Currently viewing the tag: "contextualization"
“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”1 These immortal words from the pen of early church father Tertullian of Carthage illustrate well the tension that exists for Christians seeking to follow the Lord’s claim that they are in [...]
Continue Reading →If there is any concept of the anthropological/missional idea of “culture” in the NT, it is the idea of “way of life.” A people’s culture is their behavior and their conduct. Several important implications may be drawn from this analysis. First, NT authors explain cultural differences between various people groups as differences of belief and [...]
Continue Reading →Last time I argued that the contemporary idea of “culture” came to being within discussions of modern anthropology It was in this anthropological climate that the missional idea of culture took shape. Charles H. Kraft acknowledges that the missional idea of culture draws from cultural anthropology: “When it comes to the analysis of such cultural [...]
Continue Reading →Likely the most influential early evangelical definition of culture comes from Lesslie Newbigin who claims that culture is “the sum total of ways of living built up by a human community and transmitted from one generation to another.” Continue Reading →
The missional church movement has significantly influenced the evangelical church in recent years, especially their philosophy of evangelism and worship (see my recent series on this subject here). Missional advocates argue that the church is part of the missio Dei—the mission of God—and thus must [...]
Continue Reading →There is little doubt that the missional church movement has been influential in evangelical churches, and that it continues to grow. Having surveyed the history and theology of this important movement and specifically its impact upon the worship of the evangelical church, the question remains as to whether this influence has been beneficial or not. [...]
Continue Reading →With regard to the missional movement’s understanding of Christendom, it is important to recognize that they saw what happened during this period as little more than the church contextualizing worship to the dominant culture of the civilization. Since Christianity happened to be the dominant religion of the western world, the church was able to easily [...]
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