What is the Gospel?
Go ahead, think about it for a moment. What is the Gospel?
How does the Gospel interact with groups of people? Does it take on cultural images? Is it rearticulated with new cultural
language? What about the form of
worship? Does that change with new
cultures? How about the form of leadership
in the Church?
Let me draw you a picture.
In this picture, the Gospel is seen as being beyond history,
and beyond culture. When the Gospel
reaches a group of people, it is simply translated to fit into that people
group’s culture. A good example is
Jesus. He came to proclaim the gospel of
the Kingdom of God. He taught using
agricultural parables, and economic, religious, and political metaphors that
made sense to 1st century Jews.
According to this model, the Gospel was simply translated.
What happens when Culture A, wants to share the Gospel with
Culture B? If this model is correct,
Culture A must first become so self-aware that they can decipher how their
living of the Gospel is being formed by their culture. The gospel was “inculturated” or made
tangible in their culture, so they must sift through all of their own cultural
residue, in order to arrive at the “pure gospel” that is not “tainted” by their
culture. It is this “pure gospel” that
then needs to be shared with Culture B, by translating the Gospel into Culture
B’s culture!
The history of mission is often full of imperialism, where “sharing
the gospel” actually resulted in the imposition of one culture upon
another. When European missionaries
arrived in countries in Africa, tribal drums were seen as evil, and European
Hymns were the only acceptable songs for worship. Today we think of this type of mission as a tragedy,
resulting in the destruction of local culture.
You know what I think?
It’s not the missionaries’ fault.
It’s the faulty diagram.
The gigantic assumption is that the Gospel is beyond human
culture and that we can somehow arrive at the “pure gospel.” That assumption is too idealistic. Don’t believe me? Ok, let’s try another experiment:
At the onset of this post you reflected on the question, “What
is the Gospel?” Open up a Word document,
or grab a piece of paper, and jot down a couple notes about your answer. The only caveat, do not use human culture to
do so.
So what’d you come up with?
“The Father loved us so much that he sent his Son to reconcile humanity
to himself through Christ’s death and resurrection and subsequent transformation
by the Holy Spirit?” Something like
that? Is that pretty close to the “pure
gospel?” Here are a few examples of
cultural influences in that “pure gospel.”
1.
The use of language, which is a cultural
construction.
2.
(not fair you say) Ok, the use of family
analogies to explain the Divine Plan:
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
3.
The use of historical data (Christ’s death and
resurrection).
4.
The use of Jewish religious terminology
translated multiple times: “Christ” is the English translation of the Greek
translation of the Hebrew word for “Messiah” or “Anointed One.” The only way to arrive at the significance of
that word is to dive into a Hebrew understanding and expectation especially as
it was understood to a 1st century, Second Temple, Partly-Exiled, Hellenized,
Jewish community. Yikes!
5.
Should I go on?
My point is this, IF there is such a thing as a “pure gospel”
that exists outside of culture, we don’t know what it is! And even if we did know what it is, we have
no way of talking about it or understanding it outside of our own culture, or
shall I say, our own context.
Let me draw you another picture that may more accurately
depict the situation:
This picture shows that the Christ event took place within a
particular culture, namely the 1st Century Jewish culture. That event was interpreted and retold by the
original Christian community, and then continued on through time, up until our
present day. As the Christian witness
moved on in time, cultures changed, and the Christian community expanded into
new areas with new cultures. The Christian
witness was in an organic relationship to culture. The Christ Event influenced the cultures, but
the cultures also influenced the way the Christian community understood the
Christ event. Thus the line representing
Christian witness does not only reflect the Christ Event, it reflects cultural characteristics
as well.[i]
A very simple example of this is in Christian worship. Early Christian worship was inspired by the
synagogue, and the breaking of bread (both historical and cultural). As time moved on, there arose the need to
formalize the way Christians worship, and the great Liturgical traditions of
the East and West grew. In the East,
liturgy took on a more poetic, mystical flare inspired by Greek culture and
language. In the West, the liturgy
reflected the Latin and Roman tendencies toward order and clarity. Thus if you attend a Divine Liturgy, followed
by a Roman Mass, you would note an overall similarity of significance, but very
different form. Worship is only one of
MANY examples we could reference.
You, as a participant in the history of the Christian
community, also have a culture through which you experience EVERYTHING. The way you experience the history of the
Christian community is also through your culture. Here’s another picture:
You, as a person experiencing the Christian witness, and through
that, the Christ Event, can only see and experience the witness through your
own cultural lens. It still affects you,
but only through your language, symbols, value structures and so on. There are a few implications for this:
1.
You will never see the “pure gospel” nor the “pure
christ event.”
2.
The Christian witness to the Christ event is
informed by human culture.
3.
Human culture is informed by the Christ Event.
4.
This is a messy endeavor! But this messiness wouldn’t be so
surprisingly messy, if we never had our very first “clean” diagram. What I’m suggesting here is nothing more than
the human experience of life. One of
the mysteries of the incarnation is that God took on the stuff of human
experience. He took on flesh and with
it, time, history, culture and so on.
The human, contextual, cultural experience is made sacred through the
incarnation. So when we see that the
Church is influenced by culture, we need not shriek back in fear. If God was influenced by human culture, why
wouldn’t the Church?
This is my introduction into the class “Theology of Ministry.” We have read a book by Kennan Osborne in
which he shows some of the ways that the Church’s views of ordained ministry
and the laity has been informed by history and culture. So if you were wondering what all this
culture talk means, or how the Church has changed with culture, hopefully our
next few posts will be of interest to you!
[i] For
a picture trying to capture the complex interplay between culture and the
Christ Event, this is too simple. The
cultures are influenced by each other, and the Christian witness maintains
cultural characteristics from say the 1st C. Jewish Culture even as
it moves into Culture x.
