Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Integrating the Gospel with Culture Responsibly

By Adrian de Visser
April 2007

I am deeply appreciative of the work that was done by true and genuine missionaries who worked for the good of the Sri Lankan people, above all with a sincere motivation of saving the lost and building God’s kingdom. My appreciation, however, does not stand in the way of highlighting some of the errors they made. This I do, not so much to sit on judgment on them, but to identify barriers resulting from those errors and even at this stage to overcome the barriers so that we could reap a better harvest for God’s kingdom.

When the missionaries, who were raised in the Western cultures, encountered the Sri Lankan culture, they concluded that it was evil and to be avoided. They not only avoided it, they condemned it, and in AD 1711 passed a law that stated, “Christians participating in the ceremonies of heathenism would be liable to a public whipping and imprisonment in irons for one year.”

This brought about a deep alienation of all new Christian converts from their culture and families. The converts, desiring modernization and identification with the colonial rulers, assimilated to the new culture. The Sinhala Buddhist, on the other hand, resented the anglicized lifestyle of the Christians—a resentment born both of class opportunities as well as a difference in culture. The Sinhala literature of the nineteenth century reflects this resentment. The alienation from the local culture took place because of four basic influences:

  1. The missionaries, fearing syncretism, steered Christians away from the local culture.
  2. There was ignorance and a lack of any other model of ministry. When the missionaries concluded that the local culture was evil, they had to preach the gospel in their cultural forms. This influence continues today.
  3. The modern scientific and technological advances of the West impressed the people in the Third World in the early nineteenth century. This prompted them to believe and accept an alien Western culture.
  4. Many key leaders who received theological education in Western seminaries have introduced concepts and practices in sharp contrast with the local cultural norms.

Present-day Battles on Culture and the Gospel
The attempt to use the local culture as a vehicle to communicate the gospel to non-Christians has attracted two opposite reactions from the Christian community.

One group has concluded such an attempt to be a compromise and a betrayal of the trust that has been placed upon the Church. They have further argued that this attempt would lead to syncretism. The 1966 Wheaton Declaration states that syncretism is “the attempt to unite or reconcile biblically revealed Christian truth with diverse or opposing tenets and practices of non-Christian religions or other systems of thought that deny it.”

The second group advocates the use of culture as an imperative for communicating the gospel. They conclude “truth cannot be communicated in a vacuum; it must be couched in a human culture if it is to be understood.” In this context, they say that when we avoid the use of local culture, it automatically results in the use of another cultural form to communicate. They conclude that we have avoided using the local culture because of the fear of syncretism, but have used a foreign culture and cultural forms to communicate truth.

Pages: ALL   1    2    3    4    5    Next   

Rev. Adrian de Visser is the Lausanne International Deputy Director for South Asia. He is also senior pastor and president of Kithu Sevana Ministries, a church planting ministry in Sri Lanka. De Visser serves as vice president for partnership development for Asian Access, a ministry committed to developing leaders across Asia.