session 3 plenary - missional contextualization

7/27/2019 Session 3 Plenary - Missional Contextualization

1/3

Christ Presbyterian Church

Mission Anabaino Collaboration

October 21-22, 2013

Contextual Diversity

J. Nelson Jennings, PhD

Overseas Ministries Study Center

One of the people I know best is someone I have never met. His name is Takakura Tokutaro, he died

in 1934, and he was the man I researched for my PhD dissertation. Through digging into his writings and

through speaking with family members who did know him personally, I became a world expert about

this Japanese Christian theologian, pastor, and leader.

Several things attracted me to Takakura for my dissertation work. First, he was a second-generation

Protestant leader in modern Japanese Christianity, and as a missionary in Japan I was working together

with second-generation Japanese Christian leaders in the post-war Nihon Choro Kyokai(Presbyterian

Church in Japan). I reasoned that understanding an earlier second-generation leader would help me

understand my current colleagues. Second, Takakura addressed important themes that I needed to

understand better for ministry in Japan, for example ecclesiology. Third and perhaps most practically, at

the time of my doctoral research twenty years ago, English-language analyses of Takakura consisted of a

single chapter in Charles Germanys Protestant Theologies in Modern Japan (IISR Press, 1965). PhD

dissertations are supposed to contribute something new, so anything I wrote in English about Takakura

would be new and thus meet that criterion.

Going into my research, I expected to find a great deal that would be familiar. After all, Takakura

was known as the theologian who introduced Calvin studies to Japan. His best-known book was entitled

Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo (Evangelical Christianity). He was a preacher, theologian, and church leader, all

familiar territory for me.

However, the more deeply I entered Takakuras world, the more apparent it became to me that the

familiarity I anticipated was proving to be elusive. Much about Takakuras thinking, emphases, and

convictions were tough to pin down. Takakuras strongly espoused Evangelical Christianity was not

exactly like mine or other versions that I knew. Indeed, the process of researching and understanding

Takakura became rather unnerving because of the differences I was encountering between my own

belief and this man who was no less committed to the centrality of the Bible. I could not tell if I was

entering a quicksand of cross-cultural mystery or new vistas of evangelicalism that previously I had

simply missed.

Before going any further into analysis related to my PhD research, I need to let you know a few

particulars about Takakura himself. After doing that, we will look at various aspects of his context before

laying out some wider implications of our relationship to someone like Takakura so familiar at first


2/3

glance but profoundly different after further investigation and reflection. Lets look first, then, at

Takakura the man.

I. Takakura Tokuraro (1885-1934) Note Multidisciplinary Analysis (Inagaki), i.e., analyze him invarious aspects of his humanity (socio-economic, historical, national, etc.), not just as an

abstract theologian.

a. Life Highlightsi. Born in 1885

ii. Studies in Tokyo in 1906iii. Conversion and theological studies under Uemura in 1907iv. Pastoral work 1910-1921v. Studies in Britain 1921-1924vi. Church, seminary, and writing until death in 1934

b. Theological Developmenti. Uemura

ii. German and British theologyiii. Takakuras distinctive Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo

II. Takakuras Context Note the importance of Context (Walls, Bosch); not simply a meaning-formdistinction, but an incarnational concreteness of divine-human relations (revelation, belief and

practice, etc.)

a. Japan (Sanneh)Christianitys translatability preeminently linguistically, but in a totalcontextual sense as well both relatives and sanctifies contexts.

b. Language (Bediako) The vernacular articulation of Scripture embodies good news to andwithin human communities.

c. Historical Period Meiji-Taisho-early Showa Japand. Christian Input

i. Early Meiji Christianity, especially Uemuraii. Western European Christianityiii. Direct

e. Family Religious Heritagei. Non-Samurai

ii. Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land Buddhism)III. Wider Implications

a. As Christians we need a self-understanding of being heirs of worldwide history God is theGod of the nations, not just of our clan (not just of European and Euro-American history).

b. Relatedly, as Christians we need a sense of the inherently multidirectional spread ofChristianity (not just to the northwest out of Judea)


3/3

i. Acts 2 Note the list in vv.9-11 of devout men from every nation under heaven (v.5)in Jerusalem at Pentecost.

ii. The regional enclosure of Christianity within Europe, and subsequent spread out ofEurope accompanying the worldwide migration of Europeans, is a modern anomaly.

iii. Contemporary world mission if more everywhere to everywhere than ever before.c. Christianity inherently exhibits both unity and diversity as well as universal and particular

traits.

i. Ecclesiastical classifications strongly bear local traits, e.g., Chaldean Syrian, MalankaraMar Thoma Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic,

Protestant (against RC).

ii. Confessional commitments are positive answers to particular questions and challenges.iii. Practices, whether ecclesiastical, individual, or otherwise, strongly bear particular

contextual marks as well as wider human ones.

The Christian faith has an inherent diversity. Even the original enscripturated revelations were given

in multiple languages and contexts, plus those revelations have been in an ongoing process of beingtranslated within the worlds languages and contexts. In this sense of being translatable, Christianity

resembles Buddhism more than it does Islam or Judaism, the other so-called Abrahamic Religions.

Furthermore, part of the essence of the Christian gospel is that it is good news for all kinds of people.

All who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Whosoever believes in him shall not perish

but have eternal life.

Even so, Christianitys inherent diversity is not the same as an unbridled relativism. There is one

Lord, one faith, one baptism. The universal-particular, pilgrim-indigenous tension within Christianity is a

healthy one. Where we as Jesus followers need to be careful is slipping into one side of the tension at

the expense of the other. A recurring phenomenon is to insist on uniform actualization of particulartraits in the name of their being universal and normative.

Perhaps the contextual particularity ofJesus Incarnation is as steady ofa North Star as any in

keeping us walking as culturally particular Christians who are part of the one holy catholic Church.

Broadly-shaped wisdom and discernment including critical examination of and a healthy suspicion

toward confident and confining biblical claims that are uninformed by a wide contextual range of

inputare needed to walk faithfully and prophetically as Jesus universal-particular, pilgrim-indigenous

people.

session 3 plenary - missional contextualization

Documents