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This is the second post on Frost and Hirsch's chapter, "The Contextualized Church." Following missiologist Paul Hiebert’s critical contextualization model, they contend:

[A clear commitment to biblical authority] is crucial, for if the people do not clearly grasp the biblical message as originally intended, they will have a distorted view of the gospel. This is where the pastor or missionary . . . has the most to offer in an understanding of biblical truth in making it known in other cultures. While the people must be involved in the study of Scripture so that they grow in their abilities to discern truth, the leader must have the meta-cultural grids that enable him or her to move between cultures. (89; italics added displaying my incredulity)

In other words, they are advocating that “critical contextualization” means that the missionary/church-planter/evangelist first tells the people the “correct” interpretation of the Bible and then lets them talk about it from their cultural context. How is this any different from the horrid colonialist missionary practices of the 18th and 19th Centuries?

Frost and Hirsch continue, “After emphasizing the importance of the expertise of the evangelist/missionary in the second step, [Hiebert] now turns the process back to the people. This is an important feature of his model; it is congregationally based. It is not reliant on ‘experts’” (89). Bull shit! Tell me how the “critical” part of contextualization is congregationally based or not reliant on experts. What would happen if the missionary/church-planter/evangelist encouraged the community to engage the Bible from their own cultural context and only secondarily entered into the conversation, not as an expert, but as a partner in the dialogue? In my mind, that is what is so critical about contextualization. Even stronger, if we do not invert Hiebert’s model we do not have contextualization at all! Instead, what we will have is some kind of a colonial democracy akin to Who’s Line is it Anyway?—“where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.”

Allow me to illustrate. Earlier this month my wife, Abby, flew to Baltimore to celebrate my nephew’s fourth birthday. While she was there my nephew, Skyler, insisted that Abby play make-believe with him. She obediently followed him to his room and they situated themselves on his bedroom floor before an army of micromachines, Batman action figures and robots. Skyler’s imagination engaged almost immediately. He developed an elaborate scenario that constituted reality in this made-up world and pressed Abby to join in the fun. However, when she would subject her own imagination into the mix, Skyler grew agitated. “No, Batman doesn’t do that. He goes over to the town!” After several corrections by our autocratic nephew, Abby soon realized that he was less and less concerned with her contributions to the game. In frustration he finally said, “You take this toy and go play in the corner.” Apparently he had decided that it was better to play alone than have to alter his imagination in order to accommodate Abby’s contributions.

When missionaries/church-planters/evangelists insist on holding the reigns of biblical interpretation we are behaving just like four-year-old Skyler. To try and pass off this scenario as “critical contextualization” is absurd. This model is an attempt of Frost and Hirsch to “minimize the risk and limit the possibility of syncretism or a betrayal of the gospel” (89; italics added). Notice that these fears are built upon cognitive foundtionalist assumptions. For Frost and Hirsch, it seems to me, orthodoxy trumps orthopraxy.

Contrast this with Gibbs and Bolger, who contend:

Those with an interest in ministering cross-culturally, be it in club culture or with other faiths, need to learn the art of critical contextualization. Otherwise, their witness will be compromised, and they will simply mirror the mood and mantras of contemporary culture rather than the light of the gospel. The light of the gospel will affirm elements of culture, fulfill aspirations that cannot be realized by any other means, as well as pass judgments on aspects that are narcissistic, addictive, and destructive. In the process, Christian witnesses will find themselves challenged. They will see ways in which they have skewed and narrowed their understanding as a result of their own cultural blinders. Those who witness in cross-cultural situations will find themselves changed in the process. (133)

Critical Contextualization (part two)

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