CHRISTIANITY IN CULTURE

A Study in Biblical Theologizing in Cross-

Cultural Perspective

CHARLES H. KRAFT
WITH MARGUERITE G. KRAFT

Revised 25th Anniversary Edition

Founded in 1970, Orbis Books endeavors to publish works that enlighten the
mind, nourish the spirit, and challenge the conscience. The publishing arm of the
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Orbis seeks to explore the global dimensions of
the Christian faith and mission, to invite dialogue with diverse cultures and
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published reflect the opinions of their authors and are not meant to represent the
official position of the Maryknoll Society. To obtain more information about
Maryknoll and Orbis Books, please visit our website at www.maryknoll.org.

Twenty-fifth anniversary, second edition copyright © 2005 by Charles H. Kraft.

First edition copyright © 1979 by Charles H. Kraft.

Second edition published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, U.S.A. All
rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from
the publishers. For permissions, write to Orbis Books, P. O. Box 308, Maryknoll
NY 10545-0308, U.S.A.
Manufactured in the United States of America.

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission of J. Brill Publishers, Leiden, to

reproduce figures 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3, which appeared in Eugene A. Nida and
Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969).

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Kraft, Charles H.
Christianity in culture : a study in dynamic biblical theologizing in cross-
cultural perspective / Charles H. Kraft.—25th anniversary ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 1-57075-588-4 (pbk.)
1. Christianity and culture. I. Title.
BR115.C8K64 2005
261—dc22

2004029470
 To Meg
My partner for 52 years

And to our children

Cheryl Elaine Martell
Charles Eldon Kraft
Richard Lee Kraft
Karen Louise Schneider

And to our 15 grandchildren

CONTENTS

List of Figures

Foreword to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition by Paul G.

Hiebert

Foreword to the First Edition by Bernard Ramm

Preface to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

Revision or New Book?
Reflections on Reactions to the First Edition
The Place of Experience in Reflection on Mission
Other Important Writing on Contextualization
Results Realized from My Approach
Acknowledgments
Advice on How to Read This Book
Conclusion

Outline of Models and Their Components

Abbreviations of Bible Versions Used in This Volume

Part 1
THE PERSPECTIVE
1. Cases of Need
Case One: The Career Missionary
Case Two: The Author's
The Aim of the Book
Needs in View: A Summary and an Elaboration

2. Mirrored Reality
Toward an Answer—Critical Realism
Reality “Out There” (Capital R) versus Perception of That
Reality (Small r)
Characteristics of Conceptual Models
Toward a Critical-Realist Model of Biblical Christianity
Alternative Mirrors

Part 2
THE CULTURAL MATRIX

3. Human Beings in Culture

The Concept of Culture
Sociocultural Adequacy
Worldview
Different Worldview Assumptions Lead to Different
Conclusions
Are We Determined by Culture?

4. Cultural Forms, Patterns, and Processes

Forms, Functions, Meanings, and Usage
Cultural Patterning and Personal Performance
 The Process of Culture Change
Felt Needs and Reference Points for Culture Change

5. Human Commonality
Cultural Diversity and Human Commonality
Forms, Functions, Meanings, and Human Commonality
Evaluating Cultural Forms
Fitting Nonrelative Meanings to Relative Cultural Forms

Part 3
GOD THROUGH CULTURE

6. God's Attitude toward Culture

God, the Originator of Culture?
The God-against-Culture Position
Two God-in-Culture Positions
Five God-above-Culture Positions
The God-above-but-through-Culture Position

7. Supracultural Meanings via Cultural Forms

Anthropologically Informed Theology
The Supracultural and the Cultural
Biblical Cultural Relativism
Adequate, Though Never Absolute, Human Perception of
Supracultural Truth
“Plain Meanings” and “Interpretational Reflexes”
Beyond Grammatico-Historical to Ethnolinguistic
Interpretation
 Differing Levels of Abstraction
“Two-Culture Dialogic” Interpretation

8. Communicating within Culture

Basic Principles of Communication
Employing the Frame-of-Reference Principle
The Communicator-Credibility Principle
The Message-Credibility Principle
The Discovery Principle
Summary of the Principles

Part 4
THE DYNAMICS OF REVELATION

9. Receptor-Oriented Revelation
Communicating across the Supracultural-Cultural Gap
The Incarnation as a Case Study in Receptor-Oriented
Revelation
Revelation: Static or Dynamic?
The Bible as the Measure of Revelation
Summary

10. God's Inspired Casebook

Constancy of Method
The Bible as Inspired Classic Casebook
A Human Word as Well as a Divine Word
A Dynamic View of Scriptural Inspiration
Truth with Impact
11. The Components of Revelation
The Informational Base of Revelation
Activating Revelational Information
The Will of the Receptors
The Constancy of the Message
Cumulative Information in Multicultural Format

12. Revealed through Culture

Starting Point Plus Process
Which Ideals? A Case Study of a Cross-Cultural
Approach to Sin
What about Those Who Are Today “Informationally
B.C .”?

Part 5
THE CONSTANT MESSAGE IN ALTERNATIVE FORMS

13. Dynamic-Equivalence Translation of the Casebook

Overview of Translation Dynamics
Hearer-Oriented Translation
Formal Correspondence: An Inadequate Model
The Dynamic-or Meaning-Equivalence Model

14. Dynamic/Meaning-Equivalence Transculturation of the

Message
We Participate in God's Communication
A Dynamic/Meaning-Equivalence Message
Problems of Different Perceptions in Transculturation
15. Dynamic-Equivalence Theologizing
Producing Theology
Communicating Theology
Theologizing and Culture-Bound Perception
Non-Western Theologizing: A Case Study
Conclusion

Part 6
THE MESSAGE AFFECTS THE FORMS

16. Dynamic-Equivalence “Churchness”

The People of God within Culture
Dynamic-Equivalence Transculturation of the Church
Dynamic/Meaning-Equivalence Church Leadership: A
Case Study

17. Christian Conversion as a Dynamic Process

Inadequate Models
The Biblical Concept of Conversion
Constants in the Conversion Process
Cultural Conversion versus Christian Conversion
Conclusion

18. Transforming Culture with God

Transformational Cultural Change
Reevaluation/Reinterpretation and Rehabituation in the
Transformation Process
Factors Affecting Conceptual Transformation
 Working within the Cultural Context to Bring About
Transformation
A Case Study of Conceptual Transformation

19. Principles for Transforming Culture with God

Principles for the Outside Advocate
Factors Influencing the Advocacy of Change
Movements and Cultural Transformation
Principles for Insiders: What to Do about the
“Generation Gap”?

20. An Apostolic Faith?

Toward an Apostolic Faith for Contemporary Society
A Personal Postscript

Appendix: An Overview of the Models

Works Cited
LIST OF FIGURES

2.1. Patterns that shift when the observer shifts perspective

2.2. A conceptual model of certain relationships between the
Capital R REALITY “out there” and the mental
organization in the mind of the perception (small r) of
that REALITY
2.3. Visual aid portraying this conceptual model of theological
contextualization (model 2a)
2.4. Single conservative-liberal axis for understanding
theological positions
2.5. A two-dimensional understanding of theological positions
(model 2c)
2.6. Process diagram of the areas within which the models
employed in this volume cluster
3.1. Worldview in relation to cultural patterning and personal
performance
3.2. Chart of the relationship between certain worldview
assumptions and conclusions
4.1. Relationships between culture and the individual
4.2. The process involved in cultural performance
4.3. Christian transformational change
5.1. Human commonality and cultural diversity
5.2. Universal, nonrelative functions and relative forms
5.3. Relative cultural manifestations of sinfulness
5.4. Various meanings of Sabbath observance in Jesus' day
5.5. Forms and perceived meanings of attempts to express love
6.1. The escape-from-the-world answer
7.1. The cultural, supracultural, absolute, and relative
7.2. The dynamic relationship between context, message, and
meaning
7.3. “Seesaw” diagrams illustrating the relationship between
the context-message interaction concept and the levels-
of-abstraction concept
7.4. Illustrative chart of different levels of abstraction model
(5c)
8.1. Three approaches to inter-frame-of-reference
communication
8.2. Relationship between predictability and impact
8.3. Outline of key communicational principles
9.1. Vos's position relating the objective and subjective
dimensions of redemption and revelation/enlightenment
to past and present-future time
9.2. A balanced dynamic model of redemption and revelation
11.1. A “horizontal” view of the accumulation of the
revelational information
12.1. Directional versus positional understandings of those
“in” Christ and those “outside” Christ
12.2. Starting-point-plus-process model applied to four fruits of
the Spirit
12.3. Starting-point-plus-process model applied to scriptural
perceptions of God's nature
12.4. Improper procedure for applying God's ideals
13.1. Illustrative translations of the Greek word sōma
13.2. Illustrative translations of the Greek word sarx
13.3. Illustrative translations of the Greek word dikaios
13.4. Differing understandings of cultural and linguistic
diversity
13.5. The formal-correspondence understanding of the
translation process
13.6. Dynamic-equivalence translation procedure
14.1. The steps in transculturating
16.1. Leadership lists for Greco-Roman, American, and Kamwe
societies
16.2. Analytic procedure for arriving at the forms to be
employed by a dynamically equivalent church
17.1. Model of the decision-making process
17.2. Composite diagram labeling God's activity and human
activity in the conversion process
17.3. Intergenerational cultural conversion
17.4. “Horizontal” cultural conversion required in response to
God
17.5. Two patterns of conversion to Christianity
19.1. The rippling effect of the interpretations of forced
changes on the worldview of a culture
19.2. Change in worldview results in the rippling of change out
into the periphery of culture
19.3. Factors influencing acceptance or rejection of worldview
change
 FOREWORD TO THE TWENTY-FIFTH
ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Paul G. Hiebert

Larry Laudin says that a discipline is defined by the

questions it asks, the data it examines, and the methods it uses.
Thomas Kuhn points out that scholars in a discipline spend
most of their time seeking to answer these questions through
normal research and study, but that at times disciplines
undergo paradigm shifts when new questions are asked and
new data examined.
Charles Kraft's Christianity in Culture marks one such
paradigm shift in missiology. Drawing widely on his expertise in
linguistics and on his extensive field experience in Africa, Kraft
raised new questions, and reframed the debate on the cross-
cultural communication and contextualization of the gospel. He
introduced new methods of analysis and offered new models of
analysis that have altered the debate in the field of missiology.
He has helped many missionaries and missiologists look not
only at the Scriptures but also at the people they serve and at
the ways in which they understood the gospel as
communicated to them.
No longer can missionaries measure communication by
what they say. They must measure it by what the people hear.
This requires a deep knowledge of their culture. It also raises
difficult questions on how to communicate biblical truths in
cultures in which the fundamental categories and worldviews
are radically different from those found in Scripture or the
missionary's culture.
Missiologists may debate his positions, but they can not
ignore the critical questions he raises and the insights he
brings to the communication and inculturation of the gospel in
new cultural contexts. In this provocative study Kraft does us
all great service by reframing the questions and raising new
issues that we must address and by pointing a way for further
research and theory formation.
But Kraft does more. He brings to the discussion not only
an academic interest, but a passion to see the gospel
effectively and deeply communicated around the world. In this
he bridges the tension that too often exists between mission as
a part of the academy and mission as a movement involving the
present and eternal lives of real people and communities who
have yet to hear the great news of full salvation in Christ Jesus.
The reissuing of Christianity in Culture is a most welcome
event because the questions it raises and the insights it brings
are still very central in missions today.

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Illinois
FOREWORD TO THE FIRST
EDITION
Bernard Ramm

I write this foreword from the perspective of one who,

though a theologian, pioneered perhaps the first course in an
evangelical Protestant school to teach anthropological science
to missionary candidates. I join the author in believing that one
of the most significant contemporary issues that Christians
have to deal with is the concept of culture as it is understood
by people in the behavioral sciences. Anthropologists and
other behavioral scientists tell us that to be human is to be
immersed in some specific culture. All human beings “live and
move and have their being” within a culture. Culture touches
all people at every point. It is both internal to us and the
immediate environment in which we live.
If the behavioral scientists are right about the nature and
extent of the impact of culture on people, Christians must face
the problem squarely. To begin with, there are a number of
cultures reflected in the biblical writings. Furthermore, as the
early church spread out from Palestine into the Roman world it
encountered other cultures. As the missionary program
advanced through the centuries, the same process of church
and culture confrontation continued. The problems raised by
the encounter between Christianity and culture are especially
acute today where missionaries and mission societies labor. In
the light of our modern knowledge of culture, how does the
Christian church realistically come to terms with unfamiliar
cultures in its evangelistic and missionary work? And once a
church is established in a new culture, how does such a church
interpret the Christian message in the language and concepts
of that culture?
In this volume, Charles H. Kraft of the School of World
Mission,1 Fuller Theological Seminary, addresses himself to
these questions from the point of view of an evangelical
Protestant committed to biblically defined Christianity. For this
task he brings the right qualifications. He is a linguist, an
anthropologist, a missionary, and now a professor. In guiding
those for whom the problems of culture—both biblical and
contemporary—are a pressing concern, he lives with such
problems at both academic and practical levels. He hereby
presents to the rest of us the theory and practice that has
emerged from his formal education in anthropology and
linguistics, his missionary work in Nigeria, and his years of
teaching missionaries and guiding their research into these
problems. He has concerned himself particularly with the
application to biblical interpretation of insights afforded us by
recent breakthroughs in the areas of Bible translation and
communication theory.
One of the very pressing problems for “biblical Christians”
today is the manner in which they must answer the following
question: “If the writers of Holy Scripture were conditioned by
their cultures, how can their message be the Word of God for
us today?” The same question can be asked another way:
“Knowing that language and culture are intimately intertwined,
how can we effectively translate the Scriptures and
communicate the message embedded in the cultures and
languages of the distant biblical past into the language and
concepts of contemporary cultures?”
Such questions raise the issue of the transcultural in
Scripture. Many feel that any admission of cultural
conditioning within God's Word totally relativizes Scripture and
negates its applicability today. And yet serious biblical
scholarship finds it impossible to ignore the pervasive
influence of the cultures of the authors and receptors of
Scripture on the presentation of their messages. In what sense,
then, is the Word of God transcultural and in what sense
cultural? One of the remarkable things that Dr. Kraft has done
in this book is to show how we can come to meaningful terms
with the cultural yet transcultural character of Holy Scripture.
No easy task, but well done.
Furthermore, the church is confronted with the same
problem when it comes to theology. Theologians in Europe and
America are in the main highway of what has been dubbed
“Western culture.” Our theology has been written in this
context and from this cultural perspective. If Christians come
out of an African or Asian or Latin American Indian culture, we
presume too much (according to Christian anthropologists) if
we think they can meaningfully express their Christian
theology by simply translating our theological terms and
concepts from our language into theirs. For Christian theology
to be meaningful to these peoples, it must be developed and
expressed within their language and cultural context, just as for
us it has been meaningfully expressed within our language and
cultural context. Dr. Kraft also addresses himself helpfully to
this issue, frequently referred to as “the contextualization of
theology.”
I would like to suggest caution at two points. First, I agree
with the growing community of Christian anthropologists and
linguists that this sort of task must be done. Unfortunately, not
very many conservative Christians really know the issues here.
They could, therefore, jump to wrong conclusions. Dr. Kraft is
to be commended for taking on a subject with such high
potential risk of misunderstanding. This is a pioneering effort
to synthesize anthropological understanding with theological
convictions that are true to the Bible. We have waited too long
for such a work.
Second, the book will pose difficulties for Christians who
have no understanding or contemporary knowledge of
anthropology, culture, and linguistics. It will be a problem to
them to grasp Kraft's unique effort to develop a perspective on
Christian theology within the context of our modern
anthropological and linguistic knowledge. To such readers I
appeal for their patience and that they make the effort to learn
something of anthropology and linguistics before they judge
the book adversely.

Modesto, California
October 1978
1. Renamed “ The School of Intercultural Studies” in 2003.
PREFACE TO THE TWENTY-
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Since 1971 I have been teaching a course on the

relationship between Christianity and culture at the School of
Intercultural Studies (formerly the School of World Mission),
Fuller Seminary, and my wife, Meg, has been teaching a similar
course at Biola University since 1977. At Fuller the course was
first entitled “Christianity and Culture,” then “Christian
Ethnotheology.” At Biola the name “Christianity and Culture”
stuck. These have been advanced courses in the
contextualization of Christianity, presupposing at least an
elementary exposure to both theology and anthropology. The
intent is to lead the missionaries, prospective missionaries, and
national church leaders studying with us into a solid grappling
with the multiplicity of cultural and theological problems that
become burning issues for those who seek to communicate
Christianity to the members of another society.
Prior to the publication of the first edition of this book in
1979, we made do with a miscellany of very helpful readings,
including H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951); John
V. Taylor, The Primal Vision (1963); John S. Mbiti, New
Testament Eschatology in an African Background (1971); and
various articles from Practical Anthropology, International
Review of Mission, and similar sources. Our students had
already been through such available sources as Eugene A.
Nida, Customs and Cultures (1954) and Message and Mission
(1960); William A. Smalley (ed.), Readings in Missionary
Anthropology (1967); and Louis J. Luzbetak, The Church and
Cultures (1963).
Feeling the need for a textbook specifically designed to
serve as the basis for that class, I chose to devote a one-term
sabbatical (fall 1973) to developing one. A first draft was
produced at that time, and a collection of reactions to it was
begun. The publication of the book in 1979 benefited greatly
from use in eleven offerings of that course, prior to publication,
issuing in three major revisions of the original manuscript.
Now, twenty-five years later, I have clocked another twenty-
five or more additional classes using the book plus countless
classes taught by others who have found the book valuable.
The year 1979 is a long time ago. But people are still buying
and using this book. Christianity in Culture is now in its
eighteenth reprinting. When I wrote the book, I never
anticipated such longevity. I thought I had something to say
and was encouraged by my students and colleagues to publish
my ideas. So I wrote them and taught them and am very
pleased that many have found and are still finding them
helpful.
One thing surprises me, however. That is, that many field
missionaries are still making the mistakes I am confronting.
Missiologists by and large seem to have converted to what we
now call “incarnational” or “contextualized” ministry. But a
majority of missionaries working in the mission fields of the
world seem to have not yet caught up. So successive
generations of field missionaries coming into our classes tell us
that the message of this book is still needed on the mission
fields of the world. And successive generations of pre-field
students tell us that they find the book eye-opening. So my
impression is that the book is still of value and Orbis feels that
it is worthy of a special twenty-fifth anniversary edition.

Revision or New Book?

The question, then, was Should we leave the book as is or
should we do a revision? And if we are to do a revision, how
extensive should it be? I found these questions difficult to
answer.
When I first suggested the possibility of a revision to my
wife, she said, Why revise? Why not write a new book? This
seemed like a good idea, so I've been thinking about it for a
couple of years. And as I pondered that question, it occurred
to me that I have followed her advice to some extent in three
books, yet have not dealt fully in those books with most of
what makes Christianity in Culture valuable. The three books
in view are Anthropology for Christian Witness (Orbis, 1996),
Appropriate Christianity and Worldview for Christian Witness
(both forthcoming from William Carey Library, probably in
2005).
As I tried to think this through, then, I began to wonder
how much difference it would make if I were to undertake a
thorough revision. I asked myself if my positions have
changed enough to warrant such a revision. Or would I simply
be going to a lot of effort just to find more recent references to
support the same positions I was advocating in 1979? If that
were to be the major accomplishment of a revision, I wondered
if the effort would be worth much, since more recent references
are not necessarily better references if they simply support the
same points.
In the end, judging that Christianity in Culture has aged
well and still remains a valuable, advanced treatment of
theology and culture for prospective or career missionaries, I
changed only those things where my thinking has changed
and made one major structural change. Amazingly, as I
carefully went through the book, I found that I needed to
change very little. Though I have made small changes on
nearly every page, the number of substantial changes are few.
Meanwhile, Meg has subjected the book to her keen eye for
detail and has also come up with relatively few changes and
corrections. We have chosen to allow the 1960s and 1970s
references to continue to support my arguments, feeling that
more recent references would add little, in spite of the amount
of change that has happened during the last quarter of a
century.
Though a large amount of important writing has been
produced during the last twenty-five years, I chose not to
interact with that literature in this volume. See the various
chapters by myself and others in the above-mentioned books
for my approach to the issues raised.
The major structural change is to make overt the
progression of models by inserting their names and a brief
description of each in the text. In the first edition, these brief
definitions were largely implicit in the text, appearing overtly
only in the appendix. In this revision, they appear both in the
text and in the appendix.
Apart from the changes I have made in the text, a change in
the attitude of the audience to which Christianity in Culture is
directed needs to be noted. When the book appeared in 1979, it
was startling to perhaps a majority of its readers. Now, many
positions I advocated then have become fairly well accepted, at
least among missiologists. It is now commonplace for
missiologists to advocate such concepts as incarnational
ministry, receptor-oriented communication, and even dynamic
equivalence. New generations of missionaries, however,
especially the increasing numbers being sent out from non-
Western countries, plus those mid-career missionaries who
have not kept up with missiological thinking, still find the book
enlightening and challenging.

Reflections on Reactions to the First Edition

This book created a stir in evangelical missiological circles
in the early 1980s. It was widely noticed in the missiological
community and even by certain theologians. And it seemed
hard to find anyone who was neutral toward it. There were
those who felt my approach was a stimulator of their thinking,
even a breakthrough in what came to be known as the field of
contextualization (e.g., Shenk 2005). And then there were those
who felt I had gone too far and had become theologically
liberal or Barthian (e.g., Gross 1985; Henry 1980). Gross and
Henry were particularly harsh in their criticisms, working from
rigid theological positions without benefit of cross-cultural
experience or the compassion that comes from taking a people's
culture seriously.
Those who regarded Christianity in Culture positively
tended to be those whom I call “open conservatives” (see
chapter 1) with cross-cultural experience. Those who were
negative tended to be “closed conservatives,” usually without
meaningful cross-cultural experience. One dimension of the
differences between open and closed conservatives is the way
each seeks to come to theological conclusions. Closed
conservatives generally find some position they feel is correct
and “set it in cement,” as if all truth is in on that subject and all
that is left is to defend that position. Open conservatives, on
the other hand, are always looking for better understandings of
theological truth and are willing to dialogue with others toward
the possibility of achieving greater insight into God and his
works.
Several months after Edward Gross, a closed conservative,
far to the fundamentalistic extreme of evangelicalism, published
his attack on me entitled Is Charles Kraft an Evangelical?
(1985), he wrote to me asking my reaction to his book. I wrote
back with a question and an observation. My question was
How would your book have differed if you had first tried to
understand me? My observation was You seem to think that I
think I'm right. Gross (and Henry also) had long since
established positions grounded in what they considered
absolute truth and were not open to discussing those
positions and certainly not allowing anyone's experience or
perspectives to be allowed to question their understandings.
The possibility of looking at positions they considered
orthodox from another point of view was not a part of their way
of dealing with theological truths since, they assumed, the last
word had already been written in these areas. So the idea of
trying to understand where I was coming from never occurred
to them.
The fact that I was presenting things differently than these
critics were used to, then, was especially troublesome for them
since the only way they could take it was to assume I was
advocating new truth. They assumed that I think I am more
right than they are and, therefore, come out fighting for the
absoluteness of their understandings as over against the
positions I advocate. They are not open to discussion or
experience that might question or widen their understandings.
They don't, therefore, even notice that my approach, though
broader than theirs, supports rather than refutes most of the
things they believe. They assume rightly that the doctrines
they espouse are right but wrongly that their way of looking at
them (their perspective) is the only correct way. In this way
they are closed to new understandings of old truths.

The Place of Experience in Reflection on

Mission
Though conservative theologians have often denigrated
the place of experience in Christian life, it is just the experiential
factor that has usually made the difference in how people look
at explorations into the relationships between Christianity and
culture. Missionaries who have to struggle with the very real
problems that arise on the field when we attempt to introduce a
new faith to our audiences often welcome creative attempts to
discover how to do things in ways that are appropriate both to
Scripture and to the culture. For, in the real world, experience
counts for a lot. Armchair theologians, however, who have
never had to face (except theoretically) the real issues raised in
the attempt to communicate Christ in another society are often
negative to such creativity because of their lack of experience
in cross-cultural situations. Likewise, missionaries whose
experience, though outside of the United States, has been in
Western institutions such as schools and hospitals or who
have been largely in administrative positions have also often
been negative to such creativity.
Lack of experience, however, is joined by a second problem
—the problem of a research method that is almost purely a
head trip, without much, if any, input from real life.
Philosophers and theologians have developed their theories by
merely thinking them, usually not by living them. Interpreting
Scripture, for example, is done by reading and reasoning. The
process of communicating the scriptural truths thus reasoned
out, then, is largely via lectures (sermons) with little or no
modeling or other behavioral activity built into the interpreting
and communicating process. How different this process is from
what Jesus did as he taught and modeled his message in his
life even more than in his words. He didn't just lead his
disciples (and us) in thinking about life, he demonstrated to his
disciples (and us) what Christian behavior is intended to be.
 His was a behavioral approach, not simply a cognitive
approach to life. Though he dealt with ideas, he was not
captive as we often are to the process of buying and selling
ideas and information in classroom or sanctuary settings. He
taught about living in living. He couched his ideas in
experience. We learn what we do, not just what we think. What
we do in school and church is largely listening to ideas and
information. So, what we learn in school and church is how to
listen to ideas and information.
The positions taken here are not merely the product of
classrooms or sanctuaries or of a research method that
specializes in thinking without benefit of experience. They
come out of the struggle to discover in experience approaches
to mission that will be tethered to Scripture yet will take human
culture as seriously as God takes it. Though I theorize, I am no
armchair missiologist. If I shake people up, it is for the purpose
of enabling Christian witness to be more effective. If my
positions are too “far out” for some, I hope and pray that the
positions I take will at least challenge field missionaries and
missiologists to think about them and to develop approaches
that are better than if they had not considered these ideas—
approaches that are better than mine. For every experimental
presentation of this type is designed to be superseded by
those who come later and can see more clearly than the
presenter of the new ideas can.

Other Important Writing on Contextualization

 At this point, I need to recognize that my book is not the
only one to advocate taking seriously the culture of the
receptors. Nor was it the first. For some years such an
approach had been advocated by American Bible Society
Translations Secretary Eugene Nida and his associates William
Smalley, William Reyburn, William Wonderly, and Jacob
Loewen, plus others who wrote in the journal Practical
Anthropology, published between 1953 and 1973. It will be
noted as you read that these men have had a profound
influence on me. Nida is the author I quote most in the pages
that follow.
It was Practical Anthropology that alerted a whole
generation of us to the importance of dealing knowledgeably
with culture and its influence on ourselves, those to whom we
go and the way God's truths are presented in the Bible. Having
learned to take culture seriously in these three areas, then, we
approached cross-cultural witness in a profoundly different
way than most traditional missionary organizations were used
to or even approved of. We learned that Jesus worked with his
culture rather than against it to communicate supracultural
truth. Imitating him, then, we should be “receptor-oriented,”
honoring and working within the cultures of our receptors
rather than trying to replace their cultures with our culture.
We learned from the pages of Practical Anthropology that
the Bible advocates no “Christian culture” but that all cultures,
ours as well as theirs, are battlefields for the warfare going on
between God and Satan. We have no right, therefore, to
overestimate the Christianness of our culture or the fallenness
of theirs. For both God and Satan are at work in each society,
and the structures of each are usable by God as well as by our
enemy. In short, we learned what we have since come to call
“contextualization” as the scripturally endorsed approach to
taking the gospel to the world. And by so doing, many of us
found ourselves working outside of the range of tolerance of
traditional missions and got terminated for being too positive
toward African, Asian, or Latin American people and their
cultures and, therefore, too open to non-Western cultural
expressions of Christian faith.
This is what happened to my family, in spite of the fact that
the church was growing much more rapidly in our area than in
any other area of the mission. So we were forced to stay home
and look for other employment. But God saw fit to lead the
faculty of the School of World Mission,1 Fuller Seminary, to
employ me to teach others the approach to cross-cultural
witness that got me fired. They, then, gave me the privilege of
writing this book, advocating an incarnational rather than an
extractionist approach to the communication of the gospel to
people of other societies and cultures.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Those who were open
to an incarnational approach loved this book. Those, however,
who saw it as our missionary task to extract people from their
native cultures in the name of Christ and to replace their
customs with ours on the assumption that our ways are more
Christian (as, for example, Gross and Henry) hated the book
and questioned my credentials as an evangelical for writing it.
But they rightly saw the book as a threat to their position and a
potential influence on the approach to gospel witness in the
latter half of the twentieth century and beyond.
 But mine was not the only voice calling for such a change.
The decades of the seventies and eighties were an important
time for the awakening of American missiologists to the
scripturalness of working with and within rather than against
the cultures of the people we seek to reach. Evangelicals such
as Alan Tippett, Ralph Winter, Charles Taber (the last editor of
Practical Anthropology and later of Gospel in Context), Paul
Hiebert, Harvie Conn, Louis Luzbetak, James Buswell, Dean
Gilliland, and others were also “beating the drums” for a more
culturally sensitive approach to gospel witness during these
decades. Even more conservative authors such as David
Hesselgrave, Bruce Nicholls, Bruce Fleming, and Byang Kato
(before his untimely death) began to get on the bandwagon.
I'll not go into the history of that awakening here since I
have done that in the book Appropriate Christianity,
mentioned above. I will simply mention three very important
events of 1978, immediately prior to the publication of
Christianity in Culture. The first was the publication of the
January 1978 edition of Evangelical Missions Quarterly,
devoted entirely to the subject of contextualization and
containing articles by Buswell, Conn, Ross Kinsler, and myself.
The second event was the Willowbank Consultation that
took place in January of 1978. At this conference, for the first
time in anyone's memory, theologians sat with Christian
anthropologists in an attempt to hammer out both theological
and anthropological implications of the entrance of Christianity
into non-Western societies. Newcomers such as Charles Taber,
Harvie Conn, and myself came to prominence at Willowbank
along with old timers Tippett and Loewen in interaction with
people like John Stott, James Packer, and Steven Neill.
The third significant event of 1978 was a series of three
articles and the start of a journal by Charles Taber. The journal,
unfortunately short-lived, was Gospel in Context, the first
issue of which contained Taber's “Is There More Than One
Way to Do Theology?” In addition, Taber wrote in Missiology
(6:53-79) “The Limits of Indigenization in Theology,” and, in
the volume The Gospel and Islam, edited by Don McCurry,
“Contextualization: Indigenization and/or Transformation.”
These events paved the way for Christianity in Culture among
alert missiologists and missionaries.
Concerning the term contextualization. This book was
written during the decade of the 70s, before evangelicals had
become very comfortable with the term contextualization. The
term is, therefore, used sparingly here, with the older term
indigenization used more frequently. My concern, however, is
that whatever term we use, the relationships between
Christianity and culture be seen as dynamic rather than static,
that those relationships be characterized by growth,
experimentation, and development rather than by foreign,
usually dead ritual, that they be seen as personal (though not
necessarily individual) rather than simply structural. Whether I
used the term indigenization or contextualization, therefore,
what I have in mind is the dynamic relationship that I believe
Christians are intended to have with their cultures. Christianity
was never intended to be static nor are Christians. Jesus was
not static in his relationship to the society around him. He used
his culture and so should we whose intent is to follow Jesus.
 Results Realized from My Approach
One major difficulty my critics fall into is that they seldom
take into account the results of this approach. Perhaps those
who reviewed the work when it was first published can be
excused because they did not have much to go on because of
the shortness of the time between publication and their
reviews. But now, twenty-five years later, we can profitably ask
whether the ideas put forth in Christianity in Culture have
borne any fruit. Have any missionaries changed their ideas and
approaches? If so, what are the results of such changes?
By now several generations of students have gone through
Meg's classes at Biola and mine at Fuller in which Christianity
in Culture has been used as a text. We don't know nearly all of
the stories of those who have attempted to put into practice
the ideas here set forth. Nor can we assume that this book is
the only influence on those who have put these ideas into
practice. But I would conservatively estimate that over a
hundred people have come up to me or to Meg during the last
twenty-five years and said something like, “That book changed
my life and/or ministry.”
One key idea that many point to is “receptor-oriented
communication.” As one for whom that idea was transforming
has said, “Once you get that idea, it starts a journey in a new
direction” (email, September 21, 2004). Many have learned
through this book the fact that God is receptor-oriented and
that we should imitate him by working from within, rather than
against a people's culture. For their own culture is the only way
of life that makes sense to a people, and Jesus wants to use
each people's way of life as a vehicle for his interactions with
them.
I would like to point to three examples of the kind of results
that have come from missionaries working within rather than
against the culture of the people they are seeking to reach.
These have adopted the “Christ working through culture”
approach recommended in Christianity in Culture.
Back in the 70s, a student of ours at Fuller named James
Gustafson went to Thailand to begin a work with the Issan, a
Lao-speaking group living in the northeast of that country.
Combining a culture-affirming approach with a keen eye for a
Christianity that meets physical as well as spiritual needs, Jim
began a work that involved traditional Issan ways of
communicating, the use of indigenous music, and the raising of
pigs and fish. Jesus now has a good reputation in this folk-
Buddhism area. So do followers of Christ. For these groups
refuse to use Western forms of following Christ, since these are
a hindrance to the incarnation of the Jesus way in Thai cultural
forms.
After these many years of the successful employment of
this approach in Thailand, Gustafson writes,

We currently have 5 different areas in Thailand where

[this approach is being used]. Each of these areas is a
different cultural context and each of the teams is
addressing their own cultural situation in culturally
relevant ways. Enabling Christ and the Gospel to be
born into the cultures of this world is the most
important enterprise that should be concerning the
 Church today. It is sad to see how much effort in world
mission is put into mono-cultural transplants of
Christianity from the West to majority world situations.
…There is still much left to be done to free Christ up
from the clutches of Christianity so that he can be born
into the diverse cultures of the world. We are currently
working on what we call “New Buddhism.”…It is a
concept that enables the Gospel to both build on and
confront Thai Buddhism in a way that enables Christ to
be the fulfillment of the “way” of Thai Buddhism. (email
letter, September 22,2004)

In these five areas local Thai congregations weekly

worship the true God in Thai ways rather than Western ways.
They worship and follow Jesus and may not even know that
the rest of the world calls them “Christians,” for their allegiance
to Christ is expressed in cultural forms that the rest of the world
calls “Buddhist.” But they are genuine followers of Christ,
expressing their allegiance in ways appropriate to both
Scripture and their cultures.
More spectacular in terms of numbers of believers is the
situation among an Asian people with a large Muslim
population where hundreds of thousands have committed
themselves to Isa over the past two decades. A graduate of our
Fuller program who asks that his name not be used is at the
center of this movement. He says that when he first went to
Asia in the seventies, he took with him “a small box of
[prepublication] Christianity in Culture” (email, September 21,
2004).
 We call this an “insider movement” because it is so inside
the culture that most of the believers don't call themselves
“Christians” or associate with the traditional Western Christian
congregations. For that term, associated as it is with Western
support for Israel and the Crusades, has been a major
stumbling block to Muslims coming to Christ. These
“Messianic Muslims” would probably not fit in very well with
Christians from other parts of the world. They look too much
like Muslims, having “captured” what the rest of the world
considers Muslim cultural forms to use in following Isa. But
they follow the same Christ the rest of us follow and are a part
of one of the greatest movements to Jesus that has ever
happened in a Muslim context.
The third example I want to give is the development of a
theoretical understanding of approaches to Christianity that is
proving very helpful as we try to sort out the variety of ways in
which Christians relate to their cultures in the expression of
their faith. A doctoral candidate with whom I have worked
closely has developed a scheme that we call the “Cl-6
Continuum.” This is a typology of the ways in which groups of
Muslims are now following Isa in a number of Muslim
societies.

C1: National church using a national or international

language; cultural and religious forms largely alien to
surrounding Muslim community
C2: National church using local language; cultural and
religious forms largely alien to surrounding Muslim
community
 C3: Local language church, still largely alien to Muslim
community, yet incorporating some religiously neutral
local cultural forms
C4: Local language, Christ-centered community using
cultural, biblically permissible Islamic forms
C5: Local language, Christ-centered community of
Muslim followers of Isa
C6: Secret underground groups of Muslims who follow
Isa; little or no fellowship with other such believers.

The purpose of such a typology and its application to

Buddhist contexts by Paul DeNeui in Appropriate Christianity
is to help us understand that there are several types of
Christian cultural expression in the world, each of which is
appropriate to some Christian group. Many of the peoples of
the world have, however, only been presented with Western
varieties and given the impression that: these are the only
acceptable forms. Yet Western cultural forms are culturally alien
and uncomfortable to those who choose not to westernize but
to continue in their own cultural traditions. It is, therefore,
unwise, not to mention unscriptural, to give the impression that
the only way to Christ is by adopting a culturally foreign form
of following Christ. People need to be alerted to the
acceptability of forms of following Christ that express biblical
meanings in traditional rather than culturally alien ways (C4-
C5).
This typology enables us to label movements to Christ,
such as that going on in the Asian situation cited above (a C5
movement), as legitimate. We can also better understand the
differences between the various forms of Christian expression
and the validity of each for certain people. We can then
hopefully avoid advocating only one form of following Christ
as the only one ordained by God—a mistake that the early
Jewish Christians made when they attempted to impose Jewish
cultural patterns on Gentiles (see Acts 15).
Though I cannot take full credit for any of these innovative
approaches to relating Christianity to the cultures of the
receptors, each of the missionaries at the center of these
approaches will acknowledge the influence on their thinking of
the approaches I have championed. And, though I know of
several negative reactions to my approach, I know of no
negative results of the application of these ideas. And the
literature is full of negative outcomes of the failure to apply
such ideas.

Acknowledgments
I owe much to many for their assistance in getting the first
version of the book into shape. I am particularly grateful to Drs.
Jack Rogers, Donald Larson, Eugene Nida, Charles Taber,
David Hubbard, Chalmer Faw, and Pat Townsend for going
carefully through previous versions of the manuscript of the
first edition and making detailed comments at many points.
Among those who were students of mine while I was
developing the first edition, I owe most to Darrell Whiteman,
Ken Ross, Phil Elkins, Wayne Dye, and Bob Gordon. A series
of secretaries expended energy and concern (back in the days
of typewriters and mimeograph machines) on the successive
stages of the manuscript of the first edition and are worth much
more than I was able to pay them. I am, therefore, greatly
indebted to Kristen Burckhart, Carol Heise, Joyce Showalter,
Ruth Whitt, Linda Ferguson, Laurie Whiteman, and Carolyn
Alexander. The greatest debt of all, however, is the one I owe
my wife, Marguerite (Meg), my sons, Chuck and Rick, and my
daughters, Cheryl and Karen. Thanks so much to you all. I am
very pleased that Meg is able to participate in the revision of
the book and thus to add her experience with the book to mine
in this new edition.
With the advent of the computer age, word processing has
enabled us to do the revision and manuscript preparation
ourselves. In addition to Meg, I am, however, very grateful to
editor Bill Burrows of Orbis for his encouragement and
substantial help in getting out this revised edition.

Advice on How to Read This Book

A suggestion concerning how to read this book: it has
been found better to assign students first to skim the whole
book rapidly from start to finish before beginning to read it
carefully. Each part of the book depends rather heavily on
every other part. The necessity to write in a linear or sequential
fashion demands, however, that certain things be presented
before other things. This causes problems. I recommend,
therefore, that you first skim through the whole book, then read
the overview of the models presented in the appendix before
settling down to study the detailed presentation.

Conclusion
So, blessings on you as you work through this revised
edition. I trust that you will find it profitable and that you will
apply the approach recommended herein. I pray, then, that
there will be many more who will share heaven with us because
we have learned to work as God has worked—within the
cultures of the world rather than against them.
The effort of writing the book and the experience of using it
in class have been exciting learning experiences for myself, for
Meg, and for generations of our students, as well as for many
in other institutions. Though the ideas here presented have
been challenging, especially for our more conservative
students, we have been heartened by the fact that the
response has been largely positive and often enthusiastic. In
the classroom setting, we seem to have been able to establish
the crucial trust and mutual respect necessary to win a hearing
for this approach (see Mayers 1974, 32-33).
The issues I deal with and the way I attempt to deal with
them are challenging enough that the bond of trust between
myself as author and sincere Christians committed to practicing
and communicating biblical Christianity could easily be broken.
Though I cannot predict your response, I pray that you, the
reader, will grant me the trust that will enable you to get from
this book what most of our students have received from the
classes in which it has been used. Toward this end, I have
attempted to include quite a bit of our own personal experience
and a number of statements that will, I hope, reassure you, if at
times you should doubt my commitment to biblical Christianity
(interpreted from the point of view of evangelical
Protestantism).
There are two areas that might militate against your trusting
me and/or your feeling the relevance of this presentation.
These are (1) if you lack cross-cultural experience and (2) if you
lack a background in either or both theology and anthropology.
I am powerless to do much about either except to recommend
that you read books such as those cited above. You will find
those by Nida, Mayers, Luzbetak, and Smalley especially
helpful.
This book is part of a process that is not complete even
though the book and we are over twenty-five years older than
when it was first published. As part of a process, even a
search, the book is revised and reprinted with the realization
that it is still very imperfect. I, too, am still in process, still
learning and growing; and I invite your contributions to that
learning and growing. I also ask what some of our young
people used to ask via lapel buttons: PBPGINFWMY (Please be
patient, God is not finished with me yet).
Blessings on you.

Fuller Theological Seminary

October 2004

1. Renamed “ The School of Intercultural Studies” in 2003.

 OUTLINE OF MODELS AND THEIR
COMPONENTS

A. Perspective Models (chapters 2-5) 1. Models Concept

(chapter 2) 2. Biblical Christian (chapter 2) a. Scriptural Data
versus Interpretations b. Dynamic Not Static
c. Open to Innovation and Diversity
3. Application of Anthropological Insights (chapters 3-5)
a. Culture
b. Cultural Validity
c. Worldview
d. Forms, Functions, Meanings, and Usage e. Cultural
Patterning and Performance f. Culture Change
g. Human Commonality

B. Ethnotheological Models I (chapters 6 and 7) 4. God,

Humanity, and Culture (chapters 6 and 7) a. God through
Culture
b. Theology as Culture-Bound Perception c. Primacy
of Supracultural Meanings over Cultural Forms d.
The Supracultural and the Cultural e. Biblical
Cultural Relativism
5. Ethnotheological Hermeneutics (chapter 7) a. Adequate,
 Though Never Absolute, Human Perception of
Supracultural Truth b. Ethnolingistic Interpretation
c. Differing Levels of Abstraction
d. “Two-Culture Dialogic” Interpretation C.
Communication Models (chapter 8)

6. Receptor-Oriented
Communication
a. Correspondence between Intent of Communicator
and Understanding of Receptor b. The Receptor as
Final Formulator of the Message c. The Meanings
Reside in the Receptor

7. Communication with Impact

a. Person-to-Person Interaction
b. Same Frame of Reference
c. Communicator Credibility
d. Message Credibility
e. Receptor Discovery

D. Ethnotheological Models II (chapters 9-19) 8. Revelation in

Culture: Its Nature and Components (chapters 9-11) a.
Receptor-Oriented Revelation
b. Revelation as Communication across the
Supracultural-Cultural Gap c. Supracultural
 Messages via New Vehicles Result in Partly New
Meanings d. Revelation as a Dynamic Process
e. Distinction between Information and Revelation f.
Revelation as Information Plus Stimulus g.
Revelation as Both Objective and Subjective h.
Dynamic-Equivalence Revelation
i. General and Special Revelational Information j. Base
Plus Activator
k. Cumulative Revelational Information 9. The Bible in
Culture: Its Nature and Functions (chapters 9-11) a.
The Bible as Yardstick
b. Perception of Revelation within a Range of Variation
c. The Bible as Tether
d. The Bible as Inspired Classic Casebook e. The
Human and Divine Nature of the Bible f. Dynamic
Inspiration
g. Truth with Impact
h. Multicultural Format
10. God's Interaction with Humans (chapters 10-12) a.
Constancy of Method
b. Constancy of Message
c. Starting Point Plus Process
d. Directional Rather Than Positional Basis e. Start
with Existing Ideals
f. Raise Ideals
g. Chronologically A.D. but Informationally B.C.
11. Dynamic Equivalence (chapters 13-17) [8h. Dynamic-
Equivalence Revelation]
a. Bible Translation (chapter 13) b. Transculturation of
 the Message (chapter 14) c. Theologizing (chapter
15) d. “Churchness” (chapter 16) e. Conversion
(chapter 17) 12. Cross-Culturally Valid Theologizing
(chapter 15) [4b. Culture-Bound Theologizing]
[11c. Dynamic-Equivalence Theologizing]
a. Ethnic Theologies versus Ethnotheology b.
Theography versus Theology
13. Christian Transformational Change (chapters 18 and 19)
a. Change of Allegiance
b. Reevaluation and Reinterpretation c. Rehabituation
d. Working with Culture for Transformation e. Place of
Advocates and Innovators Abbreviations of Bible
Versions Used in This Volume
The American Standard Version. New York: Thomas
ASV
Nelson & Sons, 1901.
The New Testament in Modern English. London:
JBP
Geoffrey Bles, 1958 (J. B. Phillips, translator).
KJV The King James Version, 1611.
LB The Living Bible. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1971.
The New American Standard Version. LaHabra, Calif.:
NASV
Lockman Foundation, 1973.
The New English Bible. London: Oxford and
NEB
Cambridge, 1961.
The New International Version. Grand Rapids:
NIV
Zondervan, 1978.
Good News Bible: The Bible in Today's English
TEV
Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1976.
 Part 1

THE PERSPECTIVE
1
 CASES OF NEED

Who needs this approach? With the following two case

studies I attempt to establish the need of missionaries and
international church leaders for a broader approach, such as
this, to doing Christian theology. The scriptural data that we
seek to understand may be likened to a great mountain filled
with gold ore. To mine that ore a number of mine shafts need to
be drilled into the mountain. To date, the theological
mineshafts into the mountain of revealed truth have nearly all
been drilled in a strictly limited area. This area is defined by
Western culture. There are several shafts, representing several
varieties of Western cultural perspectives.
But most of those shafts have either combined with one
another to make a single large tunnel of Western Christian
theologizing or they have been abandoned with a HERESY sign
posted over the entrances to them. Meanwhile, throughout the
world, the members of the other six thousand or more cultures
have largely been given the impression that mining in God's
mountain can be done only by entering where Western
theologians have drilled, as long as there is no HERESY sign
over the entrance. The rest of the mountain remains largely
untouched.
Career missionaries have been most responsible for
communicating this approach to biblical mining to the rest of
the world. Missionary training has been such as to make it very
difficult for them/us to do anything else. But the Christians of
the other six thousand cultural worlds are getting less and less
patient with such an approach in the name of a movement that
claims to have cross-cultural validity. There is, however, a
broader perspective available to us.

Case One: The Career Missionary

“If I had only understood things this way, my whole
ministry would have been greatly different and considerably
more effective.”
The speaker was a career missionary with fifteen years of
experience as a professional communicator of the gospel in
another language and culture. He had been brought up in the
United States and, in order to meet the requirements of the
missionary-sending organization under which he served, had
studied three years in one of America's better theological
seminaries before he went to the field.
The things he learned in college and seminary seemed to
make sense to him while he was learning them. Most of the
questions and concerns of his instructors and textbooks he
either already shared or easily learned to share. And most of
what he did not come to share immediately he was willing to
accept as valid on the basis of his faith in his teachers. They
had, after all, so much more experience than he and knew better
than he what he needed to learn. Since he was headed for
cross-cultural missionary work he took the elective offered by
his seminary entitled “The History of Missions.” This was
taught by the church history professor, who had once been a
missionary and taught in a seminary overseas.
The professor criticized the long dominance of missionary
organizations over the churches they have founded. He also
criticized the strong tendency of the national leaders of those
churches to perpetuate the same policies once they gain
control but not to be very efficient about the way they carry
them out. The church leadership, he maintained, also showed
tendencies toward a lack of proper concern for maintaining
strict doctrinal orthodoxy. The perpetuation of a high concern
for denominational distinctives and their historical rootings, for
example, has suffered noticeably wherever nationals have
replaced missionaries. Nor do the nationals seem to be properly
concerned with evangelism. The majority of the seminary
graduates either take administrative positions within the
church organization or are wooed away by some parachurch
organization. Comparatively few become pastors and even
fewer become evangelists or missionaries.
The professor treated the whole subject academically. He
was willing to discuss the issues and face the problems at an
academic level, but it was clear that his real interests lay
elsewhere. The professor in his teaching sometimes used
illustrations from the language and thought patterns of the
people in the area in which he had served. But he never gave
any indication that he had learned their language well or that
he regarded their ways of thinking with anything more than idle
curiosity.
During the next fifteen years this missionary did a number
of things in the field. He spent his first term teaching (in
English) at a seminary. When the nationals took charge of the
church, that job was filled by a national; he was asked to go to
another part of the country to work with pastors. There he had
to face a whole new set of problems, including those raised by
being forced to learn a new language and culture. He
eventually became reasonably proficient in the language but
could never quite conquer the frustration he felt every time
discussion of an important issue would degenerate into what
seemed to be some irreconcilable difference in thought patterns
between missionaries and nationals.
When the missionary went to the field and during most of
his time there he did not realize that there might be deficiencies
in the way he understood the events in which he participated.
He noticed, of course, that there were many problems for which
he had no answers. But he assumed that no one had answers
to those problems. He also recognized a rather high degree of
ineffectiveness in many of the operations of the mission in
which he served.
Like his missions professor and most of his colleagues,
however, he felt that the reasons for that ineffectiveness lay in
the fact that the nationals hadn't learned to do things properly.
Perhaps one reason for this was that he and the other
missionaries were not getting their points across as well as
they might. So he had plodded on doggedly, more or less
convinced that the answer to each dilemma lay basically in
doing essentially the same things that they were already doing,
but doing them better. Undoubtedly there were deficiencies in
the approach of the mission. Undoubtedly they had made and
continued to make mistakes. But surely God would overrule in
all such cases. And surely, sooner or later, God would bring
about a breakthrough in the understanding of the people as
well—leading them to turn away from their pre-Christian ways
to doing things in the “right” way.
As the missionary's language ability grew and he became
more and more closely involved with the local-level
communication of the gospel, however, certain nagging doubts
that he harbored concerning the rightness of the way the work
of Christ was being conducted grew very large. He often felt
guilty about his doubts. But he also felt guilty about what he
was now coming to see as the extreme limitedness of his ability
to help these people. Perhaps supporting him to do the job he
had been assigned to do at no better level than he was able to
do it was in reality but a waste of the Lord's money. Was
anything in his ministry going right? Could anything go right?
Was the problem a lack of knowledge? A lack of training? A
lack of dedication? He began to realize that he could neither
answer these questions nor imagine where to begin to seek
answers to them.
These frustrations led the missionary to spend his next
furlough in a study program that taught him to look in a
different way at the ministry in which he was involved. He was
exposed to what often amounted to a radically different
perspective on the problems he had been facing (often
unsuccessfully) day in and day out for the past fifteen years.
And now, fifteen years later, the missionary could look back
with new eyes on his experience in cross-cultural ministry. And
he could be hopeful for the first time that the ministry in which
he participated would be a positive thing both for the people
and for the kingdom. What made the difference? And why did
he feel that his ministry would have been greatly changed for
the better if he had been exposed to this approach to
Christianity earlier in his experience?
The answer lies in the fact that he had come to look at all of
those events with a new perspective. He had experienced what
philosophers of science call a “paradigm shift” (Kuhn 1970), or
a change of worldview. Conversion to Christ is one such
paradigm shift, involving as it does a radically new way of
interpreting and responding to reality. in the missionary's case,
however, this shift of perspective was not conversion to Christ
(that shift had long ago taken place) but conversion to a new
perception of the nature of the work of Christ to which he was
already committed. It is a major aim of this book to meet the
need of such a missionary by leading him into just such a shift
of perspective.
Sadly, the foregoing is not an imaginary story. It is, rather, a
“typicalized” version of the kind of story I have heard over and
over again from career missionaries studying at the School of
World Mission, Fuller Seminary.

Case Two: The Author's

My experience as a field missionary has been in northern
Nigeria. Much of what follows is so strongly influenced by and
draws so greatly from that experience that it will be helpful for
the reader to become aware of at least certain aspects of my
“pilgrimage.” For, among the most important of the needs that
this volume seeks to meet are my own.
One day, soon after I began to understand the trade
language of the people with whom I was working, I was faced
with a question that my training had not equipped me to
answer. The question was, Do you believe in evil spirits? I was
supposed to be the expert on theological matters, but there was
nothing in my Christian college or evangelical seminary
training that equipped me to answer that question except
perhaps at a highly theoretical level. At the gut level, I frankly
didn't know whether I believed in evil spirits or not, for my
cultural conditioning, even within the church, led me to doubt
and even deny the reality of evil spirits. What does one do
when he feels he has been well trained for his task and
suddenly realizes that those to whom he goes are asking quite
different questions from the ones he has been trained to
answer?
On another occasion I was presenting the gospel message
in the best way I knew how and came to the point where I
asserted that the supreme proof that the message of God is true
rests in the fact that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
“Very interesting,” one of my hearers replied. “My son rose
from the dead just last week, and my uncle last month. My
uncle was climbing a tree and he fell out of the tree, died, and,
after half an hour, rose from the dead.” What does one say
about Jesus' resurrection to people for whom death and
unconsciousness are in the same category?
A third major problem area for me was the question Will
God accept believing polygamists? The answer of my
missionary colleagues revolved around the American
assumption that having sexual relations with someone other
than one's first wife falls into the category of adultery.
Obviously, these people did not believe that having a second
wife was adulterous. They, like every other society in the
world, had a law against committing adultery. But to them a
plurality of wives comes under the “marriage” category, not
under the “adultery” category. What was I to do, especially
since they could read the Old Testament and discover that
among the Hebrews God accepted polygamists?
As we studied the Bible together, then, I frequently was
jolted by the perspectives of my Nigerian brethren. On one
occasion we were studying the book of Romans. We had
previously studied a Gospel and the book of Acts and now in
sequence proceeded to Romans. After a few sessions one of
the Nigerian church leaders said to me something like, “What's
all this stuff anyway? Can't we study something interesting?
Can't we go back to the Gospels or, better yet, study a book in
the Old Testament?” I was shocked. For my theological training
had taught me that the book of Romans is probably the most
important book in the Bible.
My theological training had not equipped me to handle
problems such as these. But I had another kind of training in
my background—anthropological and linguistic training. My
temptation, however, was to separate these kinds of training
from my theological-biblical training and to order the two
perspectives in such a way that I looked for answers to
theological problems from my theological training and to what I
considered purely cultural problems from my anthropological
training. The possibility of combining anthropological
perspectives with theological perspectives was not always in
the forefront of my mind. Yet my anthropological training told
me that I must take my hearers seriously if I ever expected to be
taken seriously by them.
I observed in one of my colleagues a disturbing type of
behavior that I wanted at all costs to avoid. He took a great
interest in the culture of the people he worked among but,
when he discovered their secrets, he consistently used this
information against them. His attempts to communicate the
gospel constantly compared one of their customs with what he
called “the Christian custom.” When he described “the
Christian custom,” however, it always bore a striking
resemblance to an idealized version of an American custom.
My anthropological training had led me to be suspicious of
such ethnocentrism. However, my theological training had
made me feel that theological answers were sacred and were
simply to be delivered to my hearers as God's truth.
And yet, as my experience with these Nigerians increased
and I was able to enter more fully into their understandings of
life, I came to realize more and more how limited and narrow my
preparation had been for service in this Nigerian society. At
times I was tempted to turn my back on the theological training
that I had received. I began to feel that I had been betrayed by
being required to spend so much time learning answers to
questions that nobody in this Nigerian context was asking. But
if I abandoned my theological undergirding, to what would I
turn? To relativistic anthropology? Surely that was a worse
option, for anthropology made no legitimate claim to deal with
ultimate truth.
Somewhere in my pilgrimage it began to dawn on me that
continuing to compartmentalize the theological side of my
thinking from the anthropological side was a source of great
frustration to me. I found myself constantly having to decide
which compartment any given question should be assigned to.
Then, too frequently I would come up with two different
answers to the same question—one answer on the basis of
anthropological principles and the other on the basis of what I
had learned to call theological principles. And not infrequently
the answers I arrived at on the basis of theological principles
seemed to approximate more the answers that the Pharisees
gave to the questions of their day than those that Jesus gave
his inquirers.
I began to wonder if there were not some tools in my
anthropological toolbox that would help me to be more
theologically correct, as well as more relevant, in my approach
to the problems I was facing. This started me toward the
attempt to integrate anthropological with theological insight. I
decided that, since theological thinking is always done by
applying the perspectives (or biases) of the theologian to
scriptural data, I might attempt to do theology from a cross-
cultural, anthropological perspective.
I began to realize that, if I were to face the problems of the
Nigerian situation squarely, I would have to become more open
than I had been. I, like the majority of my generation of
evangelical Protestants, had been taught to fear heresy above
almost anything else in the world. I had been taught to respect
the nearly two thousand years of Western theological study
and to assume that such dedicated theologians had answered
just about every theological problem that could be raised. I had
also gotten the impression that we in the West, in view of our
extensive experience with Christianity, need not take very
seriously insights into Christianity attained by recently
Christianized peoples in the rest of the world. How could they
know anywhere near what our scholars had come to
understand and had passed on to us? But I began to see the
need to be more open than these attitudes allowed me to be.
Only much later did I understand what I was going through
at that period in my life. I had been taught to preserve my
orthodoxy by closing my mind to other options. Other options
were ordinarily labeled “liberal theology.” As best I could tell,
however, as I began to think these things through, I was not
becoming liberal in my theology. I was merely modifying my
methodology to some extent by opening myself to ways of
doing things that nobody in my home churches or seminary,
owing to the limitations of their experience, had even imagined.
I was becoming an “open” conservative (see model 2c, chapter
2), open to learning things from people of a different culture
concerning what biblical Christianity should look like from their
cultural perspective. I had learned only what it could look like
from the point of view of the part of my society in which I had
participated. There was nothing in my church background or
theological training that would enable me even to counsel
those who were interacting with God in terms of a different
culture.
Fortunately, at this time in my life I was able to avail myself
of the stimulus and insights of such perceptive
anthropologically oriented Christians as E. A. Nida, W. A.
Smalley, W. D. Reyburn, and J.A. Loewen, largely through their
writings in the journal Practical Anthropology. With their
stimulus and input, plus a series of encouraging experiments in
ministry that demonstrated the value of such a perspective, I
began to chart a new course.
This attempt to integrate my anthropological
understandings with my theological understandings was
opening my mind to the probability that God wanted to lead the
Nigerians in their attempts to be faithful to Christ in a way
different from the way he had been leading me and my people.
So I began to suggest rather than to dictate. I began to ask
questions concerning their problems rather than simply to state
solutions to them. I began to recognize that I didn't know all
that I thought I knew. I began to respect and encourage their
attempts to define problems, to search the Scriptures for
answers that would be satisfying to them, and to claim the
leading of the Holy Spirit in seeking satisfying answers to
those problems.
This new approach came as a surprise to these Nigerian
leaders. They had been used to more authoritarian
missionaries. One day in a Bible study class, when we had
finished reading the passage, they looked at me and asked,
“What does this mean?” I replied, “I don't know.” Their amazed
reaction was to wonder if I had never studied the passage in
seminary. I assured them that I had indeed studied this passage
many times. They suggested that it was the missionary's job to
tell them what each passage meant, for this is the way they had
been taught to relate to the missionary. Finally, I said to them,
“I know what the passage means to me and to people in my
society. I just don't know what the Spirit of God wants to teach
you from it.” They wondered what that had to do with it and
tried again to get me to interpret the passage for them.
At that point I suggested that we make a deal. I promised
that if they would tell me what it meant to them, I would then
share with them what the passage meant to me. This they
reluctantly agreed to, even though they were quite sure that
none of their opinions would amount to anything. After
listening to them share their impressions for awhile, I expressed
to them my amazement that anyone could possibly get from the
passage what they were getting from it. And yet, I pointed out
to them how thrilling it was to me to see how the Holy Spirit
was working with them to make the passage meaningful to
them in terms of their own particular problems. Then I shared
with them what the passage meant to me. It was their turn to be
amazed. For they had difficulty seeing how anyone in his right
mind could interpret the passage the way I had!
To illustrate one such difference in perception, Dr. Jacob
Loewen reported that he once asked a group of Africans and
missionaries to tell him the main point of the story of Joseph in
the Old Testament. The European missionaries all pointed to
Joseph as a man who, no matter what happened to him,
remained faithful to God. The Africans, on the other hand,
pointed to Joseph as a man who, no matter how far he was
away from home, never forgot his family. Both of these
meanings are legitimate understandings of the passage. But
differing cultural backgrounds led one group to one
interpretation and the other group to the other interpretation.
Evidently, God speaks to the different groups through that
same passage in ways that are appropriate to the different
focuses of their cultures.
As my eyes opened to this perspective on understanding
the Scriptures, I began to develop some insight into the
problems that I have raised above. The Bible is a multicultural
book, most of it directed to Jewish audiences, while some of
the New Testament portions were directed to audiences whose
primary language was Greek. Since European culture has been
greatly influenced by Greek-type thinking, we Euro-Americans
are naturally attracted to those portions of the Scriptures that
are directed to Greek-speaking peoples. Thus the book of
Romans, which presents the gospel in a cultural style that we
warm up to, is very important to us. We Westerners see God
most clearly when he is presented in this way. But we tend to
ignore or even, like Martin Luther, to disdain those portions of
Scripture that are presented in more typically Hebrew ways
(Reuss 1891, 322). Well and good for Europeans, but what if
one's cultural perspective is more like that of the Hebrews than
that of the Greeks? This, in fact, is the case in Nigeria.
It is, then, for cultural (not theological) reasons that
Nigerians prefer those parts of the Bible directed to Jewish
audiences. When I came to realize the significance of this
cultural dimension, the preference of these Nigerians was no
longer surprising to me. It took me longer to overcome my
surprise at how clearly they were able to see God and the
gospel message through the Old Testament. This recognition
has led me to a much greater appreciation for the Old
Testament and a deeper conviction of its inspiration than I had
learned in all my previous church, Christian college and
seminary experience. I also learned a new approach to dealing
with problems such as those cited above.
With respect to the problem of the lessened impact of the
resurrection of Christ, I began to ask myself if there was
anything in the Scriptures that would in their Nigerian context
convey the same kind of impact that the resurrection accounts
convey in my cultural context. So I asked some Nigerian church
leaders what they felt to be their biggest problem. They
pointed to the constant difficulties they have with evil spirits.
This raised a problem for me, however, since I had had no
experience with evil spirits, and the one chance I might have
had to study about them was bypassed by my seminary
professor—though there was a section in our theology text on
Satan and demons.
But, with this stimulus, I began to look to the Scriptures for
answers to a set of problems neither I nor my teachers had
taken seriously. The New Testament has much to say about
evil spirits (e.g., Rom. 8:38; Eph. 1:21; 6:12; Col. 2:10). From my
cultural and theological perspective, though, I had virtually
ignored these passages, since they scratched me where I didn't
itch. My Nigerian friends, however, felt their greatest need to
be spoken to by these very passages that I had ignored. The
truth that Jesus could conquer the evil spirits carried in their
experience an impact that I judged to be even greater than the
impact of the resurrection in my experience. But at that time in
my pilgrimage, I was unable to help these church leaders. They
were on their own. I wish I had known then what I know now in
this area.
 As for polygamy, my background had led me to feel that,
though God once allowed customs such as this, he no longer
allows them. This impression was, of course, conveyed to me
by people who never really had to face this issue. Suddenly,
though, I was being faced daily by people who were sincere in
their faith in Christ but who would not be allowed to join the
church because they had, in keeping with the ideals of their
culture, committed themselves in marriage to more than one
wife. I began to suspect that the God who was patient with
Abraham and David would be patient today with Nigerians
who, though chronologically A.D., were B.C. in their
understandings of God and his works. I came to the conviction
that the guidelines concerning what God seeks to do today
should come from those parts of the Scriptures that record
what he did in similar cultural contexts in times past, rather than
from those portions of the Scriptures that we believe show his
ideals. Perhaps there is a range of behavior within which God is
willing to work, even though it is less than ideal. Perhaps God
wants us to seek to understand and, in love, to accept people
within their cultural context rather than simply to impose upon
them what we have come to understand from within our
cultural context to be the proper rules.
These kinds of experiences plus many others have led me
to devote myself to trying to understand God's truth from a
cross-cultural perspective. In training cross-cultural witnesses,
we in the School of World Mission deal daily with problems
that Western theological perspectives have never had to deal
with. Those whose experience has not taken them beyond the
Western cultural matrix (and this includes most traditional
theologians) have usually not even considered a multitude of
problems arising within the other six thousand cultures of the
world. But we who specialize in the problems encountered in
taking the gospel to the peoples of the rest of the world must
struggle with such problems. We must appreciate as valid the
perspectives and biblical insights of peoples of other societies.
Though we must be faithful to the Scriptures, we dare not
condemn the perspectives and insights of others who see the
same Scriptures through different eyes. We who espouse the
Golden Rule—we who seek to treat others as we would like
them to treat us—must certainly apply this scriptural principle
in our dealings with the peoples of non-Western societies.
Not infrequently, considerations such as these raise the
specter of “creeping liberalism” in the minds of even open
conservatives. There is a fear that, if we once admit that God's
revelations are conditioned by culture, we will not be logically
able to stop short of the totally naturalistic perspective that
has led many liberals to question the very existence of God
(see Schaeffer 1976). Monica Wilson, a noted anthropologist
who is also a committed Christian, writes helpfully concerning
this issue. She points to the “curious inclination to suppose
that religious, but not scientific, ideas are invalidated by being
related to society” (1971, 5). Western Christians recognize that
ideas concerning scientific matters (though not the reality
being observed) can change, one hopes in the direction of
greater preciseness and helpfulness. Should we be upset if the
same kind of change occurs with respect to our
understandings of Christianity within the cultural matrix?
“Ideas are not necessarily untrue because they have been
shaped by the society in which they emerge. What is false is to
suppose they can escape reformulation as societies change”
(Wilson 1971, 5).
Wilson sees development in our understandings of
Christianity as part of what Jesus promised.

