Newsletter Thoughts Jul 26, 2025

Dear Friends,

This week I began a book titled, “Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures

and the Secret Signals that Direct Our Lives.”

That title sounds ominous, as if we don’t have agency! The book is really about different cultures (throughout history) and how much conformity is, or is not, a key feature of that culture.

I remember a professor in seminary once saying, “Our culture is like water to a fish, we

are immersed in it, we cannot survive without it, and we cannot see it.”

Looking at culture is not an exercise intended to determine whose is better or worse,

but rather an attempt to better understand our world. A tight culture is one where social

norms are very strong, as are laws that support those norms. A loose culture is the

opposite. The tightness or looseness of a culture is not all one way or the other. A tight culture

can have a tradition or a location that allows a looseness “where citizens can let off

normative steam.” For instance, Japan is a tight culture, yet there is a street, Takeshita Street, where “people stroll and preen in zany costumes, ranging from anime characters to sexy maids to punk musicians.”

In the United States, we unsurprisingly have a mostly loose culture. Within this we hold

tightly to the value of privacy. We also hold tightly to the value of freedom, even as many of

us hold differing interpretations of the word. I am only two chapters in, but I think the value of the studies within this book provide us with valuable tools that help us to better understand the actions of others. I also think that we are living in a time of societal change, which can be very uncomfortable. What happens when different cultures interact? Often… it’s conflict. I’ll share more.

I also see conflict within churches that can be the result of conflicting cultures. In the ELCA, many of the early churches were started by immigrants from Norway (a tight culture), and some of that tightness is present in church culture. For instance, quietly adhering to rules would be important (don’t talk, don’t run, don’t laugh, don’t eat or drink, don’t …). So, what happens when people who are not part of that culture join the church?

Who is right or who is wrong is not the answer, but rather the invitation is to find ways to

listen and compromise. What does this idea of tight and loose cultures bring to mind for you? I would love to hear from you. I’ll share more from this book over the next few weeks.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Nancy