by David Wesley
To find a balanced and Christlike response to the social challenges of our society is not easy for churches and pastors. As a missiologist I often think about how the church interacts with "others" who do not consider themselves part of the church. Missionaries often deal with these issues as they interact with cultures other than their own. The term often used for addressing these issues is contextualization. Anthropologist, Paul Hiebert talks about three ways that Christian mission addresses "others". One is uncritical contextualization in which there is no critique of a culture or religion. Anything different is just accepted as good. This really does no one any good since there are destructive and unhealthy things as well as good things in any culture. A second approach is no contextualization in which the Christian missionary thinks that anything that is different than their own cultural view of Christianity should be rejected or changed. Obviously, this is also unacceptable. The third view of contextualization according to Hiebert is what he calls critical contextualization in which a person takes the time to listen and understand the "other" and to enter into real dialog in which both parties look to Christ together in a spirit of love and relationship.
As churches in the U.S. find themselves in a changing environment, there is a need for churches to think like missionaries who do the hard work of understanding others and being a christian witness with their lives and actions.
A good example of this is in the following video clip in which Bill Hybels describes their approach to homosexuality:
To find a balanced and Christlike response to the social challenges of our society is not easy for churches and pastors. As a missiologist I often think about how the church interacts with "others" who do not consider themselves part of the church. Missionaries often deal with these issues as they interact with cultures other than their own. The term often used for addressing these issues is contextualization. Anthropologist, Paul Hiebert talks about three ways that Christian mission addresses "others". One is uncritical contextualization in which there is no critique of a culture or religion. Anything different is just accepted as good. This really does no one any good since there are destructive and unhealthy things as well as good things in any culture. A second approach is no contextualization in which the Christian missionary thinks that anything that is different than their own cultural view of Christianity should be rejected or changed. Obviously, this is also unacceptable. The third view of contextualization according to Hiebert is what he calls critical contextualization in which a person takes the time to listen and understand the "other" and to enter into real dialog in which both parties look to Christ together in a spirit of love and relationship.
As churches in the U.S. find themselves in a changing environment, there is a need for churches to think like missionaries who do the hard work of understanding others and being a christian witness with their lives and actions.
A good example of this is in the following video clip in which Bill Hybels describes their approach to homosexuality:
