Cultural Alienation and Contextual Theology

By Ziya Meral on 13 August 2004

This article springs from my own experience as someone who became a Christian in an Islamic country and who has traveled widely in similar settings for ministry purposes. The questions I raise and the possible solutions I propose are issues of great practical significance not only for my own journey but also my nation and region. The root motivation of the argument that follows is my desire to see the persecuted church's suffering reduced, even if this means that we must start with an honest in-house criticism.

Though the reasons why the church today is often persecuted in non-Western societies are of course complex, I argue that the principal reason is "alienation," of which there are two main levels — spiritual and cultural. There is nothing we can do about spiritual alienation since it comes with the distinctiveness of the Cross. However, most of the problem of cultural alienation is correctable because it comes from unwise missiological methodologies of foreign evangelists and from the way the newly found local church forms her subcultural identity. The only way we can produce long-term solutions to this problem is the development of a relevant theology — a contextual theology — for the local church.

On Alienation

The way of the Cross, by virtue of its nature, is counter-cultural. Whoever follows it inevitably will find themselves in a certain degree of spiritual opposition to their society, since the Cross is in opposition to the core of fallen human desires. So there has never been and there will never be a fully "Christian" country or a setting where the challenge of the Gospel message will be completely welcomed. Whenever we seek to be "relative" by trimming away the sharp edges of the Christian message, we end up with no message at all. In a sense, theologically speaking, there is no end to persecution as long as this earth remains the way that it is. The Body of Christ will always remain different.

When the convert leaves the older identity behind, he or she joins into another identity which provides her a sense of belonging. A group of converts or those that are like-minded in their belief form a community and enter a process of formulating their subculture. This subculture will understand itself in relation to what it is not like, meaning how they are different from the other subcultures or the dominant culture around them. This is inescapable and not necessarily wrong or a hindrance to the church's call for evangelism. Quite the contrary; as Christian Smith argues in the case of American Evangelicalism¹, this can be a very fruitful difference, a counter-cultural stand which can be seen as the source of solutions which the main culture can not provide.

This points up the spiritual difference or the prophetic calling of the church. The same productiveness and fruit is seen in the persecuted church, too. Even in the midst of severe opposition, people do see the spiritual difference of the church and feel pulled towards it. Therefore, such a formation of subculture is more than welcomed and theologically more than appropriate.

But what this article argues is that there are often mistaken formulations of the organizational culture of the Church, not the spiritual culture. For example, many Islamic converts struggle in understanding what is expected of them when they become Christians, or how they should behave and dress since all of these have been distinctly provided by Islam for them. Sadly, when the local Church itself has not processed what it means to be a believer and live like one in that setting, she will find herself merely copying patterns from foreign Christians.

Depending on the role model, the convert may then understand being a "spiritual Christian" to be doing quiet devotions early in the morning in a certain way with certain materials, wearing WWJD reminders, adorning a car with a fish bumper sticker, listening only to English praise and worship tapes, and hanging cross-stitched Bible verses on the walls. None of these are necessarily wrong, but they all belong to a certain Christian organizational culture in a certain era, and do not encompass the full richness of Church history.

For example, in the case of South Korean mission work, it is no surprise to see that the converts understand spiritual life primarily as consisting of very early morning prayer meetings, loud and corporate prayers, and acting in accordance with the strict code and the status of the pastor. I do well remember a good number of South Korean evangelists who verbalized their frustration with Mediterranean, Latin American and Filipino believers and their "lack of spirituality," since they do not wake up at 5 in the morning, pray in the style the Koreans have become accustomed to, and treat Korean pastors "respectfully".

Analogous dynamics of cultural alienation have occurred in many places around the world, often exacerbating religious persecution. Indeed, cultural alienation has been an issue since the earliest period of church history. In the letters between Emperor Trajan and Pliny it is clear that the practices of the early church caused curiosity about and suspicion of Christians. They were thought to be cannibals (a misinterpretation of the Lord's Supper) and incestuous (a misreading of their teachings on love for one another).² Furthermore, the land of Palestine had always meant rebellion and trouble for the Roman mind, so the early apologists were careful in how they portrayed the followers of The Way, lest they be seen as a political movement.

