“The term contextualization can be a sweeping justification of all forms of cultural accommodation, without consideration for the Biblical witness. “Contextualization”, as a term, is one-handed – it encompasses the act of cultural accommodation, but it doesn’t also encompass the need for cultural confrontation.”

A few months ago, I wrote a series of posts on why it’s so important to contextualize the gospel.

The feedback was good, and interesting. But a question that kept coming up, again and again, was: “When is contextualization too much? Can’t we OVERcontextualize the gospel?” I had to admit, the answer was, “Yes.” We can over-contextualize the gospel. In ministering to Hindus, we can make Jesus one among the gods. In ministering to materialistic westerners, we can make Jesus a product. In ministering to Postmoderns, we can make Jesus an experience.

In response to this, some advocate “balance” in contextualization. But “balance”, for one, is an illusion in any sphere of life. We don’t “balance” Jesus’ humanity with His divinity, we embrace both whole-heartedly. We don’t “balance” our joy with Jesus’ glory. We don’t “balance” free will with God’s election. We embrace them all 100%, because the need to balance usually points to a dilemma, either false or true.

So if using the word “contextualization” means our sole guidance to gospel ministers is, “Be balanced”, then maybe we’re just not using the right word.

Tim Tennant’s Case Against Contextualization.

In his book, “Invitation to World Missions”, missiologist Tim Tennant takes up this issue by pointing out three major flaws of using the word “contextualization” when we talk about missions.

First, he says, contextualization is often used to justify fragmented theological discourse. In other words, “contextualization” has come to mean, in many circles, that every culture group has a right to completely rewrite theology from scratch:

Today, some have used contextualization to promote the idea that just as Latinos have liberation theology, Koreans should have a ming jung theology, women a feminist theology, blacks a black theology, Indians a dalit theology, and so forth. However, every authentic theology must not only celebrate the insights of its own particularity but also reflect the catholicity shared by all Christians everywhere. As Andrew Walls has said, “The Lord of hosts is not a territorial Baal.” If Jesus is truly Lord, then He is Lord of us all; we are all members of the same body.

Contextualization not only CAN be taken too far, it is REGULARLY being taken too far.

Secondly, the term “contextualization” is too easily confused with cultural particularity. In other words, the concept of “contextualizing” the gospel isn’t necessarily meant to be synonymous with being “like” one culture or another:

If, for example, some particular strategy places too much emphasis on cultural particularity at the expense of some universal core element of the gospel, then it is appropriate to call it syncretistic, but not “overly contextualized.” If a missionary is unduly tied to his or her own cultural embodiment of Christianity and unwilling to enter into the framework of the target culture, it would be appropriate to identify him or her as ethnocentric, but not as “undercontextualized”.

The fact that we use the terms “over” and “under” contextualized means that we’ve already lost the intended meaning of the term, which should always refer to a positive goal.

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