Preaching Christ or Packaging Jesus?

A few years ago, faculty members at evangelical colleges were asked to name the books that had most influenced their thinking as Christian scholars. One book that ranked very high on almost everyone’s list was H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture. This choice is quite understandable. Evangelical Christians, as heirs to the pietist tradition, have struggled in very intense ways with the proper ways of relating the Christian gospel to prevailing cultural patterns. Niebuhr’s discussion, with its handy scheme for classifying various Christ-and-culture options, speaks to issues that have long been of interest to evangelicals.

If Niebuhr had written his book in the 1990s, though, he might well have felt some awkwardness in speaking so easily of “culture” in the singular. Ours is a time of intense interest in Christ and the cultures. How does the gospel relate to the rich variety of cultural settings and experiences that are increasingly visible in our global village? This, too, is a topic that raises significant issues for Christians who want to understand their cultural surroundings in a biblically faithful manner.

Beyond An All-American Jesus

The phenomenal speed with which far-off regions have been connected through trade, travel, and satellite communications during the past two decades has increased our awareness of diverse and conflicting cultural outlooks in the human community. Advocates of “pluralism” seem to imply that a relativistic outlook is the only option, both in intellectual discussions and in more popular trends. These preoccupations are reflected in the agenda of recent theological discussion as well, where much attention has been given to the relation of the gospel to diverse cultural situations. The term contextualization, like its close kin indigenization, is a theme that is emphasized by thinkers who want to draw sympathetic attention to the ways in which the Christian message is received, appropriated, and interpreted in a variety of cultural contexts. It is not uncommon for such thinkers to ask that we take an honest and critical look at the ways in which the transmission of the gospel to the non-Western world has been shaped by “the American way of life,” or more generally by the values of a technocratic-scientific world view. And sometimes such arguments are designed to move us in the direction of a more pluralistic, even relativistic, understanding of the message of the gospel.

But it would be wrong to dismiss the recent Christian interest in cross-cultural issues as a mere capitulation to the spirit of the age. Indeed, it has often been the thinkers from the more conservative Christian communities—especially Roman Catholic and evangelical—who have been on the cutting edge of the discussion of Christ and the cultures. And rightly so, since this topic touches deep Christian impulses.

Consider, for example, the evangelistic impulse. It is no accident that evangelicals and Roman Catholics have been so intensely involved in this discussion, since both Roman Catholics and evangelicals have been in the forefront of recent missionary activity, continuing to evangelize persons from non-Christian groups long after that ceased to be a high-priority activity among mainline Protestants. Consequently, the more conservative Christian groups have been forced to struggle with contextualization issues because of the challenges presented to them by their own converts, who often combine a deep interest in cross-cultural questions with a strong commitment to theological orthodoxy. But the evangelistic interest in cross-cultural questions has not been the exclusive concern of those who are involved in “foreign missions.” The questions also arise very close to home, where new immigrant groups have begun to bring issues of interreligious dialogue to our own doorsteps. Since evangelicals have typically given strong emphasis to the need for effectiveness in evangelistic communication, much of the talk about contextualization is in effect a new version of a very familiar evangelical conversation. For example, programs for evangelizing young people—Youth for Christ and Young Life are two obvious cases in point—have long embodied the concern for the effective translation of the claims of the gospel into the language of the prevailing youth culture.

A second impulse is a pastoral one. An interest in cultural context is closely linked to a desire to provide pastoral resources for Christians in their specific cultural settings. We all recognize that what we preach to worshipers in suburban retirement villages will need to be different from the sermons we deliver in inner-city churches or military chapels or rural Sunday schools. God places Christian people in very different life situations, and our teaching, preaching, and counseling must take this diversity into account.

A third impulse is a more formal theological one. (True, it is not completely fair—or good—to separate the theological from the evangelistic or the pastoral tasks, but theological reflection can serve as a necessary preparation for these other tasks.) Biblically sensitive thinkers have always been fascinated with the nature of seemingly basic human disagreements. Indeed, evangelical theologians and philosophers have often pursued this topic with much enthusiasm. They have been very sensitive to the role of presuppositions in human thought and experience. This has certainly been true in the more Calvinist strand of evangelicalism, where there has been a strong desire to underscore the existence of serious differences between believing and unbelieving perspectives on reality. But similar sensitivities have been at work wherever evangelicals have drawn strict lines between “godly” and “worldly” patterns of thought. Attention to the ways in which cultural factors contribute to the shape that disagreements and differences take in the human community, then, is a legitimate extension of this evangelical fascination with religious epistemology.

But an emphasis on cultural context is not merely an optional item of conversation for the Christian community. We miss the real message of the contextualizers if we hear them saying that it is okay for those who choose to do so to translate gospel themes into the terms of a specific cultural context. Their point is a much stronger one: all of our preachings and theologizings are inevitably contextualized. None of us escapes the formative influence of our cultural situation in our understanding of the biblical message. We can acknowledge this point, however, without embracing an anything-goes relativism.

Focusing A Universal Gospel

Much has been written in recent years about the proper scope and methods of contextualization. While there are many nuances and distinctions that obviously need to be explored, the basic boundaries are helpfully delineated by William Dyrness in his recent book, How Does America Hear the Gospel? (Eerdmans, 1989). Dyrness rightly insists that our concern to communicate the gospel in culturally sensitive ways must be guided by two commitments: the first is to communicative effectiveness, and the second is to biblical truth.

