Hmmm … I think so much of the struggle here has to do with really understanding the depth and breadth of the Gospel. One of the values of multi-cultural church (I was sharing this with a congregation looking at welcoming 50+ members from Ghana) is that we begin to learn which pieces of our heritage are contextual and which are Gospel. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish. In the same way, we need to put the good news into the vernacular … that’s not only the language, but the images, music, and stories, of the people.

In Phyllis Tickel’s new book the question of authority comes up and if you have not read the book I highly recommend it. She posits that the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation is now under revision in the post modern context.

Can we have C15n or L11n that does not have to go back to a contextual document in the first place and get on with bringing community together to live out the life lived and taught by Jesus. Right belief is not the Kingdom of God, never was never will be. Kingdom of God is living. Living C15n is what the emerging church is all about. We need to offer a new C15n for the US (since we are the PCUSA after all) just as if it was a foreign country, because as it relates to the Kingdom of God it is clearly a foreign culture.

I understand how you are trying to apply those principles as a model for Biblical Contextualization. I am glad that you dislike “sounds bites” as much as I do! I don’t want to imply that I am in any way disagreeing with your intent: I think your heart is in the right place. I just think your application is flawed as I see the Sesame Street model as a method for product localization rather than Biblical Contextualization.

The difference, in my opinion, is that localization tries to make something more familiar to a community. Localization “dumbs things down” and is often used by marketers to sell their product in a different market. For example, ABC is running a TV show called “Life on Mars.” The BBC originally did this a few years earlier. ABC choose to remake the show set in America with American English spoken because they felt England and British English wouldn’t sell well to American audiences.

Contextualization on the other hand, translates in relation to the communities’ relevant cultural settings. For example, Jesus told stories that his contemporary Jews would have understood because they were taken from their day-to-day lives and culture. In a 21st century Western church, we need the Bible contextualized to our time and culture in order to properly understand what the authors of the Bible intended to communicate to the reader.

There are literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of examples where the Church attempted to NOT contextualize the Gospel for diverse communities. These attempts were utter failures at best and often times harmful to indigenous populations or communities at worst. One of the better examples of good Biblical Contextualization in recent history came from Hudson Taylor. He “became” Chinese so as to share Christ with the Chinese. And he did it quite effectively!

These differences are black & white in a historical missiological setting: the worldview in 19th Century China and 19th Century England are easy to contrast because they were so different. Worldview became greyer in the modern era because traditional worldviews have become blurry due to the influences of mass culture, immigration, media, travel, and increased internationalization of societies.

A Korean Presbyterian church in LA should have a different worship style than a Southern Baptist church in Nashville. For the Gospel to be meaningful, congregations need to take “ownership” of the material and present it in a manner that it is culturally relevant to its congregants. This is, I believe, a correct use of Biblical Contextualization.

My concern with your Sesame Street model is that I’ve seen it applied erroneously in the past. For example, I’ve seen churches in Korea take parts of the Gospel and incorporate that with Buddhist concepts of reincarnation and Confucian principles of “right relationship” and create a localized church that is teaching a gospel that isn’t the Gospel. I have also seen it applied in the US where “church” is dumb downed to be very market friendly, but something other than a Biblical institution.

Thanks for raising this discussion. I’m sure we all have thoughts and could write books on any of these subjects. No one – at least no one who is sincere in wanting to reach the nations or their community with Christ’s love – wants the Gospel message to be misunderstood. I am all for Biblical Contextualization. I don’t like Biblical Localization!

Todd- I agree whole-heartedly that there is a danger in reducing our theology and liturgy to “sound bites.” That’s precisely why so-called Christian bumper-stickers and t-shirts with a clever slogan are a personal pet-peeve. But that’s another post for another time…

I am merely pointing to Sesame Street not so much as a pedagogical model but rather, as a model of cultural contextualization. What would it look like if our worshiping communities began to embrace their unique worldviews? What would happen if congregations celebrated their gifts and lived contextually, focusing on the needs of their community?

I don’t want to speak for Mere, but I thought she was very clear in saying “but that doesn’t mean ‘dumbing down.’” She’s not advocating that people be treated like children, she’s pointing out contextualization–an important part of reaching people of all ages.

It would seem that people aren’t this dumb that they need to be treated like a child and taught via Sesame Street principles. That is part of the problem we in society today is that everything is dumbed down and reduced to a sound-bite. A better way to represent Christ to the nations would be to actual teach like Christ did: teach the Gospel, be transparent and genuine, and be respectful. If you are talking to farmers in China it is common sense to use illustrations that they are aware of rather than telling them about raves in LA.