Contextualization

T

HE STUDYOFSCRIPTURECANNEVER BECOMPLETEUNTILONE HAS MOVED FROM TEXTTO context. The static study of the original meaning of a text dare never be an end in itself but must at all times have as its goal the dynamic application of the text to one’s current needs and the sharing of that text with others via expository teaching and preaching. Scripture should not merely be learned. It must be believed and then proclaimed. This dynamic aspect of the Word is the task of contextualization and,hom- iletical analysis.

As we move from the world of the text to its significance, we must wed those two aspects. We cannot finally separate exegesis from application, meaning from significance, because they are two aspects of the same hermeneutical act. To derive the “meaning” of a text is already to arrive at its significance, because the horizon of your preunderstanding has united with the horizon of the text, and exposition has become the beginning of significance, The preacher’s task is to ensure that the Word speaks as clearly today as it did in ancient times. This does not occur easily and is often shallowly done. Even those who exercise great exegetical care in elucidating the original meaning of the text often fail on this point. For the most part this is because homileticians have failed to provide a strong hermeneutical foundation for application. When I began teaching a course on interpretation about ten years ago I looked in vain for a preaching text that discussed application from a hermeneutical standpoint. Several gave excellent presentations of practical methodology but none went deeper to the underlying theory behind it. The theory has now been provided by missiologists, and it is important to note that what they call “contextualization” is identical with what homileticians call “application.”

Contextualization is “that dynamic process which interprets the significance of a re- ligion or cultural norm for a group with a different (or developed) cultural heritage.” At the heart it entails crosscultural communication, and while the theory is fairly recent, the process characterizes not only Christianity but every religion that has appeared on earth as each relates its theories to the “marketplace.”

We must define the term “dynamic process” carefully, for as Hesselgrave and Rommen

Homiletics I: Conlextualization 3 1 9

demonstrate, the priority of the text diminishes progressively as one moves away from a high view of scriptural authority.’ The supracultural nature of biblical truth is replaced by the primacy of current cultural context. The result is what they call “syncretistic contextualization,” in which the religious interests and cultural needs of the receptor audience provide content as well as focus, Liberation theologians, for instance, argue that the climate of economic oppression and deprivation controls the contextualization proc- ess, so “sin” is redefined as social injustice and “salvation” becomes the liberation of the poor. However, this is the antithesis of the approach taken here. God’s revealed Word is the final arbiter of all truth and contextualization of necessity must recognize the inviolability of its truths. A plenary verbal, inerrantist approach to contextualization accepts the supracultural nature of all biblical truth and thereby the unchanging nature of these scriptural principles.

At the same time, an evangelical contextualization is aware of the transformational character of the current receptor context. While the content of biblical revelation is unchanging, theform in which it is presented is ever changing (see further below). These two aspects-form and content-provide the indispensable core of contextualization.

The debate in hermeneutical circles relates to the relationship between form and content;

in other words, how dynamic is the process? How free are we to translate a biblical concept into its corresponding idiom in the receptor culture and how do we do so? The fact that we must do so is inescapable. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this is to note how often the biblical writers themselves had to contextualize previously revealed truths for their new situations.

Biblical Examples

The key issue is “relevance”; religious principles constantly must be adapted to meet new cultural challenges. This in fact is exactly the problem that led to the development of the

“oral tradition” in Judaism during the intertestamental period. The Torah, developed for Israel during its wilderness and conquest periods, did not readily apply to the cosmopol- itan culture of the Greco-Roman period. Therefore, the Jews developed an “oral Torah”

to contextualize the laws for the new situation. Recent studies, like Martin Hengel’s Judaism and Hellenism, have demonstrated how extensively Hellenistic ideas had per- meated even into Palestine itself. This is seen, for instance, in the extent to which towns and even Jewish people bore Greek names in Palestine (see Mussies 1976: 1040-64).

Yet this does not mean that the Jewish people Hellenized their religion. Within this contextualization there was still the unifying force of Torah and a strong nationalism.