Christ specifically taught that his revelation was not

complete: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth,
is come, he will guide you into all truth” (Jn. 16:12-13). To
me this implies two things: first that creeds are as tentative
as scientific hypotheses. The difficulty is to recognize that
the reality does not depend upon the formulation: God
exists though men quarrel over his attributes. An honest
Christian may struggle all his life with doubts (Mk. 9:24);
we are past the dogmatic certainty of medieval or Victorian
times and back to the position of John's disciples who,
when sent to ask Jesus who he was, were told to look at the
evidence for themselves.…
The second implication is that the awe-inspiring
discoveries of science are part of the leading of the Spirit.
They are indeed a fruit of men looking at the evidence.
(Wilson 1971, 5)

Perhaps among Wilson's “awe-inspiring discoveries of

science” she agrees to include the application of
anthropological and communicational models to the analysis of
the relationships between Christianity and culture.
The Aim of the Book
My primary aim in writing and revising this book is to
assist Christian witnesses in attempting to develop biblically
grounded theological models that are cross-culturally valid.
My hope, then, is that these will enable us to be more effective
than we have historically been in communicating truly biblical
Christianity in a multicultural world. As missiologists we must
grapple with the realities of cultural diversity in ways that
those working within Western societies may not even perceive
to be necessary. We dare not add to the absolutes of God
teachings and examples that involve principles and judgments
that may be valid within Western culture but should not be
absolutized for non-Westerners. The cross-cultural approach
to theologizing that I am attempting to develop here aims to
protect us and our hearers against the unconscious
ethnocentrism in theological matters of which we have so often
been guilty.
Today's missionary communicator of the gospel cannot be
content to simply learn the culture of the people to whom he or
she goes in order to better force on them their own inherited
theological understandings—understandings developed by
other people in other times to answer other questions. This is
what my insensitive colleague did when he spied out the
cultural secrets of one group of Nigerians in order to use what
he learned to argue against their beliefs and customs. Owing to
the cultural distance between European cultures and Hebrew
culture, it is likely that American understandings of Scriptures
that were written from a Hebrew cultural background will be
further from the intent of the original authors than African and
Asian understandings. For even at this distance, the latter are
often culturally closer to ancient Hebrews than are Euro-
Americans.
As we grapple with how best to convey the Christian
message to those of the other six thousand ethnolinguistic
groups of the world, we discover a pressing need for a more
broadly based, multiculturally applicable theological
perspective than the ones that have been traditionally taught
in Euro-America. This book is an effort to develop (or at least
to stimulate the development of) this kind of broader, cross-
culturally valid theological perspective.
Not all such theology is going to be different, of course,
since this cross-cultural Christian theology, like monocultural
Western biblical theology, is based on the same Scriptures and
deals with the same topics. But the conceptualization of each
doctrine has to be tested in a wide variety of different cultural
contexts to discover whether the result is understanding of
God's message or of some other message. For God, in the data
we study for theological purposes, always reveals himself to
people—never away from them or simply into thin air (see
chapter 9). Likewise, doing theology must have the receivers of
the theology always in mind—never just thin air (see chapter
15).
In developing this perspective I seek to bring to bear
certain of the models, perspectives, and understandings of
cross-cultural studies such as anthropology, linguistics,
translation theory, and communication science on areas of life
and thought that have ordinarily been regarded as theological.
It is expected that such understandings may sooner or later be
systematized into a theological discipline based on the
application of cross-culturally valid perspectives to biblical
data. This cross-cultural Christian theology is tentatively
labeled “Christian Ethnotheology” (see chapter 15 and Kraft
1973f). Whether my presentation is simply idiosyncratic. “Kraft
theology” or a genuine step in that direction is left for the
reader to decide.
The method here employed is to present and discuss a
series of understandings of reality (labeled “models”) that
differ significantly from those to which missionaries are
ordinarily exposed. The hope is that either (1) through
adopting the new models or at least (2) through the kind of
learning that can come from the discussion of alternative
approaches to the same problems, those who work through
this material will be better equipped than previously to
communicate the Christian gospel effectively.
The primary audience envisaged is that group of cross-
cultural witnesses for Christ who, like myself and the
missionary described earlier, have found their effectiveness
severely hampered by factors beyond their control. It is
assumed that at least some of the more important of these
hindering factors are not “out there” but deep within us. By
encouraging a shift in perspective, this book will attempt to
enable missionaries and national church leaders to better
perceive and deal with such factors.
Over the years, then, it has become clear that there are at
least two other audiences as well: (1) many who are not
engaged in cross-cultural work (as ordinarily defined) have
found that most of the principles here applied to intercultural
missionary work are also applicable to intracultural Christian
witness (i.e., within the same culture); (2) in addition, those
whose primary interest is in theological methodology have
found much here to speak to the issues with which they are
concerned.

Needs in View: A Summary and an

Elaboration
When our present approaches don't seem to work we need
new mirrors, new models, new approaches based on new
understandings of what is going on. Indications that our
present approaches are not as effective as they should be
come from at least two disturbing recognitions. The first is that
we have had little success in attracting to Christian
commitment people who are proud of their own culture. The
Japanese are a case in point. With the Christian faith presented
as virtually devoid of spiritual power, intellectual (the word for
church means “classroom”), expressed in foreign rituals and
limited by the language to an indistinct concept of God (the
only word for God is kami, the general word for “spirit”), there
is little to attract Japanese. For various reasons we can also cite
such proud peoples as the Thai and Muslims as largely
unreceptive to Christianity.
A second disturbing recognition is the fact that even
among reasonably receptive peoples, seldom is there any but a
highly westernized form of Christianity available. Though
Western Christianity is acceptable to many of the peoples of
Africa, the Pacific islands, and about 25 percent of Koreans, my
suspicion is that a major factor has been the prestige that
Western culture has in their eyes. Thus it is that the
westernizing segments of these societies are receptive, but the
traditional segments either reject the gospel or disqualify
themselves because they are unwilling to westernize. There are,
to be sure, many independent churches in Africa that appeal to
common folk. These have moved away from missionary
Christianity, often by splitting off from mission churches, and
have usually contextualized culturally and discovered spiritual
power. Such separation from worldwide Christianity, coupled
with an unwillingness on the part of missionaries to assist in
their quest for cultural relevance has, though, meant that many
of them have become highly syncretistic. A study of such
churches can, however, be very instructive in our quest for a
more meaningful Christianity.
A standard scientific technique for attempting to get out of
previous ruts is to experiment with a different approach. This
volume is written out of a deep frustration created by
recognitions such as those recorded above where the familiar
approaches either didn't work or attracted only one segment of
the population. Though that westernizing segment is valid and
we can thank God for their receptivity, I don't believe
westernization should be required. We need to experiment with
something new if God is to reach those who are culturally
proud and those who refuse to westernize.
1. One of the major areas of frustration felt by the author
and expressed by generations of Western missionaries stems
from the discovery, mentioned above, that much of the
theology and biblical interpretation taught to us in our home
churches, Bible schools, Christian colleges, and seminaries
turns out to be extremely difficult to use, or even to be
counterproductive, in cross-cultural contexts in the form in
which we learned it.
Missionaries (and, not infrequently, pastors and others
who are engaged in communicating the gospel across
sociocultural boundaries) have found it necessary to ignore
many of the issues about which our professors were exercised.
Often such matters as the critical details of biblical text and
authorship on which so much of our training focuses and even
such topics as proofs of the existence of God or of the
occurrence of miracles are simply irrelevant to the people of
other societies and subcultures. In many societies they, like the
ancient Jews, never question either the Bible or the existence of
God. And they perceive miracles as happening every day.
Many other issues on which our training focused are, of
course, relevant to the people of other societies. But they often
need “conceptual translation” if they are to carry the proper
meaning and impact. Yet we were never taught what to do if we
discover that the use of concepts basic to scriptural imagery
results in serious misperception of the gospel message.
What should a cross-cultural witness do when he
discovers that presenting Satan as a dragon (Rev. 12) to
Chinese results in their regarding him positively? Or presenting
Jesus as the Good Shepherd (Ps. 23; John 10) in parts of Africa
results in their understanding him to be mentally incompetent?
Or telling the story of Jesus' betrayal results in Judas being
regarded as the hero (Richardson 1974)? Or presenting Jesus
as the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 36) in Papua New Guinea does
not, for that audience, convey John's intent nearly so well as
analogies concerning his sacrificial work springing from their
use of pigs? What should we do if people are more attracted to
the Old Testament than to the New? If they show no
perceptible guilt over sin from which to be saved? Or if they
find other parts of the Christian message more attractive than
those on which we have learned to focus?
There are large numbers of committed people who have left
missionary work completely as a result of the frustrations
brought on by the inability to deal with such questions. There
are also, unfortunately, many who have found it possible to
stay on as missionaries and often to become the teachers in
Bible schools, only by stifling their suspicions that what they
are teaching is not relevant. And yet for many cross-cultural
witnesses the problems cannot be dismissed. Would a new
perspective, a new mirror on reality provide any better solution
to these problems?
2. A closely related set of problems that many Christian
witnesses have experienced, both overseas and at home, stems
from what appears to be the great distance between the way
traditional “conservative” theology is spoken and written and
the way ordinary Americans are thinking. Many of us who go
as missionaries have, as a part of our involvement in Euro-
American education, been taught to think critically about
virtually everything except theology. In dealing with “basic”
Christian doctrine, whether in church or in Christian schools,
our teachers have often virtually forbidden us to employ the
same critical faculties we have sharpened by thinking through
“secular” issues.
Many, like myself, were carefully warned in church, Bible
school, or seminary against questioning certain approved
formulations of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. We were
simply to give our uncritical assent to these. In other areas of
life we learn to examine and understand other approaches, to
weigh them in comparison to older approaches, and to decide
which to adopt. Boundaries of “orthodoxy” may be (and often
are) set in the humanities and natural and social sciences, but
there is a basic assumption that all truth is not yet known in
these areas. We are therefore, to probe continually for new
truth, even at the expense of previously held understandings.
Fear of change is to be abandoned, risk is encouraged. The
search for new truth requires freedom to search.
The conservative mentality of much of Christianity,
however, has ordinarily taken a more closed approach to
Christian truth (see model 2c). Revealed truth interpreted
according to the “naive realism” model described in chapter 2
(and in Barbour 1974) allows for little or no search for new
understandings, since it tends to equate “orthodox”
understandings with truth itself.1 The more one studies
theology, the more one becomes aware, as theologians are
aware, of the existence of diverse understandings at nearly
every point. But often even sincere conservative theologians
fall into the habit of studying and leading their students to
study other points of view simply to criticize them and, by
contrasting them with “orthodoxy,” to support the status quo.
 Because we were taught that Christian orthodoxy was
possible only within a culturally conservative package, many
of my contemporaries, as they ventured out from school into
the real world, felt constrained to seriously modify or even
abandon Christianity as well. Others seem to have copped out
on life completely by retaining the conservative package intact.
These tend to build their own walls higher and thicker to keep
out any threatening stimuli. And to make sure that their
children are preserved for conservatism they often seek out
and find the kind of schools and churches where they will be
carefully protected from other lifestyles and from having to
face problems that conservative Christianity refuses to deal
with.
But such an approach to life is extremely brittle. It is very
much like an earthenware vase or a china plate that functions
quite well as long as nothing strikes it sharply. It must,
however, be very carefully packed when shipped and very
carefully handled when one is setting the table or washing it.
And if it is struck sharply or dropped, it is likely to smash to
pieces and become good for nothing.
Such is the fate of the conservatism of many Christians.
When the bombardment from outside becomes too great, when
the evidence shows that what they have been taught
concerning this or that doctrine is no longer tenable for
thinking persons, when they begin to realize just how irrelevant
to real life much of what the church stands for seems to be,
when they feel they can no longer simply dismiss the criticisms
leveled by outsiders against the missionary endeavors of their
church, the whole brittle system smashes to pieces, at least for
those who take these criticisms seriously.
Could it be that for those who remain within the fold such
conservatism has at points stifled the Holy Spirit as he seeks to
lead us “into all truth” (John 16:13)? 1 assume that biblical
Christianity ought to take seriously scriptural injunctions to
avoid heresy (e.g., Gal. 3; 1 John 4), but does an avoidance of
heresy also require a closedness to new approaches to or new
applications of Christian truth? Could it be that (mixed in with
genuine heresies) at least certain of the diverse theological
understandings labeled “heresy” either historically or
contemporarily are in fact often not heretical? Perhaps, rather,
they are valid interpretations of scriptural truth from other
perspectives (according to alternative, equally valid models).
Jesus in his day, Paul in his, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley,
Barth and others in their days reinterpreted theological data in
ways that have come to be seen as improvements over
previous understandings, even though they often opposed the
orthodoxy of their times.
Could it be that the cross-cultural witness especially is
called to discover and imitate the process of theological
innovation in which people like these engaged, in order to
effectively influence contemporary peoples in new cultural and
subcultural contexts the way they did? Yet missionaries and
those trained by missionaries are often those most
conservative and protective of the products of the orthodox
thinking of the past. They are often among those most prone to
become rigid and inflexible in their theology. Would a new
perspective, a new understanding of what theological
faithfulness to God means, provide a better solution?
 3. Into this situation comes the widespread influence of the
“behavioral sciences”2 on both the academic world and the
populace as a whole. These disciplines, like most academic
disciplines, are dominated by those who operate from non-or
even anti-Christian biases. But behavioral scientists often work
in terms of these biases to develop new understandings
(models) of and approaches to many of the same problems that
have exercised Christians through the years. Since they often
develop answers that seem diametrically opposed to Christian
answers, conservative Christians (including missionaries) often
tend to regard the behavioral sciences and the perspectives
that they have developed with a good bit of suspicion at best
and antagonism at worst (see Kraft 1977).
Creationists often take a dim view of those who assume
biological evolution. Those who believe that ultimate truth
comes from divine revelation are disposed to deny the validity
of positions that see no truth beyond that discovered by
humans. People who have come to understand Christianity as
absolute and timeless have little use for perspectives that see
Christianity as merely one of the religions and its teachings as
relative and limited to a single cultural tradition. Those who
seek to be supernaturalistic and God-centered feel they cannot
endorse insights generated on the basis of a naturalistic,
human-centered worldview. Traditional Christian
understandings of the sinfulness of human beings are felt to be
incompatible with perspectives that assume that human beings
are essentially good. And so on (see Kraft 1977).
The fact that many laypersons and liberal theologians often
seem to evangelicals to have been negatively influenced by
positions developed by the behavioral sciences makes it very
difficult for evangelicals to regard these disciplines positively.
Certain understandings of behavioral-science (or frequently,
misinterpretations of them) are identified as basic to concepts
like cultural and ethical relativism, situation ethics, the “new
morality,” biological evolution, demythologizing, and other
attacks on the authority of the Bible, and the like. As
conservative Christians we are so often put into positions
where we are forced to defend biblical Christianity with
reference to such concepts that it is very easy to see the
behavioral sciences as the enemy. As David Hubbard, late
president of Fuller Theological Seminary, has said, “The
greatest challenges to evangelical Christianity are coming from
the behavioral sciences.” And many conservative Christians
who are not as open as Hubbard was to the use of new models
in the attempts to understand Christianity are even more fearful
than he of the behavioral sciences (e.g., Schaeffer 1968; 1976;
Lindsell 1976).
Some conservative Christians seem to have made their
peace to an extent with psychology and sociology. Perhaps
they have come to feel that many of the techniques and
understandings of psychology and sociology can be utilized
by those whose biases are Christian, even though they may
have been developed by anti-Christian scholars. Could it be
that we will make the same discovery with respect to
anthropology? Could it be that Christians can learn to avail
themselves of anthropological insights into culture and its
workings without being forced to adopt the anti-Christian
biases of many of the anthropologists who developed them,
just as we have learned to do with respect to certain
psychological and sociological insights?
There would seem to be good reason for antagonism
between committed Christians and anti-Christian
anthropologists at the level of basic presuppositions. But one
thing about presuppositions is that one set can usually be
substituted for another set, enabling a person to use the
insights and models of a given discipline even though the
underlying perspective differs. So it should be possible to
substitute Christian presuppositions for non-Christian ones
and to use anthropological insights and models unless it can
be demonstrated that those insights cannot be built on
Christian presuppositions. It is not enough to assume the total
unusability of anthropological insight on the basis of the
observation that most (not all) anthropologists are not
Christians, and therefore apply their understandings in ways
that are not usually supportive of Christian positions.
Bible translators working around the world have for years
found the insights, methodology, and general perspective of
anthropological linguistics invaluable in their work. But, in
spite of the widespread support of these translators by
conservative Christians, one sees surprisingly little of that
perspective fed back into their supporting churches, becoming
a part of seminary curricula (see Nida 1971) or adopted by other
missionaries. In fact, many conservative Christians support
anthropologically sound “dynamic equivalence” translation
procedures (see chapter 13) overseas but argue in favor of
literal translations at home. And missionaries talk much about
indigenous churches but still tend to produce and favor church
structures that are more similar to the missionary's home
denomination than to the sociocultural matrix of the converts
(see chapter 16 and Smalley 1958a).
Traditional problems such as the following, arising from the
relationships between Christianity and culture, will not go
away: What is absolute and what relative? What are the
relationships between God, Christianity, and culture (Niebuhr
1951; Tillich 1959)? What is the relationship between biblical
content and the linguistic symbols in terms of which it is
presented? How clearly can we see revealed truth? What is
that core of Christian truth that we must communicate to all
peoples and what is peripheral? Just what is conversion? What
happens within people and within their societies when people
turn to Christ? Might it be that a new attitude toward
anthropological (including linguistic) insights into cultural
phenomena (including language) could lead to better solutions
to such culture-related problems?
4. To attempt to do something about these problems from
within a biblical Christian frame of reference is a very risky
business. To date, the models available have seemed to
demand that a person choose between the authority of the
Bible as interpreted by conservative theologians and a liberal
theological option that denies biblical authority. I will seek to
develop a perspective that holds strongly to biblical authority
and inspiration but not at the expense of being forced to deny
much valuable insight that happens to have been discovered
by those who do/did not hold a “high” view of Scripture.
There will be those who feel that any attempt to reexamine
theological insights arrived at through centuries of dedicated
scholarly endeavor is ill-advised, especially If the
reexamination is in terms of insights developed by a discipline
usually regarded as anti-Christian, such as anthropology. They
may feel threatened (see McGavran 1974, 3-5) by the fact that
many anthropologists have (at least Intellectually) so firmly
embraced a relativistic approach to life that they have virtually
absolutized relativity. The feedback from many, even the
skeptical, who have learned this approach to theology,
however, has been encouraging. Such feedback, plus my own
experience in approaching theology in this way, encourages me
to risk whatever must be risked. For it is important to me to at
least attempt to help those who minister the love of Christ to
gain what I feel I have gained by opening myself up to a
culturally informed perspective on Christianity and Christian
theology.
But the risk is very real, since an important part of the
theological indoctrination to which many of us as
conservatives have been subjected teaches us to fear heresy
greatly.3 But does God want us to be so fearful that we refuse
to reflect on him and his revelation? All growth demands risk. It
is risky to follow the leading of another—even if that leader is
the Holy Spirit. If God is the God our theology tells us he is,
and if, as Jesus promised, the leading of the Holy Spirit is a
present reality for the Christian, is he not in favor of our risking
our previous understandings to come to understand him
better? Could God favor the turning off of our mental capacities
with respect to theology? Hadn't Peter, writing under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, enjoined us all to “be ready at all
times to…explain the hope” we have in us (1 Pet. 3:15 TEV)?
And hadn't Paul written that “God has not given us a spirit of
fear” (2 Tim. 1:7)? And wasn't the reason for the condemnation
of the servant who buried his master's money (Matt. 25:14-30)
the fact that in fear he refused to risk what his master had
entrusted to him?
J. B. Phillips, through his concept of “the God who is too
small” (1952; 1954), had much to do with my own change in this
regard. Encouraged by Phillips's writings, I began to reexamine
with my adult mind the theology I had been taught in my
youth. I began to prayerfully examine my understandings of
God and his Word in the same way that I had learned to
examine the ideas I had been taught in every other area of life.
And when I opened myself up in this way to the individualized
leading of the Holy Spirit in this most important area of my life,
I found that the God who had once been too small began to get
very big! I found that the small understandings I had once
feared to risk began to be swallowed up by and expanded into
much larger and more meaningful understandings. I began to
grow spiritually and theologically.
I have become convinced that it is my (and every
Christian's) obligation to risk whatever theological frame of
reference we have been trained into for the sake of such
growth. Only by risking prior, less mature understandings can
we gain more mature understandings that we can embrace with
our adult minds. And such a quest should involve us in facing
squarely the implications for the understanding of our faith of
the issues raised by such problems as cultural/subcultural
diversity. In addition to the obvious need for such thinking-
through by missionaries, it is, I believe, also necessary for
those living and seeking to witness in American contexts. For
even Americans who have not traveled are daily faced with
both the diversity of cultures and the increasing impact of the
perspectives of behavioral sciences on life. To relate
Christianity to Americans (including ourselves), therefore, we
need to take the risk of attempting to translate traditional
formulations of theological truth out of the language and
concepts of traditional theology into those of the behavioral
sciences. If we refuse such a risk we should not be surprised if
both non-Christians and those who unenthusiastically stay
within the churches assume that (a) God is behind the times,
(b) he is not concerned with being relevant to contemporary
life and thought, or (c) he cannot cope with this latest change
in thought patterns.
5. Risk of tradition is prerequisite to contemporary
relevance in every society. Large numbers of our
contemporaries (both in Euro-America and elsewhere) have
come to feel strongly God's irrelevance because of the refusal
of churches to take the risks necessary to becoming
contemporary. As long ago as World War II, J. B. Phillips
demonstrated this fact by asking a group of British young
people to respond quickly (i.e., without reflection) to a single
question. The question concerned what was in that day the
latest scientific advance—radar. Phillips's question was, “Do
you think God understands radar?” He then writes:

They all said “No,” and then, of course, roared with

laughter as they realized how ridiculous the answer was!
But the “snap answer” showed me what I suspected—that
 at the back of their minds there was an idea of God as an
old gentleman who lived in the past and was rather
bewildered by modern progress. (1954, 65)

This impression of God as an old gentleman who cannot

cope with the modern world is communicated by the church in
hundreds of ways. Many churches continue to insist on literal
Bible translations that simply are not in a kind of English
anyone speaks. We continue to be attached to antiquated
forms of preaching, worship, theology, and organizational
structure. We of the Christian in-group frequently manifest a
condemnatory or “holier-than-thou” attitude toward the non-
Christian out-group. These characteristics combine to
communicate irrelevance in the strongest possible way. Leslie
Dewart (1966) rightly asks, “Have We Loved the Past Too
Long?”
Overseas, where occasionally we have broken out of such
ruts, the situation is often not much better. “If Christianity had
been presented to me in these terms, I'd still be a Christian,”
remarked a highly schooled Liberian on one occasion in
response to the approach advocated in this book. He had been
brought up in missionary schools but, as he became better
acquainted with Western society, had come to regard the
Christianity he had been taught as utterly irrelevant. An
approach to Christian theology that viewed both his culture
and Western culture as alternative, equally valid vehicles for
expressing Christianity would have made it possible for this
man to remain a Christian. As it was, he, like millions of others
in mission lands, had been led to believe that Christianity is but
the tribal religion of the Euro-American tribe. Thus, acceptance
of Christianity was perceived by him as only a part of the
cultural package to which he was being asked to convert. But
he was led into this heresy—which, by the way, is nearly
identical to that of the Judaizers who required just such
conversion to Jewish culture as a prerequisite to Christianity
(see Acts 15) by sincere missionaries whose theology made no
distinction between Christianity and Euro-American culture. He
had fallen victim to what has been called “the greatest
secularizing force in the world”—mission schools.
“What I would like these young men to know before they
embark for Nigeria is that it is God who is taking them to
Nigeria not they who are taking God,” said a Nigerian
concerning a group of prospective missionaries. He continued:

When missionaries first came to my country, they spoke of

the God who created the world as if he were a different God
from the one we already knew about. We listened and
compared what we heard and read in the Bible about this
God and discovered that he is the very same God we had
always known about. We received many new insights from
the missionaries and especially we heard that we could
come to know God personally through Jesus Christ. But
everyone except the missionaries realized that your God is
the same as our God.
In other words, our God had brought the missionaries
to add to our understanding and commitment. The
missionaries had not brought a new God with them. And
this is what I would like these young people to realize
 before they go so that they don't waste so much effort
trying to change our ways but devote themselves to
building something worthwhile on the foundations that are
already there. (Kraft 1969, 11)

As missionaries we have steadfastly maintained that God is

more than simply “the white man's God.” Yet, because our
understanding of him and of Christian theology is so
influenced by our cultural conditioning, we often find
ourselves unable to give any other impression to members of
other societies. The theological questions we raise are those
that occur to Euro-Americans (and, often, only the
philosophically oriented subculture within Euro-America).
And, of course, the answers we give, couched in the
interpretations of the Scriptures that occur to us as applicable,
are thoroughly Euro-American. So the Africans, cringing in
their fear of evil spirits, puzzled by the relationship between the
Christian God and their living (though physically deceased)
ancestors, and uncomprehending over the discrepancy
between the attitude of the missionaries and that of the Bible
toward polygamous marriage and divorce, hear from Western
Christianity no serious attempt to deal with their pressing
problems. What they hear, rather, is frequently but another, to
them irrelevant, discussion of alternative (Western) theories of
the atonement or of biblical inspiration or some apologetic for
the existence of God or of miracles (in which they already
strongly believe without the need for apologetic). As John V.
Taylor has put it,
 Christ has been presented as the answer to the questions a
white man would ask, the solution to the needs that
Western man would feel, the Saviour of the world of the
European worldview, the object of the adoration and prayer
of historic Christendom. But if Christ were to appear as the
answer to the questions that Africans are asking what
would he look like? If he came into the world of African
cosmology to redeem Man as Africans understand him,
would he be recognizable to the rest of the Church
Universal? (1963, 24)

Theology should, however, be culturally relevant—whether

that culture be African or American. Theology should be, as
Bengt Sundkler has well put it,

an ever-renewed reinterpretation to the new generations

and peoples of the given Gospel, a representation of the
will and the way of the one Christ in a dialogue with new
thought-forms and culture patterns…. Theology…is to
understand the fact of Christ…. (1960, 211)

This study is an attempt to take seriously our responsibility

to represent the given gospel in “dialogue with new thought-
forms and culture patterns,” whether these be American,
African, Asian, or other. We dare not cop out; the stakes are
too high. Rather, we take the risk of rethinking in the conviction
that the possible gain for Americans in general, for
missionaries, and for the disillusioned products of both
American and missionary churches is so great that whatever
fears we might have had concerning the risk must be overcome.

1 See R. Kraft (1975) for a discussion of the cultural bases for distinguishing
between “ orthodox” and “ heretical.”
2 The “ behavioral sciences” are anthropology (including anthropological
linguistics), sociology, psychology, and those disciplines (e.g., communication
science) and parts of disciplines (e.g., cultural geography, ethnohistory) that have
been influenced by these disciplines. The term should not be equated with the
deterministic psychology labeled “ behaviorism” and associated with B. F. Skinner.
3 See Allen 1956, 55-76 for a disturbing but fair appraisal of the disastrous
effects of this fear in missionary work. He concludes, “ when we are dealing with the
Gospel fear is a very bad master” (p. 76).
2
 MIRRORED REALITY

In this chapter we lay the foundations for developing the

answers we seek. “Toward an Answer” introduces the problem
a bit more and then shows some hope from the experience of a
missionary who claims to have gone through a second
“conversion.” Next we discuss the distinction between reality
“out there” and the way we structure our perceptions of that
reality inside our heads, leading to a Critical Realist
understanding of life and Christianity (model 1). The concept
of models (model la) is then dealt with in some detail and a
biblical Christian model (models 2a-c) presented.

Toward an Answer—Critical Realism (Model

1)

Model 1
The concept of critical realism.
This perspective postulates that there are two realities: (1)
what God sees (REALITY) and (2) what human beings see
(reality). God sees things as they really are. What we humans
perceive is relative. We see REALITY but immediately
interpret it in ways affected by our own training and
experiences as “reality.”
 Centuries ago the apostle Paul wrote, “What we see now is
like the dim image in a [poor] mirror…. What I know is only
partial…” (1 Cor. 13:12 TEV). It has taken Western science
generations of trial and error to come to the same recognition.
Perhaps the newness of the insights scientists kept coming up
with misled them into assuming that they were finally seeing
REALITY directly. Or perhaps such an apparent overestimation
of the accuracy of what scientists were discovering was due to
a kind of (unconscious) arrogant desire to displace God and
revelation with empirical scientific discovery as the ultimate
source of truth. Whatever the basic reasons may have been,
both the scientific community and millions of those within
Western societies (including Christians) whose schooling
exposed them to the results of scientific discovery came to
believe that the knowledge we were gaining was bringing us
ever closer to an ultimate understanding of reality. People
within Western societies developed a faith in science and the
scientific process that approached credulity. For many, a
statement such as “scientists have proven” is enough to settle
any argument.
An interpretation of history that sees the West as having
evolved its cultures (“progressed”) ever upward, plus an
inordinate pride in the accomplishments of Western societies,
kept most of us from questioning such assumptions. Since we
believe our culture to be at the top, we have assumed that the
reason is that we are superior. In addition, most of the rest of
the world seems to be eager to borrow gadgets, insights, and
techniques from us. This must mean that they too recognize
our superiority—a superiority that rests solidly on our superior
knowledge. Or so we assume.
Western Christians, though we have often had our
problems with the scientific establishment, have more often
shared than questioned its basic premises. We might argue
over whether ultimate knowledge is totally attainable through
scientific experimentation but seldom over whether ultimate
knowledge of many things is ever attainable. We might discuss
whether the reason we do things in a “superior” way is
because we are Christians but seldom question that we do
things in a superior way. We might vehemently deny biological
evolution but seldom question the concept of cultural
evolution or “progress” that provided the model on the basis
of which the biological evolutionists developed their theory.

Fig. 2.1. Patterns that shift when the observer shifts perspective.

The point is that as Westerners and Christians we may be

claiming too great a correspondence between REALITY (as
God sees it), on the one hand, and our human perception of
that REALITY on the other. If we are only able to see that
REALITY as a “dim Image in a poor mirror” (1 Cor. 13:12),
however, do we have the right to claim that our reality is the
same as God's REALITY?
I believe that the understandings advanced by modern
philosophers of science concerning the relationship between
what is really “out there” and our perception of that REALITY
are more in line with that of the apostle Paul than with the “pre-
postmodern” understandings of much of conservative
Christendom, based as they are on an overestimate of the
absoluteness of scientific insight. For scientists (like the
missionary in chapter 1) have recently gone through one or
more “paradigm shifts” (see below), worldview changes, or
even “scientific revolutions” (Kuhn 1970), with the result that
they now think and talk differently about reality and their
relationship to it.
A “paradigm” is defined by Webster's Dictionary as an
example or pattern (1967, 610). The concept is treated in more
detail below. The diagrams in figure 2.1 provide convenient,
though elementary, illustrations of a visual pattern or paradigm
that has the built-in capacity for seeming to shift when the
observer looks at It differently. Actually the lines on the page
do not shift—they, like REALITY, remain constant. ‘There is,
however, a “shift” in the perception of the observer (the picture
of REALITY that the observer constructs in his or her mind)
that is similar on a small scale to a paradigm shift or worldview
change. As you go through the fairly simple procedure
necessary to see these realities differently, try to imagine the
complexity of a paradigm shift that leads to a radically different
understanding of all REALITY.
Missionary-professor Marvin Mayers indicates that: not
only scientists go through paradigm shifts. He writes,

At a time when studies in history, literature, theology, and

other disciplines deriving from the humanities and the
humanities-oriented social sciences were considered
adequate for missionary preparation, I was enlisted in a
mission enterprise with my wife, and entered Central
America. During my first term of service in Guatemala,
numerous problems arose that were impossible of solution
with the tools I had available to me. From time to time
consultants would shed light on a problem or two but by
the end of that tour, I was convinced that most of these
problems simply had to be left in the “hands of the Lord” to
resolve. I did have an uneasy feeling about that since I had
the distinct impression, at times, that my wife and I had
been adding to the problems rather than providing answers
to them.
During our furlough, we were privileged to attend the
University of Chicago to pursue advanced studies in
linguistics. My wife chose to study in the humanities
division, and I chose the social sciences division and
entered the department of anthropology. It was there that I
came into contact, for the first time, with social
anthropologists and the teachings of the British school of
social anthropology. Resolutions to the various problems I
had left behind in the field began to fill my mind. I
experienced what I now call my “behavioral sciences
 conversion.” I had gone to Central America as a change
agent under the direction of the Spirit of God, but I had not
been trained as a change agent, nor had I been given the
tools that should have been given to one who was
committed to changing another. Therefore the changes
introduced into the total setting by my introduction of the
Gospel were partial, inconsistent, resisted, or modified in
ways over which I had no control.
I do not suggest that my training in social
anthropology was a cure-all for every problem, but I
realized that many problems we had faced in our mission
program were problems amenable to solution with the
proper tools. Our second term on the field proved this in a
large percentage of cases. (Mayers 1974, 7-8)

Mayers's retooling for more effective service as a cross-

cultural communicator came through a paradigm shift (his
“behavioral sciences conversion”). Through this experience he
came to look at the REALITY around him differently and, as a
result, was able to function more constructively in it. What is
the nature of this perception problem that can cripple a person
in another context? And where does one look for answers?

Reality “Out There” (Capital R) versus

Perception of That Reality (Small r)
The view that made little or no distinction between the
REALITY “out there” (we'll call this “Capital R REALITY”) and
the scientific understanding of that REALITY in the minds of
scientists (“small r reality”) prevailed among Western scientists
until around the turn of the twentieth century. Barbour calls
this theory “naive realism,” saying of it,

With few exceptions, most scientists until the present

century assumed that scientific theories were accurate
descriptions of “the world as it is in itself.” The entities
postulated in theories were believed to exist, even if they
were not directly observable. Theoretical terms were said to
denote real things of the same kind as physical objects in
the perceived world. Theoretical statements were
understood as true or false propositions about actual
entities (atoms, molecules, genes, etc.). (1974, 34)

This position assumed a real, ordered world outside the

observer. Subsequent scientific theories have largely
continued to operate on this assumption. There has, however,
been a growing recognition of the part that the observer plays
in the interpretation and description of that ordered REALITY.
For, it has become clear that the ordered REALITY “out there”
is never described by a human being except in terms of an
internal psychological ordering (a “picture” of that REALITY in
the observer's head = small r reality) that involves various
kinds of individual bias. Individuals perceive (small r) the data
of Capital R REALITY in terms of such things as preferences,
biases, focuses, and other types of group and individual
predispositions toward that data. These are constructed by
observers on the basis of their psychological and sociocultural
experiences.
Individuals and groups organize their perceptions of
REALITY so as to ignore, distort, or exaggerate its features in
ways that differ to a greater or lesser extent from the organized
perceptions of that REALITY described by other individuals
and groups. We understand in terms of the pictures (small r) of
Capital R REALITY inside our heads, via the lenses of our
cultural and psychological cameras. If those lenses are, for
some reason or other (such as sickness, limitedness of
experience, perversity, etc.) dirty or distorting (as with a camera
out of focus), the way we perceive REALITY is greatly affected
(see, e.g., Gearing 1970 and Kluckhohn and Leighton 1962 for
illustrations of strikingly different perceptions of REALITY).
The assumption that scientific observers should or even
can work without bias—without in some way imposing the
ordering inside their heads (small r reality) on the ordering of
the REALITY “out there”—has, therefore, been largely
abandoned by the scientific community (though not by large
segments of the populace as a whole). One way of describing
the role of the observer in the scientific process is to suggest
that,

In the first place, the observer can work only with his
experiences, and these are limited by his senses and the
instruments he uses to extend his senses…. Consequently,
our picture of the real world is always incomplete.
Second, the observer is highly selective in choosing his
data. Life is a narrative of ever new and often unpredictable
 events….But he is really interested or concerned with only
a few of these. Other experiences are consciously or
unconsciously screened out…. What a scientist discovers
depends, to a great extent, on what he is looking for—on
the questions he is asking. (Hiebert 1976, 5, 6)

People with different interests, different academic

disciplines, and different cultures and subcultures diverge from
each other in their perceptions of Capital R REALITY, not
because the REALITY differs but because their small r
experience of and reflection on that REALITY differ. They ask
different questions concerning REALITY—questions that they
have been conditioned or stimulated to ask by their experience
with themselves, with others, and with traditions in which they
participate. The answers and the organization of those answers
into individual, disciplinary, subcultural, and cultural
perspectives (small r) are increasingly being labeled conceptual
“models” or “mental maps” of reality.

Model la
The concept of model
A model is a tool that we use in our attempts to understand
portions of reality. It represents a “small r” perspective
interpreting Capital R REALITY.
 Such conceptual models are

imaginative mental constructs invented to account for

observed phenomena. Such a model is usually an imagined
mechanism or process, which is postulated by analogy with
familiar mechanisms or processes.…Its chief use is to help
one understand the world It is not a literal picture of the
world…. It is used to develop a theory which in some sense
explains the phenomena. And its origination seems to
require a special kind of reactive imagination. (Barbour
1974, 30)

Hiebert pictures this understanding (or model) of the

relationship between external REALITY (“the external world”)
and the small r perception of that REALITY inside our heads
(“mental organization”) in the diagram that follows. Note the
decrease in the amount of data that human beings handle from
the rather large number of “potential experiences” to the more
limited number of those potential experiences that one actually
undergoes to the even more limited number that one reflects on
either consciously or subconsciously. Only the latter play a
major role in the mental organization that one develops.
Note (1) that “reflected-on” experiences include those at
the important subconscious level and (2) that there are
powerful “feedback” influences of one's mental organization of
reality on the selection one makes of those experiences on
which to reflect. The model suggests that it is on the basis of a
process such as this that one “tells? oneself,” as it were, which
of the things that happen to oneself to believe, which not to
believe (or even notice), and how to interpret both. We will
refer later, as an example of this phenomenon, to the fact that
many Euro-Americans who do not believe in the existence and
activity of supernatural spirits in human affairs may actually be
experiencing such activity though interpreting it as something
else.

Fig. 2.2. A conceptual model of certain relationships between

the Capital R REALITY “ out there” and the mental
organization in the mind of the perception(small r) of that
REALITY (adapted from Hiebert 1976, 6).

The person who accepts this critical realism approach to

the understanding of the relationship between external reality
and human perception of it

recognizes the importance of human imagination in the

formation of theories. He acknowledges the incomplete and
 selective character of scientific theories. Theories…are
abstract symbol systems which inadequately represent
particular aspects of the world for specific purposes. The
critical realist thus tries to acknowledge both the creativity
of man's mind and the existence of patterns in events not
created by man's mind. Descriptions of nature are human
constructions but nature is such as to bear description in
some ways and not in others. No theory is an exact account
of the world, but some theories agree with observations
better than others because the world has an objective form
of its own. (Barbour 1974, 37)

The assumption is that whether we are dealing with the

REALITY of the physical environment, the REALITY of human
nature and psychology, or the REALITY of divine revelation,
the process of coming to know always involves the process of
theory and model building on the part of the observer. We
perceive data in terms of some combination of the theories we
have been taught and the theories we construct. We never see
that data except through such grids or filters as “dim images”
(1 Cor. 13:12). We cannot now see as God sees—objectively, as
things really are.
All humans participate in all-encompassing overall
perspectives held by and pledged allegiance to by the
communities of which they are a part. In terms of these
perspectives people generate sets “of recurrent and quasi-
standard illustrations of various theories in their conceptual,
observational, and instrumental applications” (Kuhn 1970, 43).
These recurrent pictures or models of REALITY are sometimes
termed “paradigms” (Kuhn 1970; Barbour 1974; Black 1962).
Paradigms are

models from which spring particular coherent traditions of

scientific research. These are the traditions which the
historian describes under such rubrics as “Ptolemaic
astronomy” (or “Copernican”), “Aristotelian dynamics” (or
“Newtonian”), “corpuscular optics” (or “wave optics”),
and so on. The study of paradigms…is what mainly
prepares the student for membership in the particular
scientific community with which he will later practice….
Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are
committed to the same rules and standards for scientific
practice. (Kuhn 1970, 10-11)

Another term that may be employed with reference to a

similar, though more complex, organization of reality is
“worldview” (Kuhn 1970, 111). Worldviews are more total views
of reality than paradigms and models and employ many
paradigms and models (see chapter 3, Kraft 1989; 1996; and
2006? forthcoming; Kearney 1984 for discussions of the
concept of worldview). Differing worldviews, paradigms, and
models are characterized by their distinctive views of reality.
These distinctive views of reality, though created and modified
by previous members of the community, are passed on fully
formed to the current members of the community by those who
have gone before. This is true whether the community is a
society, a subsociety, an academic community, a church
community, a voluntary organization of some kind, or a family.
Worldviews and paradigms can be seen, on the one hand,
as organizations of the theories in terms of which their
proponents perceive REALITY and, on the other, as those
conceptualizations that lead people to generate those theories.
The theories, in turn, may be seen as organizations of
conceptual models that “attempt to represent symbolically, for
restricted purposes, aspects of a world whose structure is not
accessible to us” (Barbour 1974, 37-38).
The fact that as human beings we see reality not as it is
but always from inside our heads in terms of such models
means that “no direct comparison of model and world is
possible” (Barbour 1974, 38). We cannot, therefore, take our
models (or our paradigms and worldview) literally or absolutely.
We must, however, take them seriously. They are, to be
sure, “limited and inadequate ways of imagining what is not
observable” (ibid., 38), but they are, apparently, the only ways
we have. Furthermore, they seem to be productive. As Leonard
Nash states,

To the hypothetical entities [models] sketched by our

theories we must venture at least provisional grants of
ontologic status. Major discoveries are made when
invisible atoms, electrons, nuclei, viruses, vitamins,
hormones, and genes are regarded as existing. (1963, 257)

There are, however, dangers to be avoided in using models.

Rogers warns,
 A model is not the same as the real thing. But it helps us to
understand reality. A model takes the essential pieces of
the real thing and scales them down so that we can
understand them. That is to say, we speak of God by
analogies, models from life. We say God is our Father. We
mean that we see in his acts some of the best
characteristics of certain fathers we know. When we forget
that we are making models and speaking by analogies we
run the risk of idolatry. Idolatry consists in worshiping the
created model rather than pointing to the creator it
represents. We must not get too attached to our thought
forms, our fine distinctions of language, our cultural
packaging. (Rogers 1974, 59)

Models, theories, and worldviews may be changed. Models

and theories (but not whole worldviews) may even be
exchanged for new ones. A new model offers a new way of
looking at a given phenomenon or set of phenomena. It can,
indeed, suggest a new approach to the exploration of given
aspects of reality (e.g., the experience of Mayers or the author).
If taken far enough, then, the application of new models can
lead to radical shifts in theories, paradigms, and important parts
of worldviews.

Model lb
The concept of paradigm shift. When a person or group
comes to look at a given subject from a different perspective,
we can say they have changed their model, theory, or
paradigm. For example, when people, following Jesus' lead,
 began to regard God as Father rather than asking, they
underwent a paradigm or model shift. We will use this term
(after Kuhn) to refer to any shift of perspective within as
worldview, whether it is at the level of paradigm or model.
When a group changes models, “the world itself changes
with them, and they begin to see reality differently” (Kuhn
1970:111). In science this creates what Kuhn calls a “scientific
revolution.” Applying this concept to Christianity we may
speak of Christian conversion as a paradigm shift, a worldview
change, or even a spiritual revolution (see chapter 17).
Christian conversion is at least as worldview changing as the
shift from Ptolemaic earth-centered astronomy to Copernican
sun-centered astronomy or from a flat-earth model to a round-
earth model. When “the eyes of one's understanding” are
opened (Eph. 1:18; Luke 24:45), it is because (at the human
level) one has changed the model of reality, the perspective,
the interpretive principle in terms of which one is viewing the
events under analysis.
Jesus continually worked toward model and paradigm
shifts on the part of his hearers. His parables were regularly
introduced with some phrase such as “The kingdom of heaven
is like&” The whole concept of a kingdom that is to function
within earthly kingdoms, rather than to compete with them, was
a radically different model of REALITY. Its differentness from
the models already in his hearers' minds is attested to by the
extreme difficulty they had in understanding and converting to
it. Then, in presenting the kingdom, Jesus continually
employed model-type analogies such as mustard seed, the
sower, leaven, a treasure, a pearl, and so on.
Jesus presented God as “Father” and himself as “Son.”
This is a powerful and pervasive model that pictured for Jewish
hearers both the dignity of God and his loving nature as Father
and also Jesus' position of equality with the Father. For Jews
would have understood the first son to be of equal importance
to the father in their families (see John 5:18). Jesus'
presentation of himself as a peasant who identified with the
common people was very difficult for many to accept because
it was such a different model from what they had learned to
expect of their Messiah. Indeed, the whole model of the
almighty God become human in the Incarnation is a concept
that Jesus' followers from his time to this have had difficulty
understanding. For Jesus became a human, flesh-and-blood
model of God (John 14:9). When God is spoken of throughout
the Scriptures as having eyes, ears, hands, and so on, it is on
the basis of a concept (model) of God that analogizes from
human beingness. The church understood as a body or as the
bride of Christ is likewise a model.
God thus employs models as “form pictures” designed to
teach something about the way he functions. Models are
teaching devices used to enable people to conceive of some
aspect of REALITY. When the model is substituted for the
reality of God rather than used simply to assist humans in
conceiving of it, though, the result is tragic (Rogers 1974, 59,
quoted above). People get “locked into” a concept and often
refuse to look at things any other way. The problems raised by
those who have locked themselves into a model are seen in the
scriptural portrayals of the Pharisees, the disciples, those to
whom the prophets spoke, Jonah, Job and his “friends,” and
many others. The history of doctrinal controversy in the
church also illustrates both the use of models and the difficulty
of changing models. Each discussion of the nature of God, the
relationship of Jesus to God the Father, the nature of the
church, and many other doctrinal issues involves the
comparing and contrasting of various models in terms of which
these ideas are conceptualized.
Major advances in scientific endeavor happen, according
to Kuhn, when scientists shift from one way of viewing their
data to another way of viewing it. For “our vision is more
obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of
knowledge” (Stendahl 1976, 7). Such paradigm or model shifts
are continually happening in all areas of life, from trivial levels
such as that illustrated above with the use of pictures (fig. 2.1)
to the most profound level of Christian conversion. Between
these levels is the level at which this book is intended to bring
about a paradigm shift in you, the reader. For this volume seeks
to introduce the reader to a series of alternative models in terms
of which to view theological phenomena of relevance to cross-
cultural communicators. The hope is that you will experience
the kind of paradigm shift that the author and countless other
cross-cultural Christian witnesses have experienced.

Characteristics of Conceptual Models

The terms “model,” “theory,” “paradigm,” and “worldview”
have been introduced above. Though to some degree we may
regard these terms as signifying four levels of conceptual
complexity, we see no need to continue to use all four of them.
In what follows, therefore, the terms “theory” and “paradigm”
largely disappear, while the terms “model” and “worldview” are
used extensively to label the more specific (model) and more
general (worldview) perspectives with which we must deal. We
will label attempts to understand reality differently as shifts in
or substitutions for previously held models or worldviews. Our
detailed treatment of worldview begins in chapter 3. That of
models begins here. Some of the characteristics of models (as
here employed) are the following.
1. Conceptual models differ in complexity and, therefore, in
the comparative ease with which they can be explained and
understood. Some models are fairly simple and easily pictured
in a two-dimensional format such as a road map or an
architect's sketch. Three-dimensional models such as scale
models of physical objects like airplanes and buildings are only
slightly more complex. Often, however, even fairly simple
concepts defy all attempts to picture or construct two-or three-
dimensional visual aids of them. Words and word pictures help
and are often the best we can do.
But the rather severe limitations under which we work
become readily apparent when one considers the
impreciseness and inadequacy of such attempts to understand
certain aspects of human thought processes as likening the
mind to a computer, or the attempt to understand human
communities (such as Christian churches) by likening them to
human bodies, or the attempt to understand God by employing
models such as father, slavemaster (lord), king, person, and
shepherd. Such words, metaphors, analogies, and pictures
reveal important dimensions of what they are applied to, but
they also may distract or even distort.
A major problem occurs when a model is carried too far.
Roman Catholicism has done this by analogizing from the
human (Italian) family to the Trinity. If there are a father and a
son, there must be a mother. And, like the Italian family, the
father is expected to be distant, the son honored but powerless
(especially since another model—the crucifix—portrays Jesus
as always dying), and the mother (Mary) the mediator and
emotional center of the family. With this analogy in mind, then,
Mary becomes both a functioning part of the Trinity and the
member of the Godhead most likely to respond, positively to us
when we call.
Nevertheless, with all their limitations, God has chosen to
employ such conceptual devices to communicate his truth.
Analogies, such as parables and other kinds of models, are
devices by means of which

something in one universe of discourse is employed to

explain, illustrate, or prove something in another universe
of discourse…. In special, revelation God chooses that
element in our universe of discourse which can serve to
convey the truth in his universe of discourse. (Ramm 1961,
41; see also Wright 1952, 48-49)

2. Conceptual models may be static or dynamic. A static

model (e.g., a road map) simply shows relationships between
elements. It shows the items that make up a given concept and
their arrangements vis-à-vis each other. A dynamic model, on
the other hand, focuses on the processes in which the items
are involved. Often, though, the “staticness” or
“dynamicness” of a given model lies not in the model itself but
in the interpretation of that model. Seeing the church as a body,
for example, results in a static concept if one focuses merely on
the organizational arrangement of the group into “head,”
“hands,” “feet,” and so on. It is possible (and sometimes
necessary) for one to look at such a “body” in this static way,
just as it is both possible and profitable for a medical student
to dissect a cadaver. But the body model of the church was
used, I believe, with a more dynamic intent. Passages such as 1
Corinthians 12 focus on the fact that the body parts are to
function (a dynamic word) as a unity, not simply to exist in a
bodylike arrangement (a static word).
Our language and culture give us problems at this point by
constantly focusing our attention on pattern rather than on
process, on entity rather than on function. Note the difference
in impact of statements like “The church is a body ” versus
“The church functions like a body,” or “God is our Father”
versus “God behaves toward us as a Father,” or “We are
brothers and sisters in Christ” versus “We treat each other as
brothers and sisters.” Many languages (e.g., Navaho, Hebrew)
force those who speak them to focus more on the latter
(dynamic) process and function type of statement than English
does. English and many if not most, of its linguistic relatives
(including Greek) pressure their speakers into making more of
the former (static) type of statement. The purpose of the
Scriptures is, however, not to tell us about God's essence
(though, because of our cultural interest, we deduce much on
this subject) but to show us how he relates to us (Berkouwer
1975). God's focus appears to be more on function and process,
less on entity and form.
3. A third important characteristic of models is the tendency
of a given kind of model to occur with others of a similar
nature. Models often occur in interrelated strings, probably
because the use of one suggests the possibility of following it
with others of the same type. Reference to God as Father, for
example, suggests the use of a son/daughter model not only
for Jesus but also for all those who call God “Father.” If,
though, we all call God “Father,” why not see our relationship
to each other in terms of a brother/sister model? As mentioned
above, such strings can be carried too far, as in the Roman
Catholic practice of seeing the Godhead as a family and adding
to the Trinity a deified Mary. Humanly speaking, the father-son
model requires a parallel mother-son model. What could be
more natural than to develop a total family model that includes
a mother as well?
4. A further characteristic of special relevance to the
subject matter of this volume is that models cannot be
automatically assumed to be cross-culturally valid. Models
are developed within specific cultural contexts for particular
purposes and must, therefore, be interpreted first within that
context and then evaluated for their cross-cultural potential.
The Bible employs a great many models. These were invariably
developed in specific situations with the needs and limitations
of specific audiences in view. The value of each such model in
its original setting is beyond doubt.
The value of those same models in settings as distant from
those contexts in culture, time, and space as contemporary
settings are must be reevaluated. The father-son model, for
example, was interpreted by the original hearers as a claim by
Jesus of equality with God (John 5:18). Is this a good model to
use in societies such as Euro-American that: regard the father-
son relationship as hierarchical and all too often competitive?
Likewise, is the God-as-shepherd model, so vivid and truth
conveying for rural Hebrews, a good model for those who have
no acquaintance with sheep or, as in northern Nigeria, where
shepherding is a job for boys and insane men?
A model such as that in the parable of the sower (see Matt.
13:1-9) in which seed is scattered portrays the sower as foolish
in a society where precious seed is carefully buried in small
holes in the ground. No one in these societies would be
careless enough to allow the seed to drop on hard ground or
among weeds. Even more obvious would be the mistake of
using the concept of the mind as a computer or analogies to
television programs among a people who don't have such
technology.
In this volume I will attempt to gravitate toward less
complex rather than more complex models that are, on the one
hand, cross-culturally valid and, on the other, dynamic rather
than static.

Toward a Critical-Realist Model of Biblical

Christianity (Model 2)
 In what follows I seek to lay the groundwork for an
approach to biblical Christianity that applies the “critical
realist” approach to the understandings of our faith. Critical
realism is the perspective already introduced in which we hold
that there are two realities: Capital R and small r. It contrasts
with “naïve realism,” in which observers hold that their view of
REALITY is close enough to God's view that they can be
dogmatic in claiming absolute accuracy for their perceptions. In
effect, naïve realists see their views and God's as Identical—all
as Capital R.
Critical realists, on the other hand, see two realities. They
recognize the absoluteness of God's understandings and the
relativity of ours. There are things of which we are convinced
such as the existence of God, the inspiration of the Bible, the
fact that God created and sustains the world, the virgin birth,
sinless life, and atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and so on. We bet our lives on the truth of these things and of
our relationship with God through Jesus. But, though we hold
to the factuality of the persons (e.g., God and Jesus) and the
events (e.g., Jesus' death and resurrection), we are willing to
admit that our understandings of these and all other things in
life and Christianity may not be perfect. There is, therefore,
much to learn and lots of room to grow as we seek to move our
small r understandings as close as possible to God's Capital R
understandings.
So, I endeavor to be biblically Christian from a critical
realist perspective, working from Protestant “evangelical”
assumptions but not bound by traditional Western evangelical
models of theologizing. I especially try to reject those models
that I have experienced as either static or applying only to
Euro-American society or some segment of it. I accept the
cardinal evangelical doctrines including the Bible as both
inspired by God and an accurate record of the Spirit-guided
perceptions of human beings who were committed to God. My
desire is, however, to deal with a selection of those doctrines in
such a way that: cross-cultural Christian witnesses will be
better able to communicate Christ effectively in non-Western
contexts.
1. I aim to distinguish between the biblical data that is the
primary subject-matter for theological analysis and the
theological perspectives (models, theories, paradigms) in
terms of which that data is interpreted. I contend that, though
the scriptural data is inspired, inspiration does not extend to
any extrascriptural interpretive perspective (e.g., Calvin's
Institutes, Wesley's sermons). It is therefore valid, as well as
instructive, to examine that data from new perspectives—even
those of academic disciplines such as anthropology, which
some suspect of being incapable of Christian application. The
intent is to select from such disciplines understandings and
perspectives that can be employed by those committed to the
basic tenets of evangelical Protestantism. I specifically do not
intend either to accept or to recommend the antitheistic
assumptions on the basis of which many (not all)
anthropologists operate.
When employing any perspective (new or old) it is
necessary to distinguish insofar as possible between features
that characterize the data being studied (the REALITY) and the
characteristics of the interpretive concepts (models) in terms of
which that data is being studied. Though it seems to be true
that there is “no bare uninterpreted data” (Barbour 1974, 95), it
is important: to recognize the basic biblical data (including the
interpretations of the original authors) as a thing apart from
extrabiblical interpretations of that data. Otherwise it is difficult
to keep from identifying the conceptual model with the
REALITY that it is designed to help explain. Nonspecialists
who handle theological interpretations of inspired scriptural
data seem particularly prone to regard both the scriptural data
and their pet interpretations of it as sacred. Not infrequently
such “folk theologians” seem to believe that the particular
interpretation they subscribe to is demanded by the text (the
data).
“Closed” conservatives (see fig. 2.5) often fall into this trap
rather readily. But many who are fairly knowledgeable
concerning the existence of theological variants within
Western culture also find it difficult to accept variations based
on the perspectives of non-Western peoples or of academic
disciplines such as the behavioral sciences. Such difficulty
may be seen as resistance to “paradigm shifting” based on a
too-ready identification of their understandings with the
demands of the data. It is likely that they have not had the kind
of experience with people whom they respect who possess
radically different worldviews that would push them to
recognize the validity of models other than their own.
Unfortunately, this kind of theological ethnocentrism often
characterizes conservative Christians such as missionaries in
their attitudes toward (I) the perspectives of other societies
and (2) those of disciplines such as the behavioral sciences.
The acceptance of the validity of this volume may require a
paradigm shift on their part.
The position taken here is that valid theologizing may be
done on the basis of a variety of cultural, subcultural, and
disciplinary models. Not everything said or done in the
theological realm is valid, since not everything is allowed by
the data. But different understandings of REALITY generate
different questions with respect to biblically revealed data, just
as they do with respect to the natural world. And the answers
obtained, when systematized, result in different “indigenous”
theologies. This process is often referred to as the
“contextualization” of theology (see fig. 2.3). Note that, unlike
some liberal concepts of contextualization, these theologies are
all based on biblical data.
2. I attempt here to develop insights concerning scriptural
data via the application to that data of anthropological
understandings and perspectives. A large number of such
understandings and perspectives will be introduced
throughout this volume. There are, however, four basic
components of an anthropological approach that need to be
mentioned here as distinguishing characteristics.
First, an anthropological perspective is wholistic (or
“holistic”). “Anthropology sets as its goal the study of
mankind as a whole” (Hoebel 1972, 6). It does not simply select
a single aspect of (Western) human experience to focus on, as
do traditional studies of music, literature, philosophy,
economics, and even history and geography. Instead,

anthropologists take a comprehensive approach to the

 study of humanity. They assume that, no understanding of
human beings is complete without study of the full range of
the human phenomenon. As individuals, anthropologists
may concentrate their studies on a specific society or
aspect of the human being, but they put their findings into
a broad theoretical perspective that seeks to include all of
human experience. This “holistic” approach is reflected
both in an interest in the broad variety of human beings
and in a comprehensive approach to the study of human
beings. (Hiebert 1976, 20)

Fig. 2.3. Visual aid portraying this conceptual model of theological

contextualization (model 2a). Read: Black perspectives on
scriptural data yield “ black theologies.” Psychological
perspectives yield such theologies as “ relational theology,” etc.
Anthropological “wholism” will be evident in throughout this
book.
Second, an anthropological perspective depends on and
develops the culture concept. “Anthropology has
demonstrated that the distinctive behavior of different human
populations…is overwhelmingly the product of cultural
experience rather than the consequence of genetic inheritance”
(Hoebel 1972, 7). Chapters 3 through 5 are devoted to the
elaboration of the culture concept and its application to the
problems at hand.
A third focus of the anthropological perspective is called
cross-cultural comparison. This component both springs from
and feeds the wholistic and cultural emphases. It is of great
importance in the study of cultural diversity. It is also of great
importance in the study of human commonality (chapter 5).

