Contextualization and its Abuse

In the United States, there is currently a debate about whether preachers should contextualize the Gospel. Those who oppose contextualization view those who favor it as people who compromise and undermine the true Biblical Gospel in the name of winning a hearing. Some of those who advocate for contextualization claim that those who don't contextualize (as they define it) are are going to fail to reach the current generation.

I've done a number of posts that deal with the issue of contextualization, realizing that some readers may misunderstand where I am coming from, and exactly what I am advocating. For those who are confused about contextualization or who suspect that I may be compromising the Gospel by advocating for contextualization, I want to recommend Dr. David Sills recent blog post on Reclaiming Contextualization. Sills discusses what is proper contextualization, why it is necessary, and how the term has been abused and redefined in recent debates.

In Defense of the Sermon - Part 2

In the previous post, we looked at the Biblical precedent for preaching and saw that sermons are not merely a Western cultural tradition but have their foundation in the pages of Scripture. In this post, I would like to wrap up by responding to some objections to maintaining the sermon as a central part of the life of the Christian church.

Objection#1 “Sermons are ineffective”
Perhaps you will grant to me the fact that preaching is important in Scripture but would go on to add that times have changed and sermons just don’t “work”. In some ways, I agree. I have heard lots of sermons that just don’t work. But it is not because the idea of preaching a sermon is a bad one but rather because the sermon that someone decided to preach was a bad sermon. It was boring. It was irrelevant. It was mostly the preacher’s own ideas and hobby horses with little reference to Scripture. It explained the meaning of the passage for ancient Israelites but failed to show how it applies to modern listeners. It was all puffed up emotion or moralistic platitudes with little reference to Scripture. It did nothing to address the misunderstandings and objections of the listeners, failing to make people see what God is saying and how it intersects with their life. It is just a collection of observations about the passage that the preacher thought were interesting but there is no overall coherent message. The preacher, fearing that he will lose people, fills his sermon with too many irrelevant funny stories that at the end of the day make people laugh but fails to feed them with the Word of God. There are lots of examples of bad sermons but that is not any justification for getting rid of the sermon. It is every reason to raise the bar for our preachers, making clear to our preachers that assembling some cool stories and a token passage of Scripture on Saturday night is not an acceptable way to feed the flock of God with His Word.

We shouldn’t be surprised if a bad sermon is not effective. However, when a sermon is Biblically grounded and speaks directly to the people where they are, we should expect it to be much more effective. Of course, we must not forget the God factor. It is possible to preach a good Biblical sermon and get little response, through no fault of the preacher but through the hardness of the listeners’ hearts and the sovereign decision of God. But when the preaching is Biblical and the Holy Spirit is moving, look out! Peter preached at Pentecost and three thousand people repented in one day. I’d say that that was an effective sermon.

Objection#2 “People learn better in a participatory environment. Listening to a sermon is too passive.”
God knows about different learning styles. He invented them. The people in ancient Israel and the New Testament church had a variety of learning styles too because people are people no matter what century they live in. And for that reason, we should not fail to have Bible study groups, Sunday school classes, and personal conversations that help people understand God’s Word in an interactive two-sided way. But God has still given us the sermon in the pages of Scripture as a central way to proclaim God’s Word and teach His people. As for the sermon being too passive, I want to suggest that the problem may not be with the preacher but with the listener. Are you as a listener paying close attention to what the preacher is saying, looking back at the passage being preached to see if the Scripture really says that, and actively thinking about what is being said and what it means for you? A lot of people have not been instructed as to how to listen to a sermon, so they just sit there expecting their weekly dose of encouragement to be served up on a silver platter without any thinking required on their part. Sometimes I will take notes on a sermon so that I can look back at them and be reminded of the content of the sermon and can think upon it later. We need to train people to be active listeners. And the listeners themselves need discipline themselves to pay careful attention. For those coming from a Thai Buddhist background, the idea that it is important to pay attention to the content of the sermon may be difficult to grasp at first. If a Buddhist goes to the temple and at least physically hears the monk preaching, then the listener earns merit and has derived religious benefit from the exercise even if they spent the majority of the time whispering to their friend or examining the paint on the wall of the temple. However, if someone wants to hear what God wants to say to them in the Bible, it would seem natural that they would want to pay attention to what is being preached. Someone is not going to get much out of the sermon if they are fiddling with their mobile phone or doodling inside the back cover of the songbook. It takes work to get something out of a sermon. If someone is not willing to do a some work in their listening and pay attention to the sermon, then I am not surprised that they don’t get anything out of the sermon.

