Apologies and forgiveness across cultures
Offering genuine apologies and forgiveness can be hard. It can be even harder when the people involved are from different cultures.
Until recently, I hadn’t anticipated how complicated it can be to reconcile with someone who comes from a different culture.
Consider this – in my (Australian) workplace setting, it would be a powerful gesture if a manager was to acknowledge that they had mis-stepped, and offer an apology, requesting forgiveness from an employee. If I witnessed an apology like this, I would celebrate that God is at work – that a leader is demonstrating humility in such a powerful way.
Why do I think this way?
A big part of it is because of my culture.
Australia is described as a ‘low power-distance culture’. Australians often pride themselves on having equality across roles. For example, it is expected that team members can make input in decision making and question their leaders (even tease them in a friendly way). Australians assume an equal camaraderie.
Not every culture is like this. In high power-distance cultures (for example Japanese) this behaviour would likely be seen as disrespectful and confusing. When a person of a high power-distance culture sees what I would describe as a ‘friendly atmosphere’, they might think, “How can an employee treat their superiors so poorly? Do they have no respect for their workplace?”
What makes it so complicated?
We all have assumptions about how a good, polite person behaves.
When people are from the same culture, it is likely our assumptions will be similar. But when people are from different cultural backgrounds, it is likely that our assumptions about how relationships work will be different. Sadly, if the differences are not understood, our actions that are intended to restore relationships can be misunderstood, and even cause offence.
This remains true even when there are common underlying beliefs for both parties. For example, consider two people from different cultural backgrounds who both follow Jesus and read his instruction recorded in Matthew 5:23-24:
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”
Although these two individuals will both understand Jesus’ clear call to be reconciled, their different cultural backgrounds may influence how they interpret and carry out the command to ‘go and be reconciled’. As a result, their approaches to reconciliation may differ.
How can a well-intentioned action cause offence?
When I become aware of an issue that can’t be overlooked, my cultural values (from an individualistic culture) tell me to approach the person privately and offer my apology gently with them. One of the values I’m demonstrating in this is to show respect by being direct and allowing the person to receive my apology privately. However, when I raise this with someone whose cultural value prioritises saving face, my approach could easily be experienced as awkward, confronting and DISrespectful. This is because people from cultural backgrounds that place a high value on face are often accustomed to cultural behaviours that use indirect communication methods. These methods may include employing a mediator to speak on their behalf or using non-verbal cues, such as body language and behaviour or sharing stories with parallel themes to communicate a problem.
Goodness, it can all feel a bit too much, can’t it? Conflict is hard enough!
So, what should we do?
A weak response to this is to go soft on apologies and forgiveness to accommodate cultural differences. A better response is to grow in our awareness of how apologies and expressions of forgiveness look different between cultures. To lovingly learn about the other person, their beliefs and what makes the most sense to them.
To be clear, different cultural responses are just that – different. Such variations are usually not inherently right or wrong; they are simply different.
Recognise our differences
Given these differences, consider a situation where a leader from a high power-distance context makes a mistake: what would it mean for a leader to offer a direct apology and request forgiveness from a team member? Such an approach could easily be seen as something that would bring shame and devalue their role inthe organisation. Consequently, their response to making a mistake may be restrained and nuanced.
For example they may call a meeting, providing an assortment of refreshments and share, “Upon reflecting on our recent project, I recognise that some of the decisions made may not have helped the way we hoped. I value the input and expertise of the team and am open to hearing any suggestions on how we can adjust our approach.” In providing the refreshments they are acknowledging sorrow and through the statement, the leader indirectly acknowledges the mistake by reflecting on the project outcomes, shows humility by expressing openness to feedback, and maintains their authority by positioning themselves as a decision-maker willing to learn and improve.
Now, consider the same situation where one of the team members comes from a low power-distance culture. The team member might perceive a leader’s reluctance to apologise directly as an expression of pride and view the provision of refreshments as a bribe! But that’s not entirely accurate, is it?. What the leader is demonstrating, by expressing high power-distance values, is a sensitivity to the dignity of the role and what it means to others around them. The leader is still sorry andis still seeking to honour Jesus’ call to ‘go and be reconciled’; it is just that they are going about it in ways the team member may not readily understand or recognise.
