A Lengthy Introduction

When I first sketched out the outline of topics for this series I assumed that this session would deal with issues like the need for integrated as well as holistic ministries for which the "Base Church" movement has given us a pattern; freedom for "critical contextualization" under the impulse of the Holy Spirit; the importance of verbal explanation in our service ministries if we intend to give a witness to Jesus as the way; the essential nature and focus of "service," i.e., that we are serving Christ, the Lord even as we serve our fellow humans and therefore we must obey his orders; and, of course, an analysis of the impact of modernization on the nature and message of our ministries. The great missionary movement, of which our service programs are a vital part, is the historical counterpart of western modernization, and the gospel we preached from our position of power has contained more promise of "upward mobility" through technology and democracy than we may hav e intended.

Then it occurred to me that we have a significant paradigm shift on our hands which needs attention. This involves new anthropological views of culture, new insights into the communication process, new understandings of the biblical message and its relation to its first century (pre-modern) Near Eastern culture. And I was reminded of the wry observation of one of the baseball greats when a fight broke out over a referee's call: "What we have here is a failure to communicate!" I think that our uneasiness, our self-searching and experimentation in service programming has grown out of our uncertainty about how to respond to this paradigm change. For this reason I decided to try to present a theological perspective on the paradigm shift itself.

What are some of the elements of this paradigm shift that have affected our mission ministries? Not all of these elements are of post-70s vintage, but they are cumulative and help to produce the present disquiet.

First, we have learned that all cultures are dynamic and constantly changing. Even so-called "traditional" cultures change and adapt to new situations. Earlier this century anthropologists described cultures as static and even suggested that it was inappropriate for missionaries to try to change them. The missionary assumption was that western culture is the normative outgrowth of biblical revelation, and traditional non-western cultures should be brought into line with the culture of Christendom. This was graphically illustrated in the motion picture film, "The Mission." While this assumption was at its height in the middle ages, it has died a very slow death. I think of a recent missionary scholar in Japan who insisted that Christianity's initial movement westward instead of east was a special leading of the Spirit in order to preserve the purity of the biblical message. (We still have some culture lag on this one.)

Now, I think we understand that cultural change is inevitable even though it may not always be desirable. The forces of modernization are irrevocable. Our task is to work creatively with respect and sensitivity to bring about those changes that promote authentic human community under God. Our model as Christians is biblical shalom modeled after Jesus' pattern of "the kingdom of God."

We have, however, also become much more sophisticated about the nature and effects of change. We have learned that "primitive" does not necessarily mean retarded or undeveloped. Neither does modernization necessarily result in authentic human development. The modern emphasis on individualism can lead to narcissism and anarchy. If we are going to work for cultural change, we will also need to work to change individual values and motivations.

Second, we have learned that all cultures, including Christian culture, are relative to the biblical ideal of the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are many conflicting cultural expressions within Christianity itself. Christianity is not a revealed religious cultural expression with an infallible pope at its head. While we rejected the infallibility of the pope long ago, this idea that Christian culture is the revealed norm for all cultures dies hard.

The other side of this coin is that there are cultures outside the biblical tradition which are viable and have validity. The varied cultural religious expressions in our world exist on a relative scale. There may be human and religious values in cultures outside the historical biblical tradition that excel those of our own western expressions. E. g., we appreciate the Inuit spiritual sensitivity to nature; the Coptic respect for dignity and form in worship; the Islamic reverence for divine covenant law; the Buddhist regard for the wholeness of the cosmic order of which the individual is simply a part; the traditional African respect for family continuity through the generations.

Third, the biblical culture and message cannot be equated with either western orthodox or liberal Christian expressions of it. The theoretical recognition of this is as old as the Reformation which drew a sharp line between church tradition and the Bible. However, we have been slow to recognize the ramifications of this "Protestant principle." The constant tendency has been to equate our Protestant orthodoxies with "the Bible says!"