The anthropologist refuses to accept any generalization

about human nature that emerges from his experience with
his own society alone, or even with two or three other
societies, especially if these are a part of the same cultural
tradition in which he has been brought up. (Hoebel 1972, 7)

The crucial importance of this principle to the following

presentation can hardly be overestimated. We seek here a
cross-culturally valid understanding of Christianity. It cannot
be based simply on experience within one society or within two
or three societies that participate in “the same cultural
tradition.” Theologizing based on such limited cultural
experience is like the single mineshaft drilled into the mountain
of gold mentioned above in chapter 1. Furthermore, it risks the
danger of regarding God's single message in different cultural
clothing (e.g., in Old Testament and New Testament) as if it
were different messages.
The fourth basic component of an anthropological
perspective is its dependence on fieldwork in other societies
for obtaining data and testing hypotheses. Studying human
beings cannot be done effectively through studying books,
though it is important to study whatever has been written on a
given people, or via laboratory experimentation, though
anthropologists are not averse to employing laboratory
methods in the limited areas where they seem to be appropriate.
For the total range of human behavior, anthropologists obtain
their data and test their theories via field study, using what has
come to be called the “participant observation” approach. This
method, of high relevance to Christian communicators,
involves investigators in living with the people they are
observing. They seek, thus, to get a bit of the feel of the
people's life and to learn to appreciate that approach to life.
Such investigators realize that in seeking to understand people
they need to study the insider's perspective (the emic
perspective) as well as the outsider's perspective (the etic
perspective). If they seek to be objective only, they are likely to
be ethnocentric as well. If, however, they only become
involved in the life of the people they are studying, they lose
their ability to observe and analyze effectively. The effective
cross-cultural communicator of Christianity needs, like an
anthropologist, both to participate in and to analyze the
cultural context in which he or she works.
These four basic components of an anthropological
approach underlie all that is said in the following pages. These
principles are not to be our masters—for as Christians we serve
another master—but they can be very helpful servants in our
attempts to be more effective cross-culturally.
3. The resulting “cross-cultural” or “ethno-” theology
thus seeks to formulate at least certain scriptural truths in
ways that evangelicals have not become accustomed to. To
the extent that such understandings and perspectives
necessitate the development of new categories of thought and
terminology we will be forced to innovate them. By and large,
however, it will be found that such new categories and models
as are developed will broaden and elucidate, rather than
completely displace, traditional theological concepts. I am, I
believe, just as committed to biblical theology (see Vos 1948,
14-18 for a concise definition) as any evangelical. I find myself
readily agreeing with the essentials of the evangelical
Protestant position outlined by Coleman (1972, 76ff.). I do,
however, find that my position also allows the incorporation of
some important characteristics of certain liberal positions (ibid.,
80ff.) that have been attractive to evangelical Protestants but
could not heretofore be readily handled on the basis of an
evangelical commitment. If, though, as Quebedeaux states,
evangelicalism is best described (contra Lindsell 1976) as “a
‘spirit’ rather than a well-defined theology” (1974, 40), there is
room for another set of models, such as those here set forth.
Not all the unfamiliar terminology is new. At times I will
employ terminology and concepts that others use in other
ways. Bultmann and his followers, for example, seem to
recognize that it is highly important for our contemporaries to
understand and embrace the deeper meanings of the Scriptures
even at the expense of replacing the cultural forms in terms of
which that content was originally expressed. I will say
something similar to this concerning the priority of content
(meanings) over symbols (cultural forms). But I will seek, in so
doing, to affirm solidly both the historicity of the original
events and the importance of that historicity to the purpose of
God.
I do not intend to say that the cultural forms (i.e., words,
sentences, grammatical patterns, metaphors, etc.) in which the
biblical content (meaning) is expressed are unimportant merely
because they are culturally and historically specific. I hold that
the message, in addition to its historico-cultural specificity, has
a cross-cultural relevance that the original cultural forms do not
have. But I believe that that content must be expressed in the
linguistic and cultural forms of today's receivers of the
message. The cultural forms in which that content is expressed
are therefore extremely important.
The major difference between the content and the forms in
which it is expressed is not one of importance, but one of
constancy. That the message be constant, even though in
different cultural and linguistic forms is important. It is not
important to preserve the forms if by so doing the message
gets changed. We want the message to remain constant (see
model 10b in chapter 11). For that to come about, the cultural
forms in which the message is expressed need to be
appropriate to the language and culture in which the
expression is being made. I would liken the forms of culture
(such as words, customs, ceremonies, and the like) to the
piping through which water flows or the wiring over which
electricity flows. The content or meanings are like the water
that is channeled by the pipes or the electricity that is guided
by the wires to produce constructive rather than destructive
ends.
4. A “biblical Christian model,” contrary to the opinions
of many, is not a static model. It has long been in vogue to
label “conservative” any theological stance that takes the Bible
seriously. For such positions are seen as dedicated to the
conservation and perpetuation of static, “orthodox” doctrinal
formulations, organizations, and lifestyles. And it must be
admitted that many conservative people, employing static
models of Christianity and of life in general, have sought to
venerate and preserve the past, to look back for guidelines, and
to resist change at any cost. But those who seek to “conserve”
biblical Christianity ought not to simply preserve, as if in
formaldehyde, past approaches to Christian life and doctrine—
approaches that succeeded in their day because they met felt
needs, but in our day are static, conveying an air of antiquity
and even death. We are to be conservative not preservative.
Biblical Christianity should imitate in our day what Jesus,
Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley did in
theirs, not simply preserve the theological and organizational
products that they produced. Biblical Christianity must not be
understood in terms of static, conservative models. When the
early church realized that there was a problem with respect to
the Greek-speaking widows, they did not look to the past but,
claiming the leading of the Holy Spirit, faced the problem and
worked, out a solution (Acts 6:1-6). Though the early church
ordinarily required Gentiles first to convert to Jewish culture
(symbolized by circumcision) in order to become Christians
(Acts 15:1), Paul, Barnabas, and Peter advocated a change in
the rules. Then, in a meeting of the church leaders in Jerusalem,
they convinced the rest of the leaders to adapt their approach
to the realities of the new situation (Acts 15:19-29).
The Christianity that we see in the pages of the New
Testament is not conservative but dynamic, adaptive, unafraid
to risk the old understandings in its desire to face realistically
the present and the future in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There was about the early churches (as there is today among
charismatic Christians) a spirit of adventure and
experimentation that characterizes Christians who do not
believe that all truth has been discovered but who claim
Christ's promise of the leading of the Holy Spirit “into all the
truth” (John 16:13). The early Christians were not unconcerned
with truth or with the scriptural bases for their action. In fact, it
is noteworthy that Acts 15:15-18 records that the apostles
sought (Old Testament) scriptural justification for the
adaptation that they made.
But concern for truth, coupled with their belief in the
continuing leading of the Holy Spirit, led the early Christians to
be devoted to truth in a sense different from the way in which
many contemporary evangelicals ordinarily think of it. They
were not content with the comfortably abstracted formulation
of truth that often seems to be the primary concern of
contemporary conservatism. The truth for which the early
followers of Christ gave themselves had come to them with the
kind of Impact that comes only through life involvement with
those (Jesus and the apostles) who had sold out to that truth.
It was dynamic, impactful truth. And it was manifested in
transformed behavior, not merely in intellectual credence to
accurate but static statements concerning that truth. They
sought to live out the life of the Christ who called himself the
truth (John 14:6; Phil 1:21). They ventured with Christ, the
truth.
This inquiry attempts to be faithful to that truth by recalling
us to the dynamism of New Testament Christianity. I attempt to
be orthodox with respect to the truth but venturesome in its
application. For I believe that a part of my responsibility as a
Christian is to take that which God has entrusted to me (i.e., the
“talent” of my particular training, experience, insight, etc.) and
to use it as the master in the parable (Matt. 25:14-30) expected
his servants to use (risk) what he had entrusted to them—for
the sake of the master's greater gain. Thus, if I am to be truly
Christian, I dare not be simply conservative, especially in a day
when people are turning from and misunderstanding
Christianity because they fail to see the dynamic of this truth
that once “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
5. Implicit in all of this is the belief that truly biblical
Christians are not closed minded. The venturesomeness and.
risk of the early Christians was not characteristic of their
closed-minded contemporaries, the Pharisees and the
Judaizers. Nor does it characterize certain of our
contemporaries who, in their “naive realism,” feel that they
(and often they alone) can see God's truth absolutely.
 Biblical Christianity is realistic about differences in
understanding—though it allows no differences of ultimate
allegiance (1 Kgs. 18; 1 Cor. 12:3). Jews, by and large,
continued to practice Jewish Christianity and Greeks, Greek
Christianity, with concomitant differences in theological
understandings at many points, but with a single allegiance to
God (Eph. 4:4-6; Jude 3).
The tendency, especially among American Christians, is to
evaluate people and groups according to where they fit
doctrinally along a single conservative-liberal scale. Under the
influence of the American value system (see Arensberg and
Niehoff 1971, 207-31 for one valuable description) American
Christians tend (1) to evaluate cognitive things such as
doctrine more highly than behavioral things such as allegiance
and (2) to evaluate alternative positions in a polarizing manner
as either good or bad, black or white.
The rise of evangelicalism has made it more difficult to
categorize people in such a simple unidimensional fashion. For
evangelical Christianity is a movement centered in a common
allegiance to God through Christ, rather than in allegiance to a
single doctrinal statement (Winter 1976). Though Bible-
centered, it allows for a variety of denominational and personal
interpretations of the Bible. It seeks to be open, rather than
closed, to intellectual investigation with its concomitant
diversity of understanding concerning biblical Christianity.
To those (e.g., old-line fundamentalists) who evaluate all
Christian positions along a single conservative-liberal axis,
evangelicals who understand key doctrinal issues differently
from their norm can only be classified as “more liberal,” or
“more toward the liberal end of the spectrum.” Their
evaluational line might look like figure 2.4.

Fig. 2.4. Single conservative-liberal axis for understanding

theological positions.

A more accurate representation demands a model that

includes another dimension: the “closed to innovation and
diversity—open to innovation and diversity” dimension.1 By
adding this dimension we arrive at a chart such as in figure 2.5
with typical positions inserted in their appropriate spots.
One important fact that this understanding makes clear is
that there is a distinction between closed mindedness and
theological “conservatism.” It has often puzzled people in both
theological camps to discover open-minded conservatives and
closed-minded liberals. If closed-minded conservatives
evaluate along a single conservative-liberal axis, they are likely
to regard as liberals all those who are open minded enough to
read, discuss without condemning, and occasionally accept
ideas from liberals and non-Christians. This is the position of
classic fundamentalism. There are, however, rigid, closed-
minded persons who are theologically liberal. Such people
demand that we deny everything they deny in order for them to
consider us as valid. A single conservative-liberal axis does not
allow one to distinguish between them and the theological
liberal who is open minded enough to allow for the validity of
more conservative positions.2
A second important fact clarified by this understanding is
the distinction between the classic fundamentalism of certain
groups of theological conservatives and the open
evangelicalism of other groups that agree theologically with
the fundamentalists on almost every major doctrinal issue.
Those who call themselves evangelicals tend to range from
more closed minded to more open minded at the conservative
end of the chart.

Fig. 2.5. A two-dimensional understanding of theological positions (model 2c).

I end this discussion of a biblical Christian model with the

reminder that these models will suffer from the inadequacies
and impreciseness from which all models suffer. We seek here
to build an understanding of Christianity that is cross-
culturally valid and useful. Because there is never a one-to-one
fit between model and reality and because this scheme is of
necessity but one faltering step in the direction in which we
seek to go, I expect that further study and experimentation will
lead to modifications and shifts in this perspective. We must
not only see Christianity as dynamic, we must also see our
understandings of Christianity as dynamic and growing. This
perspective is not intended to be a static, final, inspired answer
to even the selection of problems here in view. You, the reader,
are therefore free to disagree and to pick and choose those
things that you find most valuable from this presentation. You
are furthermore encouraged to join me in the quest for greater
insight into these matters.
In summary, I see a biblical Christian paradigm as
characterized by (1) a central allegiance to God through Christ
as revealed in the Christian Scriptures, (2) a recognition of the
differences between the inspired data of the Scriptures and the
fallible interpretations of theologizing human beings, (3) the
primacy of the timeless content of the Scriptures over the
historico-cultural forms through which that content is
communicated to human beings, (4) the dynamic nature of both
essential Christianity and the theologizing process, (5) the
primacy of the behavioral practice of faith-allegiance to God
over the intellectual conceptualizing of Christian doctrine, and
(6) the need for openness to innovation and diversity in the
development of helpful understandings of God and his
workings. On this basis I seek to be true both to my allegiance
to God and to the mood of evangelical Protestantism by being
open and venturesome.
Alternative Mirrors
If the traditional mirrors of reality are found to be
inadequate, it is incumbent upon us to provide alternative
mirrors. Quite a number of such mirrors or conceptual models
will be employed in the following pages in an attempt to lead
the reader to new understandings of certain relationships
between Christianity and human culture. Most of these models
derive from one or more of the author's fields of specialization:
anthropology (including linguistics), communication science
(including the theory of Bible translation), and cross-cultural
theology (contextualization). Though there are many models
employed, I have attempted to work them into an overall
coherence that will be constructive in the reader's attempt to
rethink and to communicate Christian truth more effectively.
In recognition of the fact that the number and novelty of
the conceptual models employed could lead to confusion on
the part of the reader, I provide a brief overview of them in the
appendix. Though each model will be dealt with in detail as we
proceed through the book, the reader may find it useful to read
that overview at this point. There is a good bit of
interdependence among the models that shows up more vividly
in such an overview than in the detailed treatment in the body
of this volume. For the necessity to arrange the detailed
treatment in a particular sequence often requires us to assume
a model that has not yet been introduced in order to fully
present the model in focus.
The models relate to four basic areas of the subject at hand.
The relationship between these areas may be pictured in the
following “process” diagram (see fig. 2.6, p. 34).
The development of the book and the overview in the
appendix proceed according to this progression.

Fig. 2.6. Process diagram of the areas within which the models employed in this
volume cluster.

1.I am indebted for this concept to my former colleague Dr. Paul Hiebert, now
of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
2.See Quebedeaux (1974) for an analysis supportive of this position.
 Part 2

THE CULTURAL MATRIX

3
HUMAN BEINGS IN CULTURE

We have now completed laying the groundwork for the

treatment that follows. The first aspect to be dealt with (in
chapters 3, 4, and 5) is the cultural matrix within which human
beings exist and in terms of which we interact with each other
and God. In this chapter we discuss anthropological insight
and its application (model 3), including the crucial concept of
culture (model 3a), the concept of sociocultural adequacy
(model 3b), and the concept of worldview (model 3c). From a
consideration of worldview we proceed to a discussion of the
relationship between different cultural conclusions and the
different assumptions from which various peoples start. We
conclude the chapter by dealing with the question of cultural
(and theological) determinism.

The Concept of Culture (Model 3a)

Thoughtful people have long discussed and debated the
nature of humanness. Such debates within Western societies
have often centered around whether a human being is properly
regarded as consisting of two parts (body and soul) or of three
(body, soul, and spirit). Theologians, in addition, have given
attention to the relationship between the noncorporeal part(s)
of human beings and the “image of God,” in which we were
created (Gen. 1:26). That a human consists of more than merely
a physical body and that it is this “moreness” that
distinguishes the human from the animals have seldom been
disputed in Christian circles.
Many have tended to define this “moreness” in terms of
the human ability to reason. Some have pointed more to artistic
and musical creations as the supreme demonstration of human
superiority over animals and, not infrequently, of our closeness
to God. A person knowledgeable about such things as art,
music, and philosophy came to be called “cultured.” The use of
the term “culture” in this way was borrowed from French. And
we continue to use the term “culture” and “cultured” in this
way—as referring primarily to artistic or philosophical taste or
even to good manners and other accoutrements of the “upper”
social classes.
As is quite well known today, however, there is another
sense in which the term “culture” is used. This was the usage
that the pioneer anthropologist. E. B. Tylor borrowed into
English from German (German Kultur) in 1871 to designate the
total nonbiologically transmitted heritage of humans.1 This
usage has become customary in the behavioral sciences and,
increasingly, in informed popular thought.

Model 3a
The term “culture” is a label for the nonbiological,
nonenvironmental reality in which humans live. Here we
postulate a view of reality that sees certain phenomena as
 best explained in terms of this mental construct. We also
advance a particular understanding of that mental construct
as labeling only structure, never people. That is, I here
attempt both to look at reality via the culture model and to
develop a model of culture itself. In the conceptualization of
culture here assumed, there are certain closely related
submodels that are crucial to the understandings toward
which I seek to lead the reader. Many or all of these could be
subsumed under the culture model, but it seems best to make
them explicit as submodels 3b-3g.

A major reason for the development of this understanding

of the concept is the fact that a whole academic discipline has
devoted itself largely to the study of culture. It would seem to
be beyond dispute that anthropology's “most significant
accomplishment…has been the extension and clarification of
the concept of culture” (Kroeber 1950, 87). Certainly “the
concept of culture is…the anthropologist's most significant
contribution to the missionary endeavor” (Luzbetak 1963, 59).
It is, to my way of thinking, an equally significant contribution
to further development in theological understanding.
In this respect, we can seek enhancement in understanding
through the application of the culture model to at least three
areas of concern. The first (and most difficult) of these areas is
the influence of culture on ourselves. I here contend that we
are all thoroughly immersed in and totally influenced (though
not totally determined) by our sociocultural environment. If
this is true, it behooves us to look for and to analyze the ways
in which such immersion affects us. Second, we need to
understand how the culture in which our hearers live and move
affects them. And third, we need to discover how God in his
interactions with human beings relates to the cultures in which
they (though not he) are immersed.
Culture is seen by anthropologists as “the integrated
system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of
the members of a society and which are not the result of
biological inheritance” (Hoebel 1972, 6).
Kroeber and Kluckhohn have summarized the concept of
culture as follows:

Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for

behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols,
constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups,
including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core
of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived
and selected) ideas and especially their attached values;
culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as
products of action, on the other as conditioning elements
of further action. (1952, 357)

It is this understanding of culture that will be employed

throughout the present volume. Perceiving of reality in this
way has become fundamental and germinal to the behavioral-
science perspective in which this book participates. This
perspective sees the relationship between culture and human
beings as in many respects similar to that between water and
fish. Humans are understood to be totally, inextricably
immersed in culture. Each human individual is born into a
particular sociocultural context. From that point on persons are
conditioned by the members of their society in countless,
largely unconscious, ways to accept as natural and to follow
rather uncritically the cultural patterns of that society.
Each of us is thus shaped in the nonbiological portion of
our being by the society into which we are born to conform to
the cultural patterns of that society. We are shaped according
to the cultural patterns transmitted to us by the adults in our
life. Humans thus may be regarded as culture-shaped and
culture-transmitting beings. But we not only are shaped by and
participate in the transmission of our culture; we also influence
it and contribute to its reshaping. Indeed, as far as the
behavioral sciences can tell, humans originally created culture.
This ability to produce, bear, and transmit culture provides the
sharpest distinction observable by naturalistic behavioral
scientists between humans and animals.
Our culture is that in terms of which our life is organized. It
may be looked at as the rules guiding our lives (Spradley 1972,
18-34)—rules developed from millions of agreements between
the members of our society. We remain largely unconscious of
the vast majority of these rules or patterns. But, whether or not
we are conscious of them, our elders have invested a
considerable amount of energy in making us aware of the rules
by which we are expected to speak, show courtesy, eat, sleep,
and to conduct all other areas of our lives.
It is comparatively irrelevant whether or not we are
conscious of these rules and patterns. They govern our lives
anyway. The influence of these patterns on our lives is all
pervasive. We are not as free as we may imagine ourselves to
be. To illustrate, we may use an example written by Keesing
and Keesing as they instructively discuss the “rules” or
cultural agreements governing one aspect of American
courtship behavior. They ask, Where should a single American
woman sit in relation to her date on a couch or park bench?2
Does she sit close, far away, at a medium distance?

Clearly there is a code here, and clearly it is based on

communications and shared understandings about the
[woman's] relationship to the [man]. In long-standing
American courtship ritual, she is supposed to begin
somewhere in the middle; and as the relationship becomes
more intimate, she acknowledges this by moving closer and
closer to him. If she is angry, she moves [away], expressing
coolness and distantness. If the [man] is ineligible for
courtship, she sits in a neutral position; to [sit at a
distance] would communicate the wrong thing. How soon
the girl moves over, and how far, clearly expresses
something about what kind of girl she is as well as what her
relationship to the [man] is. Such codes are learned but not
written; and constantly tested and compared but seldom
talked about. They are premises and rules and meanings we
draw on to communicate and to understand one another,
yet we are rarely conscious of them. (1971, 21-22)

A large number of similar examples fill the pages of such books

as The Silent Language and The Hidden Dimension by E. T.
Hall and Body Language by J. Fast.
 Not only do we govern our physical behavior by such
cultural patterns. Our mental behavior is likewise pervasively
influenced by the cultural patterns we have been taught. We
shape both our acting and our thinking according to these
cultural patterns. Those of us who have been brought up
within one of the varieties of Euro-American culture think,
reason, and perceive of the world around us in ways that are
more similar to the ways of other members of Euro-American
society than to the ways of any member of a society of Papua
New Guinea or of Africa. “It is as though we—the people of
any other society—grow up perceiving the world through
glasses with distorting lenses. The things, events, and
relationships we assume to be ‘out there’ are in fact filtered
through this perceptual screen” (Keesing and Keesing 1971,
21).
Culture, therefore, provides the models of reality that
govern our perception, although we are likely to be unaware of
the influence of these models on us. For the way we
understand things seems to us to be “just natural” or “human
nature.” It's just natural to eat three meals a day, isn't it? It's
only human nature for teenagers to rebel against their elders,
isn't it? The answer to both questions is, of course, No.
But we wouldn't know this unless we had been exposed to
information concerning a multitude of other cultures where it is
considered “just natural” to eat only one or two meals a day or
where there is no pattern of teenage rebellion similar to that
which we carefully teach our youth (see Mead 1928). There are
a variety of culturally governed logics or conceptual
frameworks. There are, therefore, a variety of culturally
governed logical behaviors. And many of these perceptions,
conceptualizations, and logical behaviors will differ markedly
from what our society has conditioned us to perceive or to
regard as the logical thing to think or do under similar
circumstances.
Unless we have been exposed to such information from
other societies and have learned to appreciate the fact that
they view reality through very different cultural glasses than
our own, we tend (unconsciously) to look down on them for
behaving differently than we do. That behavior seems strange
to us, irrational, or even wrong. Our customs seem to us to be
the right ones because they are (to us) the “natural” ones.

To view other people's ways of life in terms of our own

cultural glasses is called ethnocentrism. Becoming
conscious of, and analytical about, our own cultural
glasses is a painful business. We do it best by learning
about other people's glasses. Although we can never take
our glasses off to find out what the world is “really like,” or
try looking through anyone else's without ours on as well,
we can at least learn a good deal about our own
prescription. (Keesing and Keesing 1971, 21)

The nearest we can come, then, to arriving at an antidote to

an ethnocentric “monocultural” perception of reality is to
develop what may be termed a “cross-cultural perspective”
(see Kraft 1996). This is a perspective that always takes into
account the fact that there are a variety of socioculturally
governed perceptions of any given segment of reality. It is the
intent of the author to apply such a cross-cultural perspective
to the topics dealt with throughout this volume.

Sociocultural Adequacy (Model 3b)

“Sociocultural adequacy” is a doctrine developed by
anthropology (ordinarily referred to as “cultural relativism”)
that maintains that an observer should be careful to evaluate a
society's beliefs and behavior first in terms of its own values,
goals, and focuses before venturing to compare its customs
(either positively or negatively) with those of any other people
group.

Model 3b
The sociocultural adequacy submodel postulates, on the one
hand, the nonabsoluteness of any cultural or linguistic forms
and, on the other, the essentially equal adequacy of the ways
in which different sociocultural structuring affects the lives
of those immersed within them. This anthropological model
forms the basis for model 4e (chapter 7).

This doctrine was developed to combat the human

ethnocentric tendency to evaluate other people's behavior to
their disadvantage by always focusing on areas of life in which
the evaluator's society has specialized. Westerners thus tend
to evaluate as “primitive” all peoples that do not show a degree
of technological development comparable to that of Western
societies. The sociocultural-adequacy model is based on the
recognition that certain societies have specialized (often
“warped” themselves) in one area of life while others have
specialized in other areas of life (e.g., technology for certain
peoples, solid family structures for others). Comparisons of the
cultural structuring of one people group with those of another
tend, therefore, to be made unfairly on the basis of whatever
criteria the one who does the comparing deems most important.
Anthropologists have found that “it is objectively
impossible to distinguish world-wide levels of cultural
progress” (Beals and Hoijer 1959, 720). They have concluded
that cultures are to be regarded not as assignable to some level
of overall superiority or inferiority with respect to other
cultures. Cultures are, rather, more or less equal to each other in
the ways in which they are structured to meet the needs felt by
their members. In this sense it is felt that any given culture
shapes a way of life that must be seen as valid and adequate
for those immersed in it. Cultures are therefore both as good as
each other and as bad as each other in shaping that way of life.
None is anywhere near perfect, since all are shaped and
operated by sinful human beings. But none in its healthy state
is to be considered invalid, inadequate, or unusable by God
and humankind (see Turnbull 1972 for a description of an
unhealthy culture).
Sociocultural adequacy (relativism), says Melville
Herskovits, one of its most active advocates in the formative
years of American anthropology,

is a philosophy which, in recognizing the values set up by

every society to guide its own life, lays stress on the
 dignity inherent in every body of custom, and on the need
for tolerance of conventions though they may differ from
one's own. Instead of underscoring differences from
absolute norms…the relativistic point of view brings into
relief the validity of every set of norms for the people
whose lives are guided by them, and the values these
represent. (1948, 77)

“The very core of cultural relativism,” he continues, “is the

discipline that comes of respect for differences—of mutual
respect” (ibid.).
This doctrine is, on the cultural level, what personal
acceptance (the Golden Rule) is on the individual level (Mayers
1974). That is, sociocultural adequacy holds that we should
value other people's cultures just as we value ours, treating the
people of other societies as we would like them to treat us. It
recommends that, rather than moralizing about the good or bad
in the given culture (or a given individual), one should accept
the adequacy and the validity of that culture (or individual),
whether or not one's own set of values predisposes one to
approve of the behavior of that people group (or individual). A
belief in the adequacy of other cultures does not obligate one
to approve of such customs as cannibalism, burning of
widows, infanticide, premarital sex, polygamy, and the like. But
it does insist that one take such customs seriously within the
cultural context in which they occur and attempt to appreciate
the importance of their function within that context.
Nor does acceptance of sociocultural adequacy commit one
to change one's behavior in the direction of the values or
practices of another society. On the contrary, a commitment to
accept the adequacy and validity of any culture on its own
terms carries with it the obligation for persons to take their own
culture just as seriously as they take others. It is an
unfortunate fact that many uninformed people, in the name of
cultural relativism, have turned to a moral or ethical relativism.
They reason that since a given custom (e.g., premarital sexual
license) seems to function quite well in some other society, it is
permissible in theirs. The doctrine of sociocultural adequacy
(relativism) does not imply such a view (see Mayers 1974).3
The previously prevalent attitude, now discarded by most
anthropologists but, unfortunately, still common in popular
thought, was a naïve belief in cultural evolutionism, sometimes
called developmentalism. Though there are more sophisticated
and reasonable views that embrace certain kinds of cultural
evolution, these early naïve evolutionists, strongly influenced
by the traditional ethnocentrism of Western societies, “saw
individual cultures mainly as illustrative of particular stages in
a world-wide evolutionary sequence” (Beals and Hoijer 1959,
720). They, of course, placed our so-called civilized (i.e.,
European) cultures at the top of their pyramid and arranged the
technologically less developed cultures in descending order
down to the technologically most “primitive” societies at the
bottom. This ethnocentrism was developed in the crucible of a
society that tends “to arrange objects on a single scale of
value, from best to worst, biggest to smallest, cheapest, to
most expensive, etc.” (Mead 1964, 113), a society that insists
on evaluating all other perspectives toward life as either black
or white, good or bad, superior or inferior. Since “judgments are
based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each
individual in terms of his enculturation” (Herskovits 1948, 78),
cultural difference is to this day interpreted by large segments
of Euro-American society as cultural inferiority.

In a culture where absolute values are stressed, the

relativism of a world that encompasses many ways of living
[is] difficult to comprehend. Rather, it [offers] a field-day for
value-judgments based on the degree to which a given
body of customs resembles or differs from those of Euro-
American culture. (Herskovits 1948, 78)

However, while much of the thinking public in the Western

world converted (at least nominally) to the relativistic
viewpoint, the Western church (reinforced by ethnocentric
theological thinking that is often insensitive to the adequacy or
validity of other cultures), along with a large percentage of the
rest of the population, has for the most part retained this naïve
evolutionary position. Much of the Christian populace, for
example, has simply continued to assume that such features of
our society as monogamy, democracy, our type of educational
system, individualism, capitalism, the “freedoms,” literacy,
technological development, military supremacy, etc. are all
products of our association with God and therefore can be
pointed to as indications of the superiority of our culture over
all other cultures.
A balanced comparison of our cultural ways with those of
other societies, however, shows us to be strong only at certain
points, while very weak at others. We are strong in
technological areas and, as a concomitant of this, militarily. Our
system of government, borrowed from the pre-Christian Greek
city-states, seems to us to be superior to other forms of
government but is showing increasingly an inability to cope
effectively with a multitude of the problems facing it.
Monogamy, too, came to us from our pre-Christian cultural
forebears. It is very difficult to support the contention that
such cultural strengths as these (if they be strengths) are the
result of the influence of Christianity in our culture. It is easier,
and perhaps more accurate, to suggest that when individuals
and groups within our society commit themselves to Christ,
they frequently (not always) use these and other features of
our culture in a more Christian way than those who do not
have such a Christian commitment.
When one turns to the weaknesses of our culture, the myth
of our cultural superiority falls to pieces. For example, we have
poured so much of our resources into technological
development that we have created social disorientation and
disruption at every level of our society. Many families fall apart
because they are unable to compete with our so-called
educational system. The latter, for the sake of some imaginary
“better” future (defined in technological and materialistic
terms) indoctrinates our youth against the past in general and
their parents in particular (including any religious commitment
they may have). Our quest for freedom and individualism, not
to mention our mobility, mitigates against the development of
close friendships, strong family ties, neighborliness, and stable
marriages. Our extreme competitiveness, expressed
interpersonally, intergenerationally, economically, vocationally,
politically, and even between churches, is ripping our society
apart. The naturalistic worldview at the center of our culture,
the depersonalization of our people, the uncontrolled
competitiveness between the various segments of our society,
the choice usually to value the unknown and untried above the
known but imperfect—these and so many other features of our
society point not to its superiority but to its sickness.4
Anthropologists can point to any number of other cultures
that, though weak where we are strong, are strong where we
are weak. None of these has achieved nearly what ours has
technologically or medically. But we have not achieved what
they have in social organization. Many of them, before they
began to experience disruption through Western influences,
especially Western schools, had achieved a balanced approach
to life that is seriously lacking in our own cultural structuring.
And the cultural equilibrium and its concomitant increase of
individual security produced by such a balance made such
cultures look strikingly superior to ours in many ways, though
they too may have had great problems in other areas. Even
before Christianity was introduced into such societies, they
seemed to meet the psychological and personal needs of their
members more effectively than Euro-American culture does.
Though they had and still have their own deficiencies, one
wonders if they are as serious as ours in fundamental areas of
life.
Though I may be overgeneralizing and painting too
idealistic a picture of other societies, the point is not simply to
castigate our cultural ways or to produce in us an envy of
other peoples who seem to have achieved a better balance than
we experience in Euro-America. The point is to suggest that
our feelings of cultural superiority are completely unwarranted
and utterly untenable in the face of the mass of anthropological
data coming to us concerning the thousands of other
sociocultural entities of the world. True, these ways of life
often show serious difficulty in areas where ours shows
strength. But this fact merely supports a major point that the
doctrine of sociocultural adequacy is attempting to make: that
no culture, especially not ours, can be regarded as superior in
every way to every other culture.
That is, there has not been an evolutionary development of
cultures from a state of overall inferiority to a state of overall
superiority. Our culture is thus no better overall than any other
culture, though in the areas of our expertise we may claim
superiority. In comparing Euro-American cultures with other
cultures, we must give at least equal attention to areas where
other peoples show strength, not simply to those areas where
we are strong. For in the areas of their primary concern, others
may show us the utter inappropriateness (not to mention the
un-Christian arrogance) of our ethnocentric tendency to
evaluate them in terms of their achievement or lack of it in areas
of our strength.
A cross-cultural perspective on our culture and the
influence of Christianity in it gives no support to the
assumption that through the influence of Christianity ours has
become the most ideal culture in the world. Christianity has
indeed had an important impact on our culture but so has
human sinfulness—and the latter appears to be winning out,
culturally as well as individually. For this reason and because
the Christian knows that God is continually at work in every
society (not just ours) at all times (Acts 14:17), it behooves us
to accept a good bit of the doctrine of sociocultural adequacy.
We need to recognize that cultures are essentially equal (rather
than superior or inferior to each other) with respect to at least
three things: (1) their adequacy for those immersed in them, (2)
the pervasiveness of the expression of human sinfulness
manifested in and through them, and (3) their potential
usefulness as vehicles of God's interaction with humanity.

Worldview (Model 3c)

Societies pattern perceptions of reality into
conceptualizations of what reality can or should be, what is to
be regarded as actual, probable, possible, and impossible.
These conceptualizations form what is termed the “worldview”
of any given culture. The worldview is the central
systematization of conceptions of reality to which the members
of the society assent (largely unconsciously) and from which
stems their value system. The worldview lies at the very heart
of culture, touching, interacting with, and strongly influencing
every other aspect of the culture.

Model 3c
A worldview is seen as lying at the heart of every cultural
entity (whether a culture, subculture, academic discipline,
social class, religious, political, or economic organization, or
 any similar grouping with a distinct value system). The
worldview of a cultural entity is seen as both the repository
and the patterning in terms of which people generate the
conceptual models through which they perceive of and
interact with reality. I suggest that the basic appeal for
Christian conversion and for whatever conceptual
transformation this book can bring about is to be made at the
worldview level.

The worldview of any given people presumably began with

a series of agreements by the members of the original group
concerning their perception of reality and how they should
regard and react toward that reality. This, like all other aspects
of culture, has undergone constant change so that it now
differs to a greater or lesser extent from the original worldview
and from other extant worldviews that have developed (in
related cultures) from that common-ancestor worldview.
A worldview is imposed upon the young of a society by
means of familiar processes of teaching and learning. In this
way each youngster reared in a given society is conditioned to
interpret reality in terms of the conceptual system of that
culture. If the adults of a society conceive of the relationship
between the universe and humanity as a dominance-
submission relationship in which persons simply submit
uncomplainingly to circumstances without seeking to gain
dominance over them, the young of that society will be taught
to perceive their relationship to the universe in these terms. If
the adults of a society conceive of disease as the result of the
activities of personal malevolent spirits, the young will
ordinarily learn to perceive any disease in their experience to be
so caused. However one's society conceives of the division of
time or space, one will ordinarily come to perceive of them in
these terms.

Fig. 3.1. Worldview in relation to cultural patterning and cultural performance.

The position (model) here espoused sees the worldview of

a culture or subculture as the “central control box” of that
culture.5 With respect to the organization or patterning of the
culture, the worldview may be seen as the organizer of the
conceptual system taught to and employed by the members of
that culture/subculture. With respect to the behavior or
performance of the participants in the culture/subculture, the
worldview may be thought of as that which governs the
application of the society's conceptualizations of their
relationships to reality. These facts and some of their
implications may be represented in the visualization of this
model in figure 3.1.
Everything in the patterning and the performance of a
culture ties into this central conceptualization. The centrality
and consequent importance of the worldview become very
clear when one considers the centrality to life of the functions
served by the worldview of a culture.6 A people's worldview is
their basic model of reality.
Five major functions maybe described:
1. The first function of a worldview is to codify the
society's explanations of how and why things got to be as
they are and how and why they continue or change. The
worldview embodies for a people, whether explicitly or
implicitly, the basic assumptions concerning ultimate things on
which they base their lives. If a people holds a worldview that
holds that the universe is operated by a number of invisible
personal forces largely beyond their control, this will affect
both their understanding of and their response to external
REALITY. If, however, a people's worldview holds that the
universe operates by means of a large number of impersonal,
cause-and-effect operations that, if learned by people, can be
employed by them to control the universe, the attitude of these
people toward REALITY will be much different.
These ideas are customarily articulated in the mythology 7
of a people. This mythology takes a variety of forms from
society to society. In a large number of societies one would
look to fables, proverbs, riddles, songs, and other forms of
folklore for overt and covert Indications of the worldview. In
more complex societies one finds, in addition to the folklore,
printed literature that often overtly philosophizes the
mythology of, for example, science, religion, politics, and so on.
The portion of the worldview and mythology of which people
are conscious is thus often more easily observable in the
various subcultures within Euro-American society than it is in
preliterate societies.
2. The worldview of a people serves an evaluational—a
judging and validating—function. That is, a worldview
provides guidelines in terms of which evaluations are made.
The basic institutions, values, and goals of a society typically
are ethnocentrically evaluated as best and, therefore,
sanctioned by the worldview of their society or subsociety.
Other people's customs typically are judged to be inferior or at
least inappropriate. And for most of the peoples of the world
the ultimate ground for these sanctions is supernatural. It is by
their God or gods that most people understand their worldview
and their culture as a whole to be validated. He/they are seen
to value these customs more than those of any other peoples.
And even when no external supernatural is postulated (as in
communism and naturalistic American ideology) a sort of
“internal supernatural” is generally present in the virtual
deifying of such concepts as communism or “the American
way of life.” Thus, in the Anglo-American conceptual system
we find sanctions (supernatural or pseudosupernatural) for
institutions such as democratic government, a capitalistic
economy, and monogamous marriage; for values such as
scientism (with or without God), individual rights and
freedoms, and private property; and for goals such as world
peace (on our terms), personal and national prosperity, and a
college education for everyone who wants one. As with its
explanatory function, the evaluational function of a people's
worldview is integral to every aspect of the life of the social
group. All important and valued behavior, whether of the in-
group or of other groups, whether classified as economic,
political, “scientific,” social, educational, or whatever, is judged
in terms of a society's worldview assumptions, beliefs, values,
meanings, and sanctions.
3. The worldview of a group also provides psychological
reinforcement for that: group. At points of anxiety or crisis in
life it is to one's conceptual system that one turns for the
encouragement to continue or the stimulus to take other action.
Crisis times such as death, birth, and illness; transition times
such as puberty, marriage, planting and harvest; times of
uncertainty; times of elation—all tend to heighten anxiety or in
some other way require adjustment between behavior and
belief. And each tends to be dealt with in a reinforcing way by
the people following the worldview of their society. Often this
reinforcement takes the form of ritual or ceremony in which
many people participate (e.g., funerals, harvest celebrations,
initiation or graduation ceremonies). Frequently there are also
individual socially required reinforcement observances such as
prayer, trance, scientific experimentation, or “thinking the
matter through” for the purpose of squaring a prospective
decision with one's conceptual underpinning. In such ways the
worldview of a group provides security and support for the
behavior of the group in a world that appears to be filled with
capricious uncontrollable forces.
4. The worldview of a culture or subculture serves an
integrating function. In terms of the worldview of a society, a
people systematizes and orders their perceptions of REALITY
into an overall design. In terms of this integrated and
integrating perspective, then, a people conceptualizes what
REALITY should be like and understands and interprets the
multifarious events to which they are exposed. A people's
worldview “establishes and validates basic premises about the
world and man's place in it, and it relates the strivings and
emotions of men to them” (Keesing and Keesing 1971, 303).
Thus, in its explanatory, evaluational, reinforcing, and
integrating functions, worldview lies at the heart of a culture,
providing the basic model(s) for bridging the gap between the
“objective” REALITY outside people's heads and the culturally
agreed upon perception of that REALITY inside their heads. In
terms of their worldview, the members of a social group
formulate the conceptualizations in terms of which they
perceive reality. It filters out for them most glimpses of reality
that do not conform to the beliefs concerning the way that
reality should be. It provides for its adherents a system of
symbols that acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-
lasting moods and motivations in people by formulating
conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these
with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations
seem uniquely realistic (Geertz 1966, 4).
5. A group's worldview is not so structured that the
perceptions of all of its members are completely determined for
all time. Though there is characteristically a very high degree
of conservatism to such conceptualization, there is change in
this as well as in all other areas of culture. People do on
occasion shift in their perceptions of reality. They come to see
things in ways slightly or drastically different from the ways
that their society has conditioned them to perceive of them.
They change one or more of their conceptual models and
reinterpret their perceptions. And such shifts in perception,
especially if engaged in and reported by socially influential
persons, may be accepted by other members of the social
group. This results in groups altering their conceptual
structuring, their models of reality.
Thus, over a period of time groups such as the ancient
Hebrews moved from belief in many gods to a strong concept
of monotheism (Kautzsch 1904). Likewise, large segments of
Western society have moved through Renaissance, Industrial
Revolution, and American Frontierism from a belief in the
supremacy of the Judeo-Christian God to a belief in the actual
or potential all-sufficiency of the technological human.
Ordinarily such conceptual transformation takes place
slowly. Sometimes, though, the pressure for rapid change is
great. Particularly in the face of such pressure we observe a
fifth function of a people's worldview, which relates directly to
the more disintegrative aspects of culture change. That,
function may be labeled adaptational. Wallace suggests that
inherent, in worldviews is the ability to reduce “internal
structural contradictions” that occur in the process of culture
change (1966, 27). People, by adjusting their worldviews,
devise means for resolving conflict and reducing cultural
dissonance. That is, in circumstances of cultural distortion or
disequilibrium there is a resilient quality to people, enabling
them to adjust their worldviews to reconcile hitherto apparently
irreconcilable differences between old understandings and new
ones. If a society gets into ideological difficulty “it may be far
easier to reinterpret values than to reorganize society” (Wallace
1966, 29).
 Where mutually contradictory cognitions (including
perceptions, knowledge, motives, values, and hopes) are
entertained, people must act to reduce the dissonance. While,
theoretically, they can do this by changing the real world in
some respect so as to modify the data coming in, they may also
achieve the same effect by modifying their perceptions of self
and of the real world in such a way that one horn of the
dilemma is no longer recognized (Wallace 1966, 29).
In extreme cases this adaptation to changing perception
calls for major replacement and what. Wallace calls
“revitalization.” But short of such, drastic “cultural surgery”
the adaptational quality of worldviews is constantly in
evidence in all sorts of situations of culture change, whether
these be mild or intensive.

Different Worldview Assumptions Lead to

Different Conclusions
As we shall point out in chapter 5, there is a good bit of
similarity to human behavior in spite of cultural differences.
There is even a considerable body of evidence to suggest that
processes of human reasoning are essentially the same no
matter what one's culture is. For this reason it has been stated
that humans differ not so much in the processes by means of
which they reach their conclusions as in their starting points.8
That is, the members of different societies arrive at different
conclusions concerning REALITY because they have started
from different assumptions.
 Note, for example, the conflict between underlying
assumptions in the events recorded in Acts 14:8-18. Paul and
Barnabas had brought about the healing of a lame man in the
town of Lystra. A considerable commotion arose over the event
because the Lystrans assumed that only the gods could effect
such a healing. When they saw what happened they
concluded that Paul and Barnabas were gods and began to
worship and offer sacrifices to them. The assumption in the
apostles' minds, of course, was that by healing the lame man
they would enhance their witness in that place. Typical (non-
Christian) Americans observing such an event would be likely
to conclude that Paul was simply a good psychologist, since
they would assume a naturalistic (not a supernaturalistic)
explanation for such events.
In Acts 28:1-10 we see the people of Melita arriving at a
conclusion similar to that of the Lystrans. They, too, assumed
that only gods could survive the bite of a poisonous snake.
Americans observing such an event would again come to a
different conclusion because their assumptions would be
different.
We assume that the natural universe is predictable,
understandable, and scientifically describable. We therefore
attempt to understand and describe the causes, or at least the
factors involved in such phenomena as storms (and weather in
general), sickness and health, misfortune and success. If
something happens we are determined to at least find out how
it happened, whether or not we can explain why. And this
determination to probe, to analyze, to explain just “comes
naturally” to us because our society assumes that it can and
should be done.
But the people of other societies start from other
assumptions concerning the universe and, of course, come out
with very different conclusions. Their logic may be just as
good (or bad) as ours and the way they reason from
assumption to conclusion may be similar to the way we would
do it, but their basic (worldview) assumptions may be very
different. Their assumptions, too, may be just as valid as ours,
but focused in on a part of the data that we ignore. For
example, there is a great deal about the universe that defies
neat description even when the most precise Western scientific
techniques are applied. But we, in our faith in the ability of
human science to master any and every problem, ordinarily
choose to ignore the capricious, unpredictable aspects of the
natural universe. In fact, we are often so focused in on the how
or immediate why of happenings (e.g., earthquakes and other
natural disasters, the geological record of prehistory, the march
of human history) that we seldom concern ourselves with the
ultimate why of such happenings.
Many societies, however, teach those immersed in them to
show much, more concern for the ultimate causes of things and
less concern for the details of how they come about. To these
societies the universe seems a good bit less predictable and
understandable. They cannot be content simply to describe
how a person contracted a certain disease; they want to know
why it was that it was this person who got ill and not another.
And their concern leads them to regard the universe as
basically capricious (rather, in the hands of capricious personal
beings) and unpredictable.
 If there is a tragedy, they assume in accord with their
worldview, it is owing to the whim or displeasure of a personal
spirit. Radios, automobiles, airplanes, etc. likewise may be
understood to have come about primarily because of the whim
of a supernatural being who chose to give to certain people the
knowledge and skill to produce them. For, they must assume,
only God could give people the ability to perform such
wonders. The fact that the members of such societies start with
a different set of assumptions from ours predicts that they will
arrive at conclusions different from ours.
As members of an individualistic Western society,
Americans are increasingly concerned that up to the present
women have not been regarded as “equal” to men. We define
“equality” as sameness with regard to the right of a person to
move freely both geographically and socially, to compete freely
for employment or leadership, to speak out freely, to be free
from tasks that we regard as drudgery, and so forth. That is, we
link equality with freedom. We judge that men have heretofore
been allowed greater freedom than women, and we conclude,
therefore, that the position of women is unequal to that of men,
since it is not the same with respect to the possession of
individual freedom. In order to solve the problem, we seek to
equalize the position of the sexes vis-à-vis this single criterion
of equality (=sameness of opportunity). And given our basic
assumptions, this is the direction in which we move.
But suppose we, like a large number of the world's peoples,
assumed that the most valuable thing a society can give to its
women is not freedom but security. Whereas we might say, “A
woman is so valuable as an individual that she should be just
as free as possible,” such a society might reason, “A woman is
such a valuable member of society that she should be made
just as secure as possible.” Starting from this latter
assumption, these peoples frequently conclude that, women
must be provided with (1) secure marriage and home (secured
often by such customs as arranged marriage, brideprice,
polygamy, and the levirate), and (2) a relatively routine and
restricted set of expected achievements in order that. (3) she
may in turn provide a maximum of security for the newest and
most vulnerable members of the society, the children. In such
societies “equality” between the sexes means the provision of
different things for men and women—security for women,
freedom for men. There seems to be no feeling of compulsion
on the part of these peoples to give both men and. women the
same kind of thing, since they regard male and female roles as
complementary (i.e., nonoverlapping). They therefore seek as
much as possible to do away with all competition between the
sexes. Furthermore, ideally the cultural assignment of greater
freedom to men is to enable them to use that freedom, to assure
greater security for the women.
Certainly in terms of their assumptions (and probably even
in terms of our own) high security for women is just as valuable
as (more valuable than?) greater freedom for men. Likewise the
right of women to wield almost total power over young boys
and all girls may be ultimately just as valuable or even more
valuable than the right of men to wield political power. Thus,
the status of men and women in such a society may be “equal,”
though their roles are utterly different from the roles that we in
our society feel betoken equality. For, equality to them can
mean “equal but thoroughly different,” whereas for us it is
coming more and more to mean sameness.
The influence of several assumptions about worldview may
be indicated by the following chart showing several typical
examples of different assumptions leading to different
conclusions. (The tribe or area in which the custom is found is
given in parentheses.)
In these and every other aspect of life we are moulded by
our societies to make assumptions concerning REALITY and to
act on the basis of those assumptions to work out the details
of life.

Are We Determined by Culture?

For some time now an impression of determinism has been
given by much anthropological and psychological literature. It
appears that an ever-increasing number of the attitudes and
actions that we have previously attributed to free will are
actually rather strictly determined by the cultural, social, and
psychological forces to which we are subject. Certain
behavioral scientists have been so impressed with the
influence of these factors o n our lives that they believe
everything about human life is well-nigh absolutely determined
(e.g., Skinner 1971; White 1949). Such a belief is, however, a
matter of faith based on the fact that the more we learn about
culture (including society and psychology) the less scope
seems to remain, for free will.
Anthropologist Leslie White, for example, in dealing with
the individual in relation to culture, simply states that

the individual…is merely an organization of cultural forces

and elements that have impinged upon him from the
outside and which find their overt expression through
him…. The individual is but the expression of a supra-
biological cultural tradition in somatic form. (1949, 167)
 Fig. 3.2. Chart of the relationship between certain worldview assumptions and
conclusions.

Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner states that

“autonomous man” (that is, humankind with some freedom of
self-determination) “is a device used to explain what we cannot
explain in any other way” (1971, 191). This kind of explanation
of human activity he labels “prescientific” and pleads for the
abolishment of such thinking. For, he says, in a statement of
faith that at one point he admits seems inconsistent (p. 21), “a
scientific analysis of behavior dispossesses autonomous man
and turns the control he has been said to exert over to the
environment” (p. 96).
The positions of White and Skinner within the behavioral
sciences are not entirely dissimilar from the theological
determinism advanced by those who hold to extreme views of
predestination. Indeed, Skinner, in support of his position,
broadly states that “theologians have accepted the fact that
man must be predestined to do what an omniscient God knows
he will do” (1971, 17). Theological determinism, of course, sees
God rather than culture as the determining agent (a
considerable improvement over a blind, unreasoning force
such as culture). Furthermore, theological determinism is more
difficult to argue against, since it is based less on empirical
descriptions of real-life data than cultural determinism purports
to be.
The advocates of both positions share a faith in an external
force (whether God or culture) that absolutely determines the
destinies of human beings. But the starting point for this faith
differs. In the case of theological determinism the starting
assumption seems to be: since God is all-powerful and can
determine anything, he does determine everything. With
cultural determinism, on the other hand, the reasoning seems to
proceed from the shock of being continually forced to
recognize that more and more of the behavior we once
attributed to free will is largely (they would say totally)
explainable in terms of the social conditioning to which a
person has been subjected. Even murder and rape, for example,
are now often interpreted in such a way that the individual's
accountability for such acts is out of focus.
Whether or not such extreme determinism is warranted is a
matter of considerable debate both within theology and within
the behavioral sciences. And those who openly label their
views “deterministic” become very controversial. But, to return
to the behavioral sciences alone, even many anthropologists,
sociologists, and psychologists who do not go to such an
extreme position make statements concerning the
pervasiveness of cultural conditioning that lead others to
assume that they are adopting a deterministic position. In fact,
some of my readers may feel that I have moved too far in that
direction. The model here presented is not a deterministic
model, however, even though it: may appear so to those who
are accustomed to thinking of human beings as largely self-
determining.
Rather, though the case made by the behavioral sciences
that human behavior is largely conditioned is convincing, I
don't: feel that the facts warrant the kind of faith pledged by
White and Skinner in the eventual proof of absolute
determinism. Indeed, as I see it, our behavior is more
determined by our habits than by our culture. I, therefore,
refuse cultural determinism in favor of a position that holds
that human behavior is conditioned or influenced by cultural
and psychological factors, but that this conditioning, though
pervasive, falls somewhat short of total determination.
Something internal to persons, however—our habit-nature—
keeps us following the cultural “tracks” we have been taught in
most of our behavior closely enough that many misinterpret
the important factor to be some power of culture to control
behavior.
Likewise, in the theological realm I attempt to distinguish
between what God in his omnipotence can do and what in his
dealings with human beings he chooses to do. To me, a
multitude of scriptural examples convincingly indicate that in
major ways God for some reason chooses to allow human
beings a fair degree of autonomy, thereby placing rather severe
limits on his own ability to act in the human sphere. He then
holds us responsible for the use of that autonomy. I am
convinced of this by the leaching of such passages as the
parable of the talents, the record of David's sin with Bathsheba,
the account of Peter's denial, God's judgment of Sodom,
Gomorrah, and Nineveh, God's appeal to Cain, Jesus' appeal to
Nicodemus, to the rich young ruler, and to the adulteress. God
appeals and eventually judges but refrains from coercion. He
must be allowing a measure of freedom and placing certain
limits on himself, not because he has to but because he has
chosen to.
Human freedom is not total. Nor could it ever be. We are
limited by God's sovereignty to those areas within which he
restrains his omnipotence and allows us freedom. We are
further constrained by such factors as our psychology and our
involvement in culture. For our society has produced and
imposed upon us an incredibly complex culture from which, to
the end of our days, we cannot escape. This culture that we
wear, then, imposes limits on us but also allows us a degree of
flexibility, some “room to wiggle.” We are not enslaved to or
determined by our culture but are pervasively influenced by it.
Before we were old enough to know what was going on, we
had already been carefully taught and had responded by
developing the habits appropriate to perhaps 90 percent of the
total cultural heritage in terms of which we would live all of life.
We were conditioned linguistically, socially, attitudinally, and in
every other way to such an extent that we can never function
without reference to that early conditioning. That is, we have
acquired the very necessary frame of reference, the rules of the
game, the design for living without which, apparently, no
human being can exist. And it is the pervasiveness and totality
of this conditioning, especially as it contrasts with the
impression of greater freedom that we once understood to be
the case, that has induced some to subscribe to a doctrine of
cultural determinism. This understanding of the relationship of
people to culture is elaborated in the following chapter.

1. See Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952 for an exhaustive discussion of the history
and contemporary usage of the term.
2. Keesing and Keesing's illustration uses a bench seat of an automobile as the
place where the couple sits. Since bench seats are virtually nonexistent anymore, I
have changed the illustration to couch or bench.
3. A popular misunderstanding of cultural relativism is presented and rightly
condemned by McGavran (1974, 20), though he does not take seriously either
contemporary anthropological understandings or the great potential for Christian use
of the doctrine.
4. See Kluckhohn 1949, chapter 9, “ An Anthropologist Looks at the United
States,” for a fine discussion of both the weaknesses and the strengths of our culture.
5. See Kraft 1996, chapter 4; and forthcoming, for more detailed discussions of
worldview.
6. See Malinowski 1925 and Keesing 1958 for a similar discussion of religion.
They use the term “ religion” to designate that part of culture that I (and,
increasingly, contemporary anthropological orthodoxy) label “ worldview.”
7. The term “ myth” is here used in its technical sense to denote any story
(whether historically factual or not) that is employed to unfold, support, or explain
a part of the worldview or practice of a people. Under this usage the Bible may be
technically classed as mythology. As evangelical Christians, we contend, however,
that the Bible is historically factual whether or not the term “ myth” is applied to it.
8. Nida 1960, 90-91 says: “ The fundamental processes of reasoning of all
peoples are essentially the same, but the premises on which such reasoning rests
and the basic categories that influence the judgment of different peoples are
somewhat different&. [People] differ& not so much in their reasoning powers as in
their starting points.”
4

CULTURAL FORMS, PATTERNS, AND

PROCESSES

Among the most important concepts arising from

anthropological and linguistic study are the distinctions
between cultural forms and their functions, meanings, and
usages (model 3d) and between cultural patterning and
personal performance (model 3e). The discussion of these
features of the sociocultural context lays the groundwork for
the treatment of culture change (model 3f).

Forms, Functions, Meanings, and Usage

(Model 3d)
A very important submodel of the concept of culture is one
that enables us to distinguish between the component entities
of culture and the purposes they are put to by humans. To
introduce this submodel it will be helpful to define each of the
four aspects of the sociocultural context with which it deals.
Note that implicit in this submodel is a basic two-way
distinction between cultural forms, on the one hand, and their
functions, meanings, and uses, on the other.

Model 3d
The form, function, meaning, and usage model holds that any
cultural element, whether material or nonmaterial is a
cultural form. Forms are developed and perpetuated within a
cultural system because they serve functions regarded by
their users as important. As they are used, they become
vehicles of meaning from and to their users.

Many analysts simply refer to forms and functions (see

Downs 1975, 111-20 for an excellent presentation) or forms and
meanings (as I shall regularly do in the following chapters).
The nonform category of this distinction is complex and
dependent on persons. It is thus useful (following Linton 1936,
402-4) to deal with three distinguishable aspects of that
nonform component (points 2, 3, 4, below).
1. The forms of a culture are the observable parts of which
it is made up.1 These are the customs, the structures or
patterns, and the products (material or nonmaterial) that people
have produced by following those customs. Many cultural
forms are conceptualizations of material items; most are
conceptualizations of nonmaterial items. Axes, hoes, houses,
clothing, automobiles, dogs, people, etc. are concepts
represented by material forms. Marriage customs, family
structures, words, grammatical patterns, singing, dancing,
speaking, sleeping, etc. are concepts of nonmaterial cultural
forms. A description of the shape, size, type, structuring, or
other observable parts of a custom is a description of some
portion of that custom's form. Cultural forms in and of
themselves are static.
The early anthropologists were much concerned with the
forms that made up the cultures they sought to observe and
describe. They often went into greater detail in describing the
items of culture (or of language) and the way these items were
arranged than in dealing with any other part of culture. Many
such descriptions tended to dissect and classify kinship
systems, religious rituals, grammatical systems, economic
patterns, and the like much as a medical student dissects a
dead body. We can learn much about the inventory of a culture
from such descriptions but not much about its dynamics.
2. Characteristics 2, 3 and 4 are “person things” rather than
culture or structure things. Each of the forms of a culture is
used (see below) by the people of that society to serve
particular functions. Certain of these functions are general,
universal functions, relating to basic human needs that every
cultural structuring is created to handle. Others are more
specifically related to nonuniversal, individual, and group
concerns. At the general level, it can be said that the (or a)
function (or purpose) of the cultural form we call “marriage” is
to legitimize procreation or that the (or a) function of the
cultural form “eating” is to maintain biological existence. At a
more specific level, a function of marriage may be to enable
young people to escape from their parents, and a. function of
eating to solve one's feelings of insecurity or apprehension.
Cultural forms can frequently be used to serve several
functions at once—some general, some specific—but always
governed by a person's or a people's usage.
The contributions the usage of a cultural form makes to the
overall structuring of the culture or to the Individual usage of
that culture are its functions. As each form is used to play its
part in relation to the other elements (forms) of the culture, it is
seen as serving its functions. The participants in a society in
their use of their cultural patterns may or may not be aware of
the functions served by any given cultural form. Or they may
be aware of certain functions and unaware of others. Some
people may be aware of the fact that they eat to keep alive, but
not that they eat also to reduce their fear of unknown
situations.
3. One of the most important functions served by every
cultural form is to convey meaning to the participants of a
culture. Cultural forms are used by people to convey meaning,
they do not contain meaning. The meaning of a cultural form is
a personal thing consisting of “the totality of subjective
associations attached to the form” (Luzbetak 1963, 139). Each
cultural form, therefore, is used by people to convey
impressions, values, attitudes, and connotations from person
to person and group to group. The meanings that people
attach to their cultural forms are a crucial aspect of the way
those forms function in a culture. The use (see below) that the
participants in a society make of their customs is also critically
related to the meanings attached to these forms within the
cultural system. Indeed, what a given custom means is
determinable only from an observation of its functions and
uses within its specific cultural context. There are apparently
few if any cultural forms that convey exactly the same
meanings in any two different” societies (see Nida 1960, 89-90).
Just as any given cultural form may serve several functions
at once, so that form may be interpreted as conveying more
than one meaning at the same time. Certain of the meanings
conveyed are at the conscious level for most or all participants,
but many are below the threshold of consciousness for a
majority of those who use the forms. Furthermore, many (if not
all) of the forms of a culture will signify (mean) at least some
different things to different individuals and groups within the
society. A wedding ceremony within American culture, for
example, probably signifies to all Americans the legitimization
of the right of the couple to live together and to produce and
raise children together. There will, however, be certain
additional different (and often unconscious) meanings
symbolized by that same ceremony in the minds of the various
participants. For example, though for nearly all the observers,
the wedding may symbolize happiness for the couple, it may
also symbolize debt to the parents, extra work to the janitor,
surprise that these two ever got together to some of the
audience, apprehension to the couple, fear lest he or she make
a mistake to the organist, and routine to the preacher.
4. Closely interrelated to function and meaning is the matter
of how a cultural form is used. This consideration, more than
others, makes explicit the active part that human beings take in
the operation of culture. The forms of culture are relatively
passive in and of themselves. How they function and what
they mean are dependent on the way active human agents
employ them. Most of the ways in which forms are used are
routinized through the processes of culture learning. Thus,
most people within a society employ most forms of that culture
within a relatively fixed range of variation allowed by the
traditions of the society. Within this range there is room for
individual and subgroup variation in most customs. We may
speak, then, of both culturally patterned usage and individual
variation in usage.
The culturally patterned use of the wedding ceremony to
legitimize the setting up of a new family may be intersected by
a number of other culturally approved (or, at least, allowed)
individual usages, and also by certain culturally disapproved
usages. It is approved, for example, for the organist and the
preacher to use such a ceremony to earn money. It is culturally
allowed (and sometimes approved) for certain of the
participants to drink to excess in many American wedding
celebrations. It is not unknown, though never culturally
approved, for certain persons or groups to use a wedding
celebration as an occasion for revenge or stealing or for
obtaining American citizenship.
It will be helpful to illustrate further how this very important
model applies by designating additional cultural forms and
applying the model to them.
TABLE. An American table is a cultural artifact, a material
form produced as a part of the operation of American culture. It
exists within American culture in a variety of sizes, shapes,
colors, and materials. It is usually (not always) fairly easy to
distinguish from other items in the category “furniture,” such
as chairs, cabinets, couches, and footstools. There are,
however, several different kinds of tables, such as dining
tables, end tables, coffee tables, and picnic tables. Several
closely related items such as desks and certain cabinets may
alternatively be referred to as tables. Tables function as articles
of furniture in places such as homes, schools, churches, and
even parks. They serve as things to set other things on, such
as lamps, books, dishes, etc. Dining tables function as places
at which Americans sit to eat.
The concept “table” conveys meanings—such things as
property, a place to sit at for eating, working, and so on, an
object to dust, an object to keep an attractive tablecloth on, a
lamp holder, and the like. Ordinarily people use tables
according to their culturally assigned functions. Dining tables
are sat at for eating; end tables are used to hold lamps; coffee
tables are used to hold books, magazines, newspapers, and
(sometimes) coffee, etc. Ordinarily a distinction is made
between a table as something one sits at and a chair as
something someone sits on. On occasion, however, an
individual will use a table to sit on or even to stand on. These
usages are sometimes within the culturally allowable range,
though they may be outside of it under certain circumstances
(e.g., at a wedding).
AND. This is a linguistic form that occurs in the English
language. It consists of three phonemes and exists in a variety
of pronunciations differing from dialect to dialect. The word
also exists in written form (e.g., and; in Braille; in symbols such
as + and &). It can be spelled out in code (e.g., Morse,
semaphore), can be represented by gestures (e.g., “signing” for
the deaf), etc. It functions within the language “to indicate
connection or addition, especially of items within the same
class or type” (Webster's Dictionary 1967, 33). Since “and” is
“a function word” rather than “a content word,” its meaning is
largely determined by how it functions and how it is used
within the language rather than by any referent outside of the
language. In contrast, a “content word” such as dog or table
functions as a noun within the language and refers to an object
that exists outside the language. Those objects exist whether
or not anyone talks or writes about them. The word and,
however, derives its meaning almost entirely from its
functioning and usage when people talk and write.
It is, then, used within the language largely for the purpose
of joining “sentence elements of the same grammatical rank or
function” (ibid.). A person using the word in this way within a
sentence is regarded by all as operating within the range
assigned by the language. Some would question whether it is
“proper” (i.e., assigned) to use the word as the first word in a
written sentence, as I often do in this volume. I would maintain
that: it is certainly allowable and also within the assigned range
of acceptable usage. In conversation, the word is often used to
signal something like “Wait for me to formulate my next
thought before you interrupt me.” To use it for this purpose,
the speaker finishes one sentence and starts the next with a
drawn out “Aaaaand…” followed by a pause while attempting
to formulate how to say the next thought. At other points in a
conversation, a person who is not speaking may use “and” as
the lead word in an attempt to butt into the conversation. In
this usage it may mean something like “Here's an important
additional point that you ought to mention.”
The ritual of water BAPTISM. This is a ceremonial,
nonmaterial form or custom that involves, for most Christian
groups, the use of water. In performing this ritual an official of a
given Christian group either immerses an initiate in water or
sprinkles or pours water on the initiate's head. A complete
description of the form of this custom would involve the
detailing of such factors as the place, time, personnel, method,
clothing, words, and all other aspects of the ritual. Baptism
functions for most Christian groups as a rite of initiation and
incorporation of new members into the group. For the group its
primary function is as the doorway through which new recruits
pass. For the individual it functions to confirm one's passage
from outside the group to inside it.
Baptism may have a variety of meanings to both the group
and the initiate. Not all of these are intended or even approved
by either individual Christian bodies or by corporate
Christianity. The biblical intention would seem to be that the
rite be accompanied by enthusiasm, love, joy, and Christian
concern on the part of the initiate and of the group the initiate
joins. It should mean these things plus the open commitment of
the initiate to allegiance both to God through Christ and to that
specific group of Christians. Water baptism frequently does
signify just such meanings. Other meanings are often present
as well, either in addition to or in replacement of these more
ideal meanings.
The fact that the ritual is a foreign one, borrowed from
another culture, unknown in American culture outside the
church, and labeled by a Greek word that has never been
translated (baptizō = baptize), affects its meaning at both
general and individual levels. It very easily comes to mean a
sacred, even magical, ritual that one goes through only
because it is required by God and an antique church
organization. When such a meaning becomes prominent it
results in a great contrast between the way in which baptism is
perceived today and the way it was perceived in New
Testament times. For, in the first century, water initiation rites
were used to induct people into a number of different groups.
Among these were Judaism (for proselytes) and the Greek
mystery religions, as well as the church.
The function and purpose of baptism were well known to
those outside as well as to those inside these groups. Today,
perceptions of baptism are often influenced by understandings
of historical conflict over the mode, the theological teaching
concerning the practice, the attitude of the participants toward
the church organization and personnel, etc. These perceptions
can result in significant differences between how the form is
seen today and how it was seen in the early church. Such
factors greatly influence the meanings attached to a given
cultural form.
Interacting with all this, and contributing markedly to the
meanings of water baptism, is the way the form is used by the
groups and individuals employing it. Many groups use and
impose the form as if it were handed down by God and,
therefore, is sacred and even magical in itself, whether or not
the perceived meanings correspond with scriptural meanings.
Other groups (e.g., Society of Friends, Salvation Army) have
become so upset with the constant arguing over water baptism
that they have abandoned the use of the form (though not
necessarily the intended meanings) altogether. Other groups
fall somewhere between these extremes.
 We will return later to this model. The usage component of
this model is incorporated into the next submodel (3e) as the
“performance” component of that model.

