What is “Culturally Relevant”?
By Fred | Saturday, July 10, 2010
“Culturally relevant” is what some people might call “seeker sensitive.” I use it in terms of “speaking the language of the culture around us.” There is a blurred boundary between “church” and “world.” We are in the world but not of the world. We speak the language of the world.
This has been supremely modeled by God himself–who came as a human being, not just to the world, but to the Jews. He came as a Jew, walked like a Jew, talked like a Jew, smelled like a Jew, ate Jewish food, and wore Jewish clothes. God was, in every respect, a Jew.
I am a child of God. I am also a Canadian, in every respect, living in my culture (as is almost every person in my church). We are careful not to lose our cultural “Canadian-ness” as far as it does not come into conflict with being a child of God.
The “language of the culture” is not just words (replacing “you” for “thee” and “going all in” for “submission” and even “trust” for “faith” (a word which has been perverted by our culture; a perversion which has been accepted and adopted by the North American church)). The “language of the culture” is also dress, musical style, ways of eating, etc.
The real problem is a problem of translation. The church began in first century Israel–complete with its Jewish culture. It has since been “translated through” Greek culture. medieval European culture, renaissance European culture, and industrial European culture. There is an insistence on some of those “translations” that is inappropriate and, because we have “grown up in it,” we have taken it for granted as it is part of our “church culture.”
Being culturally relevant is the attempt to propagate the Gospel completely and unadulterated by the “other cultural translations” so as to “be the Church” in an understandable way in our culture. Easy to say–extremely difficult to do.
Ironically, I believe that churches like us can be misunderstood by other Christians who are clinging with an iron grip to cultural trappings of, not so much first century Jewish culture (something we have lost and must study to re-understand), but medieval, renaissance, and industrial European culture, along with our North American post-war nationalistic, consumeristic, and individualistic culture which has, in the meantime, also become absorbed into our “church culture.”
People cling to certain styles and songs and language as if they ARE the “only way of being the Church” when they are not–they are an obsolete and distorted expression of the Church.
Category: Stuff
Comments (10)
The question is “what culture”? I am the last person to defend people who cling to what I think are outdated styles and songs, but the point can be made that they are culturally relevant FOR THOSE IN THAT CULTURE. Some of those same people really try to do what God would have them do in the world, so they can’t be accused of only serving thier own ideals.
In the book “Evangelism for normal people” John Bowen suggests that the Gospel is only relevant as long as it is being translated for the culture it’s in. Maybe we ought not to think of the general culture of the world, or country, or even town, but of the culture of the people that we’re trying to reach. Could it be that at Crosslands we have a number of different cultures, including say, new believers, new immigrants, mature Christians, etc. And if so, is it possible that the Gospel needs to be translated differently to each of these “cultures”?
Absolutely. The only one I’m not sure about is “church culture.” Why would we try to “reach church culture”? Why would we try to “reach” mature Christians?
The culture (and subcultures) of our environs (certainly not the whole world) is our target “language”–the ones who may have never heard/understood the message of Jesus in their own language before.
Re Mature Christians:
Reach may be the wrong word, but we need to continue to communicate with all people, not assume that once someone has “arrived” we can stop translating the Gospel for them.
I think we can agree that there are different levels of maturity and we need to move people as far as they can go.
Also, I think we need to include mature Christians in our scope for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that everyone, no matter how mature in the faith, need to be constantly reminded of the Gospel message.
It occurs to me that there could be a difference between church culture and mature Christians, in fact in many cases they may be mutually exclusive. I’d bet there are a lot of people steeped in church culture that need to hear the Gospel in a different way.
“…there could be a difference between church culture and mature Christians, in fact in many cases they may be mutually exclusive.”
I think that’s a pretty good thought.
“I’d bet there are a lot of people steeped in church culture that need to hear the Gospel in a different way.”
Absolutely.
I think we are called to try to live up to (and this is one very challenging job!) the approach of Paul where he was able to both evangelize to his fellow jews by calling on his own shared jewish cultural roots/worldview (sort of how we would evangelize to those who we share a common cultural roots/worldview) and to reach out to others (like the stoics and epicurians at Mars hill) by trying to understand their culture and find a way to present the gospel in a way they can make sense of (sort of how we would evangelize to other cultures we are not familiar with).
