The Silly Things we Find Profound: Over-Contextualization and the Power of the Gospel

Photo by By Express Monorail

I didn't realize that there was a Desiring God / Passion Conference going on. I see it getting all hashtagged on Twitter and a couple quotes are getting a bit annoying.  In particular:

"The power is not in contextualization; it's in the Gospel" (being attributed to Jason Meyer)

and

"Do you fear over-contextualization or under-contextualization? This is the missionary tension you will always be in." (being attributed to Darrin Patrick)

I find both of these statements to be kind of silly. As for the first, is Meyer suggesting that there are people who believe that the power of salvation is actually located in contextualization?  And, if so, what the heck would that actually mean?  For contextualization to exist as a process, it must have an object.  One cannot contextualize nothing.  That is, when speaking of contextualization, one must inquire as to what exactly is being contextualized.  In this case, we’re talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The gospel, any Christian must confess, is the power of God unto salvation for anyone who believes (Rom. 1:16).  But this gospel, in order for it to be proclaimed, heard and then believed, must be contextualized.  Always!  This is simply not avoidable.  Even something as simple as telling the story of Jesus in English is a form of contextualization (good contextualization if the hearer understands English, bad if he/she does not).  Show me a person who thinks they can share the gospel without contextualization and I’ll show you a person who doesn’t understand what in the world they are talking about.

Which brings us to the second statement, attributed to Patrick, about this idea of something he calls “over- contextualization.”  I know that Patrick likes to talk about this “tension” and has done so before.  But again, this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the concept of contextualization.  What Patrick is talking about is actually called accommodation, which is an older missiological concept based on the question, “How much can we accommodate the prevailing culture without compromising the integrity of our faith and the gospel message?”  This is a fine question, to be sure.  Indeed, it is the question that a lot of people should be wrestling with.  But, it isn’t contextualization.  Contextualization is a later concept that asks rather, “How can we bring the person and message of the Lord Jesus Christ fully to bear inside a given cultural context?”  Contextualization, from a Christian standpoint, is rooted in the Incarnation and is aimed at enfleshing the risen Son of God among every people, nation, tribe and tongue through the witness of His Church.  Thus, faithful contextualization is as insider as Jesus the Jew and as prophetic as Jesus the Messiah.  When Patrick suggests the dangers of “over-contextualization” he implies that too much of it is sometimes done.  Does he actually think that too much of the gospel is being brought to bear on a given context?  Well, surely this isn’t what he means.  I think what Patrick is saying is actually that too little of the gospel is being brought to bear – i.e. under-contextualization and over-accommodation. 

Anyway, the terminology is critical because those of us who intentionally pursue contextualization and adopt an insider trajectory are not usually doing so because we want to be people-pleasers who don’t ruffle feathers.  And these little potent conference quotables too often become little sticks for the uniformed and unreflective to pummel us with.  I can personally testify that great harm and hindrance can be the result.  What the Church ought to be saying is, “We affirm the heart and soul behind insider movement trajectory and contextualization! May we bring the Lord Jesus fully to bear within every cultural context that exists!”  And then, once that is settled, we should have a million prayerful conversations about a million specific forms, rituals, cultural expressions, language and more. 

Grace to You's "Giving Up to Gain" - latest on contextualization

I want to simply make note of the fact that Grace to You has posted a new article related to contextualization -- well, a post that is really seeking to be against contextualization.  I responded in detail to their first post and I would encourage you to read my comments on that first. The new article posted by Grace to You is entitled "Giving Up to Gain" and it truly doesn't add anything to their case unless you accept the false assumptions set forth in the first article.  That is, particularly for this second post, one must accept that the pursuers of contextualization are "church marketing specialists" who are willing to sacrifice the message of the gospel to gain hearers, to modify its content to suit the world, to compromise its truth instead of calling people to faith and repentance.

Of course, the fundamental problem with what GTY is doing is that they have begun with a wrong definition of contextualization.  They are attacking something which I would agree is bad but inappropriately naming that thing contextualization.  It is something else.


In terms of what GTY offers as interpretation of 1 Cor. 9:19-23, I essentially agree with what they are saying about Paul desiring to give up his rights in order to win others.  But that's exactly what my point was when I argued in the previous response to GTY that this text is most certainly a pro-contextualization passage. Here's what I wrote then:


I would suggest reading it in the larger context of chapter 9 and then comparing the language to the Carmen Christi of Philippians 2.  Is it not clear, that Paul has in mind the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ as he reflects on his own ministry philosophy?  Paul, though free from all, makes himself a slave to all just as Christ, who was in the form of God, emptied himself and took the form of a servant.  What was this slavery for Paul?  It was becoming a Jew to Jews, a Greek to Greeks – all things to all men.  In this, Paul’s vision was clearly Christ who was found and human likeness and was obedient to the point of death on the cross.  So this was not a matter of experimenting with novel new ministry methods for Paul.  It was slavery.  It was a laying down of his rights and life that he might win more people to Christ.