Cultural Patterning and Personal

Performance (Model 3e)
There are those whose understanding of the relationship
between culture and people is deterministic. That is, they think
that people are determined or largely determined by their
sociocultural contexts. “Orthodox” (or majority) anthropology,
sociology, and psychology, however, do not go all the way
with the determinists. However narrowly one may be channeled
by one's society in any given area of life there is usually some
“room to wiggle.” That is, even though it might not occur to a
given individual or group within a given society that a
particular custom could be altered, they have the freedom to do
so if they choose. If for some reason external or internal to
themselves they feel the need to alter that custom, they may
choose to alter it and actually go about altering it.
That pressure by our society to conform to cultural
guidelines “shapes” us and rather strictly channels our
behavior must, I think, be granted. But to prove that
sociocultural pressure determines our behavior, one would
have to demonstrate that in any (or every) situation we are
allowed no alternative. It would have to be proven that
sociocultural pressure so tightly channels behavior that
determinism is the only appropriate explanation. What we
observe, however, is that, with respect to at least most (if not
all) aspects of culture, human beings are presented with more
than a single possible choice of behavior. One's society, rather
than forcing only a single response to given stimuli, ordinarily
presents one with an allowable selection of alternatives, one of
which a person selects, usually as a matter of habit. Though we
ordinarily operate nearly every aspect of our cultural life in an
unthinking, habitual way, we may choose to operate according
to another culturally acceptable (though perhaps not preferred)
alternative.
The fact that cultural behavior is strictly channeled and
ordinarily operated habitually has impressed the determinists.
What they minimize or ignore is the fact that there are allowed
alternatives that may be selected (and habituated) differently
by the different human beings within the same group who are
subject to the same cultural conditioning but respond to it
differently. Even

folk societies, though relatively homogeneous, show that

the individual is never completely submerged. In every
society individuals vary in temperament, aptitudes, and
intelligence. A few can be counted upon to thrust
themselves vigorously, or even violently, into
unconventional roles, to disturb the patterned rounds of
life, to innovate or even desecrate. Most individuals at
least occasionally toy with such impulses; some act on
them now and then, a few distinguish themselves by the
frequency or the extremity of their unpatterned thrusts.
(Goodman 1967, 194)
 The model of culture here advocated attempts to take
account of both the patterning of culture and the performance
or use of culture made by individuals and groups.

Model 3e
Model 3e is the distinction between the patterns or
structuring of culture and the uses to which people put that
structuring (the personal performance).

The cultural patterning is that enormously complex

cultural grid into which we are indoctrinated before we realize
what is happening to us. The society (the people) around us,
then, exert pressure on us to conform to that patterning. That
pressure, though, is a function of people, not of culture. What
the cultural patterning supplies for the members of a society is
an extremely large number of rules, or “boundaries,” with
reference to which they must operate.

But boundaries are not directives. Within the life space

defined by his boundaries our man is at liberty. It is within
this space that he exercises those faculties…to which self-
determination can be attributed. Moreover, the boundaries
are potentially alterable. Fortuitous circumstances (e.g.,
meeting Jane Jones who has grown up in a very different
society and culture) or a conscious choice (e.g., to spend
his savings on travel) may significantly expand his life
space. Man's potential for mastery of his conditions is, of
course, limited, yet it is the less limited the more he
becomes aware, thoughtful, and confident of his own
 powers. (Goodman 1967, 57)

This use that a person makes of his culturally allowed “life

space” will be here referred to as personal performance, since
it is a person thing, not a cultural structure thing. Performance
is what we do with (how we use) the “room to wiggle” allowed
us by our society. This part of sociocultural experience is not
passed down to us by a previous generation. We supply it as
we make use of learned cultural patterns. In our use of the
cultural patterning (our performance), we both follow and alter
the cultural patterns we received. The cultural patterning we
received from our parents, though it retains an extremely high
degree of similarity to their cultural practices, is never exactly
the same.
The stage Is set for such change by the fact that the
culture we receive consists of patterns adapted to the life
experience of the generations previous to ours. To the extent
that the life experience of our generation approximates that of
previous generations, we are likely to retain the patterns that
served them well. To the extent that the experience of our
generation differs, we are likely to alter or even replace the
patterns that served their needs. With respect to language,
Nida speaks (contra Sapir and Whorf) of grammatical
patterning as “arbitrary” and “fossilized.” Present structures
“may have represented alternative choices some thousands of
years ago,” but they come to today's generation as “arbitrary
and conventional” (1971, 83-84). The lack of fit between such
conventional patterning and contemporary problems stimulates
desire for change most urgently in those parts of society where
lack of fit “hurts” most. Language structuring, though clearly
exemplifying the problem, is generally not perceived of as
“pinching” people badly. It can thus often go for many
generations without generating intense pressure for structural
change. If patterns for obtaining food are perceived to be
problematic, however, it is likely that they would be the subject
of rather strong pressure for change.
Whether under duress or not, persons and groups
constantly alter the cultural patterns they have received,
usually in fairly minor ways, and pass on to those of the next
generation a slightly differing set of patterns than those
received. In this way every society is constantly altering its
cultural patterning. Thus the cultural patterning altered by
generation one becomes the received patterning of generation
two; that altered by generation two becomes the received
patterning of generation three, and so on.
We do not, therefore, merely relate to our cultural
patterning passively. We respond by interacting with this
patterning. And, since a certain amount of leeway is built into
every aspect of cultural patterning, we do not all choose to
respond to the same aspect of the patterning in the same way.
Frequently, once we have made a choice between the
socioculturally allowed alternative responses, we install our
chosen response as our new habit. Thus our personal
performance is habitual on at least two levels: (1) on the level
of the overall cultural patterning that we have inherited and (2)
on the level of the alternative response to each pattern that we
choose.
My society says that I may shave or grow a beard—
though it weights the choice for my peer group in favor of the
former by assigning certain meanings to the growing of a beard
that my peer group considers undesirable. Among these are
nonconformity, insecurity, attempting to identify oneself with
another age group, and the like. In acquiescence to the cultural
pattern (including its meaning) I once chose to shave regularly
and made shaving a habit. I have for years continued to
choose both that habit and several other contingent habits
(each reflecting other choices between alternatives made earlier
in my life). Among these are the use of a safety razor rather
than an electric razor, the order in which I deal with the various
parts of my face, the frequency with which I shave, the time
when I shave, etc.
On occasion, I review and revise my performance of these
cultural patterns. And sometimes I choose to change such
things as the kind of razor I use, or the time and place of
shaving, or the type of shaving cream I use. I even chose once
(and may again) to grow a mustache. That is, I have chosen at
various times to alter my use of this aspect of my cultural
behavior. And certain of these usages have won my approval
to the extent that I have installed them in my life in addition to
or in place of my previous habit. They have in this way become
a part of my habitual usage.
Thus, though the major part of our cultural behavior,
including both broad and more specific patterns, is merely
accepted and followed (chosen) habitually by us, there is at
every point a considerable amount of leeway for alternative
individual and group choice. And our activity in selecting
between alternate (i.e., socially allowable) courses of action is a
highly significant aspect of our involvement. For, in making the
choices we do, we from time to time alter our use of one or
another cultural pattern and effect changes of habit within our
cultural performance.
In the following diagram, Hiebert pictures certain aspects of
this model, with the mixing of the personal and the cultural
indicated. He focuses on the press and pull (Goodman 1967)
within the channeling of behavior dictated by mental (outer
channel), biological (middle channel), cultural (inner channel),
and individual structuring. The last mentioned (indicated below
by the inner box) includes the individual's ego strategies within
the limits of his or her “personally possible” in response to
(but not determined by) the pressures and enticements (pull) of
his or her sociocultural context. The model presents a view of
the channeling and pressuring of human beings by forces
largely beyond their control without neglecting the very
important fact that the individual produces a unique,
nondetermined performance within the “life space” provided
by those boundaries.
 Fig. 4.1. Relationships between culture and the individual (after Hiebert 1976,
432).

The Process of Culture Change (Model 3f)

Model 3f
Spinning off from these understandings of culture is a model
of culture change. This model recognizes that cultural
structures are constantly being changed as a result of the
choices made by the people who use them.

Alterations of habitual behavior, especially those engaged

in by influential persons, not infrequently “catch on” with
others in the society, resulting in new socially accepted
habitual behavior. Thus, rather trivial customs like the wearing
of pants by women, casual dress for church and the
acceptability of green with blue and red with orange in clothing
and decorating have recently become widespread in American
life. But thus, too (over a longer period of time), much more
earth-shaking changes have taken hold. One such change has
been the shift in the understanding of the universe within
Western societies from God-centered and God-controlled to a
very mechanistic understanding with humans either actually or
potentially in control at every point. In each case the process
of choice between allowed alternatives, followed by the
development of new habits, has been the primary process
accounting for the change.
Most often the option chosen in such cultural performance
is one already at least potentially allowed (though often not
approved) by the existing cultural patterning. Frequently,
though, especially in societies like our own, where innovation
is highly valued, individuals and groups decide to go beyond
the culturally allowed alternatives. They then either adopt a
substitute pattern or deliberately expand the scope of allowed
alternatives within the existing patterning. Not long ago, for
example, the possibility of a woman choosing to wear pants
(once called “slacks”) on dress-up occasions (e.g., church,
weddings) did not exist in American society. In recent years,
however, the range of culturally allowed alternatives for female
attire on such occasions has been widened. Now pants outfits
as well as dresses are regularly worn on dress-up occasions.
Likewise, with regard to the commercial use of evenings
and Sundays. Not long ago the idea that business
establishments such as grocery and department stores would
be open in the evening or on Sunday was not only
unacceptable to but unimagined by the majority of Americans.
Now, however, through the widening of the range of allowed
alternatives in this sector of our culture we not only have
evening and Sunday shopping but, in certain cases, twenty-
four-hour shopping as well. Banks and certain other consumer
establishments have not yet gone this route (though some now
have Saturday hours), but the widening of the range of allowed
alternatives by other businesses makes it now at least
imaginable that they might someday.
With respect to marriage customs we observe both the
widening of the range of possibilities and the replacement of
previous customs with innovative practices, even to the extent
of “same-sex marriage.” The range of allowable (i.e., socially
acceptable) places to be married and persons performing
wedding ceremonies has also undergone widening in America.
With regard to who acceptably lives with whom, further, certain
“respectable” segments of our society have begun to innovate
by approving of couples, whether heterosexual or homosexual,
who simply arrange to live together in place of formalized
marriage of any kind. This kind of replacement or partial
replacement of one custom by another custom is a more drastic
type of change than the simple widening of a range of
acceptability. It is presently forcing our society to reconsider a
wide variety of definitions and practices with regard to
marriage, adultery, legitimacy of children, the relationships of
sex and marriage, and so forth.
 Each aspect of this process is extremely relevant to the
discussion of cultural transformation by Christianity (model
13). Christians are anxious that culture change be affected by
the infusion of Christian concepts into the cultural context.
Note that the key factor that paves the way for any change is
the development of some alteration in a person's or group's
perception (model) of reality. This may be a change either in the
perception of reality itself or of the understanding of what
reality could be. Ordinarily we perceive reality in terms of our
culturally governed conceptions (worldview) of what that
reality ought to be. If some factor such as a new discovery or
an awareness of information coming from outside our society
affects either our perception of reality or our imagination of
possible reality, this is fed back into our worldview and brings
about a change there (see above concerning the adaptability of
worldviews). Thus the discovery (in proof of a previous
theory) that the world is round resulted in people changing the
worldview of Western societies. Likewise, the information
(coming to many societies from the West) that cultivation may
be done by means of an animal pulling a plow rather than by
hand hoe has affected the conceptualization of millions of tribal
peoples the world over.
The nature of the feedback from perception to worldview is
all-important. Usually, no matter what the reality may be, the
feedback is interpreted in such a way that it confirms, or at
least does not disconfirm, a people's worldview. People who
believe that God has a hand in every event of life are
continually confirmed in this concept because they understand
and interpret every event in terms of the participation of God in
that event. Those who conceive of every event as the result of
purely naturalistic forces, on the other hand, interpret the same
events in such a way that they constantly regard as confirmed
their naturalistic worldview.
If persons whose worldview is naturalistic are faced with
one or a series of perceptions that they find themselves unable
to interpret satisfactorily on the basis of their naturalistic
conceptualizations, they may choose to alter their worldview.
Or they may choose to disregard their perceptions. We find the
pages of the New Testament full of different responses to the
same set of phenomena (though the worldviews in focus there
are not naturalistic but supernaturalistic). Most Pharisees
would not alter their conceptualizations concerning how the
Messiah would come and how he would act, in spite of Jesus'
miracles. Many people (both common people and Pharisees),
including the Pharisee Nicodemus, however, changed their
minds. They had been carefully taught those same concepts,
but they allowed the feedback from their perceptions to alter
their conceptualization.
The stimulus to change one's cultural pattern or one's use
of it (1) may be generated from within the society (as with
women's use of pants or Nicodemus's acceptance of Jesus), (2)
may be at least partially the result of exposure to another
society (as with “beat” music and, probably, at least certain
aspects of the “trial marriage” forms), or (3) may come (as the
Christian message does) from a supracultural source (see
model 4c).
The selection of a culturally allowed alternative or of a
substitute practice is, however, always up to those within the
society. And this is true even when the suggestion for change
comes from outside one's society (see Barnett 1953). In
Barnett's terminology, though an outsider may “advocate” a
change, only the members of a society may “innovate” in their
society (i.e., actually bring about changes of patterning within
that society). That is, how the cultural patterning is to be used
—whether for the perpetuation, alteration, or replacement of
the present practice—is totally up to the members of the group
in question. Outsiders, though they may appeal for change, are
limited to their ability to win over insiders who will then effect
the change(s) from within. (See chapter 19 for further
elaboration of this concept.)
The personal performance part of sociocultural behavior is
very complex—probably much more complex than the
patterning part. Cultural patterning is complex, but static. The
complexity of personal performance is a dynamic complexity of
process. Though we cannot prove exactly what goes on in this
process, it may be helpful (and, we hope, not too inaccurate) to
think of it in terms of the following model (pictured as fig. 4.2).
This process seems to involve us in the dynamics of (la)
selection from the cultural inventory of available patterned,
structured cultural forms. Or, we may choose (lb) to innovate a
cultural form not previously in the available inventory. We then
(2) behave according to the pattern within guidelines such as
those set forth in figure 4.1, above, to achieve goals that we
have consciously or unconsciously adopted.
We (3) monitor our behavior with the aim of evaluating its
relationship to those goals. This evaluation may be seen as
related to and coordinated by our self-image, a part of our
individualized worldview. As we reflect and evaluate our
performance, then, we take account of feedback concerning our
performance both from self and from the community of which
we are a part. On the basis of this information, we generate
feelings of (4a) satisfaction with the performance, leading us to
(5a) continue and habituate the behavior, or dissatisfaction
(4b). In the latter case, we re-enter the circle by either (5b)
reselecting from the cultural inventory or (5c) innovating a new
pattern. Or, under certain circumstances, such as if our self-
image is low, we may simply continue the present behavior
even though we may be dissatisfied, with it.

Fig. 4.2. The process involved in cultural performance.

 The vast majority of the behaviors we have habituated are
chosen, performed, evaluated, and even changed without our
being conscious of what is going on. We seem to choose and
evaluate habitually. And, with respect to most of our
behaviors, we seem at some point to stop considering
alternative patterns. The way we walk, the facial expressions
and other gestures we employ, the myriad of characteristically
American attitudes, and most parts of our language, for
example, are so unconsciously employed by most of us that it
never occurs to us to reevaluate or to change them. We
“selected” these behaviors before we were old enough to
question them and soon became so used (habituated) to
selecting them that they seem to be “just natural” to us.
The possibility of reevaluation, reselection, and (with
difficulty) the development of new habits is always with us,
however. As the result of some stimulus we may decide that we
are dissatisfied with some behavior. We therefore conclude that
it will need to be altered, modified, or replaced. Perhaps we
have habituated smoking, or a hypercritical attitude toward
someone, or an ethnocentric attitude toward other people's
customs. On evaluation of that habit we may choose to return
to the selection or innovation stage and reselect a culturally
allowed alternative such as nonsmoking, noncriticism, or the
doctrine of sociocultural validity.
Continuous dynamic interaction between the patterning of
culture and the individual and group usage (personal
performance) of it is the process that results in every culture
continually being changed (whether rapidly or slowly). As
Beals and Hoijer state,
 Cultures are never static and unchanging. This fact…is
obvious to the most inexperienced observer. Our
grandparents, for example, follow somewhat different (“old
fashioned”) modes of behavior, evident in their dress, their
speech, and their manners. Old books, newspapers, and
photographs yield similar evidence…. in short, just as
contemporaneous cultures may differ more or less in rough
proportion to their separation in space, so do single
cultures differ slightly as between adjacent generations,
more widely from one century to the next, and so on
increasingly as the time periods compared are more and
more distant from each other. (1959, 705)

This contemporary understanding of the universality of the

change process within culture (see Keesing and Keesing 1971,
34-72) contrasts sharply with popular stereotypes that see
preliterate societies as essentially unchanged for thousands of
years. Anthropologists, however, though strongly impressed
with the stability of sociocultural life, have been continually
forced to recognize that even in the most conservative
societies widespread changes have taken place during the
course of their histories. Though some societies change their
customs less rapidly than others, none avoids change—the
only questions concern the pace and nature of the changes
that take place. Certain societies change their customs very
rapidly (e.g., American). Other societies change much more
slowly. In addition, certain aspects of a given culture are
designated by that society as legitimate areas for great
innovation and creativity (e.g., music and clothing styles in
American society), while others are designated as areas of
conservatism (e.g., politics, religion, athletics in American
society).
Change may take place in an apparently unguided manner
or as the result of the effective agency of some member(s) of
the society. Certain persons in every society are looked to for
innovation and are therefore more likely to be followed when
they innovate. But all persons innovate to a greater or lesser
extent during their lifetimes, with greater or lesser acceptance
of their innovations by others.

Felt Needs and Reference Points for Culture

Change
Innovations are most likely to be accepted by others when
they combine a felt need (i.e., a need that people feel they
have) with a novel solution. The felt need always comes from
within the society. The identification of the need as a need
(rather than as an inevitable “fact of life”) and the realization
that it is possible to solve it may, however, be the result of
suggestions originating outside the society (or subsociety).
Furthermore, there are three possible types of reference point in
terms of which a solution to the felt need may be developed: (1)
an in-culture reference point, (2) an other-culture reference
point, and (3) a supracultural (i.e., outside any culture)
reference point.
The vast majority of solutions to felt needs are generated in
terms of reference points within the sociocultural context itself.
The basic worldview and value system embodied in a culture
provide primary in-culture reference points. Thus the
development of mass production was the result of the
application of a solution, generated in terms of an in-culture
reference point, to the felt need for a cheaper, more efficient
way to produce such products as textiles and automobiles.
Among the important American values that easily become in-
culture reference points for change are such concepts as the
desire for efficiency and inexpensiveness, conservatism or
liberalism, the feeling of need to compete with and win out over
others, individual self-reliance, antisupernaturalism,
materialism, and the like.
Not infrequently, the reference point for change lies in
another culture (or subculture) known to at least some of the
members of the original group. Thus the members of a non-
Western society often seek to solve one or another of their
needs related to identity, power, prestige, freedom, etc., by
looking to the West. When, to meet these needs, they align
themselves with Western schools, medicine, religion, or
politics, they are employing an other-cultural reference point
for the generating of change within their culture. The culture-
change process in this case is essentially the same as that
involving an in-culture reference point, but the solution sought
for the felt need is borrowed from a foreign source rather than
generated internally.
Not infrequently this practice of looking to an outside
society for answers becomes habitual and incorporated into
their worldview. What is brought in from this foreign culture is
evaluated as “better” than previous answers to problems or
newly generated answers with in-culture points of reference.
This attachment of change to other-culture points of reference
is often done quite consciously at first; but, as the practice
becomes more habitual, the consciousness of the foreignness
of the solutions adopted typically recedes.
For example, many traditional societies have come to feel
that Western music, Western schools, Western medicine,
Western agricultural techniques, Western behavior in movies
and multitudes of other Western things are better than their
traditional customs and imported them. In the American
sociocultural context, then, the point of reference in terms of
which medical scientists construct names for new medicines is
the Latin language. Many Americans are more or less aware of
this fact but are so used to it that they feel this way of doing
things to be just “natural.” Many, though, are unaware of the
process, since it is so firmly entrenched, even though they
frequently have difficulty in pronouncing the names of the
medicines they use.
The reference point for change may, however, be
supracultural. In this case the reference point lies outside any
culture—in God or in Satan. The solution to the felt need is
generated by the desire on the part of those seeking the
solution to do (consciously or unconsciously) what they feel
will be pleasing to their supracultural reference point. When
people shift (convert) from a cultural to a supracultural
reference point, the assumption that this is the best thing to do
becomes a part of their worldview. It then partially or fully
replaces the previous reference point in terms of which such
decisions were made.
 Change of cultural usage in response to a supracultural
point of reference (e.g., God) is liable to become a hit-or-miss
thing unless there is some kind of in-culture guide to which
people look to come to understand what their supracultural
point of reference (God) wants them to do and to understand.
This purpose is served by a variety of written and experienced
revelations perceived as coming partially or totally from the
realm of the supracultural. In Christianity this purpose is
served by the Bible and its interpreters. These, under the
continuing leading of the Holy Spirit, are responsible to
witness to others concerning the existence and implications of
a supracultural reference point in God. The Bible provides
contemporary witnesses with both a casebook (see model 9d)
of previous experience and a yardstick (see model 9a) in terms
of which to measure contemporary experience with the
supracultural God. For it reports the experiences of previous
witnesses—notably that of the God-become-man and of those
who had direct experience with him.
Those for whom Satan is their supracultural point of
reference make use of these same kinds of in-culture guides to
inform them. Such things as the satanic bible and all kinds of
occult books plus the teachers who teach occult things serve
this purpose.
With respect to in-culture and other-culture points of
reference, the ends in view may be well-or ill-defined and the
empowerment for the change simply that of the human beings
who operate the culture. In the third case, however, though the
definition of the end in view may still be either well or poorly
understood by the human participants, the empowerment for
the change comes at least partially from a supernatural source
(e.g., the Holy Spirit or Satan) of which the human participants
may or may not be aware. This empowerment for change is
ordinarily a cooperative matter, a partnership, between the
human and the supracultural participants such as that referred
to in Christianity as “following the leading of God.”

Fig. 4.3. Christian transformational change.

When the supracultural reference point for change is

properly employed by Christians, the natural culture change
processes are used with the supernatural empowerment of the
Holy Spirit to effect ends defined by, illustrated in, or at least
pointed to by the Scriptures. This process is here labeled
“Christian transformational change” (see model 13). We may
diagram this process as above in figure 4.3 (p. 63).
In this way Christians, working in terms of already existing
cultural patterns and processes but with God's will as their
reference point and his Spirit to empower them, may have an
important influence on the direction in which the culture is
changed. And one important result of such directed change
will be the transformation of certain of the cultural patterns and
processes to serve Christian ends more adequately. However,
this transformation, though often impressive (e.g., elimination
of slavery and polygamy), has never in history approached
complete “Christianization,” and one despairs of the possibility
of such cultural transformation ever proceeding far enough in
any society that one might accurately describe that culture as
thoroughly Christian (contra McGavran 1974, 8-9).
As impressive and important as the diversity of human
cultures is, it is of great importance that we be constantly
aware of the great amount of human commonality shared by all
peoples. We now turn to this aspect of the human condition.

1. This usage is not to be confused with the way certain schools of philosophy
use the word “ form.”
5
HUMAN COMMONALITY

Traditionally, anthropologists have been primarily

concerned with human diversity. They have, however, also
sought to discover what might be called “human universals”—
those things that all humankind shares. For, In spite of the
attention given to diversity, the assumption of basic human
similarity has always been an important factor in
anthropological research. Monocultural disciplines have also
assumed basic human similarity but, until recently, have tended
to generalize about all humankind on the basis of experience
within Western culture alone. Anthropologists have sought to
get beyond such myopia to discover what peoples have in
common who live in radically different cultures. What they
have discovered is impressive.
In this chapter we deal first with cultural diversity and
human commonality. We then relate the discussion of forms
and meaning to human commonality, follow that with a section
on evaluating cultural forms, and conclude by dealing with the
fitting of nonrelative meanings to cultural forms.

Cultural Diversity and Human Commonality

(Model 3g)
 Beneath the vast array of differences between the peoples
of the world lies an equally impressive substratum of basic
human similarity. The Scriptures and the behavioral sciences
assume this similarity. The study of humanity within Western
culture, however, has tended to identify many specifically
Western cultural traits as basic human characteristics. Western
logic was considered to be proper logic, and those who do not
think in our way were said to be “prelogical,” “prescientific,” or
possessed of a “primitive mentality” (Levy-Bruhl 1923).
Western Christians often saw such divergence from
“normalcy” as the result of unchecked sin in these other
societies. If such peoples were to be won to Christ, Western
Christians have often assumed, they would first need to be
“civilized” (i.e., westernized) (Anderson 1838, in Beaver 1967,
147-67).
On the basis of such assumptions, Western Christians felt
not only that the consciences of all people should convict
them of sin (Rom. 2:15) but that they should convict them of
the same things that we regard as sinful and in the same way
that conscience convicts us. It was felt that those who practice
polygamy or tell what Westerners consider to be lies, or who
(in terms of Western values) mistreat their women, or who
practice other “strange,” “heathen” customs either know down
deep in their hearts that these things are wrong or are so
completely deluded by Satan that they no longer know right
from wrong. The result of such misunderstanding of human
commonality on the part of Western Christians tended to be
intolerance, condemnation, and a strong desire to convert the
“heathen” to Western cultural practices as well as to
Christianity. Intense effort was (and is) put into westernizing
customs relating to clothing, housing, cleanliness, medicine,
education, economic practices, political structures, religious
structures and the like, on the assumption that divergence from
our ways was sub-Christian and counter to God's desire.
In reaction to such ethnocentric absolutizing of Western
concepts of human commonality, anthropologists developed
the doctrine of cultural relativism (see model 3b). Since
Western interpretations of Christianity tended to strongly
support this ethnocentric understanding, anthropologists
became strongly opposed to Christianity and denied the
validity of Christian missionary work. They also tended to
overstate cultural relativism, often, in fact, absolutizing cultural
relativity and so stressing cultural diversity that the basic
underlying human commonality was ignored. Yet anthropology,
like theology, must either assume such basic commonality or
abandon the attempt to forge generalizations concerning
human beings that are valid cross-culturally.

Model 3g
Though cultures differ markedly from each other, the
superstructure of human commonality on which they all are
built demands that they provide satisfying answers to
essentially the same sets of questions.

In view of the extremity to which anthropologists have

gone in their reaction against Western ethnocentric absolutism,
it is of great interest to read the more balanced approach of
Walter Goldschmidt (1966) of UCLA, a leading American
anthropologist of his day. His perspective calls
anthropologists to task and paves the way for the more
effective use of anthropological models for Christian purposes.
In describing the contribution of anthropology to the
development of a broader understanding of human diversity,
he suggests that because of the input of anthropological
perspectives we have been enabled to move away from
assumptions that the differences in people are primarily
biological (e.g., racial) and toward appreciation of the force of
culture. Anthropological perspectives have made us aware of
the fact that

our own customs and beliefs are but one of many

apparently arbitrary modes of thought. In doing this it has
promoted a relativistic view of human behavior, and this
has placed anthropology itself in the mainstream of an old
scientific tradition. For as astronomy moved people from
seeing the earth as the center of the universe and biology
moved humanity out of its unique position in the living
world, so, too, anthropology has removed western
humanity from the pinnacle and quintessence of human
perfectibility and placed us with the Australian aborigine
and the Hottentots as one of so many diverse cultural
beings. (Goldschmidt 1966, ix)

Such a paradigm shift must be regarded positively, even

though it has often proved confusing to Christians strongly
influenced by the preceding evolutionary tradition that saw
Western culture as the end product of a long development
toward “the perfect culture.” Seeing the aborigines and the
Hottentots as possessors of traditions just as long as our own,
rather than as examples of “stunted growth” in a process that
was intended to make them like us, enables us better to
appreciate God's concern for and fairness to all people, not
simply Westerners. Such a view, further, helps us to recognize
that Christianity is considerably more than merely the “tribal
religion” of Western societies—as many of our critics contend.
However, as Goldschmidt goes on to point out, getting people
to accept the fact that ours is but one of many essentially equal
cultures is basically a negative achievement. It has torn down
an invalid ethnocentrism, but it has not erected a satisfactory
replacement. For, says Goldschmidt, “the positive
accomplishment of a theory of man has not been developed,
and there seems to be little evidence on the horizon that it is
developing as we worry over the kinship system of obscure
tribes or the minutiae of native taxonomies” (1966, x).
We must get beyond these interesting but actually trivial
details of human diversity, says Goldschmidt, in order to get
down to the real business at hand. That business is to
determine the theoretical relevance of what anthropologists are
doing to the development of a “theory of man,” as they call it.
A primary step in moving in this direction is to divest ourselves
of at least certain of the implications of cultural relativism,
including the tendency of some to absolutize relativism.
Goldschmidt feels that

it was necessary for anthropology to go through a

 relativistic phase in order to relieve social philosophers of
the habit of evaluating cultures in terms of our own
culturally determined predilections. Yet by now we can
certainly appreciate the contextual value of infanticide
without advocating it, or can see the merits and demerits of
polygamy without concern over our own convictions or
regulations.…There are enough Instances on record of
primitive peoples not being happy in their own customs but
(like many a married couple) not knowing how to escape
them…so that we, too, should begin to understand the
phenomenon of dysfunction and establish relevant criteria
for functional efficacy. This means, among other things,
that we anthropologists must rid ourselves of the
Rousseauean “good savage,” must cease to use
ethnographic data either as an escape or as a vehicle for
expressing our personal social discontent, and begin to
look at primitive societies for what they can tell us not only
about the possible but about the probable, and about the
consequences—to individuals and to societies—of either.
(1966, 138)

These are extremely significant words coming from a

respected anthropologist. They provide us with a strong
mandate for the kind of synthesis of anthropological and
theological insight that this present volume is attempting. For
Goldschmidt goes on to ask, “What is the nature of man?…
What…are the recurrent problems of human interactions?
What are the tenable solutions to these problems? What are
the secondary consequences to such solutions?” (1966, 133).
 What, in short, is the nature of humans to which cultural
practices must be adapted? (1966, 135). For while it is true that
no human can ever be truly free of cultural influence, it is not
true to say that human behavior is culturally determined. While
it may be true that, out of cultural motives, some individuals
will feel forced to do almost anything and many individuals to
do some things, it is not true that sociocultural pressure can
force all persons to do anything (1966, 133).
In fact, in order to get people to do certain things that may
be easily assumed to be unnatural for any being (such as to
remain celibate), a people (or subgroup within a society) must
often exert extreme pressure. And that society may even then
find itself frequently being forced to settle for an appearance of
the ideal rather than for the real thing. For, as anthropologists
have described and theorized concerning the multitude of the
societies of humankind, they have succeeded in demonstrating
not only the great diversity of cultural expression but,
according to a very important statement by Goldschmidt,

that people are more alike than cultures; that…the average

behavior under any culture tends toward the center of the
range for humans as a whole…. There is…a good deal of
evidence that, for instance, the average Zuni and the
average Kwakiutl man behave a good deal more like each
other than the normative patterns of the two cultures are
alike. (1966, 134)

Nida suggests that such evidence indicates that “the

similarities that unite mankind as a cultural ‘species’ are much
greater than the differences that separate” (1954, 55). The
relativism that applies to cultural patterning does not,
therefore, apply to basic human beings at the deepest level.
For, as Goldschmidt goes on to point out, cross-cultural
studies of human cultures suggest a series of generalizations
concerning human commonality that dare not be as lightly
dismissed as has been the custom of many anthropologists.
Such generalizations relate to at least four major areas of
human experience: biological, psychological, spiritual, and
sociocultural.
1. Human beings are so similar biologically that even the
attempt to classify human populations on the basis of race has
been widely abandoned by knowledgeable scholars (see
Montagu 1964; Livingstone 1964). The only major biological
differences between populations are between males and
females. And this difference divides within populations rather
than among them. The race concept is now regarded as “a
scientific dead-end” in the explanation of culture (Herskovits
1965, 10). There are so-called racial differences, to be sure.
There are differences of color, facial features, stature, etc.
These differences are less impressive, however, than the fact
that “human anatomy and human physiology are, in the large,
about the same the world over” (Kluckhohn 1953, 515).
Human biology provides the backdrop for all that we know
as human. It “sets, limits, supplies potentialities and drives,
provides clues which cultures neglect or elaborate” (ibid., 513).

That man's biological makeup is one of the bases of human

 ways is self-evident. All societies without exception, for
example, need food, drink, and rest; all normal human
beings must urinate and defecate…. Sex, too, is a biological
necessity for the continuation of the human species…. All
men go through the same phases of life: infancy, childhood,
puberty, youth, adulthood, and old age…. All mankind
must cope with time, place, and quantity because all human
beings are biological entities. All men, too, are subject to
accidents, disease, injury, and death…. In short, man's
biological constitution gives rise to problems that are
common to all societies; such common problems are a
partial reason for the common framework of cultures.
(Luzbetak 1963, 322, emphasis his)

From this biological or physiological base springs one

important set of needs that must be cared for by culture.
Different societies care for these needs in different ways. But
that they must be cared for is a given. These may be called
“primary needs” or “biological imperatives” (Luzbetak 1963,
173-76; Piddington 1950, 219-35). That is, they must be tended
to or life cannot go on, no matter how well other, more
secondary, needs are cared for.
2. Psychologically, the evidence at hand seems to point to
what is often termed the “psychic unity of mankind.” This
doctrine holds that “the resemblances between institutions of
different cultures are to be accounted for by the similar
capacities of all men” (Herskovits 1948, 233). This psychic
unity results both in cultural similarities and in rather
impressive similarities in the thought processes of the peoples
of various societies. “In a certain deep sense the…modes of
interpreting relationships between phenomena…of all members
of the human species are the same” (Kluckhohn 1959, 279). The
reason for the differences between cultures does not seem to
lie in differences in people's fundamental reasoning processes
but in differences in “the premises on which such reasoning
rests and the basic categories that influence the judgment of
different peoples” (Nida 1960, 90-91; see above, chapter 3).
Anthropologists have often had occasion to dispute the
claims of psychologists and others concerning certain types of
psychological similarity between peoples of different societies.
One of the motivations for Mead's study of adolescence in
Samoa (Mead 1928) was to check the cross-cultural validity of
the view that sees teenage discontent and rebellion as rooted
in human psychological commonality. Her study pointed to the
fact that such discontent, though very real in certain societies,
lies in cultural conditioning, not in psychological commonality.
Anthropologists have often dismissed the findings of Freud
and others because their findings seemed to be so culture-
specific. Further investigations by anthropologists, however,
have led at least some of them to take a second look at the
possible universality of some of the findings of psychology.
Kluckhohn states in this regard that

the facts uncovered in my own field work and that of my

collaborators have forced me to the conclusion that Freud
and other psychoanalysts have depicted with astonishing
correctness many central themes in motivational life which
are universal. The styles of expression of these themes and
 much of the manifest content are culturally determined, but
the underlying psychologic drama transcends cultural
difference. (Kluckhohn and Morgan 1951, 120)

There appears to be, behind the differing cultural

approaches to reasoning and thinking, a series of basic
psychological needs. Among these are (1) the need for
meaning in life and (2) the need for people to maintain their
individual psyches. People seek understanding of life and
freedom from the threat of psychological crippling. The
psychologist Maslow (1954 and 1970) attempts to distinguish
various levels of psychological needs that are basic to
humankind. He sees these needs as biologically based or
“instinctoid” (1971, 379-90) and built on top of the most basic
“physiological needs.” Those psychological needs that appear
to me to be human universals are the following:
Safety Needs—the need people have for “security;
stability; dependency; protection; freedom from fear, from
anxiety and chaos; need for structure, order, law, limits;
strength in the protector; and so on” (Maslow 1970, 39).
Aronoff suggests that “if the safety needs have been deprived,
the individual will feel insecure and mistrustful…, will seek
those areas of life which offer the most stability and
protection…, will attempt to organize his world to provide the
greatest degree of safety and predictability possible” (1967, 7).
love and Belongingness Needs—people need to feel
wanted and loved by other people. We need to belong to a
group. We “hunger for contact, for intimacy, for belonging.”
We “need to overcome…feelings of alienation, aloneness,
strangeness, and loneliness” (Maslow 1970, 44).
Esteem Needs—this, according to Maslow, involves “first,
the desire for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for
mastery and competence, for confidence in the face of the
world, and for independence and freedom. Second,…the desire
for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from
other people), status, fame and glory, dominance, recognition,
attention, importance, dignity or appreciation” (1970, 45).
3. Human beings also share common spiritual
characteristics. At the cultural level this aspect of commonality
is evidenced by such facts as the universality of religion and
the universality of sin. In this regard, Goldschmidt points to
human universals such as the search for “some kind of
symbolic eternity” and “the essential self-interest of the human
individual” (1966, 136). These correspond, of course, with
heaven and sin in Christian belief.
“Man and woman were made for God,” the Christian
contends, and people will not find the true meaning of life until
they get into a relationship with God. Such a contention is an
attempt to state a spiritual universal that we know not from
observation of the cultural scene but because God has
revealed it to us. The fact that faith in God is the basis for this
relationship with God is another revealed spiritual universal, as
are the love with which God relates to us, the forgiveness of
our sinfulness that he gives when we believe, and the like. The
essence of the gospel and its appeal to human beings of every
society are rooted in the spiritual commonality of humanity.
4. Socio culturally, the high degree of human commonality
in biological, psychological, and spiritual realms is expressed in
the development and maintenance of human society and
culture. This results in widespread and striking similarities in
the basics of the sociocultural systems in terms of which
human beings operate. At the most basic level, the biological,
psychological, and spiritual needs give rise to a series of
universal cultural functions—functions performed by every
society. Biologically, the need for such necessities as food,
shelter, air, etc. requires that each society provide for the
continuous obtaining of these biological necessities. Likewise,
at the psychological level, culture must provide for a measure
of meaning in life, personal security, psychological integration,
some degree of freedom, and whatever other basic
psychological needs human beings have. Spiritually, all
societies provide explanations of and responses to beings
and/or powers beyond the biological and psychological.
The organization of sociocultural structures to meet
biological, psychological, and spiritual needs appears either to
uncover or to create a series of additional needs that we may
label separately as sociocultural needs. People respond to
these needs by providing cultural structures that organize
social activity, communication, social control, and the
indoctrination of succeeding generations in the cultural
system.
In a famous attempt to list a representative number of items
“which occur, so far as the author's knowledge goes, in every
culture known to history or ethnography,” G. P. Murdock (1945,
124) presents the following seventy-three categories,
“arranged in alphabetical order to emphasize their variety”:
 age-grading, athletic sports, bodily adornment, calendar,
cleanliness training, community organization, cooking,
cooperative labor, cosmology, courtship, dancing,
decorative art, divination, division of labor, dream
interpretation, education, eschatology, ethics, ethnobotany,
etiquette, faith healing, family, feasting, fire making,
folklore, food taboos, funeral rites, games, gestures, gift
giving, government, greetings, hair styles, hospitality,
housing, hygiene, incest taboos, inheritance rules, joking,
kin-groups, kinship nomenclature, language, law, luck
superstitions, magic, marriage, mealtimes, medicine,
modesty concerning natural functions, mournings, music,
mythology, numerals, obstetrics, penal sanctions, personal
names, population policy, postnatal care, pregnancy
usages, property rights, propitiation of supernatural
beings, puberty customs, religious ritual, residence rules,
sexual restrictions, soul concepts, status differentiation,
surgery, tool making, trade, visiting, weaning, and weather
control. (1945, 124)

The number and nature of such universals are impressive.

For they demonstrate that human beings, though participants
in radically different cultural systems, have a great deal in
common. And it is this great similarity among human beings
that provides the basis on which the potential for cross-
cultural human understanding and intercultural communication
rest. If the diversity among human populations immersed in
different cultures were such that there was nothing similar
about different peoples, there would be no basis for
intercultural communication. There would be no way that
persons from one society could legitimately suggest that the
kind of experiences they had within their sociocultural context
could have any relevance to anyone from another society.
But such is not the ease. “Even though specific behavior
within any one area of life may differ, the range of common
human experience is sufficiently similar to provide a basis for
mutual understanding” (Nida 1964, 55) and, therefore, for
intercultural communication. “The inescapable fact of cultural
relativism does not justify the conclusion that cultures are in all
respects utterly disparate monads and hence strictly
noncomparabilities” (Kluckhohn 1953, 520).
Differences between cultures do require adjustment on the
part of those who would communicate cross-culturally. But this
ability seems also to be a universal characteristic of human
beings. “It would seem that we possess a kind of grid which we
can employ to reinterpret experience in terms of some other
conceptual framework, provided, of course, that there is a
measure of willingness to do so and a degree of good will
inherent in the activity” (Nida 1964, 55).
 Fig. 5.1. Human commonality and cultural diversity.

These recognitions concerning human commonality and its

relationship to cultural (including worldview) diversity may be
helpfully diagrammed as in figure 5.1 above. In the diagram,
note the fact that those categories closest to the bottom of the
chart show human commonality, whereas greater divergence is
shown at the top of the chart. There seems to be less diversity
between worldviews than between the creative ways in which
the members of various human societies express themselves
via their customs. Another way of saying essentially the same
thing is to suggest that the surface-level forms of cultures
differ more from each other than do the deep-level meanings
(worldviews) and functions they express.

Forms, Functions, Meanings, and Human

 Commonality
It is noteworthy that in order to get beyond relativism
Goldschmidt felt it necessary to focus his attention on
something other than the specific customs—the forms of
culture. He, in fact, scores his fellow anthropologists for their
overconcern for cultural forms such as “the kinship system of
obscure tribes or the minutiae of native taxonomies” (1966, x).
Into the same category he would put the specific cultural forms
of family, marriage, social organization, political organization,
religion, and the like. What he seems to be asking is, What are
the basic human needs that necessitate the presence in every
human culture of some form or set of forms to meet them?
What, then, are the basic nonrelative human functions and
meanings that this vast array of relative cultural forms are
employed to serve?
Goldschmidt sees two broad categories or “general
classes” of such functions and meanings,

(1)…those relating directly to human needs: obtaining

food, providing shelter, procreating and the nurture of the
dependent infants, protection against external threats, and
the transmission of requisite knowledge. Essentially these
are the animalistic requirements of man…and must be
performed by any living creature with similar physical
characteristics, but: in human communities some or all of
them are regularly performed by supra-familial groups and
(2)…the provision of the institutional machinery to
 maintain the social system as a system, in order to prevent
the society from being rent by the centrifugal tendencies of
individual self-interest. That is, the society must
institutionalize behavior, form collaborative groups and
maintain their internal harmony, and harness the individual
to community action. (1966, 58-59)

It is, therefore,

useful to think of human society as that system of

organization which mediates between the psychobiological
drives of the individual on the one hand and the resources
out of which life is sustained and protected on the other,
utilizing the techniques that the community is heir to.…At
the same time human society must also be seen as the
means by which the ego-centered psychobiological needs
of the individual are both given satisfaction and held in
check, for these ego-oriented needs—whether they be food
and protection, sexual gratification, or personal self-
satisfaction—can only be attained by man in a social
interaction system, (ibid., 59)

A person's culture, then, is designed to serve the basic

functions that all humanity needs to have provided for. It
supplies people with forms (including structures and patterns)
via which these functions will be met and the necessary
meanings expressed. But it is the functions, with their
accompanying meanings, that are universal and nonrelative,
not the specific cultural forms in terms of which the functions
are met and the meanings conveyed in any given society.
It will be helpful to chart (see fig. 5.2) the relationship
between the six nonrelative basic human functions listed
(above) by Goldschmidt and a representative selection of
relative culture-specific forms developed to serve these
functions. But as Christians we need to add to that list a
vertical dimension that the naturalistic anthropologist often
either fails to see or perceives but dimly. When Kluckhohn
states that “a system of beliefs, profoundly felt, is
unquestionably necessary to the survival of any society”
(1949, 190), we may suggest that he has glimpsed this vertical
universal of human life. Many anthropologists, in fact, have
noted that, for most people, concern for their relationship to
supernatural beings is at or near the core of their cultural life.
These anthropologists are, however, generally loath to see the
centrality of such supernaturalism as demonstrating one's need
to have a vertical relationship with a God who stands outside
of culture. Christians would claim that, in addition to the very
important horizontal functions that supernaturalism serves (see
the listing of the functions of a worldview in chapter 3, above),
it betokens a universally human need for a relationship with the
supracultural God. We thus add point 7 to figure 5.2.
 Fig. 5.2. Universal, nonrelative functions and relative forms.

There are, in addition to the forms of culture, a number—

actually a much larger number than the seven pointed out here
—of nonrelative basic human functions or needs that peoples
attempt to fulfill by means of specific cultural forms. If these
needs are to be met adequately there must be a proper “fit”
between the cultural form and the function it is attempting to
serve.
 Evaluating Cultural Forms
As pointed out above, the members of a society not only
do things, they evaluate them. And when such evaluations are
made, certain criteria are employed. How a given cultural
feature is evaluated is dependent on the criteria used in the
evaluation.
If the area of cultural experience is hunting, for example,
and the criterion of evaluation is efficiency, we may say that a
gun is “better” than a rock. If, instead of efficiency, our
criterion were ready availability on a steep slope where a gun
would be too heavy to carry and too dangerous to use, the
rock might be evaluated as “better.” Similarly, if our criterion of
evaluation is extent of light shed, an electric light is “better”
than a flashlight. If our criterion is ease of portability, the
flashlight is “better.” If, with respect to housing, our criterion is
permanence, standard American housing is “better” than a
tent. If portability is the criterion, the evaluation is reversed.
Certain criteria of evaluation seem to be more appropriate
when applied to certain aspects of cultural experience than
when applied to other aspects. Efficiency seems to be a useful
criterion for evaluating a large number of technological
processes. It is important, for example, for an expensive
machine to produce as many products as possible in a given
amount of time. And most of our manufacturing plants operate
on the basis of this evaluational criterion in that area of our
culture. A problem arises, however, when human beings are
expected to run such machines efficiently. Frequently in such
situations human beings find themselves experiencing feelings
of diminished personal worth, frustration, boredom, and the
like. For, as they operate the machines, their work, like that of
the machine, is evaluated in terms of the efficiency criterion
rather than a criterion of meaningfulness to the person running
the machine. For efficiency is not an appropriate criterion in
terms of which to evaluate people—unless, of course, a person
is regarded as no more than a kind of machine. Much
psychological harm results from such “machinizing” of human
beings in a society like ours. If, however, a personal fulfillment
criterion were applied, to manufacturing (as it once was), we
would likely find psychological dysfunction decreasing, but it
is likely that efficiency in production would also decrease.
Americans apply the efficiency criterion to people over a
wide range of cultural activity. They substitute efficiency for
personalness (an alternative criterion) in buying and selling, in
mass-media communication (one communicator to many
listeners/watchers), in transportation (isolated in cars or herded
in mass-transit vehicles), and in many other aspects of
American life. In judging personal worth, therefore, Americans
tend to evaluate themselves as they would a machine—in
terms of how much they get. done most efficiently in the
shortest amount of time. In many (most?) societies the criteria
for evaluating people in such situations are criteria of
personalness—criteria more appropriate to people than to
machines.
It is in terms of their worldview that the people of a society
define their criteria for evaluating both the functions of the
forms of that culture and the way its people are to be treated.
Americans have learned to live more or less well with
evaluational criteria that depersonalize and “machinize”
ourselves. We have also learned to live with criteria that
evaluate individual freedom as “good,” no matter how
damaging this might be to the good of the group. We consider
mobility, privacy, personal wealth, independence, and a host of
similar things “good.” On the other hand, we evaluate as “bad”
personal restrictions of various kinds, such as family
responsibility, material poverty, lack of privacy, dependence,
autocratic government, etc. Whether these things are
considered to be good or bad by a people, however, depends
on the worldview criteria in terms of which they evaluate them.
With respect to the inventory of cultural forms and the
functions they serve, the basic appropriate evaluational
criterion would seem to be the concept of “fit” or “fulfillment.
“The question to ask is, How well does this cultural form fit or
fulfill such and such a function? In the case of the foregoing
examples of the ways we “use” human beings in American
society, I would suggest that our need for personal fulfillment
is not well met by the occupational (and other) forms in which
we participate. There is not, therefore, a good “fit” between the
cultural forms and the personal fulfillment function of our
occupations. If, however, the primary function of an
occupation is to get the work done efficiently without regard to
the emotional expense to the person, then the “fit” seems
good.
Taking the foregoing listing of basic human functions (fig.
5.2), how can we adequately evaluate the cultural forms
employed to express them? What should our criteria be? I
suggest that criteria such as efficiency—criteria that relate well
to material phenomena—would be appropriate to the first two
categories (food and shelter). When it comes to the “people
categories” (3-7), however, some such criterion as “adequacy
to meet and balance personal and cultural needs” might be
appropriate. The forms for category 7 may also be judged in
terms of their adequacy for meeting human needs but with an
added dimension. That is the matter of their adequacy in
properly relating human beings to God. But the complexity of
the cultural forms, the multiplicity of functions served, and the
likelihood that our judgments will be tainted by ethnocentrism
make such evaluating a very tricky business.
So why even discuss evaluating cultural forms? Because
there seems to be no question about whether or not we will
evaluate. All people seem to make such evaluations. The only
question is, On what bases do we make our evaluations? It is
hoped that by raising these issues we will be enabled to (1)
discover some of our unconsciously employed evaluational
criteria, (2) learn to employ more appropriate criteria (such as
“fit” and “adequacy”), (3) learn to evaluate components of
culture rather than whole cultures, (4) recognize the complexity
of the task, (5) recognize the likelihood that we will be culturally
biased in our evaluations, and (6) develop a cautious and
humble attitude in our evaluating.
In cross-cultural ministry we need to give considerable
attention to the evaluation of many aspects of the cultural life
of our receptors. We should be particularly concerned to
assess the functions and. meanings of their religious forms. “Is
this practice usable within Christianity or does it express an
allegiance that is incompatible with faith-allegiance to God
through Christ?” Perhaps the following five principles will be
both helpful and in accord with the insights generated so far:
1. As a first step toward evaluation, every cultural system
should be sized up in terms of its own ideals, not those of some
similar system in another culture (see model 10e and the case
study on sin in chapter 12). What problems does this system
set for itself, and how well do its forms fit the functions/needs
of which the people are aware? The folklore, especially the
mythology, of a people will often be very helpful in defining
these needs.
2. In evaluating any aspect of any culture (including our
own) it is important, to be constantly aware of the
pervasiveness of sin. One implication of this fact is that every
aspect of a society and its culture is less than totally adequate,
even in terms of providing for the fulfillment of the ideals it sets
for its members. That is, every sociocultural system falls short
of providing adequately even for the needs that it defines for
itself.
3. Even with the benefit of the biblical revelation, Paul felt
constrained to state that “what we see now is like the dim
image in a mirror…. What I know now is only partial…” (1 Cor.
13:12 TEV). It is therefore highly unlikely that we understand as
much about the specifics of how God seeks to work in culture
(even our own) as we often think we do.
4. We should recognize, as anthropologists point out, that
a people's religious system does serve several extremely
important horizontal functions whether or not (from our point
of view) it adequately fulfills the necessary vertical functions. I
believe that traditional religions “reveal fragments of truth—
much more than many missionaries have supposed” (Wilson
1971, 24). It is therefore likely that the majority of the forms of
the religious system and many of its meanings can profitably
be retained even after conversion to Christianity. Such forms
will likely be better able to serve their intended functions than
foreign forms would.
5. We should recognize the universal need for the fulfilling
of the function of relating human beings to God. All people
need this relationship with God through Christ. They need to
experience it, however, without the necessity of converting
from their particular set of cultural forms to, for example, our
cultural forms (see Acts 15). For our forms are not prerequisite
(or even necessarily the best) for adequately expressing the
fulfillment of this vertical function in their culture.
Jesus seems to illustrate the application of such principles
as these at numerous times in his ministry. One such time was
in his dealing with the rich man who asked what he could do to
receive eternal life (Mark 10:17-22). Jesus first pointed the man
to his own ideals (the commandments) and even accepted the
man's own evaluation of his having lived up to them. This was
at least a start on the horizontal level. But, by the man's own
admission (i.e., his question as to how he could receive eternal
life), the vertical dimension was missing. And Jesus' way of
meeting that need (fulfilling that function) was in terms of a
recommended new allegiance (to Jesus rather than to money),
not in terms even of a change in religious forms.
Thus, cultural forms and systems of forms can to some
extent be validly evaluated. But this must always be (1) in terms
of their adequacy in providing for the fulfillment of universal,
nonrelative functions and (2) always within the system of
which they are a part.

Fitting Nonrelative Meanings to Relative

Cultural Forms
We now see that the acceptance of a certain degree of
cultural relativism is no real departure from what orthodox
Christianity has always contended: God is so desirous of
reaching humans that he adapts his approach to human
understanding. The major new things set forth here are (1) the
more specific understandings of the cultural concomitants of
such adaptation, and (2) a greater understanding of the
relationships between the supracultural meanings (see chapter
7) to be conveyed and the cultural (including linguistic) forms
by means of which they must be expressed if they are to be
intelligible to human beings.
It is these latter—the cultural forms—that must be specific
to the human receptors and therefore must vary from receptor
to receptor and from culture to culture. The choice of forms is
crucial to the impact of the message. But which forms are
chosen is relative to the psychological, cultural, temporal,
situational, and perhaps other factors in which the recipient is
involved. The message to be conveyed, however, is a
“constant.”1 It exists for all humans everywhere, for as long as
humans inhabit the earth. There are several such constants
that originate outside of culture (with God) and are
communicated via the relative forms of human cultures to
human beings who are totally immersed in relative cultural
contexts. One category of constants consists of the meanings
that God seeks to communicate to all peoples at all times. We
will deal with these in chapter 11 when we discuss God's
revelation to humans.
But there are categories of constants that originate within
culture as well. Among these are things that are common to all
human experience, such as culture itself (including its various
subsystems identified, above as universals). The fact of culture
is not relative in the human context, since all persons
everywhere are immersed in one culture or another. Apparently
the overall functions that culture and its subsystems fulfill for
human beings are constant. They appear to be demanded by
human nature. Likewise, the fact of human sinfulness is
constant (though the particular cultural perceptions and
expressions of sin are relative), since all persons everywhere
participate in sin. Sinfulness is, therefore, a universal or
constant “function” (though not a need) expressed through
relative cultural forms.

Fig. 5.3. Relative cultural manifestations of sinfulness.

 Cultural forms are seen here as essentially neutral vehicles 2
employed by personal agents to express functions and
meanings (such as sinfulness, familiness, or the message of
God's salvation), many of which are universal to all human
beings at all times and in all places. A large number of these
functions and meanings (expressed via cultural forms) are (as
far as we know) totally a matter of human expression. But God
and Satan, usually in partnership with human beings, also
operate via cultural channels (forms) to serve constant human
functions by expressing thereby supracultural meanings.
We may instructively illustrate these points by discussing
the relationship between the constant function “sinfulness”
and the relative cultural manifestations of the universal
principle that sin infects all of life. For how sin is perceived by
people differs markedly from society to society. In a very
general way we may express this fact by means of a chart such
as figure 5.3.
The fact of sinfulness is beyond relativity. The perception
of sins, however, is in terms of specific cultural forms that are
relative in that they may differ (though they don't always) from
people group to people group. The chart above is not intended
to suggest that the perception of sin in each society is limited
to the factors here identified with each culture. It does,
however, attempt to highlight: the fact that the same
nonrelative element in human experience is perceived in a
variety of forms, each of which is relative and appropriate to
the specific people in question. See Dye 1976 (and below,
chapter 12) for a useful discussion of this matter.
Another instructive approach to illustrating the
relationships between the constant and the relative is to focus
on a particular cultural form and to point to the variety of
meanings that may be perceived through that form. Note that in
this case we must deal in a primary way with the motivations of
those who make use of the form. Furthermore, we must
recognize that these motivations change from time to time and
from situation to situation, even within a single society. So do
the perceptions of those who observe and attempt to
understand what those who use the form intend. Though we all
recognize that “nothing [i.e., no cultural form] is impure in itself'
(Rom. 14:14), we also know that all sorts of forms frequently
used to good ends may at other times be used to bad ends.
The cultural form refusal to work on the Sabbath, for
example, conveyed a particular meaning to each of several
groups with whom Christ dealt. Some of these meanings may
be depicted as in figure 5.4:
Fig. 5.4. Various meanings of Sabbath observance in Jesus' day.

The Pharisees, to whom Sabbath observance probably had

meanings 1, 2, 6 (and possibly 4), had worked out an elaborate
array of rules and regulations (additional cultural forms)
concerning just how one was to go about observing the
Sabbath. These rules and regulations may have been fine as
long as they functioned to enhance the Pharisees'
understanding and expression of meaning number 1. But Jesus
raised some doubts that this was the function they served
even for the Pharisees themselves (see Matt. 23:5). And he
berated them severely because their use of these forms
communicated meaning number 5 to the common people (Matt.
23:4, 13-28). It was not in the forms themselves that the trouble
lay, but in the purposes (functions) for which the Pharisees
employed them, and the meanings that were perceived by
those who cried out for divine sympathy but received only
Pharisaic oppression. The experience of devotion to God, or
lack of it, lies in the way in which the forms are used, not in the
forms themselves. The forms are essentially neutral vehicles,
the evil of improper motivation lying in the Pharisees as people,
not in the forms. Neither the Pharisees' motivation nor the
people's interpretation lies in the forms themselves.
Similarly, we may illustrate this form-function-meaning
relationship by turning to the supracultural principle love one
another. On the assumption that an American person
genuinely seeks to express love in terms of each of the forms
listed below, let us contrast the meaning that is likely to be
perceived first by an “average” American, then by a rural,
unwesternized Nigerian when this American employs these
forms of expression (see figure 5.5).
There are, then, such things as principles, functions, and
meanings that are constant. The expression of these, however,
takes place through relative cultural forms. As we shall see
below, we suffer from the tendency to absolutize the forms in
terms of which important meanings have come to us, and to
seek, as the Pharisees did, to impose these forms on others for
our benefit rather than theirs. Though there are absolutes,
universals, and constants, it is extremely important to
distinguish them from the relative forms in which they must be
packaged.
Many Christians have for so long associated Christianity
with Western culture that they have come to view the
conversion of peoples of non-Western societies as
synonymous with their adopting Western cultural patterns of
life. Church people to whom I speak concerning missions
frequently make such statements as the following: “Of course
when they become Christians they will realize that they should
wear clothes, have only one wife, give up their drinking and
dancing, go to church instead of to market on Sundays, have
their weddings and funerals in church, stop going to the
medicine man, etc.” Such people are often startled when I reply,
“No, not necessarily,” since they have become so accustomed
to missionary presentations that have focused on the changes
in surface-level cultural forms resulting from response to the
gospel message. For missionaries have regularly given the
impression that measuring the Christianization of a people is
merely a matter of measuring the distance they have moved
away from the cultural forms they practiced when first
approached toward the adoption of Western cultural forms.

