CHAPTER 11

JESUS-CENTERED CONTEXTUALIZATION

One living sermon is worth a hundred explanations.

~ Robert Coleman1

It is hard to overstate the popularity that the show 24 experienced throughout the first decade of the 2000s in America. For a few years there was consistent chatter in offices, living rooms, and at dinner tables about how the show was unfolding. Each episode ended with a ridiculous cliffhanger that made waiting a week to find out how the most precarious of situations would be resolved seem insufferable. Jack Bauer, the lead character, played by Keiffer Sutherland, a seemingly unstoppable force who could squeeze more productivity out of one hour than most people could in a year, always seemed to find a way to save the country while tiptoeing on the line of ethics. The end often justified the means, and his behavior was easier to explain away given what was at stake.

During the third season, Jack finds himself in another somewhat typical, impossible situation when he learns about the existence of the deadly “Cordilla” virus, which kills anything it comes into contact with. Of course, this becomes an issue of national security and requires that the virus is found and disposed of before it is used against the nation. Bauer learns that Roman Salazar, a narco-terrorist who leads one of the largest drug cartels in Mexico, has access to the virus.

Jack has to do what Jack always does: he sets a plan in place to save the day in a few hours. No big deal. He goes undercover in an effort to get close to Salazar, find the virus, and dispose of the threat. Going undercover means that Bauer faces a myriad of ethical dilemmas. How much should he affirm of the culture of a drug cartel to get close enough to the boss to dismantle the cartel? Should he kill like they kill? Should he use the drugs that are placed before him? How far does he go for the sake of the mission? As fans of the show already know, Jack often pushes the ethical envelope and affirms many aspects of the culture for the sake of the mission. He identifies with his context in order to be effective in that context. In season 3 he chooses to use heroin, which eventually leads to an addiction that he has to wrestle with in later days. But, he also thwarts the plans of Salazar, alleviates the threat, and continues to reinforce the enigma that is Jack Bauer. All in a day’s work.

Most church leaders don’t struggle with the question of whether or not they should shoot up heroin to reach their cities for Christ, but they do wrestle with the questions of cultural contextualization and identification. The Church has been given a mission, not to save the world, but to announce the saving work of Christ for the salvation of the world. And in order to achieve this mission, the Church must make decisions about what it will affirm from its surrounding culture and what it will not. Most churches, of course, don’t struggle with whether or not to shoot up heroin (if this is a struggle, then we have another book to recommend). But church leaders do struggle with how to deliver the message of Christ in a culturally meaningful way. After all, churches don’t minister to people in general. Instead, they reach particular people with particular values, idols, aspirations, dreams, gifts, strongholds, and sins.

This means that churches need to understand how their church should look and minister in relation to their particular church’s surrounding culture and context. What kind of cultural practices and beliefs should be strategically affirmed and which should not? How will church practice, not theology, look differently in the South than in the North? How does a rural cultural context like those in small county-seat churches impact ministry decisions in a way that makes it distinct from churches serving in more urban areas like Manhattan, San Francisco, or Hong Kong? How will a church that is near a thriving college campus approach ministry different from a church nestled in a quiet suburban neighborhood of young families? Or, what about the church in Sudan, Dubai, or London? Praise the Lord that the Church finds herself within countless nations, tribes, languages, and contexts. These questions and others reveal the type of challenges that the Church faces. She is a Creature of the Word, created to exist within a contextual system. These are all questions that uncover the type of contextualization your church is doing.

And listen, everybody contextualizes. We have all heard it said, “Everybody is a theologian; the question is what kind of theologian.” Similarly, we should say, “Everybody contextualizes; the question is how well.” When you use the language of a culture, you are contextualizing. When you deliver age-appropriate messages from the pulpit and the children’s ministry, you are contextualizing. When you wear a suit rather than a tunic, you are contextualizing. These are very basic levels of contextualization, but they still illustrate the point: everybody makes contextual decisions.

In some aspects, contextualization is like breathing: it just comes naturally and doesn’t require any forethought or planning. Other contextualization issues necessitate investigation, understanding, and intentionality. Like we saw with Jack Bauer, there are potential pitfalls and dilemmas that leaders must navigate with godly wisdom and insight. For the Church, the end does not justify the means. The means matters.

And in order for the Creature of the Word to thrive in any particular environment, it needs to understand Jesus’ method of contextualization.