Yes, Brian. Although Paul was still very familiar with Greek culture, which had permeated the entire eastern Mediterranean for 300 years (and which Rome continued to perpetuate).
“Hinges of History” author Thomas Cahill writes in “How the Irish Saved Civilization” that St. Patrick was the first truly cross-cultural missionary.
Strictly an observation: I wonder how the orthodox Jewish community might feel about translation of the official Word? When we talk about the relevance of culture, and if we are to state that Christianity was born from the Jewish tradition (something which I think most won’t disagree with), then cultural relevance does not apply.
The meaning of a language can not be properly translated without corruption. This is true of all languages and has historically been the major source of angers between communities of similar religious views. Do you recall the story when man built this phenomenal tower to the Heavens and God broke it all up by mixing up the languages?
This story has serious implications as to what is culturally relevant. From God’s point of view, at least in the context of this single story, culture was defined at this point. Prior to that, everybody spoke the same language and were one in understanding.
If we are to accept this story as true, then cultural relevance has no meaning. God intended cultural differences. The modern church struggles to make a point to differing view points in result of the mass communication break down from the Old Testament and I argue that in result of the various languages now presented in result of the Tower of Babylon that differences of opinion of God’s meaning would have been seriously different from the other cultures now created by God’s hand.
By this reasoning, how can we Christians assume that our testimony is the “unadulterated” position of God after this magnanimous transformation from God’s own hand? Are we to assume that what God presents to us is the absolute correct without consideration that God also speaks with other cultures in their own languages and subsequently those cultures consider God’s thoughts as equally correct as we consider our own correct?
By far stretch, we’ve seen the results of race classifications and the end is not always pleasant. For our Westernized Church to presume to have the “unadulterated by other cultural translations” is a mistake and will prevent other cultures from ever becoming part of Christ in direct consequence.
Adam.
Adam,
The Jews translated their own scripture before anyone else did. The Greek translation of Torah (called the Septuagint) predates Christ.
The first Christians were all Jews, including Paul who said,”To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Corinthians 9:20-23).
To Jews and Christians the message is more important than text or language. This would be in contrast to Islam, in which the Qur’an can only, according to Islamic doctrine, be properly interpreted in Arabic by someone for whom Arabic is a first language. Interestingly, where Islam is strong around the world, Arabic culture is perpetuated.
But you ask, “Are we to assume that what God presents to us is the absolute correct without consideration that God also speaks with other cultures in their own languages and subsequently those cultures consider God’s thoughts as equally correct as we consider our own correct?”
Absolutely not. One of the biggest failures in many missionary movements has been the propagation of “Gospel plus western culture” or a “western version of the Gospel.” This is inappropriate.
Your last sentence, I think, encapsulates the gist of the blog post.
I thank you for your correction about the first translation originating from the Jewish community themselves. To which language(s) did they translate their own word to for my knowledge? I have over the course of my life spoke with many ardent Jewish people and either I missed such statements during Biblical discussions, or the subject was never brought up. I most certainly will need to pick my Jewish friends minds about this subject of first translation.
If I may, to further enhance my understanding and get clarification from you:
You made reference to the Islamic community requiring translation in the official language. First, a Muslim friend of mine actually bought and presented to me as a gift at my asking about the Qur’an. I didn’t ask him to buy it. I just wanted to know where to get a copy. Delightful to receive the gift. My friend indicated that the best translation was definitely Arabic, however, the English translation was almost just as suitable. The only difference, as this Muslim pointed out, was that certain “sensations of knowledge” that are better understood in the original language would be missed in the translation to English. I can actually appreciate that. You can take, in example, our own language, English. When we are cracking jokes or on the completely opposite end of the spectrum, being quite serious in language — often times we use language that infers a particular response to question or statement. These innuendo would not be understood by a new comer to the English language or even one that had immigrated to an English speaking community for several years; such understandings would take many years to realize. The same would apply to a newcomer trying to learn Arabic as a prerequisite to understanding the Qur’an in its complete entirety. The authors of the Qur’an more than likely realized the cultural differences of language meanings would occur. I purport that over the course of that religious movement development, the idea was indoctrinated.
