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Contextualization

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Title: Contextualization


1
Contextualization Dr. M. David Sills
2
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Understanding Contextualization
  • Includes ideas inherent in words like
    indigenization or enculturation
  • Indigenization asks, Who owns the program?
  • Enculturation asks, Does it fit in the
    culture?
  • Contextualization combines those two thoughts
    and asks, How do you transfer what God has said
    through holy men of old who lived in an ancient
    cultural context, into the language of people who
    live in a very different one, through the medium
    of translators who live in yet another context
    todays space age?

3
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Defining Contextualization
  • Meaningful and appropriate cross-cultural
    transmission of Biblical truth which is faithful
    to its original intent and sensitive to culture.
  • Presuppositions behind this concept of
    contextualization
  • Biblical truth is absolute and defines the
    essence of the gospel and the church. These
    truths cannot be compromised in any way.
  • There are, however, various legitimate ways in
    which these same truths can be expressed and
    applied in different cultures. These expressions
    and applications must be consistent with
    principles of Biblical interpretation.

4
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Presuppositions behind this concept of
    contextualization
  • As every culture contextualizes the gospel and
    church, missionaries come to new cultures already
    biased towards their own home culture. To
    transmit this would be theological imperialism.
    It leads to confusion of the gospel and the
    planting of a foreign church.
  • A contextualized gospel and church which are
    faithful to Scripture and sensitive to culture
    must be worked out for each culture being
    entered. This insures that the issues which must
    be decided for someone to be converted are the
    core issues. It allows flexibility in forms of
    expression which are meaningful to the new church
    within its culture.

5
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Presuppositions behind this concept of
    contextualization
  • A contextualized church will be better able to
    maintain its unity, sustain its purity, and
    witness to its own community. Having experienced
    the process of contextualization, it will be
    better equipped to transmit Biblical truth to
    other cultures. It may result in increased
    receptivity. If the process is not followed,
    artificial barriers may be erected and the
    converse of all the above may result.
  • Areas of Application
  • Dress, behavior, and lifestyle of the missionary
  • Types of development projects, which if
    inappropriate, might be interpreted as
    inducements by the non-Christian community

6
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Areas of Application
  • Language, including the Scripture translation,
    used in evangelism and worship
  • Thought patterns and communication style as found
    in the new culture
  • Initial selection, sequence, and emphasis of
    certain aspects of the gospel relevant to any
    culture
  • Worship posture and expression in prayer, music
    or formal discourse, allowing for various forms.
    We need to be careful, however, that we do not
    overlook the delicate relationship between form
    and meaning.

7
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Areas of Application
  • Discipling and training methods, keeping in mind
    the past experiences and future needs of new
    converts
  • Church organization and government, allowing
    various forms
  • The process of contextualization should be
    perpetuated not only by example but through
    teaching as a discipline among missionaries and
    church leaders

8
Contextualization SIM Position Paper
  • Problems with Contextualization
  • In the rush to contextualize some may attempt to
    lessen the demands of the gospel or sacrifice
    Biblical truth to make the gospel or church more
    acceptable. This may lead to syncretism.
  • Missionaries may not always understand the
    meaning behind forms which they either allow or
    disallow in the church. Accordingly, the best
    ones to decide what is appropriate are
    well-taught believers who can speak for their own
    culture
  • Some theologians, arguing that the method of
    interpretation used by evangelicals is often
    dictated by their cultural mind set, produce new
    theologies based on different hermeneutical
    systems- all in the name of contextualization.

9
Contextualization International Bulletin of
Missionary Research
Translating Challenges The translation and
dubbing must be as close to perfect as possible,
which means that we must redub portions of the
film. For example, in the initial film edition
of Zhuang, a language group in China, our
translation of angels was actually fairies.
We fixed the problem. In Kinyarwanda (Rwanda),
Mary asked, Am I a virgin? instead of stating,
I am a virgin. We changed it. In Illocano
(Philippines), when the translators needed a word
for prostitute they used a term comparable to
hooker. Although it was good contemporary
Illocano, it offended local pastors, and they
refused to show the film. We changed the word.
10
Contextualization International Bulletin of
Missionary Research
Translating Challenges Continued Missionaries
and local churches sometimes fight to retain
Christian words, which may lessen the impact of
the film with nonbelievers. One disputed word is
the name for Jesus, which in Muslim countries has
been translated either Yesu (often favored by
Christians) or Isa (the Arabic usage). We
continually push for Isa because we are trying
to reach Muslims. Some Christians have refused
to show the film with this translation.
Finally, wrong voices or accents are sometimes
selected. In many cultures around the world,
Jesus is expected to have the accent of the
highest caste or class. If a voice with a
low-class accent is used, the viewing audience is
limited.
11
Contextualization International Bulletin of
Missionary Research
Translating Challenges Continued Sometimes we
have faced the problem of communicating to
warring tribes that speak the same language but
with slightly different accents. Which tribal
voice do you choose for Jesus? Over the past
twenty-one years the Jesus Film Project has spent
more than 2 million to correct translation and
dubbing errors and problems.
12
Perceptions of time
  • African theologian John Mbiti, insists that the
    Swahili words for time, sasa and zamani, cannot
    be pressed into the Western temporal categories
    of past, present, and future. Sasa time, in
    which people currently participate, embraces the
    recent past, the present and immediate future.
    Yet, for many Africans, time is not pictured as a
    movement forward into an eternal future, as in
    the Westl instead, events move backwards and sasa
    disappears into an ever increasing past
    (zamani). Dean Flemming, Contextualization in
    the New Testament

13
Cultural Words
  • Every statement of the gospel in words is
    conditioned by the culture of which those words
    are a part, and every style of life that claims
    to embody the truth of the gospel is a culturally
    conditioned style of life. There can never be a
    culture-free gospel.
  • Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to Greeks The
    Gospel and Western culture, 1986, p.4
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