NAM UNIUS LINGUAE, UNIUSQUE MORIS REGNUM IMBECILLE ET FRAGILUM

If your Latin is not so hot then read on to the end of this post. All will be revealed!

I have recently been thinking over the themes of contextualization and syncretism. In part this was prompted by an article by Travis Johnston (and some extremely revealing comments by others in response) over on the missionalcog blog. Travis approached the subject very much from a modern practical standpoint, but it got me thinking about the subject from a theological and historical perspective.

My wife and I have just taken time out for a five day cruise out of Mobile,AL to Cozumel, Mexico. Apart from the usual stuff you do on one of those cruises (overeating, getting sunburnt, listening to a great jazz band, snorkeling with sea turtles, marveling at how many overweight Americans can fit on one sundeck etc) it gave me an all too rare opportunity to just read and think during two full days at sea. My deckchair reading material was Lamin Sanneh’s wonderful Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (I know, it does seem a strange choice for relaxing reading on a cruise – but then I am a strange person.)

Dr Sanneh, professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School, argues that historically there have been three different approaches to Christianity based on how we view and relate to the world:

1. Quarantine. This is where believers feel threatened by the world and withdraw into their own self-contained community. This kind of Christianity has certain strengths. Faith is very fervent and intense, and everyone is united and agreed on points of doctrine. However, evangelistic growth is pretty limited, with the occasional convert being rescued from the big bad world outside and incorporated into the Christian community. As the community becomes more marginalized it depends for survival on biological growth, or on transfer growth from defections from other quarantined communities. A biblical/church history example of this kind of group would be the Judaizers who wanted Paul’s Gentile converts to fully identify themselves with Jewish Christianity by being circumcised. They were believers who were neither in the world nor of the world.

2. Syncretism. This is where believers break out of quarantine and embrace the world in order to reach the world. This means that the form of Christianity, and eventually its core beliefs and values, become changed by the values and belief system of the surrounding culture. This brand of Christianity may grow quite rapidly at first, but ultimately it becomes ineffective as its adherents realize that the church has become no different from the surrounding culture. A biblical/church history example of this kind of group would be those in the Corinthian Church who had embraced the world’s standards of morality and behavior with a consequent lack of clarity in essential doctrinal issues such as the Resurrection. They were believers who were both in the world and of the world.

3. Missional. (Dr Sanneh calls this “Reform/Prophetic Witness”). This is where believers restate their beliefs in ways that are relevant to the surrounding culture, but all the while holding firmly to the irreducible core of the Christian message. Sanneh maintains that this group will always be in the minority, largely because positions of unthinking extremism are always more popular than walking a balanced fine line between the extremes. Those who walk the path of Missional Christianity will inevitable make mistakes at times, exposing them to attack from the extremes. The advocates of Quarantine will attack them as heretics and compromisers (interesting how a word that means ‘co-promise’ has become an insult, isn’t it?) while the Syncretists will attack them for being intolerant. However, it is only through the Missional minority that the church truly advances into new cultures and new generations with genuine conversion growth. A biblical/church history example of this kind of group would be Paul and his apostolic team, both alongside Barnabas and Silas. They were believers who were in the world, but not of the world.

(At this point I was going to include a lot of stuff about how, in Church History, different groups have gone through phases of these different approaches to Christianity. It includes why Russians and Armenians have different alphabets, why we celebrate Christmas in December, why Serbs and Croats hate each other, why ethnic churches often decline in their second generation and why mainstream Pentecostals get riled up at Prosperity Preachers. However, that would make this post inordinately long so it might have to wait for a future book I’m working on. Also, I’m aware that not everybody shares my love of Church History, so I don’t want to bore anyone to death! If anyone actually is interested then let me know and I’ll blog a bit more about it.)

One discernable pattern from Church History is that organizations often start off Missional, then solidify into Quarantine mode (many Calvinist movements), or else stray into Syncretism (Quakerism or much of American Methodism). Others begin Missional, then lapse into Syncretism but then solidify into Quarantine (Roman Catholicism).

