Why are we so afraid of context?<\/p>\n
Why are we so uncomfortable with contextual theology?<\/p>\n
Why do we assume that if something is contextual it is also weak and unbiblical?<\/p>\n
Why do we contextualize some things\u2026 and refuse to contextualize others\u2026 like it\u2019s ok to contextualize stoning in the Bible, but not women\u2019s role in ministry\u2026 why? I don\u2019t know!<\/p>\n
Last year my church went to Honduras for a short-term missions trip. Let me remind you that we are a first generation Korean church, sending a team of Korean-American young adults to minister to first generation Hondurans, and I, the leader of the team am a Romanian- American\u2026 Context! Context! Context!<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have many memories of Romania, but I remember when the missionaries came into Romania after communism fell. When they looked at us they saw a backwards people who had been fooled by communism all those years\u2026 they looked at us with pity and assumed that we as a people knew nothing\u2026 and they came to save us. They presented to us the American Gospel\u2026 not the gospel that was applicable and livable in our context.<\/p>\n
Stephen Bevans defines contextual theology \u201cas a way of doing theology in which one takes into account: the spirit and the message of the gospel; the tradition of the Christian people; the culture in which one is theologizing; and social change in that culture.\u201d[1]<\/a> I think that part of the reason we\u2019re so afraid of contextual theology is because context is determined by culture, and we\u2019re afraid of culture. We\u2019re uncomfortable with the differences between cultures and not only that, we subconsciously (and maybe consciously) tend to think that one culture is better than another. Ethnocentrism might be the root of our difficulty with contextual theology.<\/p>\n In talking about reality in light of contextual theology Ian Barbour points out that we don\u2019t simply see, \u201cwe only see as.\u201d[2]<\/a> We only see as we are and through the eyes of our circumstance. We read the Bible through glasses that are stained by our culture, family and upbringing. I\u2019m not sure why we as Bible believing Christians have such a hard time accepting that.<\/p>\n
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