Much ink has been spilled over the question of how the church can engage cultures with the Gospel. I'll spill a little more e-ink here giving my perspective:
Cultural accommodation of contextualization has often been depicted as a continuum: from isolationist fundamentalism to world-embracing, compromised liberalism. Instead of talking about this issue in terms of a spectrum, I'd like to consider starting points instead.
The stereotypical, old-school missionaries took their own culture's expression of Christianity as their starting point. The classic image of converted natives wearing shirts and ties in the jungle is a perfect example of one result of this starting point. In reaction to this kind of cultural blindness, modern missiologists have encouraged missionaries to begin with the target culture as their starting point.
In church planting, we could see the same pattern. Previous generations of church planters have sought to reproduce the churches in which they were raised or through which they came to Christ. The starting point was the existing church culture of the church planter. In response to this cookie-cutter approach, contemporary church planting experts have advised that planters begin by studying the target demographic and their cultural values, norms and preferences.
Both the old-school and contemporary approaches suffer from the same fatal flaw: the take human cultures as their starting points. They allow the shape if the mission and the church to be determined by a flawed and fallen human culture. In doing so, they do not take seriously enough the critique the Gospel makes of every human culture. Culture is not neutral and the Gospel is not a wax nose to be shaped to any available face. All human cultures are fallen expressions of humanity's rebellion against God. All of them contain elements of common grace and reflections of humanity as God's image-bearers, but in a very fundamental way, a way we are often blind to seeing, all are rebellious and self-seeking.
Missionaries and church planters need to begin, not with their native culture nor with the target culture or demographic, but with a thorough understanding of the Gospel, the Biblical Gospel. They need to really understand God's diagnosis of man's problem and need, the provision of salvation in Christ, the mission of the church, etc. This may seem obvious, but church history tells us that the best of missionaries are often blind to the call of the Gospel.
The most obvious recent examples in American church history of this blindness can be seen in the seeker-driven churches and in the emergent churches. "Seeker" churches have sought to meet the felt needs of their target demographic, looking to scratch people where they itch with "practical" teaching. Their seeker sermons have often been just quasi-Biblical versions of self-help pep talks, giving practical advice on parenting, marriage, finances, etc. This ignores what the Bible says about man's need: Man does not need better information on how to properly function in his cultural roles. He needs forgiveness and redemption, reconciliation with God and his fellow man through the Gospel.
Emergent churches have sought to embrace post-modernity and its rejection of absolute truth. They have sought to offer the authenticity and community without defined truth or judgment that post-moderns say they want. By seeking to scratch where people itch again, the emergent churches have ditched much Biblical truth because it's not palatable to a post-modern world. They have again failed to see man's true need: People need to be confronted by the truth so they may repent and seek forgiveness from Christ. We are not just estranged and in need of community; we are sinful and in need for salvation.
The Biblical Gospel must be the core of our mission, whether planting churches in America or sending missionaries around the world. We must begin with the Gospel and the Gospel must be the good news we take to the culture, whatever culture we're called to serve. We serve them best not by scratching them where they itch, but by showing them the real problem that lies behind and beneath their felt needs.
Can we accommodate this Biblical Gospel to different cultures? Sure, to an extent. Musical styles can change. Modes of dress may be very different. Language and food and customs may vary. But all people are, in their hearts, the same, and they all need the Gospel. We need to trust what God says about the Gospel, that it is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). With confidence in the power of the Gospel, we can boldly go and engage any culture.
I think that the only other thing that I would add to this otherwise excellent post is that everyone who is in ministry (which, I guess, means every Christian) ought to think about how the church/ministry experience that they are in or grew up in or like to work in may be normative to them, but that is because it is thoroughly contextualized to their culture and they have spent their lives immersed in that church culture. There are usually all kinds of very sound Biblical reasons for doing what they do (and other parts of the Bible that are... not emphasized quite as much), but they are still always contextualizing and every decision they make-- the language that the sermon is preached in, the way that the preacher dresses, the songs that are chosen to sing-- all of these are culturally guided decisions. Thus, the question is not, "Should we contextualize the Gospel message?" but "How are we we contextualizing the Gospel now, and are we being faithful to God's Word in doing so?"
ReplyDeleteYes, we need continual self-reflection on our own choices (conscious and sub-conscious) to contextualize. Everyone puts the Gospel into a cultural context. The most important question we can ask: Are we being faithful to the true Gospel or is our contextualization compromising it in any way?
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