Contextualization

John Piper has provided a very insightful reflection on the possible link between seeker-sensitive churches in the West and radical (over)contextualization on the mission field. Read Piper's blog post on "Minimizing the Bible?"

Contextualization is one of the big issues among missionaries because the way mission work has been done in the past tended to be too Western and did not take sufficient account of the need to adapt the way church, evangelism, discipleship, etc. is done in non-Western cultures. However, in some corners of the mission world today, the pendulum seems to have swung in the other direction. In the name of removing Western cultural barriers that would prevent people from coming to Christ, some missionaries (and local Christians) are allowing or even promoting practices that are actually a compromise of the Gospel. Let me give just a couple examples.

I've heard about a missionary in Northeast Thailand who is teaching converts to call themselves "New Buddhists" (new in the sense that they believe in Christ). Okay, so perhaps the offense of being perceived as converting to a Western religion is avoided by avoiding the label "Christian" but there is certainly an equal if not greater problem which is created. Isn't the term "New Buddhist" disingenuous? Doesn't it create confusion and a lack of clarity? I'm all for hanging onto all aspects of culture that are not sinful but doesn't there have to be some break with the past as a person takes on a new identity in Christ? If I were from an secular humanistic atheistic background and I believed in Christ, could I legitimately stay in my cultural context in order to win my atheist friends and family to Christ by calling myself a "New Atheist"? People whom we are trying to share Christ with are smarter than that and Christians should be more honest than that.

Another example: My wife and I were eating with some Thai friends recently, a Christian couple who work with students. The husband told us that his brother, who is an elder at a well known church in Bangkok, was told by the pastor there that he shouldn't make a fuss about participating in the Buddhist part of his wedding ceremony as he got married to a Buddhist woman. I don't know the exact reason why this Thai pastor, who did a PhD on contextualization at a seminary in the West, advised this man in such a way. Our Thai friends who told us this certainly did not think that this was either appropriate or faithful to the Gospel. But I do wonder if this pastor gave such advice in the name of not causing offense that could impede eventual acceptance of the Gospel by the bride or her family.

I desperately want to see a truly indigenous church established in Thailand but as of right now it is probably not as indigenous / contextualized as it needs to be. I would also argue that it is, in many cases, not as Biblical as it needs to be. I don't say this as if the church in America has it all right. There are many many miserable examples of materialistic, showy, entertainment-oriented churches in America that may be truly indigenous to America but they are not Biblical (just read Slice of Laodicea for some examples). As a missionary, my goal is to think long and deep about what the Bible says and means, and to think long and deep about how that is to be fleshed out in Thai culture (about which I also need to think long and deep, in consultation and dependence on the Thai themselves who know Thai culture better than I do).

Proper contextualization is good and Biblical, but over-contextualization in the name of reaching people for the Gospel is syncretism and a compromise of the very Gospel that is supposedly being preached.

What's So Amazing About Buddhism?

I was talking with the headmaster of a local school and after confirming his suspicion that I was a missionary, he affirmed that all religions are good. I agreed to this in so far as religion teaches you to be a good person. In Thai thinking, religion is mainly about ethical teaching, namely how to be good. So to the extend that all religions teach you be basically a good person, I can agree to that. Buddhism says to have compassion on people and not get drunk. That's great. But, of course, the essence of the Gospel is not a command to "be good".

The headmaster went on, however, to say that Thai people really want to see or experience something extraordinary or spectacular. I think that he was implying that religious ethical teaching (of whatever variety) is all well and fine but not all that interesting. What really catches the average person's interest is the amazing or the spectacular. This was a fascinating comment and I decided to see how far we could run with this. I posed the question in reply, "So, in your opinion, what is really amazing in Buddhism?" He looked up at the sky for a moment and then came right back, enthusiastically declaring, "Amulets and charms that protect you from harm. You know, the ones that you hear about in the news. Someone gets in a horrific car accident and they come out unscathed. The reporter asks, 'How did you make it out alive from this?' and the guy proudly clutches the amulet from around his neck and says, 'This saved me'" Now I have to admit that getting out of a horrible car accident without a scratch is pretty amazing but, as I tried to point out to the headmaster, the people who die horrible deaths and suffer great tragedy with the very same amulet don't make the news. I don't know if my Thai wasn't very clear or if he wasn't so interested in that fact, but I don't remember getting much of a response.

We talked briefly about the Jatukam amulet that was so popular a couple years ago but is hard to find now (it didn't make people as rich as they had hoped) and then I thought I would offer my thoughts about what is so amazing about Christianity. There are many directions that I could have gone with this as there are lots of people bearing the name Christian who claim miraculous healings, resurrections from the dead, or a picture of the Virgin Mary in their bowl of noodles. However, what I said to him was, "There is something very amazing in Christianity that maybe some people don't think is amazing. Normally, we only sacrifice and do good things for those who love us and care for us. If someone hates us and despises us, it is highly unlikely that we will be motivated to help them at all. But what is totally amazing is that Jesus Christ died for people who hated him. We are all sinners and have not honored God as we should, walking in our own way, but it is for people who don't want God that Jesus died for. Who would voluntarily die for someone who hated him?"

