Because I have been an inline skater (‘rollerblader’) since my teen years, I am sensitive to how a sport can be unfairly mocked and misunderstood; I have also observed how that subculture has diversified in weird, wonderful and controversial directions. My personal experience primed me to approach discussions about Olympic breaking with a sympathetic and curious posture; it made me wince at the hot takes, including even from Christian leaders and evangelists who, I felt, should have known better.
In this article, I will argue that when we perceive something as ‘weird’ in another culture, this is an opportunity to seek deeper understanding. I will show how public reactions to the introduction of breaking into the 2024 Paris Olympic Games provides a vivid case study.
Faithful Discipleship Involves Crossing Cultures
Our faith compels us to love all people and preach the gospel to all nations. This will lead us to cross cultures, both in neighbourly hospitality and in missionary enterprise. In our godly love and faithful evangelism, we should expect to encounter some mixture of the glory of the image of God and created goodness, and the shame of sin, folly and unbelief. But because of the great diversity of culture (consider the confounding impact Babel, Gen 11:1–9), cross-cultural understanding and critique won’t be always easy. Holiness makes us “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (Jas 1:19), which is vital in cross-cultural communication. Christ denied himself to serve us for our salvation. The cross is a model for our self-denying flexibility in seeking to best engage with those from different cultures (1 Cor 9:19–23).
These efforts can be relatively straightforward. There is truth in saying that what the human race has in common is greater than what divides us. But that’s not the whole truth. We can lull ourselves into a false sense of competence, into thinking that cross-cultural understanding, analysis, discernment and even critique just requires a bit of thinking, prayer and common sense.
Responding to Strangeness: Curiosity or Repulsion
Within certain bounds, something that is unusual captures our attention and curiosity. But at some point, if something is sufficiently outside of our comfort zone, interest gives way to a negative reaction. We might laugh or feel disgust, or even anger. Consider the case of Olympic breaking (‘breakdancing’). Some people see this so-called sport as having no place alongside the 100 metres sprint or the 1500 metres freestyle swim or gymnastics uneven bars. How much more the viral reactions to the eccentric moves of Australian female B-girl Raygun, which triggered negative responses ranging from cringe and mockery to fury and conspiracy theories.
True, our instinctive emotional reactions can be spot on. We can intuitively identify something immoral or destructive before our intellect has had the time to interpret it. Our emotions are always giving us somewhat useful information. But that doesn’t mean our intuitive reaction is always pure. Common sense is not always that sensible. Our first reaction may be mistaken for many reasons—our own personal hangups, prejudices or a failure to properly understand.
There is a missiological lesson here. What is true of the minor example of breaking subculture is true of more substantial examples of understanding another culture’s diet, religious practices or gender norms. When you are tempted to write something off as ‘weird’, take a breath and show curiosity first instead.
Don’t Trust the Opinions of Tourists
Members of the general public, who have stopped for thirty seconds to watch a breaker busking in Darling Harbour and seen breaking in the background of RnB music videos, should be slow to make authoritative pronouncements about Olympic selection and judging. It’s like when people come back from a three-week holiday or short-term mission trip and begin making authoritative pronouncements about the country and culture from which they have returned.
We can have some understanding from passing exposure. But we don’t understand the finer points. Here is where we might be tempted to dismiss something simply as ‘weird’. A casual viewer of breaking understands impressive ‘power moves’ but has little interest in ‘top rocking’, let alone the kooky ways that ‘originality’ might be legitimately displayed within the discipline. Tourists make bad missionaries. When crossing cultures, have a good dose of scepticism of your limited understanding.
Be Alert to Your Preferences and Prejudices
If you prefer traditional institutionalised sports such as cricket and athletics, it will be easy for you to dismiss the idea of breaking or skateboarding as Olympic sports. Because of your personal preferences, you will not be the most reliable person to assess these sporting cultures. So also, if you have been raised in very privileged social circles, your personal tastes and opinions and your idea of what is proper etiquette will make it difficult for you to respectfully appreciate and effectively minister to those from a lower socioeconomic background. It will be very easy for you to read behaviour as kitsch, ignorant and rude. It will be tempting to make ‘civilising’ part of your discipleship agenda.[1]
Further irritation was provoked by Raygun’s low-ranking breaking performance when it became widely known that she had a PhD in cultural studies. Without knowing much about her academic work, prejudices related to academia, especially the humanities, were stirred up. This was often accompanied by sneering and imputing cynical motives. Something similarly unfortunate can happen in a Christian response to a Muslim, recklessly imputing beliefs and motives.
Seek to Understand Cultural Elements in Proper Context
There was a great deal of misleading reporting and misguided commentary when clips of Raygun’s performance went viral globally. Strong negative responses to the weirdness of her dancing understandably sought explanation. It was suggested that she was doing some kind of stunt; AUSBreaking was unjustifiably accused of corruption and incompetence. The problem with this commentary was that it lacked curiosity and favoured a sinister explanation. It assumed that intuitive negative reactions were accurate, that the perceived problems were obvious, that the explanations would be simple.
The reality was more complex, more benign and more ordinary. Australian breaking was a small competitive sporting culture, had a relatively short turnaround time for Olympic representation, and certain legitimate elements of breaking are much less impressive, if not bizarre, to the outside eye.[2]
When as neighbours or evangelists we come across elements in another culture or subculture that we find weird, gross, disgusting or funny, we should cultivate the godly posture and missiological discipline to ask ‘What am I not understanding here?’ The history of missions includes so many failures resulting from blurring gospel, godliness and cultural specifics and then imposing the sending culture onto the receiving culture.
[1] We are of course entitled to our preferences—we don’t need to personally enjoy the cuisine or fashion of another culture. In fact, not even every member of a culture of subculture enjoys every element or expression of that culture.
[2] Raygun was widely misreported to have scored zero points in Paris. This is an inaccurate description of how breaking is judged—each judge votes for the winner between two competitors and the end result reflect those votes. A competitor who received zero votes did not therefore receive zero points for the quality of their own routine.
