OKH Journal: Anthropological Ethnography and Analysis Through the Eyes of Christian Faith

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within the Missouri REALTORS®

Dena Loder-Hurley — 2024-01-27

In 2021, the Missouri REALTORS^® organization took intentional steps toward improving and enhancing diversity and inclusion. These steps included forming a dedicated committee and holding a Diversity Summit. As a member of the organization who was also concerned with issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, I was surprised to learn of ongoing issues of discrimination and unequal treatment within the larger housing industry. I wanted to know how individual members within the organization perceived the issues as well as the actions taken by the organization. What I found was a diversity of perspective, experience, and proposed solutions. In the midst of those differences, I regularly witnessed an ethical commitment to fairness and service to everyone in the community. If that commitment continues to undergird the organization collectively, as well as the individuals serving within it, then I am optimistic. Given the fundamental human need of a place to exist, I am hopeful commitment will characterize the journey.

Whose Vision, Which Morality?

Donald C Grigorenko — 2024-01-27

This article explores moral diversity considered ethnographically and presents implications for cross-cultural service. It is drawn from an ethnographic study done in a Nepali village which identified the primary moral values of community peace, cooperation, and solidarity. These values were discovered to be in tension with the modern Western moral values of personal independence and advancement found in a modern consumer economy, education, democracy and in Western initiated development projects. From these observations, four implications are presented for missionaries working among communalistic people groups. These implications are, the missionary must understand the local moral order, second, the missionary must be aware of the possible presence of conflicting moral visions, third, with a changing moral vision comes a changing set of virtues and moral practices, and finally, development ministries will have an, often unconsidered, impact on the local moral order.

“Let’s Understand Each Other!” Meegye-Mangbetu Death Compensations in the Forest of Alliances

Joyce Dainess Mlenga — 2024-01-27

The Disappearance of Rituals, A Topology of the Present

Jacob Winn — 2024-01-27

The Superhumanities, Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities

Jill L Hurley — 2024-01-27

The Return of Oral Hermeneutics: As Good Today as it was for the Hebrew Bible and First-Century Christianity

Daniel Baker — 2024-01-27

Missing Out: What’s Going On With Male Friendships?

Vincent Gil — 2024-01-27

Significant literature now exists which strongly suggests men in Western countries are shedding orthodox masculinity tropes in favor of greater male friendship intimacies and bonding. Inclusive Masculinity Theory (IMT) has emerged to explain and give direction to these sociocultural changes, suggesting men are gaining emotional and health benefits from greater inclusion of diverse masculinities, homosocial bonding, bro-bud closeness, platonic touch, all without the former fear of being labeled homosexual. However, there is also significant and concurrent literature which suggests men remain lacking in friendships and are lonely; conditions reported to worsen over the time periods studied and despite seeming advances made in male-male homosociability. In fact, this other literature suggests men not only and increasingly lack friendships, but that such lack worsens health outcomes, many self-reporting the effects of emotional and touch isolation from other men.

This discussion article reviews unobtrusive sources: research reports, published articles, online posts and materials, to assess and discuss trends indicated, and unravel their seeming contradictions. Additionally, this discussion article asks if Christian males fare any better—given the faith’s emphasis on love (agape, philia) and mutuality.

Review of findings allow for trends to be understood in light of generational change, underscoring that both conditions—social changes to male homosociability as well as stasis in male-male stereotypic relationships—can be true: younger generations embracing novel changes, while middle- and older generations not doing so. Overall, data confirm that men in all generational cohorts lose friends over time, especially intimate friendships, and this is concerning. Reviewing available literature on Christian male friendships, findings suggest how cultural norms and beliefs can work to undermine male friendship formation and intimacy between men of this faith as well.