David Flusser argues that the Jews were quite tolerant of pagans in their midst and only reacted against religious encroachments among the Jewish people themselves (1976: 1065 1100). Therefore, while much influence was seen on a cultural and linguistic level, the Jews “in Palestine and elsewhere were not attracted by paganism and remained faithful to their God and their distinctive way of life.”

This is especially true of the diasporate communities, where we would have expected a great deal of “contextualization.” Yet again the assimilation lay more in the externals, in form rather than in content. On the whole, the influence was quite similar to that which

320 The Hermeneutical Spiral

occurred in Palestine. The economic influence was very well defined; Applebaum shows the extensive military and trade involvements of diasporate Jews in Hellenistic society (1976:701-27). They often belonged to Greek societies, took part in the gymnasium ed- ucation and in general contained families of both wealth and distinction. However, the extent of this is vigorously debated, and few doubt that diasporate Judaism as a whole stressed its separateness. Safrai states:

The Judaism of the Hellenistic Diaspora was closely linked to Hellenistic culture. Not only was Greek the language . . . but even a Greek literature was produced, especially in Egypt. It was a literature which was closely identified with the rich culture of the Greeks, and with the mentality which dominated there. Various documents . . . show how closely the Jews were attached to institutions of Hellenistic law and to concepts tributary to this sphere. But the Jews of Egypt and the Hellenistic world . . . generally remained loyal to the Torah both in public and in private life. . . . It is clear from the sources that all the circles which departed from the spirit and practice of Jewish observance remained isolated. . . . There was no general tendency to assimilation with the environment and to the adoption of the cultural heritage of the Greeks. . . . Though the Jews of the Diaspora were part and parcel of Hellenistic culture and society, they regarded themselves essentially as Hebrews living abroad. (1976: 184-85) Philo, for instance, is best known as one who “contextualized” Judaism for the Greek way of life. However, he was an orthodox Jew who sought assiduously to keep the Torah.

He was not trying to alter Jewish concepts but considered himself a student of Scripture who sought to show that Judaism was palatable with Hellenistic philosophy.

The early church followed the Jewish pattern. By studying Acts and the Epistles, we can determine the extent of contextualizing in the early church. There is no question that acculturation occurred; the movement of the church from a Jewish sect to a universal religion for “all nations” demands that. Norman R. Ericson provides several New Tes- tament examples (1978:74-79): (1) The council at Jerusalem (Acts 15) ruled that Jewish cultic requirements, especially circumcision, could not be required of Gentiles; however, it asked Gentiles to respect Jewish customs. In short, cultural barriers were breached. (2)

1 Corinthians 8:1-lo:22 shows that Paul accepted the basic cultural contingencies of Gentiles (especially 9:19-23) but asked that such freedom be waived for the sake of new believers. (3) 1 Corinthians 51-8 shows that Paul uses cultural regulations from society when they are conducive to Christian ethics. (4) Colossians 3: 18-4: 1 and the other social code passages illustrate situations when the church followed accepted social structures.

Within this we note the tension reflected that the slave was at one and the same time to be “brother” of his master (Philem 16) and content with his situation (1 Cor 7:27). In other words, Paul refused to demand social change on the external scale but did demand an internal change on the relational level.

There is more than one aspect to this issue. First, we see relational changes in terms of interpersonal communication. This involves language, as demonstrated in the use of the Septuagint in Old Testament quotes, or in Latinisms, Aramaisms and so forth in the New Testament. It also involves cultural accommodation, as in the Jerusalem decree and letter above, and in the strong vs. weak in 1 Corinthians 8-10. Second, we note evan-

Homiletics I: Contextualization 321

gelistic contextualization, the cultural attempt to be “all things to all people” so as to

“save some” (1 Cor 9:23). This is especially demonstrated in the preaching of Acts, with the very different approach to Jews (Acts 2:14-36; 3:12-26 and so forth) and to Gentiles (Acts 14:15-17; 17:22-31). In the Areopagus speech (Acts 17) Paul’s utilization of Greek philosophers is an especially important example of contextualization, demonstrating what missiologists call “redemptive analogies.‘? Third, we would note polemical contex- tualization, in which the language of the church’s opponents is used against them, as in Romans 3:5-9; 6:1-2, 15-16; 2 Corinthians 10-13; or Colossians 1:15-20.