Objection#3 “The sermon is a Western church tradition, rooted in culture and not the Bible. We should find more indigenous ways of teaching the Bible.”
We have already covered the Biblical foundations for preaching and observed that preaching is rooted in Scripture. It may have become Western church tradition but with good reason - it is in the Bible. From a cultural and pragmatic point of view though, I would say that preaching is a culturally appropriate and indigenous form of speech in many cultures. It is here in Thailand. Buddhist monks preach. They give sermons. I went to the book shop at the local shopping center, and there is a big tall shelf with tons of MP3 CDs and VCDs of Buddhist monks preaching. Some are more serious conservative preachers and some look like popular youth speakers, trying to connect Buddhist teachings to the lives of modern young people. The fact that they sell Buddhist sermons in the book shop means that someone is buying them. Many nights when I go out to buy food at the fresh market across from the big temple here in town, there is a monk preaching on a loud speaker for all the surrounding community to hear. Granted, I have my doubts as to how many people are listening but he is preaching nonetheless. Monks preach on the radio and on TV, besides at the temple. So, just from a cultural contextualization point of view, the sermon is a very valid form of indigenous Thai speech that is used to communicate religious truth. Truthfully, it is the interactive participatory discussion around the Bible that feels more foreign to Thai people than the sermon. Although I wouldn’t go this far, if you wanted to be really indigenous in your church planting, then you should cut out the participation and question-and-answer time because that has more of a foreign feel to it than a sermon.

The institution of the sermon is rooted in Scripture and is an important model of communicating God’s truth that he has given to the church. Granted, we need to use a range of methods to communicate God’s truth, but I would seriously question anyone who would want to jettison the sermon from the life of the Christian church. To get rid of or sideline the sermon in churches today, either Thai or Western, would be to ignore both the Biblical precedent and the common cultural conventions of religious communication.

In Defense of the Sermon - Part 1

I’ve heard some missionaries say that the sermon is not all that important for the spiritual growth of believers. Others have suggested that the sermon be done away with all together. Isn’t the sermon merely a cultural tradition of the Western church anyway? Shouldn’t we find some better, less passive, and more culturally appropriate way to help believers understand and apply the Bible?

Hearing statements like this have concerned me because in the name of contextualization and better spiritual growth, we are about to throw out something that not only has a firm Biblical basis but is also an appropriate and contextual form of religious speech in Thai culture. In this first of two posts about the sermon, I would like to lay out some Biblical arguments for why churches should retain the sermon as a centerpiece of Christian worship and teaching. Not only churches in the West, but churches everywhere.

The Biblical Precedent for Preaching
If we look through Scripture just briefly, we’ll see lots of examples of preaching. The idea of the sermon was not developed in some Puritan think tank in 16th century England. When the people of Israel had newly entered in the land of Canaan, Joshua expounds to the people the history of what God has done for them (Joshua 24:1-13) and upon that basis goes on to challenge them to choose whether they will serve the God of Israel or some other gods (Joshua 24:14-15). Here we have two fundamental components of a sermon: explanation of God’s words and actions and application of that to the lives of the listeners. Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel stood up in the public square, bringing God’s word to the people, and exhorted them to turn back to God. In the book of Nehemiah, we see a wonderful example of this as Ezra the priest stands up to expound the law of God to all the people who are gathered in the public square (Nehemiah 8:1-8). Ezra stood up on a wooden platform and read the Law of God to the people from morning until midday and the other priests with Ezra helped explain what Ezra was reading so that the people could understand it. The Bible and it’s explanation and application were central for Ezra (Ezra 7:10) because that is what the people needed most - to hear from God. And the sermon was the appointed vehicle for doing so. If we skip over to the New Testament, we see that Jesus preached. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) he starts from the people’s misunderstanding of the Word of God and goes on to explain its true meaning, which had been distorted by the Pharisees. Some missionaries say that Jesus used stories so therefore we should emphasize stories over exposition of Scripture. Granted, Jesus did use stories but that is not all he did. He also explained Scripture and applied it to people’s lives. That’s preaching. Although it wasn’t a sermon per se, Jesus even engaged in systematic theology with the two disciples on the Emmaus road. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). In other words, Jesus went through the Scriptures systematically drawing out all the relevant parts to explain the doctrine of Himself. The apostle Peter picked up on this on the day of Pentecost, preaching to the people about the person and work of Jesus Christ from the Old Testament (Acts 2:14-36), applying these truths to his listeners (“you killed Jesus”). Three thousand were convicted to the heart and repented. The apostle Paul’s common method of evangelism was to visit the synagogue in the city he was visiting and preach to the people gathered there (Acts 19:8 is just one example). Sure he taught from house to house, but he also taught publicly (Acts 20:20). When Paul was booted out of the synagogue in Ephesus, he started preaching in the hall of Tyrannus. Paul certainly knew the value of teaching people at home and speaking with individuals and small groups, but he also preached to large groups.

Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not saying that small groups in homes are bad or that people should not circle up the chairs at times and have a discussion around the Bible. I think that both of these are great. Personal evangelism and small Bible studies have been greatly used of God to advance his church over the centuries. But God has also used the sermon to mighty effect throughout history and there is a strong Biblical precedent for continuing to preach sermons today.

