5) externally (i.e., artifacts, roles, institutions, social structures). Cultures (6) shape and construct our realities (i.e., they contribute to our world views, perceptions, orientations) and, with this, frame many critical concepts (e.g., normality-abnormality, morality, aesthetics), (p. …