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Early in the ninth century an anonymous poem known as the Heiland ("Savior") began to circulate among the Saxons of northern Europe. Two or three generations earlier these same Saxons had been brutally conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne. Forced to undergo baptism at the point of the sword, they hardly had experienced authentic evangelization. This was where the Heiland came in, for it translated the story of Christ into the Saxon language and cultural world. According to this poem, Jesus was the most powerful Chieftain ever born. The words Jesus used to teach and perform his mighty deeds of "magic" were called "God's Spell" (or gospel). His 12 companion foot soldiers, or thanes, came from among the sons of Saxony, and Jesus conducted his ministry throughout their lands. For instance, the wedding at Fort Cana was held in a Saxon drinking hall, and the liquor drawn from the stone vats was the best apple wine. No one hearing the poem could miss its point: Jesus Christ, who was mightier than Woden, Thor, and the rest of the ancient gods, was alone the true Saxon Savior.

Around the time the Saxons were first coming into contact with Jesus, a small Christian community on the other side of the world in the imperial capital of China was translating the message of Jesus Christ into the Chinese language and cultural idioms. A monument erected in 781 in their monastery in the city told how Christians from the Persian empire had first brought the "Luminous Religion" to the imperial capital more than a century before. There they had been welcomed by the Chinese emperor, who invited them to translate their Scriptures in the imperial library. Among their early efforts were a series of evangelistic texts written in Chinese in the style of Buddhist sutras. One of these, the Jesus-Messiah Sutra, actually uses the term "Buddha" to translate "God." Another employs the term "Shih-tsun," or "Lord of the Universe," as a Christological title—a term for one of the most important bodhisattvas, or historical savior figures, of the Buddhist religion. This monument included the basic tenets of orthodox Christian faith, making it clear that Christian teachings stood apart from other religions. As if to leave no doubt about the relationship of Christ to other faiths, at the top of the monument was the cross, standing over symbols of Chinese religion.

Both the Saxon Heiland and the Chinese monument are examples of Christianity translating the message of Jesus Christ into new languages and contexts. In the first instance, the Christian religion was already well on its way toward providing a new political and cultural synthesis that was soon to be called "Christendom" in the European north. In the second it was able to achieve only the most marginal of effects upon Chinese cultural life at the time, and the Christian community in China was soon to be eclipsed altogether by imperial edict.

Today we might refer to these historical moments as "enculturations" of the gospel. Through this ongoing process, the salvation that Jesus Christ in his historical incarnation embodied for the women and men around him has continued to be brought close to others in new times and places on earth. Without a doubt the act of translating and enculturing the gospel of Jesus Christ has been Christianity's greatest contribution to human civilization over these past two millennia. Enculturation does two things. Translating the gospel message affirms and preserves the cultural world of those who have received the gospel. At the same time, enculturation makes new believers aware that they belong to a wider community of faith, thereby relativizing their own language and culture.

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December 6 1999, Vol. 43, No. 14