The Preacher as Prophet
There is a sense in which the New Testament preacher takes up the mantle of Old Testament prophet. I don’t mean to say that there is a continuing gift of prophecy but rather that as the preacher stands in the place of God in speaking to the people (as Moses did), their is a certain commanding authority and one-sidedness that is derived from the Word of God. In Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever writes, “Permit me to suggest that the one-sidedness of preaching is not only excusable but is actually important. If in our preaching we stand in the place of God, giving His Word by His Spirit to His people, then surely it is appropriate that it be one-sided - not that it should be one-sided in the sense that the one preaching is never to be questioned; but, in the event of preaching itself, the univocal character of God’s Word comes as a monologue to us, not hoping to solicit interest and participation but requiring that we respond. Something of this character must be retained.” (Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, p.33). If the sermon is done away with than the church misses out on that prophetic voice of God made visible in the act of preaching. In Scripture, a high place is given to the prophetic exposition of God’s Word in the act of preaching, and we would do well to uphold and maintain it.

In the next post, we’ll take a look at, and respond to, some objections to the continuing use of the sermon in the life of the church.

Same Words, Different Worlds

Have you ever been talking with someone and just feel like you’re not communicating? You’re speaking the same language but somehow you’re not understanding each other and the whole conversation feels like ships passing in the night? You are on the same page, reading the same words, but getting totally different things out of it?

One of the challenges of communicating the Gospel in Thailand is what I am going to call the “definition gap”. The definition gap occurs when two people are speaking the same language and using the same words but loading totally different meanings into those words. It’s as if I start telling you about a guy named “Bob”, meaning my next door neighbor. But you think I am talking about Bill Murray’s character named “Bob” in the movie “What about Bob?”. We are both talking about “Bob” but meaning two totally different things.

In Thailand, both missionaries and Thai Christians use words like “God”, “sin”, “heaven”, and “hell” to share the Gospel but what Thai Buddhists understand by these words is usually completely different. The word used for “God” (พระเจ้า) is also commonly used to talk about the king, not to mention any variety of other gods or spirits. “Sin” (บาป) is popularly construed as killing animals, and is not defined in relation to the Creator God to whom we are responsible. Heaven and hell are sometimes not understood as being literal places as seen in the idiom, “Heaven is in your chest, and hell is in your heart” (สวรรค์อยู่ในอก นรกอยู่ในใจ) which means that this life is either heaven or hell depending upon what you make of it. Even when heaven and hell are seen as literal places, they are not final destinations in Buddhist thinking. Once you pay off enough karma in hell, you can be reborn in the human world. And when you finish paying off that last little bit of karma that has followed you along to heaven, then you can move on to the next spiritual rebirth and finally blink out of existence by reaching Nirvana. Can you see how problems of understanding can, and often do happen when Christians use words that Buddhists understand in a totally different way? The tragedy here is that well meaning Christians assume that when they use certain words, that the Buddhist listener will automatically fill in that word with the Christian meaning. However, it is completely unrealistic to assume that someone completely unfamiliar with the Bible and the Christian faith will assume the Biblical meaning of sin when the word “sin” (or บาป in Thai) is employed. Would it not be a better assumption that my Buddhist listener will think of the Buddhist concept of sin when the Christian starts talking about sin?

If I fail to explain the Biblical meaning of sin, comparing it and contrasting it to the meaning of sin presumed by my listener, then I have no idea what my listener is really understanding. And sharing the Gospel is not about using certain words as if those words magically create understanding of the Gospel when used. Even in English, if I talk to a non-Christian about “being washed in the blood of the Lamb” or “the imputation of righteousness” or “the substitutionary atonement of Christ”, I am going to get a lot of confused looks. Those phrases all have specific meaning for me, but if the listener doesn’t know the technical and precise understanding that I am pouring into those words, then I am wasting my breath. Sharing the Gospel is about creating understanding so that the truth about God, the truth about self, and the truth about the world is laid bare in a way that is UNDERSTOOD. If understanding doesn’t happen, then true communication has not happened and the Biblical Gospel has not been heard.

The fact that there has been this “definition gap” in Gospel communication in Thailand has gone unnoticed in many parts of the church in Thailand. Christian amnesia kicks in and Christians forget how they thought and what they believed before they were Christians. Hence, they use common terms with a new Christian meaning and assume that their Buddhist friends and neighbors are going to “get it”. The problem is more severe for those who have grown up in the church, and have learned the Christian meaning of these terms from an early age. And then you have missionaries who presume that because they say baap (บาป), the Thai word for sin, then their Thai Buddhist hearers will know what they are talking about. I admit that I myself at times have fallen into the later category, not realizing that I was not communicating what I thought I was communicating. Actually, I may still be doing it at times because I am still learning what exactly it is that people are thinking and how their worldview works. And studying Buddhism in the classroom has not been the complete answer either because what is in the books and what the guy on the street actually believe and do are often different.

A number of missionaries have been concerned about this “definition gap” or problem in message contextualization as it may also be called. And now there are some Thai pastors and church leaders who are becoming concerned as well. At the upcoming Thailand Protestant Congress on Evangelism, the following video spot will be shown, inviting Thai church leaders to come discuss the problem of communicating the message of the Gospel in Thailand in ways that create understanding.