Incarnation as Contextualization

We are all surrounded by a culture filled with people who have plans for Jesus. They place priorities on Jesus’ to-do list. Or to put it another way, the culture wants Jesus to affirm their ways. Of course, this isn’t new. When Jesus stepped onto the dusty roads of Israel, He stepped into a culture filled with ideas about how Jesus could best carry out His mission. Peter, for example, wanted to take Rome by force, cutting off the ear of the soldier in the garden, but Jesus had other plans. The crowds wanted to make Jesus king immediately, but Jesus didn’t let them. The rich man wanted Jesus to justify his religious performance, but he didn’t get the verdict he wanted. The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus to put a stop to His healing-on-the-Sabbath ways, but He refused to be confined to their thinly sliced way of thinking. Jesus faced pressures to accommodate to His surrounding culture at the expense of His mission at almost every point along the way . . . but He didn’t.

Yet, although Jesus rejected much of the culture around Him, He didn’t reject it all. He did—(brace yourself)—“affirm” certain cultural practices. He didn’t come to earth as an American who spoke English to reach the English-speaking world. Instead, He came as a Jewish man who spoke Aramaic (and Hebrew) to reach Israel. That was His context. He dressed like Jewish men dressed. He talked like Jewish men talked. He could be hidden in a crowd because He looked like the people He came to reach. Jesus’ mission was a contextualized mission. And He didn’t just look like His culture; He also understood their struggles. The writer of Hebrews tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15 HCSB).

There are two points we want to introduce here. First, the contextual challenge is a directional challenge: either over-contextualizing or under-contextualizing (we will expand on this in the section on common errors of contextualization). If we affirm too much of the surrounding culture, our ministry would lose the distinction of the message. This is the slippery slope of over-contextualization. We can drift into identifying so much with the culture that we are a part of that we lose any semblance of healthy biblical separation and substance. All cultures are broken, marred with sin, and in need of transformation (Eph. 2:1–4). The gospel message is clearly countercultural in any given context and must always contain a clear edge of distinction. But on the other hand, if we affirm too little of the surrounding culture, our ministry loses its clarity and connection. This is the danger of under-contextualization. We can contend for the purity of the gospel of Jesus but lose the very opportunity to clearly present this message if we fail to speak and contend for it in a way that is meaningful to the culture at hand. Jesus contextualized by affirming the culture without compromising the message. By affirming cultural characteristics, He made the message connect to the culture. By holding uncompromisingly onto the message, He bore a message that critiqued the culture and offered a countercultural understanding of life. This is the essence of the second point: there is need to both contend for the message and contextualize the mission.

The Creature of the Word is formed within a culture, from a culture, in order to be the organism that is used to redeem the culture. The church is called to contend for the faith. God has established leaders and overseers in the Church to protect and guard the precious truths that mark biblical Christianity. In this sense, the Church takes on a defensive posture of protection and covering over the doctrines of the faith. This is right and good and biblical. The Church also has an offensive posture of movement. She is a people moving forward and pushing back what is dark. As the Church defensively contends for the faith, she offensively contextualizes it in such a way that it becomes accessible. The balance of contending and contextualizing is the tension a faithful leader must consistently consider. Fear will lead toward under-contextualizing and over-contending. Foolishness will lead to over-contextualizing and under-contending. The fear of the Lord produces godly wisdom that will lead to a healthy balance of contending and contextualization.

The way in which Jesus came to earth shapes the way the Church goes to the world. The more that a Jesus-centered church looks to Jesus, the more it becomes like Him. And the more it becomes like Him, the more wisdom the Church will display in navigating the contextual challenge.

As we look through the rest of the New Testament, we see that Jesus’ method of contextualization continues. The apostles led the churches to affirm cultural practices without compromising the message so the world would receive the gospel. The apostle Paul significantly wrote,

Although I am a free man and not anyone’s slave, I have made myself a slave to everyone, in order to win more people. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win those under the law. To those who are without that law, like one without the law—not being without God’s law but within Christ’s law—to win those without the law. To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some. Now I do all this because of the gospel, so I may become a partner in its benefits. (1 Cor. 9:19–23 HCSB)

Paul also affirmed certain cultural distinctives in order to deliver a meaningful message. The message drove the mission and the mission necessitated that the message be delivered by accessible means. It is important to emphasize that the message drives the mission. Scattered throughout the New Testament is the reality that the wonder and grace of the gospel message fuels and motivates the heart for mission. There is a direct correlation between our understanding of God’s heart for us in Christ and our heart for the lost world. To distort this order is to distort our motivation, which ultimately leads to unhealthy mission and contextualization.

