Christians and churches that rely on borrowed theological convictions are unlikely to withstand the pressures of their environments. An urgent need throughout the world is for local believers and church leaders to take ownership of their convictions, rooting them in the text of Scripture instead of foreign theological resources (though such resources can be helpful).
I explore this topic in an essay recently published in the Great Commission Baptist Journal of Missions. You can access the essay here: https://serials.atla.com/gcbjm/article/view/3399
The volume in which this essay appears focuses on the topic of contextualization. Editor Zane Pratt introduces this volume with a helpful overview:
“Few subjects in missiology arouse more emotion than contextualization. For some, the very word raises fears of compromise and syncretism. For others, concerns over colonialism and cultural imperialism push in the opposite direction. For some time, missionary scholars have utilized a scale distinguishing levels of contextualization from no adaptation at all to insider methods that seek to pursue Christian discipleship within other religious traditions. What is the right way to go?
“As Evangelical Christians committed to the inerrancy, authority, and sufficiency of Scripture, it is essential to realize that our starting point is not our own experience of the gospel or the church, but rather Scripture itself. One drawback to the usual contextualization scale is that it measures the distance from the culture of the missionary, not from the theology and practice of the Bible. Every Christian today practices a contextualized faith in a contextualized church. No one lives in the culture of the New Testament, and no one worships in a church that is just like the churches in the New Testament. North American churches worship in a language that did not even exist in the first century. Our cultural assumptions are different. Our musical styles, seating arrangements, architecture, and technology would all seem foreign to a first century Christian. Contextualization is not an option. Every Christian does it. The question before every believer is whether we will do it well or not. Failure to realize we are doing it increases the possibility that we do it poorly. Syncretism happens just as readily in North America as it does anywhere on the mission field.”
For more on this topic, you can access every essay in this volume here: https://serials.atla.com/gcbjm/issue/view/346.
