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