Ross Woods, 2022 ed.
During the transitions, several key principles emerged.
First, each culture needs to be given its own response. There are no formulae or sets of steps or standard ready-to-use solutions that fit every case. In each culture, one must start from the beginning because, to some extent, the results will be unique in some way. While results might be mostly the same between similar cultures, one cannot make that assumption from the beginning.
From a methodological viewpoint, this does not mean that one starts with no assumptions, which is impossible. It means that learning a culture involves uncovering and examining one’s own assumptions and tentatively comparing results with similar cultures. Inherent in this is the potentially infinitely many significant issues that might arise, not all equally important, but one cannot identify which issues will eventually prove to be most important in a given culture.
Second, both target culture people and the intercultural communicator need to go back to Scripture with new questions and find new answers. Even when answers are fully known, the inadequate answer to a contextualization problem is for the missionaries to simply identify the problem as "lack of teaching", devise a teaching program, and impose it on national Christians. This is more often a problem when a worker brings the baggage of a mono-cultural theology, which might take the form of a fixed hermeneutic or exegesis or a prescribed set of teachings. Simple biblical answers may be too simplistic to be helpful.
The process of searching and demonstrating is important, because people need to go through the process of discovering and defining basic issues in their own context. People need the chance to digest knowledge and make it their own. The process of contextualization should not cease just because the intercultural worker’s views do not concur with those of the target population. With this "digesting" process, it is normal for the final answers to be different in unforeseeable ways from those anticipated by the missionary.
A lot of work goes into rethinking the gospel and the nature of the Christian walk, thinking through what it is, reconceptualizing it, and developing different conceptualisations for different cultures. In many cases, this involves different versions of the steps that people work through in accepting the gospel.
Hermeneutics might need to be redeveloped, especially in cultures with different cognitive or linguistic styles. The fault could be on the side of the intercultural communicator and this might only come to light when he/she returns to Scripture. That is, one continually draws new meaning from Scripture as new perspectives call for new exegesis and further exploration and re-expression of essential assumptions and teachings.
Third, the intercultural communicator must take some responsibility for the clarity and acceptability of his message. In the case of an intercultural misunderstanding, the intercultural worker must take it upon himself to improve his understanding. As communication is not just passing on information but also of convincing, the feelings and prejudices of the listener must come into consideration. The message must be easy to accept and expressed in such a way that it appears attractive, logical, or favourable to the listener. Nevertheless, one cannot assume that everyone who understands the message will accept it if something unattractive is embedded in the message itself. (In theology this is known as "the offence of the cross". Cf. 1 Cor. 2.)
The various models of contextualization have been of great benefit. While some have obvious limitations and some have clear weaknesses, all have contributed to a better understanding. An eclectic approach is certainly possible, and the view below is to some extent an expression of some of their findings. The postmodern tendency is to see each as a tool in a toolkit, rather than a series of theories in which each supersedes those previous. Like a toolkit, no one tool can do everything, and each is useful for a particular purpose.
An intercultural worker’s adjustment to deep culture of the target population helps him give more appropriate attention to deep culture issues.
A lot of contextualization is about changing attitudes, not just about cognitive knowledge. It normally takes a huge personal change in an intercultural worker to cease seeing the target people an inferior, foreign, ignorant barbarians, and want to be their trusted friend, an insider in their group who thinks that their ways of doing things is sensible and good.
Good cultural adaptation not only produces a new intercultural identity (a deep culture issue), but also necessarily inculcates new thinking styles so that one naturally starts to contextualise. This is incarnational ministry.
At this stage, the communicator and listener become equally active in the contextualization process, for the communicator becomes to some extent part of the target culture. If an answer is to be satisfying, credible, and easy to understand, it must fit the cognitive style of the target culture. This does not necessarily mean that one must adopt everything in the target culture’s worldview, but that challenges to it must be understandable and acceptable within it.
Besides, solutions to immediate problems seldom add up to a theology that is a healthy whole. Perspective is very influential in the process—the main problem is that fish cannot see water. It is difficult for one to see and analyse one’s own culture from both etic and emic viewpoints simultaneously.
I am not sure that intercultural workers are usually conscious of these dynamics, even when they are very proficient in them, because long-term cultural adjustment engenders a subconscious and subtle shift of mindset and lifestyle, not a simple replacement of one set of explicit teachings with another.
The many facets of deep culture are now more of an issue. One of them is cognitive style, which may roughly be described as cultural styles of logic and epistemology. Another is worldview, which may variously include conceptions of the universe as religious or pseudo-religious, breadth of life-experience, conceptions of society and personhood, value systems, and sets of subconscious assumptions about the nature of reality.
These are not only more complex and harder to identify than surface culture issues, but also tend to have more direct religious implications.
I suggest that contextualization may be termed phenomenological, if by that term, one refers to the way that people interpret messages through their epistemology, worldview, and presuppositions (cultural grids). The resultant theology can be healthy, creative, and instructive; it stimulates one to say repeatedly, "I never thought of it that way before."
In general, this assumes that the listener is very active and the communicator is quite passive by comparison. But it can also mean that the intercultural worker must adapt to deep culture structures if he wishes to communicate proactively and resonate with them.
It is what nationals think that is important, so the contextualization process is a lot more about listening that many proclamation-driven ideas have appreciated. By relying more on what nationals think, intercultural workers can avoid innocently using inappropriate terms that can create severe misunderstandings and schisms in the church and the community.
