I recently wrote an article, Muddy Footprints, where I suggest that Jesus was not so much a contextualizer of the faith, but an internationalizer of the faith. You are welcome, even encouraged to read that article, but I want to explore this a bit further. Contextualization as a term has been around since the 1970s …
Continue reading Jesus Christ as Internationalizer of the Faith (Part 1)
I wrote an article on the localization of theology for the Philippine Journal of Religious Studies (2024 edition). 07 Muddy FootprintsDownload
"Regarding the content of the Christian gospel, the gospel story of Jesus occupies the central place, but students should be instructed to avoid majoring on one phase of Jesus’ earthly life only, as often seen in Western preaching. Often, liberal churches in the West major on the life of Jesus, while conservative churches often major …
Continue reading What is the Content of the Christian Gospel
Okay, the short answer I am giving to this question is "I don't know." But now I will give the longer answer. Good I believe there are evidences that Paul was a good contextualizer of the faith. In this, I am specifically focusing on Paul as a Hellenistic Jew reaching across to Hellenistic Gentiles. One …
Continue reading Was St. Paul a Good Contextualizer of the Faith?
I am taking a course with led by Tom Steffen. Tom shared a quote from John MacArthur. I don't know the exact source, but I assume it is pretty accurate. The apostles went out with an absolute disdain for contextualizaation. The modern drive for cultural contextualization is a curse, because people are wasting their time …
I have SLOWLY been working on my book on Missions Theology. I am putting here a couple of diagrams that are associated with the sections related to Contextual Theology. The first one is the one related to Models of Contextualization. I am using Stephen Bevans six models. I try to relate the six models of …
Much like there have been times in church history where people have embraced the idea of "holy language" (Hebrew, Koine Greek, Latin, Middle English) there have been periods of time and places where a similar sanctification has been placed on culture. The Jerusalem Council struggled with this during the first century. Does a Greek have …
I do like Venn Diagrams--- as well as quadrants and pretty much any other diagram that presents data or sets in a way that gives clarity. Jackson Wu had one I really liked in his article, "Why has the Church Lost "Face"? Examining Our Blindspot About Honor and Shame." It is an interesting article... You …
David Hesselgrave, in his book "Communicating Christ Cross-culturally," has an interesting figure in Chapter 9 called "The Contextualization Continuum." Here is a version of it. I find the figure interesting in some ways, and even useful. However, there are some aspects of it I disagree with. 1. One part of the figure I disagreed with …
The Golden Rule is the term often used for the command of Jesus in Matthew 7:12: "Whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them." This positive form is also balanced by what is sometimes called the Silver Rule that says almost the same thing but from a negative sense. …