Africa has many villages, townships, and swamps whose citizens are facing some of the hardest living conditions imaginable. Environments are harsh. Economies have collapsed. In Madagascar, where I served as a missionary, there’s famine, refugees of war, and extreme poverty. In Nosy Mitsio people have to cross the ocean just to access a hospital. Unemployment rates are incredibly high, owing to both a stunted education system and economic crises.
It isn’t strange to find people professing faith in the God, while also turning to other forces for help.
Madagascans, along with many other Africans across the continent, are seeking a way out of their situation and suffering. So it’s understandable when they turn to the ancestors or spirits. If they are the source of both blessings and curses, surely they can change circumstances. This is what many believe and practise, even those who regularly attend a Christian church. Africa is rife not only with superstition but with syncretism. That is, it isn’t strange to find people professing faith in the God who sustains the universe (Hebrews 1:3), while also turning to other forces for help. Why is this?
In this article, I suggest that many people in hard places don’t turn to Christ because the church has failed to contextualise the gospel message. But the word contextualisation probably makes some readers uncomfortable. Therefore, I’m going to first explain what I mean by it. Then I’ll make a case for its importance, before offering up one reason we don’t do it well.
What Does Contextualisation Look Like?
Here’s a somewhat lengthy definition. By contextualisation I mean: our ability to communicate the truth of the Bible, in such a way that it speaks to the issues of our people, in a way that the people can understand and comprehend how God’s word is for them, without changing its message. Faithful contextualisation seeks to make the ancient biblical message, to ancient people, relevant and understandable to today’s audience. It builds a bridge between the intended audience of the Bible and contemporary readers or hearers. Crucially, it doesn’t change the message of the Bible. Rather it makes that message clear by using the language that people can understand to communicate it.
Contextualisation builds a bridge between the intended audience of the Bible and contemporary hearers.
To the above end, the first step we must take is to ask ourselves: what is the message of the Bible? The second step is asking, how does it apply to us? The first requires an extensive, deep knowledge of the Bible. The second demands an awareness of the circumstances facing the people in front of us and culture that informs the way they live and respond to their circumstances. Thirdly, these two factors require a knowledge of the language necessary to communicate and apply the message of the Bible to that community.
Why Is It So Important?
Our failure to contextualise the message of the Bible is a failure to communicate our God-given message as the church. It makes the message of the Bible alien to our audience. Our people will not see the relevance of the Bible to their lives. While some might profess faith in Christ, they will feel like the Bible doesn’t address their specific issues, needs, challenges, and aspirations. Contextualisation transforms the believer’s view of cultural, traditional, and social issues. It gives the believer a biblical perspective view of poverty and wealth, sickness and health, the ancestors and spirits, life and death. Poor contextualisation can result in misrepresenting God.
Failure to contextualise makes the message of the Bible alien to our audience.
This has created a vacuum that the prosperity gospel has happily filled. For the prosperity gospel offers solutions to many aspects of lives, which often aren’t addressed by evangelicals. In other words, if we fail to contextualise the gospel for our hearers someone else will contextualise their own gospel for them. We must demonstrate how God speaks into all of life. When we don’t do that culture and worldview will inform how we read the Bible. For example, I’ve heard on the radio in Madagascar that “‘When God says let us make man in our image,’ that ‘us’ refers to the ancestors.”
The Bible must not be made subject to us. At the same time, we must work hard at showing people how the Bible speaks them. Contextualisation doesn’t shy away from confronting culture. But it is also aware of the recipient culture and listening community. Therefore it attempts to address them within their setting, addressing their assumed systems and inherited worldview.
Why Do We Fail to Contextualise?
There are many reasons why we fail to contextualise the gospel. In Madagascar, I failed to contextualise the gospel to my friend because I didn’t know the community and the environment enough to see how God was working there. See, my friend objected to the gospel because he was financially poor. For him he trusted God for money rather than for salvation. He wanted to get money before he could commit himself to Christ. This made me wonder how I could show him that God cared for him in other ways that didn’t involve money. And that those ways were enough for him to commit himself to Christ. But because I had not spent much time in Madagascar, I couldn’t address his predicament.
Effectively contextualising the gospel would connect those dots, pointing my friend to Christ.
After a year, I learned that the environment is rich in natural resources. Throughout the year they harvest different fruits that come in season as the year unfolds. During the mango season, for example there are so many mangos that one doesn’t have to buy them. Because I didn’t know this I couldn’t show my friend that he enjoys these fruits, among other things, because of God’s goodness to him and everyone else in the village. It is a fulfilment of a promise that God made with himself to do us good regardless of our active rebellion against him.
Consider that promise. “The LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again cursethe ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease’” (Genesis 8:21-22). Even though God knows that our hearts are evil from our youth, he is heart-bent on doing us good. Of course, the highest display of that goodness is seen in the work of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:8-10). Effectively contextualising the gospel would connect those dots, ultimately pointing my friend to Christ.
Towards More Fruitful Evangelism
Whatever the reasons, if the church is to make an impact it must consider how it is communicating its message to the community around it. Therefore, the role of the pastor, preacher, or children’s ministry worker, is twofold. Firstly, proclaim the gospel in such a way that people see its relevance for their lives, without changing it. Secondly, teach them how to do the same for their non-Christian neighbours (Ephesians 4:11-13).
Source link : https://africa.thegospelcoalition.org/article/making-a-case-for-contextualisation-in-the-african-church/
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Publish date : 2024-07-09 04:00:39
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