The conversation didn't go much of anywhere after that because the headmaster seemed to lose interest and changed the topic. Perhaps I wasn't seeker sensitive enough or didn't cater to felt needs properly. As I figure it though, if the Holy Spirit is doing something in his heart, he would at least be curious about this amazing Jesus and why he'd die for those who hate him. Maybe he will be curious eventually, if he remembers and thinks about it later on. All things in God's timing. As I told the headmaster at the beginning of our conversation, I don't force anything on anybody but respect all. If people want to talk about religion, that's great. If they don't, that's okay too. We went on to discuss other things in a friendly manner but I would have been glad if he had pursued the amazing Jesus topic of conversation.

2008 Christmas Outreach Photos

Here is a slideshow of photos from some of our Christmas outreaches in Nong Doan and PhraBaht in 2008.

The Freeing Doctrine of Election

This past Sunday, we took a group of people from PhraBaht church out to Nong Doan, a lower class farming community where we are hoping to see a church planted. The goal of our visit to Nong Doan was evangelism - to hand out tracts and to visit people at home. Tracting is really not an ideal way to get the Gospel out but it does have it’s place in stimulating people’s thoughts. One in six Thai Christians report that a tract or some other piece of Christian literature had a role in their coming to faith. In Nong Doan however, our goal is not to just hand out tracts but to meet people and have the opportunity to talk with them about spiritual matters, in particular the Gospel. We want to meet people who are interested to know more and are happy for us to come back regularly, sharing the Gospel, studying Scripture, and building relationships.

This particular Sunday afternoon, one of the ladies in our group wanted to go visit a co-worker who comes out from PhraBaht to Nong Doan on the weekends to visit her family. By the time we got there, this co-worker had already left to go back to PhraBaht but we met her brother and her elderly mother. The mother was happy for us to pray for her as many Thai Buddhists are. Who wouldn’t want a blessing, after all? As we met and chatted with this spritely eighty year old woman, it was discovered that she had never heard of Jesus and knew nothing about the Gospel. Chris, a new missionary who was along for our evangelistic outing was taken aback by actually meeting someone who had never heard the name “Jesus” never mind believing. Chris has blogged about this over at The Stark Truth. After talking a bit and praying for the woman, she invited us to come back again because she wanted to hear more about going to heaven.

Afterwards, as we were sharing our experiences and talking about how things went in our tracting and visiting, Pastor Jarun advised that we need to take our time in building relationships, and building trust with people as we share the Gospel. One woman piped up and pointed out that this elderly woman would need to believe soon if she were to be saved because she is so advanced in years already. So, the question hanging in the air was, “Do we need to push for this lady (or anyone else for that matter) to believe because if we don’t, then they might miss their opportunity to be saved?”

I was overjoyed to hear the response to that unspoken question from some of the believers seated there. It seems that for at least a few of them, they are beginning to grasp the wonderfully freeing truth that we don’t need to pressure anybody to believe because God has chosen those whom He will save from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1). If God has chosen somebody for salvation, they won’t die before having believed. Therefore, we have the freedom to build relationships of respect and trust, sharing the Gospel appropriately, without fear that if we don’t solicit a response now then there might never be another chance. Apparently, no one has informed them that a belief in predestination dampens all enthusiasm for evangelism because they are looking forward to the next time we go out to Nong Doan to tract and visit. I get the sense that a number of these church folks have a heart to evangelize but are saddled with this “get-them-to-say-the-sinner’s-prayer-quick” philosophy of evangelism that they have inherited from the larger evangelical world in Thailand (and globally). They have been taught (or have picked up) from the evangelical sub-culture that the way to get someone to saved is by saying the sinner’s prayer. And to get someone to say the sinner’s prayer, then you just need to make sure they consent to all the items on the prospective convert checklist, i.e. Do you believe you’re a sinner? Do you want to go to heaven? Do you want to believe in Jesus? If they say, “Yes, Yes, Yes” then you lead them in prayer and rejoice that they are going to heaven. However, I think that in the past the PhraBaht church members have seen quite a few people say these kinds of prayers and then either shown no change in their life, barely darkened the doors of a church, or shown zero for spiritual interest in subsequent conversations. Of course, there are people who say the prayer and the LORD has actually regenerated their hearts and worked true faith in them, despite the unbiblical methods used. And because of the exceptions, many people continue to believe that this is God’s appointed way to “get people saved.” But, seeing the failure of many of these prayers to “stick”, I think that the church folks that we are working with are open to the Biblical teaching that God saves, in his time, in his way, and we are merely to be faithful instruments in sharing the Gospel, while God does the work. As we are faithful in loving people and sharing the Gospel, the Spirit works faith and repentance in people’s hearts independent of any invented ceremony of religion that is supposed to bring about the moment of conversion.

This year I am planning to make these visits out to Nong Doan with the PhraBaht church members every two weeks and hope that as we go together, and do some on-the-job training in the essentials of the Gospel and in Biblical, Christ-exalted evangelism, that these church folks with be grasped by the magnificence of the sovereignty of God in salvation and the freeing knowledge that His Spirit goes before us, just as he did before the apostles, as Luke records,

“And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” (Acts 13:48 ESV)