I am so sick of any attempt to be culturally relevant being branded as heresy. Historically, ignoring the world that "the mission field" lived in has been disastrous. Even the most conservative of denominations have missionaries who take great pains to understand the cultures they are entering. Why are we not learning from our history?! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting somehow to have different results.
The early Roman church believed that
cultural changes and conformity were necessary for the spreading of the good
news. It was assumed that a culture had to be civilized, at least in part, (ie “Romanized”)
as a prerequisite to become Christian. Once Christian, further conformity to
the Roman norm was expected. These populations were expected to adopt Roman customs,
including reading and speaking Latin as well as doing church “the Roman way.” This
was not initially the case with the early Roman church; stories of the first
century church report missional outreach to cultures that were neither Roman
nor civilized (cannibal populations were even on the list of those receiving
the good news). However, by the second century it was assumed that reaching
barbarians for Christ was impossible.1
Protestant missions have historically
followed a similar two pronged focus; to both evangelize and civilize the
culture. Here too, many believed that a certain level of civility was needed
for acceptance of the gospel to be possible. Generally, civilizing was defined
by the nation that was sending the missionaries. Spanish missionaries sought to
make peoples more Spanish while puritans from Britain tried to make them more
English.4 International missions today has moved passed the model of
required conformity, but domestically we often fall into the trap of believing
that societal conformity is prerequisite for receiving the good news of Christ.
Perhaps this is why Christians often feel the need to impose Christian values
on the unbelieving world.2
We experience this same tension within
modern-day ministry. The culture of today, for example, is not always seen as
“civilized.” Adults shake their heads when young adults have the audacity to
wear hats in church services, or check their cell phones during the sermon. They
can’t believe that being talked at for forty minutes is not engaging to youth,
even though their own minds are distracted. I can’t think of a single time this
past year that an adult has asked me how youth group went last night, or how
God was working in the lives of our young people, and yet, I can recall
numerous moments when youth were criticized for not picking up after themselves
in our church. Do we think that God can’t work in young people’s lives until
they start vacuuming up their own pretzel crumbs? Is Christian stewardship a
prerequisite for receiving the good news of Christ?
I recently heard a powerful story about a
young urban youth who accepted Christ. This newborn Christian was so excited
about his conversion that his enthusiasm spread and he took a friend with him
to church the following Sunday. Neither of these young men owned church
clothes, so they wore what they thought was their nicest clothes. When they
arrived at the front doors of the church one of the elders was waiting with his
arms crossed. He told the young men to “come back when they had learned how to
show God proper respect”.
We all have stories similar to this. The
message is similar to that of the Roman church: “You have to be like us if you
want to be a Christian.”
Youth workers can engage students
differently, encouraging them to stay within their culture while seeking to
understand the person of Jesus.
1. George G. Hunter III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How
Christianity Can Reach the West…Again (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 2000) pp17.
2. Ibid., pp 16
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