Attempting to contextualize the Gospel is a very acute and sensitive endeavor. Push the envelope too far and you will be lost in the ocean of syncretism, or really just pervert the Gospel until it is no longer the good news of Jesus Christ, but the good news of whatever culture or society you are in. On the contrary, if you fail to contextualize at all, or just contextualize too little, evangelism really just becomes assimilation and or socialization unto the church culture – or Christian imperialism. Stanley Hauerwas seems to insinuate in his book Resident Alien that the first apologists in the early church were inadvertently (it should be noted that Constantinian Christendom was also a major contributing factor) laying the groundwork that would perpetuate into modern theologians fruitless attempts to accommodate or make the Gospel – perceived to be ancient and outdated due to its ancient near eastern Hebraic roots – seem relevant and intelligible to the post-modernity, post-enlightenment, and increasingly anti-Christianity intellectual realm of the current times. (There is obviously more to be said and more to explain, but for the sake of the brevity of the blog post, and retaining your interest, I must go on.) This, Hauerwas goes on to argue, “transforms it [the Gospel] into something it never claimed to be – ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with his people.” 

So how then do we go forth and contextualize the Gospel? That is of course, if you do not believe that contextualizing is a necessary theological discipline, then you have no horse in this race and should go read a different blog. I am starting with the basic underlying assumption that it is necessary to contextualize the Gospel. After all, God did it – the Word became flesh. Anyways, I am not trying to hint that Hauerwas is suggesting that we give up trying to contextualize the Gospel (Hauerwas is a boss, he would never suggest such a thing), I am merely attempting to intelligently express and publicly vent a frustration that I have over contextualization. I believe it is not just important, but it is absolutely necessary. But I am also very put off by all the implicit dangers that come with, if it is not done properly. Rene Padilla argues and points out that it is not a science, but an art, to which I whole-heartedly agree. Unlike science, Scripture is not to be read, studied or translated with an indifferent disconnect between the object and the subject. There is an undeniable, subjective, and emotive relationship between the two.

Does this make anyone else uncomfortable? Because I find myself desperately wanting there to be some sort of universally objective science or technique for contextualization. But maybe I should just repent and allow God to be God.

Jessemac