To Bow or Not to Bow? Honouring God as an East Asian
How respect in East Asian cultures translates to respect towards God
I was recently at a Christian conference with 1,800 others from around the UK, and one of the key themes was a call to honour God more.
Do I??
I mean, do I honour God? I sing about it all the time in worship songs: honour, bless, praise, glorify, magnify, etc. But how do I know if I’m actually honouring God well? Has my honouring been sufficient? Has it been coming from a genuine, authentic and deeply heartfelt place? I wasn’t sure.
We all have some sort of instinctual understanding of ‘honour’. It’s seeped into our everyday English language: ‘It’s such an honour to be/know…’ in public speeches or social media posts to demonstrate – or perform – one’s humility; ‘honourable mentions’ in lists of top books or films that don’t quite make the cut; and also a sense of ‘honouring’ one’s leaders (though ‘respect’ might be more commonly used for authority figures). In East Asian cultures it’s predominantly used in the context of family: to honour one’s parents, to honour one’s ancestors.
‘Honour’ is honestly such an Asian buzzword, and it’s also often contrasted with ‘shame’. I’m not theologically well versed in the honour-shame dynamic, but it is undeniably characteristic of many East Asian cultures (which is further contrasted with a guilt-innocence dynamic prevalent in the West). It’s linked with the more collectivist nature of East Asian societies (versus the West’s more individualistic nature). I know that the honour-shame and guilt-innocence pairings aren’t mutually exclusive, but I can’t help but feel that because I’m so westernised I’m driven/governed more by an individualistic, highly personal sense of my guilt/innocence rather than a collectivist, highly communal sense of my honour/shame.
Thus, as a westernised East Asian, I ask myself: Am I honouring enough?? When I seek to honour others… am I honouring them sufficiently? Is it coming from the heart, or is it purely a head thing because I know it’s a good/right thing to do?
This naturally spills over into my relationship with God. God is worthy of all honour, and I seek to honour God. But: Is my honouring of God a genuine, heartfelt honouring, or is it more going through the motions because I know it’s the right posture to have? Not that every gesture or act of honouring others always has genuine, heartfelt desire behind it. But in this case I do desire to honour God; I just don’t know if my honouring is ‘up to scratch’ so to speak.
Disclaimer: I want to be honouring of others, but I don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes (e.g. unthinking submission) which have caused many people of East Asian heritage to be taken advantage of in the West. But I am drawing on personal experiences of filial piety and obedience that have been characteristic of my life (and the lives of many East Asians who grew up in Asia) – thus I’m being more descriptive rather than prescriptive in my generalisation.
One of the clearest ways I express my honour for God is through bowing. I kneel and bow in worship frequently.1
I grew up bowing. It was an integral part of our day to day in Japan. To be fair, I never properly learnt the different (literal) degrees of bowing apt for each circumstance and each person to whom the bow is directed, but it’s like breathing – you naturally pick it up as you interact with others so it becomes part of your subconscious vocabulary of societal mannerisms. Bowing was important; bowing was respectful. It was a way to greet and a way to say farewell. It was a way of expressing gratitude, or acknowledging someone else’s efforts, or even a simple ‘excuse me’ (accompanied by a muttered ‘sumimasen’) as you squeezed your way through crowded Tokyo trains. It was so engrained in me that I remember being teased in the Singaporean army once when I entered a lecture room late – I unconsciously bowed my head quickly, and all my mates burst out laughing at this characteristically Japanese tic. (Yes, I also used to bow/nod whilst on the phone.)
But everyone in Japan also knew the ultimate form of bowing: the dogeza. I’ve never dogeza-ed to any person before, nor have I seen it happen in real life. I have seen it plenty of times on TV, often dramatised – think Hanzawa Naoki – but it was a rarity, only utilised in the most serious of circumstances. And so when I bow in worship, I instinctively go for what I know to be the most intense, extreme form to express my wholehearted devotion and honour and respect – God is worthy for me to stoop so low, to make myself less as God becomes more (God must increase, I must decrease, as John the Baptist says in John 3.30). Now dogeza signifies humility and servitude (from the bower), but can also signify humiliation and retaliation (from the receiver). But the beautiful thing is that God doesn’t look at me dogeza-ing with humiliation or retaliation.2
In her book The Next Worship, Sandra Maria Van Opstal helpfully provides descriptions of worship cultures in America – again, not stereotypes but archetypes – including Asian American communities. (She also describes African American, Latino and White/western worshipping cultures.) These communities emphasise certain themes and characteristics of God deemed important based on their experiences.
Asian American worship is an intimate moment of devotion with God. Sacrifice and servanthood are ultimate Asian cultural expressions of love; consequently, many songs focus on total service and devotion in response to God’s sacrifice of his Son. God’s glory and holiness inspire deep awe and reverence, while a connection with a close and tender Father brings healing. (p. 202)
I was initially taken aback by her characterisation of Asian (American) worship, not because I disagreed but because I’d never thought about it before. It wasn’t long before I found myself nodding in agreement, especially thinking of my East Asian Christian friends who I’ve worshipped with. Opstal also helped me reframe my perspective on East Asian cultures of honour and respect in a positive light rather than a negative one. (Any cultural indicator/characteristic can be taken to an unhelpful, unhealthy extreme – but can also be beautiful if in moderation, holding a mirror to a vital and innate part of human nature.)
Going back to the Christian conference where I began worrying that my honouring of God hadn’t been adequate.
But then I felt God say to me: ‘You have honoured me.’
Then, ‘That is your cultural inheritance. Teach others.’
That was a rather profound moment for me for several reasons: one, God was affirming that even if I didn’t necessarily feel like I’d been honouring God properly, the mere act of choosing to bow or kneel in worship was honouring; two, God was affirming my East Asian cultural heritage not just as a positive, but that I was in tune/touch with it perhaps more so than I realised; and three, God was affirming that this was an aspect of my worship life that was important enough for it to be taught to others, particularly westerners who perhaps might not naturally grasp or understand the concept of honour as well as those who come from honour-based cultures.
Genuinely curious: How do you experience the act of honouring others and/or God? Is it a head thing only, or also a heart thing? If the latter, how does it feel in the moment?
Standing, kneeling, bowing and lying prostrate are all bodily postures that the Bible depicts as occurring in worship.
The act of honouring isn’t just engrained in societal structures but also in linguistic structures. Japanese is spoken either formally or informally depending on who you’re talking to – you speak to anyone above in age or seniority in keigo (honorific speech). So when I’m praying or speaking about God in Japanese, it’s almost unthinkable to address God not in formal Japanese – otherwise it’s just plain disrespectful. Read the Bible in Japanese: you’ll never see passages addressed to God in anything other than honorific speech. (Though perhaps you might be able to speak informally to Jesus as a friend…?!)