In modern times, persecution of Christianity is in part a function of its own imperial past. While Christianity has grown rapidly in the non-Western world since the colonial period ended, this has been accompanied by increasing persecution. From a spiritual point of view, we might simply affirm the adage that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." But we are not called to wish suffering upon our brothers and sisters as a church growth strategy! We must address the question of why religious persecution is such a serious contemporary problem.

Part of the answer is the cultural alienation created by incongruity between Western mindsets and non-Western ones. The Eastern mindset, for instance, does not have a short historical consciousness. History, far from being chronological, linear, and always forward-moving as it appears to Westerners, in the East is part of a more romantic mindset that lives yesterday and today in the same time. This difference creates real political problems. For example, while the Crusades are ancient history to Westerners, it is very common to hear the Crusades and other sins of the Church throughout the ages used in modern Islamic rhetoric denouncing the West. Many Asian critiques of the West have a similarly strong historical consciousness.

Since Christianity is directly associated with the West, the same suspicion and mistrust is extended to the local Christian communities. Thus it is a common experience to see a church bombed or Christians attacked in a Middle Eastern or an Asian country, as a reaction to foreign policies of the Western countries. To borrow from Samuel Huntington's vocabulary, the local church stands right in the middle of a clash of civilizations.

Take the example of Christian converts from Islam. Since being a Muslim is usually directly identified with being an Arab or a Turk or a Pakistani, conversion from Islam to Christianity is seen as one's act of denying his or her own nation. The Islamic worldview has a strong separation between the world of Islam and of the "others." So a convert finds himself associated with "them" upon his conversion. Conversion is seen as direct identification with the "Christian West."

Within the strong shame and honor framework of the Middle Eastern culture, it is better for a family member to be declared dead rather than to bring shame to the family by betraying national identity. The convert is deprived of his own identity in relation to society — and social identity is much more important in the non-Western world than in the Western world. This not only has emotional effects on the convert, but it also leads to the total alienation of the local church from the society in which it is called to be a salt and light. The local governments often see the church as a potential network of colonialist infiltration, as a source of long-term cultural decay via imported Western values, and as a satellite center for the spy-recruiting purposes of the CIA. These dynamics in turn result in strong persecution at the personal and communal levels.

On Solutions

So what can be done by Christians to stop or limit the destructiveness of such a complicated web of misunderstandings and paranoia? Some possible responses emanate from the church externally while others emanate from the persecuted church itself. What is crucial to understand is that external interventions have limited effect, and can even be counterproductive (especially when strategies are highly public in nature). This is particularly true for churches made up primarily of converts (as opposed to long standing ethnic or traditional non-proselytizing churches that may exist in the country).

Still, there are things that Christians externally can do. Newer churches of converts typically suffer from lack of recognition by the government. Therefore, it is helpful to bolster a functional equivalent to "denominational" identity (a concept governments are more familiar with than independent congregations) by providing external recognition and legitimacy to local umbrella associations (like national "Evangelical Alliance" groups).

However, international intervention can simply worsen the paranoia that the local church is a tool in the hands of Western powers. It leads to the supposition that by protecting such churches the West wishes to divide non-Western countries through conversion to Christianity. This is not a speculative theory, but a very common line in local newspapers and sermons of local clerics. So outside actions must be limited, and used only very carefully and as a last resort.

A more productive and vital solution is to deal internally with the cultural alienation problem. This approach is not merely about moving away from mission-supported churches to self-supporting indigenous churches (a priority that is already well known in missiology). For a local church can have totally independent finances and "indigenous" leadership yet still be an alien one to her own culture. Cases of this are seen everywhere (e.g. male Christian converts dressing in ties and jackets on Sunday in cultures where no man dresses up that way).

This is not to say that the contemporary missions movement is entirely unaware and unconcerned about the cultural transmission that happens in evangelism. Many missionaries now accept that the evangelist should "incarnate" to the local culture (e.g., speak, dress, and worship in the ways which are appropriate for the local culture). This is also known as contextualization in missions methodology.³ It is a noble quest, through which the local church and the outsider seeks to present the Gospel in a way that is relevant to the culture. Indian evangelist Saddhu Sundar Singh's desire to present "water of life in an Indian cup" expresses the sentiment well.

