In the contemporary world, certain groups of people distinguish themselves in terms of beliefs, norms and traditions. Certain geographical environments have different cultural spaces that enhance intercultural communication. For newcomers in these geographical environments, they must understand and choose the cultural space they will fit in depending on their native language, lifestyles and beliefs. Cultural spaces are always distinguished in the methods of communication i.e. verbal, non-verbal, written and visual. Other cultural spaces are also distinguished in terms of artifacts, slangs, dress code, behaviors (Sorells, 2016). The Baptist church is one example of a cultural space I have chosen. Baptist church is a cultural space that leads to spiritual well-being and peaceful co-existence among the people.
History of Baptist Church Based on Research and People
The cultural space is the Baptist church. The Baptist church was founded in 1606 by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys after they fled persecution in Netherlands (Radner, 2017). The two were being persecuted by Richard Bancroft the Archbishop of Canterbury for introducing adult baptism characterized by complete water immersion. When they formed this church, it was considered to be the first Baptist church. The founders of the church never believed on other churches because they never followed baptism as prescribed in the Bible. Because Helwys and Smyth were followers of Martin Lurther, they believed that their followers were able to proficiently read and interpret the Bible with ease. The community surrounding the church is usually composed of people of different ethnicities i.e. whites, African American and Asians and they believe that the Baptist church was founded in 1606 in Netherlands. The above aforementioned religions majorly use English as their language of communicating. The religions surrounding the Baptist church are the Islam, Seventh Day Adventist, Catholic, Pagans, Evangelicals Pentecostals and Buddhists. The surrounding community have peaceful co-existence amongst themselves and respect everyone freedom of worship.
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Meanings Attached To the Baptist Church
According to Radner (2017), the church has distinct beliefs and norms that make it different. The Baptist church believes that the Bible is the guiding tool for holiness and also believes in complete water immersion baptism. According to Hepp (2015), churches have beliefs, traditions, norms, dress codes, lifestyles, praying and baptism. Baptists ascribe that they only use the Christian Standard Bible in their daily church services because majority of its followers speak and interpret the English language. Bible is the Supreme reference at Baptist church in all church matters that deal with faith and daily prayer practice. Pastor Greear who is the overall president of the Baptist church ascertains that his junior pastors must use the Bible while performing church services like Baptism, worship and tithes offerings (In Chen, 2017). The church strictly baptizes its believers only and no other member is welcome in the Baptism processes. If a non-believer is wrongly baptized by this church, the officials that performed the baptism are disciplined by his or her superiors and their position suspended until their case matter is heard and determined.
As mentioned above, Baptist church is comprised with White Americans, Asians and African American. The first tradition prescribed by the Baptist church is songs of praise. In Chen (2017) claims that churches have different traditions regarding the way they pray and worship. Usually, the church believers say that Sunday is the only day recognized and set aside by the Bile. Therefore White Americans, Asians and African Americans congregants usually go to church every Sunday. The church ensures that it sets aside two hours in morning for songs of praise that ensure believers have personal prayers when they are singing. The prayers enable its believers to meditate and communicate to God their life challenges and what they expect from God. The songs of praise are usually contained in a book carried by each Baptist congregant. The believers also recommend that every person who comes to church at Sunday must have songs of praise book and a Bible. The second tradition for this church is special prayers and preaching. The prayers and preaching are usually headed by a chosen pastor and choristers and nobody.
The Baptist church language used during preaching and praying must conform to the community ascent and dialect (Schiller, 2019). A lot of time is usually allocated for special prayers and preaching. The Bible is usually the guiding and reference book that Baptist pastors use to disseminate key message and themes during preaching and praying. After the church service, the Baptist clergy usually dedicate special prayers to believers who might be having personal life problems like unemployment, financial constraints and childlessness. The third tradition of the church is donations. The church follows what the Bible outlines; that every believer must contribute 10% of his or her earnings to God. The fourth tradition of the Baptist church is how they dress. Cultural spaces must be distinguished on how its congregants dress (Baran, 2021). This church requires its men to wear full pants, a shirt and a sweater or suit because no t-shirt is acceptable in this church. Because t-shirts might be tight hence tempt women at the church. Women on the other hand, are expected to wear modest clothes are less skin revealing which might tempt men. The Baptist pastor or preacher must wear a clean clergy cloth which is less skin revealing. The church requires its clergy men to be leading examples and role models in the church. Also, the church prohibits sexual relationships between its pastors and followers. Sex before marriage is highly restricted in this church, and if a follower commits the offense, cleansing is the aftermath process instituted against the follower. The Baptist church traditions help shaping people characters and making them spiritual and righteous in the society. Due the presence of different races at the church, intercultural communication is usually flourished.
How Is the Church Segregated / or Integrated and Hybrid-Negotiated?
The Baptist church is segregated in different perspectives. Firstly, the church accommodates and welcomes many races. Example in America, the Baptist followers are from different race backgrounds namely white American, African American, Asians, Hawaiian and Alaska native ethnicities. Secondly, the church also welcomes people irrespective of their social class, whether poor or rich. From the segregation perspective, different ethnicities at the church can ascertain that the church plays an important role in enhancing intercultural communication due to different race backgrounds. Enhanced intercultural communication leads to peaceful coexistence and intermarriages (Schiller, 2019). The Baptist church also integrates its believers to gain spiritual righteousness in the long run. Therefore the church plays an important role of integrating its believers to regularly pray, worship, offer tithes, forgive their enemies and help the less privileged in the community. Lastly through hybrid negotiation transformation, the Baptist church follows the Bible guidelines on how to resolve conflicts in the church. Firstly, the conflicting parties must solve their conflicts privately. If the conflict is not resolved, the second step is to involve third party negotiators. If the conflict is not resolved by the third parties, the church will try and resolve the conflict. The church will leave the conflict if long-term conflict resolution is not achieved, because the Bible advices that the conflicting parties should leave the case to God. Finally the conflicting parties will forgive themselves in the long run because the Bible will guide them.
In conclusion, the Baptist church is a cultural space that has continued to strengthen intercultural communication and peaceful co-existence amongst people. The space has also enabled people to get their spiritual nourishments which has enabled them have increased integration and social interconnections. The Baptist church has also provided holistic programs where disadvantaged groups in the society can be helped in terms of free clothing, money and food. The cultural space has also resulted to race intermarriages and bilingualism, which enhances peaceful social integration and coexistence in the long run. The church is a cultural space that enhances harmony and cultural communication amongst people.
References
Baran, S. J. (2021). Introduction to mass communication: Media literacy and culture . McGraw-Hill Education.
Hepp, A. (2015). Transcultural communication . Wiley Blackwell.
In Chen, L. (2017). Intercultural communication . De Gruyter Mouton.
Radner, E. (2017). Church . Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Schiller, H. I. (2019). Communication and cultural domination. Routledge.
Sorells, K. (2016). Intercultural communication: Globalization and social justice . SAGE Publications Ltd.
