The renowned theologian Karl Barth famously spoke of the need of the believer to hold a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. But he also insisted that it was the Bible that should be used to help us understand the events recorded in the daily news, and not the other way around.
My own website of course has taken this to heart. It obviously looks at culture in great detail and in its various aspects, but it seeks to do so from the standpoint of biblical revelation. And ultimately it seeks to share the good news of Christ with others. As I state on my website:
[CultureWatch] offers reflection and commentary drawing upon the wealth of wisdom found in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It offers reflective and incisive commentary on a wide range of issues, helping to sort through the maze of competing opinions, worldviews, ideologies and value systems. It will discuss critically and soberly where our culture is heading.
There is nothing new in seeking to assess – and reach – the surrounding culture in such a way. It has been happening since the earliest days of Christian mission. Simply think of Paul’s missionary approach in Athens as recorded in Acts 17:16-34. He sought to find common ground with those he interacted with at the Areopagus (Mars Hill) in order to best share Jesus Christ with them.
Believers over the past two millennia have been seeking to do the same, with entire libraries now holding books by theologians, missionaries, apologists and Christian leaders discussing such matters. And the gist of the matter is this: we have an unchanging gospel, but we have changing cultures. So how can we best reach each new generation with the everlasting Christian message?
Here I want to simply draw your attention to a couple of recent witnesses and their thoughts on this issue.
Lesslie Newbigin
My first key thinker on this is the noted British missiologist and theologian Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998). One of his very important books is Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel in Western Culture (Eerdmans, 1986). This volume grew out of the Warfield lectures he gave at Princeton Theological Seminary in early 1984.
After being a missionary in India for almost four decades, he experienced real culture shock when he returned to England. He explains in Chapter 1 (“Post-Enlightenment Culture as a Missionary Problem”) what his concerns are:
My purpose in these chapters is to consider what would be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and the culture that is shared by the peoples of Europe and North America, their colonial and cultural offshoots, and the growing company of educated leaders in the cities of the world—the culture which those of us who share it usually describe as “modern.” The phenomenon usually called “modernization,” which is being promoted throughout much of the Third World through the university and technical training network, the multinational corporations, and the media, is in fact the co-option of the leadership of those nations into the particular culture that had its origin among the peoples of western Europe. For the moment, and pending closer examination of it, I shall simply refer to it as “modern Western culture.”
The angle from which I am approaching the study is that of a foreign missionary. After having spent most of my life as a missionary in India, I was called to teach missiology and then to become a missionary in a typical inner-city area in England. This succession of roles has forced me to ask the question I have posed as the theme of this book: What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking, and living that we call “modern Western culture”? (p. 1)
His entire volume is crucial reading, but one more quote near the end of the book is also worth sharing here:
The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign, and the sovereignty of God. It calls men and women to repent of their false loyalty to other powers, to become believers in the one true sovereignty, and so to become corporately a sign, instrument, and foretaste of that sovereignty of the one true and living God over all nature, all nations, and all human lives. It is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God’s kingship. (p. 124)
Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted Worldby Gould, Paul M. (Author), J. P. Moreland (Foreword)
Paul M. Gould
My second author is Christian philosopher and apologist Paul Gould. Some years ago he penned a significant volume titled Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World (Zondervan, 2019).
Not surprisingly, Gould appeals to Newbigin early on. He writes:
In the year 1936, a twenty-seven-year-old man named Lesslie Newbigin set out from England for India to share Christ among the Hindus. Newbigin faithfully ministered in India for the next thirty-eight years. When he returned to his home country in 1974, he found it had become a drastically different country from the one he left. It was becoming increasingly a post-Christian nation, one in need of a fresh missionary encounter.
It was during this time that Newbigin wrote what is now considered a modern classic on mission, Foolishness to the Greeks. In his book, he explores the most crucial question of our time. He asks:
“What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking, and living that we call ‘modern Western culture’?”
This is the question to be asked of any post-Christian culture. Newbigin is interested in how we can talk to others about Jesus in a way that is understood by those becoming further and further removed from Christianity’s language and worldview. This is the “missionary encounter” Newbigin has in mind. And while Newbigin’s question is essential for us to answer today, it also leads us to an even bigger question: What do you make of Jesus Christ? Newbigin understood that every person in every culture is shaped by what sociologist Peter Berger calls “plausibility structures.” Berger says every culture has a collective mind-set, a collective imagination, and a collective conscience. This combined outlook shapes the culture’s view of the world and what is judged within the culture as plausible or implausible. Is this a genuine possibility . . . or just an outrageous idea?