The speaker in the video above is Rev. Bantoon Boon-it of Suebsamphantawong Church in Bangkok. For non-Thai speakers, the gist of the video is this: Communication is made up of information and relationship. Pastor Bantoon says, ‘If I ask my wife for a glass of water but don’t have the right tone of voice, I might get a glass of water but she might not be so happy about it. If I ask a stranger for a glass of water, I might get the water but not as I would like because I don’t know the person. However, if I ask for a glass of water using the Latin word AQUA, it is not going to matter if I have a good relationship with the person I am asking because they are going to have no idea what I am talking about it they don’t know Latin.’ The point he is making is that although the Thai church has done a decent job of relating to people, yet somehow the Gospel is not getting through in many cases because of the ‘definition gap’ or a lack of message contextualization.

There are lots of contextualization issues to be addressed in Thailand (worship music, clothing, liturgy, architecture, etc.) but the most important is the Gospel. Is the content of the Gospel being preached, taught, and shared in a way that really creates understanding? Or are we creating confusion, or even worse swinging wide open the doors to syncretism and false conversions? Are we giving people the opportunity to paste Christian words onto their existing Buddhist animistic worldview, creating the impression of Christianity while leaving their former worldview intact? Form without substance. It is good to see this issue being brought up for discussion and I hope that a number of Thai Christian leaders will see the importance of getting the content of the Gospel right and taking the time figure out whether what they think they are communicating is actually getting through.

Indirect Communication

I had been told that Thai people communicate indirectly but as time has gone on I have seen so many instances of Thai people communicating quite directly and to the point that I question whether that statement is really true. Sometimes they can be quite direct but other times so indirect that I have no idea what happened.

While at the hospital recently with some believers from the PhraBaht church, I noticed that one woman had this little bookelt in her hand as we waited to go in to see the man we had come to visit. The booklet is called, in English, "Criticism: Giving it and Receiving it" or something along those lines. I asked her about it to see what she thought. It had piqued her interest because of how much gossip there is going around and how difficult it is to reconcile differences with other people. Unfortunately, she hadn't read it yet and couldn't give me a review. However, after confirming that it was indeed translated from English, I asked her to let me know what she thought when she was done. Did she think the advice and way of going about giving and receiving criticism too Western or was the advice contained therein good and usable for Thai people? She gave me a puzzled expression and said, "It shouldn't make a difference, should it?" I went on, "Well, you know that Westerners often talk pretty directly, saying exactly what they mean, and Thai people...." She interrupted, "Ah...." apparently understanding where I was going with my question and then went on to explain, "that's because when you don't know someone really well, you give them more respect. You're not close with them so therefore you need to speak more politely." "You mean speak in a round about way instead of directly?" I interjected. "Right", she confirmed and then went on, "or even sometimes with friends I might speak indirectly, especially if I need to borrow money. I wanted to borrow money from a particular friend and I took such a long and indirect route in asking her that she finally she looked at me and said, 'How much do need?' But with friends you can usually speak more directly because you are close with them. I was on the phone the other day ordering some things, speaking in a really common familiar way because I knew the person and didn't need to bother with all the pleasantries. My mom overheard the conversation and when I got off the phone reprimanded me for not speaking more politely. I explained that we knew each other and it was fine but she still wasn't buying it."

From this conversation, I think that I can draw a few helpful points about indirect communication in Thailand.

1) The better you know someone, the more directly you can speak with them. The corollary here is that indirect communication is going to be more common when you are dealing with strangers or mere acquaintances.

2) When someone seems to be speaking around and around, there may be very well be something uncomfortable or awkward that they want to say or ask but can't quite bring themselves to say it. The speaker may feel awkward for themselves or may not want the listener to feel uncomfortable or ashamed by hearing it put bluntly.

3) Indirect communication can be a form of respecting another person, the speaker not wanting to disrespect the listener by being too familiar with them.

I shared my conversation at the hospital with my wife, and she had the further observation that one reason that Thai people communicate indirectly with strangers may be because they don't know how much power that person to hurt them. If you are too direct or too open with someone that you don't know well, it could come back and bite you. Information is power.

