Andrew Jones had a nice retort to Phil, pointing out that the emergents, in general, aren’t interested in assimilation (at least how Phil defines it) but are interested in the Gospel transforming culture, one of Neibuhr’s five relationships of Christ and Culture. He also defends that context matters.

If this discussion is going to go anywhere, the one thing that has to be defined from the start is culture. I thin MacArthur and Phil Johnson have a different definition of culture than others, which might be at the heart of this controversy. Culture can’t be as strictly defined to represent the religious practices of the people in the culture represented. I’m not even sure if religious practices are always the major player in cultural definitions, though they are still significant. Although definitions vary, Merriam-Webster does a decent job when it says that culture is “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations” Therefor, culture has to stand above and beyond just the religious practices of the people. Of course their is fallout from their practices that effects their culture, but does the religion in America dictate the fact that American culture is by-and-large fairly greedy? If so, is that Christianity’s fault, the major religion during the most prosperous times for this country? See, there’s a distinct difference between the larger term for culture, and the religious practices. Capitalism is part of our culture. Christianity is part of our culture. Individualism is part of our culture.

I do agree with Phil that Paul is in no way affirms the practices of the Athenians, but what he criticizes is STRICTLY their religious practices and not their culture as a whole. If anything, Paul’s philosophical reasoning itself is an endorsement of their cultural practices. This where I strongly agree with Andrew, and I think Paul was highly aware of this fact… context matters. I don’t know how you can look at 1 Corinthians 9.19-23 and not make a case for contextualization:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (ESV)

Paul is simply contextualizing his message to the people of the time. As Andrew points out, many missionaries have practices a lack of contextualization and have just hindered themselves in the spreading of the gospel, requiring Native American converts to learn English to worship God, bringing church organs to Africa for worship as opposed to accepting local instruments and musical styles. We have to be very careful when we talk about culture. The question should simply be: does this practice stand against what the Gospel teaches and not does this whole CULTURE stand against what the Gospel teaches. Mostly because cultures are not easily defined and a concrete Christian culture has never existed. If anything, when attempts to create it have happened, its been pretty poor. Paul knew that the worship of other Gods was not glorifying to God, so he told them that, but he used their cultural entrapments of debate and reason to get there.

So, when talking about contextualization, I am all for it, but that does not mean the message needs to change, just the communication of the message.

THE GOSPEL IS ALWAYS RELEVANT, BUT THE DELIVERY MUST ALWAYS BE CONTEXTUALIZED.

Part of the training at that seminary is CPE, or more commonly understood as chaplaincy, and we were taught to not actually talk about Jesus or provide concrete answers, but to let them come to their conclusions themselves. This dialogue, that was perfectly caught on the show ER, is a perfect picture of how we are taught to communicate.

When your theology ceases to have concrete definitions of who God is and wants from our lives, what power does it have at all? Several years ago a leading Bible seminary sent 12,000 letters to pastors of various denominations and asked one question: “Do you believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God?” The results of the survey were startling: 85% of the Presbyterian USA pastors said NO; 85% of the Methodist pastors said NO; 85% of the Episcopal pastors said NO; 55% of the Baptist pastors said NO; 45% of the Catholic priests said NO. (Statistics courtesy of Warner A. Bonner)

This man needed answers, but all that Christianity reinterpreted through post-modernism gives is more questions. What effectiveness does that have in reaching the world? None. Jesus wasn’t the question… Jesus was the answer, and as long as we proclaim that as absolute truth, we have a message for the world.

He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise,penetrating logic is not opposed to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively—even playful—imagination. He was a “romantic rationalist.” He combined things that almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. In shattering these old stereotypes, he freed me to think hard and to write poetry, to argue for the resurrection and compose hymns to Christ, to smash an argument and hug a friend, to demand a definition and use a metaphor.

Lewis gave me an intense sense of the “realness” of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things. He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world—things My Search for a Single Passion to Live By that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror.

The sheer ‘being of things’… the quiddity. The ‘this-ness’ of all things. At the end of the day, that is the truth we are ofter. What is the this-ness of God? The this-ness of man? What are we in objective reality? We do not define ourselves, but are defined by the objective reality of our Creator. “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Ex 4.11) Until we start with the reality that we are defined by our Creator, we are defined by His word, our culture is defined by our Creator, our politics are defined by our Creator, then we can start seeing common ground, and seek unity in purpose, both emerging/emergent as well as Reformed.