But even contextualization as such falls short of the main problem in cultural alienation, since much of contextualization efforts focus on evangelism and the presentation of the church to the unreached. The main issue is deeper than that. It is not just how we present the message or how we express or teach that message, but what the message is — what it means to follow Jesus in that local setting. What does the Cross mean for war-torn Iraq? What does discipleship mean to working class Christian families under the despotisms of Central Asian governments? What does it mean to follow Jesus as an Arab, Turk, and Turkmen? Contextual theology, not just contextual methodology, is needed to authentically answer such questions.⁴

The message of the Cross is absolute and the Scriptures are authoritative. But what that absolute truth means in terms of practical implications differs in relation to the reality of the local culture. A middleclass North American does not read the Bible and approach Jesus the same way that a Filipino who lives on a trash mountain does. The Cross speaks to where and who we are. This is why even the label "contextual theology" is redundant (that we need to modify "theology" thusly is surely a sign of where we have gone wrong as Christians globally). Theology is nothing but a community's study of God's Word and desire to bring it to their contexts in a certain time and a place.

The difference that context makes is evident not only at the micro but also the macro level. In the West theology tends to have a systematic and historical methodology. But the Eastern churches, with a few modern day exceptions, have not written theology in a systematic way, simply because this kind of systematizing mindset owes its source to the Modernist Western worldview. Moreover, with our growing global awareness we are now realizing that not only the way we have been doing theology is different, but also how we see Jesus and His message. A North American can see Jesus primarily as his best friend who fulfills his deepest existential longings of meaning and love, whereas the Latin American mind has seen Him as the one who restores justice and brings peace, whereas the East Asian mind has seen Him as the one who has power over the spiritual reality and is victorious, and perhaps the Middle Eastern mind should see Jesus as the one who takes away our shame and restores our honor back with God.

This is not subjectivity, but the depth and multi-faceted nature of the message of the Cross. True contextual theology is based on the redeeming and reconciling work of Christ, and the different implications of such work in a socio-cultural setting. The upshot is this: we have to allow the local church to produce its own theology afresh and to look at the Scriptures themselves.

Recall that the Apostle Paul spoke about being a Jew with a Jew and a Gentile with a Gentile. All of our cultures are fallen, yet all of them contain some truth within them due to the image of God in all humanity. So then there is no "holy" culture, nor is there any "demonic" culture. All of them are partially holy and demonic. When we lose sight of this we often end up with the same problems that the early church struggled with — e.g., believers of Jewish background demanded that Gentiles dress, speak, live, and behave like them.

Today's persecuted church is very often a culturally alienated church, and this is no coincidence. We must face the criticism of non-Christian countries that Christianity is a Western religion; if we do not, there is no realistic way to reduce preventable persecution. As long as theologies that are produced somewhere else remain alien, the convert is doomed to be seen as a local boy with an alien song on his lips.⁵ This will mean a lifetime of trouble for the convert, combating a sense of shame for "betraying" his national identity and dealing with his society's accusation that his religion is alien. This is painfully ironic, above all, for the Middle Eastern Christian; why should Christianity be seen as a Western religion in the Middle East, where it started?

Conclusion

The problem is a theological one and it can only be solved in a theological way. What is needed is critical theological thinking not only outside but within the persecuted church. Again, this is not to say that all persecution is preventable. Jesus was persecuted, though he was the greatest "contextual theologian" in all history; he belonged to that culture and spoke the timeless truth in its language. Paul, who also provided us the theological basis for bringing timeless truth into diverse settings, was persecuted as well. The spiritually revolutionary message of the Gospel will attract persecution despite our best efforts and our best theology. But let it be only His Cross that the persecuted church must carry, let only His Cross be the stumbling block to the nations, not our premature and unwise missiological methodologies or our cultural colonialism.

We need to help the persecuted church to seek God and His truth and live it in their way. This will demand a change in missions towards a much more mature understanding of the Gospel message and our limitations as message-bearers. This will effect directly how we plant churches and how those churches look, worship, and declare the message. Can we trust that the local Christians, who often pay a great price to follow Jesus, will be faithful to the Scriptures and produce their theology just like we do in the West? Can we trust them and the Holy Spirit that this will result in deeper and richer faith life for them and for us when we are humble enough to learn from their theologies and experiences?

Last updated 12 January 2009