Indirect communication may very well help to avoid awkward situations and the potential for hurt but I am not convinced that it is always the most helpful form of communication. In the church context, it seems that there have been many times where a gentle indirect prodding about sin in someone's life doesn't get any results. The best way forward from there may not be to merely continue indirect making hints or just letting it go. I am not advocating legalistic picking on every little thing in people's lives that is not right but when there is big notorious ongoing sin that is going unchecked, there comes a time when indirect communication needs to be pushed aside and a more direct and firm, yet gentle and loving, form of communication needs to be pursued. Sure, it will be uncomfortable but if the joy, repentance, and restoration of the erring believer is the goal, then it is worth the risk of ruining a relationship by speaking more directly. The goal of addressing unrepentant sin in a person's life is not to beat them over the head in a self-righteous manner, but rather to see them restored, walking in joy and reconciled in their relationship with God and with others. Restoration is the broader context of the passage on church discipline in Matthew 18. Since the Thai often address uncomfortable issues where people could lose face by speaking indirectly, that type of communication would be my first stop in trying to guide someone back into a right relationship with God and others but if they don't get it or ignore it, more direct communication may be needed. It may be more culturally appropriate to just "let it go" or keep communicating indirectly for fear of losing the relationship but biblically, Jesus did not just let people go. As a shepherd going after the lost sheep, he pursued them in order to bring them home (Matt 18:10-14, notice that this section is just before the one on church discipline - the two go together). In Thai culture, there is a lot of value placed upon maintaining outward harmony even if there are known problems just beneath the surface but the goal of church life to honor God through obedient living and reconciled relationships. When people are right with each other, genuine unity is the result, not merely superficial and outward organization unity (Ephesians 4:1-16)

Worldview Evangelism

How do you communicate the Gospel to someone who has absolutely zero foundation in the Bible? In this fascinating and helpful lecture on “Worldview Evangelism”, Don Carson makes the case that sharing the Gospel with postmodern Westerners is not really that different than sharing the Gospel with animistic tribes, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims or anyone else without a Judeo-Christian framework in their cultural background. You start at the beginning. The cross of Christ makes no sense without the Old Testament foundations which provide the framework for understanding the nature and character of God, man’s nature and origin, the truth about the spiritual realm (in contrast to an animistic/occult perspective), and a bit of the history of how God relates to people. Some may wonder whether it is really necessary to go through the work of laying down the Old Testament foundations before getting to Jesus. Take a listen to Don Carson’s opening story about his missionary friend’s experience in India and you’ll get a picture of how a failure to set a framework and teach a Biblical worldview first can lead to syncretism and nominalism.

Although the word “contextualization” is sometimes abused in order to justify a watered-down repackaging of Gospel, it’s proper meaning is to teach and live out the Gospel in a way that is clear and understandable in a given cultural context - whether that be young Western postmodern relativists or Thai Buddhists/animists or anybody else. What is the Biblical truth and how do you teach and express it (live it out) in a given context? Good contextualization should make clear the difference between the Gospel and other worldviews, and in all things not sinful take on the cultural/local garb of where the Gospel is being presented.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, either for the West or for Thailand, but in order to do contextualization well one needs to understand the Bible thoroughly and understand the culture as thoroughly as possible. I am still working on both of those and will be for years to come. By knowing the culture, I don’t mean being conversant with every pop musician or fad TV show that comes down the pike, but rather understanding the beliefs and values that shapes people’s outlook on the world. When that happens, it becomes easier to anticipate common objections and misunderstandings in response to the Gospel (or a particular presentation of it). Understanding the culture also helps one to know what people are interested in, what fires them up, what excites them, what concerns them, what makes them afraid. All these things can provide a conversation starter that can be an opening for talking about spiritual truths. It can also give insight into what areas of discipleship will probably need special attention.

With that said, take a listen to Carson’s talk on "Worldview Evangelism". There are actually five lectures in the series on “Reaching an Untouched Generation”. I have finished the Worldview Evangelism one and highly recommend it. I’ve also started listening to one on “Apostolic Evangelism of Biblical Illiterates” which covers Paul’s sermon in the Aeropagus in Acts 17. This one is quite good so far and I hope to listen to the other three as time allows. (Thanks to Rich Cho for recommending these sermons)

The Playboy Bunny and Contextualization

I see it all over the place. It’s on T-shirts, handbags, motorcycles, car windows and wherever else is fashionable. The image of the Playboy Bunny seems to be everywhere in Thailand these days. However, I suspect that most Thais are not aware that it is the official symbol of a well known pornography magazine. A young woman at church was wearing a stylish t-shirt with the Playboy bunny on the front and I asked her if she knew where the rabbit picture comes from. She replied, “No” and I explained that it is the symbol used by a well known pornography magazine in America. “Oh” she responded uninterestedly, “I didn’t know that”. I thought that perhaps I had been unclear in my explanation so I went on, “When Westerners see this rabbit picture they are reminded of a magazine with naked women in it. A pornography magazine.” She still seemed unconcerned that she had the logo of a porn mag emblazoned on the front of her shirt. “Why do you like the rabbit picture?” I inquired further. At this point, I might have guessed her reply. “It’s cute. I like it.”

Regardless of it’s original context, the rabbit image of the Playboy Bunny has been imported into Thailand and turned into a popular fashion image in a way that has no relation to pornography. On the one hand, I suppose that this is a good thing in the sense that the image itself has been redeemed and disassociated with it’s sleazy origin. On the other hand, I don’t think that I will ever be able to see that symbol without thinking, “That’s from a porn magazine”. Even if I was into the latest fashions, I don’t think I would ever want to own or use any product with that label on it because of the association that I make with it. Maybe some people can get past that (and that is fine), and apparently many Thai think nothing of the Playboy Bunny more than merely being a cute symbol. In their cultural background, the Playboy Bunny means nothing but I would never use it because in my cultural background it does. It is not a right or wrong issue but merely a cultural issue. Although, in my culture, it’s wrong. As much as I would like to see the Playboy Bunny disappear from Thai fashion, it is the Thais themselves who make the decision as to what they will (and will not) import from other countries and cultures and how they will use it. Many times, imports from elsewhere take on a life of their own in new soil and whoever originated the item has no control over how it is used or adapted.

