THE GOSPEL AND THE GATE OF CULTURE Culture is generally defined as a people or group of peoples’ way of life. Culture consists a people’s beliefs, custom, art, behavioural patterns, and many others like their mode of dressing and feeding. The Gospel is the message of salvation. It is Good News. It is the light of God that shines on a person and delivers him from the darkness of this age. Those of us who are Christians today became one because we believed in the Gospel. It was preached to us and we embraced the light that pierced through the darkness of our lives. Jesus Christ in Mark 16:15-18, commanded us to go into ‘all’ the world to preach the gospel. He also promised us that there would be signs following and confirming our message. Jesus’ emphasis on ‘all the world’ hints at His expectations of us. He wants us to go into ‘all the world.’ The ‘all’ tells us that Jesus does not want us to be satisfied with preaching the Gospel to only some parts of the world. He wants us to preach to all kingdoms, all people groups, all nations, all societies (whether modern or traditional), all social classes (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat), and all cultures. However, it is a known fact when missionaries go to Unreached People-Groups (UPG) of different cultures other than theirs; there is usually an initial challenge. Moreover, this is the challenge of culture. A missionary would first need to understand the people’s culture, so as to understand them, their world view and accept the peculiarities of their existential space. Pathetically, some missionaries are not able to do this. Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) and her student arm—Mission Sending Force (MISSEF) is focused on cross-cultural missions, taking the great pain to train and send missionaries to cultures other than their own, equipping them with the needed attitude to cross-cultural interactions. Africa can be considered the most evangelized continent. But those who brought the gospel to us has passed more than the Gospel to us. They have imposed their own culture on us. The African church largely looks Western. According to Landa Cope in her book Clearly Communicating Christ, “more than the Gospel has been transferred: it has been packaged in Western culture. And the thing that Paul fought so hard to keep from happening to the first-century gentiles has happened to Africans” (Landa Cope, Clearly Communicating Christ). She suggested that missionaries should use what is called Dynamic Equivalency, instead. Dynamic Equivalency is when we see wordings and symbols that have identical impact on the people. It is using “truths sustained in the culture and tradition of the people” that will open the door for the poor understanding of the Gospel. This idea is affirmed in the story of Don Richardson’s missionary experience written in his book Peace Child. In the book, he told the story of his missionary work among the Sawi tribe of Irian Jaya, where he was finding it difficult to make the people understand the gospel. Then God gave him the idea of Redemptive Analogy. Redemptive Analogy is the application to local custom spiritual truth. In Richardson’s story, the Sawi’s most respected character trait was treachery; as a result, they are always jubilant and take delight in Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. But with the idea of Redemptive Analogy and knowledge of the Sawi’s tradition, the Sawi (a violent tribal society) was saved. He knew that “in this violent tribal society there was only one way to stop the revengeful killing of warring clans. One family had to give a son to the enemy family as a ‘peace child’, a symbol of trust. Then the killing could stop. The child’s new family would raise the child as their own. The most disgraceful thing a Sawi could do would be to harm the ‘peace child’. That was it! That was the dynamic equivalency of God’s Son sent to bring peace on earth. Jesus was God’s peace child, and we had killed Him. The light went on. The Sawi understood . . . The intended message had reached its intended audience” (Don Richardson, Peace Child). Today’s missionaries are doing their best not to repeat the error of the past. And CAPRO is in the front line, ensuring that the Westernization of the African church is not repeated, as we take the Gospel to other parts of the world where there are Unreached People-Groups. The clarion call is to make the Gospel accessible and understandable to all people. Like Apostle Paul we should be weak to the weak that we may gain the weak, and be made all things to all men that we might by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22). Samuel ADESUBOKAN may be reached at z.suby@yahoo
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 15:55:51 +0000
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