This is why we can say that Paul’s heart for the lost, which was driven by the message of the gospel, fueled his missional methods. He had a diverse arsenal of approaches from quoting secular poets in Acts 17, showing up to preach in synagogues, requiring that Timothy be circumcised for the sake of the Jews in Acts 16, but saying that Titus did not need to be circumcised for the sake of the Gentiles in Galatians 2. All of these decisions were contextual decisions made for the sake of the gospel mission.

Paul may have varied in his approach and practice but never in his theology. Again, we see him both contending for and contextualizing the message. Paul was not motivated to become all things to all people so that he might be popular or liked. This goes back to the reality that the message has to drive the mission. Paul became all things so that he might point others to Christ in a meaningful way. His desire for them to become like Jesus ensured that he would become like them.

The true impetus for meaningful contextualization is biblical love. This love recognizes an opportunity to serve those around us, and in this case, we are trying to consider how we might best serve their greatest need. Consider the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus flips the question of, “who is my neighbor?” to, “who can I be a neighbor to?” The idea is that we are looking for ways to be neighborly, ways to serve and help those in distress. Although the story of the Good Samaritan is not a story about contextualization per se, it does provoke our hearts to consider the vantage point of our orientations. Are we primarily considering how we might best serve others or are we finding reasons, even using religion as a cloak, to pass by those in need. Unfortunately, some churches have failed to be neighborly to those around them by not considering helpful ways they might deliver the gospel message.

Unfortunately, the idea of contextualization has been misunderstood and misapplied. Some have been wary of the potential pitfalls of it, while others have wandered outside the biblical boundaries of what is wise and permissible. As with anything, the extremes are unhelpful. We want to explore in greater detail some common errors in contextualization in hopes that we might walk in wisdom.

Common Errors in Contextualization

The Jesus-centered church is a church that affirms certain characteristics from its surrounding culture while still holding faithfully to the gospel. The purpose of contextualization is to glorify God by reaching sinners with the gospel of Christ. And every church executes some type of contextualization to this end.

But as we all know, good efforts and intentions are not enough. If there were ever any question about the sufficiency or insufficiency of good intentions, a cursory reading of church history reveals the truth. While it’s hard to detail all of the errors the Church has committed in its attempts to contextualize, the mistakes can rightfully be placed into two categories: over-contextualizing churches and under-contextualizing churches.

Over-contextualizing takes place when a church affirms so much of the culture around them that they compromise the message, thus losing the distinctive edge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, for instance, a church that over-contextualizes will blend with the culture in a way that causes them to wander outside biblical boundaries. Gailyn Van Rheenen rightly describes this as syncretism:

Syncretism occurs when Christian leaders accommodate, either consciously or unconsciously, to the prevailing plausibility structures or worldviews of their culture. Syncretism, then, is the conscious or unconscious reshaping of Christian plausibility structures, beliefs, and practices through cultural accommodation so that they reflect those of the dominant culture. Or, stated in other terms, syncretism is the blending of Christian beliefs and practices with those of the dominant culture so that Christianity loses it distinctiveness and speaks with a voice reflective of its culture.2

It could be argued that this is what has happened, by and large, in liberal churches. In these instances, enlightenment thinking eroded the biblical witness, and many churches said that it is unreasonable to believe in the supernatural. But when a culture rejects the supernatural, it rejects such things as the divine inspiration of Scripture, the miracles of Jesus, the resurrection, and more. When liberal churches adhere to these beliefs, they are over-contextualizing and falling victim to syncretism. They are compromising the truth to placate a people and thus losing the very power of the gospel. A right view of contextualization holds that the message is central, not the culture. Interestingly enough, the church often drifts into this compromise. Their heart to serve and love people is misguided by a failure to understand the scriptural reality of biblical love. In the end, however, their failure to hold on to certain biblical beliefs leads to the disappearance of the message. And without the message of Christ, there is no good news. If there is no good news, then the Creature of the Word is not formed.

Other examples of the Church over-contextualizing abound. For example, the recent cultural shift regarding homosexuality and marriage is making headway into the Church. Rather than maintaining biblical faithfulness and speaking lovingly into the culture in hopes of seeing the message of Jesus Christ redeem and transform, many churches have allowed the culture to hijack and define the biblical message. Again, this is a clear example of syncretism and over-contextualization. Certainly this is a delicate issue and one that will require humility and courage for the people of God, and thankfully, there are many faithful pastors who are not shirking their responsibility to engage with the grace and truth of Jesus.

