Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – The Challenge of Missions in the Twenty-first Century
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Contact between ethnic groups, whether resulting from immigration, warfare and displacement, or tourism, is unprecedented. |
How can we communicate the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ in the midst of a changing world? This is one of the great missiological questions of our day. Gone are the days when the isolated West sent missionaries to unknown lands and people. Apart from isolated ethnic peoples in yet unreached regions, the world has taken on more of a global character.
Contact between ethnic groups, whether resulting from immigration, warfare and displacement, or tourism, is unprecedented. Times have changed. We have more opportunities and more resources; we are the benefactors of more past experience and research than any previous generation. The changing face of world missions presents unique challenges. One of these is preparing missionaries for effective cross-cultural witness and church planting. There are a number of areas in which our thinking must change in order to meet the challenges inherent in cross-cultural ministry. We must move:
1. From Western Cultural Superiority to Biblical Cultural Relativism
We are cultural beings. It is difficult and undesirable, if not impossible, to separate our form of Christianity from our culture. Yet Christianity is a universal religion not bound by one cultural expression of it. It is unavoidable that Western churches have a certain flavor that reflects elements of culture.
However, one should not expect that this flavor be reproduced in churches planted among other peoples. Their cultures, in need of transformation, are adequate, socio-cultural environments in which the gospel can take root. No cultural way of life or its Christian expression should be absolutized. It is in this sense that we might hold to cultural relativism, spoken of by Charles Kraft,1 without agreeing with all of Kraft’s applications. We recognize the baggage implied with such terminology due to the popular and non-technical usage of this concept which equates cultural relativism with ethical relativism. Yet we should be more concerned with the practical implications of the concept rather than the fear of misunderstanding.
On one hand, we must not impose our culture on those we seek to reach for Christ. This will result in disloyal cultural conversions that prevent the new church from taking root in its culture.
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Dr. Stephen M. Davis is associate pastor and director of missions at Calvary Baptist Church in Pennsylvania (USA) and adjunct professor of missiology at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. He has been a church planter in the US, France, and Romania, and currently coordinates and teaches in seminary extensions in Russia, Ukraine, Peru, Romania, and South Africa. Davis is also involved in developing training opportunities for house church leaders in China and in training Arab Christians in Beirut, Lebanon, for ministry in the Muslim world. |