Most Evangelicals and Pentecostals will, quite rightly, be appalled at the excesses of Syncretistic Christianity. We shudder when we hear of mainstream denominations denying the Deity of Christ or ordaining practicing homosexuals to the ministry. However, we should recognize that Christians have actually been at their worst, not when they were being too open-minded, but rather when they were in defensive Quarantine Mode. Think of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or those Christians who fought to maintain slavery, segregation or apartheid. Think of Jim Jones, Fred Phelps, or of those Victorian missionaries who forced converts to wear Western suits and hats to church in sweltering tropical heat. These are all examples of a defensively minded Church that sees any deviation from its own culture as an insult to God that must not be tolerated.

Where Quarantine Christianity becomes particularly dangerous is when it has the political or numerical clout to try to enforce its cultural standards upon everyone else. Thankfully the likes of David Koresh or Fred Phelps are so limited in their influence and following as to only destroy a small number of lives. However, when Quarantine Christianity runs an entire country (think of apartheid era South Africa) or indeed a continent (medieval Catholicism) then the inevitable consequence is almost unlimited misery. Dr Sanneh speaks of “the possible cultural emasculation of the religion into a captive faith, professed by cultural zealots and refused only at the peril of being declared a traitor.”

What worries me is that much of modern Evangelicalism has chosen to follow the path of Quarantine rather than that of Missional Christianity. The world is seen as irredeemably evil and doomed. Evangelism consists of fishing the occasional convert out of the world and reprogramming them into our sub-culture. Some Evangelicals are so quarantined that they insist on using music and a Bible translation that belongs to a culture that ceased to exist several generations ago.

Let’s take one of the hot topics for Christians today – homosexuality and gay marriage. The Syncretistic Christian sees no problem at all. The world says homosexuality is OK so they embrace that standard within the Church. Therefore we see some mainline denominations happily conducting gay marriages and ordaining homosexual clergy. The Quarantine Christian, quite correctly, sees homosexual practices as being contrary to the Word of God. They also, quite rightly, see such practices as totally incompatible with a genuine Christian faith. However, they go beyond this to actively campaign against gay marriage and, in some cases, to advocate the criminalizing of homosexual behavior altogether. What they want to do is to enforce their standards and morality, which are informed by the Bible and by Christianity, upon people who are not Christians and who do not recognize the authority of the Bible. There is a theological term for that desire to enforce our religious beliefs upon others – it is called ‘Shariah’ or ‘Jihad’ (we’ll come back to that shortly). The Missional Christian, like the Quarantine Christian, will acknowledge the unbiblical, and indeed sinful, nature of homosexual behavior. They should also affirm the incompatibility of such behavior with genuine Christian faith – otherwise they are straying into Syncretism. However, the key concern of the Missional Christian will be to learn how to reach out to homosexuals in a culturally relevant way with the saving message of Christ, then to allow the Holy Spirit to set the homosexual free from their behavior, as well as from other damaging sins such as lying, gossip, or self-righteousness. This is the way of Jesus rather than the way of the Pharisees – the way of the Cross rather than the way of Jihad or Sharia.

Now, I have no doubt that I have just lost some readers who were with me right up until that last paragraph. Some may even (through malice or by an intellectual inability to read simple English) falsely accuse me of condoning homosexual behavior. That is part of the risk we run in being Missional. I am also aware that my use of the term ‘Jihad’ will prove offensive to some. Any such offence was not intentional, but it is probably unavoidable. The ultimate example of Quarantine religion is Islam, because it deliberately rejects the concept on which contextualization is built – that of translatability.

The genius of the Christian faith is that it can be translated into any language or culture. An American Church should not look like an Irish Church, and an Irish Church should look totally different again. Missional Christians since Saul of Tarsus have recognized the need to translate the Bible and Christianity into the language and culture of those whom we are trying to reach. This is why the Gospels were written in Greek instead of the Aramaic that Jesus and His disciples originally spoke. The Four Gospels were ‘translated’ into Greek long before anyone thought of translating them out of the Greek! The early Church was a Missional Church.

However, when Mohammed was formulating a new faith in Arabia the dominant strain of Christianity was most decidedly Quarantine. A formerly Syncretistic Church (Roman Catholicism which had eagerly embraced Constantine’s pagan beliefs almost wholesale) had solidified into Quarantine through a hierarchical leadership structure and now possessed the political power to enforce its culture further afield. I find it fascinating that Carthage and North Africa, despite being an important center of early Christianity (think Tertullian and Augustine), apparently never possessed a Bible in their native language of Punic. Translatability was now unwelcome and Latin was forced upon the Christians of North Africa. Small wonder that the spread of Islam easily toppled a weak and ineffectual Church in North Africa instead of meeting the resistance it encountered in Europe.