To name another common example, we can look at contemporary American evangelicalism. Most Americans do not worship the gods of other religions. Instead, we worship comfort, control, power, or approval. We have an imbedded sense of entitlement. The culture goes to great lengths to build self-esteem and fuel an idolatrous look within to find strength, peace, and control. As you might imagine, the doctrine of original sin is offensive to this popular notion of self-esteem and the inherent goodness of people. So, some churches do not mention sin for fear it will turn off those they are trying to reach. The culture also says that we should get what we want when we want it. So, some churches proclaim a God who is akin to a genie in a bottle, simply waiting to grant our every wish and desire. In each of these instances, the church has forsaken their light and drifted into the shadows of compromise, thus losing the opportunity to rightly live out the command to be in the world, but not of it. When a church over-contextualizes, it isn’t merely “getting it wrong” (although it is definitely doing this). The over-contextualized church is altering the message of Jesus, thus perverting the Creator/Creature relationship. This deadly mistake has little to do with one’s intentions. Sadly, liberal theologians denied the divinity of Christ and the substitutionary atonement for the sake of their “evangelistic” and “missional” goals. These efforts, of course, denied the gospel and destroyed the evangelistic message. The Creature of the Word takes on the character and nature of her Creator and, subsequently, represents Him rightly.

The other major contextual error that churches make is under-contextualizing. These churches affirm so little of their surrounding culture’s practices that they fail to create meaningful opportunities and pathways to reach the lost. Contrary to the missional example of the apostle Paul, walls are built rather than bridges. There is no effort to understand the culture. There is no empathy or compassion. There is no desire to incarnate and become like them to win them. The heart has shriveled toward the plight of a lost and dying world, and no prayerful discernment is given to how the Church might, by God’s grace, gain an opportunity to speak words of life into dead hearts.

But this does not mean contextualization is absent. Churches must contextualize. The question is only to which culture they contextualize.

This error has been seen most obviously, perhaps, in some of the well-intentioned missionary efforts in Africa in the twentieth century. Missionaries have entered into the African bush and planted churches. But instead of planting churches that meet in culturally appropriate settings, the missionaries have built church buildings for them. The problem here is that the use of church buildings is a Western practice. Africans did not use church buildings until Westerners built them. These missionaries “under-contextualized” to the African culture around them, injecting their Western ways—doing church from buildings, dress codes, styles of music—into African culture. This had the result of hindering the mission there because Africans believed to a certain degree that they must become Western to become Christians. They were unwittingly taught that what made them culturally unique could not be redeemed; rather, it had to be disregarded. Wrong.

Another example of under-contextualizing to a surrounding culture is typically found in America. Here, churches fail to change their church practices with the culture around them. (Remember, they should not change their theology; they should change their practices in order to better fit with their changing surrounding culture.) Oftentimes, “traditional” churches will fail to change to their nontraditional surrounding culture, even though their immediate surrounding culture has drastically changed. They continue doing things the way they always have simply because it is the way they have always done it. In this case, the love of tradition, which can be a beautiful thing, is misplaced above their love for their neighbors. The mission suffers because the church under-contextualizes to its surrounding culture.

It’s important to note we are not saying that all “traditional” churches should change or that they have failed to change. We are saying that in some contexts the mission has been hindered because people are led to believe they must convert to an older culture (the 1950s) in order to be a Christian. Instead of simply coming to Christ, they must come to the Christ and community of years past.

Every church has a tendency toward one of these two errors. If you aren’t aware of the spots where your church ministry rubs against the culture, then you are probably missing the contextualization mark by a long shot. The Jesus-centered church is a church that holds firm to the message of the gospel while strategically affirming cultural practices. Like Jesus, these churches become like those they want to reach. And like Jesus, they hold fast to the truth so that they have something with which to reach the surrounding culture.

Contextualization and The Village

God has extended grace upon grace to The Village Church. And one of the greatest evidences of God’s grace has been the opportunity He has given us to be involved in church planting all around the globe. As we have strategized, planted, and cultivated partnerships with other churches, along with our own, we have observed some practical things about contextualization that we had only known in theory. Perhaps by hearing a few of our stories and struggles, you will be in a better place to evaluate your own efforts.

