Transcultural Quotes

Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic. ~ Michel Foucault

Close to half my students in one class in northern Nigeria, where head coverings are part of the culture, held this view, so after they had finished debating with the other half, I asked why none of them had greeted me with a holy kiss - and they laughed! The holy kiss is an explicit command repeated in Scripture five times as often as head coverings (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14), but the usual response is, "That was merely a cultural form of greeting." Indeed it was, but covering the head (technically, all the hair) was also merely a cultural expression of sexual modesty, as can be demonstrated from a massive number of ancient sources.26Yet a few of my students bordered on calling other students "liberal" because they did not insist on head coverings as a transcultural requirement! Who determines where to draw the line? Is everyone liberal who holds as cultural something we hold as transcultural? ~ James R. Beck

We reject the charge of tribalism, particularly from those whose theologies serve to buttress the most nefarious brand of tribalism of all - the omnipotent state. The church is the one political entity in our culture that is global, transnational, transcultural. Tribalism is not the church determined to serve God rather than Caesar. Tribalism is the United States of America, which sets up artificial boundaries and defends them with murderous intensity. ~ William H. Willimon

And all of this then enables Webb to say that Paul's appeal to the creation of Adam prior to Eve is not proof of a transcultural ethical standard. But if a theological argument has to deny significant portions of Scripture for its support, it should surely be rejected by evangelicals who are subject to the authority of the entire Bible as the Word of God. Webb's three ways of denying the historicity of Adam's creation before Eve in Genesis 2 are three steps on the path toward liberalism. ~ Wayne A. Grudem

What counts as religious or secular in any given context is a function of different configurations of power. The question then becomes why such essentialist constructions are so common. I argue that, in what are called "Western" societies, the attempt to create a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion that is essentially prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of the liberal nation-state. The myth of religious violence helps to construct and marginalise a religious other, prone to fanaticism, to contrast with the rational, peace-keeping, secular subject. This myth can and is used in domestic politics to legitimate the marginalisation of certain types of practices and groups labeled religious, while underwriting the nation-state's monopoly on its citizens' willingness to sacrifice and kill. In foreign policy, the myth of religious violence serves to cast nonsecular social orders, especially Muslim societies, in the role of the villain. THEY have not yet learned to remove the dangerous influence of religion from political life. THEIR violence is therefore irrational and fanatical. OUR violence, being secular, is rational, peace making, and sometimes regrettably necessary to contain their violence. We find ourselves obliged to bomb them into liberal democracy. ~ William T. Cavanaugh

The self identity of Man is transcultural, and thus cannot have any single point of reference. Pluralism is not synonymous with tolerance of a variety of opinions. Pluralism amounts to the recognition of the unthinkable, the absurd, and up to a limit, intolerable. Reality in itself does not need to be transparent intelligible. ~ Raimon Panikkar

The recognition that modern societies are no longer monolithic, that the
imaginary social space has mushroomed into a multitude of identities has
propelled us into a realization that we are in an era where interculturality,
transculturalism and the eventual prospect of identifying a cosmopolitan
citizenship can become a reality. However we still remain circumscribed by
our Little Italies, our China Towns etc., which beyond the pleasures of
experiencing culinary delights, nevertheless create a self illusion that we
have attained a level of cultural awareness of the other. ~ Donald Cuccioletta

If morality is always relative to one's own society, then you, coming from your society, have your moral standards and I, coming from my society, have mine. It follows that when I criticize your moral standards, I am simply expressing the morality of my society, but it also follows that when you condemn me for criticizing the moral standards of your society, you are simply expressing the morality of your society. There is, on this view, no way of moving outside the morality of one's own society and expressing a transcultural or objective moral judgment about anything, including respect for the cultures of different peoples. Hence if we happen to live in a culture that honors those who subdue other societies and suppress their cultures, then that is our morality, and the relativist can offer no cogent reason why we should not simply get on with it. ~ Peter Singer