Monday, February 4, 2008
Perspectives, 384 Assignment
Please read and respond to the article, "Culture, Worldview and Contextualization," by Charles Kraft, beginning on page 384 in your Perspectives on the World Christian Movement book. You will be required to respond to at least one other student's comments to successfully complete this assignment. Please ensure that you put your name in parenthesis if you post anonymously.
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4 comments:
A key question for Christians who work cross-culturally is, “What is God’s view of culture? He gives half the answer as he refers to first Corinthians 9:19-22, where he gives the principal while working with Jews I live like a Jew, when working with Gentiles, I lived like a Gentile. The approach becomes, “become all things to all men, that I may save some of them by whatever means are possible.” That begs the next obvious question, “What means are possible?” What determines just what is possible?
Everyone’s culture is a matter of structure. A person’s culture is like the script and actor follows. The actor does not choose his lines. A person is usually conscious of his worldviews. The author gives the illustration that we are usually as unconscious of it as a fish must be of the water. I like the illustration the author gives here. Just for the sake of statement, I cannot give examples, because as with age so goes the memory. But some fish are saltwater fish. Some fish are freshwater fish. You take a fish out of his culture put him into a different culture and he will surely die. I’m afraid though that’s what we try to do when we see people “swimming” in a culture different from ours. We try to “rescue” them from their culture (water) and transplant them into our water (culture).
The lesson here is that we need to respect everyone’s culture. Just as the author pointed out, “the way of Jesus is however to honor a people’s culture and its incorporated worldview, not to wrest it from them.
In our sole winning efforts we need to remember to share Christ not share our culture. When listing two people we need to listen to the person not listen to the culture. I would point out that Christ came to save people not save a culture. Remember, both Jews and Gentiles are going to be in heaven. The flip side is there will be Jews not in Heaven.
Mark
It helps greatly to understand that culture and society are different. Culture is the script and society is the actor. I like this thought. What brought it all together for me was the list of five was to use culture to contextualize. The stamen that caught my attention was, “God wants churches today to be culturally appropriate, using most of the customs of a people but attaching new meaning to them by using them for God’s purposes.” I think every missionary ought to think this one through. I am curious though; would this be redeeming the culture or just using it?
I believe there is a great problem with our Western missionaries trying to convert people not only to Christianity, but to Western culture as well. This is something I am going to have to work on when I get to the field. It is very hard to believe that people don’t do things the way I have always done them. I have found this out a little bit at school and through my short deputation. There is a different world out there and the people are a bit different. Or is it that I am different? Whichever it is I am going to have to rely on the Holy Spirit to help me with all of this. (Meisha Deane)
Mark,
You said, “Remember, both Jews and Gentiles are going to be in heaven. The flip side is there will be Jews not in Heaven.” I have to say that there will be many church members that will not be in heaven as well.
One of the hardest things to overcome when reaching a Jew is their belief that becoming a Christian means no longer being a Jew. This is interesting in the light of the early church in Jerusalem believing that one must become a Jew to be a Christian. (Meisha Deane)
I want to give my half cent worth about your comment of “redeeming the culture or just using it”. I am afraid that with all this talk about other cultures we can get the impression that “if we build it they will come.” If we build this kind of church, this kind of ministry they will come. I disagree. I think culture is more than just what we do, (outside actions, tattoos, songs, art). We cannot imitate that. We can imitate cultural things and everyone will see past it.
I think people will see past all our hupla. We can not just build a culture in our churches; culture is more about our feelings and attitudes. (“…at the core of who we are.”) We do not need to be artistic or athletic or anything. We need to share honestly our heart (who we are past the surface).
I think that is why people listened to Jesus he taught them as one having authority not as the scribes and Pharisees. He goes on to say be their servant. That is when people will listen to us.
Mark
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