Fig. 5.5. Forms and perceived meanings of attempts to express

love.
 With this understanding of what Christianization involves
firm in their minds, those Christians and non-Christians alike
who have swung over to a relativistic point of view are
frequently heard to question the validity of Christian missions.
“What right have we to assume that our ways are better than
theirs and to try to make them adopt our culture?” they ask. Or
they confidently assert, “They are happy the way they are,” as
if persons in other societies have no problems simply because
they may not have the same problems that we do.
Though it is easy to make this assumption on the basis of
ignorance of other people's cultural life, it is not possible to
retain such an attitude once one has gotten beneath the
surface of another culture. For, as Goldschmidt points out and
Christian theology has long contended, humanity is not
basically loving and good, but, rather, selfish, sinful, and in
need of cultural restraint (according to Goldschmidt) and of a
redeeming relationship with God (according to biblical
Christianity). Both recognitions of need focus not on cultural
forms but on universal functions and meanings.
Both cultural patterning and the Christian message deal
primarily with serving universal functions. The only
requirements with regard to forms are (1) that there be cultural
forms—for, just as water cannot be brought into our homes
without piping, so universal functions and meanings cannot be
conveyed except through cultural forms—and (2) that the
forms employed be appropriate, within the total cultural
system, to the functions and meanings that the members
perceive and seek to express through them. For example,
attempting to express God's love by oppressing people as the
Pharisees did does not work, since there is a lack of “fit”
between the intended message and the people's interpretation
of the cultural forms employed.
Seeing beyond relativism to constants and universals
(such as the sinfulness of all people) enables us to see the
validity of cross-cultural witness to the gospel message. But if
response to that message is not to be evaluated in terms of
subsequent change in the forms of a people's culture, how is it
to be evaluated?
The principle here is that Christianness lies primarily in
the ways in which people use and interpret the meanings of
the cultural forms employed, not in the forms themselves.
Indeed, at this very poi nt we can most clearly see beyond mere
relativism. If it is true, as we contend, that God seeks to work in
terms of cultural forms (which are relative), it is for the purpose
of leading people into a relationship with himself. For that
message, while appropriately expressed in terms of those
forms, transcends both the forms themselves and the meanings
previously attached to those forms. That is, God seeks to use
and to cooperate with human beings in the continued use of
relative cultural forms to express absolute supracultural
meanings. The forms of culture are (like water pipes)
important not for their own sake but for the sake of that which
they convey. And an appropriate fit between form and content
is all-important.
With this background concerning the cultural matrix, we are
prepared to investigate the relationship of God to culture.

1. A constant is something that does not change within human experience. A

constant, since it relates to finite, time-bound human beings, is presumed to be
neither eternal nor absolute.
2. I say “ essentially neutral” not because these vehicles are free from the
influence of sin, but because most of them are usable by God as well as by Satan.
They are not, therefore, evil, even though they have been created by sinful humans.
Neither are they entirely good. With few exceptions (e.g., burning of widows,
infanticide, adultery, stealing), any cultural form can be used either for good or for
evil. The primary characteristic of the vast majority of cultural forms is, therefore,
usability as vehicles, not some inherent badness or goodness. Therefore I call them
“ essentially” (not totally) neutral.
 Part 3

GOD THROUGH CULTURE

6
GOD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD CULTURE

In part 3 we probe the relationship between God, who is not

bound by human culture, and human beings, who are. We
advance the theory that God's basic attitude toward culture is
that which the apostle Paul articulates in 1 Corinthians 9:19-22.
That is, he views human culture primarily as a vehicle to be
used by him and his people for Christian purposes, rather than
as an enemy to be combated or shunned. To do this we
introduce a series of models and submodels (models 4 and 5)
relating to theological topics.
This basic position is developed in the present chapter
against the backdrop of various theories that have been
advanced concerning God's relationship to culture. First we
treat the question of the origination of culture. Then we deal
with the theory that God is antagonistic toward human culture.
This is followed by discussions of two “God-in-culture”
positions and five “God-above-culture” positions. The last of
these (model 4a) sees God as “above” or outside of culture, but
choosing to work through and in terms of the cultural matrix in
which human beings are immersed.
The remaining two chapters in part 3 deal (1) with the
relationships between God's meanings and the cultural forms
that they are to be fitted into and (2) with the principles of
communication that exist in human contexts that God chooses
to employ to communicate his messages to humans.

God, the Originator of Culture?

It is crucial in treating a topic such as this to give attention
to just what God's position is with regard to culture. We may
safely contend that in some way he is responsible for the
presence of culture, for he created human beings in such a way
that they are culture-producing beings. As far as anthropology
can tell, there is not now, nor ever has been, a human being
who is not totally immersed in and pervasively affected by
some culture. Neither anthropology nor theology can speak
conclusively about when culture began. But from what we are
able to observe about contemporary people we must assume
either that the first humans began to produce the first culture
the moment they became conscious of the world around them,
or that God gave them a culture at or very soon after that time.
Some might contend that the production of culture did not
start until after humans fell into sin and were banished from
Eden. But whatever one decides with regard to the beginning
point for the development or reception of culture, the more
significant fact would seem to be that the existence of cultures
is extremely ancient. As far as we can now determine, culture
has been an inescapable part of human existence from very
near the start of that existence. Furthermore, since people for
some time now have been pervasively conditioned by culture,
we may assume that God created humanity with at least the
capacity for culture. Indeed, our present evidence leads to the
conclusion that there is within humans the necessity for
culture.

Model 4
The God, humanity, and culture model postulates a
particular relationship between God, human beings, and the
cultural matrix within which they interact.

Human beings do not seem to function well in the absence

of clearly defined and consistent guidelines for behavior. Much
psychological stress and dysfunction is the result of one or
another kind of breakdown in such social support systems.
Friction between groups is another result of a lack of or
inconsistency in behavioral guidelines. Indeed, as Goldschmidt
suggests, the need for ordering interpersonal and intergroup
relationships to minimize conflict may be the most important
reason for culture, humanly speaking (1966, 59, 136). From a
Christian point of view one might suggest that cultural
structuring of human behavior, or at least the human capacity
for producing culture, is another of the provisions of a loving
God for human well-being.
We have dealt a bit with the implications of human
involvement in culture. The question before us in this chapter
is: What is the attitude toward human culture of this all-
knowing God who created human beings with a capacity to
produce and modify cultural systems in which they are totally,
inextricably immersed? Is God negative toward human culture?
Is he positive? Is he neutral? Does he have a single “sacred”
cultural ideal in mind, such as Hebrew culture? And is he
grieved because we have departed so far from this ideal? Is he
in the process of leading the church to produce an ideal
“Christian culture”? Or doesn't he care?
In a now classic statement of the relationships that
Western theologians have seemed to understand between
Christ and culture, H. Richard Niebuhr (1951) treats three basic
positions: Christ against culture, Christ in culture, and Christ
above culture. The following treatment, while indebted to
Niebuhr and similar to his in many respects, charts a slightly
different course at many points.

The God-against-Culture Position

For those who take the position that God is opposed to
culture, the choice for commitment to God is by definition a
decision to oppose culture. This is a radical position that
identifies culture with “the world” as used in passages such as
1 John 2:15-16 and 5:19, where Christians are enjoined against
loving “the world,” since the world “is in the power of the evil
one.” They take such passages as indicating that God is dead-
set against human culture, since, they say, the latter is wholly
under the power of Satan. To those who hold this view, the
essence of “culture” is the evil that they see around them, and
the way to holiness is to escape from and to condemn “the
world.”
This is a widespread and ancient position found in the very
beginnings of Christianity in the antagonism of early Christians
toward Jewish culture and then, in response to Roman
persecution, toward Greco-Roman culture. At a later date,
monastic orders were developed in the belief that true holiness
can be attained or maintained only by coming “out from among
them” into physical separation from the evil world (i.e., the
culture) around them.
In contemporary experience a variety of fundamentalistic
groups have strongly endorsed such an interpretation of
culture and encouraged near monastic separateness in attitude
if not in actual physical arrangements. Such an approach to
culture (at least to other cultures) has also characterized a
disproportionate number of missionaries even from more
moderate churches. These have come to require of their
converts (as did the first-century Judaizers) the abandonment
of much or all of their own cultural systems as a concomitant of
their conversion to Christianity. In a more partial form, such an
antagonistic attitude toward culture is manifested by those
who oppose politico-economic systems like communism,
socialism, or capitalism, or nationalistic or religious movements
on the basis of the assumption that God could not work within
such systems or movements.
The answer that advocates of God-against-culture
positions typically recommend is for Christians to withdraw,
reject, escape, isolate, and insulate themselves from the world
in order to develop and maintain holiness. Their position
maybe pictured thus as in figure 6.1.
This approach, while rightly understanding that Satan
makes use of human culture for his ends, makes three serious
errors. First, it equates the concept “culture” with only the
negative use of the Greek word kosmos in the New Testament.
John does use this term in a negative sense but with specific
reference not to the whole of culture but to a particular use of
that culture by the forces of evil.1 To “love the world” then is
to pledge allegiance to a principle of life—a principle of cultural
usage with a point of reference other than God. The Christian
way is, rather, to pledge allegiance to God and to use culture
for him.

Fig. 6.1. The escape-from-the-world answer.

A second fallacy in this approach is to assume that culture

is only an external thing. It assumes that it is possible by
“running” to escape from one's culture. This is in fact not at all
true. We are inalienably bound to and by our culture (of which
our psychology is, to a great extent, an individualized version).
Our culture is within us as well as around us. We cannot
escape it, though it is possible (as discussed earlier) to
innovate, replace, add to, transform, and in other ways alter our
use of the cultural patterning we have received.
The third fallacy of this approach is the assumption that,
since Satan is able to use culture to his ends, all of culture is
evil. Perhaps Paul's principle with regard to the eating of meat
offered to idols applies here—”that nothing is unclean of
itself” (Rom. 14:14). It is the use of a given cultural item that
makes it something to be shunned or something to be regarded
positively, not the cultural item itself, and certainly not the total
culture. What should be run from is participation with Satan in
his use of one's culture.
The God-against-culture groups are caught in a dilemma.
They cannot escape from culture, since their culture is internal
as well as external. But, because they identify the forms of that
culture as inherently evil, they seek to run from it. Since they
cannot escape from it, they quite unconsciously carry it with
them, living by and endorsing the major part of their culture,
even though they believe themselves to be free of it. They do
actually make significant changes in certain of their customs
and, often, refer to these changes as “Christian culture.” And
they focus on these changes when thinking about the
differences between how they now live and how they used to
live. But the major part of the truly Christian transformation
that has taken place has been in the use they now make of the
same culture that they have sought to escape from, rather than
in the relinquishing of that culture. And this puts them in line
with what may be observed from the Scriptures with regard to
God's true attitude toward culture: God seeks to cooperate with
human beings in the use of their culture for his glory. It is
allegiance to the satanic use of that same culture that he
stands against, not the culture itself. As is often the case in
human experience, however, the behavior of those who
espouse this position often transcends their ability to theorize
their position.
 Two God-in-Culture Positions
Many people, either in rejection of the God-against-culture
view or in a rather naive fulfillment of that view, go to an
opposite extreme. They believe that, one way or another, God is
contained either within culture in general or within one specific
culture.
1. The first group typically sees God (or Christ) as merely a
culture hero—an expression of a longing on humanity's part to
deify their way of life. “People really create God in their own
image,” they say, and then people bow down in reality not to
someone who exists but to a concept that human beings have
created. In support of such a contention, its advocates
(including perhaps the majority of anthropologists) point to the
widely differing culturally defined perceptions of deity abroad
in the world. They maintain that these differing perceptions
have each developed wholly or largely as the result of the
human quest for suprahuman sanction for the kind of life that a
person's culture prescribes.
Christians must reject this kind of complete relativization of
God. They do, however, need to note two truths that this
position recognizes (though it overemphasizes them): (1) that
the members of different societies perceive deity in quite
different ways, and (2) that the differences in these perceptions
correlate with the differences between the worldviews of these
societies. When one focuses only on culture-bound perception
it is possible to suggest that even Christians to a great extent
“create God in their own image.” We Americans, for example,
so focus on the (idealized) love of God that we have difficulty
interpreting scriptural passages displaying the judgmental side
of God. Likewise, participants in early Jewish culture often
failed to understand God as loving since they were so focused
on the majesty and righteousness of God. They, however,
found it relatively easy to understand his judgmental side. In
such ways, at the perceptual level only, people “create” the
conception of God to which they give credence.
2. A second group of God-in-culture advocates see God as
contained within, or at least as endorsing, one particular
culture. This was, and still is, the view of many Jews who see
God as related only to their culture. It is also the position of
countless tribal groups who understand their god(s) as
exclusively related to themselves.
Within Christianity a God-endorsing-my-culture
perspective often stems from the God-against-culture position.
It sees God as either creating, gradually developing, or
endorsing a given culture or subculture, and ordaining that all
people everywhere if they are to be Christian be converted
thereto. This concept may take the form of an absolutization of
some historical culture such as Hebrew, Greco-Roman (often
referred to in these contexts as “first-century Christian culture”
or “New Testament culture”) or, more often in the last few
centuries, some form or modification of Western “civilization.”
Or it may refer simply to “Christian culture” (which, insofar as it
is defined at all, usually looks very Western) or employ a term
like “biblical culture” (as if the biblical records portrayed a
single ideal culture).
Quite often the recommended culture is conceived of in
terms of a particular denominational or transdenominational
(e.g., conservative or evangelical) subculture, at least with
regard to its theological, ethical, and religious beliefs and
practices. And other subcultural variables are often also
specified, such as democratic government, capitalistic
economics, “middle-class values” (including often such trivia
as hair and clothing styles), and the like.
Such a view correctly sees that there are major cultural
differences between Christians and non-Christians. It fails,
however, to distinguish properly between a Christian use of
the forms of a given culture to serve Christian functions and
meanings and the labeling of the forms of a whole culture (or
subculture) as “Christian” (whatever that would mean). Even
slavery, as counter to Christianity as we feel this cultural form
to be, has at times been operated by Christians with a maximum
of Christian considerateness. We dare not maintain that even
such a nonideal custom can never be employed in such a way
that it serves Christian ends (functions). Likewise, dictatorship,
warfare (as in the Old Testament), death (e.g., martyrdom),
secularism, etc. If there is Christianness, though, it
characterizes the function and use, not the cultural form per
se. Similarly, cultural forms that might be designated as “more
Christian” than any of these are continually operated both by
non-Christians and (often unconsciously) by Christians to
serve functions that are completely counter to Christianity.
Even the cultural forms of “Christian” charity, church
organization, evangelism, etc., as we know too well, are often
operated in very un-Christian ways.
The weakness of this type of understanding of God's
relation to culture is that it interprets Christianness of culture
primarily in terms of the forms of culture, rather than in terms of
the functions and meanings to which these forms are put and
the motivations and interpretations of those who employ
them. The functions and motives may or may not be Christian.
“Christianness” as an evaluation of human behavior can only
be applied to functions, meanings, interpretations, and motives
of persons, never simply to the cultural forms through which
these human attitudes are expressed.
It was for this view of the sacredness of (rabbinic Hebrew)
cultural forms that Christ continually scored the Pharisees,
pointing to the primacy of motive over form. And it was this
view on the part of the Judaizers that the apostle Paul
condemned, for they insisted that the only valid cultural
expression of Christianity was in terms of the forms of Jewish
culture. The account of Peter's being reeducated on this matter
is recorded in Acts 10, while in Acts 15 we read of the decision
of the Jerusalem church to no longer require that Gentiles
convert to Jewish culture as a concomitant of their becoming
Christian.
At one point, though, this perspective has produced a
valuable insight. Certain cultural forms do, apparently, allow for
a greater possibility of being employed to serve Christian
functions. Therefore, when there is opportunity for the
Christians within a society to bring about change from less
usable cultural forms to more usable forms, such opportunity
should be taken. Thus, the influence of Christians to abolish
slavery, define and set up democratic government, work toward
racial equality and the like should be applauded and
encouraged, but not because there is any hope of ultimately
producing a culture that we can label “Christian.”

Five God-above-Culture Positions

1. Many hold that God is above culture and unconcerned
with human beings in culture. This is the position of Deism and
much popular thinking within Western societies. It is also the
predominant view of many African peoples. It holds that God is
above and outside culture and no longer really concerned with
the affairs of people. He may be regarded as having
programmed the whole thing, wound it up like a clock to run as
long as the “spring” lasts but to disintegrate when the spring
runs down. Others see God as having started something that
he is no longer able to control. In either event he is regarded as
virtually unreachable in his unconcern or inability; it is useless
for us to waste time calling to him.
Thomas Jefferson and others who had a major influence on
the early formation of the United States are often characterized
as Deists. A typical “Christian” version of this view, apparently
held by Jefferson, is to ignore God more or less completely, on
the assumption that he has pretty well left us alone to work
things out without his help. They may, however, hold tightly to
at least a selection of the teachings of the man Jesus. In this
way much theological and nontheological humanism has found
a way to hold a belief in God, on the one hand, and in a human
Christ, on the other, without accepting biblical Christianity's
insistence on the deity of Christ. Much of such humanism has
moved from unconcern with God into either denial of the
existence of God, denial of our ability to know whether or not
he exists, or depersonalization of God into some sort of
“Eternal Principle.”
The result of such views is to turn our attention almost
completely to humanity and to focus on the necessity for us to
“go it alone” without realistic expectation of external
assistance. To the proponents of such a view, those who hold
to a close God on whom people are continuously dependent
appear to be copping out on their responsibility as human
beings. They are regarded as wasting energy that should be
devoted to “human betterment” by participating in
meaningless institutions and rituals such as church, prayer,
and the like, buttressed by meaningless, archaic language and
based on disproved and socially harmful mythology.
In its African varieties, this kind of God-above-culture view
typically regards God as one who once was near but became
alienated because of some human misdeed and has become
very distant. God is often now regarded as terribly displeased
with people but not totally unfavorable toward them.
Meanwhile, many African societies see themselves endlessly
plagued by evil spirits that God could control if they could
only induce him to. But he is far away, and people no longer
know how to make contact with him. Such a view on the part of
African societies has not resulted in the same kind of
individualism that it has stimulated in Western society. It has,
rather, contributed to a tightening of social structuring in an
apparent attempt to replace the security once seen as
proceeding directly from God with one seen to proceed
primarily from the society—though society is often still
understood to function as God's intermediary.
In any event, such God-above-and-unconcerned-with-
culture views, though developing from different bases, have
much in common. They do not, however, typically share a
common reaction to the biblical presentation of the relationship
of Christ to God. Whereas African-type points of view, if
approached properly, may see Jesus as the long-sought-for
missing link between themselves and God and thus readily
embrace him, Western cultural manifestations tend to look on
Christ and Christianity as a hindrance to “progress” from
which they have now been emancipated. Western humanists,
therefore, are prone to reject the possibility that Christ is any
solution to their life problems, since they see a pledge of
allegiance to him as a step backward rather than, as in the case
of many African societies, the filling of a long-felt need in their
understanding of God's relationship to them.
Except for the truth of God's transcendence, which this
position has carried too far, and perhaps the longing for
reconciliation, that it leads some to, it is difficult to say
anything positive about such a perspective. It cannot be
reconciled with the biblical portrayal of a concerned,
communicating, interacting God. It thus contributes little to our
search for an understanding of a biblically accurate perspective
on the relationship between God and culture.
Another set of understandings of God as above culture is
dealt with by Niebuhr in his discussion of philosophico-
theological outlooks on the relationship between Christ and
culture (1951). These he designates as the views of the
“Church of the Center.” He describes three varieties (positions
2, 3, and 4, below), each of which has been articulated by
certain important theologians and each of which seeks “to
maintain the great differences between the two principles
and…[yet] to hold them together in some unity” (1951, 41).
These positions have all been developed as theological
positions and have been influential within important segments
of Christianity. They must be taken seriously in our attempt to
arrive at a more comprehensive and biblically accurate
perspective.
2. The first of these positions is that of Justin Martyr,
Clement of Alexandria, and Thomas Aquinas and his followers.
It has had an important impact on Roman Catholic theology.
Niebuhr labels it synthetic. Synthesists, he says, in
summarizing their view, see Christ as

the fulfillment of cultural aspirations and the restorer of the

institutions of true society. Yet there is in him something
that neither arises out of culture nor contributes directly to
it. He is discontinuous as well as continuous with social life
and its culture. The latter, indeed, leads men to Christ, yet
only in so preliminary a fashion that a great leap is
necessary if men are to reach him or, better, true culture is
not possible unless beyond all human achievement, all
human search for values, all human society. Christ enters
into life from above with gifts which human aspiration has
not envisioned and which human effort cannot attain
unless he relates men to a supernatural society and a new
value-center. Christ is, indeed, a Christ of culture, but he is
also a Christ above culture. (ibid., 42)
 From this point of view the Christian is accountable to
follow the requirements of both Christ and culture but each in
its own place. Advocates of this position point to scriptural
passages such as Matthew 22:21, “Render to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's” (see
similar statements in Matt. 5:17-19; 23:2; Rom. 13:1, 6), as
indicating that we are obligated to take both Christ and culture
seriously and to affirm the authority of each in its own sphere.
“There are other laws besides the laws of Jesus Christ; and
they are also imperative, and also from God” (1951, 122). Such
laws inhere in the God-created nature of people, and people are
held responsible for them. They include such things as the
command to procreate and the necessity to organize social
relationships. History is regarded by synthesists as “a period
of preparation under law, reason, gospel, and church for an
ultimate communion of the soul with God” (1951, 195).
This view led Thomas Aquinas eventually to reject the
world as it was but to see the church as the instrument of God
to bring about a true culture. In this respect this view results in
the God-endorsing-a-culture perspective. It leads to the same
disastrous end in which the church-produced culture “tends to
be absolutized while the Infinite is reduced to mere finiteness
and the true dynamic of the Christian faith is lost” (Nida 1960,
209).
3. The second Church-of-the-Center theological view
described by Niebuhr is that of the dualists. Such influential
Christian leaders as Roger Williams and, in many respects,
Luther have focused not so much on dealing with the
relationship between a Christian community and a pagan world
as with what they see as a basic conflict between God and
human beings in general—be they non-Christian or Christian.

The issue lies between the righteousness of God and the

righteousness of self. On the one side are we with all of our
activities, our states and our churches, our pagan and our
Christian works; on the other side is God in Christ and
Christ in God. The question about Christ and culture in this
situation is not one which man puts to himself, but one that
God asks him; it is not a question about Christians and
pagans, but a question about God and man. (Niebuhr 1951,
150)

The dualist is very thorough in assessing the evilness of

human effort, and

discerns corruption and degradation in all man's work.

Before the holiness of God is disclosed in the grace of
Jesus Christ there is no distinction between the wisdom of
the philosopher and the folly of the simpleton,…between
the profaning of sanctuaries by blasphemies and their
hallowing by priests, between the carnal sins and the
spiritual aspirations of men;…before the holiness of God
there are no significant differences.…Human culture is
corrupt; and it includes all human work, not simply the
achievements of men outside the church but also those in
it,…philosophy…[and] theology also. (ibid., 152-53)
 Thus the dualist goes to the extreme in assessing the extent
and the totality of human depravity. People are all evil. God,
however, is all good and has provided reconciliation and
forgiveness in Jesus Christ. A person can therefore be
“stopped and turned round in his tracks by another will than
his own” (Niebuhr 1951, 150). But everything is a paradox in
the present world and the only real solution to this paradox lies
in the future, when the present world is replaced. The Christian
is like an amphibian living in two realms,

standing on the side of man in the encounter with God, yet

[seeking] to interpret the Word of God which he has heard
coming from the other side…. Not only his speech is
paradoxical…but his conduct also. He is under law, and yet
not under law but grace; he is a sinner, and yet righteous;
he believes, as a doubter; he has assurance of salvation,
yet walks along the knife-edge of insecurity. In Christ all
things have become new, and yet everything remains as it
was from the beginning. God has revealed Himself in Christ,
but hidden Himself in His revelation; the believer knows
the One in whom he has believed, yet walks by faith, not
sight. (ibid., 15-57)

4. Such Christian thinkers as Augustine, Calvin, and

Wesley have espoused yet another view of Christ and culture.
Niebuhr labels this view conversionist. Though this position is
close to that of the dualists in that its adherents
 hold fast to the radical distinction between God's work in
Christ and man's work in culture, they do not take the road
of exclusive Christianity into isolation from civilization, or
reject its institutions…. They accept their Lord, [but] do
not seek to modify Christ's sharp judgment of the world
and all its ways. (ibid., 190)

Conversionists are akin to both the synthesists and the

dualists in understanding Christ more as redeemer than as
lawgiver. They understand sin more as the dualists do,
focusing on its pervasiveness in all human activity and the
consequent corruptness of all that humans do. All culture is
therefore under the judgment of God. Yet they see culture as
under God's sovereign rule as well, and the Christian as under
obligation to “carry on cultural work in obedience to the Lord.”
They are thus more positive and hopeful toward culture than
the dualists, while only slightly less impressed with the sharp
cleavage between God and culture.

The conversionist agrees with the dualist in asserting a

doctrine of a radical fall of man. But he distinguishes the
fall very sharply from creation, and from the conditions of
life in the body. It is a kind of reversal of creation for him,
and in no sense its continuation. It is entirely the action of
man, and in no way an action of God's…. Man's good
nature has become corrupted; it is not bad, as something
that ought not to exist, but warped, twisted, and
misdirected;…his culture is all corrupted order rather than
 order for corruption, as it is for the dualists. It is perverted
good, not evil; or it is evil as perversion, and not as
badness of being. (Niebuhr 1951, 194)

The problem from the conversionist perspective is thus the

problem of the conversion of culture, not simply (as with the
dualists) that of replacing it with something entirely new
—“though the conversion is so radical that it amounts to a
kind of rebirth” (ibid., 194). History, therefore,

is the story of God's mighty deeds and of man's responses

to them…. Eternity…less the action of God before time and
less the life with God after time, and more the presence of
God in time. Eternal life is a quality of existence in the here
and now. Hence the conversionist is less concerned with
the conservation of what has been given in creation, less
with preparation for what will be given in a final
redemption, than with the divine possibility of a present
renewal…. The conversionist…does not live so much in
expectation of a final ending of the world of creation and
culture as in the awareness of the power of the Lord to
transform all things by lifting them up to himself. (ibid., 195)

Culture, therefore, is seen by these thinkers as corrupted

but convertible, usable, perhaps even redeemable by God's
grace and power. Culture is perverted but not evil in essence.
History is the arena in which God's works are displayed and the
conversion and transformation of humanity and culture are
both possible, issuing, of course, in the final victory of the Son
of God.
Now we turn to the fifth of the God-above-culture
positions.

The God-above-but-through-Culture Position

(Model 4a)
Such God-above-culture positions as Niebuhr describes
were developed prior to the recent elaboration of the concept
of culture. The developers of each tradition were forced to
struggle with the very complicated area of culture without
benefit of the more precise understandings available today. It is
not therefore proper to belittle either their understandings or
their dedication. It is, however, now possible to go beyond
them in many (though not all) respects. The remainder of this
book is an attempt to do just that, on the basis of a concept of
a relationship between God and culture that sees God as above
culture but as using culture as the vehicle for interaction with
human beings.

Model 4a
This model holds that the Christian God should not be
perceived either as against, merely in, or simply above
culture. It sees God as outside culture but working in terms of
or through culture to accomplish his purposes.

I align myself squarely with the general God-above-culture

perspective in viewing God as transcendent and absolute,
completely beyond and outside of culture. I see cultural
structuring, however, as basically a vehicle or milieu, neutral in
essence, though warped by the pervasive influence of human
sinfulness. Culture is not in and of itself either an enemy or a
friend to God or humans. It is, rather, something that is there to
be used by personal beings such as humans, God, and Satan.
Culture is the milieu in which all encounters with or between
human beings take place and in terms of which all human
understanding and maturation occur. The human psyche is
structured by culture, as is every expression of groupness,
including family, community, and church.
As we have seen, culture consists of forms used by people
to serve various functions and meanings. Sociocultural activity
involves both patterning and process. When we speak of the
complex entity we call culture as basically a neutral vehicle,
however, it is important that we make clear both the senses in
which we use the term “neutral” and the limitations of the
position. The basic focus of this position is on the forms of
culture. Culture is seen as a kind of road map made up of
various forms designed to be used by people to get where they
need to go. These forms and the functions they are intended to
serve are seen, with few exceptions, as neutral with respect to
the interaction between God and man. Cultural patterning,
organizing and structuring of life, the functions they are
intended to serve, and the processes made available to human
beings as they use their cultures are not seen as inherently evil
or good in themselves.
Human beings, however, are pervasively infected by sin.
This means that the use humans make of the cultural forms,
patterns, and processes at their disposal is always affected by
sin. The meanings intended and the meanings received are
likewise tainted by the ways in which humans use their
cultures. Apparently no human motive is unaffected by sin.
Therefore no aspect of culture is used by human beings with
pure intent.
But human beings are redeemable. And redeemed human
beings begin to do at least some things differently. When they
do things differently, they change their usage of the cultural
forms, patterns, and processes at their disposal. It is the use of
the cultural structures that is changed (at least at first), not
usually the structures themselves. Redeemed persons live
pretty much according to the same patterns and processes as
before they became Christians. But now they use them with a
new allegiance, for the sake of a new master.
Cultural patterns and processes are constantly being
changed by the humans who use them. Thus, when persons
are transformed, changes are made by those persons, in their
use of their culture and perhaps also in the cultural structure
itself. The larger the group of people who undergo such
transformation the more pervasive the changes that may be
made both in use and in structuring. When such
transformation takes place as a result of a relationship with God
we may speak of the influence of God on the way a given
people change their culture. Such change, in that it often
involves drastic cultural reorientations, is here labeled
“transformational.”
This model (4a) assumes that, though God exists totally
outside of culture while humans exist totally within culture,
God chooses the cultural milieu in which humans are immersed
as the context for his interaction with people. Thus, when he
speaks, whether directly or indirectly, to Adam or Abraham or
Moses or the disciples or us he does so by employing human,
not divine, language. And this language participates fully in
human culture with all its strengths and weaknesses, its
heights and depths, its glories and sinfulness, its facilitating of
communication and limiting of it. He uses human language with
all its finiteness, its relativity, and its assured misperception of
infinity.
When God sought to communicate with Jews, he did not
first demand that they learn a language and culture that
allowed them, for example, to better understand his lovingness.
He employed Hebrew linguistic and cultural forms in spite of
their inadequacy in this respect. He even went to the extent of
endorsing (for them, though obviously not for everyone at all
times) at least major portions of Hebrew culture as it was. He
did this even though he knew that their culturally conditioned
fear of him would constitute a serious impediment to getting
his lovingness across to Hebrews. This appears to account for
the fact that God chose to work with Hebrews in terms of a
culturally understood covenant relationship. This may have
been the closest they could come to the God-human
relationship that the New Testament sees as grounded in love.
Jewish people, at least at the time of the earlier Old Testament
writings, may not have been able to comprehend “love as a
pure expression of psychical reality apart from legality” (Quell
1964, 27)—the legality of a covenant.
 Nor, when God sought to reveal himself more completely,
did he reject human culture and language as either too evil or
too imperfect to serve as the vehicle for his Incarnation. He,
rather, employed a thoroughly human culture—imperfect and
imperfectible, finite, limited—as the vehicle of his supreme
revelation of himself to human beings in the Incarnation.
Furthermore, though Jesus and his disciples operated in
Aramaic culture and language, when the events of the New
Testament were recorded for the sake of Greek-speaking
audiences, Greek was employed—and this in spite of the well-
known difficulties (including both losses and gains in
information) inherent in the process of translation. God has
shown himself in the biblical record as so determined to
communicate himself to different segments of humanity within
their own linguistic and cultural contexts that he has employed
at least three completely human languages and cultures as the
media of his interaction with people. We deduce, then, that God
is related to culture in the same way a person who uses a
vehicle is related to the vehicle that he or she uses.
But this relationship between God and culture is not a
required relationship in the sense that God is bound by culture.
On the contrary, God is absolute and infinite. Yet he has freely
chosen to employ human culture and at major points to limit
himself to the capacities of culture in his interaction with
people. On occasion he freely chooses to transcend cultural,
spatial, and temporal limitations in events that we term
“miracles.” But frequently even in miracles he operates largely
in terms of cultural factors rather than counter to them. Any
limitation of God is only that which he imposes upon himself—
he chooses to use culture; he is not bound by it in the same
way human beings are.

1. Incidentally, kosmos is the word John employs in John 3: 16 as well, but

with a positive or neutral meaning to refer to the world as the object of God's love.
7
 SUPRACULTURAL MEANINGS VIA
CULTURAL FORMS

Having introduced the God-through-culture concept, we

now turn to the relationships between Christian meanings and
the cultural forms into which they are fitted. These
considerations require the development of an
anthropologically informed theology (models 4b and 4c) to
consistently distinguish between and to relate supracultural
meanings and cultural forms (model 4d). Next we treat biblical
cultural relativism (model 4e), followed by a consideration of
human perception of supracultural truth that is found to be
adequate though never absolute (model 5a). We are culture
bound in our understandings and interpretations of God's
truth. Our understanding of the relationship of culture to
hermeneutics is therefore crucial (models 5b-5d).
 Anthropologically Informed Theology
In an early attempt to deal with God and culture from what I
am labeling a Christian ethnotheological position, William A.
Smalley and Marie Fetzer (now Reyburn) coined the terms
“superculture” and “supercultural” to refer to God's
transcendent relationship to culture (Smalley and Fetzer 1948).
Smalley later developed this concept in the pages of the journal
Practical Anthropology in an article entitled “Culture and
Superculture” (Smalley 1955). His article was prompted by a
letter published in that journal the previous year. The author of
that letter betrayed a high degree of confusion as to just what
roles theology and anthropology should play in our attempts
to discover what is absolute and what is relative.
The author of the letter1 contended that “one should not
establish an episcopal church government simply because the
society is characterized by strong kings and subordinate lords”
since “the question of church government is not an
anthropological but a theological one.” Rather, the missionary
should go into the situation convinced through a study of
theology “that either the congregational or the episcopal or
some other form of church government is the kind Jesus Christ
meant for every society, all over the world and at all times.” He
continues,

This procedure—first the theological and then the

anthropological—must be applied to a myriad of
problems…such as theft, polygamy, premarital sexual
 relations, lying, lay and/or clerical marriages, etc…. An
anthropologist describes but a Christian prescribes. He
believes that God has revealed a system which is
absolutely right, valid for every society during every
epoch. [emphasis added]

The writer of that letter sought to dichotomize the

theological and the anthropological evaluations of the
situation. He says, “it is one thing to be a Christian and
another to be an anthropologist.” One may look at the situation
anthropologically, he contends, only in order to obtain
information about the customs of the people one seeks to
reach. One should have already made up one's mind on the
theological issues. Thus, in applying his theological
conclusions to the indigenous situation, the writer says, “I
must ‘play God’” and “prescribe” the system that God has
revealed to me through my study of theology as “absolutely
right, valid for every society during every epoch.”
The writer is undoubtedly right when he says: “The
anthropology minded Christian missionary…must not be so
enchanted by his science that he fails to pursue the
consummation of his goal: the establishment of a truly
Christian but, nevertheless, indigenous Church” [emphasis
added].
The author's desire to discover absolute models before
approaching the indigenous system and his feeling that it is to
theology that we should turn for understanding these models
are likewise commendable. Unfortunately, his position appears
deficient at two crucial points: (1) he does not see the
contradiction between the imposition from outside of an
“absolutely right” system that will be the same in cultural form
(not merely in function or meaning) “for every society during
every epoch” and the necessity that a truly indigenous church
spring from the employment as much as possible by the
Christians of that society of their own cultural forms; (2) nor
does he take account of the extreme limitation that the mono-
cuituralness of most Western theology imposes upon its ability
to deal with these issues in a cross-culturally valid way.
Western theological interpretations, without the benefit of
anthropological insight, will view the Bible through Western
eyes and come up with cultural forms that, though perhaps
relevant in Western societies, are not likely to be relevant in
another society.
What cross-cultural witnesses need is not a continuation
of the current dichotomization of the theological and the
anthropological perspectives but a single perspective in which
the insights of each specialization are taken seriously at the
same level. For both are human-made disciplines (in spite of
the sacredness of the subject matter of the one). And both
disciplines suffer from the kind of myopia that all specialization
leads to. For when we specialize into anything we automatically
specialize out of everything else. In attempting to understand
this or any other aspect of the relationships between
Christianity and culture, therefore, we cannot afford to be
“enchanted” with either discipline. For each discipline is too
limited by itself to handle the specialization of the other
adequately. Our model 4b postulates that
 Model 4b
Theology (as well as anthropology) is human made and
culture bound.

Our theology, therefore, must be informed by anthropology

and our anthropology informed by theology. From an
anthropologically informed theology, then, we propose

Model 4c
“Christianness” lies in the “supracultural” functions and
meanings expressed by people in their use of culture rather
than in the mere forms of the culture.
What God desires, contrary to what the letter writer
advocates, is not a single form of church government
“absolutely right, valid for every society and during every
epoch,” but the employment of the large number of diverse
cultural forms of government with a single function—to glorify
God by facilitating in ways that are understood by cultural
insiders the smooth, well-ordered operation of the
organizations that bear his name.
To assume that this point of view endorses an
abandonment of theological absolutes (or constants) is to miss
the point in the other direction. Yet this is a natural
overreaction, since theological understandings (especially at
the popular level) have so often focused strongly on particular
cultural forms such as the wording of creeds, the modes (rather
than the meanings) of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the
supposed sacredness of monologic preaching, the merits of
one or another form of church government, refraining from
smoking and drinking, and the like—as if these were absolute
understandings of God's absolute models. Seldom have
arguments over such matters dealt with anything but the forms
of belief or practice.
Neither the Reformation nor any subsequent church split,
for example, has centered around whether the church should
be governed (i.e., the necessity or non-necessity of the
governing function). That churches should be governed has
always been assumed, since Christian things are to be done
“decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). Church splits have,
rather, focused on the type of church government—a matter of
form, not of function. Nor have arguments concerning doctrine
generally focused on whether or not, for example, God has
provided for human redemption, inspired the Scriptures, invited
human beings to respond in faith, worked in history, and so on.
They have nearly always dealt with the forms these doctrines
should take. They have ordinarily centered on theories as to
how they are to be understood and formulated rather than with
the fact that God has provided for these very important
functions.
An anthropologically informed approach, however,
identifies as the constants of Christianity the functions and
meanings behind such forms, rather than any given set of
doctrinal or behavioral forms. It would leave the cultural forms
in which these constant functions are expressed largely
negotiable in terms of the cultural context of those with whom
God is dealing at the time. In what follows, then, I will argue
that it is the meaning conveyed by a particular doctrine (e.g.,
consumption of alcoholic beverages, baptism) that is of
primary concern to God. There is, I believe, no absoluteness
to the human formulation of the doctrine, the historical
accuracy of the way in which the ritual is performed, or the
rigidity with which one abides by one's behavioral rules.
This is the point at which Jesus scored the Pharisees. For
they, in their strict adherence to the forms of their orthodox
doctrines, rituals, and behavior, had ignored the fact that, in the
minds of the common people, these forms had ceased to mean
what they were intended to mean. The way the Pharisees used
the forms had come to signify oppression rather than concern,
self-interest rather than divine interest, rejection rather than
acceptance, God against human beings rather than God with
them. That is, as the culture was changed, the people's
interpretations of the forms that once adequately conveyed
God's message changed, along with the rest of the culture. And
those whose responsibility it was to see to it that the message
of God continued to be understood became primarily
concerned with perpetuating and elaborating on the cultural
forms in which the message had come to them. They became
legalistic concerning the traditional forms.
But, according to Jesus, godliness lies in the motives
behind the practice of the forms of belief and behavior, not
simply in adherence to those beliefs and practices as
traditionally observed. The beliefs and practices are simply the
cultural vehicles (the forms) through which God-motivated
concern, interest, and acceptance are to be expressed. And
these forms must be continually watched and altered to make
sure that they are fulfilling their proper function—the
transmission of the eternal message of God. As culture is
changed, these forms of belief and behavior must be updated
and expressed differently in order to preserve the eternal
message.
Perhaps it is this focus on function and meaning rather
than on cultural form that led John to refer to Christ as the
logos, the expression of God (John. 1:1, JBP). Perhaps it is
easier to illustrate from language than with other cultural forms
that cultural forms such as words are important only insofar as
their function is important. In John's prologue, Christ the Word,
the expression of God, is presented as functioning as creator
and sustainer. He is seen as the light of the world and, latterly,
as a human embodiment of God. The focus is continually on
his functioning on behalf of God, on his expressing God with
respect to the human context. The form that he took to
communicate these functions is mentioned but never
elaborated on because it is so subsidiary to his function of
expressing God.
This is not to deny the importance of cultural forms—
whether they be words, rituals, behavior, beliefs, or the
physical body in which the Son of God lived on earth. The
forms are extremely important because only through the forms
does the communication take place. Even though it may be said
that the water is more important to a river than the riverbed in
which it flows, it is still the riverbed that determines what the
destination of the water will be (except in a flood). So it is that
the forms (like the riverbed) through which the meanings of
language and culture flow determine the destination of those
meanings. In communication, however, as in irrigating a garden,
it is of crucial importance that would-be communicators (or
irrigators) choose the proper channel (set of forms). They must
then direct their message (water) into that channel rather than
into another one if they are to reach those whom they seek to
reach.
Intelligent irrigators (unlike many church leaders) do not
choose last year's channels simply because they have become
attached to them, having learned to regard them reverently
because the channels served them so well last year. Rather,
they decide where they want the water to go and adapt last
year's channels or create new ones to reach this year's crops.
Even so, the effective communicator (human or God) chooses,
adapts, or creates cultural forms (channels) specifically
appropriate to the task of getting his or her meaning (the
“water”) across to the present hearers. In this way the forms he
or she chooses are very important, but only as means, never as
ends in themselves.
 The Supracultural and the Cultural

Model 4d
The concept of the supracultural and the cultural seeks to
make explicit the culture boundness of human beings, on the
one hand, and the freedom from culture boundness of God
(except when and as he chooses to work in and through
culture), on the other.
In the development of an ethnotheological understanding
of the relationship between God and culture, Smalley's reply to
the letter mentioned above was a truly significant contribution.
I will here build on that approach, though with two major and
several minor modifications. The first of these is to change
Smalley's term “supercultural” to “supracultural”2 and to reject
noun forms such as “superculture” or “supraculture” as
unusable. That is, since I contend that there is no such thing
as an absolute set of cultural forms, terms such as
“superculture” or “supraculture” that would seem to imply the
existence of some sort of absolute cultural structure (i.e., some
set of absolute cultural forms) are so misleading that they must
be abandoned.
The adjective “supracultural,” however, serves a very
useful purpose in signifying the transcendence of God with
respect to culture. That is, God, being completely unbound by
any culture (except as he chooses to operate within or in terms
of culture) is “supracultural” (i.e., above and outside culture).
Likewise, any absolute principles or functions proceeding from
God's nature, attributes, or activities may be labeled
“supracultural.” For they, too, transcend and are not bound by
any specific culture, except when they are expressed within a
culture.
The second major modification of Smalley's scheme,
though noted here, will not be developed in detail in this
volume. It divides the outside-of-culture realm (the
supracultural) into two compartments in order to show the
place of angels, demons, and Satan in relationship to God,
human beings, and culture. And this leads to a distinction
between “supracultural” and “absolute” that Smalley did not
seem to envision. That is, though God is supracultural,
standing outside of culture, so are angels, demons, and Satan.
The latter, however, are not absolute, as God is. Smalley dealt
with only two categories—the cultural, which is relative (i.e.,
nonabsolute), and the supracultural, which is absolute. The
present treatment, however, assumes three categories: the
supracultural, absolute God, the supracultural nonabsolute
beings (angels, demons, Satan), and the relative cultural
context. This understanding may be conveniently illustrated as
above in figure 7.1.
 Fig. 7.1. The cultural, supracultural, absolute, and relative.

As Smalley states (in a rather Pauline sentence):

The whole question might well be phrased in the following

form: Granted that there is a God above and beyond all
human culture, that He has revealed Himself to man in
several cultural forms (notably the Holy Scriptures and the
life of His Son, lived as a man partaking fully of the life of a
particular human culture), and that He has taken an active
interest in parts of man's cultural behavior through time,
proscribing and prescribing at various times and places;
granted also that most (if not all) culture has developed
through time by natural processes of development in
different times and places, that particular forms in one place
may have a completely different meaning in terms of
 function than what nearly identical forms do in another
place, that God has at various historical periods proscribed
certain forms of behavior which he has not proscribed at
other times, that He has emphasized as highly desirable
certain forms of behavior which He has not prescribed at
other times, and that the heavy emotional attachment which
people normally have for the familiar pattern (i.e.,
ethnocentrism) colors and distorts judgment; granted all
this, what in human experience is God's absolute,
unchanging, permanent will, and what is His will for
particular times and places, and what is neutral? (1955, 58-
59)

In approaching an answer to this question, Nida states

categorically that “the only absolute in Christianity is the
triune God” (1954, 282 n. 22). If finite, limited humans are
involved, Nida continues, the thing under consideration must
of necessity be limited and therefore relative. Nida is clearly
correct with respect to God as the only absolute being in the
universe. Conservative Christian theology has always strongly
asserted this. One might contend, in fact, that if the universe
and all in it have been created, it is logically impossible to have
more than one absolute related to it. Only that One who has
brought the universe into being and who stands outside it can
be said to be unlimited by it (as far as we know). All else that
we know is somehow limited by the universe or, in the case of
the angels, demons, and Satan, by God directly, and is
therefore relative to either or both God and the universe. For
relativity is simply “the state of being dependent for existence
on or determined in nature, value or quality by relation to
something else” (Webster's Dictionary 1967, 723).
One might qualify Nida's categorical statement by
suggesting that the absolute God has, in his manifold
activities, manifested attributes and operated in terms of
principles that are constant. These also look like absolutes
from our vantage point. Smalley suggests, therefore, that the
concept of the triune God as the only absolute in Christianity
be interpreted as “specifically including His attributes, His
nature, and His…ultimate, overall will which is part of His
nature and which stems from His nature” (Smalley 1959, 59).
Other aspects of God's interaction with human beings such as
“His immediate will for specific people and specific events” and
any other outworking of His will in human affairs “must of
necessity be relative to human finiteness, human limitations,
human differences of personality, language and culture”
(Smalley 1955, 59-60).
The designation “supracultural and absolute,” then, will be
employed here for “God Himself, His nature, attributes and
character, for the moral principles which stem from what He is
(but not for particular acts of behavior which may attempt to
fulfill those principles), for His plan and total will” (Smalley
1955, 60). This designation may not by definition be applied to
any cultural behavior, even if that behavior is “prescribed or
proscribed by God for a given time or place, or for all time” or if
the behavior is “a kind of ‘relative absolute' in that a Christian
is not allowed a choice in his particular situation, [for] the
behavior is still cultural” (ibid.). Christian behavior, therefore,
and the specific interactions between God and humans that
resulted in it are always cultural, even though God is
supracultural and the principles on which the behavior is based
are constants of the human condition.
But can we know these principles and can we trust our
understanding of God and his will? That is, can we know
supracultural truth? The answer is yes, because of God's
revelation of himself. But our understanding can never be
absolute or infallible, since it is only partial. Our culturebound
perspectives allow us to see even revealed truth only “like the
dim image in a mirror” (1 Cor. 13:12 TEV). The Christian does,
however, “know something, at least, of the nature of the
[supracultural], but does not know all, and what he does know
is colored by the cultural screen through which he must know
anything he does know” (Smalley 1955, 60).
The writer of the original letter raises another difficult
question. He suggests the possibility that this view of God
may portray him as extremely fickle, since he seems always to
be “changing the arithmetic so that poor Jack [can] understand
it.” Can it be that the God whom Scripture contends is “the
same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8) has such a
variety of standards that we cannot, through the study of the
Scriptures, ascertain a trustworthy answer to any problem of
Christian belief or behavior?
The answer to such queries lies in a redefinition of our
understanding of God's consistency. I believe the Scriptures
show God to be marvelously consistent, operating always in
terms of the same principles (model 10a). But one of these
principles (a constant) is that he adapts his approach to
human beings to the cultural, sociological, and
psychological limitations in which humans exist. The apostle
Paul, following God's principle, endeavored to be a Jew to Jews
and a Greek to Greeks (1 Cor. 9:19-23). God did not deal with
Moses as if he were a Greek or with the Athenians (Acts 17) as
if they were Jews. A culturally perceptive understanding of the
Scriptures leads to the conviction that

one of the supreme characteristics of God's grace to man

[is] the fact that God changed the arithmetic repeatedly so
that Jack could understand it. The very fact that the
Revelation came through language, a finite cultural medium,
limits the Revelation, and limitation is a change. The fact
that Revelation came through the life of Jesus Christ…
living out a typical world culture modifies the Revelation,
for it gives it the cast and hue of a particular finite culture at
a particular period of time.
When Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said
by them of old time…but I say unto you…” God was
changing the arithmetic so that Jack could know more
about it than Jack's grandparents knew. All church history
records the changes in the cultural superstructure of
Christianity. This does not mean that the [supracultural]
has changed. The [supracultural] is God, His personality,
His overall will, His principles. The cultural manifestations
of the [supracultural] change, and are relative to the
particular situation. (Smalley 1955, 61-62)

We see, therefore, that what from one point of view looks

like inconsistency on God's part is actually the outworking of a
greater consistency. For God in his mercy has decided
consistently to adapt his approach to human beings in their
cultural contexts. Many, however (with the author of the letter
cited above), will find such a view threatening. Among these
will be closed conservatives who regard their particular
culturally conditioned understandings of God's revelation as
well-nigh absolute and their culturally molded behavior in
response to his revelation as the only behavior acceptable to
God. Such persons, under the tutelage of ethnocentric
theological traditions, fail to make the distinction between the
inspiration of the scriptural data and the fallibility of their
understanding of God and his works (see models 2a and 4b).
They therefore look on any deviation from their
understandings as a deviation from orthodoxy (see Lindsell
1976; Schaeffer 1976).
The perspective presented here is not a deviation from
orthodoxy. It is, rather, an attempt to modify the understanding
and expression of orthodoxy in such a way that (1) it will be
more useful to cross-cultural witnesses and (2) it will not have
to be abandoned by anyone who recognizes that a good bit of
the insight of the behavioral sciences into the relativities of
human existence simply cannot be dismissed. From this point
of view we are forced to recognize “that much of what [certain
ethnocentric theologies have] decreed to be absolute is not,
that much theological difference of view arises out of the
ethnocentrism of theologians and their followers, and that God
is not culturebound” (Smalley 1955, 69). For the human-made
discipline known as theology has developed into “the
philosophical study of almost anything identified with
Christianity,” including in a major way the behavior of humans
and God within the cultural milieu. Theologies, therefore,
concern themselves with culture—but often without the
preciseness that anthropological study has developed in this
area (ibid., 62). Since theological study is (largely for historical
reasons) often limited in its understanding of culture, its
insights need to be supplemented with the insights into culture
of other human-made disciplines, such as anthropology, that
have specialized in this area. Only then can theological
understandings of the relationships between supracultural
truth and culturebound expressions of that truth be (1)
maximally useful to cross-cultural witnesses and (2) relevant
and attractive to contemporary Westerners who often know
more about culture than do those trained in traditional
conservative theology.
 Biblical Cultural Relativism

Model 4e
Biblical cultural relativism postulates that God recognizes
and employs the sociocultural adequacy principle (model
3b).

As we have seen in chapter 5, we cannot go all the way

with those anthropologists (a decreasing number, by the way)
who might be labeled “absolute cultural relativists.” We can
sympathize with the motivation to combat the evolutionary
hypothesis of cultural development that, by evaluating all
cultures by European technological criteria, ethnocentrically
saw our culture as superior to all others. And I believe we must
continue to oppose such a misinformed point of view
whenever we find it (especially among Christians). But the
proper alternative is not absolute relativism if by this we mean
that it is never permissible to evaluate cultural behavior. For
Christians (and, indeed, non-Christians) are never completely
neutral toward cultural behavior, whether their own or that of
others. We constantly monitor and evaluate the behavior of
ourselves and of others (see the second function of worldview
in chapter 3, above).
The difficulty is that too often when we evaluate the
behavior of others we do not first seek to understand that
behavior from the point of view of the people and of their
society (i.e., in its sociocultural context). We simply judge the
behavior as if it were a part of our own system. Yet the meaning
of that behavior to the people behaving that way is derived
entirely from within their context, never from ours or from some
“cosmic pool” of universal meanings (see below p. 105ff.). And
when we evaluate our own behavior, we frequently ignore the
fact that our actions make sense only within the total pattern of
life in which we are involved. We cannot assume that the
behavior we hold so dear and that we may feel to be so
superior can simply be grafted into someone else's cultural life
as it is and prove to be superior within that system.
We must adopt a sufficiently relativistic stance to help us
toward understanding and appreciation (rather than judgmental
condemnation) of another's activity within that person's
cultural system (see the discussion of the cultural validity
model, model 3b, in chapter 3). But we must reject emphatically
the absolute relativism that simply says, “Live and let live
without ever attempting to influence anyone else in the
direction of one's own values since there are no absolute
standards and, therefore, his system is just as good as ours”
(see McGavran 1974, 2, for illustrations of certain disturbing
results of this kind of principle).
Rather, as Christians, we may find helpful a model or
perspective that Nida calls “relative cultural relativism” (1954,
50). This model asserts the presence of absolutes
(supracultural truths) but relates them all to God, who stands
outside of culture, rather than to any cultural expression,
description, or exemplification of a God-human relationship (be
it American, Greek, or Hebrew). (See above in this chapter for
further explanation of the rationale for such a position.)
Nida and other Christian ethnotheologians see this
“biblical cultural relativism” as “an obligatory feature of our
incarnational religion,” asserting that “without it we would
either absolutize human institutions” (as ethnocentric
positions do) or, going to the opposite extreme (as absolute
relativists do), we would “relativize God” (1954, 282). In his
excellent discussion of this topic, Nida points out that the Bible

clearly recognizes that different cultures have different

standards and that these differences are recognized by God
as having different values. The relativism of the Bible is
relative to three principal factors: (1) the endowment and
opportunities of people, (2) the extent of revelation, and (3)
the cultural patterns of the society in question. (Nida 1954,
50)

1. God conditions his expectations of human beings, in the

first place, by making allowance for differences in the
endowment and opportunities of the people with whom he is
dealing. In the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30) and again
in the parable of the pounds (Luke 19:12-27), Jesus teaches a
modified relativism. For in God's interaction with people,
“rewards and judgment are relative to people's endowments,
for the one who receives five talents and gains five additional
talents receives not only the commendation of his master but
an additional talent” (ibid.)—the one taken from the servant
who refused to use (and risk) that which was entrusted to him.
Likewise, the one to whom two talents were given was
commended because he also had used what he had to gain
more. Though the main point of the passage has to do with the
importance of people using what is given them for the sake of
their master, it is clear that the parable also implies (a) that there
is relativity (i.e., difference) in what each human being starts
with, (b) that, therefore, God expects relatively more from those
who have started with relatively more, and (c) that his
judgment of people is relative both to what they have been
given and to what they do with it.
This is not an absolute relativity, since the principle in
terms of which the master makes his judgments is constant and
universally applicable. Note that the servant who received
relatively less than the others was not condemned because he
started with less, nor even because he finished with less (these
are both relative), but because he refused to operate by a
supracultural principle of accountability. This principle is
articulated clearly in Luke 12:48: “The man to whom much is
given, of him much is required; the man to whom more is given,
of him much more is required” (TEV). Thus we are here dealing
with a relative relativity rather than with absolute relativity that
would allow no standard of evaluation whatsoever.
2. In the second place (and partially overlapping with the
first), we see in the Bible a relativism with respect to the extent
of the revelational information available to given culturebound
human beings (see chapter 11). Jesus points clearly to this fact
time and time again when he compares his superior revelation
of God to previous Old Testament revelations of God. To the
Jews of Moses' time God allowed and even endorsed their
cultural principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”
(Lev. 24:20). But Jesus spoke differently to Moses'
descendants who, several hundred years later, had an
understanding of God based on the accumulation of
considerably more revealed information than was available to
their ancestors. To them he said: “You have heard that it was
said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But now I tell
you: do not take revenge on someone who does you wrong. If
anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left
cheek too” (Matt. 5:38, 39 TEV).
When Jesus “changed the arithmetic” from “retaliate” to
“love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44) his hearers and all of us who
have come after them (i.e., who are “informationally A.D.”—see
chapter 12) became accountable for a higher standard than was
expected of the Jews of Moses' day. This higher standard is
also illustrated in the matter of murder (i.e., hate now equals
murder—Matt. 5:21-22) and with reference to adultery (i.e., lust
equals adultery—Matt. 5:27-28). Perhaps the lowest
revelational standard available to people is that referred to by
Paul in Romans 2:14-16:

When Gentiles who do not possess the law carry out its
precepts by the light of nature [culture?], then, although
they have no law, they are their own law, for they display
the effect of the law inscribed on their hearts. Their
conscience is called as witness, and their own thoughts
argue the case on either side, against them or even for
them, on the day when God judges the secrets of human
hearts through Christ Jesus. So my gospel declares. (NEB)

It is clear, then, that human accountability before God is

relative to the extent of revelation that human beings have
received. And we end up with respect to revelation at the same
point at which we ended vis-à-vis endowment—at a degree of
accountability determined according to a supraculturally
controlled given that differs from person to person and from
group to group. Thus,

the servant who knew his master's wishes, yet made no

attempt to carry them out, will be flogged severely. But one
who did not know them and earned a beating will be
flogged less severely. Where a man has been given much,
much will be expected of him; and the more a man has had
entrusted to him the more he will be required to repay.
(Luke 12:47-48 NEB)

3. A third aspect of biblical relativism (again partially

overlapping with the other two) is the fact that God takes into
account the cultures of the peoples with whom he deals. That
is, God conditions his expectations for each society to take
account of the cultural patterns in terms of which their lives are
lived. True, God works with people for culture change. But he
starts by accepting and even endorsing customs practiced by
Old Testament peoples that he condemns or at least does not
endorse in his dealings with Greco-Roman peoples. God's
approach, then, is relative to the human cultures of the Bible.
We assume that he deals with contemporary cultures in terms
of the same principle. See Barney 1957 for a good illustration of
this approach.
 Leviticus 25:39-46, for example, sanctions the enslaving of
Gentiles by Jews (though not of Jews by Jews). This was
undoubtedly the prevalent custom. But God chose to work
with it on the surface, while at the same time advocating other
principles that would eventually do away with the custom. It
seems to have died out by New Testament times. God seems to
have chosen to refrain from making a big issue of such
nonideal customs, probably to keep from diverting attention
from more important aspects of his interaction with the Jews.
He treated polygamy (see 2 Sam. 12:7-8), including levirate
marriage (Deut. 25:5-6), trial by ordeal (Num. 5:11-28), and
numerous other Jewish customs similarly. In dealing with
divorce Jesus makes explicit the reason why God chose to
allow and endorse such less-than-ideal customs—it was
because of the “hardness of their hearts” or, as the New
English Bible translates it, “because [their] minds were closed”
(Mark 10:5) and God was patient (2 Pet. 3 :9).
The most significant New Testament indication of biblical
endorsement of a relativistic attitude toward culture, however,
lies in Paul's statement that he attempted to be “all things to all
men.” This statement is buttressed by several illustrations of
his application of this principle, in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22, for
example, he indicated his movement back and forth over the
cultural barrier separating Jews from Greeks:

To Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; as they are

subject to the Law of Moses, I put myself under that law to
win them, although I am not myself subject to it. To win
Gentiles, who are outside the Law, I made myself like one of
 them, although I am not in truth outside God's law, being
under the law of Christ…. Indeed, I have become
everything in turn to men of every sort, so that in one way
or another I may save some. (NEB)

This principle of approaching each situation in terms of its

own special cultural circumstances is a constant supracultural
principle of God's interaction with people. The principle,
therefore, is not relative, but its application in the relative
context of human culture illustrates once again the correctness
of the “biblical relativity” understanding of God's approach to
people. Both the supracultural principle and this understanding
of biblical relativity enable us to explain a large number of
apparent discrepancies in the working of God in the human
context. The relative application of God's supracultural
principle explains, for example, how Paul could object
strenuously to Peter's compromising in a Gentile context under
pressure from the Judaizers (Gal. 2:11-14). Yet, later, he himself,
when in a wholly Jewish context, went through Jewish rites of
purification to demonstrate to them that he had not abandoned
Judaism (Acts 21:20-26). Likewise, Paul could circumcise
Timothy who had a Greek father but a Jewish mother, in order
to give him an “in” with the Jews (Acts 16:3), yet not compel
Titus, whose parentage allowed him no such “in” with the
Jews, to go the same route (Gal. 2:3).
Nida helpfully summarizes this perspective by stating as
follows:
 Biblical relativism is not a matter of inconsistency but a
recognition of the different cultural factors which influence
standards and actions. While the Koran attempts to fix for
all time the behavior of Muslims, the Bible clearly
establishes the principle of relative relativism, which
permits growth, adaptation, and freedom, under the
Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Bible presents realistically
the facts of culture and the plan of God, by which he
continues to work in the hearts of men “till we all come in
the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). The Christian position is
not one of static conformance to dead rules, but of
dynamic obedience to a living God. (1954, 52; emphasis
added)

Far from being a threat to a Christian perspective (even a

conservative one), the development of an understanding of
biblical cultural relativism should be regarded as a part of the
leading “into all truth” (John 16:13), which is one of the
important functions of the Holy Spirit today.

Adequate, Though Never Absolute, Human

Perception of Supracultural Truth

Model 5
This model postulates an ethnotheological hermeneutics. As
 an important part of this model we postulate Model 5a, that
human perception of God's truth may be adequate, though
never absolute.

