The photo reminds me of the task SAT-7 has to communicate the gospel via satellite, but this post is not about the methods, rather the content of our communication which is constant item of discussion and prayer for the SAT-7 producers.
The minister of the gospel cannot communicate without concerning him or herself with culture, because communication is inextricable from culture. Just as Christ became flesh and dwelt among humanity, so propositional truth must have cultural incarnations to be meaningful.
The answer lies in contextualization, which makes the message of Gospel meaningful to the receiver. It is important to communicate the Gospel of historical Christianity rather than giving a different meaning to the Gospel that fit into the context. Missionary strategist Don Richardson has made the observation that the job of the church is not to make the gospel relevant but rather to communicate the relevance of the gospel.
Human tendency is always to distort the Word of God to make it acceptable to modern man, whereas Jesus took great pains to understand His audience and communicate God's message. The life and ministry of Jesus Christ is the perfect example of contextualization. Louis J. Luzbetak is apt when he says, "He nevertheless was born a true Jew and could instantly be recognized as a Galilean, rejecting only what was incompatible with His divinity and His mission. The church, as the body of Christ continuing in time, must be incarnated into every age and culture". It indicates that there was a proper correlation between the verbal message and non-verbal message of Jesus Christ and it is in sequence with the findings of modern communication theory for effectiveness. Jesus adopted certain 'status' and 'role' to have effective communication with people. He was known as a teacher. At one point of his ministry Jesus enquired about his current status among people (Mt. 16: 13-14). It means that the sender has to be conscious about the 'statuses' suitable for the communication of Gospel. These facts mentioned above points towards the need of contextualization. What are the ultimate criteria for contextualization?
The main threat to God’s program of contextualization is syncretism. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (11th edn.) defines syncretism as “the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought”. We can see in this definition at least two kinds of syncretism: cultural syncretism, which results from mixing elements from different cultures, and syncretistic worldview, which results from mixing elements of different worldviews. From a missiological point of view, both conditions are symptomatic of insufficient contextualization.
Having faith, living for something, belonging somewhere, searching for final meaning and permanent bliss - this is essential to human existence. Believing in, entrusting, committing oneself - to have faith - is to give self, to put for safety, to give in charge, to give over, to let go" to God (or a pseudo-god). For Christians, faith is an entrusting of self to God in which we receive certainty, connection, and ground for our existence, an entrusting in which we meet God in ourselves and in creation even as God meets us. We are graciously renewed, experiencing connection with self, others, creation, and God. Henceforth God is the healing power and sustaining ground of our lives, the final ground and ultimate power of and for all other grounds and powers.
"We know
that secularism and de-Christianization are gaining ground, that relativism is
growing and that the influence of Catholic ethics and morals is in constant
decline. Many people abandon the Church or, if they stay, accept only a
part of Catholic teaching, picking and choosing between only certain
aspects of Christianity. The religious situation in the East continues to be
worrying. Here, as we know, the majority of the population is not
baptized, has no contact with the Church and has often not even heard of either
Christ or the Church. We should recognize these realities as challenges.
Dear brothers, as you yourselves said [...]: "We have become a mission land
[...] We should give serious thought as to how to achieve a true
evangelization in this day and age, not only a new evangelization, but often
a true and proper first evangelization. People do not know God, they do not know
Christ. There is a new form of paganism and it is not enough for us to
strive to preserve the existing flock, although this is very important: we must
ask the important question: what really is life? I believe we must all try
together to find new ways of bringing the Gospel to the contemporary world, of
proclaiming Christ anew and of implanting the faith"
In
many respects, a missional church is a hospital and if it’s missional it’ll
receive a lot of patients who often don’t give a lot back. Be prepared to see
many of them come and go. If they stay, be prepared for high needs ministry.
This “goes with the territory.” But don’t be discouraged. Bear in mind that God
may use your ministry as a “stepping stone” to greater discernment and
commitment down the road.
Lastly, I would like to introduce to you the doctrine of redemptive analogies that is credited to Don Richardson, who authored Eternity in Their Hearts (1981, 1984, 2006) and Peace Child (Regal, 1975) -- two books which teach that God has embedded stories or practices in pagan cultures which can be utilized for the presentation of the Gospel. Richardson defined this new concept:
“The key God gave us to the heart of the Sawi people was the principle of redemptive analogy – the application to local custom of spiritual truth. The principle we discerned was that God had already provided for the evangelization of these people by means of redemptive analogies in their own culture. These analogies were our stepping-stones, the secret entryway by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a Spiritual and a social revolution from within.” (Peace Child [Regal, 1974], p. 10) [emphasis added]
This is the idea that God put a
"good deposit" of "truth" in other cultures, analogous to
something in Scriptures which could be "redeemed" for Gospel
purposes.
There are those, however, like Sandy
Simpson and Mike Oppenheimer, who have in their book Idolatry in Their Hearts, cited extensive
examples of this how this heresy has led to outright syncretism (blending of
cultural error with God’s truth).
Redemptive analogies verses syncretism leaves the question on the table as to whether we are making the Gospel more relevant to hard-to-reach cultures or have we been seduced, having been promised new and more effective ways of witnessing.
Redemptive analogies verses syncretism leaves the question on the table as to whether we are making the Gospel more relevant to hard-to-reach cultures or have we been seduced, having been promised new and more effective ways of witnessing.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leaving your perspective matters...