Writes GTY:


So winning people to Christ was his one objective. In order to do that, Paul was willing to give up all his rights and privileges, his position, his rank, his livelihood, his freedom—ultimately even his life. If it would further the spread of the gospel, Paul would claim no rights, make no demands, insist on no privileges.


What GTY fails to see is that included in this -- perhaps even the most obvious implication -- is that Paul was willing to give up his cultural preferences and identity.  He was willing to become a Jew to the Jews and a Greek to the Greeks -- all things to all people.  To argue that this is not a text describing Paul's pursuit of contextualization as incarnation seems to be really missing the mark.


I guess at the end of the day, I don't really have a huge disagreement with GTY.  I think that what they are opposing -- if it actually exists out there somewhere -- is something that I would also oppose.  The problem is that whatever and wherever it is, it simply isn't contextualization.  I don't care if the proponents of it drop that term here and there -- they just don't know what they are talking about.  They are playing a game and not pursuing the difficult and cruciform road of incarnation.


The whole contention with the Darrin Patrick crowd comes at the same issue from a different angle.  It would seem to me that GTY would be at odds with Patrick on the issue of contextualization.  Of course, I'm not sure.  But I think the fundamental problem here is a poor understanding of the key term.  For GTY, contextualization means essentially to conform to the culture, blend in, sell out the gospel.  Patrick doesn't really disagree with this.  He seems only to offer the modification that "over-contextualization" means to conform to the culture to the point of selling out the gospel.  For Patrick that is contextualization but it is too much of it.


So long as Patrick and those in his school of thought grant that there is a necessary connection between contextualization and slipping into heretical syncretism, the GTY-types can always respond by saying something like, "Why not just stay far away from anything so inherently dangerous?" And this wouldn't be a bad question.


No! This connection must be denied.  Syncretism, heresy, licentiousness and the like are not the special domain of contextualizers for they flow not from the incarnational life but rather from sin, ignorance of the Scripture and sound doctrine, and a deficient commitment to Christ.   One certainly does not have to be involved in contextualization to fall into these pits.  Contextualization is not to be imagined on a continuum with normal, sound, and good Christianity on the "non-contextualized" left and increasingly dangerous examples of contextualization moving off to the right until they eventually fall off into the fires of friendship with the world and hatred toward God.   Contextualization rather has as its model the incarnation of Jesus and its aim the enfleshening of the Christ-life in every historic human context. 


If Patrick and others like him could grasp this, then they might be much more effective in their advocacy and pursuit of contextualization, being thus able to respond to the GTY-types, "You know that's not what we mean by that term don't you?  Not at all."


To the GTY author, perhaps it was John Macarthur himself, again, I'd encourage you to get to know better the people who are really doing the work of contextualization.  I don't know any "church marketing specialists"; I probably wouldn't get along with them very well if I did.  But I can tell you that we pursue contextualization full on and have called many people to repentance and faith in the process.  In fact, just did so this past Sunday.

Darrin Patrick's "Over-Contextualization" Misses the Point

Today I came across an article by Acts 29 planter Darrin Patrick that seems to talk about contextualization.  I noticed that the article was being kicked around Twitter by a number of aspiring planter-types and thought I'd check it out.  Supposedly, the article speaks about the "dangers of over-contextualization," but a closer look at the article suggests that its author doesn't really understand the issue he is trying to engage.  Let's take a look . . .

If you aren’t familiar with Jackass, I can sum it up for you in a phrase: “Don’t try this at home!” Which is another way of saying, “Many young men are morons and are more than willing to prove it in front of a camera and an audience for not much money.” Known for its objectionable humor and its dangerous homemade stunts,Jackass provided an odd gathering tool for a start-up church. But when young men who embodied my target demographic started showing up and engaging in conversation, I felt like a cutting-edge hipster who happened to be a pastor. This was, in my mind, confirmation of my down-to-earth personality and general awesomeness, and I was convinced that I was the best pastor even without an official church in town. This über-missional event would be the beginning of conquering St. Louis for the gospel by means of shrewd cultural engagement. The night was young and the sky was the limit for ministry victory.

Prior to the official launch of The Journey [Patrick's STL-area church plant], we held Bible studies and missional events to encourage our launch team and to draw in non-Christians interested in learning more about our community. One of the most memorable of these “missional events” was the time when I decided it would be a wise to gather all the men of the church in the basement of my home for a marathon viewing of the Emmy-worthy MTV “variety show,” Jackass. We sent out a general invitation to the community, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Nothing attracts a bunch of dudes to a basement like the opportunity to watch a group of irreverent grown men prolong their adolescence by acting like middle schoolers, all on national television.

And then the wheels came off the church bus...

