Gospel and Context in Creative Tension
Solent Gospel Partnership15th November 2010
Three Realities of the Global Church
1. A global church (Operation World, 7th ed.)– World population (2010) of 6,908m– 2,229m Christians (self-designating)– 546m Evangelicals, found in every country on the
planet2. Very few from major world religions – most
fruitful ministries in the Global South have been among primal peoples
3. The church in Europe in rapid recession
Christendom—A Crumbling Civilization
• fourth century to mid-twentieth century • state recognized dominant organized church
and church legitimated rule of dominant class • territorial division into parishes
Post-Christendom Shift• church attendance and influence in the lands
of Europe, N. America (except US?), and Australasia has been in marked decline
• “a culture in which central features of the Christian story are unknown and churches are alien institutions whose rhythms do not normally impinge on most members of society” (Stuart Murray)
• church moved from centre to periphery• Acts 1:8
A Translatable Message
• gospel message is inherently translatable• believers in Antioch (Acts 11:20) • church to be doctrinally exclusive but
culturally inclusive (Acts 15)• missions under Christendom• ‘Christianity, commerce and civilization’
(Livingston)• post-colonial reappraisal
The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture
Two principles in creative tension (Walls):• ‘indigenizing’ principle
– a place to feel at home– the particularizing factor
• ‘pilgrim’ principle– no abiding city– the universalizing factor
Gospel in South Asia
End of first session,and the beginning of the
second
• Muslim majority - Pakistan and Bangladesh
• more Muslims in India than any other country after Indonesia
• majority of the world’s roughly 959 million Hindus live in South Asia – mainly in India and Nepal
• resistant peoples
Traditional Approaches to Muslim Evangelism
• focus on doctrine and apologetics • comparison of Islamic teaching with Christian
teaching• argumentative and confrontational• frustration with little fruit
Phil Parshall’s ‘New Paths’
• ‘Whole World Mission’ in Gaziville since 1955
• lack of fruit• in 1970s review of
methods by team
1. Financial relationships with nationals
2. Missionary lifestyle was to change • Islamic dress • beards • simple lifestyle • Islamic diet - no pork• approach to time• picture-taking and visits discouraged
3. Islamic-style worship practices adopted
• place for washing before prayer
• removal of shoes• sitting on floor• Bibles placed on
folding stands• Muslim-style
prayer
• Christian words were set to Muslim tunes and chanted
• pragmatic setting of days and times for worship
• fasting • homogeneous churches would be
planted • church organization along lines of
mosque
• Muslim names would be retained• ‘followers of Isa’ or MBBs• Bible study, prayer and fasting• converts choose their own leadership• the propagation of the gospel would be
centred along family and friendship lines
The Model Spreads
• Bangladesh • India • Philippines • other countries
• not MBBs but Muslims (‘one who submits’)• may continue to attend the mosque for prayer
to Isa• may continue to say the confession (shahada)• attempts in at least Afghanistan, India,
Indonesia, southern Thailand and Malaysia
More Radical Approach
C-Scale for Muslim Contextualization
• C1 Traditional Church Using Outsider Language
• C2 Traditional Church Using Insider Language• C3 Contextualized Christ-centred Communities
Using Insider Language and Religiously Neutral Insider Cultural Forms
• C4 Contextualized Christ-centred Communities Using Insider Language and Biblically Permissible Cultural and Islamic Forms
• C5 Christ-centred Communities of ‘Messianic Muslims’ Who Have Accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour
• C6 Small Christ-centred Communities of Secret/Underground Believers
New Paradigms for Understanding Hinduism
• defining Hinduism• Orientalist paradigm• defining ‘religion’ and
‘mysticism’ • Hinduism as a civilization • caste - the fundamental social
order • incarnational approach to
presenting Christ to Hindus
H-Scale for Hindu Contextualization
• H1 Traditional Christians separate themselves from everything “Hindu”
• H2 Traditional Christians renounce Hinduism but still accept some non-religious Hindu cultural practices
• H3 Hindu Christians renounce Hindu religion for Christianity, but adapt Hindu religious and cultural practices
• H4 Hindu disciples of Christ do not develop contextual expressions of discipleship
• H5 Hindu disciples of Christ seek to develop contextual expressions of discipleship
• H6 Hindu disciples of Christ recognized as such by other Hindus but remain unassociated with other disciples of Christ
• H7 Hindu disciples of Christ keep faith completely private
Responding to Post-Christendom • post-Christendom - a God-given opportunity
– loss of biblical literacy – little or no experience of church
• need to drop ‘Christianity’?• an intentionally missional approach to wider society• but ‘mission from below’
– critical realistic approach to knowledge– points of contact
Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralist Society
• 1 Tim 2:1-6 – church and state• 1 John 4:7-12 – the church as an alternative
community• gospel as subversive message• but may our approach to our pluralist society
be pluriform?
Ecclesiological Responses to British Multicultural Society
Default Monocultural
Ideal Multicultural
Pragmatic Multicultural
Strategic Monocultural
Awareness of culture
No Yes Yes Yes
Different communities - one local church
No Yes Yes No
Different communities - one congregation
No Yes No No
Translation in services
No Frequently Seldom No
Default Monocultural
Advantages • clear expectations of what is expected of everyone• easy for majority community to accept outsiders from minority communities
Disadvantages • not easy for minority communities to adjust to culture of majority church• for those from minority communities bridges to unbelieving relatives and friends are broken, passively by neglect or actively by insistence on leaving former habits
Ideal Multicultural
Advantages • all groups are encouraged to express themselves according to their cultural norms• single local church expresses multicultural reality of universal church in vivid public form
Disadvantages • no community feels entirely at home in the congregation• communication is complicated• outsiders may still feel the meeting is not for them because the identity of the minority group is subsumed under that of the majority
Pragmatic Multicultural
Advantages • all groups are encouraged to express themselves according to their cultural norms• single local church expresses multicultural reality of universal church in relationships between congregations of one church
Disadvantages • sense of unity of local church is threatened• communication between congregations is complicated• outsiders may still feel the congregation is not for them because the ownership of the wider group is multicultural, especially if the senior leaders are from the majority community
Strategic Monocultural Advantages • all groups are encouraged to express
themselves according to their cultural norms• relations between local churches expresses multicultural reality of universal church• outsiders readily feel at home
Disadvantages • image of unity of universal church is threatened• ‘postponement of ethical awareness’• communication between churches is complicated
Evaluating Our Strategies
• each of these strategies have advantages and disadvantages
• not equally helpful• need to come to our conclusions from a
thoughtful reflection on Bible and context• Ephesians 2• Revelation 7:9
• if we recognize the validity of such minority groups can we extend this model to other ‘communities’?
• what do we mean by ‘community’?• nation-state as project of modernity• ‘Balkanization’ or post-modern fragmentation of
society
• community becomes primary reference point:– identity– values– beliefs– customs
• statistical groups, societal groups and social groups
• bounded sets, centred sets and fuzzy sets
Paul Hiebert & Set Theory