Perhaps the most basic problem in this whole area is the

reliability of our perception of supracultural truth. Can we trust
what we think we understand? If sincere specialists such as
theologians are not exempt from cultural limitations in their
understandings of supracultural truth, where does that leave
the rest of us? Furthermore, if we adopt the position here
advocated and open ourselves up to the validity of a diversity
of culturally conditioned interpretations, can we be certain that
any supracultural truth will survive at all? The answers lie in (1)
coming to better understand how the Holy Spirit goes about
leading culturebound human beings “into all truth” (John
16:13), and (2) the sufficiency of an adequate, though
nonabsolute, understanding of supracultural truth.
The Spirit leads “into all truth” via the human perception of
those to whom he speaks. Since the channel is culturebound
human perception, the receptors do not understand
supracultural truth absolutely. Indeed, we are limited by at least
five factors:
1. The limitations of the revelations (including
“illuminations”). God has seen fit to reveal only certain things
concerning himself, his plans, and his purposes. That which he
has not yet revealed we cannot know.
2. Our finiteness. We are limited in our understanding of
even that which has been revealed. We all study the same
Scriptures, but there are a multitude of differing interpretations
of the meaning of much of what is there revealed.
3. Our sinfulness. Our perception and ability to understand
and respond to God's revelation is, like every other aspect of
our lives, affected at every point by sin. For this reason our
motives are never completely pure nor our vision completely
lucid.
4. Our cultural conditioning. The fact that we are totally
immersed in a given culture conditions us to perceive of all
reality, including God's revelation, in terms of that culture.
5. Our individual psychological and experiential
conditioning. Even within shared cultural boundaries, the life
experience of every individual is unique. This likewise
conditions one's perception of the revelation.
The assumption here is that supracultural truth exists with
God above and beyond any cultural perception or expressions
of it. God reveals to us glimpses of this truth via the human
languages and cultures of the Scriptures. Our perception of the
various aspects of this truth may be barely acceptable to God
at the start but may, during the course of our maturing as
Christians, develop into a much more ideal understanding. This
may eventually approach, though never quite reach, the
supracultural ideal that lies outside of culture and therefore
beyond our grasp.
As receptors who are limited in these ways, we interpret the
Word and other (e.g., experiential) data at our disposal in terms
of culturally organized models that incorporate and exhibit
these limitations. Though we are not totally unable to see
beyond what such cultural structuring channels us into, our
tendency is to gravitate toward and to most readily understand
those portions of supracultural truth that connect most closely
with life as we already perceive it. How the faces of Africans
light up as they hear that God endorsed levirate (Deut. 25:5-10),
polygamous (2 Sam. 12:7-9), arranged marriages (Gen. 24:50-51;
34:10-12), and many other customs similar to theirs. But none of
these Jewish perceptions of God excited Luther, for German
culture is related to and has been influenced by Greek culture.
So it was those portions of Scripture couched in Greek thought
patterns that caught Luther's attention. The Spirit, then, spoke
most clearly to Luther via those portions.
In the original revelation of biblical materials, God also
worked in terms of culturally conditioned human perception.
For each biblical writing participates completely in the context
to which it is addressed. And the topics treated are dealt with,
under the leading of the Spirit, in categories culturally and
linguistically appropriate to the way a particular culturally and
psychologically conditioned participant perceives of that
situation and its needs.
It is not at all strange that large portion of the New
Testament are phrased in terms of Greek conceptual categories
(rather than in supracultural categories). For God wanted his
message contextualized within the human frame of reference in
such a way that it would be maximally intelligible to those
within that frame of reference. So he led Paul and others to
write about those things they noticed and perceived to be
important both to God and to their hearers. There are many
questions that we twenty-first-century Euro-Americans wish
Paul had written about (e.g., race relations, the place of women,
the relative importance of evangelism, and “social action”). But
he, in his cultural setting, did not see the importance of
providing a word from God on such issues. God will have to
provide that word through people today whom he leads to be
as concerned about these issues as Paul was about the issues
he faced.
Nor is it strange that the writings of the Old Testament and
those portions of the New Testament written to Jews show
other authors dealing under the leading of God with other
issues. Apparently it has always been God's plan to lead
people via their concerns. What might be considered
surprising is that so many very specific issues in both the Old
Testament and the New Testament are of such wide general
relevance to peoples of many other societies and are dealt with
within Hebrew and Greek cultural matrices in such a way that
people today can benefit from the scriptural treatments.
Beyond the divine factors involved, we can point to two
human conditions that God has exploited. The first is the high
degree of basic similarity between peoples of different societies
(model 3g). So much of the Bible deals with basic issues of life
that its relevance is assured at this level. The second of the
human conditions is the great similarity between the cultures of
the Bible and contemporary cultures. Hebrew culture is quite
similar to most of the cultures of the world and Greek culture
quite similar to contemporary European cultures. Most of the
Bible is couched in Hebrew thought patterns. Though those
portions of the Scriptures are often less compelling for
Europeans, the Spirit frequently speaks clearly through them to
other peoples of the world.
The Scriptures are like the ocean and supracultural truth
like the icebergs that float in it. Many icebergs show at least a
bit of themselves above the surface; some lie entirely beneath
the surface. Much of God's revelation of himself in the
Scriptures is at least partially visible to nearly anyone who is
willing to see it—though belief must precede “seeing” (John
5:39). But much lies beneath the surface, visible only to those
who search to discover what supracultural truth lies beneath
the specific cultural applications in Scripture.

“Plain Meanings” and “Interpretational

Reflexes”
Searching beneath the surface involves the process of
interpretation (technically called “hermeneutics”). The fact that
we are in a different sociocultural context from that in which the
original events occurred causes problems, for our perception
and our interpretation are affected by that different cultural
context. We learn as part of our cultural conditioning a set of
“interpretational reflexes”—a set of habits in terms of which we
automatically interpret whatever happens. We don't think
things through before we interpret in these ways. Our
responses are reflexive in the same way that most of our
muscular responses are reflexive. In order to understand what
the authors of Scripture intended, then, we need to develop
hermeneutical techniques for getting beyond these reflexive
interpretations into as close an approximation as possible to
the perception of the original participants.
There is a sense in which a new or deepened approach to
hermeneutics is the major subject of this whole book. Certainly
the kind of alteration in our understandings of biblical
communication and translation that this book aims to bring
about implies an alteration in the way many interpret God's
Word. The following is but a preliminary presentation of an
approach to biblical interpretation that is developed in much
greater detail as the book progresses.
Those unaware of the pervasive influence of their own
culture on their interpretations often slip unconsciously into
the assumption that arriving at most supracultural truth is
simply a matter of accepting the “clear” or “plain meanings” of
Scripture. A typical statement of this view says, “The plain
meaning of the Bible is the true meaning” (McGavran 1974, 65).
Lindsell condemns those who disagree with his point of view
by accusing them of developing “interpretations of Scripture at
variance with the plain reading of the texts” (1976, 39,
emphasis added).
A plain-meaning position assumes that our interpretation
corresponds with that of the authors of Scripture. There is,
however, a major problem here, stemming from the fact that
those who agree on large areas of cultural experience seldom
discuss (or make explicit in other ways) these areas of
agreement. What everyone in a given context assumes (i.e.,
agrees on) is not mentioned. People conditioned by the same
culture agree on, and therefore seldom if ever discuss,
thousands of interpretationally (hermeneutically) significant
understandings and perspectives. Jews, for example, assumed
that God exists. The author of Genesis, as a Jew writing to
other Jews, did not have to prove God's existence. Jesus could
rightfully assume that his hearers understood what a mustard
bush and its seeds looked like, that those who sowed seeds
scattered them “broadcast” (rather than, say, putting each seed
in a separate hole), that sheep could be led (rather than driven)
by a shepherd, that demons exist and commonly afflict people,
and so on.
The interpretational reflexes of Jesus' hearers were
conditioned by the same culture as his were, and so they did
not need explanation of the cultural assumptions and
agreements underlying Jesus' words and actions. Our
interpretational reflexes are conditioned by quite a different
culture. Thus, we are likely to find that any given portion of
Scripture falls into one or the other of the following categories
characteristic of any communicational situation that involves
the crossing of a cultural border.
1. We, as readers, may not understand major portions of
what is going on at all, since we don't know the cultural
agreements. In the story of the woman at the well (John 4), for
example, we are likely to miss entirely the significance of such
things as Jesus' going through Samaria, his talking to a woman,
the fact that the woman was at the well at midday, the necessity
that she go back to get her supposed husband before she
could make a decision, etc. For us to understand such things,
we need large doses of explanation by those who study the
cultural background. We cannot simply trust our culturally
conditioned interpretational reflexes. For the Scriptures are
specific to the cultural settings of the original events. Sheep,
mustard seeds and bushes, broadcast sowing, levirate
marriage, and many other aspects of the life of biblical societies
fit into this category.
2. A much bigger problem of interpretation lies in those
areas where the Scriptures use cultural symbols that are
familiar to us but for which our cultural agreements are
different. We are tempted to interpret according to what seems
to be the “plain meaning”—as if we could get the proper
meaning of Scripture as we would from a document originally
written in English. To avoid this pitfall, many translation
theorists are now contending that a faithful translation of the
Scriptures must involve enough interpretation (including
paraphrase) to protect the reader from being seriously misled at
points such as these. Our interpretational reflexes tell us, for
example, that a fox is sly and cunning. So, when Jesus refers to
Herod as a fox (Luke 13:32), we misinterpret the symbol to mean
sly when, in fact, on the basis of the Jewish cultural agreement,
it was intended to signify treachery.
Our cultural reflexes tell us that plural marriage is primarily a
sexual matter, though in non-Western cultures it seldom is. Our
cultural reflexes tell us that Jesus was impolite to his mother
when he addressed her the way he did in the temple and at the
wedding feast. Our culturally conditioned interpretational
reflexes lead us to understand “the faith once for all delivered
to the saints” (Jude 3) to be a system of doctrine rather than a
relationship to God, and the “by faith” of Hebrews 11 to signify
something somewhat less than behavioral obedience
(faith=faithfulness or obedience in Hebrew categories). The
culturally conditioned interpretational reflexes of the Nigerians
I worked among misled them into thinking that Psalm 23
presented Jesus as insane, since in their society only young
boys and insane men tend sheep. The interpretational reflexes
of the Sawi of New Guinea misled them into admiring the
treacherous Judas even more than Jesus (Richardson 1974) and
those of the Chinese to regarding positively the dragon of
Revelation.
The point is that, for cultural reasons, we who are not a part
of the biblical cultures cannot trust our interpretational reflexes
to give us the meanings that the original authors intended.
What are to us the “plain meanings” are almost certain to be
the wrong meanings unless the statements are very general
(see below). Therefore, we must engage in exegesis to discover
what the original utterances meant to those whose
interpretational reflexes were the same as those of the authors.
With respect to interpretational reflexes, there seem to be
four principles:
1. If the culture of the original is at any given point very
similar to ours, our reflexes are going to serve us fairly well. In
these instances the interpretational principle that, says “The
plain meaning is the true meaning” is a valid principle. Such a
situation is rarely the case between Euro-American interpreters
and the Hebrew and Aramaic portions of the Scripture. Certain
Greek customs do, however, seem to be similar enough to Euro-
American customs that our interpretational reflexes will give us
the correct meaning. I think in this regard of the language of
the track meet that Paul uses in Philippians 3. The same may be
true of the language of economics that Paul uses earlier in that
same chapter. The amount of biblical material where there is
such close cultural similarity to our agreements is, however,
distressingly small, and the fact that we cannot trust our
interpretational reflexes in most places means that we can
never be sure of them unless we have independent evidence
that this is a place where their custom is close to ours.
2. If the scriptural statement is a cultural universal,
however, our interpretational reflexes will enable us to get close
to the intended meaning. Statements that exist, as far as we
know, in every one of the world's cultures (e.g., the concepts in
the last six of the Ten Commandments), are easy to interpret
relatively accurately. There is a slight problem in the fact that
each people group defines murder, adultery, etc. in its own way.
But the fact that such commands occur in all societies means
that these statements are elevated out of the most difficult
interpretational category—that of the culturally specific. Other
parts of Scripture, such as those dealing with eating together,
injunctions such as “Love your neighbor,” and many of the
proverbs are also in the cultural-universal category.
3. Similarly, if a scriptural statement relates to experiences
that are common to all humankind, our culturally conditioned
interpretational reflexes can be of considerable help. When the
Scriptures say “go,” “come,” “trust,” “be patient,” and the like,
they are dealing with experiences that are common to all human
beings and readily interpretable. Likewise, with respect to
illness and death, childbirth and rearing, obtaining and
preparing food, and the like.
4. But, as indicated above, much of the biblical material is
presented in cultural forms that are very specific to cultural
practices quite different from ours. Because of their specificity
to the cultural agreements of the original hearers, these
materials communicated with maximum impact to them. This is a
major part of the genius of God and of his Word—he speaks
specifically to people where they are and in terms of the
sociocultural context in which they are immersed. At the same
time, this specificity to the original hearers' cultural context
enormously complicates the task of the person immersed in
another culture who seeks to interpret the Scriptures.
The fact that our interpretational reflexes are so limited
when dealing with biblical materials argues strongly for the
application of the sharpest tools available to the study of the
cultural matrices through which God revealed his Word. The
harnessing of the perspectives of anthropology and linguistics
to this end of the interpretational task (as well as to the
communication end) could be a real boon to the exegete. One
important result of such harnessing is the development of
faithful dynamic-equivalence translations and highly
interpretive “transculturations” of God's Word (see chapters 13
and 14). These aim to communicate God's message as
specifically as possible in today's languages so that the
members of these societies will be able to trust their
interpretational reflexes when they study the Scriptures.

Beyond Grammatico-Historical to
Ethnolinguistic Interpretation

Model 5b
A second aspect of this model is the importance of going
beyond the “grammatico-historical” method to a “culturo-
linguistic” or “ethnolinguistic” method of interpretation.
 The statement of model 5b does not differ in essence from
the ordinary hermeneutical principle of biblical theology but it
introduces an approach that is more expert in dealing with
language and culture than traditional theology has known.
That principle states that biblical passages are to be interpreted
in their original contexts (see e.g., Ramm 1970, 138ff.).3 The
method employed is often referred to by some such label as
“the grammatico-historical method” (Ramm 1970, 114;
Mickelsen 1963, 159; Fuller 1969, chapter 11).
The hermeneutical concern is for “extracting” or decoding
from biblical texts the meanings that their authors encoded in
those texts. The problem of biblical hermeneutics is thus the
same problem as that faced by the receptor of any message in
any context. It is therefore likely that the insights of
contemporary studies into the nature of the ethnolinguistic
setting in which communication takes place and into the nature
and process of communication itself will be most helpful. Such
insights enable us to go beyond the grammatico-historical
model as previously developed at two or more points: (1) the
extent to which the linguistic (grammatical) and cultural
(historical) factors are taken into account, and (2) the attempt
to focus both on the central biblical message in the original
linguistic and cultural vehicles (as that approach does) and on
certain other important aspects of supracultural truth—
especially those related to the processes God uses to convey
that truth.
This approach attempts to see more deeply into language
and culture both at the biblical end and with respect to their
influence on the interpreter. We may refer to this approach as
“ethnolinguistic” (i.e., “culturo-linguistic”) hermeneutics or
even as “ethnohermeneutics.”4 The “context” of which we
speak is not simply the literary or even the linguistic context in
which an utterance occurs (Ramm 1970, 138-39; see Nida 1964;
1971, 84-87 for further elaboration of this point). It is the total
cultural context (including both literary and extraliterary
components). And we focus not only on the central message
of the Scriptures as expressed in the original linguistic and
cultural vehicles (as important as that is), but also on the total
process by means of which God seeks to communicate that and
numerous other messages (both then and now) via language
and culture. This approach, in keeping with the aims of biblical
theology, emphasizes the pervasive importance of the cultural
context but adds considerations of process to those related to
the product (the Scriptures).
At this point it is important to define, in at least a
preliminary way, several of the key concepts that will be
employed below. The complex relationships between
information, message, context, and meaning will be in primary
focus.

By information we designate the raw materials from

which messages and meanings are constructed (see also
chapter 11).
A message consists of the structuring of a body of
information in a way appropriate to the ethnolinguistic
context within which it is transmitted.
The context is the structured and structuring matrix
within which and according to the rules of which
 information is organized into messages that may then be
reliably encoded, transmitted, and decoded to provide
people with, meanings.
Meaning is the structuring of information in the minds of
persons. It is frequently encoded into messages that are
transmitted by communicators to receptors who decode
the messages and, under the stimulus of those messages,
restructure meanings in their own minds (see chapters 8
and 9).

Though most of this will be explained in greater detail in the

following chapters, it is important to deal here with the
implications for biblical interpretation. The fact seems to be
that messages and, by implication, the information they contain
require structured contexts in order to be interpretable (i.e., to
be transformed into meanings in the mind of the receptor of the
message). As Hall states, “Information taken out of context is
meaningless and cannot be reliably interpreted…. [The]
separation of information from context, as though the two were
unrelated, is an artifact of Western science and Western
thought” (1974, 21). Another way of putting it follows:
“Information, context, and meaning are inseparably and
dynamically linked to one another” (Hunter and Foley 1976,
45). The above diagram (similar to that provided by Hunter and
Foley 1976, 46) is an attempt to depict this dynamic
relationship.
Fig. 7.2. The dynamic relationship between context, message, and meaning. Read:
In a given situation information is structured into a Message and
communicated within a Context to produce signals that a receptor
transforms into Meanings.

This perspective holds that there is no possibility of a

message (a structured body of information) making sense to
(i.e., being given meaning by) a receptor without participating
in some context. Two questions arise, however: (1) Which
context: that of the originator of the communication or that of
the receptor? and (2) In the interaction between the message
and the context, what does each contribute to the resultant
meaning?
Model 5b holds that it is an interaction between the
message and the original context that the communicator
constructs to produce the intended meaning—the meaning of
the original author that the interpreter seeks to ferret out. The
interpreter must, therefore, interpret the context as well as the
message. As discussed above, the biblical interpreter is
hindered in this process by interpretational reflexes
conditioned to derive meanings immediately from messages
interacting with a different cultural context. Such an interpreter,
to transcend this disability, needs to probe to discover the
answer to the second question.
The context contributes that part of the meaning deriving
from the culture-specific nature of an event. A certain amount
of information implicit in the context is a part of this
contribution. The fact that a given event occurred in the first
century rather than in the twenty-first, in Palestine rather than
in America, and in a Jewish society rather than in an American
one is extremely significant to the meanings of that event at
every point. The whole cultural context must, therefore, be
taken as seriously and analyzed as thoroughly as the message,
if the meaning of the message is to be understood either for its
own time or for ours. The fallacy of the plain-meaning concept
lies in the fact that it advocates simply extracting the message
as if it would mean the same in interaction with a contemporary
context in that same form. Such extracted messages “cannot be
reliably interpreted” (Hall 1974, 21).
Nida points in this regard to the unsatisfactory way in
which words are traditionally dealt with by biblical scholars. He
points to three fallacies (we shall cite only two of these) that
stem from certain deficiencies in the philological and historical
models commonly employed by such scholars:

In the first place, there has been the tendency to regard the
“true meaning” of a word as somehow related to some
central core of meaning which is said to exist, either
implicitly or explicitly, in each of the different meanings of
 such a word or lexical unit. It is from this central core of
meaning that all the different meanings are supposed to be
derivable. (1971, 84)

Words are, therefore, regarded by many as bearing

meaning independently of their contexts. But words, like all
information-bearing vehicles within culture, derive their
meanings from their interaction with the contexts in which
they participate rather than simply carrying meaning into those
contexts—though they do carry some meaning into the
contexts. Interpretation of the context, then, is likely to be as
important as interpretation of the words themselves. Nida goes
on,

In the second place, a common mistake has been to regard

the presumed historical development of meaning as
reflecting the “true meaning” of a word…. The so-called
etymology of a word is supposed to contain the key to the
proper understanding of all its meanings. (1971, 85)

The historical development of a word (its etymology) is

occasionally relevant to its meaning in the same way that a
person's genealogy is occasionally relevant to his or her
“meaning” (= the nature of his or her participation) in a given
context. But again, it is the relevance of this aspect of the word
to and in interaction with the context in which it occurs (not
simply its history) that determines how it should be interpreted.
A cultural form does not have inherent meaning, only
perceived meaning. And this is context-specific. “Valid
lexicography must depend in the ultimate analysis upon
patterns of co-occurrence in actual discourse” (Nida 1971, 85)
—in actual situations. See chapter 18, below, for further
elaboration of this point.
As an example of the kind of contextual analysis here
recommended, we may choose two scriptural commands that
ought to be treated the same according to the plain-meaning
dictum (though in practice they seldom are). The problem is
how to explain the difference between the command against
stealing (Exod. 20:15) and the command that a woman cover
(veil) her head when praying in public (2 Cor. 11:10). In America
I have heard the one strongly advocated as it stands, while the
other is explained away as “merely cultural.” This approach is
quite inconsistent and very unsatisfactory. The problem of the
different interpretations of these commands was vividly
brought home to me by one of the Nigerian church leaders
whom I was assisting. He pointed out to me that the Bible
commands both that we not steal and that we not allow women
to pray with their heads uncovered. He then asked why we
missionaries teach that the one command be obeyed and the
other ignored. Are we using a different Bible?
The fact is that both commands are expressed in cultural
terms—that is, via cultural and linguistic forms or symbols. So
both are cultural messages. But, since nothing in the Bible is
“merely” cultural, we need to look beyond each command to
discover how the word and custom symbols were understood
by the authors and those to whom they were originally written.
That is, we need to look for the supracultural meaning in each
by getting beyond our own cultural conditioning (with its
“plain meanings”) to the interpretation of each within its
original cultural context.
At this point we are in danger of being put off by the fact
that our society has a rule against stealing but not against
women without head covering. We may, therefore, simply
employ our interpretational reflexes and assume that we know
what the command against stealing meant in its Jewish context
on the basis of what similar word symbols mean in our society.
We are wrong, however, because no cultural symbols have
exactly the same meanings in any two societies, owing to the
differences in the contexts with which the symbols interact.
Yet, since those words do have a meaning in our society and
that meaning is consonant with Christianity, most accept the
meaning assigned to those words (that message) in our society
as the plain meaning of Scripture. They see no need to go into
Hebrew language and culture to discover their original
meaning.
With respect to the head-covering command, however,
many take an opposite point of view—and appear to some to
be “explaining away” the command. Since those word symbols
and the whole context in which they occur have no plain
meaning that seems to bear Christian truth in our society, most
American Christians feel compelled to study the Greek cultural
background to discover the original meaning. Some groups, of
course, are consistent at this point and interpret the head-
covering command in terms of the meaning of those word
forms within our language and culture. These groups make
their women wear head covering.
 We infer that the stealing command already existed in
Hebrew society (as, from cross-cultural data, we learn it does in
every people group). It had specific reference, however, only to
what the Jews of that time considered to be the unwarranted
appropriation of certain of those things considered to be the
property of another. In that kind of strongly kinship-oriented
society, it is unlikely that it would be considered stealing if a
person appropriated his brother's goods without asking. Nor is
it likely that a starving person who “helped himself” to
someone else's food would be accused of stealing (see Matt.
12:1-4).
By interpreting in terms of the Jewish cultural context, we
find this command to differ only slightly from our own cultural
understanding of it. This fact illustrates that, because of human
commonality, meanings derived from the interaction of certain
(general) messages with any cultural context are appropriate
even in quite diverse cultures. The relative importance of
context and message, however, varies from situation to
situation. In situations such as this where the significance of
the context in the determination of the meaning is less, the
possibility is increased for transferring the message from one
cultural situation to another in roughly its original form with
most (never all) of its meaning intact. Truly “propositional”
statements 5 in Scripture such as “God is love” illustrate this
point. For this reason, even plain-meaning interpretations are
fairly accurate for such statements.
When, however, the contribution to the meaning of implicit
contextual information is high (as, for example, with the
genealogies or the issue of head covering), it is necessary to
interpret at a much deeper level of abstraction (see model 5c
below) to ferret out the more general transferable meanings.
Ethnolinguistic insight into the cultural and linguistic factors
involved is especially valuable at this point. For there is much
more meaning that God seeks to communicate through his
Word than the surface-level, context-specific messages so
often in focus.
As for the head-covering command, analysis of the
meaning of the custom in its cultural context does not lead
simply to an alternative understanding of the same command. It
leads, rather, to a meaning that demands expression via a
different cultural form if it is to be understood in English. In
Greek society of that day, apparently, the cultural form “female
praying in public without head covering” would have been
interpreted to mean “this female is immoral,” or, at least, “she is
not showing proper respect to men” (see commentaries on 1
Cor. 11:10-12). Since that meaning was not consonant with the
witness that Christians ought to make, Paul commands against
the use of the head-uncovered symbol in favor of its opposite,
the head-covered symbol. For only this latter symbol conveyed
the proper Christian meaning in that society—that Christian
women were not immoral and were properly subject to their
men. The theological truth then—a truth just as relevant today
as in the first century—is that Christian women should not
behave in such a way that people judge them to be “out of
line” (whether morally or with respect to authority). (See Sproul
1976 for a useful discussion of this issue.) The same applies to
men, of course, though not spoken of in these passages.
 Differing Levels of Abstraction

Model 5c
Attempting to understand supracultural meanings as
presented in their cultural contexts involves the necessity to
discern differing levels of abstraction.

Such cross-cultural analysis of the two passages shows

that in comparing the two commands we are not comparing
sames. For the commands are given at different levels of
abstraction. That is, the relative importance of the specific
cultural context to the meaning of the utterances differs. Those
utterances that relate most specifically to their particular
cultural contexts are at what is here termed the “surface” or
“culture-specific” level of abstraction. For correct
understanding (interpretation) these depend greatly on implicit
information embedded in the context with which the given
custom interacts. Those utterances in which the specific
context is less important to the meaning, and that, therefore,
relate to pancultural human commonality, are at what may be
termed a “deeper” or “general-principle” level of abstraction.
These utterances are not so dependent on information implicit
in their original contexts for interpretation.
That the command against stealing is at a deeper level of
abstraction is evident from the fact that it does not refer to a
specific cultural act but to a category of cultural behavior. The
command is general rather than specific. Note, by way of
contrast, the specificity of the tenth command. That command
is at the surface level of abstraction (like the head-covering
command) in that it specifies the proscribed cultural acts rather
than (until the final phrase) generalizing them into an overall
principle as we do when we refer to that command as a general
command against “covetousness” and as the other commands
do. Note the wording: “Do not desire another man's house; do
not desire his wife, his slaves, his cattle, his donkeys, or
anything else that he owns” (Exod. 20:17 TEV).
The head-covering command is at this more specific level,
where the embedded information in that particular cultural
context is very important to the meaning. A corresponding
specific command against stealing would be something like
“Don't take your neighbor's donkey without his permission.” A
head-covering command at the same level of generality as the
stealing command would be something like “Don't appear out
of line with respect to immorality or authority.” Thus, we see a
specific cultural form/symbol level with the original context
contributing relatively more to the meaning, and a deeper
general principle level in which the original context contributes
relatively less. “Seesaw” diagrams illustrating these two
possibilities are as follows in figure 7.3 below.
There seems, however, to be a yet deeper level of
abstraction in Scripture. This is made explicit by Jesus when he
summarizes the teaching of the law and the prophets in two
statements:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and the
most important commandment. The second most important
commandment is like it: “Love your neighbor as you love
 yourself.” The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of
the prophets depend on these two commandments. (Matt.
22:37-40 TEV; cf. Deut. 6:5; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27)

Fig. 7.3. “ Seesaw” diagrams illustrating the relationship between the context-
message interaction concept and the levels-of-abstraction concept.

These three levels correspond to some extent with the three

levels charted in figure 5.1: the level of specific customs, the
level of worldview values, and the deep level of human
universals. The universal apply to every person in every
sociocultural context at all times. These may be regarded as
transcultural or even supracultural ideals. The general
principles (such as the Ten Commandments) seem, likewise, to
apply universally. If these are seen as corresponding with the
cultural worldview level (as suggested above) it is with the
recognition that values such as these occur in the worldviews
of every people. At the level of specific custom, though, there
is a considerable range of diversity expressive of the general
principles.
There are occasional problems as to which of the levels to
assign certain of the general statements of Scripture. We may
advance figure 7.4 as a step in the direction of developing this
model more precisely. Note that a complete chart would show
(even more than this one does) the fact that there are fewer
categories at the Basic Ideal Level, more at the General
Principle Level, and an enormous number at the Specific
Cultural Form/Symbol Level.
In such expositions as the Ten Commandments (especially
as Jesus summarizes them in Matt. 22:37-40), the Sermon on the
Mount, the listing of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), and
many similar statements, the Scriptures seem to us to come
closest to a clear statement of a portion of the supracultural will
of God for human conduct. The reason for the apparent clarity
of these portions is that they are phrased at a level of
abstraction that largely extricates them from specific
application to the original societies in which they were uttered.
As one moves from specific cultural applications of
supracultural truth (as with the head-covering command) back
toward the most general statements of the truth, the statements
require less understanding of the original cultural context to be
accurately understood. They have more immediate (though
general) meaning to us in another sociocultural context. The
plain-meaning principle is therefore often adequate for
interpreting information presented at this deeper level of
abstraction.
Note, however, that the effectiveness of the communication
(termed “impact” in chapter 8) is a matter of cultural perception.
For the original hearers, it was presentations of supracultural
truth in terms of specific applications (abstraction level 3) that
communicated most effectively. For us, likewise, specific
applications of scriptural generalizations would most
effectively communicate. But, since the Scriptures were written
in terms of cultures other than ours, we are denied
enscripturated applications of supracultural truth in our
cultural context. The general statements, therefore, make more
sense to us than the specific cultural forms through which
these principles were applied in biblical societies. And the more
specific applications in the Scriptures are often the most
confusing to us.
Throughout the Scriptures we are provided with glimpses
of the supracultural, clothed in specific events taking place
within specific societies at specific times. Frequently, as with
statements at the general-principle or basic-ideal level, we get
the impression that we are looking at supracultural truth with a
minimum of cultural conditioning. More frequently, however,
we are exposed to supracultural truth applied in a specific
situation in a specific biblical society. The record of this comes
to us only in translation, so that we see such truth as “puzzling
reflections in a mirror” (1 Cor. 13:12 JBP). Among these
“reflections,” Smalley feels that

those parts of Scripture which give us evaluations of

human motives and emotions, human attitudes and
personalities, give us the deepest insight into God's
ultimate will, and that to understand the revelation in terms
of God's will for our behavior we will have to learn to look
behind the cultural facade to see as much as we can of
what the Word indicates about those questions. The
cultural examples given us are thereby not lost. They
provide most valuable examples of the way in which God's
will was performed in another cultural setting to help us see
how we may perform it in ours. (1955, 66)
Fig. 7.4. Illustrative chart of different levels of abstraction model (5c).
 In this way it is possible for Christians to learn something
of supracultural truth even though this, like all human
knowledge, is perceived by us in terms of the cultural grid in
which we operate. Though often puzzling and never total or
absolute, such knowledge is adequate for God's purposes—
the salvation and spiritual growth of all who give themselves to
him in faith (Mickelsen 1963, 353). We may then, under the
leading of the Spirit, come to know something of how the Spirit
desires us to live out these truths in terms of our cultural forms.
See chapters 16-20, below, for further treatment of this topic.

“Two-Culture Dialogic” Interpretation

Model 5d
The total process of biblical interpretation involves attention
both to the original biblical cultural contexts and to the
cultural context within which the interpreter lives.
As amply indicated in the foregoing, when we interpret, we
are dealing with both the interpreter's culture and the
ethnolinguistics of the biblical contexts. Any model of
hermeneutics that ignores the influence of the interpreter's
culture on that person's attempts to understand the Scriptures
is seriously deficient. Many who seek to employ grammatico-
historical methodology are severely hampered by a failure to
grasp the full significance of the cultureboundness of
themselves and of their methodology.
The plain-meaning approach, though providing reasonably
accurate interpretations at the most general levels of
abstraction, is flawed by its simplistic approach to the original
contexts. In reaction against that approach, the grammatico-
historical approach digs deeply into the original contexts. But it
tends to overestimate the possibility of objectivity on the part
of the contemporary scholarly interpreter. We are attempting,
by means of the application of anthropological, linguistic, and
communicational insights, to increase our ability to maximize
the strengths of an approach to biblical interpretation such as
the grammatico-historical approach while minimizing the
deficiencies of approaches such as the plain-meaning
approach. It remains to deal explicitly with the dialogical nature
of the interaction between the messages of Scripture in their
contexts and the concerns of the interpreters in their contexts.
A concern for the contextualization of biblical messages is a
concern that scriptural meanings get all the way across what
might be pictured as a “hermeneutical bridge” into the real-life
contexts of ordinary people. We may call this an
“incarnational” approach. In a perceptive article dealing with
hermeneutics from the perspective of one deeply committed to
the contextualization of Christianity, René Padilla says:

Hermeneutics has to do with a dialogue between Scripture

and a contemporary culture. Its purpose is to transpose the
biblical message from its original context into a particular
twentieth-century situation. Its basic assumption is that the
God who spoke in the past and whose Word was recorded
in the Bible continues to speak today in Scripture. (1978, 11)
 If interpretation is done naively, as in the plain-meaning
approach, meaningful dialogue between past revelation and
present need is often prevented, owing to a premature
application of hastily and superficially derived meanings.
Scholarly approaches to interpretation, on the other hand, have
prevented such dialogue by considering the biblical message
in its original context in such a way that its meanings remain in
“a world which is definitely not our world” (ibid., 5).
A balanced approach takes both contexts seriously and
gives both due weight.

The aim is that the horizon of the receptor culture is merged

with the horizon of the text in such a way that the message
proclaimed in the receptor culture may be a dynamic
equivalent6 of the message proclaimed in the original
context. (Ibid., 6)

The hermeneutical process, then, involves a dynamic

interaction or dialogue between an interpreter deeply
enmeshed in his or her own sociocultural and worldview
context (including theological biases) and the Scriptures. The
interpreter has needs, some of which he or she formulates into
questions, “asking” these questions of the Scriptures and
finding certain of them answered. Other questions remain
unanswered, however, since “there is a large number of topics
on which Scripture says nothing or very little” (ibid., 17). Still
other questions are stimulated in the mind of the interpreter as
a result of the person's interaction with Scripture. Meanwhile,
in attempting to live life in a particular context, the interpreter's
interaction with that context also stimulates new questions.

The richer and deeper the questions brought by the

interpreter from the receptor culture, the richer and deeper
the answers provided by Scripture. It follows that without a
good understanding of the real issues involved in living in
a particular situation there cannot be an adequate
understanding of the relevance of the biblical message to
that situation. Each new formulation of the questions based
on a more refined understanding of the situation makes
possible a new reading of Scripture and consequently the
discovery of new implications of its message. If it is true
that Scripture illuminates life, it is also true that life
illuminates Scripture. (Ibid., 17)

Hermeneutics is not, therefore, merely an academic game to

be played by supposedly objective scholars. It is a dynamic
process that properly demands deep, subjective involvement
on the part of Christian interpreters operating within the
Christian community (which includes scholars) both with the
Scriptures and with the life of the world around them in which
they live. Hermeneutics is thus a kind of three-way
conversation, proceeding according to the rules of
communication (Taber 1978a, 9ff.), under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, issuing in what might be pictured as an upward
“spiraling” of understanding of the Scriptures, of the self, of
the world, and of the proper, God-guided interactions between
the three at this time and in this setting. At the beginning of
the “spiral,” the interpreter goes with certain felt needs to the
Scriptures under the guidance of God and with the assistance
of the Christian community (in person or via published
materials). Within the community, then, the interpreter moves
from needs to Scripture, to application in the living of his or her
life, to needs (some of which are newly perceived and at a
deeper level), to Scripture (some of which he or she sees with
“new eyes”), to deeper-level application in the living of his or
her life, and so on.
The life context with which the interpreter is interacting is
critical to the whole process. If the life context to which the
applications are made is merely an academic context, the nature
of the insights derived from Scripture and their usability
outside that context are vitally affected. This is what makes
much of what goes on in academic institutions and scholarly
writings unusable in life contexts other than the classroom.
One of the damaging effects of such academicization of biblical
interpretation has been the excessive informationalizing of
revelation, of which I speak later (chapter 9). Given the “down-
to-earth” nature of the Scriptures, it is often the unschooled
interpreter who can best interpret them, in spite of the difficulty
(discussed above) that one may have in understanding the
more culture-specific passages. Such passages often challenge
the brightest scholars. Yet the essential messages of Scripture
are not hidden from the unschooled, especially from those
whose life experiences parallel those recorded in Scripture. For,
as discussed below, the Scriptures are life-related, not merely
“religious discourse…couched in technical language” (Taber
1978a, 12), as Western exegetes have tended to assume.
This dialogical approach to hermeneutics is more serious
than previous approaches about the place it gives to the
interpreter and the receptor group in their respective contexts.
It does not assume either unbiased interpreters or the
universality for all times and places of the answers arrived at
by previous interpreters in their times and places. It places real
people with real needs in real-life contexts at the center of the
hermeneutical process. It questions the ultimacy of academic,
scholarly interpretation outside academic, scholarly contexts. I
would see this book, then, as an attempt within an academic
context to free people from bondage to that context.
 Dialogical hermeneutics draws its

concern for context from the Bible itself. And it recognizes

in the multi-leveled character of biblical context the multi-
leveled character of context in the process of
understanding itself. What was that original context
addressed by Jesus Christ when he called, “Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17)? What was that
context to which Matthew spoke as interpreter of Jesus
when he used the words, “kingdom of heaven”? How was
it different from the context of Mark who summarizes the
same message of Jesus in terms of the “kingdom of God”
(Mark 1:15)? What was the context Paul addressed as the
re-encoder of the kingdom message at Rome, transposing
“preaching the kingdom of God” into “teaching concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:23, 31)?
A process of this kind can be liberating as the people of
God wrestle with the biblical context, their own context and
that of those to whom they speak and before whom they
live. Charles Taber writes that such an appeal to Scripture
“can free indigenous theology from the bondage of
Western categories and methodologies” (1978b, 71). (Conn
1978, 45)

The concern for the importance of the contexts of

interpreter and receptor must not diminish our concern for
Scriptures as our “tether” and “yardstick” (see models 9a and
c, below). For the hermeneutical process is an interactional
process with the Bible as the necessary point with which all
else is to interact. More will be said concerning these matters,
below. For in a real sense the remainder of this volume is a
continuation of this discussion of hermeneutics. But now we
turn to further theoretical input, this time from the field of
communication theory.

1. Since that author has now totally changed his views I think it best to refrain
from referring to him by name in the text, in the references, after quotations, or in
the bibliography. The position he espoused is so common and so well articulated,
however, that it is helpful to cite the letter directly.
2. Smalley's original term “ supercultural” was developed by analogy with
“ supernatural.” Perhaps because of such widespread terms as superman, superbowl,
superstar, and the like, the prefix “ super-” on a word makes it particularly prone to
be employed as a noun. The use of the prefix “ super-,” however, is not nearly so
likely to result in a noun. Smalley himself (before his death) came to prefer the term
“ supracultural.”
3. See Barr 1961 for a critique of certain of the methods of interpretation
traditionally used by biblical theologians.
4. I am indebted to Mr. Phillip Leung, a Chinese student at the School of
World Mission 1977-78, for suggesting this term.
5. See R. Nash 1977 for an enlightened discussion of the pros and cons of
using the term “ proposition” as a designation for that which God has revealed.
6. See below, chapters 13-17, for a detailed treatment of this concept.
 8

COMMUNICATING WITHIN CULTURE

In this chapter we continue our consideration of certain

basic understandings (models) coming from communication
theory and the insight they give us into God's workings. These
models have been developed within a number of disciplines,
including psychology, speech, anthropology, and the more
recently developed discipline called “communications” or
“communicology.” In the first section of this chapter we
present ten basic principles of communication. The four most
basic of these are then discussed in subsequent sections of
the chapter. They are the frame-of-reference principle (model
7b), the communicator-credibility principle (model 7c), the
message-credibility principle (model 7d), and the discovery
principle (model 7e).

Basic Principles of Communication

Of the many basic principles of communication theory that
could be dealt with we present ten that seem to be crucial to
the message of this book. The final four of these will then be
elaborated upon with reference to God's use of them to
communicate to human beings within culture.

Model 6
Receptor-oriented communication. The communicator, to
communicate the message effectively, must be “receptor-
oriented.”

PRINCIPLE 1
Model 6a
The purpose of communication is to bring a receptor to
understand a message presented by a communicator in a way
that substantially corresponds with the intent of the
communicator.
There is always a degree of slippage between the
participants in a communicational event, for there is much
going on in such an event that may detract from this purpose.
For one thing, there are always many messages being sent at
the same time, most of which lie below the level of
consciousness for both the communicator and the receptor(s).
In addition to the main message, for example, interpreters gain
information concerning their attitudes toward themselves, the
message, the receptor, life in general, and the like. The result
may be that one or another of these unconscious
“paramessages” will become more important to the receptor
than the message intended by the communicator. Often the
receptor (R) is more impressed with the communicator's (C's)
attitude toward himself or herself than with the message (M)
itself. If so, what R understands may be far different from what
C intended—unless, of course, C intended (consciously or
unconsciously) simply to communicate such an attitude. The
communicator's problem is to present the primary message in
such a way that the receptor understands it in the way it is
intended with a minimum of interference from paramessages.
Because of interference from paramessages and slippage of
other kinds, C allows R to understand within a “range of
acceptable variation” (see model 9b). An absolute identity
between what R understands and what C intends is,
apparently, never achievable, however. But substantial
equivalence within such a range is possible.

PRINCIPLE 2
What is understood is at least as dependent on how R
perceives the message (plus the paramessages) as on how C
presents it (see Nida 1960, 34ff.). Words, gestures, and the
other cultural forms that C employs in communicating derive
their meanings from the experiences with such symbols that C
and R have had. The fact that the experiences of any two
people, though they may be similar, never correspond exactly,
leads to greater or lesser differences in interpreting those
symbols. This fact plus the presence of paramessages assures
that R will never understand C's message with 100 percent
accuracy even if C presents his or her thoughts in such a way
that C feels that he or she has expressed these thoughts
perfectly. For,

Model 6b
 The ultimate formulation of what is understood is done
within the receptor's head, not within the communicator's.
This fact seems to require some understanding of the
communication process such as that presented in principle 3.

PRINCIPLE 3
Model 6c
Communicators present messages via cultural forms
(symbols) that stimulate within the receptors' heads
meanings that each receptor shapes into the message that he
or she ultimately hears.
Meanings are not transmitted, only messages, for
“meanings are not in the message, they are in the message-
users” (Berlo 1960, 175). The meanings and their organization
into received messages come from the interaction between the
stimulus of what C says and does and the experience-
conditioned understanding facilities of R. The symbols
employed function not to contain the meanings but to
stimulate meanings within the mind of R that correspond as
closely as possible with those in the mind of C. Information
and, perhaps, other components of messages may come from,
outside R, but meanings and their ultimate organization into
received messages come from within R.

The meaning…comes from a reservoir in which all of our

prior experiences are contained. When we encounter a
social stimulus, we dip into our reservoir and using our
 own unique thought process extract the meaning we deem
appropriate and attach it to the stimulus. (Samovar and
Porter 1972, 33)

The message received is, therefore, the product of R even

more than it is the product of C, for R has the final say over
how M is understood and what is done with such
understanding. This being true, we must recognize that the M
that: R constructs mentally on the basis of the signals sent by
C is never identical with the M that C intended to transmit. R
always misses some things intended by C and adds some
things not intended by C. Wise communicators, therefore, settle
for rough equivalence in the understanding of their receptors
rather than demanding exact correspondence. Wise
communicators, furthermore, give primary attention to their
receptors (principle 4) and the kind of stimulus or impact of
their messages on Rs (principle 5).

PRINCIPLE 4
As mentioned above, the communicator, to communicate
the message effectively, must be “receptor-oriented” (model 6).
In much communicational activity, communicators are primarily
concerned that what they say and do be accurate and correct.
This is well and good but may be quite inadequate if Cs do not
parallel it with just as great a concern for the way they go
about communicating. For it is R who will make the final
judgments concerning what has been communicated. Accuracy
and correctness, then, will have to be evaluated at R's end of
the communication process even more than at C's. The cultural
forms (symbols) that are employed by C to convey the M, then,
will have to be chosen carefully on the basis of C's best
understanding of what their impact on R will be. It is entirely
possible for C to present a true and vital M to R via cultural
forms that minimize or obscure its truth and vitality from R.
This C must avoid.

PRINCIPLE 5
Model 7
If the communicator's message is to influence the receptor(s)
it must be presented with an appropriate degree of impact.

Messages that are simply intended to convey information

(e.g., a news broadcast) may be appropriately presented
without much concern for whether or not R feels the need for
that kind of information. Messages that are intended to
influence R's behavior, however, must be presented in such a
way that the symbols employed stimulate within R the desired
effect. A message that is strictly informative will not have high
impact unless R perceives it to relate to a felt need. If R is
already aware of such a need and hears something that relates
to it, R may (or may not) make the connection without C's help.
If, however, C perceives a need that R does not realize, it is C's
task to present the message via such symbols as will stimulate
R to make the desired connection and the desired change in
behavior. Such stimulus is here termed “impact.” As in all
communication it is R who makes the final judgment
concerning the impact of M and what to do about it.
PRINCIPLE 6
Model 7a
The most impactful communication results from person-to-
person interaction.
It is the “rubbing” of life against life, not simply the
sending and receiving of vocal, gestural, or printed symbols
that makes for maximum effectiveness in communication. Even
in mass communication where R has no opportunity for close
contact with C, the impact of M is affected by whatever
information R has concerning C as a person. Messages are
considered credible or not credible on the basis of the nature
of their relationship to the life of C, on the one hand, and to
that of R, on the other. Prolonged involvement of person with
person (e.g., in a family) assures intensive and effective
communication of a multiplicity of messages transmitted and
received both consciously and unconsciously concerning a
multiplicity of topics. The less personal the communicational
interaction (e.g., in a public lecture or via radio), the more the
communicational event is likely to devolve simply into a
performance. While a great deal of information may be
conveyed by such means, the permanent impact is likely to be
low, owing to the reduction of the person-to-personness of the
situation—unless R's felt need for the information conveyed
happens to be high.

PRINCIPLE 7
Model 7b
Communication is most effective when C, M, and R
 participate in the same context(s), setting(s), or frame(s) of
reference.
The sharing of cultural, subcultural, linguistic, and
experiential frames of reference maximizes the possibility that
the cultural forms/symbols employed to transmit messages will
mean the same thing to both C and R. Differences in the frames
of reference of C and R assure that at least some of the
symbols employed in M will be understood differently by the
participants. If C's frame of reference is adopted as that in terms
of which the communication is to take place, R must be
extracted from his or her own frame of reference and
indoctrinated into that of C. If R's frame of reference is chosen,
C must learn whatever is necessary to function properly in that
frame of reference. See below for a fuller treatment of this and
the next three principles.

PRINCIPLE 8
Model 7c
Communication is most effective when C has earned
credibility as a respectable human being within the chosen
frame of reference.

Lack of credibility on the part of C severely hampers C's

ability to communicate the message. One of the greatest
hindrances is the tendency of R to assign C to some isolating
stereotype such as doctor, clergyman, expert, foreigner, fool,
unintelligent person, high-class person, and the like. If such
occurs, C has to discover how to win credibility with R by
escaping from the stereotyped category of people into R's
“human-being” category. One important way of accomplishing
this is by C's acting unpredictably in terms of R's stereotype.

PRINCIPLE 9
Model 7d
Communication is most effective when M is understood by R
to relate specifically to life as R lives it.

General messages may have general appeal but they have

low impact. To have high impact M must be perceived by R to
“scratch where it itches.” Historical, technical, theoretical, and
academic presentations may contribute to R's store of
information but they rarely affect the person's behavior unless,
via application and illustration, lessons are extracted from them
and related to R's day-to-day life. Likewise with predictable,
stereotyped messages. Personal experiences of C and case
studies from the lives of others are often effective techniques
for making messages specific to R's life.

PRINCIPLE 10
Model 7e
Communication is most effective when R discovers (1) an
ability to identify at least partially with C and (2) the
relevance of M to his or her own life.

This principle states R's ideal response to C's attempts to

establish his or her own credibility (principle 8) and that of the
message (principle 9). When C and M have the proper impact
on R, the latter responds by discovering a life-changing
relationship to both of them.

Employing the Frame-of-Reference Principle

(Model 7b)
Human beings live in different contexts or frames of
reference. And this causes communication problems, since all
the symbols (cultural forms) by means of which people can
communicate derive their meanings totally from the frame of
reference in which they participate. There are no such symbols
with universal meanings (Nida 1960, 89-93). Thus, if effective
communication is to take place, both the communicator and the
receptor must be in a position to attach similar meanings to the
symbols employed. This implies that they must be operating
within a common context or frame of reference. For if persons
speak no common language and have no culturally defined
common agreements concerning the noises and gestures they
use, their ability to communicate with each other will be
virtually nil. No bridge for communicative interaction exists
between them.
Sharing a frame of reference will involve primarily a
common understanding of cultural and linguistic categories.
The common cultural involvement of persons of the same
society ordinarily means that each will be able to make a high
proportion of correct assumptions concerning what the other
person means to convey via the use he or she makes of
linguistic and nonlinguistic cultural symbols. When potential
communicators employ specialized jargon, they risk the
possibility of “losing” their hearers if the frame of reference in
terms of which they are speaking is not shared by their hearers.
Such is often the case when Christians attempt to witness to
non-Christians by using such “Christian jargon” as “church,”
“be saved,” “believe,” “accept Christ,” “justification,” “sin,”
etc. When people belong to such different subsocieties, the
lack of agreement concerning the meanings of linguistic and
nonlinguistic items severely hampers communication. If the
distance between speaker and hearer is even greater, as
between members of very different societies (e.g., American
versus an African society), then the percentage of shared
cultural and linguistic categories in terms of which
communication is possible is severely reduced, even if one of
them has learned the language of the other. Thus, the
possibility of misunderstanding is enormously increased.
The frame of reference chosen for the communication can
be that of either participant but with a different impact,
depending on whose set of categories is employed. If the
communicator demands that it be his or her frame of reference
that provides the communicational categories rather than
that of the hearer, the approach may be labeled
“extractionist.” A primary concern of such communicators,
then, is to convert receptors to their way of thinking to force
them out of their frame of reference. Such communicators seek
to use their power to teach their receptors to understand and
look at reality in terms of their own models and perspectives.
This is the approach of missions that employ Western schools
to teach children Western ways of thinking so that they can
come to Christ.
If, for example, an extractionist communicator believes that
the Bible is inspired and authoritative but the hearer doesn't,
this approach would demand that the hearer first convert to the
speaker's understanding of biblical inspiration. This would be a
prerequisite to the establishment of the frame of reference in
terms of which they will operate. I once heard of a potential
Christian witness being broken off very early in the
conversation with words like these: “You don't believe the
Bible is inspired? Well, then, I don't have anything more to say
to you.” If, for some reason, that receptor had badly wanted
what the communicator was offering (salvation in Christ), he or
she would have had to at least “go along with” the conviction
of the communicator. Tor the latter was clearly designating his
frame of reference as the only acceptable matrix for their
discussion. If, however, the receptor did not care that much
about the communicator's message, the receptor would simply
reject it without a hearing in response to the would-be
communicator's rejection of the receptor's frame of reference.
In a cross-cultural situation problems often arise when the
Western communicator's worldview holds that the physical
environment is to be viewed as controllable by human beings,
while the receptor's worldview holds an opposite point of view.
An extractionist approach attempts to convert the potential
receptor to the advocate's position as pre-or co-requisite to
any intercultural communication involving these concepts. If,
as often happens in missionary work, the missionary's culture
is highly regarded by the potential receptors, while their
attitude toward their own culture is ambivalent or negative, the
receptors may well be intimidated into agreeing to the
advocate's demands. The receptors will then convert to the
latter's cultural understanding as a part of what they believe is
necessary to become a Christian. They may in this way become
genuine Christians—though understanding and expressing
their Christianity in ways foreign to their home culture. Or they
may simply convert to the foreign culture without becoming
Christian at all. In many other missionary situations (e.g.,
Islamic areas), where the receptors have a high view of their
own culture and a lower view of that of the missionary, they are
unlikely to respond in ways suggested above. For they are not
positive toward a witness who seeks to extract them from their
own cultural frame of reference in order to insert them into that
of the missionary as a pre-or co-requisite to their conversion to
Christ.
If, instead of this extractionist approach, the communicator
adopts the receptor's frame of reference as that in terms of
which the communication takes place, we may label the
approach “identificational” or “incarnational.” In this approach
communicators become familiar with the conceptual framework
of the receptor and attempt to fit their communication to the
categories and felt needs of that frame of reference.
Communicators employing this approach first attempt to learn
where their hearer is and what needs the hearer feels before
attempting to present any answers. And then the answers are
presented in such a way that they “scratch the hearer's itch”—
not the speaker's. If the hearer is hurting because of loneliness
or meaninglessness, this identificational approach attempts to
apply the gospel to these needs. It does not insist that the
hearer first learn to desire heaven or to feel guilt as a sinner.
Suppose a Christian in a cross-cultural situation discovers
that the potential receptors feel that God has gone far away,
having left humanity helpless and hopeless. Identificational
advocates, without denying the receptors' understanding
(even though regarding it as misguided), attempt to “fill in the
blank” by initially communicating only that part of their
understanding of God that answers the receptors' felt need. By
this means, communicators identify both themselves and their
message with an appropriate part of the hearers' frame of
reference and lead the hearers gently from their own felt need
to the Christian answer to that need. But this is accomplished
without the extractionist's precondition that the communication
take place within the communicator's (rather than the hearer')
frame of reference.
Thus, in my own experience in Africa, one of our favorite
leading questions when witnessing was, “What did your
people believe about God before the missionaries came?” One
day, in response to that question, an old chief told us the
following myth:

Once God and his son lived close to us. They walked,
talked, ate, and slept among us. All was well then. There
was no thievery or fighting or running off with another
man's wife like there is now. But one day God's son ate in
the home of a careless woman. She had not cleaned her
dishes properly. God's son ate from a dirty dish, got sick,
and died. This, of course, made God very angry. He left in a
huff and hasn't been heard from since.
Then the chief looked at me and said, “White man, can you tell
us how to get back into contact with God?”
An extractionist might well have answered that question
by reading the account from Genesis 3 of how human
alienation from God came about. The extractionist would have
pointed out how wrong the chief's story was and attempted
first to convert him to the correct story in Genesis. The
missionary would then most likely have attempted to get the
chief to feel guilty about his sins and in some Western
philosophic way tried to connect them with Adam's sin. If the
missionary were successful to this point (and this just might
happen—especially if the African had greater respect for the
missionary's culture than for his own), he or she would go on
to redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation and, one hopes, the
decision of the chief to convert. Along the way, in order to
“simplify” things and to assure that the chief got all the points
straight, the missionary would arrange for him to join a
“converts' class.” At the end of that class, then, the degree to
which he had been extracted from his own conceptual frame of
reference and indoctrinated into that of the missionary would
be tested.
An identificational approach, on the other hand, would
take the chiefs story very seriously. Without contradicting or
correcting any of its essentials, this approach would address
the communication directly to the expressed question. The real
truths of the chief's story (e.g., the existence of God and his
son, the alienation between people and God, the resultant
description of human relationships) would be the focus. The
only additions would be God's plan of salvation and (if not at
that time, certainly eventually) the necessity for a faith-
response to God as the means of restoring the original peaceful
relationship. Since the missionary would have already learned
that this society functions in groups rather than as individuals,
any appeal for decision would be addressed to the chief and
his group, not to him as an individual. For at every point the
attempt to witness identificationally takes the receptor's frame
of reference as the context for communication.
The aims of both the identificational and the extractionist
approaches are similar—to lead the receptors into an
experience with God through Christ. Extractionism, however,
requires a high degree of indoctrination involving a longish
period of dependence on the communicator for instruction in
order to be effective. For the strange (to the receptor) frame of
reference in terms of which the communication takes place
must be carefully taught. Much Christian missionary effort has,
unfortunately, adopted the extractionist approach. This is in
spite of the fact that many of the major changes that this
approach has effected in the thinking of receptor peoples have
proved to be counter to the specifically religious aims of
Christianity. That is, because of their extreme dependence on
Western schools teaching secular Western curricula, missions
have typically produced a scientistic, naturalistic, secularistic
frame of reference that is antithetical to Christianity, rather than
a Christian supernaturalistic focus. It Is an ironic fact that
missionary schools have become the greatest secularizing
force in the non-Western world.
The identificational approach is more in keeping with the
approach of the early Christians. It is incarnational. Jesus
himself, working on an interpersonal though not an
intercultural level, started with the felt needs of his potential
receptors, adopting their frame of reference as that in terms of
which he operated. He dealt with Nicodemus in terms of his
Pharisaic understanding, with the Samaritan woman in terms of
her background, with the disciples in still other ways, with
Zacchaeus differently yet. He told the rich young ruler to
follow him (Mark 10:21) but forbade the demoniac to (Luke
8:38-39). Jesus was not being inconsistent—he was very
consistent in his principle of working incarnationally with each
person in terms of that person's frame of reference. The apostle
Paul, in keeping with the same identificational approach,
determined to be Jewish when attempting to communicate with
Jews and Greek when attempting to communicate
interculturally with Greeks (1 Cor. 9:19-22). He provides a
prototypical example of an identificational approach when he
says, in speaking to a group of Athenian philosophers,

Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very

religious. For as I walked through your city and looked at
the places where you worship, I found also an altar on
which is written, “To an Unknown God.” That which you
worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I
now proclaim to you. (Acts 17:22-23 TEV)

'The frame-of-reference principle may be usefully

summarized in figure 8.1 (p. 122). Situation I depicts the would-
be communicator and the would-be receptor in entirely
different frames of reference. Since there is no bridge between
them, such a situation means that effective communication of
person “a” with person “b” is impossible. Situation II shows
the extractionist approach to bringing both communicator and
receptor into the same frame of reference, while Situation III
depicts the identificational approach, which Jesus and Paul
employed.

The Communicator-Credibility Principle

(Model 7c)
Once the frame of reference for communication is
established, communicators must give attention to the matter
of their credibility with those they seek to reach. They may
unthinkingly simply accept whatever stereotype the receptors
have of them. Or, disliking that stereotype, they may make an
effort to reject it and to establish some alternative basis for
interaction with the receptors.
A stereotype may be thought of as a technique for lumping
people into a grouping for the purpose of saving oneself the
time and energy that would be necessary to relate to each one
personally. Stereotyping appears to be a necessary
sociocultural mechanism. It enables one to cope to some extent
with large numbers of people that one could not possibly relate
to individually. A serious problem arises, however, when one
comes into person-to-person contact with a member of the
stereotyped group and, instead of relating to that one as a
person, relates in terms of the generalized understandings
derived from the stereotype. Thus, a dichotomy is set up
between regarding and relating to a person in terms of the
stereotype of that person's group and regarding and relating to
a person as an individual human being. Stereotypes
depersonalize.
In attempting to communicate identificationally, one can
easily be crippled by allowing oneself and one's actions simply
to be interpreted in terms of a stereotype, even if the
stereotype should be a complimentary one. The stereotyped
understanding removes a person from the realm of human-
beingness. It interprets a person too predictably. It keeps that
person at arm's length from the people he or she seeks to reach,
whether by according unearned respect (that is, unearned
within the receptor's context) or by denying respect. Thus, in
attempting to communicate to another person, a stranger who
simply conforms to the receptor's stereotyped expectations
operates at a low degree of credibility. For what the stranger
says and does is predictable in terms of the receptor's
stereotype of the person. If, however, what the person says
and does is not predictable in terms of the stereotypic
expectations of the potential receptors, the communication
value of the person's message and overall credibility may be
increased. All the person has to assure is that the
unpredictability is in the direction of the receptor's definition of
human-beingness.
 Fig. 8.1. Three approaches to inter-frame-of-reference communication.

If, for example, person A is initially perceived by person B

as a preacher, person B automatically attaches to the former
whatever expectations B's stereotype of a preacher might
require. And if that preacher never says or does anything to
shake the hearer's faith in the appropriateness of the
stereotype, the credibility of A's message may be seriously
compromised. This is especially true if a part of the stereotype
is the conviction that any preacher is simply “out of it” as far
as the real life issues of the hearer are concerned.
A university student once came to a professor's office to
ask some minor question concerning a course she was taking
from him. He invited her to sit down, and they began to talk
about various things. This went on for some time; then she
seemed to lose track of the conversation for a moment. Finally
she broke in with something like, “Gee, you don't act like a
professor! You know,” she continued, “since I've come to this
university no professor has ever spent more than ten minutes
with me. And nobody has ever shown the interest in me that
you've been showing.” A poor, lost victim of what some have
called the “megaversity” had finally found someone among the
gods of that situation who had broken the stereotype. At least
for that hour or so, the professor had begun to relate to her as
she expected a human being to relate to her, rather than simply
in terms of her stereotype of a professor.
A pastor whom I know, when straight out of college,
accepted a call to a small New England church. Soon after
assuming that pastorate he also took a job in a factory. The
deacons of the church reprimanded him for this. They admitted
that they weren't paying him a very high salary but insisted
that they expected him to devote all his time to the work of the
church. “Oh,” he replied, “it's not for the sake of the money
that I took the job in the factory. In fact,” he continued, “the
church is welcome to whatever I earn. It's just that to this point
I've spent all my time in school. Yet I'm expected to minister to
people who spend from nine to five every day in the factory. If
I'm going to minister effectively to these people, I've got to find
out what it's like to be in their shoes.” I rate this as one of the
most constructive approaches to the ministry that I've ever
seen. Though the pastor and his people were members of the
same society, he was able to recognize that in major ways they
were operating within different subsocietal frames of reference.
He lived within an academic subsociety while they lived within
quite a different subsociety, strongly influenced by their
involvement in factory work. In this and other ways he was
able to break through the stereotype that the church people
had of a pastor. By frequently illustrating his points from his
experience in a factory, he was able to dramatically increase the
effectiveness both of his preaching and of his overall
relationship with the people.
On the cross-cultural level, the Nigerians among whom I
worked assigned such a high prestige to the missionary role
that the missionary was virtually regarded as fitting into the
“God” category, rather than into the “human-being” category.
From their point of view, beings are assignable to but one of
two categories which may be labeled “human” and
“supernatural.” Human beings were easily assignable by
analogy to themselves. That is, strangers coming into their
midst were simply observed, and, if they acted more or less like
them, they were unthinkingly assigned to the “human-being”
category. But they had a big problem with the assignment of
Westerners to that category. For so many of the things with
which we are associated in their minds have not traditionally
been associated with their category “human being” but, rather,
with their category “supernatural.”
Who but supernatural beings could possess magic
powerful enough to produce automobiles, trains, airplanes,
radios, Western medicines, monstrous buildings, engines for
grinding grain, fertilizers, Western cloth and clothing, sewing
machines, paved roads, fantastic bridges across uncrossable
rivers, self-propelled boats, etc.? How could these beings be
fitted into their category “human being”? They must, belong to
the “God” category with the rest of the incomprehensible,
superhuman, supernatural beings. So these Nigerians said,
“Fear God, fear the white man,” and assigned Westerners,
including the missionaries, to the “God” category. And this
assignment, in the case of missionaries, is continually
reinforced in the minds of many by the fact that the
missionaries speak of God as if they were on intimate terms
with God. Furthermore, they frequently act with a confidence
Nigerians considered appropriate to God but not to human
beings. That is, missionaries behaved according to the
Nigerian stereotype of God, not according to their
understanding of how human beings behave.
This type of stereotyping is perhaps the most disturbing
thing about simply being assigned to a role such, as
“missionary.” For it allows the people to whom missionaries go
to understand them and their presence in their midst wholly in
terms of whatever their stereotype of a missionary might be.
That is, missionaries become in their eyes absolutely
predictable, isolated from effective contact with them, and
depersonalized. In the case of the Nigerian situation referred to
above (which is not at all uncommon the world over, especially
in rural areas), this meant that missionaries were not expected
to operate by the rules governing human beings. Missionaries
were not considered to be restricted by the same limitations
that human beings are restricted by, nor could they be
approached in a manner appropriate to human beings. At each
of these points (and many others) the analogy in the minds of
those people as they sought to think about or Interrelate with
missionaries was not a human-to-human analogy but a human-
to-God analogy.
In other parts of the world, especially in urban areas, the
specifics of the stereotype may vary. But a similarly well-
defined set of predictabilities resulting in a similar stereotype is
generated. In many cases the stereotype of missionaries is a
negative one. They may be regarded as subordinary human
beings rather than as superhuman. They may be considered
strange rather than respected. These same principles apply to
both positive and negative stereotypes.
If missionaries simply conform to the people's stereotype of
what missionaries should act like, the communicational impact
of their activity is likely to be slight, unless their stereotype
puts the missionaries within their frame of reference as full-
fledged human beings. The missionaries may act unpredictably
in terms of the stereotype, but in a manner intelligible to them
in terms of their concept of human-beingness. In such a case
the missionaries' credibility, the communication value of their
message, and the potential for its acceptance are all increased.
By thus Identifying with the potential receptors and acting
credibly (i.e., unpredictably in terms of the stereotype),
hundreds of missionaries and others have endeared
themselves to their hearers and effectively communicated the
Christian message to peoples all over the world.
Such communicators have earned rather than demanded
the respect they have received. They have followed Jesus'
example in turning their backs on the assigned status, the
expected role (Phil. 2:5-8), to risk the possibility that they may
never be accorded any respect at all. They have attempted to
understand the people to whom they go and to see life as they
see it. They have empathized with those people, identified with
them, participated in life with them. They have been involved in
the lives of “their” people even to the extent of human-being-
to-human-being “self-exposure” (Loewen 1965). And they have
won a greater hearing as credible human beings than they ever
could have as stereotyped semigods.

