‘Contextualisation’ is a term that can crop up in all sorts of areas of life: management, business, advertising, counselling, fashion, etc. In broadest terms, contextualisation is the process of intentionally relating something to its context or surrounding circumstances.
It is a term that is used much in mission, too, especially in the understanding and communicating of the Gospel. It means that the Good News of Jesus Christ is deliberately made to relate to a particular context. A definition might read: Contextualisation is the process whereby the Gospel is made to engage dynamically with life as it really is in a given place so that the full implications of the Gospel become vitally meaningful to the people there.
‘Context’ is a good word because it is all-inclusive; it covers culture, politics, economics, social trends, - in other words, all of life with no remainder.
When Christians (like SIM mission partners, for example) go to live and serve in a different country with a view to sharing the Gospel with people there, they will be concerned to contextualise the message that they hold dear. To do so, they will need to have a firm grasp and clear understanding of both elements in the equation.
First they will need to know the Gospel, otherwise what they communicate might be something less than, or other than, what it must always be, the Good News of what God has done for all people in His Son Jesus Christ.
But second, they will need to understand sympathetically the context of their ‘adopted’ country, how people tick, what issues they face, what the daily struggles of life are, how people view the meaning of life, etc. If they don’t, then when they try to communicate God’s Good News, it will not relate to that world, but will remain foreign and detached. Even if people there do join the Christian church, the danger will be that their Christianity remains a superficial layer that has little effect on their daily life and behaviour.
By way of example, how will the Gospel really be embraced as Good News in urban Japan if it has nothing to say to the despair and anxiety generated by the materialistic and competitive mind-set that is prevalent there? Or again, in many parts of Africa the struggle for survival is complicated by a vivid belief in the unseen but real presence of ancestors who control or influence their lives.
Does the message of Jesus Christ really have anything to say to such people? Does the Biblical message address such matters? If so, how?
The same basic question, of course, can be asked about the different contexts of the UK and every country. It is a wonderful fact that every aspect of every context can be brought into the light of the transforming Good News of Jesus Christ.
But it will not happen automatically. It will require in the Christian worker sympathetic understanding, respect, love, trust, knowledge of the mother tongue (preferably), patience, and time, - and, of course, the power of the Holy Spirit.
Gordon Molyneux January 2011
