Religions of Man » Great Commission

Seven Themes of Fruitfulness in Muslim Contexts

Michael — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:34:56 +0000

In the latest issues of International Journal of Frontier Missions (26:2), Eric Adams, Don Allen, and Bob Fish discuss the characteristics of effective field practitioners in Muslim contexts in their article Seven Themes of Fruitfulness (pdf). They identified the seven themes of fruitfulness after surveying and interviewing 300 missionaries from 34 different agencies which work among Muslim peoples. The seven themes they found among those who saw substantial and long-lasting fruit are:

1. Fluency: The worker communicates the gospel in the peoples’ heart language (the language they speak at home), rather than their trade language.

2. Storying: The majority of Muslim peoples live in functionally oral societies, so the workers communicate biblical truth through culturally-appropriate storying methods.

3. Christ-like Character: The workers have a good reputation among the people. They are seen as respectful of the host culture. They are seen as spiritual people who love and serve others. They also are known for sharing meals and being hospitable.

4. Social Networks: They seek to reach “networks among whom trust-relationships already exist,” like families and other natural social groups, instead of just reaching individuals.

5. Scripture: They use the Bible as “their primary means of sharing the gospel, training new believers and developing leaders.”

6. Intentional Reproduction: From the very start they teach seekers and new believers to teach others what they are learning. They plant churches and train leaders who can spiritually reproduce.

7. Prayer: Workers are people of prayer, individually and corporately. They also take the time to establish extensive prayer networks in support of their work.

LDS Contextualization and Christian Missions

Michael — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:48:41 +0000

I came across an interesting article in the Salt Lake Tribune about how the LDS church is seeking to contextualize their faith around the world. From the article, it appears that the church is trying to remove some of the American cultural trappings that have been such an important part of the LDS faith up to this point. It will be interesting to see how much contextualization can take place in light of the ecclesiastical structures that are foundational to the LDS faith.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries many Protestant missionaries failed to contextualize the Gospel. Missionaries, knowingly or unknowingly, often exported not only the Gospel message but also western culture. This often led to syncretism, theological confusion, and surface-level Christianity. Therefore, in many of these places Christianity remained a foreign religion.

Thankfully, since that time, missionaries have realized the need to contextualize the Gospel. The Gospel message stays the same, but the ways in which it is communicated should take different forms depending on the context. However, contextualizing how the Gospel is communicated is not enough.

The ways in which Christians live and worship must also be contextualized. This type of contextualization, although assisted at the start by a missionary, should ultimately be done by the local believers. Local believers, under the guidance of the Bible and the Holy Spirit, are able to best determine how the gospel and their churches are to look in their context. When local believers contextualize the Gospel and their churches, Christianity has a far greater chance of not being seen as a foreign religion. A great resource on Contextualization is David Hesselgrave’s Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally

Is it ok to “baptize” the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths?

Michael — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:06:10 +0000

The Buddha’s teachings can be boiled down to The Four Noble Truths and The Eight-fold Path. The Four Noble Truths are:

1. Life is dukkha (suffering, dislocation, transience. Life is not the way it should be)
2. Dukkha is caused by tanha (desire, thirst for permanence)
3. Dukkha can cease when tanha is removed…cessation of tanha is Nirvana.
4. Tanha is removed through the Eight-fold Path:

                1. Right views
                2. Right intent
                3. Right speech
                4. Right conduct
                5. Right livelihood
                6. Right effort
                7. Right mindfulness
                8. Right concentration

In “Evangelism in the New Millennium: An Integrated Model of Evangelism to Buddhists Using Theology, Anthropology, and Religious Studies” Ubolwan Mejudhon advocates presenting the gospel to Buddhists with a Christian version of the Four Noble Truths.* His “baptized” Four Noble Truths are:^

1. Suffering is a fact of life
2. The cause of suffering is sin
3. The cure for sins is the suffering of Christ
4. The way to deliverance is through faith in Jesus Christ

At first I thought it was a clever idea. However, I then began to question my initial judgment since these Four Noble Truths clearly do not contain the full gospel message. They contain truth but not the entire truth. Nevertheless, I still think these “baptized” Noble Truths can be useful in communicating the gospel to Buddhists as long as they are supplemented with the rest of the message.

*Article is in Sharing Jesus in the Buddhist World, edited by David Lin and Steve Spaulding (2003).
^He credits J.T. Seamand with this version of the Four Noble Truths. Seamand, J.T.. Tell It Well: Communicating the Gospel across Cultures (1981).

The Gospel in Chinese

Michael — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:28:10 +0000

I just finished reading a great book on Christianity in China. In Confucius, The Buddha, and Christ: A History of the Gospel in Chinese Ralph R. Covell presents an outstanding history of Christianity in China. He discusses the traditional Chinese worldview, Nestorian Christianity in China, the various methods missionaries have used among the Chinese, how Christianity has interacted with Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, and modern attempts of making Christianity Chinese.

Although the book is dated (1986) and only includes limited discussion of the underground house church movement and the amazing growth of Christianity in China since the 80s (some estimate over 100 million Christians in China), it is still a great work for those who are planning on working in China or among Chinese in the Diaspora. The book is even a great resource for those who are not planning on working among the Chinese people. Throughout the book Covell discusses the issue of contextualization, which all cross-cultural communicators of the gospel must deal with. At times Covell does advocate too much contextualization for my theological liking, but he does raise some good points. I would recommend this book to anyone planning on engaging in cross-cultural gospel communication.