Mohammed simply copied what he saw in the Christianity of his day, but he did it even more ruthlessly and efficiently. He developed a Syncretistic faith, including many elements of Arabian moon worship, and turned it into a Quarantine religion with no translatability or contextualization. Islam is certainly a missionary faith, if you include forced conversion by the sword as a missionary endeavor, but by no stretch of the imagination can it be called Missional. The Koran is only deemed to be the Word of God in its original Arabic, losing its inspiration if it is translated. This is why millions of Muslims who neither speak nor understand Arabic spend a large proportion of their time diligently learning to recite the Koran in Arabic. The spread of Islam, by very definition, involves the spread of Arabic culture that is deemed to be inherently superior to any other culture.

‘Jihad’ is the waging of warfare against a culture that we feel to be alien or even a threat to our own more godly culture. ‘Sharia’ is the enforcing of our religious morality upon others, even upon those who do not share our religious beliefs. Both ‘Jihad’ and ‘Shariah’, therefore, are appropriate terms for Quarantine Christianity that feels constantly threatened by the world and, as a defensive measure, tries to force unbelievers to live like believers. Both Jihad and Shariah stand in direct opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to Missional Christianity.

Now, one last example of how Missional Christianity differs from Quarantine Christianity. Migration from one country to another, with its accompanying cross-cultural mix, has always been part of the human experience. Our Latin title for this post is attributed to St Stephen, the great Apostle to Hungary. It translates as, ‘for weak and fragile is a kingdom with one language and custom’. To this Dr Sanneh adds the devastatingly perceptive comment, “Enlightened minds at that time perceived cultural pluralism as the antidote to political inertia and social parochialism, whereas in our day it is viewed with suspicion by leaders of thought and society for being a threat to truth.”

Historically immigration was viewed as an enormous blessing and benefit to any society. Passports and visas, often viewed today as a means of limiting the number of people who enter a country, were originally devised as a means of stopping people from leaving. They limited the number of people who would take their skills and innovation to bless and improve another society. History demonstrates that immigrants are more likely to introduce economic and technological innovation than are native-born citizens, and on average they will bring economic and cultural benefits to their new homeland.

Immigrants are also more open to receive the Gospel than almost anyone else on earth. They have already taken one huge leap of faith by relocating to a new land, so the step of faith required to become a Christian seems less daunting than to other people. They also need to integrate into a community and support network in their new location, and that is something that churches can provide better than almost anyone else.

Today migration has increased to levels unprecedented in human history. The reasons for this, while fascinating, are too numerous to go into here (more material for my book). Immigration makes some people incredibly defensive. “Why should we let more people come into our country?” or “There just aren’t enough resources to go around! We need to curb immigration so we can concentrate on helping our own people.”

Now, I believe a little objective thinking should demonstrate the moral emptiness of such defensive statements. Let’s face it – the reason why many of us enjoy the benefits of living in a wealthy country is because our ancestors were better than the next guy when it came to killing off or ripping off the land’s original inhabitants! Furthermore, I see no reason why my tax dollars or euro should be spent on a lazy workshy parasite who happened to be born in my country instead of spent on a hard working entrepreneur from Lagos or Bucharest. To limit others from enjoying the opportunities we enjoy is the moral equivalent of those in a lifeboat from the Titanic preventing drowning men from climbing in with them on the basis that saving them will make the boat more crowded and uncomfortable for the rest of us. I believe that future generations will look upon the current clamor for immigration controls as being every bit as morally indefensible as we view the actions of past generations of Christians who defended slavery or racial segregation.

As I talk and listen to Evangelical believers in both North America and Europe I am saddened by how many look at the issue of immigration through the eyes of Quarantine rather than Missional Christianity. Current trends in migration represent the greatest opportunity for sharing the Gospel since the Day of Pentecost, yet all too many believers respond defensively by seeing immigration as a threat to their ‘sacred’ culture and way of life. Being Missional is so much more than just doing church in a trendy way. It reflects our fundamental attitudes to Jesus, to the world and to ourselves.