If you are interested in topics of mission, context, culture, and the like then you'll want to read the dialogue between kdny and me in the comments section of the Johnny Cash post. Feel free to add your two cents... or pesos... or mites... or whatever is the appropriate monetary denomination in your culture.
(Look people, you'll have to do a little of the contextualization yourself here. FP can't do everything, you know).
I've included the picture of black Jesus just to complicate matters. Enjoy.
5 comments:
Very interesting.
Some people have certainly been reached by Christ because they discovered a place that played the style of music they like, illustrates sermons with clips from the latest blockbuster films and has a congregation that seems a lot like them so they stuck around long enough to hear the gospel.
Don't you think that others have been reached because they saw a person who was living a life for Christ that is clearly divergent from the prevailing culture and they were fascinated enough to ask "who is this Jesus?"
I don't think it is necessary for a church to try to adapt to appeal to a certain demographic as long as they are willing to greet and love whoever shows up at their door.
So it sounds like you are warning that the church cannot be so centered in thier own culture that it no longer appears to welcome people who are culturally different. And it sounds like KDNY is warning that a church cannot be so centered on being relevant that it lets sola cultura become the authority rather than sola scriptura.
homer,
Yeah, i think you pretty much capsulized it. However, I'd want to point out that cultural contextualization is not merely things like music and showing fluency with the culture in terms of media, films, music style, etc (although it includes that stuff). Cultural Contextualization is EVERYTHING. The Gospel uncontextualized is not THE Gospel. I'm saying it doesn't exist that way. There is no "context-free" version of the gospel or Christianity. None of that exists in a cultural vaccum. Even Jesus was situated in a particular time and place and culture. He was a male, Jewish, working class peasant. The very pinnacle of God's self-revelation to mankind was culturally contextualized!
So in one sense we can say everyone or every congregation will give context to the faith. The question is will we be thoughtful, intentional and missional in the way we do it or will we thoughtless, unaware, and in-grown in the way we do it.
Take for instance your example of a church being willing to greet and love whoever shows up. I agree! Certainly that is more important and significant and Christian than issues of musical style, etc. But even that... how should we greet and what communicates love is culturally conditioned! I once attended a Korean church for a few months in St Louis. The whole service was in Korean and they tranlsated for me in a little ear piece. After the service, as a sign of welcome to me, the pastor came and held my hand and walked me around the church and rubbed my back and we walked that way arm in arm around the church each week after the service. I undertstood that he was communicating welcome and love to me in his culture's lanuage. But at grace central, which is in a very liberal community that same welcome and love would be percieved quite differently! It would be downright inappropriate given the socio-sexual dynamics of central Columbus.
So even things as simple as greeting and love are culturally conditioned and should be thought through at some level.
Boils down to this: EVERYTHING communicates a cultural value. One of my passions is to see churches communicate right things in the right ways to the right people, and giving Christians tools to begin to think through the issues biblically and carefully.
Funky says,
"So in one sense we can say everyone or every congregation will give context to the faith. The question is will we be thoughtful..."
"Boils down to this: EVERYTHING communicates a cultural value."
I'm not sure if we are agreeing or disagree, so simply take this as an observation.
First, I'm not convinced that what I'm largely exposed to is "thoughtful". Yes, it claims to be such, but I don't think they have really run it through a biblical grid. For example, there is no proof-text for a "pulpit", especially high and lifted up like the Puritan churches, but a glass podium says something. Yes, the glass podium is hip and relevant, but I protest its message. This may pass cultural muster, but I don't think it is thoughtful.
Second, because i absolutely agree with the second comment I care about how we engage culture, including the use of images and art. I care about the church is done, b/c it reflects our vision of the commandments, etc.
Oh, I had a korean roommate and I have a really funny "junk n trunk" and "pimpin" story due to the ol' cultural gap.
C Mac Writes: As a Calvinist, I can't say "Johnny was saved on 12/31/2004 because Trendy Name Church played pop-style Christian music that was more palatable to his paticular taste."
Arminians wouldn't say that either.
"people "are not going to be saved" if you don't create a coffee-shop style sanctuary and have music-video style Worship,"
No one says this.
"a paticular package or method is going to overcome Total Depravity independant of a regeneration work of God"
Neither KDNY, FP or LessFamousHomer have suggested this.
"the current "culture" of a lot of contextualized ministries are incredibly costly in the financial sense, and should be per-item/action taken into consideration... as a cost/benefit issue on the specific needs/goals of the ministry)"
But C Mac, this misses the point. ALL MINISTRY IS CONTEXUALIZED. Not just churches with coffee houses, video screens and electric guitars! But churches with giant elevated pulpits and wooden pews and stained glass windows and hymns from the 1800's and a library full of Spurgeon and Whitfield and Berkhoff... these too are the context in which the gospel is (hopefully) proclaimed. Do any of those churches believe that the sound of the pipe organ or the height of the pulpit will overcome depravity independantly of the work of the Holy Spirit? Probably not. So why imply that more so called "contemporary" (I still hate that word) churches would make such a foolish assumption?
"the current "culture" of a lot of contextualized ministries are incredibly costly in the financial sense, and should be per-item/action taken into consideration... as a cost/benefit issue on the specific needs/goals of the ministry)"
Ahh. But for every church you show me that may be accused of contextualizing at too high a cost, I will show you ten that have refused to contextualize at an even higher cost. Drive down W. King avenue some time and check out the giant empty building at the corner of King and Forsythe. Fifty years ago it had nearly a thousand members. Today it has exactly zero.
"as a Church we should strive to do church in a way that preserves the goodness God has created in culture, society, technology, and literature, under the umbrellas of the Command of God, the Character of God, the Purpose of God, the Apostolic Ministry and the Historical Church"
Yes Yes Yes! Which demands that we contextualize how we "do church" in a biblically AND culturally appropriate way.
My wife just pointed out to me a sub text of this string. Itis that there is a fear or wariness that "contextualization" of the gospel will produce shallow churches. This is no more true than the accusation that failure to appropriately contextulize will produce stale or passionless churches (which is often the charge!).
I say nonsense!
If the church is shallow then it is NOT the gospel which we have contextualized.
If the church is stale then it is NOT the gospel which we have protected.
One of the most godly and hands down the smartest man I've ever known often said, "Abusus non tollit usum" which is latin for - Wrong use does not preclude proper use. This is my point.
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