Contextualization, we’ve learned, is about much more than wearing the same clothes as the surrounding culture; it’s about entering their stories. Chuck Colson writes:

We must enter into the stories of the surrounding culture, which takes real listening. We connect with the literature, music, theater, arts, and issues that express the existing culture’s hopes, dreams, and fears. This builds a bridge by which we can show how the Gospel can enter and transform those stories.3

Through a relationship with a partner church in New York we realized a great difference in the stories from those we were accustomed to in Dallas. As we listened to New Yorkers, we began to realize that the “normal” way of life in Dallas was not the “normal” way of life in New York. New Yorkers have a hunger for power that isn’t nearly as pronounced in Dallas. On the other hand, Dallas natives have a hunger and expectation of comfort that is not present in the New Yorkers’ stories. Dallas natives have pools; New Yorkers have influence.

Both cultures come with significant expectations and aspirations, yet they are very different from each other, and churches in each of these contexts must understand their respective culture’s ethos. No, they should not allow these cultural priorities to blunt their message. But when they communicate their messages, they need to show an awareness of these unique cultural tensions, which will shape the way their messages are heard.

In New York, for instance, as the preacher talks about pursuing servanthood instead of the halls of power, he must know how foreign this thinking will sound. This might lead him to interact with the prevailing notions of power, showing its bankruptcy. Or in Dallas, when the preacher talks about costly sacrifice, he needs to understand how absurd this sounds. This awareness might lead him to talk about the fleeting comfort this world offers and the eternal comfort found in Christ. Whatever the context, the church must understand the nature of its surrounding context in order to both faithfully and effectively “win some.” The prevailing current of culture should affect the church’s approach to loving its neighbors.

Another area at The Village where we have grown in our understanding of contextualization is in our next-generation ministries (preschool, children, and youth). This area of ministry is often overlooked in the contextual conversation, but we have seen great fruit in doing the hard work of considering how we might best communicate the precious truths of the gospel to little hearts and minds. The language is crafted in such a way that young children can understand the rich doctrines of the triune God, original sin, justification by faith, substitutionary atonement, propitiation, adoption, and a host of others.

The result is a growing number of children who are gaining an understanding of the character and nature of God. In fact, the essence of what is being taught to the children is not fundamentally different from what is being taught to their parents. There is no compromise or dumbing down of the message; rather, there is recognition that the contexts necessitate a different approach. If we over-contextualize this example, then we simply wait to communicate the gospel until some later point in their life when we perceive they are ready and able to understand. If we under-contextualize, then we simply hand them a copy of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology and send them on their way. Walking in the fear of the Lord means wisely considering how we might steward this opportunity to effectively share the gospel with little kids.

Conclusion

Wherever your church is, you will need to understand how to exegete your ministry and your surrounding culture in order to faithfully and effectively contextualize like Jesus. Similar to exegeting a biblical text, cultural exegesis involves asking the right questions and discerning the right answers. Thus, faithful and effective cultural exegesis asks: What are the cultural idols? What are the cultural values? Who does the culture listen to? What are the cultural hero stories? What is beloved? What is despised? What is celebrated? What are the common distractions and comforts? What does the cultural fear? How does the culture communicate? How does the culture live? When a Jesus-centered church understands the ways the culture would answer these questions, it is then in a place to make the necessary changes in practice in order to reach the culture with its theology.

Hinduism will always be centered in India. Islam will always be centered in the Middle East. Christianity, on the other hand, has had its center in the Middle East, Europe, North America, and—if things continue as they are—it will soon be in the Global South. Inherently, Christianity is a contextualizing religion. It is a “go and tell” religion with a message that adapts to its context with the remarkable brilliance of God’s design. He does not disdain cultural differences; rather, He delights in them when they are shaped by His gospel. The Jesus-centered church understands how to faithfully contextualize to its surrounding culture while effectively proclaiming its message, the gospel.

The Jesus-centered church is a church that is known for more than great preaching and leadership. It is known for reaching and discipling the particular people in its community. Churches don’t “reach” people in general; they reach specific people with specific cultural preferences and identifications. And so the church needs to know these and how to communicate to them meaningfully.

Bottom line, the Church needs to be serious about reaching people. And if a church is going to be serious about reaching people, it must likewise be serious about understanding people, which means contextualizing. Therefore, like Jesus, the mission of the Jesus-centered church depends upon faithful and effective contextualization.