{"id":3943,"date":"2015-02-07T08:28:58","date_gmt":"2015-02-07T08:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=3943"},"modified":"2015-02-07T08:29:06","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T08:29:06","slug":"contextual-theology-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/contextual-theology-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Contextual Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Ethiopia, most non-believers associate Protestant Christianity with foreign aid, Americans or Israel, to segregate believers and disqualify the authenticity of Protestant Christianity. In my Arsi Oromo culture, becoming a believer is equal to denying the values and unity of the clan, because religion is more than just an individual affair. Religion is a shared practice that affirms an individual\u2019s solidarity with her or his community. However, the biggest challenge is the Christian church\u2019s failure to preach the gospel in the culture and language of the people. They teach believers to abandon their culture since they are part of a new community whose identity is in Christ. This rejection has been a stumbling block for Oromos to hear the gospel. It is only in recent years that some Oromo Christians began to realize the need to plant Oromo speaking churches. Now we have several Oromo churches planted, both the cities and in rural areas. Thus, as someone deeply passionate about indigenizing the Good News to my own people, I thoroughly enjoyed Models<em> of Contextual Theology<\/em>, by Stephen B. Bevans.<\/p>\n<p>The author persuasively writes about the significance of a contextual approach to Christian theology. Bevans explains contextual theology as radical new ways \u201crealizes that culture, history, contemporary thought forms, and so forth are to be considered, along with scripture and tradition, as valid sources for theological expression\u201d(p.4). \u201cWe can certainly learn from others\u2026but the theology of others can never be our own\u201d (p.5). This has been the insight and wisdom hidden from most churches in my country. They fear that preaching the gospel in every language creates division among churches, loss of jobs for ministers who don\u2019t know the language, and affects the church\u2019s revenue. These kinds of fears emanate from their own selfish interests and have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. The question for our churches is how can you invite others to the loving God if you reject their language and culture?<\/p>\n<p>Another enlightening learning about Christian contributions to maters of public life comes from \u201cParables as Paradigms for Public Theology,\u201d by Christopher D. Marshall. He points out a certain resemblance between the nature of parabolic communication and the task of public theology. Marshall is convinced that certain key parables, \u201ccould serve as helpful paradigms for understanding public theology, that is, as tools for helping the church conceptualize its vocation in society as the bearer of a message\u2014the \u2018gospel of the kingdom\u2019\u2014that is both intelligible and unintelligible to the world, both ethically feasible and eschatological radical, both relevant to secular society and yet particular and distinctive to the community of faith\u201d (p.24). The author is very careful not to encourage or discourage the use of parables \u201cas a communication device or as a source of specialist information,\u201d instead as a paradigm for the \u201carticulation or encapsulation of a particular perspective on reality, parables as a way of conceiving how God\u2019s redemptive initiative in the person and proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth comes to bear on present reality, including on the systems and institutions of public life\u201d(24). Thus, the implications of parables go significantly beyond the community of faith to include the \u201cthe commons\u2019\u2014the natural, cultural and political resources of life we share in common in society\u201d(p.24). Attempting to address public matters in light of Christian convictions is not easy by any means, thus Marshal suggests holding \u201cin tension the ethically achievable and the eschatological radical dimensions of the gospel\u201d (42). This particular concern is also evident in my church who tends to focus mainly on \u201cthe eschatological \u2018with God all things are possible\u2019 dimension and overlook the question of how our faith can bring practical implication for wider, unbelieving society\u201d(p.42). As Stephen Garner highlighted, there is a need to educate the community of faith as to \u201cthe dimensions and features of their own theology\u201d(p.178). Thus, the task at hand is helping our community of faith understand \u201ccompassion and justice are central to Jesus\u2019 teaching and hence an integral part of the good news\u201d (p.179).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Ethiopia, most non-believers associate Protestant Christianity with foreign aid, Americans or Israel, to segregate believers and disqualify the authenticity of Protestant Christianity. In my Arsi Oromo culture, becoming a believer is equal to denying the values and unity of the clan, because religion is more than just an individual affair. Religion is a shared [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,596,597],"class_list":["post-3943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bevans","tag-neville","tag-tanner","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3944,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions\/3944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}