This presumption is very old and very stubborn. It is built into the very definition of "orthodoxy" in the ecumenical creeds of the third and fourth centuries. Orthodoxy is defined as what has been believed in the church always and everywhere. That implies that the philosophical language of the creeds, which in fact represents three centuries of development and a radically different cultural setting, is an exact replication of the biblical message. Thus begins the substitution of the authority of church tradition for the original biblical message.

Especially in cultures where the pace of change is relatively slow, it is difficult to understand that historical change results in distinct cultural mutations which in turn affect the essential meaning of language and life. In cases of more rapid change such as has taken place in Japanese culture over the past fifty years, it is more easily perceived. The change there has been so drastic that it is difficult for contemporary Japanese readers to understand the pre-World War II meaning of words which are still in common use.

Or, to take another example, Thomas Jefferson's America was quite different from the culture of Virginia and Washington D.C. today, although politicians continue to appeal to his literal words to justify current political action. And conservative pundits continue to appeal to 19th century America to justify late 20th century social and political policy. In similar fashion religious conservatives have often identified the biblical message with their current orthodoxies and tried to enforce a uniform and universal application.

The religious art of the middle ages up to the 17th century gives us a good visualization of the way in which the Bible stories were read in the contemporary context. For example, soldiers are wearing the armor of the particular time and nation contemporary to the artist. Buildings, landscapes, facial features, style of clothing, etc. of the artist's time and place provide the visual image of the story and give its meaning a distinct coloration. While there is limited validity in this kind of "contextualization," the resultant contextualized picture cannot be substituted for the original biblical picture. Until very recently we simply did not recognize the importance of this for contextualizing the gospel across cultures.

Fourth, we are beginning to realize how crucial is the tie between relationship, communication, and truth. (In Asia relationship is more important than ideational truth.) The communication of truth is impossible apart from mutually respectful and deferential relationship. The New Testament's insistence that we should consider others more significant than ourselves is not merely a matter of pious self-depreciation. It is a necessary stance for effective communication of the truth about Jesus. For example, how can our Muslim brothers and sisters understand the profound truth of God's vulnerability in the incarnation if we relate to them as invulnerable, superior persons and insist that their cultural patterns must yield to ours? Paul calls the "gospel" of God's gracious relation to us "the word of truth" (Col. 1:5). A proper relationship to God and to each other is "the truth as it is in Jesus" (Eph. 4:21). Authentic human relationship creates the possibility of communication, and truth is the sha pe of authentic communication.

Mapping the Paradigm Shift

Some thirty years ago Eugene Nida called for a distinct paradigm shift in the cross-cultural communication of the gospel. He called it a shift from the "two language" model to the "three language" model for communication (Message and Mission, 1960). The implications of this shift have finally caught up with us, and we are only now seriously wrestling with them. We can diagram the models as follows:

Traditional linguistic model

• a. assumes identity of modern evangelical message and biblical message, therefore

• b. transmission is "monological."

• a. assumes biblical, modern and receiving cultures are different linguistic expressions,

• b. implies need for interaction and cooperation in communicating the message -- "dialogical."

Our contemporary witness (or translation) of the biblical message cannot be equated with the biblical witness itself. It is at best a cultural translation interposed between the original and the new culture to which it is being presented. Thus there is at least a three-way dissimilarity between the participants. Nor can we assume that our own secular western culture is nearer to the Bible than are the cultures to which it is being introduced. When we recognize that some of the cultures receiving the gospel may in fact be nearer to the biblical culture than that of the missionary, it becomes apparent that the spirit of dialogue is fundamental to authentic witness. Indeed, missionaries from the West may receive much new understanding. This is what Fred Smith has called "the mutuality of evangelism" (45).

First, notice the Graeco-European step inserted between biblical and modern cultures. Actually this represents more than one simple paradigm shift in the history of the last 2000 years.