It is worth noting here that nationals don't always agree and have a range of opinions. What some see as syncretistic, others see as valid contextualization. What some see as overly foreign or incomprehensible, others see as appropriate. Sometimes they make denominational policies on certain issues.
Up to about the 1970s, contextualization discussion amongst evangelicals assumed that there is simply one gospel message and communication is the issue. Evangelicals often presented the Gospel in the classic synthetic fashion, which, despite its many variations used the schema of a problem and its solution:
At that time, the many pictures in Scripture (adoption, regeneration, propitiation, expiation, redemption, etc.) were seen only as explanatory facets of the one Gospel.
But things move on. Perhaps Peace Child was the trigger, but the contextualization discussion started to assume that there are many valid conceptions of the Gospel. The pictures in Scripture (adoption, regeneration, propitiation, expiation, redemption, etc.) are now more likely to be seen as many valid explanations of the Gospel in their own right, not just as explanatory facets of one Gospel.
It does not mean that there is more than one Gospel. Evangelicals would still clearly hold to theological point that there was only one Gospel. However, there are many valid ways of conceptualising it. (In epistemology and semantics, this is the differences between symbol, referent and conceptualisation.)
Resistance to the idea of multiple valid conceptualisations of the Gospel seems to have several roots. For some, loyalty to one Gospel was an item of faith, mainly as the supremacy of one theological formulation, fear of syncretism, or assertion of the exclusivity of Christianity in the face of universalism. Another factor is the inability to differentiate between the (one) Gospel and (many) conceptualisations of the Gospel. Those who did not accept that different cultures could validly see the same Gospel differently were sidelined in the subsequent discussion.
There is also the notion that:
In this construct, I would accept 1. Point 2 does not follow because the Gospel is intercultural i.e. must travel from one culture to another. Premise 3 and 4 are similarly wrong. As always, not everybody moved with the flow.
There are still people and organizations out there who think everything in some particular non-western cultures is pagan and they contain nothing good that can be retained and used. Often the justification is the pervasive nature on non-western and pagan beliefs. But not too far away are bad personal experiences with syncretism and the idea that "if you don't do it like we do in the West then you aren't really a Christian yet".
The question then becomes not just how to communicate it, but what is it in a way that they will be able to understand it? So the message is also an issue.
We won't get a culturally neutral Christianity. We would get a valid form (or forms) for each culture in each era. No matter how pure it is (and that's a matter of perception), it would still be easy to see cultural specificity in it.
Another major factor is "Who is in control of the message?" I would suggest that in the history of missionary church-planting, that the message moves out of the missionary's control. Briefly stated, the process has four stages:
Stage 1. In the beginning, the missionary controls the message. He/she teaches it and says what is or is not a correct understanding. It might be foreign and misunderstood but it is whatever the missionary says it is. The missionary generally tends to work on the assumption that the message must be simple and clear, and assumes that if local people misunderstand it, then he/she must further simplify his message.
At that time, the indigenous hearers interpret the message, and make sense of it on their own terms, which might be highly complex. They might have considerable difficulty communicating with the missionary. Their first impressions and misunderstandings tend to affect the later church.
Stage 2. The indigenous people normally express the message according to their own understanding. It might be very syncretistic or confused, but it might also be most helpful and creative, generating explanations that communicate better than those of the missionary.
Stage 3 The indigenous people then take control of the message. They proclaim it and determine what is and is not an adequate understanding. Their conception, no matter how unpopular with expatriates, often eventually holds sway in the churches. Missionaries might speak out on contextualization issues, but they can really only give description and analysis. Intercultural workers are no longer in control.
Stage 4. The national church develops an indigenous subculture that hides the message within itself. Because they have been through the process of indigenising the message and developing their own theological heritage and identity, they feel more of a right to speak. Yet their cultural identity can be so strong that their message is incomprehensible outside their church subculture among people of their own ethnic group.
Phenomenological contextualization is a useful research approach. The researcher identifies a kind of apparent misunderstanding, interviews informants to understand their views, induces the underlying dynamics of perception and interpretation, and determines ways to differentiate between syncretism and healthy indigenous contextualization in that culture.
Indigenous Christians can often carry out such research at least as well as intercultural workers and produce results of direct value to the local Christian community. However, the approach does not so easily generate generalizations about a "cognitive theology" although such a theology clearly exists.
Epistemology is still a theoretical concern. Contemporary missiology is generally more amenable to relational, holistic epistemology with non-linear thinking styles, but less happy with some aspects of animistic and mystical perceptual systems. Some epistemologies are very hostile to the gospel, but we are called to share the gospel, not give lectures in epistemology.
We need to keep syncretism on the table for discussion, because it isn't always a bad thing, depending what you mean by syncretism. Westerners who have accused non-western peoples of syncretism, can be themselves highly syncretistic with materialism. (And none of us would really say that those western Christians are not "real Christians").
It is very interesting that Christianity can have more in common with animism, and sometimes mysticism, that it does with western materialistic rationalism. For example, Jesus taught about evil sprits and cast them out. The idea that spiritual forces play significant roles in daily life is common to both Christianity and animism, so people from animistic backgrounds correctly see Christianity differently from western Christians who are more give to preconceptions of secular materialism. John Wimber conceived of the Gospel as a power encounter. It can also be said to be a loyalty encounter. In any case, the Gospel has been reconceptualized in animistic terms.