This final category is especially crucial in showing the limits of contextualization.

While the church borrowed the forms of their receptor cultures (1 Cor 9: 19-23) it refused to compromise the content of its message.3 This can best be illustrated in the two major heresies of the New Testament period (the Judaizers and Gnostics), both of which cen- tered on a misguided contextualization. The Jewish Christians demanded that Gentiles accept Jewish culture and religious practices in order to be Christians. In Galatians and Romans especially, Paul told them that this would compromise the gospel; therefore, the church must refuse to do so. The incipient Gnostic movements at Colossae, Ephesus and so forth led to several epistles, notably Colossians, the Pastorals, 1 John and the letters to the seven churches (Rev 2-3). In each epistle the church was uncompromising against those groups which had allowed contextualization to produce another gospel. In other words, the early church looked upon contextualization as an evangelistic tool; to that extent, it influenced the form of the gospel presentation, but the content did not depart from the divinely revealed model.

Current Issues

Several important principles come out of this data. Most important, contextualization must occur at the level of form rather than of content. This corresponds to the discussion of surface and deep structures elsewhere (pp. 80-87). We must distinguish between the forms the gospel presentation took in the first century and the theological core that provided the core of the gospel message and its ethical ramifications. Biblical truths are absolute and must remain inviolate in any crosscultural communication. The recent missiological debate centers upon “dynamic equivalence” contextualization, which at- tempts to make the gospel and Christian theology meaningful and relevant in the diverse cultures of our modern world. Many approaches to contextualization have centered upon the contemporary context rather than the ancient text as the generating force. Charles R. Taber denies the possibility of an “absolutist” theology and argues that “failure to recognize the cultural relativity of theology”leads to confusing theology with God, a form of idolatry (1978:4-8). The “orthodoxy of verbal formulation” centering upon “abstract propositions to be believed” is the approach of the Western world and is no more valid than the Eastern symbolic framework (p. 7).

Charles Kraft takes a similar approach in his highly discussed Christianity in Culture

(1979), where he calls the Bible a “divinely inspired casebook” rather than a theological textbook. As such it centers upon the subjective pole of communication (divine-human interactions) more than upon the objective pole of propositional dogma (see chap. ten).

322 The Hermeneuticrl Spiral Homiletics I: Contextualization 323 Upon this theoretical foundation Kraft erects his superstructure (chaps. thirteen to sev-

enteen). His major point is that the “translation” must be hearer-oriented rather than based upon “formal correspondence” or a literalistic model, which is grounded in an outmoded theory of language. Contemporary translations must achieve the same impact upon the receptor culture as was felt by the original readers.

Furthermore, Kraft argues that the form of the text must be changed in direct pro- portion to the distance between the source and the receptor cultures. The reason is that the supracultural truths of God were revealed in the culture-bound language of the human authors of the Bible. Therefore it must be contextualized.4 Thus, while the trans- lation is based upon reproducing the writer’s intended meaning, we must “transculturate”

that message for the receptor culture. This is done by reproducing the process of the original message and not merely the finished product. The interpreter must bridge the vast differences in perception among the cultures. In order to do so Kraft uses Kenneth Pike’s famous distinction between “etic” and “emit” perspectives; that is, theology is communicated not from “outside” (etic) the culture by theoretical and comparative anal- ysis, but from “within” (emit) the culture. An emit approach demands a new theological formulation and communicates (rather than merely produces) a relevant theology that avoids culture-bound perceptions. This may involve replacing the author’s intent with God’s higher intent, certainly within the range of interpretations yet expressed without Western theologizing.

In applying this theory Kraft finds three types of passages in Scripture (1979:139-43):

(I) culture-specific commands, which are completely tied to the ancient culture and must be altered to fit the current situation (such as the head-covering on women, 1 Cor 11:2- 17); (2) general principles, which apply ethical truths (such as “Thou shalt not covet,”

Ex 20: 17) that transfer directly from culture to culture; and (3) human universals, which automatically transcend their own cultural context and are mandated in every age (such as love of God and neighbor, Mk 12:29-31). The latter two types of commands do not need to be contextualized, while the former does.

