Defining the Context::

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Defining the Context
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When we say Culture, what do we mean?

• The totality of socially transmitted behavior
  patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all
  other products of human work and thought.
• The predominating attitudes and behavior that
  characterize the functioning of a group or
  organization.

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Is culture good or bad?

• Depends- walking along, come to an
  incline/declineoften good or bad is situational.
  
• It just is- it may be harder soil for the Gospel,
  or it may be easier soil for the Gospel. And
  sometimes, what may seem hard, is actually
  fertile

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What happens when we label huge swaths of culture
as bad?

• We end up declaring things unredeemable, unusable
  (movie theaters, rock music, the web, etc)
• We need to think less in terms of sacred and
  secular so much as redeemed and not yet
  redeemed, reached and not yet reached.

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Evaluate this statement If we just preach the
Gospel well win the West, people will come to
Christ, etc.
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Is there any such thing as a Gospel without
culture?

• We must start with the basic fact that there is
  no such thing as a pure Gospel if by that is
  meant something which is not embodied in a
  culture every interpretation of the Gospel is
  embodied in some cultural form. Lesslie
  Newbingen, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

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Is there any such thing as a Gospel without
culture?

• The Gospel is understood incarnationally. In a
  sense, it must always wear the clothes of
  culture- because it is presented by people who
  are inculturated, to people who are inculturated
  through the medium of culture.

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What kinds of training do people going to
different people groups receive?

• Attractional vs. Incarnational
• The incarnational, missional church understands
  its mission, understands its fundamental identity
  as sent, and does its best to understand those to
  whom it is sent.

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The shorthand for this process of clothing the
Gospel is Contextualization
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Frost/Hirsch pg 80
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What is contextualization?

• Contextualization is the dynamic process whereby
  the constant message of the Gospel interacts with
  specific, relative human situations.
• Contextualization is when the Gospel presented
  and the response called for, offends for the
  right reasons and not for the wrong ones. -Rene
  Padilla

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What Contextualization is NOT

• Not a cosmetic reworking of our programs

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a couple more thoughts on Why contextualize?

• Because Christ did it
• The early Church did it
• Because its absolutely necessary

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Reaching vs. Going

• Reaching people is the wrong question. Reaching
  is not a Christ-ordained strategy. Going is.
• And to go you need a route- a redemptive window
  where the Gospel can find entre. And you need to
  know the lay of the land and approach the culture
  not as an outsider who comes to judge

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Some questions to think about

• If you could do it all again from scratch, would
  you do it the same way?
• Then why are you doing it that way now?
• Is that leadership- or is it capitulation?

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Hour Two The Context

• What is postmodernity?
• Postmodernity is what comes after the cult of
  science. When we all stop thinking like
  engineers, scientists and mathematicians

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Why is this important?

• In the face of this changing western culture,
  many western church leaders are in denial they
  plan and do church as though next year will be
  1957.
• - George Hunter III

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Postmodern- Early 1900s- Pragmatic Evangelicals/
emerging church
Medieval 500-1500 fall of Rome Roman Cathol.
Modern-1500-1900s Renaissance/ Reformation Mainl
ine protestantism
Most eras/movements begin as a reaction to
something else.
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We need to minister to the world we have, not the
world that we wish to have

• Christianity is still trying to decide how it
  will respond- Some want to fight the transition,
  some want to embrace it, some have yet to
  acknowledge that it even exists
• 2 types of postmodernity- scholarly and
  man-on-the-street- Erickson calls hard or
  soft postmodernism

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Science Intuition/revelation

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Objectivity Subjectivity

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Naturalism Supernaturalism

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Evolution Creation

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Individualism/Communism
• Communalism/Individualism

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Heirarchy/Authoritarianism
• Anti-authoritarianism

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Arrogance Humility

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Rigid Flexible

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Reductionistic Holistic

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Conquest Cooperative

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Which direction is culture moving?

• Believer Seeker

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The Problem

• Because our protestant/evangelical tradition was
  birthed in and through modernism, we have a
  strong affinity to modernity- and we tend to see
  postmodernity as an attack on Christianity
  itself.
• Among the challenges of postmodernity, there are
  many opportunities-

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