Second, note the solid line between the modern and pre-modern receiving cultures, and the dotted line between the pre-modern and biblical cultures. The solid line denotes the control and management mode of modernity. Both development and evangelism models have assumed this mode. Both are "monological." Lines of definition and authority flow one way. The dotted line represents the missionary attempts at Bible translation into the various languages.

And third, we might note the characteristics of western modernity which have provided the medium for our cross cultural activities:

1. "Application of technology to virtually every dimension of life -- from birth control to embalmment, from robotics production to generic engineering" (Driedger and Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking, 1994, 40).

2. "Rationalistic" -- scientific. Emphasizes management, control and choice -- the parameters in "development."

3. "Individualization". Breaks down the sanctions of collective values and goals. Stresses private individual rights and freedoms (democracy), and capitalistic economics (entrepreneurship).

4. "Differentiation" -- the specialization of occupations and social functions which erodes the cohesive community structures; and diversity of ideas and values caused by new technologies of communication.

5. Secularization -- a loss of the sense of transcendence (the desacralization of culture) which undercuts the deep religious presuppositions and values which are the foundation of culture.

Analysts of the past half-century have noted that we are going through a new paradigm change in the West, and they have tagged the new era postmodern. Whatever the merits of this terminology, we do notice a distinct change in cultural temperament which is reflected in the theological rationale for mission. Perhaps the concept that most clearly denotes this change is "contextualization." The change might be diagramed as follows.

First, we may notice that the "postmodern" prototype has not completely emerged. We are very much in the midst of the revolutionary changes! The postmodern attitude is less rationalistic and less optimistic about western hegemony. It is still highly individualistic, specialized and secularized.

Second, the dotted line between postmodern and premodern cultures indicates a less managerial and control oriented approach, and a more pluralistic and tolerant stance. This indicates a much more appreciative attitude toward the premodern cultures, and an attempt to involve them in their own change process. Emphasis has shifted to "sharing," "witness," "presence," "dialogue," and "contextualization."

Third, there has been a deliberate effort to strengthen the relationship between the biblical culture and the premodern cultures ("third-fourth-fifth worlds") which have received the western missions. This is represented by the solid line. Not only has there been an emphasis on Bible translation, but a change in the way the translation is made. The western translator engages the native linguist in a much more intimate dialogical process as they together attempt a "critical contextualization" of the biblical message.

Response to the New "Postmodern" Situation:

A theological perspective will not give us immediate answers to questions of strategy, but it can help us to set priorities. With that in mind I want to offer a few suggestions for a response in our new cultural and political climate.

We are not working in a vacuum, and a variety of options present themselves. A brief comparison of the following perspectives may help us to formulate our own stance.

1. "Pluralistic" -- Celebrate diversity and relativity in a dialogical search for solutions to the present inequities.

2. "Evangelical" -- Concentrate on personal motivation and enablement, offering a "gospel"/transformational alternative in a respectful dialogical relationship.

3. "Educational" -- Share knowledge; stress literacy and informative relationships between the modern and premodern societies.

4. "Appropriate technology" -- Share scientific method and material benefits of modern technology, e.g., medicine, irrigation, etc.

5. "Social development" -- Emphasize individual worth/rights within community as we try to broker the relation between modern and traditional values.

6. "Entrepreneural" -- Introduce "free-trade," i.e., capitalistic economic strategies to ameliorate poverty.

Relativistic pluralism (number 1 above) is a typically modern western option -- a carryover of post-Enlightenment thinking. It is the religious parallel to the secular political state, and ultimately can only take us toward secularism. However, we do need to think through a new stance toward culture religions that confront us. While I am referring mainly to religions other than Christianity, we must also reposition ourselves vis-a-vis Catholicism, and the various Orthodoxies in the Middle East.

