Within the context of the larger body of Christ, when we interact with fellow Christians who possess a different cultural viewpoint or tradition, we are often interacting with what we perceive to be black sheep. Due to the gold standard effect, we believe that our culturally influenced beliefs and practices are the best ones and that our cultural group should be the standard against which all other cultural groups are measured. As a result of this thinking, anyone who disagrees with us is perceived as someone who is failing to live up to the cultural group’s standards—a black sheep.