Recognising this illustrates another dimension that varies between cultures: how much spoken words rely on context, either through low-context or high-context communication. Low-context cultures often make clear direct statements, whereas high-context cultures frequently use nuance, stories, situations and gestures to artfully communicate their messages.
Not recognising that these differences are present means we can make incorrect judgments and assumptions about actions that are intended to say the very opposite. For example, a person using low-context assumptions, when giving an apology, may be seen as very direct and immature by a person who is accustomed to high-context practices. On the other hand, when a person from a high-context culture offers an apology with nuanced behaviour, the low-context person is likely to miss that an apology has been offered at all.
This is not easy to get our heads around.
I’m pretty sure I have missed a few apologies that were offered with nuance. And I suspect I have not offered gestures to indicate a smoothing in a relationship (either a humble apologetic gesture, or an ‘it’s ok, I forgive you’ action).
But Jesus can help us in this
When we follow Jesus, we see the enormous lengths God has gone to forgive not just ourselves but people of every nation, language, tribe, and ethnicity. Just like me, everyone from everywhere makes mistakes. We all need to apologise at times and we all need to forgive others.
As we follow Jesus, we are first invited to experience God’s forgiveness and then empowered to grow in his qualities, including humility and love.
Especially when navigating cross-cultural apologies and forgiveness, we are invited to practice this same humility and love. One way we do this is by being sensitive to other’s perspectives and considering how we come across to them. Relationship reconciliation involves not only peacemaking steps, but making sure that these steps are communicated in ways that are congruent with the world views of the people we are seeking to restore relationship with.
Caveat:
After all these comments about cultural norms, it is important to remember that we each have personal styles, not just cultural values. And we vary from the cultural norms of the cultures we learnt our norms in. But it is powerful to see the presence and impact of some of our cultural values. They are invisible to us, and our communication improves when we are able to notice them and consider the cultural values of the people around us. When we are alert to the influence of our different cultural values, we can more effectively offer and receive forgiveness.
It is also worth noting that there areother dimensions to keep in mind when navigating cross-cultural apologies that can’t be explored here. For example, cultures can be emotionally expressive through to non-expressive. A person familiar with emotional expressiveness might think of their teammate, who does not show a lot of emotion, “Do they even care?” Meanwhile, the teammate who is more non-expressive may feel perplexed and wonder if the other is being emotionally manipulative, as their teammate is openly overwhelmed by tears, using big hand gestures, and a loud voice .
Several Cultural values were mentioned in this article. Here is a summary of these:
- Low Power Distance vs High Power Distance
- Individualist vs Collectivist (or face-saving)
- Emotionally Expressive vs Non-expressive or Neutral
As you can see, understanding how to offer and receive apologies across different cultures calls for deep empathy and grace. The way we approach reconciliation can vary greatly depending on cultural norms around power-distance, communication styles, and emotional expression. As Christians, embracing these differences with compassion and respect is not just a matter of effective communication, but of living out the humility and love that Christ calls us to. This approach not only honours the diverse ways people experience forgiveness, but also reflects the heart of God’s love for all.
By learning to appreciate and adapt to the cultural values of others, we can foster genuine reconciliation and strengthen our relationships, as we bear witness to Christ, the ultimate peacemaker.
To learn more about cross cultural biblical peacemaking, PeaceWise, in partnership with SIM, has developed a cross-cultural biblical peacemaking course. If you are interested in participating in this course please contact us.
About the authors
This article was written by Stephanie Schwarz and co-athored by Wayne Forward.
Stephanie Schwarz.
Steph’s vision is to see Christians equipped with a common biblical understanding for peacemaking. She believes that peacemaking skills are effective for conflict resolution and enriching community life – in churches, families and global contexts. Steph is a valued part of the PeaceWise family, serving as one of our trainers. She also works as a Psychologist in private practice and in the missions sector.
Wayne Forward
Wayne is the CEO of PeaceWise. He loves Jesus’ promise, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” He is committed to helping as many people as possible from all walks of life know and experience this promise for themselves.
