In the everyday world, while communicating, people use nonverbal language to help express themselves better. However, intercultural differences might lead to disagreements and misinterpretations as various traditions form special beliefs and explanations of nonverbal language. People from different countries can struggle to comprehend a foreigner. Gestures, as one of the forms of nonverbal language, can affect intercultural communication and gospel witness in both positive and negative ways.
In every culture, a similar gesture can be interpreted variously which can become a basement for misunderstandings and disagreements. Gestures are helping individuals to express themselves in everyday speech. However, with intercultural communication, gesture language can put a negative impression on the person. Asians, for instance, prefer to focus more on the interaction process and consider the use of too many hand gestures distracting, rude, and undisciplined. In various Muslim countries, men kiss each other on the cheek as a greeting. Although, in the majority of Christian countries this action would be interpreted as rude.
In the modern world, using intercultural specialties can help develop social intelligence and build firm international relationships. This can positively impact a person’s ability to work and adapt in a new environment, become a leader and create firm relations between different people. Concerning other cultures, people can learn to understand each other better. Accentuating the role of culture creates essentialist competency models that help individuals navigate the “strangeness” of the other. The clue to decent interconnections between people of various cultures is a wish to understand them, respect them, and show sympathy. The parable of the Good Samaritan shows the mercifulness and helpfulness of Samaritan to a person in trouble, a representative of an ethnic group, that Jews did not take as coreligionist. The parable shows an example of good actions and intentions uniting people of various groups.
With a modern tendency to immigrate, individuals face various people of different beliefs and traditions. The essence of religion is belief in a God or other supernatural agents, the practice of rituals, or a special experience related to the divine. Intercultural communications and cultural intelligence can help the church overcome the barriers and build a society with no religious borders and misunderstandings. To fight these shortcomings in human relationships, people need to develop a mindset full of tolerance and universal international ethics.
The environment forms a human’s perception of the surroundings, partly – his character, specialties of his speech, looks, and behavior. According to that, a man builds an understanding of what is “good” or “bad”. Education or a desire for change from the people in a local culture leads to breadth and depth of culture-sensitive knowledge, context-specific knowledge, and genuine humanistic concern. With a pure wish to unite the religions and create a peaceful and flourishing relationship between the cultures, the church and people can overcome cultural borders. This is especially seen in Paul the Apostle’s action when he sent a message to the Jewish and the Gentile Christians in Rome to convince them to create a close relationship between their religions. The attitude to the population to immigrants from religious minorities should also help them adapt to a new society and feel more comfortable in changed surroundings. Studies of the patterns of economic, social, and cultural integration among immigrant populations suggest that religious minorities with a migration background lag behind in each of these areas. If immigrants of different religions feel a part of society and respect their rights, the communication between several groups of populations will widen and grow.
Thus, the attitude of individuals towards other religions, the aspiration to develop deep cultural knowledge can lead to the breaking of the international borders. Then the Great Commission’s aim will be reached: to unite all God’s children together and create peace, trust, and love on the planet. With these intentions to each other humans can reach another level of international communication showing respect, sympathy, and understanding.
Bibliography
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Irena Kogan, Eric Fong and Jeffrey G. Reitz. “Religion and integration among immigrant and minority youth.” Journal of migration studies 46, no.17 (2019): 3543-3548. Web.
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Stella Ting-Toomey, and Leeva C. Chung. “Understanding intercultural communication”, 2nd ed. Chap. 7. What are the different ways to communicate nonverbally across cultures? Oxford University Press, 2021.