I have recently been thinking about a serious problem in the
reformed movement and conservative evangelicalism more broadly. It is actually not a new problem but an old one. The novelty factor,
it seems to me, is that it is affecting some reformed ministries quite
spectacularly. It is not just an American problem. We in Britain can be just as
guilty. The problem is this: we have become negligent of our duty to be cross-culturally aware. We think
we can do cross-cultural ministry without a single hour of training in
intercultural communication. We send our pastors off to Ouagadougou to do
pastor training without giving them any lessons in contextualization. We fund
the translation of our finest books into Telugu without first seeking to
understand how the Telugu mind works. And we set up seminaries in Burma without the
slightest crumb of knowledge of how Karen or Kachin tribes people best learn. Shame on us.
How did we get this
way? Here are six possible reasons:
1. We
think it is enough to emphasize human universals: we are all made in God’s
image; we are all sinners; Jesus is the only hope for all people. Those are all
true. But it is not enough. The commission of the Lord Jesus was to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). Put that way, he meant that
discreet nations rather than the general mass of humanity, have significance.
It does an injustice to the Lord to neglect that by only emphasizing the
universals and ignoring the particulars.
2. We
have not mined the riches of our theological heritage. So we have an
undeveloped theology of human creativity. The biblical doctrine of creation
tells us that humans were given a mandate to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen
1:27-28), creating culture from the stuff of creation. That includes language
and customs, art, music, architecture. So the rich diversity of the manifold
peoples of the earth is something God designed. Reformed people should know
this. It has been a significant element in a robust Reformed theology since
Calvin. We should recognize that diversity. But we don’t. Or won’t. I am not sure which.
3. We
assume that, because truth is one there is only one biblically permissible worldview.
This is false because worldview is, in fact, formed out of an interplay between
one’s heart commitments and the environment in which one works out one’s
salvation (Phil 2:12). So the world’s peoples look at the world differently from
each other. They perceive time differently. They perceive space differently.
They are more or less field-dependent, more or less collective, communicate in
more or less indirect ways. Which means that the straightforward declaration of
the truth is not as straightforward as we may like to imagine.
4. We
assume that to teach the Bible all you need is to study the Bible. This is
false because the communication of a message involves both a source and a
receptor. In order for communication to be effective there has to be attention
to the receptor as well as the message and the source. So we mustn’t take a
sermon that we preached in Birmingham and preach it the same way in Bangalore.
But you say there is only one Bible. Indeed, but when you take that Bible and
you create a message you enculturate that message in your culture. That means
it is no longer just the Bible. It is the Bible in your cultural idiom.
5. Personal
confidence is confused for godly conviction. It is good to have strong
doctrinal convictions. The problem is, though, we often confuse a strong
doctrinal commitment for godly conviction rather that what it really is,
ungodly self-confidence. We are naïve about ourselves. Whereas those we
disagree with must be foolish and self-deceived we are not. We are
triumphalistic, not humble. We assume we must be right on all our finer points
of doctrine because we are right about the basics. Or because so and so
celebrity pastor says it is. Where is the godly self doubt that should lead us
to question ourselves? We have fallen into the Corinthian pit of self-deception
(1 Cor 3:18).
6. We
forget we are in a spiritual battle and that the enemy of our souls has a
vested interest in the failure of our ministry. That failure can be accomplished
in many ways. One way is by fooling us that we don’t need to pay attention to
local matters, that what is good for Manchester is also good for Maputo. Another
way is by lulling us into a false sense of our own effectiveness leading us to
think we can do this with professional ease. So we don’t pray like we should.
So how should be fix this problem? We need to remind
ourselves that we might not be right about everything after all. We need to get
down on our knees and examine our hearts and repent of the pride that leads us
to such hubris. We need to get a biblical view of the particular, take the
trouble to give heed to it, and be more modest about the expectations we have
of anything we do cross-culturally, especially if we don’t make the in-depth,
long-term investment in language and cultural acquisition that is every bit as
serious as our biblical and theological learning. I fear the reformed
triumphalism of recent years is every bit as ugly as the charismatic
triumphalism of a generation ago. May God have mercy on us.
