The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

  The Way Forward in Mission We now live in a time when the illusions of mono-cultures can be sustained only by voluntary ignorance and political manipulation. The idea that God’s Word crosses cultural boundaries, while it was once a revolutionary improvement in mission theology, now seems naive. The Gospel doesn’t travel, it becomes manifest in the process of evangelization - bearing witness to God’s Reign in constant dialogue with those being invited to take their place in it at the intersections of multiple cultures. So Kerygma  isn’t just dogma and  euangelizomai  isn’t just talking. They are participation in God’s Reign in ways that create the opportunity for Incarnation to be recognized and affirmed by faith. The apostles themselves didn’t know the meaning of Incarnation until they engaged in and were transformed by intercultural mission.  Intercultural dialogue turns out to be the essence of obedient witness, it isn’t the transmission of the gospel, it is the way we learn the go

  God Doesn’t Need to Cross Boundaries In the previous post I showed that incarnation is enculturation, and that changing understandings of what it means to be human demand new understandings of what is meant by incarnation. In the 21st century, can we really regard incarnation as boundary crossing?  Only if we want to buy into a model that valorizes the remnants of empire.    A more positive understanding of incarnation might begin by observing that  in scripture God doesn’t cross boundaries,  because between God and humanity there are no boundaries to cross. God is present everywhere at all times, in all lives and cultures. We too easily forget that the Ptolemaic system that dominated Graeco-Roman and subsequent Western (including Islamic) cosmologies isn’t Biblical, but is built on entirely different set of cultural presuppositions about the ordering of the cosmos. The Bible identifies “high places” and even the sky as the domain of God, but even that represents the kind of cultural

I lived most of my life in the 20th century and most of my academic career with 20th century theology. I don't regret leaving both behind if it will help us better serve the gospel in this century, and in the places and times to which we are called.   Psalm 87 Glorious things are said of you,     city of God: 4  “I will record Rahab and Babylon     among those who acknowledge me— Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush —     and will say, ‘This one was born in Zion.’” 5  Indeed, of Zion it will be said,     “This one and that one were born in her,     and the Most High himself will establish her.” 6  The Lord will write in the register of the peoples:     “This one was born in Zion.” 7  As they make music they will sing,     “All my fountains are in you.”   Introduction Today I want to explore the relationship between two concepts: incarnation and culture. In particular I’ll assert that God Incarnate is God encultured. And this helps us better understand both the future of Christi