Again, these are helpful reference points to bear in mind as we evaluate specific strategies of contextualization. We can be so concerned about effectively communicating the gospel to a specific group that we lose the content of biblical truth in the process. We need to think creatively, for example, about how to present the gospel to people whose hearts and lives are shaped by the prevailing values of a consumer society. But in doing so, we must avoid the simple-minded “health and wealth” message that compromises the Bible’s unavoidable insistence on the cost of discipleship.

To take both communicative effectiveness and biblical truth seriously means that there are no easy formulas for assessing contextualizing programs. Take, for example, the arguments of those Christians who insist that any use of civic symbols or themes in our worship services is an unhealthy compromise with “civil religion.” A worship service, they argue, should in no way reflect the national setting in which it takes place. If a Christian family from Uganda should happen to attend a service in Illinois, the African visitors should be able to identify with everything that is going on in the worship event.

Although there is some merit to being sensitive to an unhealthy blend of religion and nationalism, corporate worship can hardly remain “culture-neutral.” It is simply unreasonable to expect foreign visitors to understand and appreciate everything in our services (just as it would be unfair to expect their services to feel completely familiar to us). The language, accents, and modes of cultural expression in worship will inevitably reflect specific surroundings.

Nor is this something to feel guilty about. God has placed us in specific cultural contexts—and this includes specific national contexts. We should not ask black worshipers in Soweto or a rural congregation in Panama to make no mention of their particular political circumstances as they worship the divine Ruler. Nor should we ask it of ourselves. The application of the gospel to our specific cultural setting is an important part of our Christian calling.

Every Tribe And Tongue And People

To present the gospel with integrity to people of different cultures poses many challenges, some fraught with dangers. But it is an exciting opportunity once again to recognize and celebrate the many-faceted redemptive ministry of Jesus Christ and of the written Word that is given to us as our authoritative guide for all that we do.

Jesus Christ is indeed the all-sufficient One. As the Lamb who is building his church by saving persons from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev. 5:9–10), he reaches out to us in the context of our specific circumstances. It is inevitable that different people will feel his saving touch in different ways: to meet Jesus in the desperate circumstances of skid row is a different experience from meeting him at a Full Gospel breakfast meeting or in a hut in a jungle village. But it is more than an exciting possibility; it is a requisite aspect of every Christian’s call to go and make disciples. The church must acknowledge this kind of contextualization, taking full advantage of its importance in our evangelistic and pastoral programs.

The Bible’s message is also many-faceted. As God’s Word to us, it must never be confused with the cultural contexts in which we receive that Word. The South African theologian Allan Boesak makes this point clearly in his critique of certain varieties of “black theology.” What are commonly referred to as “the black situation” and “the black experience,” Boesak argues in Farewell to Innocence (Orbis, 1986), do not “within themselves have revelational value on a par with Scripture.” These contexts are simply “the framework within which blacks understand the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. No more, no less.”

This last comment is a telling one. The black experience, Boesak says, is not itself divine revelation; rather, it is no more than the situation in which blacks have received that revelation. But neither is it less than a situation to which God has revealingly spoken. This means that while the black historical experience is not on a par with scriptural revelation, it is at least on a par with white historical experience, which must also be denied revelatory status.

The Word of God is addressed to a rich variety of human cultural situations. And it speaks to those situations out of its own rich and many-faceted storehouse of divine truth. As the people of the Lamb, we have the privilege of gathering together before that Word, to share our diverse experiences, and to learn from—and correct—one another in the light of the revealed truth of God.

Aspects Of The Divine Image

Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck once suggested that in addition to the ways in which each human individual is created in the image of God, there is also a “collective” possession of the divine image. The Lord distributes different aspects of the divine likeness to different cultural groups. Each group receives, as it were, a different assignment for developing some aspect of the image of God. Only in the eschatological gathering-in of the peoples of the earth, when many tribes and tongues and nations will be displayed in their “honor and glory” (Rev. 21:26) in the New Jerusalem, only then will we see the many-splendored imago dei in its fullness.

As a specific interpretation of the “image” passage in Genesis 1, Bavinck’s proposal is debatable. But it is certainly correct in its broader intent. To be sure, there is a genuine danger here of reinforcing the kind of racist ideology that finds the “separate development” of ethnic groups to be a showpiece of orthodox theology. Nic Diederichs, one of the Afrikaner architects of apartheid thought, was fond of insisting that the Creator dislikes “deadly uniformity,” which is why, he said, the world contains a plurality of cultural groups.

We all know—or ought to know by now—what horrible schemes have been served by such statements. But those horrors, which ought not in any way to be minimized, were often justified by the perverse use of arguments that contained important truths. This is the case with Diederich’s observation about what God does to avoid boredom; his claim that God dislikes “deadly uniformity,” as it stands, would be seconded not only by Bavinck, but also by the people who have made us more conscious in recent years of cultural contextualization.

Not only are Jesus Christ and the written Word marvelously complex revelations of the mystery of God—we human beings, in all of our cultural diversity, reflect something of that same mysterious richness. This is why it is such a wonderful thing to belong to that worldwide community of the Lamb, drawn from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

It is in the context of this redeemed community that we can learn more about God’s complex purposes for humankind. Paying attention to cultural contexts, and experimenting with diverse ways in which human beings experience and express the saving power of the gospel—these can be important and exciting ways of learning more about the mysteries of grace.

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