I am always surprised by the naive but belligerent talk one hears from evangelicals who are disdainful of "contextualisation'' - usually with an equally vehement contempt for ''hermeneutics".
I understand the fear. The craven accommodation of the gospel to the fads and fashions of the time is appalling to see. Even now, the fad of the 1980s to have 'perspectival' theologies - black theology, lesbian theology, latino theology and whatever - looks simply laughable. Why did anyone ever take that seriously?
But the alternative is to be blind to our own context, and to our own (sinful and human) propensity to distort things. The Bible needs to be interpreted ever anew, not because it isn't clear or effective or coherent, but because we tend to get it wrong. Faithfulness to the original demands not parroting it but hearing it again as fresh for today and today's people. To borrow an analogy from bible translation: ''dynamic equivalence'' is the most authentic and faithful means of transmission!
4 comments:
I'm almost with you on this Michael, but I think I prefer the way you put it in quoting Calvin (in the Dec 1 post).
That is, 'contextualization' as I understand it is the adaptation and moulding of the Bible's message to our changing contexts. This is what I (and other evangelicals) get suspicious of, because it often involves a bit of fiddling with the historical once-for-allness of the gospel. So some belligerence in this instance is neither surprising nor unwelcome.
But if you want to say that we need to keep reading and teaching the Bible's message afresh for each generation, because we get it wrong in different ways (as Christian readers), and because the once-for-all message addresses the particular sins and problems of our changing culture in different ways, then I'm not feeling belligerent at all!
TP
good point on the dangers of presuming our own neutrality! no wonder we bomb around the world so that christians all over can also enjoy our neutrality.
though... i'm not sure that perspectival theology is "laughable" in the context of latin american 'disappearances' or the history of african-american slavery or Australia's own killing fields. i understand it's a liberal fad to collect exotic things,: like exotic coffee, food, partners and theology, in which case it's pretty lame.
but maybe if we were taken away from our mothers by Christian families wanting to wean us from our savage ways or had lived through colonial Christianity, then maybe black/lantina/asian/indigenous theology is an attempt to see Christ from the perspective of those who have been the losers.
Tony: hmm... just testing out a thought here, but isn't the historic once for allness of the bible mediated to us through our own context? i.e., we read the Bible post-Luther...and can't really look at it any other way, though we would have been differently disposed in 1460. Contextualisation can be either done badly or well: what we mustn't do is deny that we are doing it!
Remylow: I guess if I thought that perspectival theologies really were defending the perspectives of those groups and not the perspectives of tenured professors in the US system I would be more sympathetic! Neither, the voices of the marginalised do not have a special exemption from bad or just plain mistaken reading of the text.
I do however think we ought to strive for a more global reading of the bible, as Daniel Treier suggests in his book on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture.
I think some 'evangelicals' (I use the term loosely) can get 'nervous' about the word 'contextualisation' because they think that the Truth could be compromised...but missionaries are familiar with the term- it is about being able to see 'The Wood for the Trees'.
It is like going into Dr Who's Tardis and landing in the C4th or C6th centuries and stepping out trying to understand the context and culture...Because they speak differently from me now and they are pre-Cartesian but the Bible for believers may have been Primary but we may not understand their language or ways...looking and observing and understanding the culture philosophically and otherwise is what contextualisation is about.
However the misunderstanding may come when we use the culture to justify a practice, or use it to say 'I means justify an ends'...
Irene
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