How far is too far (or far enough)?
This semester I am taking a class called “Cultural Plurality and Christian Mission.” We began by reading Shusaku Endo’s, Silence and then moved on to Bishop Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Each of those books have provided us with fruitful discussions about what it means for the mission of the church to be a witness to the truths of the Christian faith. However, it was in this week’s reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that we got to the heart of the matter and to what I believe to be one of the most pressing questions both throughout the history of Christians missions and for our proclamation of the Gospel today: “How much about Christianity can be altered or removed to adapt to the context of a particular culture before the faith that is accepted, lived and preached is no longer faith in Jesus Christ and his message?”
Allow me to rephrase this with an example from Achebe’s book. In Things Fall Apart we are faced with the issue of the eventual loss of distinctive aspects of Igbo culture (some of which might be offensive and strange to the western mind) because of the introduction of aspects of western imperialism intrinsic in the missionaries’ presentation of the Gospel message. Without giving too much of this book away (although most people should have read this book in high school), allow me simply to say that it is my opinion that, because of the introduction of certain aspects of imperialist western culture into the culture of the Igbo people that were intrinsic in the missionaries’ understanding of the Gospel (features such as ‘western’ systems of government, national borders, etc), this culture was significantly changed and individual lives of persons within this culture (at least in Achebe’s fictional account) were destroyed.
While I do not believe that it is necessary to present the Gospel in such a way that causes simple syncretism to morph into complete relativism and lack of conviction, I most certainly do believe that there must be a way to present the Gospel to cultures who do not share our supposed universal sense of “right and wrong” of “law and democracy.” If the Gospel is indeed a universal message for all humankind, then there must be a way for its message of good news to be accepted in non-western cultures that does not necessarily require an acceptance of all aspects of western culture and society.
I suppose this post is more a question than any sort of statement. Are there concrete ways to allow people in “other” cultures to hear (and subsequently accept and attempt to live) the Good News without either sacrificing the essential truth claims and way of life modeled by Christ or necessarily making the newly believing person into a carbon copy the culture that presented and (hopefully) modeled the Gospel in the first place?
Toward the end of class a scripture quotation was brought to bear in the discussion and the suggestion was made that, if imperialism happened to be a by-product or unintended result of the spread of the Gospel, then so be it. The scripture was from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10, verses 34-39:
“Do not think that I have come to bring beace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man
against his father,
and a daughter against her
mother
and a daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members
of one’s own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Does this witness from scripture mean that,
[...even if our presentation of the Gospel divides tribes by creating national boundaries based upon financial interests, even if our presentation of the Gospel offends the long-cherished customs of a particular people group, even if our presentation of the Gospel (however inadvertently) makes clear the path to violence and oppression...]
we are still justified in our “witness” as long as we remain true to the Gospel as it seems right to us?
At what point do we decide that the customs of a given culture and the dignity of human life are more important than those logical propositions that we call the “truths” of the Gospel?
Any comments or suggestions?
You said, “At what point do we decide that the customs of a given culture and the dignity of human life are more important than those logical propositions that we call the “truths” of the Gospel?” I would imagine that this is a better question to be posed at Western Culture and its devaluing of life through economic, ecological, and militaristic exploitation. I am more fearful that the gospel can not be articulated in our own culture than others. Your question is one I wrestle with and don’t have a pat answer to. I would say the incarnation demonstrates the capacity of God to come to a given culture, social, religious, and political situation and turn it upside down with the gospel. I use to assume, like the Christian West, that I had the Truth and needed to give it to people who did not have it. That assumption is now disgusting to me and at least I see as antithetical to the gospel. The use of that passage in Matthew to justify imperialism seems rather asinine to me (though I may be wrong). I like to ask my self ‘Can the Cross-bearer and his people be Cross-builders? The sword Jesus brought was not his own, but Rome’s - the Empire of his own day. It is a sad day indeed if we think the gospel of Christ can be spread by the sword. Of course here in America we turned “Peacemaker” from a Beatitude into the name of a missile.
We must first try to distinguish between the cultural trappings of “our christianity” and the essentials which they attempt to express. Too often western missiology has confused our cultural expressions with these essentials and imposed our culture rather than assist as mid-wives as the Holy Spirit attempts to bring to life the gospel in a different culture.