You may or may not have come across the concept of “love languages”. The idea behind them was to suggest people give and receive love in different ways. Some express love through gift-giving, others through positive affirmation, others still in a variety of different ways (five if I remember rightly). One of the unfortunate ways love languages were prone to being abused – and quite a few “tests” to “discover your love language” knocked about – was people selfishly insisting they must receive love in a particular way and anybody unwilling to kowtow to their love language was necessarily not loving them. This was a misuse of the intent of the idea which was not designed so you can demand people love you as you insist they must, but rather to recognise when people are expressing love to you in some form. Rather than dismissing people for not loving you as you want, it was supposed to open your eyes to how they are trying to express love genuinely to you.

Something similar goes on with personality tests. There can be something liberating, and a little eye opening, about understanding yourself better. Whilst there are issues with personality tests from a personal point of view – often reflecting back to us how we wish to be seen rather than how we really are – the real strength of personality tests isn’t introspective. They aren’t so helpful when we use them as a tool to say, ‘this is just how I am and you must all suck it!’ Rather, they are helpful as we understand the personality types of others so that we can best communicate and engage with them. They are intended to be a help in our engagement with others, not a selfish demand that everyone must adjust to us because we did a test.

As with those “love languages” and personality tests, there can be a similar benefit – with a an equally similar potential abuse of the principle – when it comes to understanding culture and our cultural differences. Some wish to highlight cultural differences so they can force everyone else to conform to the way they would have things. Who are you to say I can’t do X, Y or Z? It’s my culture after all! You should respect my culture and kowtow to it. This is just as selfish and me-centric as insisting you must love me according to my preferred love language or adjust how you operate in its entirety because my personality type prefers you to act in such a way. This is just dressed up self-centred sin. It is an abuse of any of these things.

However, just like love languages and personality tests, there can be some real benefit to meaningfully understanding (and not looking to judge) different cultures. Understanding the differences between ethnic, national or class cultures is best not when we insist others must adopt our culture – or act in line with what my culture demands – but when we understand, despite things seeming weird or even “wrong” to us, we recognise they are means of people genuinely trying to love us in line with their cultural understanding. Let me mention just three examples that have come up in my personal conversations recently.

One class cultural difference that exists is the tendency to speak frankly. Working class British culture prefers honesty and directness (and, as a consequence, generally free-flowing frank conversation) whereas middle class culture tends to prefer smooth relationships and inoffensiveness (and, as a consequence, can end up in slightly more stilted conversation that aims not to upset or offend). As someone from a working-class background who has spent a lot of time in middle-class churches, I used to find it quite difficult that people would come up to speak with me as a teenager/young man and seem to have nothing to say and engage me in (what I felt to be) pretty excruciating conversation at the back of church. I found it frustrating that they used to engage me but didn’t seem to say anything and it became very awkward. I used to see this as a failing in them with little desire to actually take a proper interest in me.

I have, however, come to see this as a genuine class cultural difference. What I used to find frustrating I now see as a genuine effort to love me well within their cultural assumptions of what is good and kind. In the end, the stilted conversation was really them wanting to engage a young believer without offending or upsetting them. It may have led to stilted and awkward conversation a lot of the time, but it was genuinely an attempt to love me by both engaging me and not saying anything that might upset me or be taken as rude (which often meant not saying anything really at all!) It might not be how I feel most comfortable engaging but it was a genuine attempt to love me.

By contrast, people from my background tend to just say what they think because we think people value honesty and it makes conversation flow more easily which (we think) puts people at their ease. Again, some might be minded to think we’re being rude, but it comes from a place where we are trying to put you at your ease by talking a lot and sharing lots of information so that you’ll be more comfortable sharing. Knowing these things is most helpful when it leads us to recognise how people are trying to love us in line with the various assumptions they make about the world because of their culture.

Another example that came up recently was talk of the British stiff upper lip. In some cultures, public and outward expressions of emotion are encouraged. Just think of what you see in some Middle Eastern nations when there has been a death in the community and the outpouring of grief – loudly and publicly – on behalf of the grieving family. In such cultures, the assumption at play (I think) is that the outward expression of emotion that way is an act of solidarity. It is a way of loving those who are grieving and saying that you share in their sadness. It is an act of love.

In Britain, and in other Northern European nations to some degree, we are less into the public, outward show of emotion. In Britain, the stiff upper lip is most definitely a thing. Keeping your emotions in check is seen as a good thing. But this is no less an act of love. The idea is that, rather than letting our emotions overtake and make everybody around us feel awkward and uncomfortable, even in grief we should have an eye on our community. We may be dreadfully upset, we may be in the pit of despair, but we can love people well by not making the world revolve around us and pour out our emotions in a very me-centric way, but I can tell people I am upset without making them feel incredibly uncomfortable. It is just as much an act of love, with an eye on loving our community and the people around us, as the communal outpouring of grief. It just manifests in different ways.

The point here is not to say that one way is right and the other is wrong. It isn’t to say that we won’t personally have our own preferences and feel more comfortable one way or the other. It is simply to say that we shouldn’t be so quick to write one off as “wrong” and the other as “right” without understanding the motivation behind both. When we look at what drives either action, we might just discover both are ways of trying to love people. Knowing these cultural traditions and what motivates them helps us to see how others are trying to love us when they either share in our emotions or they try to keep them in check for our sake.

A third example that does the rounds is banter. My middle class friends tend to find banter rude and caustic. My working class friends love it. Some of my foreign friends cannot get their head around it, some of them fully embrace it. What are we to make of it?

I think it is right to say two things. There are people who hate it and just can’t engage with it. If we are loving them – even if our culture says it is okay – the kind thing to do is just not do that with them. Or, if we are going to make those sorts of jokes, it’s easy to make ourselves the butt of them rather than anyone else. But at the same time, those who don’t like it – who we should not force into it – shouldn’t assume that those who do it are hating on one another. Things only seem weird, or even rude, when you don’t know the rules of the game. If everybody involved knows nobody is being rude, and more than that knows that this sort of joking is a way of putting people at their ease, it isn’t a sign of unkindness but a sign of people loving one another. Most British people take great offence at the thought that you might think they are thinned-skinned. Adding ‘only joking’ is deeply awkward and offensive to us. We are a people who need to add ‘no, seriously’ in order for people to understand this is one of the times we are NOT joking.

This light-hearted banter is a way of putting people at their ease and is our way of showing people that we accept them. If British people are exceptionally and overly polite to you, it means they are not comfortable with you. You make them feel awkward and they are so worried about offending you that they stay in the realm of uptight, awkward politeness. Making a few jokes at your expense (and you at mine) is our way of saying, ‘I like you, I am comfortable with you, we are friends’. These jokes are our way of putting you at your ease because we are saying to each other, ‘I can only make these kind of jokes with my friends and family.’ Brits (contrary to our reputation in some parts of the world) do not like uptightness and taking oneself too seriously. If we seem uptight and like we’re taking you very seriously, it means we aren’t friends but acquaintances at best. We aren’t comfortable with you and we potentially don’t even like you. But knowing this helps us see how people may be loving us – in line with their cultural assumptions – in order to welcome us and not exclude us.

By contrast, other cultures may take politeness and seriousness as important signs we are honouring the person we are with. Some may find this stilted and awkward and as though we are not breaking through the surface into a genuine friendship. Others may think this is actively showing the best kind of polite, and not rude, love to another person. One is not right or wrong, it just helps us to be alive to the ways that different cultures may be trying to include us, welcome us and love us in their own way in line with their cultural assumptions.

The point in knowing all these things is not to suggest one way is right and the other wrong. These are just three examples that have come up in conversations I’ve had over the last week or two among dozens of others that we could highlight. The point is that we are often minded – much like love languages or personality tests – to use our own cultural assumptions as the norma normans by which all other cultural expressions are judged. We can insist that because people aren’t loving me, or expressing concern for me, in the way I deem normal they are necessarily behaving in ways that are either abnormal or even abhorrent (or, at minimum, just a bit weird). But the truth is, when we are alive to these cultural differences and not recognising them to stoke division, but really looking hard to properly understand how these things are culturally appropriate ways of people actually loving us, genuinely and truly in line with their cultural assumptions and understanding, then we might be more inclined to see the good even in those cultures we find harder to understand.