Newsletter Thoughts 8/2/2025

Dear Friends,

I am continuing to read and share from the book, “Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals that Direct Our Lives.” This week I read about the trade-offs (assets and liabilities) between each extreme.

As I read the assets associated with tight cultures, I experienced a weird feeling of “yes, but.”

Who doesn’t want to have conscientiousness, social order, and self-control?

Unfortunately, the costs of these are high (closed-mindedness, conventionality, and cultural inertia).

Conversely the assets of a loose culture elicited the same feelings. Yes, I want to live with tolerance, creativity, and adaptability.

The costs here are also high in social disorder, lack or coordination, and impulsivity. The above chart is a good reminder that every culture has its positives and negatives.

Speaking of which, it is very difficult to evaluate beyond one’s own culture. Loose cultures are more open to ideas and thus better able to evaluate; but not much better at seeing value in other cultures.

Centuries ago, this phenomenon was articulated by Herodotus who wrote that “all cultures are ethnocentric – that is, they believe their own way of doing things is far superior to that of others.”

Maybe it’s the case of being more comfortable with what we know.

How is it that through the centuries and throughout the world different types of cultures emerged?

Or, better, why do we have such a scale of tight to loose cultures? The author identified three places to look: disaster, disease, and diversity.

Cultures that have experienced more disaster, natural and human made, tend to be tighter.

This makes sense as recovery very much depends on people working together. The same goes for disease. Historical pandemics, with many lives lost, forced greater cooperation for survivors. This book was written before Covid, but I think we can see examples of loose and tight cultures in the ways various communities responded or reacted.

In our own country we experienced a clash of cultures within our churches, cities, and states.

I think we also saw the natural tightening that a normally loose culture experiences in times of crisis.

Diversity leads to looser cultures. Historically, some looser cultures existed alongside major trade routes. One way that diversity leads to looser cultures is in the reality of different traditions and norms existing alongside each other. Of course this can lead to conflict.

“When diversity gets to be very high, tightness begins to increase markedly.”

I think that this tension between differing cultures and their looseness/tightness is part of what we are experiencing now.

I am wondering how a better understanding of culture can be helpful for ALC as we navigate a culture that no longer places “church” at center.

How can we be church amid the push-pull between tightness and looseness?

How can we learn to recognize and value the contributions of those who do not experience the world in the same ways we do?

And how can we remind ourselves that these varying experiences occur right now amidst us all?

These are some questions I hope to delve deeper into as I continue reading and reflecting on this book. Meanwhile, what observations to do you have?

I would love to hear from you. I’ll share more from this book over the next few weeks.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Nancy