Related to the contextualization of the Christian message and church practice, as a missionary I may see some sort of practice or custom in Thai religion that could be adapted and redeemed for use in Thai Christian practice. As an outsider, I may think to myself, “This is a great idea. Adapting this existing Thai Buddhist practice for use in the church will reduce the foreignness of Christianity and help Thai Christians to be more Thai.” Perhaps it is a good idea or perhaps it is not, but if Thai Christians don’t want to use it because of its previous association with Buddhist or animistic practice, then it’s not going to work. As an outsider, I may have some ideas for contextualization but in the end it is the Thai themselves who need to live with whatever way church is to be done in Thailand. An outsider’s perspective can be helpful in thinking things through and making suggestions but the insider’s perspective is equally, if not more important, in deciding what is going to be the best way to live out the truth of Scripture in the Thai context.

With that said, the fate of the Playboy Bunny symbol in Thailand needs to be decided by the Thai themselves. Maybe many don’t care - or won’t care that it did come from a porn magazine originally, even if they knew. It doesn’t mean much of anything in the Thai context so if Thai folks want to wear the bunny, that’s fine. However, if I were to meet a Thai exchange student in America who was wearing a Playboy Bunny shirt that she brought with her from Thailand, I would do all that I can to let her know what that symbol is communicating to those around her and let her know the potential trouble it could invite. If she chooses to continue to wear it after that, that’s up to her, but I would at least want her to know that in America, the Playboy Bunny symbol is not just a cute rabbit picture.

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.

How do you say "Godliness" in Thai? (2 Peter 1:3)

I was preparing a Bible study on Psalm 19 in Thai, and wanted to cross-reference 2 Peter 1:3 (“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness... “ 2 Peter 1:3 ESV) but when I went to the standard version of the Thai Bible that is most widely used in the churches (1971 version which is similar to the RSV), I wondered whether the word that they had for godliness (“tham” ธรรม) was really the best choice.

In common Thai, tham refers to the body of Buddhist teaching or the Dharma. In Christian language, it is often modified with the word “Christ” (hence Phra Christ Tham พระคริสตธรรม) to refer to the Bible, or Christian teaching. It still remains however, that the word tham by itself makes most people think of religious teaching, particularly moral or ethical teaching. So, are we to understand that godliness is merely ethical living? I opened up my Greek New Testament to find out what the original word was and found eusebeia. My Intermediate Greek Lexicon (Liddell & Scott) tells me that eusebeia means “reverence towards the gods, piety religion.” That is the general secular ancient Greek meaning. The definition of eusebeia includes “reverence” which the New Oxford American Dictionary defines as “feeling or showing deep and solemn respect”.

So, I am thinking that godliness (eusebeia) in the Biblical sense certainly includes moral living (as the word tham would indicate), but also a reverent, respectful attitude that honors God in all of life. There is a certain seriousness and soberness of mind that is included in godliness. Godliness is not just the ethical things that we do, but is an attitude and a perspective that encompasses all of life. Godliness is the desire and intention to honor God in thought, word, and deed. If that’s the case, how can godliness be conveyed best in Thai?

I looked in three other Thai translations to see what they use. The Thai New Contemporary Version (similar to NIV in English), lumps life and godliness together into “living a life in God’s way” (ดำเนินชีวิตในทางพระเจ้า). The New Thai Translation Version also lumps them together into “a life that is lead according to God’s ways” (ชีวิตที่ดำเนินตามวิถีทางของพระเจ้า). These are both good, in that they emphasize obedience to God in all of life but I think prefer the translation that I found in the Thai Easy to Read version put out by the World Bible Translation Center. It reads “a life that honors God” (ชีวิตที่ให้เกียติพระเจ้า). The word “honor” captures something of the original sense of reverence and respect for God because He is higher and greater than us. Frankly though, I can’t say that anyone of these translations is THE BEST because it is difficult to capture in one word or in a short phrase the true sense and meaning of eusebeia. Even in English, godliness is one of those Christian words that many people would be hard pressed to define succinctly if put on the spot. If you’d asked me not too long ago, I would have answered, “I guess it has something to do with living like God wants you to, and honoring Him, but I’m not really sure.”

