In The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-and How it Died (HarperOne, 2008), Philip Jenkins recounts the growth, influence and glory of churches beyond Rome and the empire. It is a fascinating story that most of us (self included) are only mildly aware of. It is also a story of the rise and fall of the church in places like Ottoman Turkey, North Africa, and Syria. I found the following quote particularly instructive for modern missionary practice.
The key difference making for survival is rather how deep a church planted its roots in a particular community, and how far the religion became part of the air that ordinary people breathed. The Egyptian church succeeded wonderfully in this regard, while the Africans failed to make much impact beyond the towns. While the Egyptians put the Christian faith in the language of the ordinary people, from city dwellers through peasants, the Africans concentrated only on certain categories, certain races. Egyptian Christianity became native; its African counterpart was colonial. This difference became crucial when a faith that was formed in one set of social and political arrangements had to adapt to a new world. When society changed, when cities crumbled, when persecution came, the faith would continue in one region but not another. (p. 35)
Faith must go deep, go native. It must become part of the air. And yet, for faith to go native, it must be native. It must arise from the context, root itself and grow within the local soil. This punctuates the absolute necessity of local believers and local church acting as the primary agents in the contextualization process. While the outsider (missionary) has a role (which is another discussion), it is the insider who takes the faith deep, puts it into the vernacular, and translates it into daily actions, routines, and forms. Ultimately, the faith survives not because it is coddled and protected, but because of its inherent power to transform communities.
I just read something along similar lines in Readings in Missionary Anthropology II in an article titled The Moral Implications of Social Structure. Although dealing more with the missionaries role in social structure change I like how William Smalley words the insiders contextualization and results of such.
“He (The missionary) must encourage and stimulate the Christians to seek that cultural expression which will best reflect within the meanings of their cultural habits these new values which they are gradually coming to understand…. But the restructuring comes from within. It is in a sense the by-product. Responsible allegiance to God within human cultural framework will show up in culture change, sometimes enormous change.” p128
We as missionaries often want to do more than “encourage” the contextualization. We have to limit ourselves, as we cannot truly understand the other culture. When we limit ourselves and have faith in the Holy Spirit and Gods people, we free God to do a miraculous work within the unique people he has created. If we pay attention we will learn about the greatness of God and increase our limited view of what it means to be his servant.
Jeremy, well stated! Yes, we must be proactive and intentional and not just passive encouragers. It becomes our work … and it is hard work.
(to the tune of “deep and wide”) Deep and native! Deep and native! There’s a fountain flowing deep and native!
ha!
I just returned from “encouraging” contextualization. Yes, it is extremely hard work. But what a joy to see the “Holy Spirit and Gods people” making it happen.