Now this brings me to my second point. In the Original Church, the history is vague. There is nothing that I have read that supports an actual “historical religious movement” until up until the Catholic church instituted the “Word of God”. If I recall my history right, the Catholic church was rather adamant about peoples learning directly from the clergy in their “official” language. What is the difference between a Muslim demanding the official language in contrast to a Catholic? I don’t see any. The only difference was the Eastern side of the world was academically light years ahead of the West and could read, write, do arithmetic, and overall in discovery of excavations from anthropologists show a society well ahead of its own time. This is shown most powerfully in India, (in juxtaposed context for the timeline) where entire cities had quite literally modern conveniences that we would associate with today: Bathrooms (one for each sex), septic systems for waste disposal, highways for route travel and trade, and a host of other magnificent discoveries that quite literally made the West look incredibly stupid for the era.
Finally, in clarification: You write that many missionary movements fail in result of incorporating western culture. Would it really matter whether it was western culture affecting a missionary objective or say that of the Jewish community themselves presenting the gospel? Either way, you end up with people that are going to bring elements of their own culture into the religious teaching. By your own quote, Paul became everything to everybody and I am sure he was quite clear about ensuring he tried to stay strong as a Jew. In modern society, however, the idea of a missionary staying the course of a strict religious teaching is near impossible simply because the world got BIG! Whenever somebody introduces a new concept to another culture, there is always going to be a crossing of cultural influences. Who is to say that the missionaries attempting to convert are not being equally influenced by a culture’s traditions? The west goes to convert yet comes back with influences from all cultures and styles of thinking. In addition, how can the west present the gospel without influences from its own culture if the western culture was never similar to the Original Church? In order to present the Gospel as the first century church did, one needs to understand precisely how the first century church operated. Nobody knows how to do this. It’s the history that was lost, not only from the Christian beliefs, but from, I dare say, EVERY SINGLE religious movement. And yes, I don’t have proof. But, when I look at the context of religious history, two main super powers come to the forefront. Islam and the Catholic regimes. While neither of these have a proofed timeline, nobody can disagree that these movements strongly affected the outcomes of what we call the “modern world”.
Now…
With the newest and I would dare say strongest (with a measure of proof), is the Evangelical powers that are present in today’s world are the wildest uprising seen since Catholic rule. This movement has not gone unnoticed by any of the Old Churches, both East and West and subsequently has influenced old traditions of old religions. Fast tracking to the modern world, we see old religions (the Catholics and the Islam) adopting the very same evangelical tools that were designed by the modern church. From which brilliant mind came this new system of delivery, I have no clue. What I can state, with reasonable certainty, is that it works! It works so well in as much that old religions have adopted evangelical techniques to encourage new adherents.
I hope you don’t mind me picking your brain and asking your viewpoint.
Adam.
The Septuagint was the Hebrew Scripture translated into Greek for those Greek-speaking Jews in the Diaspora.
As for the Qur’an, I think you’ll find that Islam is very serious about it in Arabic over any translation. In Christianity, the highest revelation of God is Jesus Christ. In Islam, it is the Qur’an. It IS the revelation of God–in Arabic. In English, the Qur’an is a translation of the revelation of God; it is not the revelation of God.
When it comes to the “historical movement” of the early Church, it was well underway long before the New Testament was canonized by the Church. The New Testament documents had been around for a long time–they had just not yet been collected and “closed.”
The Roman Catholic Church was adamant about only clergy reading and teaching scripture, but that wasn’t until much later. The “official Bible” of the RCC was the Vulgate–the Bible in Latin. The Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome in the late fourth century because more and more were unable to understand the original languages (Hebrew and Aramaic for the Old Testament, “koiné Greek” (common Greek) for the New Testament. St. Jerome translated the entire Bible into Latin because it was the “common” or “vulgar” language (hence the name–the Vulgate). The intention was certainly to make scripture accessible.
The motivation for Bible translators has almost always been to pursue accuracy and understandability (one notable example being the King James Version, which was motivated by the desire for a royally-endorsed translation to unify Protestants and Catholics in England). Today, that motivation continues as scholars endeavor to understand biblical culture to provide greater context and understanding for the Bible.
It is certainly not impossible to do this. And so we absolutely CAN understand the first century culture and have a better understanding of how to apply biblical teaching to today’s culture. In fact, the application is just as important as the attempt for objective interpretation.
And so when missionaries take the Gospel to other cultures (far and local), the goal is to be as objective about the pure message as possible and apply it to other cultures without damaging the strengths of those cultures.