I have been reading “The Global Gospel: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World” by Werner Mischke (Mission One, 2015).

I have found it to be a valuable book. It seems to have two primary inter-related thrusts. The first is to recognize that the Gospel very much is tied to Honor/Shame cultures in terms of fears, felt needs, and ultimate answers. The second is that we need to contextualize the gospel message (husk and kernel) to the culture we are working in.

I don’t find either of these points very controversial, having read Wu and Georges and others on these topics. So at first, I got a bit bothered that Mischke kept dragging out his points— looking at them with more and more verses from the Bible and more and more angles (“dynamics”) on the same general topic. But as I went on I realized that he was fleshing out a missiology built on a broader understanding of Honor and Shame.

Let’s be honest here. The church has spent literally millennia trying to fit the Bible and its message into a guilt/innocence mold. Consider the intellectual maneuverings that have been done over the centuries to address the issue of “original sin” or the atonement, it is high time for a different perspective. Both of these concerns, in my mind, melt away substantially if one sees them as dealing primarily with shame and honor, rather than sin and forgiveness. However, honor/shame is never mentioned (or at least not in the schooling I got) as related to the atonement, and neither did it come up in discussing Paul’s challenging contrast of Jesus and Adam.

It seems to me as if Mischke wants to make sure that we don’t look at honor and shame as simply being a modern innovation, or a missiological “band-aid” to fix problems we have with presenting the gospel to some cultures. Rather, honor and shame are central to Scripture and so must be part of a healthy understanding of God’s work in the world.

I recall teaching a doctoral level course on Contemporary Issues in Missions. One of the topics was Honor/Shame. At the end of that topic, one of the students agreed that honor/shame should be a topic addressed missiologically, but then stated confidence that it was a relatively small topic as compared to guilt and innocence in the Bible. My response was just inviting him to look in the Bible with one eye on one side and the one on the other and see what he finds.

Anyway, I am not so sure that Mischke is calling for a systematic theology built on honor/shame (though I would personally welcome such an attempt). It is clear however, that he sees that the Bible takes the topic seriously in reaching people in Biblical times… and much of the traits of people back then are alive and well in cultures all over the world.

Structurally, I appreciate the book. I like visual aids, bullet points, and question/answer structure. They help me, at least, in structuring the subject in my mind. Perhaps a few more stories would help lock it in. However, his focus on the Bible is important— especially in reaching Evangelicals. Evangelicals are known for “The Bible says it… I believe it… And that settles it.” He is hoping to convince Evangelicals that the Bible says it.

For me, at least, that settles it.