Communicating the Gospel in any language is a difficult task if it is to be done well, and the task becomes more complicated when I need to teach the Bible in a language that is not my own. What do the words that show up in the Thai Bible make people think of when they hear them? What words need to be explained, and how do I do that in a way that clears away misunderstanding and builds a right understanding of what God is saying in the Bible? Good Bible teaching that helps people understand what God wants to communicate in Scripture takes a lot of hard word, and one must be a student of the Scripture and a student of the culture. Then add in a second language and I’ve got my job cut out for me. Thankfully, salvation depends upon God and not upon whether I’ve gotten things just right, yet all the same my goal is that which the Apostle Paul gave to Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
(2 Timothy 2:15 ESV)

Are Long-Term Missionaries Obsolete?

I was recently talking with a pastor whose church does not send any long-term missionaries. It is a vibrant church with many members and a vision for missions, and they could probably send and support their own long-term missionaries if they wanted to. But it seems that they don’t want to. Why not? This pastor told me about what he believes to be more strategic, more effective, and most cost-efficient way to do missions outreach than sending long-term missionaries.

This pastor and his church conduct many short-term training events and seminars throughout the world, gathering together a large group of local leaders and teaching them in an intensive course. When the course is done, the pastor and his team go back to the USA and the local leaders go back to their homes and churches, presumably to put into practice what they have learned. Besides live teaching from short-term missionaries, this pastor is also committed to getting a video training course called ISOM into the hands of groups of leaders in various countries, to be used in place of live teachers but administered by a local coordinator/facilitator who leads discussions about the video course material. It his belief that Western churches can have a much bigger global impact for the Gospel by doing missions through this type of short-term leadership training rather than paying for long-term foreign missionaries (I am defining “missionary” as one who intentionally crosses barriers of language and culture to share the Gospel with those who would normally not have the opportunity to hear the Gospel within their cultural and/or linguistic context).

His argument is one that needs serious consideration. The church in many parts of the world today is growing rapidly and a number of national churches are maturing (or have matured) to a point where is it unnecessary for foreign missionaries to be doing frontline evangelism among the unreached. A case could be made that in many places long-term missionaries are obsolete and unnecessary because the national church can do the job better and more efficiently than foreign missionaries who require lots of time, money, and language study before they can do the basic tasks of evangelism and discipleship that local Christians can do themselves. Indeed, in many places, the best role for the foreign missionary is that of training and equipping the leaders rather than in the trenches planting new churches - that lengthy process of building relationships with the local people, sharing the Gospel on a personal and small group basis, discipling new believers, and working in only one church or in a limited geographic area. A case could be made that the era of sending long-term missionaries is over. But that is not the case I am going to make. I want to affirm that there is a time and place for strategic leadership training across cultures, through translation, but I am convinced that it is short-sighted and incorrect to see such training as the only form of foreign missions needed today.

The Numbers Argument

Long-term missionaries are still necessary in many places in the world today because in many places there are an insufficient numbers of Christians, mature Christian leaders, and churches to carry out the task of evangelizing their own people. The church is small, and growing, but still in need of outside help on the ground level. For example, Thailand is a country with an evangelical Christian population of about 0.03% of the population. That is a small church. There are hundreds, even thousands of towns and villages without any church what-so-ever, of any denomination. Of the small and scattered churches that do exist, many don’t have a vision for evangelism and new church planting. There are some shining and wonderful exceptions to that generalization but there is still a lot of room for missionaries to evangelize, disciple, and plant churches in areas where there is currently no resident Christian witness (i.e. no church). When the national church matures, in faith and numbers, to a certain point than missionaries roles will need to change according to the changing needs of the church and country. That is already happening to some degree in Thailand, but there is still much work to be done. I speak about Thailand specifically because that is where I am familiar with, but there are many other countries and people groups in similar situations.

The Cultural Contextualization Argument

This could also be called the argument for being relevant or the argument for abandoning a paternalistic attitude. When I was in seminary, our preaching professor told us that one of the basic things to remember in sermon preparation is to know who your listeners are. Who will be listening to your sermon? Who is sitting in that congregation? An elderly church member whose Social Security checks don’t quite cover the expenses? A single mom struggling to keep it all together? A self-confident businessman who thinks he has it all together? A teen who loves God and is at church every time the doors are open but detests her parents? A nominal “Christian” who finds the answers from the psychic helpline more compelling than the truths of the Bible? The identity and life situation of the people of the congregation doesn’t change the truths of the Bible but it should change the way that those truths are presented and applied to the lives of those people. I am not arguing for sugar-coating the Gospel or offering people Christianity-Lite but merely understanding where they are coming from, what are their assumptions about life and faith, and what are their objections to, or misunderstandings about, the Gospel. Jesus spoke to the Pharisees differently than Paul spoke to the Greek philosophers in Athens but they were both preaching the same Gospel.