The Message-Credibility Principle (Model

7d)
The use of these two principles of effective communication
prepares the way for the potentially life-changing interactions
that are the focus of this and the next principle. The message-
credibility principle observes that a message has greatest
impact if (1) it is not a stereotyped message and (2) if it is
presented in very specific life-related fashion.
The stereotyping of messages, like the stereotyping of
communicators, considerably reduces their impact. A
stereotyped message is predictable and therefore has little in it
to attract receptors' attention. It may serve to confirm receptors
in their biases and thus allow them to feel comfortable. But it
will not induce them to alter their behavior. We may illustrate
this fact by referring to an aspect of the English linguistic frame
of reference.
If one says, “He winked his…” or “He shrugged his…,” the
impact of the information conveyed by the word “eye” in the
completed first statement or the word “shoulder” in the second
is exactly zero. For no other fillers of these blanks are allowable
by English structure. Each word is absolutely predictable in its
context (frame of reference) and adds no information to the
message not already signaled. If, as someone says “He winked
his eye,” some noise blots out the last word, nothing is lost,
since “eye” is 100 percent predictable in that context. The
impact of that word symbol in that context is nil.
In statements such as “The…barked” or “He smacked
his…,” the predictability of the words filling the blanks is very
high, but not quite 100 percent. For, were a word spoken in
each of the blanks blotted out by some noise, one could not be
sure whether it was a dog, a seal, or a baboon that barked or
whether the person smacked his lips or his child. The
“information value” and consequent impact of the word that
fills the blank in either of these statements is, therefore, slightly
higher than that of the fillers in the sentences in the paragraph
above, because its predictability is lower. This principle may be
pictured on a “seesaw” diagram as in figure 8.2:

Fig. 8.2. Relationship between predictability and impact: high predictability - low
impact; low predictability = high, impact

Note that any movement of the left end of the “seesaw”

toward higher predictability forces the right end down toward a
lessening of the impact of the message. On the other hand, any
movement of the right end toward higher impact forces the left
end down toward a lessening of predictability (always, of
course, within the given frame of reference).
The message that is not predictable in terms of some
stereotype, like the communicator that thus resists
predictability, has greater impact on the receptors. This is the
principle employed in developing newspaper headlines. And as
our newspapers demonstrate, it is a principle that has to be
employed carefully or it can damage rather than enhance
credibility. For if the communication that follows the initial
unpredictable “attention-getter” does not fulfill the promise of
that headline, the credibility of the message (and of the
communicator) may be destroyed—especially if this is done
regularly.
Much more trustworthy in enhancing the credibility and
impact of the message is its specificity to the life of the
receptor(s). The communicator needs both to become a
specific human being in terms of the receptors' definition of
human-beingness and to learn to communicate like a human
being (from their point of view). Person-to-person involvement
in life is ordinarily as crucial to high message credibility as it is
to communicator credibility in most cultural contexts. However,
should the receptors feel a great need for a given message, its
credibility for them is assured, no matter what the
circumstances. Usually, though, the message and/or the
messenger need to generate enough credibility in the eyes of
the receptors to win them over. Receptors usually have to be
convinced that the message is specifically related to the needs
they feel.
To relate the message to the real life of one's hearers, the
communicator must learn to employ the communicational
devices familiar to the receptor in ways to which the receptor is
responsive. Credible messages, like credible communicators,
start incarnationally—from where the receptor is. In many
societies this involves the knowledge and use of a variety of
proverbs, aphorisms, and tales of various kinds. Such literary
devices form important vehicles within their communicational
system. In the majority of the world's cultural contexts, these
devices will need to be used orally, since most of the peoples
of the world (by some estimates, as high as 70 percent of the
population) either cannot read or do not care to. And even with
those who do read, the credibility of the message is so closely
related to the credibility of the messenger that personal oral
presentation generally has greater impact than written
communication. Messages that have to do with personal
experience, furthermore, have greater impact than messages
that are primarily informational, though logical, such as
sermons. This is true even if the personal experiences consist
not of descriptions of actual events but of stories that, though
not true, are true to life. Many of Jesus' parables are just such
true-to-life stories. Credible messages deal with real life or
true-to-life experience.
How wide of the mark is the kind of homiletic instruction
regularly taught preachers that encourages a primary focus on
a few generalized “points” with few, if any, allusions to
personal experience. Often young preachers are encouraged to
spend the majority of their time simply explaining
(“expositing”) biblical passages in the belief that only such
preaching is truly biblical (see Ramm 1970, 97). Such preaching,
unless carefully related to the felt needs of the receptors and
fully illustrated from real life or true-to-life experience, is often
low-credibility communication, since it intellectualizes the Bible
rather than following the example of the Bible. Rather than
intellectualizing the Bible, we should imitate the way biblical
authors present their relevant, life-related messages. Following
the biblical example is especially important in non-Western and
rural societies where people are not as used to intellectualizing
in their everyday life as are Westerners.
How sad it was for me recently to hear a whole sermon by
an African pastor in the Hausa language without a single
proverb, cultural aphorism, or even an illustration in it! And
this in a language and culture that in ordinary conversation
drives virtually every point home with at least one proverb. But
this man had been taught to “preach from the Bible” in a
Western way rather than from life. Starting from the text in this
way is extractionist, unless that is where the audience is. Jesus
started from Scripture when speaking to the Pharisees and
Satan—an approach relevant to those audiences. When
speaking to the common people, however, he started where
they were. He dealt with topics of interest to them and
employed communicational techniques (like parables)
understood and appreciated by them. From real life, then, he
moved to an application of the truths of God. Such specificity
and life-relatedness invite receptor discovery (see below) and
give credibility to both the message and the messenger.
It also invites the hearer to identify with the speaker. And
human commonality seems to be such that even across
sociocultural barriers (such as those between us and the
persons whose case histories are recorded in the Bible or those
between Western missionaries and their hearers) a high degree
of this reverse or reciprocating identification is possible if the
communicator speaks in terms of common human experience
rather than in generalizations. Effective communication starts
with an attempt on the part of the communicator to relate
identificationally with the audience and succeeds best when
both participants are able to relate reciprocally as persons and
each to messages relevant to real life. When a potential
communicator lives within the hearer's frame of reference in a
way that is intelligible to the hearer, the communication is
enhanced greatly in specificity.
I once asked a missionary if he didn't feel a bit guilty over
having fixed up his house so nicely. He had not only made the
house comfortable by American standards but had added a
touch of luxury to it here and there. “No,” he replied, “the
Nigerians expect us to live this way.” And he was absolutely
right! But the communication value of his living condition was
zero, since his actions were completely predictable (in terms of
the missionary stereotype) and beyond the specific knowledge
of his hearers. His communication resulted in very low
credibility for both himself and his message. Another
missionary locked up his mission home for a few weeks and
moved his family and a few necessaries seven miles out into
the African bush to live in an African compound. He hadn't
been there very long when his African host asked, “Why have
you come to live in our place? If I had a home like yours, I
wouldn't even poke my nose outside the door, much less come
way out here to live.”
This missionary had (1) put himself within the African's
frame of reference, (2) broken out of the stereotype in such a
way that the African was forced to reconsider his stereotype
and the credibility of the missionary, and (3) become
specifically known by the African. As the message of all of this
began to sink in, it resulted In some very interesting questions
and comments from the African host. One day the African
came to him and said, “I know why you don't like our food….
We don't like yours either!” The practice had been for each to
offer the other a portion of his food whenever it was mealtime,
and this sharing had resulted in quite a significant discovery
on the part of the African. For to him the missionary had
previously been not only distant, isolated, and unknown but
also a source of envy. The African envied both his food and
his home. But when the African began to experience the
specificity of the life involvement with the missionary that that
situation required, a new kind of understanding of the
missionary and everything about him, including his message,
began to break through via the process of reciprocal
identification mentioned above. And this experience was
doubly good. For the same sort of insight concerning what it is
like to be inside the skin of an African was breaking through to
the missionary as well He was thus enabled to communicate
more effectively from within the African's frame of reference. In
another experiment in living in an African village another
missionary was told, “We want to follow your God, not that of
the [other] missionaries!”
A similar, though necessarily lesser, impact is carried by the
specificity of life-related sermon illustrations, teaching
examples, and personal testimonies (whether of Christian
experience or by way of recommendation of a product, movie,
teacher, etc.). See chapter 9 for a discussion of this principle
with respect to the Bible.

The Discovery Principle (Model 7e)

Though the three aspects of the communication process
previously discussed all relate primarily to the activity of the
communicator, the fourth relates primarily to the potential
receptor. This principle suggests that communicational
effectiveness is heightened considerably (1) if receptors have
the impression that the new information or insight has come to
them via their own discovery rather than as the result of their
being told something by an outsider and (2) if receptors
discover that they can identify with the communicator. The
effective communicator, then, seeks to lead potential receptors
to the discovery of both the substance and the value of the
message, rather than simply to provide for them
“prefabricated” alternatives to their present understandings.
And, as pointed out above, by presenting the message via
involvement in the life of the receptor, the communicator
invites the kind of reciprocal identification that drives the
message home with impact.
We who live in a day of prefabricated houses and
preshrunk clothes are also constantly besieged by predigested
messages, often presented in. “one-way conversations” such
as lectures, books, and sermons. And much of the effect of all
of this is to rob us of the opportunity of discovery. We are very
privileged to read and hear of the discoveries of others. But we
are often largely unable to avail ourselves of the insights that
pass through our consciousness because, though we have
heard much, we have not been allowed to discover much on
our own. And it is in the process of discovery rather than in
the simple hearing of the report of someone else's discovery
presented in predigested form that the deepest, most abiding
kind of learning takes place. This is likely the main reason why
God has provided us with a Bible written in experience-oriented
casebook fashion rather than as a predigested theology
textbook (see chapter 10).
This type of discovery-oriented learning provides the basis
for the educational systems of a majority of the peoples of the
world and once had a much more prominent place in our own
educational system. Education, for example, that makes much
use of proverbs, fables, parables, and similar types of stylized
recountings of the experience and accumulated wisdom of the
community tends to be oriented to discovery. That is, the focus
is usually on the deducing (discovery) of the kind of activity
recommended by these techniques for immediate application in
the life of the hearer rather than (as is often the case in our
educational system) on the mere assimilation of information
considered valuable for its own sake, whether or not it is
applicable to the life of the hearer. An additional value of
“discovery education” is that it is learner oriented rather than
teacher oriented. This kind of educational process is
dependent on learners deducing (discovering) what in the
materials presented is of value to them and in what way it may
be applicable in their lives. Basically, they are learning how to
learn. It does not matter whether the communicator of the
information Is regarded as a teacher. They learn from the
teacher how to learn on their own; not, as in American society,
only how to depend on teachers and other “experts” to
predigest and even to apply the material presented.
This does not mean that the potential communicator
refrains from articulating a message in hopes that the hearers
will discover it on their own. On the contrary, the communicator
speaks and lives as persuasively as possible, employing the
principles described above as completely as possible but in a
noncoercive manner. The communicator recognizes that the
determinative role in the communication process is that of the
receptor rather than that of the communicator. Receptors alone
can make the recommended changes in their own perspective,
and everything depends on their feeling that whatever change
they make is on the basis of their own choice rather than
because of outside coercion. Discovery, then, is the process
within the receptors' minds by means of which they come to
understand the relevance to them of the communication and
begin to apply the new insights to their own felt needs.
Millions of non-Christians, exposed to effective communication
on the basis of these principles, are yearly having revealed to
them via discovery the relevance of the Christian message to
their lives in the same way that happened to Peter (Matt. 16:15-
17). Note that what Peter perceived as discovery was labeled
revelation by Jesus. Apparently revelation and discovery are
the divine and human aspects of the same process.

Summary of the Principles

Soon after a young missionary had taken charge of a
mission station in Africa, he was sitting chatting with the son
of the local chief on the porch of the mission home. After some
time the chiefs son looked up at the missionary, asking, “How
long have we been here?” The missionary calculated the time
and said, “About an hour.” The chiefs son then asked, “Do
you know how long I would have been here if your
predecessor was still here?” The missionary answered, “No.”
“Five minutes,” the chiefs son replied. “Your predecessor
would have come to the door when I called and asked me,
‘What do you want?' I would have stated my business, gotten
my answer, and been off again in about five minutes! Just look,
we've been sitting here for an hour, and I didn't even notice
that the time was passing!”
The previous missionary had made only one major blunder.
He had acted in a way perfectly intelligible from within his
cultural framework by stepping outside to meet the chiefs son,
extending to the African a few common greetings, and getting
right to the point (so as not to waste too much time) by asking
very politely but directly what the man wanted. The African,
however, was interpreting all of these things from within his
frame of reference. And his frame of reference regards a direct
question such as “What do you want?” no matter how politely
asked in that context, as an extreme breach of etiquette. It is
about the equivalent of a punch in the nose. In his cultural
context it is the prerogative of the one who comes to state his
business in his own good time. It is a matter of common
courtesy for the person visited to wait until the visitor gets
ready to bring up the matter that brought him.
However, the chiefs son had come to expect such breaches
of etiquette on the part of missionaries. And this expectation
had become a part of his stereotype of missionaries. Thus, it
was not the actions of the first missionary that startled him. It
was the fact that the newcomer was willing to sit and chat with
him without asking what brought him. It was the humanness of
the second missionary—humanness in terms of his African
definition of human-beingness—that caused him to sit up and
take notice. For that which he could define as courtesy in terms
of his frame of reference was, in this situation, the
unpredictable and the specific that led to a new discovery on
the part of this chiefs son.
The following outline of this material may be useful as an
aid to understanding the whole process:
 Fig. 8.3. Outline of key communicational principles.

1. Kraft 1973c, 1973e, 1974 and 1991 include previous versions of much of
the material in this and the following sections in this chapter and the first section of
chapter 9.
 Part 4

THE DYNAMICS OF REVELATION

9
RECEPTOR-ORIENTED REVELATION

This section is devoted to the application of

anthropological and communicational models to theological
interpretation (models 8-10). These models yield exciting
perspectives on revelation and inspiration. I believe the use of
such models to assist us in understanding divine revelation is
a step toward the kind of revision of our theories of revelation
and inspiration that Bernard Ramm foresaw when he said,

When…an immense amount of sober research has gone

into the nature of language theory and communication, we
might have to develop a whole new theory of inspiration
and revelation. I am always haunted with the suspicion that
our theories of inspiration and revelation are severely
culturally conditioned by our culture and not, as we hope
and think, by the Scriptures themselves. It may well turn
out that when modern theory of communications is
developed, we will find that Holy Scripture is far more in
harmony with that than it is with the kinds of concepts of
language and communication we have worked with in the
past few centuries in developing an evangelical view of
revelation and inspiration. (Ramm 1971, 55)
 Before the first edition of this book was published, I was
able to meet with Ramm and to ask if my book was in any way a
fulfillment of his prediction. It pleased me greatly to receive his
affirmation and to have him agree to write the foreword to the
first edition. Since God does not speak or reveal “out into thin
air,” but comes all the way “down” to human beings where we
are, Ramm is asking that we use the sharpest tools available to
analyze God's communication at the human level. In crossing
the gap between himself and his creatures, God does not
merely build a bridge like the one that used to exist in Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania, halfway across a river. To use that bridge,
people would have to build the other half. God does not require
us to construct the other half of the communicational bridge in
order to understand him. Rather, he builds the bridge all the
way, employing our language, our culture, and the principles of
communication in terms of which we operate.

Model 8a
God reveals himself in a receptor-oriented fashion. Model 8
deals with the nature and components of God's revelation in
culture.
In this chapter we focus on the analysis of God's
communication of himself in terms of the principles set forth in
chapter 8. The Incarnation is then presented as a case study, a
concept of dynamic revelation is developed, and the place of
the Bible as a measure of revelation is discussed. The following
chapters in this section elaborate on this concept.
 Communicating across the Supracultural-
Cultural Gap

Model 8b
Receptor-oriented revelation shows God communicating
across the gap between his supracultural realm and that of
culture-bound humanity. To do this he employs the
communicational principles detailed in chapter 8 (models 6
and 7).

How does one bridge a gap like that between the

supracultural, absolute God and finite, sinful, culture-bound
humans? We wouldn't know were it not for the fact that we
have a written record of a large number of God's “bridgings” of
that gap.
I have sought to demonstrate that (1) human beings are
totally immersed in culture, while (2) God exists totally free of
culture (except as he chooses to submit to cultural limitations),
but that (3) God uses human culture as the milieu within which
he interacts with human beings. One of the important
implications of the first of these assertions is that humans are
utterly dependent on communication from outside of culture
for information concerning what exists there. “If we are
authorized to say anything at all about the living God, it is only
because of God's initiative” (Henry 1976, 2:8). God-given
information, then, must be phrased in cultural terms if it is to be
intelligible to human beings. For human beings cannot see
supracultural truth apart from our cultures (1 Cor. 13:12). We
see such truth only in terms of the perceptual categories of the
cultural frames of reference in which we are immersed. God, in
seeking to reveal himself to us, does so in terms of human
language and culture, within the human frame of reference.
His primary method may be labeled “interactional” (model
7a). That is, God reveals himself by interacting with his human
receptors. And whenever he interacts with humans, he, like a
human being, reveals something of himself. He is not simply
the God who acted (Wright 1952) to create the material
universe and who now acts to sustain it—although he does
perform these and, undoubtedly, a large number of other
activities that have primary reference to material phenomena.
He has revealed himself to us primarily as the God who gives
himself to human beings in personal interaction. He must be
more than what we know persons to be. But he assumes a form
that we can understand. And in this personal interaction he
has brought about the spanning of the gap that separates God
from human beings.
There was and is a gap, though. God and human beings
exist in utterly separate frames of reference. And we, limited as
we are by our cultural context, would not even know God
existed except for the fact that he took the initiative and
revealed himself. This he did, we assert, by employing the
principles dealt with in the preceding chapter for
communicational interaction between personal beings. God's
revelation, then, can be understood in communicational terms.
In accordance with the principles outlined in the preceding
chapter, God (1) seeks to be understood, (2) recognizes that
what R (the receptor) will understand depends as much on R's
perception as on how he (God) presents the message, and (3)
realizes that it is his task to stimulate the receptor to produce
within the receptor's head the desired meanings. God,
therefore, is (4) receptor-oriented in the way he goes about
presenting his messages. He attempts to (5) present those
messages with impact in (6) person-to-person interaction
within (7) the receptor's frame of reference via (8) credible
human communicators who (9) relate God's messages
specifically to the lives of the receptors and (10) lead the latter
to revelational discoveries.
God could, presumably, have done things otherwise. He
might have simply ignored us. Or he might have developed
some sort of heavenly language and culture and demanded
that we learn it in order to make contact with him. But he didn't.
Instead, he chose to work through the cultural vehicles at
human disposal—often as if he, like us, were bound by the
cultural frame of reference. He seems in this matter to abide
largely by the communicational rules by which human beings
are bound.
When there is communicational interaction between human
beings, it is necessary, as pointed out in the previous chapter,
that they adopt a common frame of reference within which they
agree to interact. If persons speak no common language and
have no culturally defined common agreements concerning the
meanings of whatever noises and gestures they may use, their
ability to communicate with each other will be virtually nil. An
unbridged barrier to communicative interaction exists between
them.
Thus it was between God and humans before God spoke to
Adam. And thus it has become again every time humans have
stopped listening to God. Often there has been enough
information about God to impress the human beings on the
other side of the gap. That is, God has usually had a very
good reputation among humans. But he and humans operate
within different frames of reference—until he speaks. For when
God speaks, he chooses to employ the cultural and linguistic
frame of reference in which those to whom he speaks are
Immersed. And the result is that the supracultural-cultural gap
is bridged and communication can take place.
He communicated in this way to Adam, to Noah, to
Abraham, to Moses, to David, to the prophets, to the apostles,
to us. He used the words, the expressions, the grammatical
structures of human languages. He communicated directly
through words, through dreams, through visions—employing
vehicles that those he approached believed in. He also
communicated indirectly via the receptors' observation of the
lives of those who responded to him and through spoken and
written records of their experiences and insights—again in
ways that those he approached believed in. On occasion he
communicated in more unusual ways, such as through a
donkey (Num. 22), through an angel, or through some other
miraculous event. But God's preferred way of bridging this gap
seems to be by means of human-being-to-human-being
Interaction within the receptor's frame of reference.
Indeed, until God communicates within a human context,
his message cannot be perceived as relevant to human life,
since it cannot be understood by human beings (see chapter
7). Nor can it provide any stimulus to action. And messages
from God need to be perceived as relevant and to stimulate to
action if they are to communicate adequately what God
apparently desires us to know about him. God's revelation of
himself is not, as many seem to assume, simply a matter of
adding new information to that which human beings can
already know (see chapter 11). God's revealing activity does
add information but for a purpose that lies beyond the
information itself in the stimulus to behavioral change that can
result from the communication of messages with impact. God's
messages, like all effective communication, are not intended
simply to impress or inform his audience. They are intended to
be “expressive” and “imperative” as well. God seeks to
“present the message in such a way that people can feel its
relevance (the expressive element in communication) and can
respond to it in action (the imperative function)” (Nida and
Taber 1969, 24).
So God enters into interpersonal relationships with us in
terms of our frame of reference. It might have been expected
that God would have kept quiet, not even attempting to
communicate with us. Or, if he were to attempt to communicate
with us, we might expect that someone with his reputation
would simply content himself with giving orders, never
allowing us, his creatures, to talk back to him.
But he has consistently done the unexpected, the
unpredictable. He sought Adam in the cool of the day when he
had every right to turn his back on Adam. He arranged for
Noah's survival through the flood. He entered into a covenant
with Abraham—an agreement that he refused to break even
when Israel was unfaithful to its end of the bargain. He worked
with (not apart from) Moses to rescue the Israelites from
Egypt. He dealt lovingly, though firmly, with David in the
Bathsheba incident. He even became a man in order to effect
his ultimate communication with humans within a human frame
of reference.
And in going beyond the predictable, God broke through
the human stereotypes that would keep us from taking him
seriously. He thus attracted human attention, became credible,
and effected an impact that will never be reversed on the lives
of at least certain human beings.
Furthermore, in interacting with human beings within the
human frame of reference, God was very specific. He did not
simply deal with humankind as a whole but with specific
individuals and groups. The people he deals with have specific
names, specific life histories, and specific cultural contexts, all
of which are taken very seriously by God. And this specificity
increases enormously the relevance and impact of the
communication both to the original participants and to those of
us who later hear and read their case histories.
In this process, further, the human participants are not
simply passive. Human beings are invited to truly interact with
their creator and thereby to discover what he wishes them to
learn. In response to the communicational impact of such
discovery (plus God's Spirit), human beings like the disciples
were transformed from cowards into firebrands for Christ. In
earlier days the same kind of transformation had taken place via
the same kind of faith discovery in the lives of Enoch, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Samson,
Samuel, David, the prophets, and many, many others (Heb. 11).
For they had received God's communication with transforming
impact to the extent that they committed themselves both to
God and to his cause.

The Incarnation as a Case Study in Receptor-

Oriented Revelation
To assess the communicational impact of the Incarnation
properly, let us look at it from the receptor's point of view. By
the time of Christ, a vital interest in God seems to have been
rare in Israel and even rarer outside Israel. To the Greeks, “the
gods were dead.” To the Jews, God and his message had
largely become so formalized and ritualized that it was widely
regarded as the property of a minority of religious specialists
who disdained the common people (Jeremias 1969, 267). In
spite of his association with the Jews and his constant working
in human affairs both within and outside the Jewish nation,
God had come to be regarded even by them as rather
predictable, isolated from meaningful interpersonal contact
with all but a very few human beings, and more or less
depersonalized.
But then, “in the fullness of time,” God did something
about the situation. In Jesus, the stereotyped God broke out of
the stereotype. Jesus was God, and had every right to remain
God. But he did not choose to remain God (Phil. 2:6). He was
above humanity and powerful and majestic and worshipable,
and had every right to remain that way. He had every right to
accept the stereotype, to remain within it, accepting the
assigned status, the prescribed role, the assured respect that
the stereotype provided for him. In spite of all of this, though,
the second person of the Trinity turned his back on his
prerogatives as God, refusing any longer to cling to these
rights. He laid aside both his rightful position and the power
and knowledge that went with it to take on the limitations of a
human being (Phil. 2:7) for the purpose of coming to dwell
among us (John 1:14). That is, he broke out of the stereotype
so that we could actually see, hear, and touch him (1 John 1:1-
3) as he dwelt not above or apart from us but truly among us.
To many people of that day (and this), God was regarded as
very impressive. His power, majesty, and “otherness” made a
deep impression on people. We might say that God had
developed a very good reputation and lots of respect, but few
of his creatures knew him well. He had many admirers but few
friends. And much of what he said and did was subject to the
same kind of suspicion with which we regard the words and
deeds of the very rich or the very powerful—especially if their
wealth or power has been inherited rather than earned. How
could the Kennedys or the Rockefellers understand what I
have to go through? we ask, since they have always had the
wealth and/or the power to insulate them from these things.
They could never understand our desires, our wants, our
needs, we assume. For they, without struggle, were already in
possession of the things that we are working so hard to attain.
Just as we suspect that such people don't really understand us,
so, many humans had come to feel that God, being so far “out
of it” with respect to the problems and difficulties of the human
scene, could not possibly understand what human beingness
is really like.
 Those who questioned his ability to understand were likely
also to question whether or not he really cared. And if he didn't
really care about humans, why should humans care about
living up to what was called “God's standard”? So people
assigned God to a status and a role (or nonrole) in relation to
themselves. Humans (then as now) fitted God into a stereotype
that effectively insulated people from active concern about
God or their relationship with God. This stereotype kept God
securely at arm's length and allowed humans to go about their
business with little or no concern about God. This was often as
true of the professional religionists of that day (and of ours) as
it was of the majority of the rest of the population.
But then God in Jesus broke out of that assigned status
and role, rejecting the stereotype to which he had a right, and
incarnated himself (Phil. 2:7; John 1:14). He thus became a real
human being among us—a learner, a sharer, a participant in the
affairs of humans, taking on our limitations—no longer simply
God above us. Nor did he then merely content himself to do
God-type things near us. He spent approximately thirty-three
years truly among us—learning, sharing, participating,
suffering; being seen, heard, touched; living as a human being
among human beings and perceived by those around him as a
human being. He learned, as the book of Hebrews contends,
how to sympathize with human beings by allowing himself to
be subjected to the temptations and sufferings of human
beings (see Heb. 2:10, 17-18; 4:15; 5:8, and elsewhere).
“Preposterous,” said the religious leaders of that day. “You
can't expect us to believe a thing like that!” For they had
studied the Scriptures and were sure they knew exactly how
the Messiah would come. He would be above ordinary people.
He would associate with religious, good people; he would
assume political power; he would demand that people follow
him.
“Mere mythology,” say many religious experts of our own
day who find the Incarnation but another attempt on
humanity's part to deify itself. Jesus an incredible man, yes, but
incarnate God? “Certainly not,” they say.
And, we must admit, It was a rather incredible thing to do.
What a terrible risk he took in thus making himself vulnerable,
able to be talked back to, able to be criticized by people, able to
be tempted, limiting himself to the limitations of humans, never
using his deity. But in this process of rejecting the assigned
status that he had a right to retain, he put himself in the
position to win our respect (rather than to demand it—as he
had a right to). He could earn (rather than simply assume) our
admiration and allegiance on the basis of what he did and
became among us. And, in the process, we can discover that
God is even more impressive than our doctrine tells us he is.
And this discovery is doubly meaningful because it is based
not simply on knowledge about God, but on experience with
him.
Listen to the reaction of the disciple John to this
incarnational approach to communication (reading between the
lines of 1 John 1:1-3):

Boy, wait till you hear what happened to us! This man came
along, an impressive teacher. And I and several others
became his students. For three years we lived together. We
 walked together, talked together, ate together, slept
together. We both listened to his teaching and watched
closely how he lived. And what an impression he made on
us! For as we lived together we began to realize that this
was no ordinary man—that when he spoke of God as his
Father he spoke from firsthand experience, and when he
spoke of what was in the hearts of men he really knew what
he was talking about! For this man living among us was
God himself! This man whom we called “Teacher,” to whom
we listened, with whom we lived—we discovered that he is
the very God who created the universe. But he chose to
come in human form to live with us, his creatures, to
demonstrate what he is like to us in a way that we could not
misunderstand. And this discovery has so shaken us up
that we'll never be the same again!

In God's ultimate revelation of himself, we see him again

employing the communicational principles outlined above.
Note again that he chose a personal, interactional, receptor-
oriented approach within the frame of reference of those he
sought to reach. But this time God not only came—he had
come before—but this time he became. He, in Christ, identified
with his receptors. He not only traversed the infinite distance
between heaven and earth to get close to us, he also covered
those last couple of feet that separate person from person. He
came all the way to identify specifically with us in the human
condition in which we, but until this point never he, were
immersed. God in Jesus became so much a part of a specific
human context that many never even recognized that he had
come from somewhere else. His enemies accused him of many
things but never of being a foreigner (except, of course, in
Jerusalem, where he was identified as a Galilean). To most he
seemed to be more the carpenter's son than one “come down
from heaven” (John 6:41-42). But because Jesus thus became
specific and because the specific details of much of his life are
available to us, the receptors, we are able to receive God's
revelation through him in the way that will have the most
impact.
God employed these principles in order to bring about
effective communication of his life-saving message to humans.
He had a choice of the means he could employ. He could have
simply remained as God in heaven or he could have spoken a
“heavenly language” and developed a “heavenly culture” to
which we must all convert (see fig. 8.1). Even if he had entered
the human frame of reference but followed the extractionist
course he could have come to earth as God and retained the
respect and prestige that is his right as God. He could have
become a human being and simply announced that he was
God. He would, then, have continued to have admirers but not
friends. The risks would have been far fewer, but the real
impact and credibility very low because the predictability
would have been so high.
He could have come to earth and simply fitted into the
stereotyped (i.e., predictable) understanding that humans had
of God. This would have resulted in the completion of the
following statements in highly predictable terms: “If God came
to earth he would come as a…,” or “He would associate with…
people,” or “He would go to…places.” The Pharisees, for
example, thinking in terms of the stereotype, expected Christ
(the Messiah) to come as a king, to associate only with good
people, and to go to religiously respectable places. These were
the predictable completions of the above sentences in terms of
the stereotype produced by their frame of reference. And had
Jesus acted according to these expectations he might well have
been accepted by the Pharisees. But the very predictability of
his message lived in these terms would have meant that the
communicational (and revelational) impact of his life would
have been only slightly above the zero level, even for the
Pharisees, but especially for the common people.
Note, though, the far greater communication value of filling
the blanks above with unpredictable terms—terms that did not,
and still do not, conform to the stereotype that most people
have developed of God. Suppose, for example, someone said,
“When God came to earth he came as a peasant,” or “God
associated with prostitutes and crooked, traitorous tax
collectors,” or “God went to a rowdy wedding feast.” These
statements make an impact even today because they are so
unpredictable, so out of line with the stereotype. They sound
like headlines. They make you perk up your ears.
Jesus, furthermore, employed the specificity principle. As
mentioned above, a communication presented in terms of “life
involvement” in the actions, attitudes, and activities of real life
makes a greater impact than a strictly verbal message. And
even if the communication is verbal, a greater impact is made
by specific, detailed descriptions of real life, or even by
illustrative parables describing true-to-life events, than by
generalizations or abstract propositions concerning those
events.1 For this reason, Jesus, living truly among people and
teaching in terms of life-specific parables and miracles,
communicated infinitely more to us concerning God than would
all of the theological abstractions, no matter how true, that
could be developed concerning God's interest in people. This
is how Jesus not only taught truth but presented it in such a
way that it came across to his hearers and observers with
impact. And the fact that the life of Christ has been recorded
and transmitted to us in biographical, casebook fashion (see
chapter 10), rather than in abstract theological textbook
fashion, makes available to us even at this distance in time a
large degree of the communicational impact of his life and
teaching in first-century Palestine.
Jesus, then, invited discovery. He taught from within the
framework of his society by means of living and verbal
example. He employed familiar forms, such as the teacher-
student relationship and the parable, as primary models for the
presentation of his material. He then waited for discovery to
take place. When, for example, John the Baptist inquired from
prison as to whether or not Jesus was the promised Messiah (a
question raised in John's mind because Jesus did not fit the
stereotype), the master did not provide a predigested yes-or-no
answer. He told the messenger simply to report to John the
“things you have seen and heard…” (Luke 7:22), so that John
could make his own discovery of the truth. And even at Jesus'
trial before Pilate, the question “Are you the King of the
Jews?” was answered by a return question—a question
designed to probe and challenge Pilate to discovery (and that,
incidentally, indicated that Jesus regarded Pilate as fully
adequate as a learner). Jesus did this, rather than simply
providing an answer based on a predigestion of the
information to be taught, to give Pilate the opportunity of really
confronting his own question and of possibly discovering real
truth in the process.
Some critics of Christianity, speaking from within Western
societies, have maintained that Jesus' refusal to teach in terms
of predigested, easy answers is to be interpreted as a denial on
his part of his deity. Such critics do not seem to realize that this
discovery-oriented approach to communication was culturally
appropriate in first-century Palestine and, in fact, is recognized
by many modern-day Western educators to be superior to the
majority of educational techniques presently employed within
Western societies. The effectiveness of his learner-centered,
discovery-oriented teaching method is vindicated by the
thoroughness of the change it made in the lives of his
disciples. Such change or transformation is seldom, if ever,
effected except on the basis of profound discovery by the
person changed. An example of the early stages of such
discovery is provided by the response of Peter (on behalf of all
the disciples) to Christ's question, “Who do people say that I
am?” The Holy Spirit was active in the whole process, leading
the disciples into (i.e., revealing to them) truth. But we do
injustice both to Scripture and to our understanding of
Christianity to ignore that part of the process that Peter was
most aware of (and, therefore, didn't need to have Jesus
mention)—discovery.
Surrounding, interpenetrating, and tying together all of
these factors is one further aspect of receptor response.
Human beings identify with other human beings. Jesus made
use of this fact by becoming a human being in identification
with humanity. But his credibility, though made possible by his
identifying with us, was cemented by the fact that we can
identify with him. As the book of Hebrews (esp. 2:18; 4:15; and
5:8) points out, he suffered to learn what we have to learn. That
is, he learned in the same way that we do. We can identify with
him in learning. Likewise, we see him living in the gospels in
such a way that we can identify with him in living. He not only
laid aside his deity; he lived as a peasant.
The Kennedys, because of all their wealth, have seemed to
be too high above most Americans for us to identify with. Yet
that family has been struck time after time by tragedy—tragedy
that for many Americans removes them to some extent from
their godlike position and makes it possible for us to identify
with them. And this “reverse identification” creates a bond
between receptor and communicator that often transcends the
isolating influences of privilege and wealth or, in Jesus' case,
divinity and glory. He not only identifies with us: he enables us
to identify with him.
It is a shame that our theologies have often been so
impressed with Jesus' divinity that they have seriously
jeopardized the ability of many to receive the full impact of the
incarnational message. For it is at the point where he sorrowed,
wept, was lonely, was abandoned, was tempted but refused to
use his prerogatives as God, had to struggle to be understood,
arranged for his mother to be cared for, prayed to be released
from his agreement, died unjustly, that we can identify with him
and cement the communication bond in such a way that we will
never recover from the impact.
God became human in terms of his hearer's definition of
being human. God broke through the isolating stereotype to
become specific. Those close to Jesus discovered that this one
who had invited them to get close to him, who had earned their
respect and undying admiration and yet had called them
“friends,” could actually have demanded all of this but had
refused to. For he was God, even though he encapsulated his
divinity. But it was as a full-fledged man, a man with whom they
could identify from within the human frame of reference, that he
demonstrated it. This is the ultimate of receptor-oriented
revelational activity.
Such effective communication, then, invites the receptors
to commit themselves to the cause of the communicator.
Because Jesus identified with us, and because his life has been
recorded for us, we are able to reciprocally identify with him in
imitation of both his life and his approach to communicating
God's message. He even says in John 14:12 that in faith we will
get to do the works that he did.

Revelation: Static or Dynamic?

Model 8c
Whenever God communicates, he reveals something new
concerning himself.

God does not act without revealing something of himself.

Revelation is a part of the nature of his interactions with
humans. Whenever God's messages are conveyed via new
vehicles (whether new people, new languages, or other new
cultural vehicles), however, certain completely new things
happen. In the first place, the conveying of God's eternal
message by a new person involves both the necessity of Spirit
guided interpretation and Spirit-guided presentation of the
message on the part of that person. These are new events in
the stream of history. Second, such communication of the
eternal message involves new receptors and new meanings
stimulated within their heads. These are new events in the
stream of history. Third, such communication involves cultural
and linguistic vehicles that have never been used in precisely
that way before. Since the media of communication always
interact with the message and affect it in some way, the result is
additional newness that has never before happened in history.
And fourth, the application of God's message in and to a new
situation results in a new event in the course of history.

Model 8d
Revelation from this point of view is a dynamic, continuing
communicational process, rather than something that started
and stopped in the past and has now become static.
Not only were the communicational events recorded in
Scripture new in history; every communicational event is new
and dynamic. And when these communicational events
convey accurate messages from God they may stimulate
genuinely revelational meanings within the heads of the
participants in those events—meanings that have never before
happened in just that way in history. Every Bible translation,
every new church, every conversion, every attempt at
theologizing is a new event in human experience. And each
such event, though involving models and meanings that have
occurred before, results in new questions that have to be faced
and answered, new applications of supracultural truth, new
understandings of God and his workings.2
But is it correct to speak of such newness as new
revelation? Not if one's model of revelation is static.
Western societies place an extremely high value on
information for its own sake. Information and the increase of
knowledge are thought to be good in themselves whether or
not the knower is able to do anything with that knowledge. We
buy and sell information through our school systems, via
literature, via mass media, and in many other ways. We honor
those who know, whether or not they use their knowledge to
be worthy of honor. In keeping with this emphasis of Western
societies, we have both accepted the reduction of revelation to
information-sharing and often lost our ability to imagine that
it could be anything else. We have done the same thing with
truth—and in the name of the One who made a point of the fact
that truth is not informational but personal and relational.
Jesus said, “I am…the truth” (John 14:6). And personal
truth starts with being true to other people. Such truth and
revelation are not static. A true person will speak truly. But our
understanding of truth (especially in the biblical sense)
should not be reduced to a concept of “true information.”
Philip Holtrop points out that if we want to be biblical in our
definition of truth we must use the “strange language” of Jesus
and speak of “doing the truth,” “living the truth,” “abiding in,”
or “being in the truth” (see John 18:31-36; 15:10-11). “Christ is
called the Truth,” he says,

because he is the great Act of the Father toward us. He is

not the Truth in a “metaphorical” or “allegorical” sense. He
is the expression of the Father's covenantal fidelity….
A biblical theology of truth and joy, in contrast to
scholasticism, has to do with living relations and not
primarily abstract definitions and essences. That theology
must provide support and direction for dynamic
circumstances in which we are called to be responsible,
faithful or true before the face of God. (1977, 9, 13)

As Jesus did the truth and related as one truly living the
truth, he fully revealed God—not simply information about
God. We need to learn to distinguish between such dynamic
revelation (and truth) and the information that is inevitably a
part but never the whole of either. So we move to model 8e.

Model 8e
The information that is an important part of the revelational
process must be distinguished from the dynamic process
itself.

At the turn of the century, William James described the

process by means of which dynamic, life-related, even life-
transforming events are intellectualized into arid, static
philosophical propositions. He suggests that the intellectual
endeavor of the Westerner “consists almost wholly in his
substitution of a conceptual order for the perceptual order in
which his experience originally comes” (Kallen 1925, 77). It is
the dynamic world of perception, a world filled with what James
terms “percepts,” in which life is really lived. To me, it is in
dynamic interaction within that world that the impactful, life-
transforming revealing activity of God takes place. In the static,
intellectualized world of information and knowledge, however,

trains of concepts unmixed with percepts grow,…and parts

of these conceptual trains arrest our attention just as parts
of the perceptual flow did, giving rise to concepts of a
higher order of abstractness,…and these formations have
no limit. Aspect within aspect, quality after quality, relation
upon relation,…different universes of thought thus arise,
with specific sorts of relation among their ingredients. The
world of common-sense “things”; the world of material
tasks to be done; the mathematical world of pure forms; the
world of ethical propositions; the worlds of logic, of music,
etc., all abstracted and generalized from long forgotten
perceptual instances, from which they have as it were
flowed out, return and merge themselves again in the
particulars of our present and future perception. (Ibid., 77-
78)

But such a retreat into the world of generalized concepts of

an ever higher order of abstraction, though a common thing in
Western societies, especially among academics, is very
misleading when it becomes the perspective in terms of which
God's interactions with human beings are interpreted. For it
produces static, nonspecific, lifeless models incapable of
properly interpreting living reality. Such models turn living
events into cadavers, capable of being dissected but no longer
capable of life. Concepts (models) are, of course, necessary.
But they must be dynamic models, in vital touch with reality, if
they are to relate properly to life. For in real life, concepts and
perceptions constantly “interpenetrate and melt together,
impregnate and fertilize each other. Neither, taken alone, knows
reality in its completeness. We need them both, as we need
both our legs to walk with” (ibid., 78).
Thus, when we observe that in any world of discourse
(such as theological attempts to characterize God's revelational
activity) “nothing happens,” something has to change. For,
James contends, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact
that “the static nature of the relations in these worlds…gives
to the propositions that express them an ‘eternal' character”
(ibid., 88), their accuracy is not thereby proved. This “eternal
character” of such propositions does not, as many assume,
prove the truth of the propositions but, rather, their
inappropriateness to real life—at least until such a time as
they are perceived to be appropriate at the level where life is
lived. But when even eternal truths are so perceived, it is not
their eternalness but their dynamic relevance to the life of the
receptor that is perceived. For, continues James,

the significance of concepts consists always in their

relation to perceptual particulars…. Made of percepts, or
 distilled from parts of percepts, their essential office…is to
coalesce with percepts again, bringing the mind back into
the perceptual world with a better command of the situation
there. Certainly whenever we can do this with our
concepts, we do more with them than when we leave them
flocking with their abstract and motionless companions. It
is possible, therefore, to join the rationalists in allowing
conceptual knowledge to be self-sufficing, while at the
same time one joins the empiricists in maintaining that the
full value of such knowledge is got only by combining it
with perceptual reality again. (Ibid., 80-81)

Current evangelical Protestant models, except for those of

Pentecostalism, seem to assume that revelation is primarily a
matter of knowledge and information (Fuller 1969, ix-20). Even
worse, evangelical attempts to support “intellectually” their
views on the authenticity of Scripture often devolve into
complete trivializing. Ramm describes “the ideal concept of
authenticity which evangelicals have worked with” as follows:

if we know the author, date, nature of composition of a

book of the Bible, it is then authentic. It can be considered
inspired and authoritative and therefore part of the Sacred
Canon. It is not possible to do this directly with every book
of the Bible for we do not know the authors of many Old
Testament books. So we build up our case as much
indirectly as we do directly (such as noting that the New
Testament sanctions the entire Old Testament as the Word
 of God). (Ramm 1971, 55)

Perhaps more is intended in valuable statements such as

the following, but the knowledge/ information orientation of
Western societies inhibits our ability to understand any but the
intellectual, knowledge, and information aspects of the matter:

All merely human affirmations about God curl into a

question mark. We cannot spy out the secrets of God by
obtrusive curiosity. Not even theologians of a
technological era, not even Americans with their skill in
probing the surface of the moon, have any special radar for
penetrating the mysteries of God's being and ways. Apart
from God's initiative, God's act, God's revelation, no
confident basis exists for God-talk. “The things of God
none knoweth, save the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11b, ASV).
If we are authorized to say anything at all about the living
God, it is only because of God's initiative and revelation.
God's disclosure alone can transform our wavering
questions concerning ultimate reality into confident
exclamations!
Human beings know only what God has chosen to
reveal concerning the spiritual world. “Things which eye
saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the
heart of man…unto us God revealed them through the
Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9-10, ASV). Revelation is always God's
communication; in John the Baptist's words, “a man can
receive nothing, except it have been given to him from
 heaven” (John 3:27, ASV). (Henry 1976, 2:8; emphasis
added)

I like this statement very much and find myself in hearty

agreement with it. But note our socioculturally inculcated
tendency to interpret each of the italicized expressions totally
in terms of the information that they refer to. When we think of
“human affirmations,” “secrets,” “mysteries of God's beings
and ways,” “revelation,” “God's disclosure,” “questions
concerning ultimate reality,” “God's communication,” etc., we
focus on intellectualized knowledge and information.
We know, if we stop to think about it, that knowledge and
information are not proper ends in themselves. They are
valuable only insofar as they provide understanding and
stimulus to some kind of desired behavior. And yet, especially
those of us who are considered intellectuals buy and sell
knowledge as if it were itself the most important commodity in
the world. As a result, we tend to define revelation in terms of
the information that it contains rather than in terms of the
much more important stimulus that God's revelatory activity
provides to induce its receptors to respond to him. We define
revelation as God's supplying of information that would not
otherwise be available to us. Even Geerhardus Vos, in an
otherwise very helpful statement, submits to this temptation in
stating, “The most important function of Special Revelation…
consists in the introduction of an altogether new world of
truth” (1948, 20). With respect to both revelation and truth we
are pressured by our society to reduce them to but one of their
important components—information.
 But note certain aspects of even the statement above by
Henry that our cultural perspective tends to allow to remain out
of focus. It is possible to make affirmations via behavior as well
as via words. “Skill in probing…” and “radar for penetrating…”
are phrases indicating that knowledge has been put to work.
“God's initiative, God's act” imply behavior that goes beyond
the mere imparting of information. The scriptural use of the
term “know” (1 Cor. 2:11, quoted above by Henry), shows it to
have a much more behavioral meaning than the American
usage implies. Indeed, when we turn to John 8:32, a verse often
used to focus on our need to know, we find that the knowledge
in view is experiential knowledge, not intellectual knowledge.
Given that meanings are in the minds of the hearers/readers,
and that Western hearers/ readers would almost certainly
interpret that verse as referring to intellectual knowledge,
translators would do well to translate that verse, “You will
experience the truth and the truth will set you free.”
“God's disclosure” consists of far more than mere
information. God's disclosures of himself stimulate to action.
The passage 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 deals primarily with
perspective, not knowledge. “Communication,” including God's
revelational communication, is more properly defined as a
matter of stimulus to action—to experience—than as the mere
transmission of information. Henry's statement is not
necessarily to be faulted for what it says. I like what it says.
But I see a big problem in the informational interpretation that
Westerners are bound to give it.
Perhaps, if we are to resist such sociocultural pressure
toward the emasculation of our understanding of God's
revelatory activity, we will have to employ something other
than the English word “know” in our discussions of revelation.
For,

the concept of “knowledge” here is not to be understood in

its Hellenic sense, but in the Shemitic [sic] sense.
According to the former, “to know” means to mirror the
reality of a thing in one's consciousness. The Shemitic and
Biblical idea is to have the reality of something practically
interwoven with the inner experience of life…. God desires
to be known after this fashion…. The circle of revelation is
not a school, but a “covenant.” To speak of revelation as
an “education” of humanity is a rationalistic and utterly
unscriptural way of speaking. (Vos 1948, 8-9; see also
Bultmann on Hebrew yadah, 1964, 696-703)

A Western focus on knowledge as information combines

with the underlying fear of subjectivity (see Allen 1956) and
the desire to know absolutely (be like God?) to lock many
evangelicals into totally static models of revelation.3 In critique
of such positions, Coleman records liberals as contending that
an evangelical

must explain how revelation can be conceptualized without

being subject to historical relativity. More specifically, he
must demonstrate how revelation can be cast into human
and historical forms which reflect a particular culture and
still provide propositions which are universally valid. (1972,
 89)

Coleman (articulating the liberal position) continues to

point out the inconsistency of maintaining that God utilized
“human modes of thought and speech” to reveal himself, but in
a way that does “not falsify or misrepresent God in any way.”

But if revelation is not complete, then it must be…

theoretically possible of improvement…[for] partiality
necessitates nonobjectivity and indirectness. It may be that
the biblical authors did not substantially misrepresent God
by the literary and cultural forms they used, but it does not
follow that their forms or propositions are absolute or
incapable of development. To maintain his argument the
evangelical must disregard the onward thrust of human
thinking and deny revelation the benefit of later inspiration
which adds to the very core of divine truth new insight,
precision and understanding. The evangelical is also
caught in the inconsistent argument that God
accommodated himself by using historical forms but that
certain men at certain times received God's word so
perfectly as to transcend human and historical limitations.
(1972, 89-90)

At issue is the model(s) in terms of which we are to understand

revelation. My suggestion is that revelation he seen as both
information and stimulus to understanding, rather than
simply as information. So we postulate model 8f.
 Model 8f
The process of revelation results from the application of
revelational (divine) stimulus to the information available
(whether general or special) in such a way that it has God's
intended impact on the receptor(s).

Revelation, like all communication, is a matter of

information structured into messages designed to stimulate
response. That which brings about proper response to God is
revelatory, whether or not it involves the communication of
new information. Such stimulus to divinely led revelatory
understanding may result from personal contact, from a change
of perspective, from remembrance of something past, from
experiencing something present, from anticipating something
future, or from the receiving of new information. But in each
case it is the kind of stimulus rather than the newness of the
information transmitted via the activity that is the key to its
revelatory nature.
What are ordinarily referred to as “general” and “special”
revelation are but the very important informational components
that may be employed by God in revelational interaction with
human beings. We have general information concerning God
and his activities coming to us both from nature and from
cultural and transcultural sources via cultural vehicles. We
have, further, enscripturated, inspired, special information
concerning God and his activities coming to us from the
supracultural God via cultural vehicles. But it is the proper use
of that information by God as communicator and by human
beings as receptors that is revelatory. Revelation is, as Vos
points out, “a divine activity,” not simply “the finished
product of that activity” (1948, 5). Revealing results when
personal beings interact with God. One important type of
revelational interaction occurs when persons under the
guidance of God's Spirit interact with the products of previous
revelational activity (e.g., the Scriptures). The desired output of
God's revelational activity is that the meanings stimulated in
the receptors' minds correspond with the intention of God for
them at that time and place.
Revelation seen as receptor-oriented is not like the sermon
about which it was said, “That man is saying all of the right
things, but he isn't saying them to anyone” (from a lecture at
Fuller Seminary by John V. Taylor). God's revealing is always to
someone. This fact is clearly demonstrated in the Scriptures
(see chapter 10), for they record for us case after case of God's
revelatory activity. Thus, while the Bible is the inspired
product of God's revealing, it points beyond itself to the
contemporary re-creation within contemporary hearers of the
process that it records. Therefore, though the Bible is today a
most important means to revelatory ends, it should never be
itself regarded as the only product of the revelatory process.

Model 8g
Revelation, like redemption, is both objective (or objectified)
and subjective.

Revelation is not merely “objective” and complete, it has

a subjective and continuing dimension as well. Some, in
keeping with their static models of revelation, see God as
simply revealing himself, as if without reference to his
receptors and the range of variation that is obvious at the
receptors' end. They think somehow that God's revelatory
activity is better represented if it is described without reference
to those to whom it is directed. Thus Vos compares revelation
to redemption but suggests that only the latter has a
“subjective and individual” component to it. He says:

Redemption is partly objective and central, partly

subjective and individual. By the former we designate
those redeeming acts of God, which take place on behalf of,
but outside of, the human person. By the latter we
designate those acts of God which enter into the human
subject. We call the objective acts central, because,
happening in the centre of the circle of redemption, they
concern all alike, and are not in need of, or capable of,
repetition. Such objective-central acts are the incarnation,
the atonement, the resurrection of Christ. The acts in the
subjective sphere are called individual, because they are
repeated in each individual separately. Such subjective-
individual acts are regeneration, justification, conversion,
sanctification, glorification. (Vos 1948, 6; emphasis added)

I like what this statement says concerning redemption

because it is balanced in its representation of both the once-
for-all components of divine-human interaction and the
receptor and context-specific components. Both aspects need
to be dealt with at all points in our attempts to understand God
and his works. Vos does not, however, treat the subject of
revelation with the same balance. On this subject he says that
“revelation comes to a close where redemption still continues”
(ibid.). In keeping with orthodox Protestantism, he claims only
the objective-central function for revelation. In recognition of
the subjective-individual aspects of the same process,
however, he speaks also of “enlightenment” (others would call
it “illumination”). But this he sees as limited to the
interpretation and application of the Bible. Vos says:

Now revelation accompanies the process of objective-

central redemption only…. To insist upon its
accompanying subjective-individual redemption would
imply that it dealt with questions of private, personal
concern, instead of with the common concerns of the world
of redemption collectively. Still this does not mean that the
believer cannot, for his subjective experience, receive
enlightenment from the source of revelation in the Bible, for
we must remember that continually, alongside the objective
process, there was going on the work of subjective
application, and that much of this is reflected in the
Scriptures. (1948, 6; emphasis added)

Note that Vos recognizes, at the end of this statement, that

God once revealed subjective applications. These are now
“reflected in the Scriptures.” In the second sentence of the
quotation above, however, he dismisses the possibility that
one could define as revelation anything that dealt with
“questions of private, personal concern.” From this point of
view revelation can deal only with “the common concerns of
the world of redemption collectively.” I would like to suggest
that this model, though orthodox, is neither required by
Scripture nor consistent with Vos's own treatment of the
parallel process of redemption. We highlight the inconsistency
in this model in figure 9.1.

Fig. 9.1. Vos's position relating the objective and subjective dimensions of
redemption and revelationl/enlightenment to past and present-
future time (see Vos 1948, 6).

Could it be that Protestant orthodoxy has drifted into this

kind of position in overreaction against the Roman Catholic
position that seems to Protestants to elevate ecclesiastical
tradition above the Bible, and out of an exaggerated northern
European cultural reverence for written documents? The latter
value seems to press Euro-Americans to regard “objectified”
written documents as objective.4 This attitude often combines
in Euro-American societies with a perspective on historical
events that tends to regard what happened long ago as quite
different from what is happening today. Objectify a written
record of ancient events regarded as sacred for people with
these values and, 1 suspect, one could predict an attitude such
as the foregoing that regards the biblical events as different in
kind (i.e., revelatory) from anything today that appears similar
(i.e., enlightenment.
Perhaps existentialist positions on revelation (e.g.,
Kierkegaard, Bultmann) that seem to evangelicals to go too far
in emphasizing the subjective-individual dimension of
revelation are reacting against this kind of overbalance. For
such models as the foregoing imply a radical change in God
as soon as the last hook of Scripture was written (though this
apparently wasn't discovered until after the canon was closed).
At that point it is implied by orthodox, static views of
revelation that God ceased to reveal himself and turned
exclusively to “enlightening” or “illuminating” people who
search the Scriptures.
But has he so limited himself today? Has he totally gone
back on Jesus' promise to send the Holy Spirit to lead us into
(further?) truth (John 16:13)? Or is there another model or
models in terms of which to understand and balance the
objective dimensions of revelation/enlightenment with the
subjective dimensions? I believe the perspective presented
here provides a better answer to these questions.
It sees revelation as both objective and subjective.
Furthermore, it sees revelation as paralleling redemption at
every point (Ramm 1961, 71). Since even old messages in new
persons and contexts are at least partly new, and since God has
not stopped working (and, therefore, revealing himself) we can
adopt a balanced dynamic model at this point in place of the
traditional unbalanced model. This could be pictured as in
figure 9.2.

Fig. 9.2. A balanced dynamic model of redemption and

revelation.

The Bible as the Measure of Revelation

One further model needs to be introduced at this point to
clarify the relationship between the Scriptures and the
contemporary applications of scriptural principles. The problem
facing us if we admit that God has, in fact, continued to reveal
himself since the completion of the writing of Scriptures may be
phrased in the question “How do we know if a given
‘revelation’ is from God or not?” How do we know if the
purported revelations of our contemporaries or, for that matter,
of supposed “heretics” such as Joseph Smith, Muhammad, or
Mary Baker Eddy, are from God or not? The answer lies, I
believe, in the “measuring” of that purported revelation by
what we know of God's past revelatory activity from the
inspired record of some of that activity in the Scriptures.
God will not contradict himself. We can therefore use an
assuredly inspired collection of his revelations, often
accompanied by Spirit-led interpretations of them, as a
measuring device against which to test and evaluate
contemporary data. Recognizing that the Bible shows us a
range of ideal, subideal but acceptable, and unacceptable
behavior and belief, our task is to discern whether or not there
is an equivalence between items of contemporary behavior and
belief and those allowed In the Bible. If contemporary behavior
is functionally equivalent in meaning within its cultural context
to what the Bible shows to have been acceptable (even
though, perhaps, subideal) behavior in its cultural context, the
measurement has proved positive. This may be termed
“dynamically equivalent revelation.” (See chapters 13-17 for an
elaboration and application of the dynamic-equivalence model,
i.e., model 11.)

Model 8h
We postulate that the revealing activity of God today is
equivalent in its dynamics within today's cultural contexts to
that which we read about in the Bible. We label this
dynamically equivalent revelation.
If contemporary behavior equates in meaning in today's
context with that of behavior recorded biblically as having
conveyed unacceptable meanings, the judgment is negative. If
contemporary behavior equates in meaning with what the Bible
endorses, the judgment is positive.
For measuring such equivalence or nonequivalence we
jump ahead to model 9 before completing the submodels of
model 8 in chapter 11.
 Model 9
This model conceptualizes the nature and functions of the
Bible in culture.

Model 9a
The Bible serves as a yardstick by which to measure God's
contemporary revelations of himself and his will.

The Bible-as-yardstick model is essentially the same as that

currently employed by evangelicals to test “applications” of
scriptural truth. Perhaps the only novel aspect of this model
(for evangelical Protestants, though not for Pentecostals and
others who believe in continuing revelation) is that it labels
and measures a contemporary application as divine
revelation, not as something that is qualitatively different from
God's revelatory workings in the past. This model does not
claim to have solved all the knotty problems of how to make
such evaluations but, unlike traditional (evangelical Protestant)
approaches, it faces the issue of the similarity (equivalence)
between what God is doing today and what he has done in
past times. It also alerts us to the fact that revelation is an
ongoing activity of God, not simply the biblical record of part
of that activity. I see revelation as an example of one of the
functions of God's leading.
The Bible is no less important from this perspective than
from traditional perspectives. Here, however, we distinguish
between what the Bible is and how it is used. To regard the
Bible as inherently revelatory regardless of how it is used is to
evaluate it in terms of only one of its potential uses. For the
Bible, like any other cultural form, can be used to evil ends as
well as to good ends. We see this when Satan quotes from the
Bible to tempt Jesus. The information contained in what we
call the Word of God if used improperly (as by Satan) is
neither revelation nor God's Word. If, further, the meanings
stimulated in the minds of the receptors do not fall within the
range of the variation that God approves of as the end-product
of his revelatory activity, the result is not revelation at the
receptor's end of the bridge. (See chapter 11 for further
elaboration of this perspective.) Here we turn to a
consideration of model 9b.