While the "Evangelical" option (number 2 above) may still seem too heavily weighted toward verbal proclamation and too leery of any cooperation or dialog with competing religions, a christocentric approach requires a distinctly evangelical stance. Perhaps we could call our position "Evangelical inclusivism," and focus on those aspects of culture that reflect the light that has shown universally since creation (John 1:4-5) as points of dialogical witness. Within this paradigm we should continue to emphasize an integrated-holistic approach to our task as catalytic change-agents.[2]

Concerning option number six, my observations of what is happening as a result of the "privatization" in countries like Vietnam, China, Russia, and Albania lead me to suggest that we should go slow in giving priority to the entrepreneural option. The optimism with which some of our theologically conservative business people are encouraging private enterprise in former socialistic and pre-modern settings is quite unwarranted. Teaching poor people how to accumulate wealth by adopting the rationale and motivation of private profit will only make richer sinners out of poor sinners! If we promote this option, we will need to do so within the carefully considered implications of a gospel ethic.

In all of this we must distinguish quite clearly between gospel and modernization. For the first time in two hundred years modernization is not necessarily linked with western Christian values. The disassociation of the two began already in the nineteenth century with the Japanese and is now pretty well established in the countries of the "Asian rim." For the first time in two hundred plus years the gospel message comes in "weakness" without the implicit promise of upward social and economic mobility through the altruism of a rich and powerful church or the techniques of modernization and entrepreneurial know-how!

What does this "weakness" imply for mission strategy? The words we have used in the Anabaptist tradition to describe this stance of weakness are "servanthood" and "nonviolence." However, as John Driver points out, "we should not confuse this servanthood with service. Service tends to mean that which is done in the interests of a noble and just cause for which one is struggling. In reality, this may represent a theocratic orientation [domination] even though the means may be nonviolent. Servanthood is symbolized in the church by the basin and the towel and really amounts to a form of being more than a strategy for doing. Servanthood is the form that the community's concern for persons takes." ("The Anabaptist Vision and Social Justice," in Freedom and Discipleship, edited by Daniel Schipani, Orbis, 1989, p. 109)

Of course this does not rule out the possibility of all material self-improvement for individuals and groups. Nor does it mean that we must revert to a spiritual gospel which does not address the socio-economic aspects of life. However, it does not promote the superiority of modern civilization, promising the blessings of a consumer society. Servanthood offers a holistic alternative that does not appeal to the economic and military power structures for their sanctions. This is "foolishness" and "weakness" from the perspectives of power.

The gospel offers liberation from poverty of spirit, from the greed and fear that impoverish our relationships with other. It offers new motivation and enablement, and calls us to "share each others' burdens." It calls on the privileged to share their advantage -- a call that has significant implications for those who go as "servants." It promises a rich life rather than riches in life.

It is important that our service programs be of such a character and spirit that they do not perpetuate the gospel of Christ as the gospel of upward mobility. On the one hand, we must be careful in our service projects not to practice a kind of favoritism toward those who convert to Christianity. On the other, we must make it clear that the source and enabler of agapeic service is Jesus, the Christ. It is not enough to simply establish a modern humanitarian program of development "in the name of Christ." It is simplistic, to say the least, to think that our altruistic presence assuming the capitalistic system and settling for a neutral, or pluralistic religious stance will achieve the transformation we hope for.

Finally, in light of the impact of secularism we need to quite self-consciously identify our approach as religious and Christian. Secularism destroys the religious base of pre-modern cultures in order to save them! The secular development models assume that modernization will be the salvation of traditional societies. We must reject such an assumption. We are not interested in eroding the religious base of pre-modern societies, but we are interested in offering an effective transforming alternative that can provide a spiritual rationale for authentic human development in a modern world. Thus we need to take the traditional religions seriously, engaging them in respectful dialogue and cooperating with them where possible, and such a serious engagement will require a clear Christian self-identity and discernment within the Christian group.

The gospel of the kingdom of God offers a religious alternative to both secularism and the status quo of traditional religions which can furnish discriminatory guidance in the selection of modern options.

[2]. Some of the more progressive evangelical theologians, like Clark Pinnock, are moving in this direction. And it is interesting to note that the Hayama Missionary Conference in Japan, one of the more conservative groups, made this the subject for its 1993 session.