Certainly we applaud much of what Kraft is doing. His concern for the author’s intention on the meaning level is laudatory and very close to our conclusions. However, the application of dynamic equivalence to the task of communicating theology needs to be considerably sharpened. There is too little left of the text when Kraft finishes, too little that is supracultural. The Bible as he sees it is too culture bound, with too little theo- logical truth that carries over.5 The separation of God’s intention from the author’s results in a canon within a canon and calls the interpreter to seek a “deeper structure” in some ways similar to that of structuralists (see pp. 371-74).

Again we come to the crux: Which is to be authoritative, the Bible or the receptor culture? All our evidence thus far is conclusive: we dare not neglect the supracultural content of the sacred Word. I certainly agree with the dynamic-equivalence school that we must go behind Western theologizing to the text itself. However, while I do not treat the creeds as inerrant, neither do I deny them. The text of Scripture must challenge the credal statements and if necessary alter them (such as removing descensus ad inferno [“descended into hades”] from the Apostles’ Creed if one agrees with recent interpretation

regarding 1 Pet 3:19-20) but meaning must never be negated in the name of contextu- alization. We do not rework the content, only the presentation of gospel truth. As we have seen, this is the model provided in the early church. In other words, we need much greater precision at the level of significance/ application.

Kraft and other dynamic-equivalence contextualizers need a deeper appreciation of the dangers of relativism. James Barr argues that the Bible is a relativistic book that was written to a radically different culture with a message that cannot possibly be author- itative for the modern person because it is couched in terms that no longer relate to current problems and perspectives (1973:42-43). Barr typifies the relativism that is so pervasive among contemporary thinkers; there are no absolute truths, and modern read- ers must identify appropriate truths and transform the religious experience of the biblical writers for themselves. While Kraft himself would not accept Barr’s radical relativism,6 he does not provide a good methodology for separating form from content. The result is a relativizing of theology and a tendency to contextualize and alter even the supracul- tural elements of Scripture.

Relativism and syncretism are firmly in control of nonevangelical contextualization.

Schoonhoven has studied nine major African journals and notes that African theologians blend Ricoeur and Wittgenstein (see appendix one) in calling for a purely African theol- ogy without Western hermeneutics (1980:9-18). Setiloane provides an example of this

“purely African theology,” which in his view should center upon African rather than Western religious images (1979:1-14). The individual is presented as a “participant in divinity” (a contextualization building upon animism), and the Christ-myth is expressed via the African Bongaku, or “witch doctor,” who is possessed by divinity. Setiloane believes that the African concept of divinity is deeper than its Western counterpart, and goes so far as to say the “Christian orthodox trinitarian formula of divinity should be

‘dismantled.’ ”

However, this is hardly justified. Ricoeur and especially Wittgenstein would never play so fast and loose with the content of Scripture. Only the most radical hermeneutic would treat the basic theological truths as pure symbol. Without controls that center upon the meaning of the text, one will contextualize to a religious expression that is no longer Christian. This is certainly the case with Setiloane. When cultural norms have ascendancy over the text itself, there is no longer theology but only a human-centered anthropology.

Of course, this does not mean that Western churches have the right to force their

“forms” on Third World churches. African Christians should create an indigenous theol- ogy that re-expresses the normative biblical content in dogmatic symbols that commu- nicate biblical truths to their own culture. Hiebert argues for a “transcultural theology”

and religious system that is in essence a biblical theology in contextualized form (1985a:5- 10; 1985b: 12-18). While many in the dynamic-equivalence school locate meaning primar- ily in the reader/receiver, Hiebert proposes a “critical realism” that situates meaning in the text/sender and seeks to develop a contextualized model that fits the revealed truths.

The key to critical realism is an openness to competing theories, a continual re-exam- ination of conclusions by going back to the data. In other words, relativism is unnec- essary, and the intended meaning of the text (meaning) must always be the norm that _