In cross-cultural teaching and discipleship, it is necessary to understand where people are coming from in order to most effectively help them to understand and apply the Bible accurately. Prepackaged Bible teaching from a Western perspective, addressing the issues of the Western church, and geared towards listeners from a Western background is going to be limited in its effectiveness because it fails to address many of the challenges and issues that Christians in other parts of the world are facing. I am not saying that such teaching is completely ineffective but merely that it is often limited in its effectiveness and is likely not as effective as its teachers believe it to be. Such training by short-term foreign missionaries can be helpful but it is short-sighted to see such training courses as the only necessary strategy in foreign missions today. Because of cultural differences, Bible teaching needs to be contextualized in order to have a long term impact for a healthy indigenous church and not a Western looking church whose growth will be stunted in local soil. The way to contextualize your teaching for greatest effectiveness is to live with the people you are teaching, to learn their language, to learn their culture, to learn the barriers to the Gospel in that culture, and the particular challenges to discipleship in that culture that may be different than those of another culture. How many Western pastors have ever had a person come to them and say that they want to become a Christian but they can’t because then there would nobody to make offerings to their deceased parents? This is not at all uncommon in Thailand, and other parts of Asia.

There are, of course, universal issues that all Christians and pastors face around the world but we should not underestimate the different faces that those challenges take on in different cultures. To make this point, I am listing below some of the cultural and religious differences between a Western worldview and a Thai Buddhist worldview. These are only generalizations so there are bound to be exceptions, but on the whole, I believe that the following observations hold true. As you read through this list, think about how the challenges that Christians and their pastors face in the West are different, and may need to be addressed differently, than those in Thailand.

WESTERN	THAI
Cultural background is Judeo-Christian	Cultural background is Buddhist/Animist
Separation of church and state	Buddhism is national religion
Worldview is increasingly formed by postmodernism (no belief in absolute truth)	Worldview is formed by karma and spirit worship
Everyone has equal right to share opinion	Inferior must defer to the more elder, senior person
Problems should be addressed and dealt with directly	Problems are often ignored until irreparable because preserving social harmony is more important risking open conflict
People are taught to analyze, be critical, and to question the status quo	People are taught through rote memorization and conformity is valued
People are taught to be their own person and follow their hearts even if no one else agrees	People are taught to conform to society’s expectations and find their role in social hierarchy.
The majority of people don’t believe in evil spirits and the occult	The majority of people assume the activity of evil spirits and the necessity of interacting with them in some way

Not only do believers need to know what Scripture teaches, but they need to be taught how to understand the Bible for themselves, discover Scriptural truth, and apply it to their local context. They need someone to walk alongside them and to equip them with the tools to tackle thorny issues rather than given pre-packaged answers that are geared to the issues facing Western Christians. When there is a lack of mature local Christian leaders to do such a task, there is a strong case for an ongoing need for long-term foreign missionaries who take the time to learn the language, learn the culture, and learn the local concerns and issues in order to help local Christians and Christian leaders form a Biblical worldview within their given cultural context. This will take much time, effort, money, and in many cases sacrifice, but in the long run the result will be a healthy mature church that is equipped to apply Scripture to their own lives and the lives of their people, not a small stunted clone of the Western church.

The Incarnation Argument

Besides the above practical arguments, there is the Biblical argument from the incarnation of Christ. Jesus Christ descended from heaven and became a first century A.D. Jewish man. He entered into history in a specific time, specific place, with a specific identity. Jesus took part in the life, language, and culture of first century Judaism and all his teaching was appropriately geared to the background and understanding of his listeners. Jesus’ teaching was not a generic one-size-fits-all lesson that would be presented in exactly the same way to everybody regardless of language, culture, or time period in history. Also, it is worth mentioning that Jesus did not merely send a book but he himself came and lived among people, taking on human flesh, and identifying with mankind. The fact that we do not physically experience Jesus walking among us does not change the example that Jesus left for us to follow and the story of his life among us is left in the pages of Scripture. The Bible is our authoritative Word on who God is and what He requires of us (2 Tim. 3:16, 1 John 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3) and is powerful to change lives (Heb 4:12), and as that Word is lived out in speech and in deed, people can see more fully who Christ is. The apostle Paul knew this well. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul said, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col. 1:24 ESV) Paul is not saying that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was somehow lacking or insufficient to redeem the church, but rather, Paul is saying that through Paul’s sufferings for the sake of the Gospel, the church can see an expression of Christ’s love and grace towards his church. People need to see the Gospel of Christ lived out before them to truly understand who Christ is. When the body of Christ, i.e. the church, obeys God in a life of joyful obedience, functioning in unison according the command of the head of the body, that is, Christ, then not only the church but those who are outside the church see a much clearer picture of who Christ is. Teaching the Bible is essential but living out and modeling the Gospel before those who you want to train and disciple is also essential. Teaching without modeling is incomplete.

Summary

As I said earlier, I believe that there is a valid place for short-term mission trips to train leaders in other parts of the world. Many have been blessed by such teaching. However, it is short-sighted and incorrect to say that this type of missions is the only type of missionary work that is needed in the world today. Christians and churches who are tempted to stop supporting (or not start supporting) long-term missionaries because they are less strategic and less cost-effective than short term training trips should think again. This doesn’t need to be an either/or type of issue, but rather a matter of carefully thinking through what type of missionary work will be most effective and is most necessary in a given context in order to establish a healthy Biblical indigenous church in the long run.