Newbigin knew that we fail to have genuine missionary encounters if we fail to understand those we seek to reach with the gospel. Our words and our message must be understandable. In a post-Christian society, talk about Jesus is no different from talk about Zeus or Hermes. We sound foolish, and our beliefs appear implausible and meaningless.
How can we have a genuine missionary encounter in our culture? (pp. 19-20)
Gould describes cultural apologetics as “the work of establishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within a culture so that Christianity is seen as true and satisfying.” (p. 21) The remainder of the book of course spells all this out in some detail.
In the book’s Appendix, he reminds us of Paul’s method at Mars Hill:
-First, Paul sought to understand the culture.
-Second, Paul identified a starting point from which to build a bridge to Jesus and the gospel.
-Third, Paul set out his case for Jesus and the gospel, addressing barriers to belief along the way.
-Finally, in a way his listeners could understand, Paul brought them to a place where they could consider the ultimate question: What do you make of Jesus Christ?
He continues:
These four bulleted “steps” can serve as a guide in applying the model set forth in this book to other cultures or subcultures.
Faithful and meaningful evangelism and apologetics begin with understanding. Like Paul, we must seek to understand those we hope to reach. Toward that end, Newbigin’s question is as good as any: What is the culture’s dominant way of perceiving, thinking, and living? We must also recognize the dominant culture-shaping institutions within any particular culture, as well as its sacred beliefs and plausibility structure. We must apply the insight of four-dimensional ministry to each culture we seek to reach. Importantly, the third (depth) and fourth (time) dimension point to the importance of global concerns and the call to “faithful presence” within the culture-shaping institutions, whatever they may be. This, of course, requires time, compassion, vision, money, cooperation, intellectual and moral virtue, and the grace of God.
By understanding a culture, possible starting points from which to build a bridge to Jesus and the gospel will become apparent… (pp. 217-218)
Yes correct. Several years ago I said this in an article:
Some things change in life. Some things do not change. Knowing which is which is vital. As to the former, people change. Cultures change. Societies change. But as to the latter, God does not change. The Christian gospel does not change. Our fundamental need as human beings does not change.
So how does the Christian know how best to present an unchanging gospel to a changing world? At the risk of oversimplifying things, when it comes to the gospel and our presentation of it, there have been three quite broad options to run with. They are:
-Keep the message and the methods the same – fundamentalist Christians.
-Keep the message but change the methods – evangelical Christians.
-Change the message and the methods – progressive Christians.
Thank you, Bill, for sharing with your readers Lesslie Newbigin and Paul Gould’s important insights into how best to preach the Gospel, especially to a Western audience.
The strategic thinking we need to employ reminds me of the exemplary “sons of Issachar”, who, the Bible tells us, “understood the times and knew what to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).
A good way for a Christian to follow their example is to heed the advice, with which you commenced your article, of the famous Swiss Reformed theologian, Karl Barth (1886–1968).
I’ve tracked Barth’s original quotation for your readers. It appeared in a short article in TIME Magazine on May 31, 1963. It said:
“Barth recalls that 40 years ago he advised young theologians to ‘take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.’
“Newspapers, he says, are so important that ‘I always pray for the sick, the poor, journalists, authorities of the state and the church — in that order. Journalists form public opinion. They hold terribly important positions. Nevertheless, a theologian should never be formed by the world around him…’”
Thank you, Bill, for sharing with your readers Lesslie Newbigin and Paul Gould’s important insights into how best to preach the Gospel, especially to a Western audience.
The strategic thinking we need to employ reminds me of the exemplary “sons of Issachar”, who, the Bible tells us, “understood the times and knew what to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).
A good way for a Christian to follow their example is to heed the advice, with which you commenced your article, of the famous Swiss Reformed theologian, Karl Barth (1886–1968).
I’ve tracked Barth’s original quotation for your readers. It appeared in a short article in TIME Magazine on May 31, 1963. It said:
https://time.com/archive/6831843/barth-in-retirement/
Many thanks for that John.