The thing that got me thinking on this subject again was a piece
written for The Mission of God Study Bible by Keith Whitfield and quoted on Ed
Stetzer’s blog here.
The overall tone of the whole piece is that if we preach the gospel out of
cultural context, people will not understand it. On the surface this makes
sense and seems a logical argument, until one digs a couple layers deep and realizes
that the gospel is foreign to all
cultures. In fact, human culture is an outgrowth of human nature, and the
gospel is completely foreign to human nature. The Bible itself tells us that
the gospel is not understood by nature (see I Corinthians 2)
but only by the Holy Spirit. In light of this fact, let us consider several of
the points made by Whitfield:
“A culture's prevailing worldview affects logic, prejudices what evidence one considers, and dictates what types of solutions are viable options.”
First of all, all of the things mentioned (logic,
prejudices, consideration of evidence, determination of viable options) are
purely worldly in nature if we are discussing unbelievers. All of these things
are counter-gospel no matter how you slice it. In what culture is the statement
“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it” not counter-cultural? None. The gospel is offensive to all people
of all cultures for the same reasons: it identifies us as sinners who have no
hope of redeeming ourselves.
“Contextualization must happen so the gospel is not seen as foreign to a culture.”
Again, the gospel is not foreign to any specific culture,
but to the race as a whole. I am not sure why the new reformers hold on to the
mantra of contextualization as if it were Biblical principle (see the fourth
paragraph of the piece where he makes the case that Paul was frequently
contextualizing the gospel) which must not be violated. I see in the writing of
the New Testament the pressing of the gospel as the death of worldly culture
and the resurrection of a new heavenly culture on earth. What makes us think
that we need to tailor the spiritually forceful and violent message of
salvation to meet human cultural norms?
As with all contextualizers, Whitfield points to 1 Corinthians 9:20-22
(I become all things to all men) to make the point that Paul was a
contextualizer. But I would make the case, as I did in the book, that Paul was
making himself relevant to the cultures to which he preached, not his gospel.
Language and customs are cultural practices that we must take into account when
presenting the gospel so that we do
not offend those whom we are trying to reach. A suit and tie and oxfords would
not be appropriate dress at a cowboy church in the same way that jeans,
pearl-snap shirts and Skoal rings wouldn’t fit in a Manhattan sanctuary, but
despite these human differences you could find people in both settings who were
reached by the same good news. But this has nothing to do with tailoring the
gospel to make it culturally palatable. The fact that we think that some parts of the gospel are culturally
specific should tell us that we need to narrow our definition of what the
gospel is. It is not a call to a lifestyle or culturally dependent religious
experience, but good news about Christ and what he has accomplished for the
human race.
Perhaps I misunderstand what is meant by gospel contextualization,
or perhaps many of the people teaching the concept are not articulating clearly
enough. If what we are talking about is adapting ourselves to the customs of those surrounding us as a way of making
the introduction of gospel truth possible, I have no problem with it. But why
then muddy the waters by tying our cultural behavior with the gospel? I would
have the gospel stand completely apart from all human culture and reasoning, as
I think Paul actually did. In 1 Corinthians 1, he states:
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Paul indicates here something very different from gospel
contextualization. If I understand the argument made by the contextualizers
properly, I would have expected Paul to say that he provided signs to the Jews
and preached wisdom to Greeks because that was what their respective cultures
expected and demanded (remember “A culture's prevailing worldview affects
logic, prejudices what evidence one considers, and dictates what types of
solutions are viable options”). That would be a culturally contextualized
gospel. But Paul preaches the good news – Christ crucified – despite the fact
that he knows that the message will be culturally disastrous regardless of the
culture. That is the gospel truth.
God Bless