Patrick goes on to describe the event as having devolved into a chaotic, drunken debacle which did seemingly nothing for the sake of the Kingdom.  It is sad to me that in certain circles (especially hipster, American church-planting circles), such an event is what passes for contextualization these days. Contextualization, from a Biblical and missiological perspective, is related to the incarnation of Jesus Christ and may be understood as the intentional pursuit of incarnational life in a given cultural context.  It has to do with missional "entering in" -- that is, how do I as an outsider to a particular community enter that community as a follower of Christ so as to remove those barriers to the gospel that arise from my foreignness.  Contextualization also has to do with the new disciple's "staying in" -- that is, how does a new Christ-follower in a particular context remain in that context as an insider so as to faithfully live out his/her discipleship among his/her neighbors, friends, and family who are still without Christ.  Contextualization efforts usually fall into one of two overlapping categories.  The first is social-relational contextualization.  That is, what does it mean for disciples of Jesus to live out their commitment to love their neighbors in a particular cultural context so that their loving might be truly understood as loving?  The second category is spiritual-liturgical contextualization which has to do with how followers of Christ can love, worship, serve, and communicate about God and the Bible within their particular context.

The Jackass event, as described, doesn't seem to have had a spiritual-liturgical component at all.  We are given no information about how worship, prayer, Bible study, or other spiritual disciplines were conducted.  There is a suggestion that spiritual conversations may have happened, but we are not told the content.  At best, this seems to have had something to do with the social-relational side of contextualization.  From that perspective, Patrick and company may have had some right ideas.  They considered the community they were seeking to engage and planned an event that would be attractive to them.  While this thinking has something to do with contextualization, it wasn't "over-contextualization" that led to the disaster described.  On the contrary, I would argue that this is an example of "under-contextualization."

For one, it isn't clear to me whether Patrick's group was truly seeking to "enter in" to a new and foreign context.  It seems rather that they were seeking to reach out to a context very similar (if not the same) as their own.  We must remind ourselves that there is no such thing as "Christian culture."  Thus, the simple act of a Christian reaching out to a non-Christian doesn't constitute cross-cultural engagement.  It should be noted, of course, that many Christians have been taught to abandon their cultural context when they come to Christ and have then done so for so long that they feel their original context to be foreign.  Nevertheless, while cross-cultural principles may be helpful in such situations, they really aren't in the same category as say a Filipino missionary serving in Kuwait.

I would thus suggest that what is going on here has to do with the "staying in" side of contextualization.  For Patrick and his fellow Christ-followers, the operative question related to contextualization should be, "How do I live out my faith in Christ within my own cultural context and community?"  I would suggest that the decision to spend several hours watching a television show that they admit to be "objectionable" indicates that they didn't fully examine this question.  Their thinking centered on how to gather a group of non-believing people from their community together.  This isn't true contextualization.  Contextualization would seek to bring those people in contact with Christ and Christ-followers in contextually relevant ways.  So, the corporate viewing of Jackass as a cultural element opposed to Christ and his revelation is antithetical to the pursuit of contextualization because it fails to bring people into contact with Christ.  Writes Patrick:

My failure was classic over-contextualization. Over-contextualization is when you view missional opportunities primarily through a cultural lens instead of a gospel lens. In this instance, I was more concerned with providing a cool, “unchurchy” environment than I was with making sure the environment didn’t reflect poorly on the gospel. The guys I tried to reach needed healthy gospel boundaries around their newly discovered Christian liberty. I failed to provide that for them. I over-contextualized in my approach because I tried to make the gospel submit to the culture rather than letting my pop culture sensibilities submit to the gospel.

I think I basically agree with Patrick's assessment of his experiment with the exception of the phrase "over-contexualization."  As I have been trying to point out, the use of this term indicates that Patrick is missing the point regarding contextualizaiton.  Contextualization, we must understand, always has a context.  There is always the target context and the thing to be contextualized -- i.e. Jesus.  If you forget the latter -- Patrick's real failure -- you are no longer practicing contextualization.

Consider Jesus during his incarnation.  He often opposed certain elements of the 1st century Jewish culture, but he always did so as an insider.  When people got angry with him, the charge was never, "Who is this foreigner coming in here to tell us what to do?"  Rather, the charge was, "Is not he the carpenter?" (cf. Mark 6:1-6).  Pursuing contextualization as an imitation of Christ's incarnation means not simply assimilating with the culture in a purely human sense.  Rather it means entering or remaining in a context as an ambassador of Christ -- bringing Him, his revelation, his prophetic word, his life and love.  Patrick's failure was that he didn't adequately do that.  This is a failure to fully contextualize the revelation of Christ, not some kind of "over-contextualization".

In answer to the oft-repeated question, "How far do we go with contextualization?"  I do not point to fatally flawed contextualization scales.  I point to Christ.  How far did he go?  How human did he become?  How Jewish?  How Galilean?  If we are to imitate His example, we must go all the way.  And going all the way is more than simply skillfully adapting to a particular cultural context.  Going all the way requires bringing Christ and bringing his message to bear in that context -- to give them the opportunity to experience Jesus as the word made flesh for them.