Model 9b
The Bible allows for a range of acceptable variation in the
understanding and application of God's truth.
The Bible clearly shows that God is content to accept
human behavior, including understandings of himself and his
truth, that fall within what we will here term a “range of
acceptable variation” (see also model 10c, starting point plus
process, below). Owing to the limitations of such factors as
culture, individual experience, and sin, human beings seldom if
ever live or understand at the ideal level. Even through inspired
Scripture, therefore, it is highly unlikely that any, much less all,
people will perceive exactly the same meanings from any given
portion. It is here postulated, however, that certain meanings
are within a range of allowable variation as measured by the
Bible yardstick—reasonably equivalent to the original intent
but not corresponding exactly. This principle is true to what we
know of ordinary interpersonal communication where, since the
meanings are stimulated in the receptor's head via message
symbols rather than transmitted directly, the result is never
more than approximately the same as the intent (see principle 3,
chapter 8). This is true even when both C (communicator) and
R (receptor) participate in the same frame of reference. The lack
of correspondence between intent and interpretation is even
greater when there is a large frame of reference gap, such as a
culture and/or a time gap between C and R.
In ordinary communicational interaction people attempt to
compensate for the lack of correspondence between intent and
interpretation in four ways:
1. Communicators seek to build into their message enough
repetition and reiteration (technically known as
“redundancy,” Berlo 1960, 202-3; Nida 1960, 74, 199) to guide
the hearer as close as possible to the main points. In ordinary
speech it has been estimated that “successive sequences are
usually about 50 per cent predictable” (Nida 1960, 74). Good
communicators make use of this fact, and may even increase
the percentage of reiteration via creative restatement. Technical
writing is quite different from ordinary speaking and writing in
that it is characterized by a severe reduction in redundancy.
This fact makes technical writing seem strange in comparison
to ordinary speaking and writing. It also makes technical
writing much more difficult to understand. The Bible, by the
way, is largely informal, almost never technical writing.
2. Communicators attempt to elicit “feedback” from their
receptors to see how well the receptors are getting the
message. If C discovers thereby that the receptors are not
understanding well, C adjusts the message by rephrasing,
providing additional information, explaining more elaborately,
etc., in order to bring about greater correspondence between
C's intent and R's understanding.
3. Communicators settle for approximate (rather than
exact) understandings of what they seek to communicate, as
long as the understandings are reasonably close to what is
intended. C makes a statement; R restates it in his or her own
words; and C agrees to accept that restatement as close
enough (i.e., within an acceptable range of variation).
4. Communicators may judge that a matter misunderstood
by their hearer(s) is not sufficiently important for them to
devote any more effort to explicating. C may feel that the
surest way for R to keep from being distracted out of the
allowable range is simply to drop the misunderstood subsidiary
point, even if R's misunderstanding is allowed to continue.
In interpreting the Scriptures we are, of course, cut off from
the ordinary approach to eliciting feedback from the original
authors. Through prayer, however, we ask the Original Source
(God) to lead us into (I.e., to reveal to us) greater
understanding. He frequently answers such prayers by leading
us to read in Scripture or to hear or read other reiterations
and/or creative restatements of the message that puzzles us, for
such redundancy is a major characteristic both of the Bible and
of Spirit-led extrabiblical interpretations of the major themes of
the Bible. Or God may answer such requests for further
explanation by guiding us back to more central issues, even
though our misunderstanding remains, In order to keep us from
turning away from major points to focus on peripheral issues.
 The communicational (revelational) focus of God (via the
Bible) appears to be on a fairly small number of crucial Items.
These are either assumed or continually reiterated (often via
case-study illustrations rather than mere verbalizations). Denial
of such basic scriptural concepts as the existence of God,
human sinfulness, God's willingness to relate to humans on
certain conditions, the necessity of a human faithfulness
response to God as preconditional to salvation, and the like
would put one outside the biblically allowed range of
acceptable variation. These are the deep-level core constants
that form the basis on which the historical (cultural)
interactions between God and human beings take place. They
are, thus, not debatable as items in the revelation of God to
which the acceptable range model is applicable at the more
surface level of interpretation or perception.
Nor can we debate the biblically recorded historical
outworkings of these constants in such contexts as the life of
Israel, the life and ministry of Christ, the experiences of the
early Christians, and so forth. The range-of-acceptable-
variation model applies only to the receptors' culturally and
psychologically conditioned perceptions of the intended
messages of God concerning his core constants communicated
via culture, some of which are recorded in the Bible.
For example, though the existence of God is not debatable
(Heb. 11:6), we see in Scripture a range of understandings of
him allowed. Likewise with sin, the understanding of the nature
of humans (one, two, or three parts), understandings of the
spirit world, and so on. The problem is to determine which
contemporary understandings of such things fit within the
scripturally allowed range and which fall outside. Within the
allowed range are both the intent of God and that of the human
author, but these are not always the same. In prophetic
utterances, for example, the human author was often unaware
of the later use God would make of those utterances (e.g., Isa.
7:14).
In ordinary human communication the perceived
understanding of the message on the part of the receptor is
affected by several things in addition to the communicator's
primary message. Such “paramessages” also affect the
interpretation of God's communications. Human beings have
particular culturally inculcated preconceptions concerning God
and his activities, the method of communication (e.g., written or
oral), the human communicators involved, the place in which
the communication takes place, the tactics employed, historical
material, the language used, “religious” communication in
general, and so on. All such preconceptions affect R's
perception of the message of God by altering and widening the
range of meanings that R perceives in any given
communicational situation. God's Spirit is, of course, at work to
see to it that what is understood is adequate. But even with the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, our understandings cannot be
claimed to be absolute. So the presence of such factors
demands a range of allowable variation within which the Spirit
works.
One such preconception that strongly influences a number
of conservative exegetes is the assumption that in the Bible
God uses human language in a more precise way than this
model suggests. In order to support such an assumption,
however, these interpreters find it necessary to contend that
God perfects language and that he has changed his way of
working at some time after the events recorded in the Bible. A
good bit of what I say here and elsewhere throughout this
book is intended to dispute those contentions (though not to
disallow that they are within the range of interpretation allowed
by God). In support of my position, I believe that we have
evidence within Scripture that God worked within a range in the
way New Testament authors employed quotations from the Old
Testament.
Calvin long ago noted the apostles' use of “freer language
than the original” and the fact that “they were content if what
they quoted applied to their subject, and therefore they were
not overcareful in their use of words” (on Rom. 3:4). In another
place Calvin says that the apostles “were not overscrupulous
in quoting words provided that they did not misuse Scripture
for their convenience.…As far as the words are concerned, as
in other things which are not relevant to the present purpose,
they allow themselves some indulgence” (on Heb. 10:6; cited
by Rogers 1977). This lack of a “fixed mode” for citing the Old
Testament in the New speaks of an allowable range of
variation. So do most of the alleged discrepancies in the Bible.
J. W. Haley (1874, republication 1953) has published nearly
four hundred pages full of such alleged discrepancies. Hodge
says of these discrepancies:

These apparent discrepancies, although numerous, are for

the most part trivial; relating in most cases to numbers or
dates. The great majority of them are only apparent, and
 yield to careful examination. Many of them may be fairly
ascribed to errors of transcribers. (1871-73, 1-169; quoted
with approval by Haley 1874, 49)

Note that the perspective in terms of which such examples

are labeled “discrepancies” assumes an exactness of statement
in the Bible that we do not demand either in ordinary
conversation or in any but the most technical writing. Most of
the Bible is, however, written in a nontechnical or even an
informal style according to the standards of ancient societies.
It should not, therefore, in historical context be judged by
standards set up by Euro-American scholars for technical
writing (see Taber 1978a, 12).
Recognition that the Bible allows a range of variation,
especially at the culture-specific level (see chapter 7, above), is
required if we are to be true to the culture-specific nature of the
Bible. For it is in the area of cultural variation in the receptors'
perception of the gospel message and its implications that this
model is best illustrated. Numerous scriptural illustrations cited
throughout this volume could be adduced (e.g., marriage
customs, concepts of God, understandings of the Ten
Commandments, concepts of leadership). Application of this
model with respect to concepts of sin is presented in chapter
12.
One further picture of the relationship of the Bible to the
allowable range of variation may usefully be introduced at this
point. We will label it
 Model 9c
The Bible as tether.
A tether is a means such as a rope or chain “by which an
animal is fastened so that it can range only within a set radius”
(Webster's Dictionary 1967, 912). A tether, then, provides both
a circle within which one moves and a point at the center of
that circle to which one is tied. The Bible is the “in-culture”
point of reference that provides the “set radius” within which
contemporary revelational encounters may occur and in terms
of which all claims of divine revelation are evaluated. The range
of allowable variation within which we work interpretationally
and experientially is the biblical range. The Bible, since it is the
inspired record of certain of God's previous interactions with
human beings, then, provides the tether within which
contemporary interactions with God can move and the
yardstick by means of which it is possible to evaluate whether
or not contemporary practices can be considered biblical.
 Summary
Though we will in succeeding chapters attempt to broaden
our understanding of how to employ the Bible to measure,
there are, I believe, only two novel elements in this approach to
the matter. These are (1) the labeling of what evangelical
orthodoxy terms “application” as at least potentially revelatory,
and (2) the concept of the allowable range of acceptability.
Essentially the same leeway for variations in interpretation (and
the same exegetical problems) attach to this model as to the
traditional model. Full development of the dynamic-equivalence
model (model 11, below) will assist considerably with this
problem.
The basic elements of this perspective on revelation so far
presented are (1) to see God's revelational activity as a dynamic
process rather than to reduce it to a static product; (2) to see
revelation as incomplete unless it reaches to someone—
revelation is therefore receptor-oriented; (3) to distinguish
between information, even that recorded and preserved under
divine inspiration and the revelatory use of that information;
(4) to see revelation as consisting of a balance between
objectified-central information (data) and subjective individual
experience; (5) to see Scripture as a yardstick for measuring the
equivalence of contemporary revelation to assured past
revelation; (6) to understand that God accepts receptor
perceptions that fall within a range of variation with respect to
their equivalence to his original intent; (7) to see Scripture as
providing the tether, in terms of which the range of allowable
variation in interpretation and experience is gauged.
 A perspective that includes these elements is more
balanced than static models, less open to the accusation that
God radically changed his method of communicating himself
when the last book of Scripture was written, and more open to
the contemporary validity and usefulness of the whole Bible
(including the Old Testament) than previous models. Certain
aspects of these elements will be developed further in the next
three chapters.
These considerations inevitably raise the problem of the
canon of Scripture. The production of the canonical Scriptures
was, I believe, the aim of what we here call the objectified-
central aspect of God's revelational activity. The Holy Spirit led
the early Christians to use, value, and collect certain writings
above others that were available. These writings (as detailed in
chapter 10) were considered by the church to be classics in
their presentation of salvation history and were therefore
regarded as of the highest degree of helpfulness in stimulating
others to respond to God's revelation. Undoubtedly, the choice
of many of the New Testament writings was motivated
(humanly speaking) by the fact that they were written by
eyewitnesses of the incarnation (Cullmann 1967, 295-96). But
this principle cannot be made to carry the whole burden for
explaining the present Scriptures. It cannot, for example, explain
the inclusion of the Old Testament, and it is stretched too far
with respect to certain New Testament writings as well (e.g.,
Luke-Acts, the Pauline epistles, Hebrews). Furthermore, if late
dates for certain New Testament writings should be proven, the
limited usefulness of the principle will become even more
evident.
 I believe the majority of traditional approaches to the
explanation of “Why these writings and no others?” participate
in the same staticness that largely characterizes evangelical
views of revelation and inspiration. Such explanations tie us to
unbending a priori assumptions concerning how God must
have worked, rather than allowing us the freedom to observe
how he works today and analogizing from those observations
to theories concerning how the unchanging God worked in
the past. The dynamic models here presented help us to keep
from getting enmeshed in such problems.
We turn now to a more detailed look at the Bible as God's
inspired casebook.

1. See Trench (1874, chapter 2), “ On Teaching by Parables,” for an older

treatment of this insight.
2. See Coleman 1972, 73-105 for a perceptive discussion of the issues that
divide liberals from evangelicals concerning revelation. Footnote 31 on p. 96 deals
well with the matter of newness in revelation. My focus on divine-human dynamics
plus that on the unchanging method (model 10a) and message (model l0b) of God
lead me to attempt to work the concept of continuing revelation into an evangelical
system.
3. See Bromiley 1968 for an informed evangelical statement that both states
well the problem of relativity and exhibits the fear that drives many evangelicals to
static models of revelation.
4. I use the term “ objectified” here to signify something that is regarded by
people as an object or entity in and of itself: Written documents and certain
historical events are often focused on (objectified) in such a way that the context in
which they occurred is blurred or completely ignored and the document or event
invested (usually implicitly) with a kind of timeless, eternal character. The tendency
to reverence written materials (especially if they are ancient) has, I believe, led many
to regard such objectified materials as objective (i.e., unbiased and virtually
unaffected by the real-life context in which they are produced). This bestows on
written documents a value that is often undeserved. Certain events are objectified by
being recorded in written documents. In the case of scripturally recorded events
people often erroneously consider such objectified events as (1) unconditioned by
their cultural contexts and (2) beyond the possibility of contemporary parallels.
10
GOD'S INSPIRED CASEBOOK

We have sought to establish an understanding of God's

communicational activity, including that called revelational, by
using the models of communication science. Informed by these
models plus the more broadly anthropological models
introduced earlier, we have attempted to deal with God's
activity in crossing the supracultural-cultural gap. We have
postulated that in attempting to bridge that gap God has
engaged in revelatory activities that, in the past, “built
bridges” all the way across the gap and that, in recorded form,
provide materials from which he and his receptors can build
bridges all the way across today. In an attempt to suggest a
more balanced orthodoxy in this regard we have suggested
that what has traditionally been termed “revelation” and what
has traditionally been labeled “illumination” or
“enlightenment” are but objectified and subjective aspects of
the same process. It is time now to make explicit another model
that has to this point been implicit and to discuss certain
horizontal dimensions of God's communicational use of cultural
vehicles.
This chapter starts by dealing with God's constancy with
respect to the methods he employs in revealing himself (model
10a). We then turn to a discussion of the Bible as an inspired,
classic casebook (model 9d). We see the Bible as a human word
as well as God's (model 9e), present a dynamic view of
scriptural inspiration (model 9f), and we view the Word as a
presentation of truth with impact (model 9g).
 Constancy of Method

Model 10
This model deals with the way in which God interacts with
human beings.

Model 10a
The constancy of method concept.

The Bible, the source of the data that we are attempting to

analyze, is a more wonderful book than evangelicals have often
realized. It has been customary to look to it as the source of the
message we are to proclaim. That message we regard as
inspired. There is, however, more to the Bible than just its
message. It shows us also the method of God in dealing with
that life-transforming message. That method is always
personal, interactional, and according to the communicational
principles set forth in chapter 8. This method involves both a
giving on God's part and a receiving on humanity's part. It
involves a frame of reference that, by God's choice, is a human
culture and language. God's constant method is what we have
described above as the dynamic process of his revelation of
himself to humanity.
Another name for this same process is “leading.” In view of
the foregoing discussion (chapter 9), some might accuse me of
a “low” view of revelation. Such is far from the case. I have,
rather, a “high” view of the continual operation and
effectiveness of the leading of God in the human arena. I see
God as in constant, effective interaction with his people both
individually and corporately in partnership with his people to
bring about ends that he and they mutually agree upon. A key
to this leading activity is the process of subjective-individual
revelation—the process by means of which God's bridge is
built all the way across the gap.
This leading involves a leader (God), a partner, and a
setting (frame of reference). God, the leader, has on certain
occasions manifested himself as God the Father. In the
Incarnation he manifested himself as God the Son. And since
Jesus' ascension his primary manifestation of himself is as God
the Holy Spirit.1 Each of these manifestations of himself,
geared as they are to the human frame of reference, are met
with particular perceptions of God and responses to him on the
part of the human participants. In this interaction between God
as he manifests himself and the persons to whom he manifests
himself, and who in turn perceive and respond to God in
particular culturally conditioned ways, both his self-disclosure
and his leading take place. For we do not know God's nature
apart from his interaction with us occasioned by his leading
activity. Wright (1952, 90) quotes Brunner on this point: “The
Bible says nothing of a God as He is in Himself and nothing of
a man as he is in himself, but only of a God who from the first is
related to man and of a man who from the first is related to
God” (Brunner 1943, 58).
We gain insight into the nature of the one who leads us as
we interact with him. For God “communicates himself by
revelatory happenings” (Wright 1952, 89). We have, therefore,
come to understand this revelational leading as divine–human
communication. We have focused on the fact that there are
messages, or communications, that pass between the
participants. This process, too, is an interactional one,
involving both a sender and receivers of the messages. And
though our tendency is to focus largely on God, the sender of
messages in the divine–human communicational interaction,
the receptors' part is also crucial. For, though God may be the
initiator in focus in the scriptural records to which we look for
our information about this process, there are always particular
concerns, particular needs, particular questions on the part of
the human participants to which he addresses himself. Quite
often these needs are verbalized by the human beings (as in
prayer or in the questions the disciples addressed to Jesus).
Often, though, they remain latent and unverbalized (e.g.,
Nicodemus's need for new birth, David's need for reconciliation
over the Bathsheba affair) until pointed out by God, usually
through a human representative. The information, in the form
of the existence of the need, is there before God communicates
the stimulus to which the receptor responds.
Thus the divine communication by means of which God
reveals himself is based as solidly on the needs of human
beings as on the desire of God to reveal himself. The result is a
continuous process of a human being feeling a need and God
addressing himself to that need. No matter what “objectified-
central” revelational materials God may employ in the process
of meeting that need, the need is not met, the leading is not
effected, the “revelation” is not revelatory until the subjective
as well as the objective component of the process is
actualized. This principle is true both to Christian experience
and to the analytical insights of the behavioral sciences. For it
has often been demonstrated that until persons or groups feel
the need for something it is very unlikely that they will even
accept helpful advice concerning it, much less seek help (see
Luzbetak 1988, 161-63). As Barnett, who labels felt needs
“wants,” states, “change for the sake of change is a relatively
infrequent motivation for innovation.…A large number of
wants call for satisfactions that require change if they are to be
realized, but…the aim is not newness, freshness, or
modification” (1953, 152). The aim is, rather, the attainment of a
more satisfactory solution to a felt need. For “only felt-needs
move individuals to borrow new ways” (Luzbetak 1963, 287).
The basis of revelation and leading in human felt needs is a
part of God's constant method.
God seldom appears personally to address a need. True, at
many points in the Scriptures (e.g., in the early Old Testament
records and in the person of Christ), God speaks directly to
humans. But in most situations (e.g., through the prophets, in
the New Testament epistles) he leads human beings who are in
close contact with him to become concerned about the issues
at hand and to speak on his behalf to those issues. God thus
reveals himself and his will on occasion directly, but most
frequently indirectly, in partnership with Spirit-led human
beings. And these human beings frequently perceive the Spirit-
led formulation of the answer they have articulated to be the
result of discovery on their part.
What is communicated is more than mere information about
God, which, though interesting, might easily be dismissed as
not vital to real life. Rather, the messages are addressed to
specific issues (needs) that surface to human awareness in
specific situations. And God typically addresses himself to
these needs from within the frame of reference in which they
develop. He does this through concerned servants of his
whom he leads to discover and communicate his Word to those
particular situations. Thus the message comes with a relevance
and an impact (both on the deliverer and the hearers) that
would most likely be minimized if at every point God broke in,
disrupting the normal flow of events to deliver his message
personally. In such a process God's Spirit works with the
hearers as well, so that both at the deliverer's end and at the
receptor's end the fact is confirmed that the message delivered
is from God.
We reiterate that since God's revelation of himself is an
interpersonal thing, it regularly conforms to the ordinary
requirements for effective interpersonal communication. It
carries relevance and impact as well as information (Nida and
Taber 1969, 24). It fits the specific situation, as well as the
overall plan of God, being life-related and addressed to a
human felt need that surfaces in that situation. Since this
revelatory process is interactional, human beings are not
passive. Rather, we actively participate in the process at every
point. Perhaps the model for this participation is made clear to
us by Jesus' statement to his disciples in John 15:15: “I no
longer call you slaves, for a master doesn't confide in his
slaves (LB). Instead, I call you friends, because I have
communicated to you everything I heard from my Father”
(TEV).
Accounts of certain of these primary interpersonal
revelational divine–human interactions have been written
down under the guidance of God's Spirit. They have been
collected under the same guidance and translated and
transmitted to us—again under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Thus the selection of interpersonal revelational events on
which we most often focus is that which has come down to us
in written form—the Bible. By applying the yardstick of the
Scriptures to the analysis of contemporary divine–human
interactions we can see that he still reveals himself in the same
ways as are recorded in Scripture. Thus we can speak of the
constancy of God's method of relating to human beings.
Certain theological positions, of course, deny the
constancy of God's method (e.g., dispensationalism and
evolutionary understandings of “progressive revelation”).
Dispensationalism, for example, makes the mistake of seeing
the changes in God's approaches to humans as changes in
God, rather than changes in the human cultural context. Such
models are, it seems to me, overly influenced by Western
cultural ethnocentrism. They thus are prone to focus more on
the differences in the cultural forms God employs at the
receptors' end than on the constancy of his adaptation to his
receptors in their cultural contexts. Paul articulates this latter
principle in 1 Corinthians 9:19-22. Since Western interpretations
of culture history tend to be evolutionary, the forms of ancient
Hebrew culture (being older and most different from ours) are
regarded as inferior to those of Greek culture. On this basis
such theologies imply that God continually abandons inferior
(Hebrew) methods in favor, eventually, of superior European
(Greek) forms. I shall attempt to show the way out of such
ethnocentric positions in the next chapter.
 The Bible as Inspired Classic Casebook
(Model 9d)
When we seek to reveal ourselves and our thinking to
others in book form, we sit down (as I am doing here) and
attempt to produce a single, unified, treatise. But God did not
do it this way. He did not, in the first place, write anything at all
(perhaps because he is more aware than we are of the extreme
limitedness of writing as a vehicle of communication). And
second, the product is anything but a unified treatise (though
there is a unity of theme to it).
Rather, what he led others to do (“horizontally” from human
being to human being) was to record in written form certain of
the divine–human interactions to produce what has come to be
called a “casebook.”

Model 9d
The Bible is an inspired collection of classic cases from
history, exemplifying certain of God's past interactions with
human beings for the instruction and guidance of those who
now seek to follow in their footsteps.
A casebook, or book of case histories, is a collection of
descriptions of illustrative real-life exemplifications of the
principles to be taught. Such descriptions may (should) include
interpretations (as the Bible frequently does, Ramm 1961, 77ff.;
Mickelson 1963, 58ff.), but as a part of the case studies or in
response to a larger situation (case) not fully described in the
case study. For,
 the primary means by which God communicates with man is
by his acts, which are the events of history. These events
need interpretation, it is true, and God provides it in his
Word by chosen heralds or messengers. But the focus of
attention is not upon the Word of God in and for itself so
that it can be frozen, so to speak, within a system of
dogmatic propositions. The Word leads us, not away from
history, but to history and to responsible participation
within history. It is the accompaniment of history. The Bible
thus is not primarily the Word of God, but the record of the
Acts of God, together with the human response thereto.
(Wright 1952, 107)

The Bible presents both the drama of the events it records

and the perspective in terms of which those events are to be
interpreted. Dramatic presentations that are not interpreted
(such as most of the dramas to which we are exposed in
popular culture) become mere entertainment. And biblical
events taken out of their contexts (as, for example, by
Hollywood filmmakers) easily become simply entertaining.
On the other hand, mere interpretation of God and his
workings without “eventness” (such as in most sermonizing) is
dead. The proper balance is attained only when there is both
event (drama) and perspective-building interpretation. In the
Bible, even the most theological portions (e.g., Romans)
participate in the “eventness” of the fact that they were written
as letters from specific persons to specific persons to meet
specific needs. In using them today we must not ignore this
fact and fail to “repersonalize” these writings (see chapters 11
and 14). likewise, the most event-laden portions of the
Scriptures (e.g., Old Testament historical books, the Gospels)
are laced through with interpretive comments designed to build
the desired perspective. As a casebook the Bible is balanced in
this regard.
I remember vividly my first exposure in college to a
casebook used as a supplementary textbook in a sociology
course. I remember that I soon developed a negative attitude
toward the primary textbook that presented the theoretical
material in treatise form (i.e., without drama). My attitude
toward the casebook, though, was just the opposite. That
volume came to life for me. It provided drama and eventness,
for it was filled with descriptions of real-life stories of difficult
situations to which sociological insights were applied by real-
life caseworkers.
The casebook described real life. The theoretical
presentation in the textbook, on the other hand, so abstracted
from life that it was difficult to make the connections to my own
experience that would have cemented the learning. Yet, though
American education seems to feel that the most effective way
to teach is to present the principle and allow the students to
perform the supposedly less difficult application, God knew
better. He seems to have realized that the process of
analogizing is easier from the specific to the specific than if
one starts from the general principles alone. So he has
provided us with a casebook rather than with a theology
textbook. And, it seems to me, both the process of theological
education and that of understanding what the Bible is are
infinitely complicated by the constant attempts of preachers
and theologians to give the impression that the Bible is a
theology textbook (Welbourn and Ogot 1966, 137).
“Give me an illustration,” our students say in an attempt to
get us to bring the teaching down to earth for them. And when
we do, the teaching gets across, because they are then
equipped to start with specifics rather than simply with
generalizations. Similar to this is the custom formerly followed
in our society, and still followed in many societies, of teaching
through fables. The story is related in specific detail, and only
when the story is complete and the result reported is the
generalization, the “moral of the story,” stated, if it is stated at
all. Jesus, in teaching this way, employed a pattern both fully
appropriate to his society and, apparently, also much more
widely applicable. It seems, in fact, that this method of teaching
is effective in every society (even American, which is the most
different). I believe this is a sociocultural universal.
The various disciplines that deal with communication point
out that all interpersonal communication is by analogy. We
cannot know absolutely what it is like to be in the other
person's shoes. Nor can we communicate our own experience
absolutely, since the other person has never been in our shoes.
We can, however, in attempting to get across to the other
person, describe how the point we are trying to relate has been
experienced in our, or someone else's life and thinking. And
since the range of human experience in all societies is similar
(Nida 1960, 90-99), a person may thus enter into our experience,
or that other one's experience, analogically. In this way the
recipient of the communication is able to “get the point.”
“Why, you know just how I feel,” a girl once said to me
after she had described to me her desperate plight and I had
countered by describing the most desperate situation that I
had ever been in. By my estimate her situation was worse than
mine had been, but by her estimate we stood on common
ground and an adequate foundation had been laid for my
giving and her receiving help. She had perceived the
appropriateness of the analogy and experienced the “reverse
identification” spoken of in chapter 8.
The effectiveness of such use of analogy 2 in the
communication process is predicated on three bases: (1) the
closeness between the experience of the communicator or
recommended model and that of the potential receptor, (2) the
appropriateness of the analogy, and (3) the ability of the
receptor to identify through the analogy with the personal
model being recommended. In a casebook the assumption is
that (1) there is an appropriate degree of closeness between the
receptor and the persons whose experiences are being
described, (2) the analogies are appropriate to the lessons
being taught, and (3) the reader is apt enough at learning to be
able to identify sufficiently with the participants in the
experiences being described to learn the lessons being taught.
The Bible assumes that, in spite of significant differences in
culture, there are impressive basic human similarities between
peoples (see chapter 5, above). It assumes, further, that these
are sufficient to provide the necessary experiential
commonality to make the cases of divine–human interaction
described appropriate analogies. It also assumes that the
hearers/readers are good enough at the job of learning by
analogy to be able to deduce the principles being illustrated
and to “transculturate” them (see chapter 14, below) into their
life within their culture.
The physician John Hercus, author of a slim volume
entitled Pages from God's Casebook, apparently had an
experience similar to mine while he was a student. He records
how “by the time we were in our fourth year we had some
knowledge of some diseases, though we had never as yet seen
actual cases” (1962, 15). Then the fledgling doctors were taken
into the wards and introduced by their instructors to real-life
situations about which they had merely theorized to that point.
Hercus says:

This was an entirely new method of teaching, one where we

were learning from the cases themselves. We were no
longer learning pneumonia from test-tubes and
microscopes and bottles, but from the thing itself, from the
case of pneumonia. (1962, 16)

This method of teaching was a directly interactional one.

Hercus and the other trainees were coming face to face with
those to whom they must apply their insight. Only slightly
removed from this directly interactional approach, however, is
that which employs a casebook describing in detail what the
learner would have observed in person had he been there at
the time. Hercus continues:

Now in His Textbook God has used this teaching method

perhaps more than any other. He has recorded case after
 case, to teach us how he encounters men, to teach us what
He wants from this encounter. It is as though He has given
us access to a lavish selection of case histories, so that
every aspect of truth is demonstrated. Here is the greatest
ward-round any student can undertake. All are cases
needing treatment, and every aspect of their need, as of
their treatment, may here be studied in the official clinical
records. Temperature charts? X-rays and blood counts?
Autopsies? Yes, they are all there, even a number of fatal
cases, with the full relevant post-mortem findings.
Complications? Oh, yes. All the complications. Some of the
cases are recorded only as the complication—like
empyema, where you must pre-suppose the causative
pneumonia.
Yes, they are there, one after another. That is why the
Bible is not just a history book; rather it is a case history
book. (1962, 16-17)

As pointed out above, though, case histories are useful as

teaching devices only insofar as the reader is able to identify
with one or more of the personal participants in the cases. This
fact requires that the Bible be regarded as classic casebook.
Those who develop and teach from casebooks produce at least
two types of casebooks. Ordinary casebooks typically include
a variety of case studies. Some of these studies are so specific
that analogous situations are hard to find. They are, therefore,
of rather limited applicability beyond the particular type of
situation they describe. Others, however, are qualitatively
different from the rest in that they exemplify more widely
applicable principles and thus come to be regarded as “classic”
cases. These get collected into “classic casebooks.”
This fact points up another characteristic common to
casebooks and the Bible: they are selective. The Bible does
not record all the divine–human interactions that have ever
taken place. Even though the Bible may legitimately be called
“the heart and soul of special revelation” (Ramm 1961, 169), it is
by no means a complete record. It is selective. John makes this
fact explicit when he notes that if all Jesus did were written
down “the whole world could not hold the books that would be
written” (John 21:25). Ramm helpfully points out this fact when
he says,

The graphē is not the corpus of all revelations, nor is it the

exhaustive history of the divine action in the world.
According to Hebrews 1:1 the Old Testament possesses a
fragmentary and partial character. The problem of Cain's
wife is a perpetual reminder to the Church that the Church
has only a partial and representative document in her
graphē. Scripture is not the whole story; and the people of
God do not need the whole story. The book of Acts is so
suggestive of the character of all Scripture. It is a few acts
of a few apostles at a few places during a few years. But
the few disciples were the very important ones; the few
acts were the decisive ones; the few years were the
gestating years; and the few places were hinges of history.
(1961, 169-70)
 The Bible may thus be usefully seen as an inspired classic
casebook and the process of canonization as the Spirit-guided
process of selecting those cases by means of which the Bible
came into existence. This process involves four major steps: (1)
the occurrence of certain events, (2) the recording of many of
the events, (3) the experimental use of a number of the recorded
accounts among a constituency, and (4) the selection and
publication of those case studies felt by the constituency to be
most valuable. When the period of time during which the case
studies are experimentally used is lengthy and the size of the
constituency large and varied (as with the Scriptures), the
likelihood is increased that the cases chosen will be truly
classic. Add to this the leading of the Holy Spirit throughout
the whole process, and all the requirements have been met for
the production of an inspired classic casebook.
Identifying with the participants in classic cases is not
much of a problem, since human beings and their life
experiences have so much in common. For, as Goldschmidt
states, even across cultures “people are more alike than
cultures” (1966, 134). Thus, even in a multicultural casebook
such as the Bible, it is possible for a given reader to identify
with a good many of the participants whose case histories are
recorded. And the fact that it is multicultural, along with the
fact that the classic cases largely deal with universal human
problems, makes it certain that anyone of any society can
identify with at least certain major portions of the material
recorded. “And as you thus read it you may come to see better
what God has in mind for your life. And wonder of wonders,
your name (and mine) may in the ages to come be found in the
Lamb's Book of Life, as one of the Successful Cases” (Hercus
1962, 17).
By virtue of the fact that the inspired record is in classic
casebook form, the revelation remains very personal, even
though it comes to us in written form. It also has another
advantage—an advantage stemming from the fact that, in true
casebook fashion, it is primarily descriptive rather than
hortatory. That is, it is a record of events that have already
happened, rather than a book addressed directly to the reader
exhorting him or her to do this or that. The advantage in this is
that such an approach invites the reader by indirection to
identify with participants and to involve the self thereby in the
kind of discovery that produces the most effective kind of
learning. As the authors of a more recent casebook state, “Our
concern is not to tell the answer, but to help the reader to
discover the process by which the resolution was attained”
(Rogers, Mackenzie, and Weeks 1977, 8). In involving the self
with the subjects of the case study, of course, the reader also
becomes involved in the kind of participation with the Holy
Spirit in which the participants were involved.

A Human Word as Well as a Divine Word

(Model 9e)
Scripture is a joint product, the product of divine–human
participation, involving leading and revealing. For although “all
Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), all
Scripture is also written by human beings and from (Spirit-
guided) human points of view. It is human perception that is
recorded (albeit under the inspiration of God), even when God's
communication is most direct (as in the giving of the Law). And
in terms of the perceptions recorded, a major proportion of the
material is far from that degree of directness. That is, the Bible
is not only God's Word, it is a human word as well.

Model 9e
The Bible is a joint product of human and divine activity. It is
both God's Word and human words.
Closed conservatives have often felt uneasy and
threatened by this recognition of the human element in
Scripture. They tend to see divine–human relationships in
terms of an either/or, competitive model. If Scriptures are “God-
breathed,” they contend, they cannot be human. If human,
they cannot be of God. However, the interaction-participation
or partnership model employed here for all divine–human
leading/ revealing (including the production and canonization
of Scriptures) specifically denies that the either/or, competitive
perspective and the fear that admitting the humanness of what
we term “God's” Word are doing an injustice to God. God gave
himself to redeem human beings. If he has that high a regard
for humanity and has, furthermore, invited human beings to
participate with him in his redemptive activity (2 Cor. 5:20; John
17:18; 20:21), how can we fear to recognize human participation
with (not in place of) God in the production of Scripture?
Closed conservatism (fundamentalism and closed
evangelicalism),
 in its eagerness to maintain Holy Scripture's divinity, does
not fully realize the significance of Holy Scripture as a
prophetic-apostolic, and consequently human,
testimony…. They allow their apologetics to be determined
by the fear that emphasis on the human witness may
threaten and overshadow Scripture's divinity…. The result
is that their apologetic, which is meant to safeguard
Scripture's divine aspect, threatens in many respects to
block the road to a correct understanding of Scripture…by
ignoring and neglecting its human aspect. (Berkouwer 1975,
22-23)

In producing the Bible, as in most of his other activities

within the sociocultural context, God has permitted human
beings to partner with him. In fact, I believe that, though he
retains the right to manipulate circumstances, he has made a
rule for himself that he will only work in the human context
through human partners. A case in point is the fact that the
written record of God's interaction with human beings is in the
languages of the human partners. This fact is obvious to most
scholars. But, unfortunately, many pseudo-scholars and
popular Bible teachers still

have an exaggerated view of the Biblical languages.

Hebrew is regarded as a special esoteric tongue for the
theologians, and Greek is a “mystery” or “the finest
instrument of human thought ever devised by man.” On the
contrary, Greek and Hebrew are just “languages,” with all
 the excellencies and liabilities that every language tends to
have. They are neither the languages of heaven nor the
speech of the Holy Spirit. (Nida and Taber 1969, 6)

Furthermore, the evidence suggests strongly that these

were completely normal people who wrote in their own
vocabulary and their own ways of expression. They all
employed their own grammatical and dialectic idiosyncrasies.
God worked with and in terms of their normal cultural,
psychological, and intellectual limitations rather than against
them. Thus, though the inspired meanings that flowed through
their words often transcended the authors' intent, the forms in
which these meanings were conveyed were characteristic of
the authors themselves. Each Gospel writer records the life of
Christ from his own perspective, in terms of his own interests,
concerns, perceptions, language skills, and even memory. So
when to Mark it did not seem important to distinguish the
words of Malachi from those of Isaiah (Mark 1:2-3) or to
identify correctly the high priest from whom David received
consecrated bread to eat (Mark calls him Abiathar when in fact
it was Ahimelech; compare Mark 2:26 with 1 Sam. 21:1-6), God
does not step in to straighten Mark out.3 Rather, both the
language and the humanity are demonstrably intact throughout
the pages of the Bible, even as they are when God leads human
beings today. His method today is the same.
Note, however, that the recommendation here implied is
that (with Berkouwer 1975, 197ff.) we understand the nature of
the Scriptures by analogy to the way God works with imperfect,
though usable, human beings. Inerrantists have a very
different model in mind. They hold that since Jesus was
without sin, the Bible must similarly be without error. The
relationship between God's inspiring activity and the activity of
the writers would therefore be analogous to the activity of the
Spirit in the virgin birth. The result, then, would be sinless,
errorless language, just as the result of Jesus' conception and
birth was a sinless human being.
The problem with attempting to understand Scripture in
terms of the inerrantists' analogy is that any contention that
anything in language is inerrant flies in the face of what we
know about human communication. Since meanings are in
people rather than in language, everything in language is
subject to the interpretation of sinful human beings and could
not, therefore, be without error. Inerrantists fear, though, that if
scriptural language is not perfect (i.e., error free), we are forced
to believe that the Scriptures are full of errors. Not so. We need
not, in rejecting one extreme position, go to the opposite
extreme. Recognizing that language cannot be errorless
because the interpretations of it by humans cannot be
errorless, only requires that we, with Berkouwer, understand
the nature of Scripture in terms of a parallel between
imperfectible language and imperfectible human beings. Under
the leading of the Holy Spirit, however, both scriptural
language and human beings can be trustworthy, adequate,
usable vehicles for God's working in the world, though neither
is perfect or perfectible (see below in this chapter for further
discussion of this point).
The position advocated here concerning how the Bible is
inspired sees no difficulty in maintaining that the totality of the
Bible (forms as well as meanings) is inspired. The Bible, though
fully human as well as fully divine, is all inspired Word. God
has inspired and still inspires (some prefer to say “illumines”)
the whole Bible. He is not, however, limited to the Bible in his
workings with people. In fact, in the Bible we see clearly that
God works in a wide variety of ways—through circumstances,
through people, through special revelations of various kinds.
Thus, though the Word is all inspired, it is not the only
communication of God. God's other communication will not,
however, contradict the written Word, the canonical Scriptures.
In this way, the Bible provides for us a yardstick, a plumbline,
or a norm by means of which to measure other purported
communications from God (model 9a).

A Dynamic View of Scriptural Inspiration

(Model 9f)
This perspective focuses on the similarities between the
divine–human activity that produced the Scriptures and that
which results in any other leading of humans by God. Many
views, for philosophical reasons, cannot allow for such a
similarity. I believe that the primary reasons for static views of
scriptural inspiration lie in certain values of Euro-American
culture. In societies such as ours, which accord such a high
place to material that gets into print, it is only natural that our
focus would become fixed more on the written (biblical)
descriptions of divine–human interactions than on the
dynamics of the interactions themselves.
We may, however, mention three additional cultural
emphases that contribute to the attractiveness of a static view:
(1) the excessive idealization (“mything”) of historical events
that sees them as quite different from what happens today, (2) a
negative attitude toward human beings that sees humans as so
totally affected by sin (or some secular equivalent) that they
cannot be trusted today, and (3) a depersonalized (mechanized)
view of human beings. Put these four factors together and it
becomes possible to explain on cultural grounds both the
strong drive of some to defend a mechanistic view of
inspiration that reduces the authors of Scripture to the status
of impersonal instruments who could not err while this process
was taking place, and the almost exclusive focus on and
idealization of the written accounts of historical events.
Seeing such positions as simply the result of their
advocates' uncritical following of the pressures of our society
may seem a bit harsh for the positions of people who are true
sisters and brothers in Christ. The need to straighten out or at
least balance such perspectives is (from my point of view), one
of the more pressing needs of our time. For the mechanistic
views of scriptural inspiration to which fundamentalists and
closed evangelicals subscribe form an important part of that
cultural brittleness spoken about earlier. Such views prevent
closed conservatives from considering and adapting to new
insight, while forcing them to defend ultimately untenable
positions (e.g., Lindsell's attempts to deal with discrepancies in
Scripture, 1976, 161-84; see especially his fanciful approach to
Peter's denials—six of them!—pp. 174-76). If, though, such
Christians begin to take seriously informed views concerning
language and culture, they may feel they have no way to go
except the way of the liberals or the naturalists. For such
liberals and naturalists (e.g., the so-called linguistic school of
hermeneutics), having faced such facts and found no viable
alternative within orthodoxy (such as the one I am attempting
to develop here), have frequently opted for subjectivistic
naturalism.
Bruce Vawter, a Catholic scholar who would be considered
an evangelical if he were Protestant, contends that, in the light
of new understandings, it is incumbent upon us to reexamine
our conventional idea of biblical inspiration

in the light of the findings of various modern linguistic

studies. We have often forgotten that as a means of
communication literature is only an extension of
language, and not always an adequate extension at that.
Before it comes to be written the word must be first spoken,
if only in the mind and not on the lips. Any theory of
inspiration that manifests interest in a sacred text ought,
then, to have as one of its prime areas of investigation the
process by which the text first emerged as language within
the minds of its authors. It may be replied that…traditional
theology…always tried to investigate just that. According
to its lights, no doubt it did. But its investigation was
inadequate and even misdirected, for many reasons. For
one thing, it was concerned with language formation only
to the extent that it was a presupposition of the Biblical
text, which later it identified rather mechanically with the
 inspired word. In turn, its idea of word and of language was
entirely static; It thought in terms of the elaboration of
words that were then once for all put down on paper, not of
words as means whereby the Spirit continues to speak to
men and makes “colloquium” with God a possibility….
Furthermore, even with all its best intentions to the
contrary, the language it contemplated was more oracular
than real, more assumed to fit the hypothesis than
recognized as a human reality with a life and a history of its
own. (1972, 113-14; emphasis added)

A major point that I would like to make is that it is possible

as an evangelical Christian to look squarely at the facts of
language and culture and to come up with an understanding
of how God reveals himself that is neither mechanistic nor
naturalistic, neither oblivious of cultural and linguistic realities
nor of the reality of continuous divine–human interaction. I
believe strongly that the Scriptures are inspired and that this
inspiration may properly be labeled “verbal” (that is,
inspiration attaches to the wording employed) and “plenary”
(that is, the whole Bible is inspired). These terms label what is
inspired (i.e., all the words). But the words are inspired almost
incidentally. For the primary focus of inspiration (as of all
ethnolinguistic communication) is on the meanings. Only in
societies like ours that, under the influence of simplistic views
of language, have chosen to focus almost exclusively on
words, would one get theories of inspiration that concentrate
almost exclusively on words. At Christmas should we be so
interested in the wrappings that we virtually ignore the gifts
inside? As Barr (1961) and Nida (1971) correctly point out, it is
an uninformed approach to biblical interpretation that devotes
itself almost totally to word-level analyses. I contend that a
word-focused doctrine of inspiration is also inadequate.

Model 9f
The inspiring activity of God is understood to be dynamic—
an example of the continual leading activity of God—rather
than static—an example of a method God once used but has
since abandoned.

My primary concern here, however, is to probe the

dynamics of inspiration—the process by means of which God
and Spirit-led humans produce inspired utterances. As
indicated above, I believe that this is a continuing process, a
part of the leading of God. I believe, further, that one of the
major purposes of the Bible is to provide us with insight into
the process, the dynamics, of God's continuing leading. The
Bible, from this perspective, is not simply notable for its
propositional content (a static concept), though this is a very
important part of the revelation. It also shows us what to do
with that and the rest of its content. It provides a magnificent
display of the dynamics of divine–human interaction. And this
is a continuing interaction in which we are invited to participate
in our time and culture in a way dynamically equivalent to that
displayed in Scripture—and on the basis of the same principles
employed in God's partnering with the authors of Scripture.
This interaction has the potential, at least, of the kind of output
that God's Spirit will lead others to perceive as God's revelation
to them.
Because of the multicultural nature of the Scriptures (see
chapter 11) and its demonstrable applicability to enough basic
human needs to adequately serve what we understand to be
the purposes of God, I have no expectation that further
Scripture will be written. This in spite of the fact that God is still
doing the same kinds of things as are recorded in Scripture,
including the speaking and writing of Spirit-led, inspired
utterances. But no more inspired writings will be added to
Scripture because we don't need any more, not because there
are no more inspired things happening.
The Scriptures are here seen as adequate in fulfilling God's
purpose to provide necessary guidelines. I do not regard them
as different in inspiration from Spirit-led writings and speaking
that now occur. For the key is in the leading activity of the God
who inspires—an activity that continues to this day—not in
any supposed difference in the nature of Scripture in contrast
to what is happening today. As I see it, those who have
attempted to support their doctrine of biblical inspiration by
contending that there are demonstrable differences between
the Bible and any other book (or lecture/sermon) in the
linguistic and literary form, or in the means by which the
Scriptures were compiled and transmitted, and/or between the
events recorded in the Bible and any contemporary events
have not made their case (see Rogers 1974, 98-105, for a
discussion of Warfield and others who fell into this trap). They
have also, unwittingly, driven to an opposite extreme many
who see the fallacy of such views but who are unable to see
any alternative between outright acceptance and outright
rejection.
Thus, one is tempted to react against rigid positions such
as those of John Warwick Montgomery (1974), Harold Lindsell
(1976), and, formerly, Clark Pinnock (1967) by fleeing into the
arms of what Pinnock called the “naturalistic” theologians. For
the positions of these men allow for only two alternatives—
theirs and that of subjective rationalism. They fail to take
seriously the livingness of God and the contemporariness and
personalness of God's revelational activity. They thus can do
nothing else than contend that anyone who disagrees with
their extreme position is in fact denying that God has revealed
himself at all. They correctly condemn the biblical critics for
treating the Bible “like no other book, by bathing it in the acid
solution of their scepticism and historical pessimism” (Pinnock
1967, 23). Yet they attempt to defend their position by loudly
asserting their a priori assumption that the form of the Bible is
“like no other book” or any other communication that ever
came in terms of human language and culture. They prove to
me that “fanatical ‘objectivizing’ of Scripture can be as
detrimental to its proper understanding as a frightful
‘subjectivizing’” (Ramm 1961, 99).
In defending the Bible's inspiration, such closed
conservatives feel compelled to sink or swim on the basis of an
equation between inspiration and inerrancy. This is a “chancy”
kind of decision at best, given the fact that such an equation is
based on philosophical presuppositions, not on scriptural
statements. For the Bible, though claiming inspiration (2 Tim.
3:16), never claims inerrancy. Furthermore, the very number and
diversity of the theories advanced to explain what the Bible
claims but never explains should be warning enough against
locking oneself so tightly into such an equation. If God did not
see fit to inspire an explanation, should we not allow for a
range of understanding? Perhaps a principle employed by
certain Christian groups is useful here: “Speak out when the
Bible speaks out, remain silent where the Bible is silent.”
Though I have not in this book followed that advice, I have
attempted to present my assumptions (models) in such a way
that readers can disagree with or reject them if they so choose.
Nevertheless, I find it possible to agree to the use of a term
like “inerrant” if it is defined as a technical term. Such is done
with the word “myth.” The latter term has a popular meaning
that is widely different from its technical meaning. Clark
Pinnock, who once took the belligerent posture of Lindsell and
Montgomery, later changed his position and chose not to fight
over the term (which he still prefers in 1976b but not in 1976a)
and to define it as a technical term in a way that conforms to,
rather than being imposed on, the scriptural data. Pinnock
states that

according to this understanding of inerrancy, the Bible is

not free of all “errors” in its whole extent, but free of errors
where its intended teachings are concerned…. Inerrancy
when understood in this way…does not suspend the truth
of the gospel upon a single detail…. (1976b, 12)

Pinnock thus qualifies the term “inerrancy” to refer

technically to the absence of biblical error in all that the Bible
affirms. With respect to the necessary kinds of qualifications,
he says,

The qualification can be illustrated in cases such as these:

where the biblical writer pictures the natural world in the
modes of expression current in his day, scientifically
precise references neither being intended nor made; where
the degree of historical precision correlates with the
author's intention—in confusing the facts of the Abraham
story in Acts 7 we fault neither Stephen for citing the facts
as he recalled them nor Luke for recording what he believed
Stephen said; where Job cites the errant opinions of liars;
where the chronicler recounts figures quite different from
those in parallel passages, his intention being only to set
forth the record as he found it in the public archives; where
the ipsissima verba of Jesus are handled with a certain
freedom depending on the purpose of the redactor
evangelist, or where Paul cites the Old Testament freely in
line with some concept he wishes to teach us. In all these
cases, and in many others, inerrancy is being applied in a
qualified sense, relative to the intended assertions of the
text. Even Warfield, always taken to be the champion of the
strictest possible view, wrote: “No objection (to inerrancy)
is valid which overlooks the prime question: what was the
professed or implied purpose of the writer in making this
statement?” (Pinnock 1976b, 12; emphasis added; see also
Warfield 1881, 245; Packer 1958, 98)
 When the term “inerrancy” is used as a technical term and
qualified in this way so that it fits the scriptural data to which it
is applied at the contextual meaning level, I have no problem
with it. Since, however, many people who use the term are in
fact using it with its popular connotations (e.g., Lindsell 1976),
my preference is to avoid it. I prefer simply to use the scriptural
term “inspiration” or to use a term that all seem to agree on,
saying the Scriptures are “trustworthy” and, therefore, can be
used authoritatively.
As noted above, many of those who most strongly support
the use of the term “inerrancy” (in the popular sense) do so on
the basis of an analogy between Jesus and the Scriptures (i.e.,
as Jesus was God in perfect human form, so Scripture is God's
Word in perfected human language; see Berkouwer 1975, 197ff.
for a critical discussion of this view). The analogy is likely to
be misleading unless we carefully distinguish where it applies
from where it does not apply on the basis of a consideration of
the scriptural documents themselves—not on the basis of prior
philosophical assumptions. Closed conservatives seem to
assume that since God is all-powerful and could have
produced a perfect, inerrant Bible, he therefore must have.
Berkouwer cites Warfield in this regard as follows:

Warfield writes that “in both cases divine and human

factors are involved” and “even so distant an analogy”
shows that it can be said both regarding Christ and
Scripture that “by the conjoint action of human and divine
factors, the human factors…cannot have fallen into that
error, which we say it is human to fall into.” (Berkouwer
 1975, citing Warfield 1948, 162)

It has become increasingly obvious from a study of the

actual form in which the Scriptures have come to us that God
has not perfected the form of the languages in which his Word
is presented to us. The languages are fully human languages
used in ways that are comprehensible to us (within our frame of
reference) from our study of how human languages are used by
human beings. The function that scriptural languages serve
and the meanings or content conveyed through them are the
only things that distinguish the languages of Scripture from
other uses of human languages. And it is in this sense that the
analogy between the Scriptures and Jesus is helpful. For he
came in human form, taking on all of the limitations of
humanity, not merely for the sake of sanctifying human form
but for the sake of the function that he could carry out and the
meanings he could convey as a human. And in this function, a
function of his humanity not of his deity, the ministry of Jesus
parallels that of other human beings through whom God has
worked.
This fact suggests a better analogy than that between the
sinless form of Jesus and the suggested sinless (errorless) form
of Scripture. This would be an analogy between, on the one
hand, the God-ordained function of the ministry of Jesus and
the God-ordained functions of the ministries of countless
fallible, Spirit-led human beings and, on the other hand, the
functions of Scripture. The sinless Christ can be worshipped as
God. Fallible human vehicles (whether human beings or human
words), though they may be greatly honored for their
faithfulness in ministry (their function), should never be
worshipped. The Scriptures, like human beings who serve God,
are to be valued for the function they perform and for the
meanings they convey rather than for the perfection of their
form. For the form itself minus the participation with it of the
Spirit of God is nothing more than that of any other book.
Berkouwer speaks helpfully in this regard of the “servant-
form” of Holy Scripture (1975, 195-212). This concept has also
been developed by Calvin, who (in Ramm's words),

speaks of this great condescension of God in which he

bends down and, lowering himself, lisps that we might hear
and understand him. Just as the Son of God emptied
himself and lowered himself to our estate, so revelation
comes to us in a humbled, lowered form that we might
cradle it in our minds. (Ramm 1961, 33; see Calvin 1953,
1:xiii, 1)

This functional understanding of the nature of Scripture

keeps us from being “embarrassed by the marks of humanity
and humiliation which it bears” (Ramm 1961, 34, after Thornton
1950). For Scripture's purpose, like that of Christ, is to function
as a servant. Abraham Kuyper, on whom both Berkouwer and
Ramm lean at this point, articulates well this functional
perspective:

As in the Mediator the Divine nature weds itself to the

humans, and appears before us in its form and figure, so
 also the Divine factor of the Holy Scripture clothes itself in
the garment of our form of thought and holds itself to our
human reality…when, on Sinai, God with his own finger
engraves in human words His law upon the tables of stone,
and the revelation remains not absolutely transcendent, but
makes use…of the human as instrument. All the shadows
and types bear the same mixed character. All of sacred
history rests upon the same entwining of both factors. And
even in miracles, the Divine factor remains never purely
transcendent, but in order to reveal Himself, ever enters
into human reality…. As the Logos has not appeared in the
form of glory, but in the form of a servant, joining Himself
to the reality of our nature, as this had come to be through
the results of sin, so also, for the revelation of His Logos,
God the Lord accepts our consciousness, our human life as
it is.… The “spoken words,” however much aglow with the
Holy Ghost, remain bound to the limitation of our language,
disturbed as it is by anomalies. As a product of writing, the
Holy Scripture also bears on its forehead the mark of the
form of a servant. (Kuyper 1954, 478-79)

I fear that closed conservatives will not be likely to accept

this functional view, because of their “low” view of humanity. If
one believes that, by definition, what is human, and therefore
tainted by sin, cannot be of God, one will have difficulty with
each aspect of the “high” view of humanity that I am
presenting. Closed conservatives typically view humans as
vying with God in competition for centrality in all such cases of
divine–human interaction. They thus become reactionary
“because of their fear that the divine nature of revelation will
suffer in an overemphasis on its human nature” (Berkouwer
1975, 23). The models here developed—where we see human
beings as elevated by God to function in a participatory status
in a wide variety of his activities (including revelation and
inspiration) and where distinctions are made between forms,
functions, and meanings—should help greatly to clarify this
issue and, one hopes, to alleviate fear. For God's pattern is not
a competitive one where he jealously seeks to exclude human
beings from appearing in center stage. It is, rather, one in which
he joins humanity on center stage, respecting, honoring,
adjusting, and bending to our creaturely existence, mediating
himself to human beings via human-beingness (Ramm 1961,
34).
In being critical of those who use inerrancy with its popular
connotations, I do not wish to question either their sincerity or
their right to hold to their particular theory of inspiration. In
fact, I agree with most of their major conclusions concerning
the inspiration, trustworthiness, and normativeness of
Scripture. I also agree that it is important to hold and defend a
“high” view of scriptural inspiration and authority. But I do not
believe that such closed conservative positions as those of
Lindsell, Montgomery, and Francis Schaeffer are “high”
enough. For they are based on static philosophical
presuppositions that don't seem to fit the dynamic livingness
either of the Scriptures or of vital Christian experience. The
kind of behavioral insights that have been developed over the
past couple of generations make their supporting arguments
very difficult to accept. For, in their writings,
 the concept of inerrancy, in practice at least, has almost
demanded as its correlative a notion of Biblical truth fixed
once for all in a single point of time, and therefore, a notion
of word that is essentially lifeless, historical in the sense of
archival only. Yet no theory of Biblical truth…should have
been permitted to envisage an inerrant letter that would,
logically, rule out the possibility of a Sermon on the Mount
updating the Law and the Prophets or constitute St. Paul's
law of faith an heretical attack on the Law given through
Moses. For that matter, it can hardly envisage any kind of
verbal inerrancy or sufficiency that would declare Rom.
13:1-7 the ultimate Biblical word on civil obedience or make
of Mk. 12:17 the Bible's definitive and adequate teaching on
Church and State. Biblical truth…is evidently far less
concerned with words than with the word: its witness is
not to formulations that can be bent to new situations
only by an appeal to senses that were unknown to and
unintended by an inspired author, but to the historical
continuity of a Biblical message that was, at some stage,
undeniably his. (Vawter 1972, 155; emphasis added)

That is, in coming to a theory of inspiration (and we are

simply discussing theories—I and even those I am quoting
negatively all agree on the fact of scriptural inspiration), we
must take adequate account of the continuing processes to
which the Scriptures witness. Static views have tended to
focus only on the result, or product, of the revelatory process,
and to suggest that God employed a radically different method
of revealing the contents of Scripture from what he employed
before or has employed since. And yet the very events
recorded in the Scriptures witness clearly to the fact that, over
thousands of years, God has interacted in a revelatory way
with any human being who would respond to him. It does not
appear to me reasonable to believe that as soon as the last
New Testament documents were committed to writing, God
totally changed his method of operation to such an extent
that he now limits himself to the Bible.
But if such defenses of a static theory of scriptural
inspiration are difficult to agree with, I find the kind of
approach that sees inspiration attached only to portions of the
Scripture even more deficient.4 To my way of thinking the
whole Scripture is inspired—that is, Scripture is the product of
the Spirit-led recording and canonization of divine–human
interactions. Yet—and here is a point where much confusion
has developed—not all Scripture, by virtue of the fact that it is
inspired, should be understood to consist of novel information.
Indeed,

not all the statements of the sixty-six books, which are

verbally inspired, concern…revelational matters. In
Scripture there are statements or aspects of statements
about matters which fall within the range of what men can
know by themselves. That Emmaus was about seven miles
from Jerusalem (Lk. 24:13), that the emperor Claudius
commanded all the Jews to leave Rome (Acts 18:2)…these
are examples of Biblical propositions that we can know the
truth of without having to have them revealed to us. (Fuller
 1969, ix-20)

But inspiration and revelation are not synonymous terms.

Inspiration relates to a quality of God's leading of human
beings. It may involve a person in saying and/or doing certain
quite ordinary things that God employs as the vehicle of his
communication to others. Inspiration thus is the process by
means of which God reveals himself indirectly. He does this
primarily through human beings to other human beings and
secondarily through written records proceeding from such
interactions. Revelation always happens when God leads
people. In events labeled “inspired,” God reveals himself both
to and through the human agent with whom he participates.
Inspiration is the quality of leading that happens to that
person as God participates with that person to communicate
(reveal) himself through him or her to others.
This view assumes, with respect to biblical inspiration as
with respect to all other leading of people by God, that (1) we
are dealing with a God who lovingly interacts with human
beings; (2) God chooses to employ human culture and
language as the milieu of his interaction with humans; (3) it is
in the process of this interaction between God and human
beings within the human cultural context that the events now
recorded in Scripture took place; (4) God has, in working with
humans, led certain of them to record certain of these God–
human interactions as well as certain other materials
specifically relevant to these interactions (including inspired
interpretations of many aspects of the interactions);5 (5) a
selection of these recorded materials has been preserved by
the people of God and, following God's leading, elevated to the
status of Scripture; (6) these writings are therefore inspired in
at least four senses, only the third of which (c) is unique to the
Scriptures: (a) the original interactions between God and
humans participated in the same kind of inspiration that God's
leading and a person's positive response to it always do (2 Pet.
1:21—God led people to speak), (b) God led certain persons to
record these divine–human interactions (2 Tim. 3:16—God led
people to write), (c) God has led the church (and Israel before it
with regard to the Old Testament) to preserve and employ
these particular materials in a unique way in their attempts to
discern and follow God's leading, and (d) the Holy Spirit is
active in interacting with the readers and hearers of these
materials.

Truth with Impact (Model 9g)

The Bible, the inspired casebook, is seen to be as much the
record of a dynamic and continuing process of divine–human
interaction as it is the repository for divinely revealed truth. It
is indeed the latter, as static models of the nature of the
Scriptures contend. But it is considerably more.

Model 9g
The dynamic inspiring/leading of God results in a Bible that
presents truth with impact.
 The Bible presents in casebook fashion a long series of
communicational events by means of which God has made
himself successively better known to his people (Israel in the
Old Testament, the church in the New Testament). But the
receptors of the messages and the processes of communication
employed are as in focus as the messages themselves. And the
diversity of the means of communication (e.g., direct speech,
visions, seemingly spontaneous utterances, written
documents, church councils) and of the literary devices
employed to record these communications is as evident as the
essential unity of the total message.
Truth is there. And it often includes information that could
not have been known other than as the result of God's
revealing it to people. History is there—accurate, trustworthy
history that records many of the most important events by
means of which God worked out the details of our salvation.
Information concerning the most astounding event of all time is
recorded there—the incarnational entrance of God into a single
human society at a specific point in time to demonstrate
conclusively, in a way that cannot be misunderstood, the
extent of his commitment to and involvement with human
beings.
But even the excitement that the revelation of this new
information engenders in us must not obscure the facts
concerning the process by means of which it is conveyed. It is
information presented in particular hearer-oriented ways—in
ways designed to have maximum relevance to and high impact
on the hearers, for effective communication does not consist
merely of information. It is not simply the truth value of material
presented that gets it across. Many have been the times (as,
alas, Christian preachers have discovered too often) when
utterly true and necessary information has been presented but
has not gotten across.
It is an unfortunate fact of our sociocultural conditioning
that we have ordinarily learned to think of processes such as
teaching, preaching, writing, and reading primarily in terms of
the kind and/or amount of knowledge thereby transferred from
one person to others. For example, we often evaluate classroom
teaching in this light rather than in terms of the much more
significant concern as to how great the motivational impact of
that knowledge might be. Thus our schools regularly churn out
millions of young people with great amounts of information in
their heads that they are largely unable and unmotivated to use
because it has not come to them with relevance or impact. Far
better would be less fact or truth communicated over a longer
period of time in such a way as to be relevantly applied to
questions that the students are asking. It would thus motivate
rather than stifle them.
The Bible goes considerably beyond revealing merely
intellectual truth or information. It demonstrates how truth is
effectively gotten across. It proclaims the fact that the
expressing nature of God (often termed “word” in our English
translations) “is alive and active” (Heb. 4:12) and must be
looked to and depended on by the Christian in every event of
life. Our God is there portrayed as mainly a God of dialogue
who interacts with us, not simply a God of monologue who
makes pronouncements above us. And he did not change
when the last biblical book was completed.
 God's communication with humanity is depicted in the
Bible as coming to humans in familiar, expected ways (though
the message itself was often unexpected). To people who
believed that he would speak through dreams and visions, he
spoke through dreams and visions. To those who looked to
prophets for word from him, he spoke through prophets. To
those who looked to written documents, he employed written
documents (e.g., Neh. 8:lff.). And to many (e.g., Israel, the early
church) who expected God to reveal himself in all these ways,
he employed all these ways. My point is that God has not now
limited himself to working only through the written word—
though to those who (for cultural reasons) limit themselves to
seeing God only via the written word he largely accommodates
himself to their expectations.
Furthermore, God's method of self-disclosure is
demonstrated to be participatory. He worked with, not simply
above, those to whom he revealed himself. He participated with
people and with groupings of his people (e.g., Israel, churches)
to bring about discovery of himself, his leading, his revelation.
He employed any means available to, and considered
appropriate by, those with whom he was working. And he has
not now changed simply because the Bible is complete.
Lastly, we observe God's revelatory activity as recorded in
the Scriptures to be specific to the situation. The number of
highly generalized, cosmic pronouncements (e.g., the Ten
Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount) is limited. And
even these were addressed to specific persons at specific times
and places and for specific immediate purposes. The fact that
such pronouncements are more widely applicable is a function
of our human commonality activated by our ability to identify
with the needs of the participants to which these
pronouncements were originally directed. God is not simply
“playing to the grandstand” and using the original people as
“props” for the purpose of getting across to someone else
somewhere else. Thus, most of the biblical records deal with
events that are even more demonstrably specific than these
cosmic pronouncements. The prophet Nathan speaks directly
to David concerning a specific sin; Paul writes to the
Corinthians concerning a series of specific concerns; Jesus
chooses and devotes himself to a specific twelve students, and
so forth. My contention is that God's method is still the same
today, dynamically (functionally) equivalent to his workings in
the past. He continues to reveal himself in such specific ways.
From this point of view, God is just as alive and active in
his process of self-revelation now as he ever was. And when
he communicates truth about himself he still communicates it
with impact. He communicates in familiar, expected ways by
means of participation with human beings in specific situations
to which the revelation is immediately applicable. Since God is
self-consistent, such contemporary revelation of himself will
never contradict scripturally recorded revelation.
Having discussed these several horizontal dimensions of
God's revelatory process, we turn to an elaboration of certain
of them.

1. Speaking of God as “ manifesting himself” as I do here is not to be taken as

a blanket endorsement of the second-and third-century theory of the nature of God
called “ modalism,” “ Sabellianism,” or “ modalistic monarchianism” (see Brauer
1971, 563). As a protection against polytheism, that position has impressive
strengths that might be well employed today to counteract the tendency within
trinitarianism to regard the three persons as totally separate individuals. Modalism
however, does not deal well with the apparent distinctions within the Trinity at the
same point in time (e.g., when Jesus spoke to God the Father). I find Nida 1959
the most helpful presentation of the matter. He admits (as I think we all must) both
that we cannot understand all that we would like to concerning the single God and
the three names we use for him, and that “ the Bible contains neither a description
nor an explanation of the Trinity” (p. 53). He then suggests that we think of God as
one in form but three in function or activity with respect to the human cultural and
historical milieu.
2. A useful parallelism between terms is pointed out by Rogers: “ The word
‘analogy’ functions in theology in roughly the same way that ‘metaphor’ functions
in literature and ‘model’ functions in the sciences” (1976, 69).
3. This statement is made on the assumption that these and the majority of the
other similar discrepancies in the best extant Greek and Hebrew source texts are
authentic. It is, from my point of view, (1) unlikely that we do right to hold the
biblical authors, who wrote in cultures and rimes other than ours and largely in
nontechnical style, accountable for “ inerrantist” standards of how God's Word ought
to have been written and (2) just as unlikely at all of the so-called discrepancies
would vanish if we ever discovered the original manuscripts. Though it is possible
that the original manuscripts did not contain such discrepancies, I regard it as more
likely that the inspired message was presented in a way that the original receptors
would regard as reliable, authoritative, and adequate in terms of their criteria. We
need, I believe, to understand in context God's specificity in accommodating to the
expectations and limitations both of the original receptors and of the 11uma11
communicators.
4. See Vawter 1972, 134-35 for a discussion of several such views.
5. The fact that a majority of the scriptural writings preserve for us a record of
“ holy history” is of very high significance, since it thereby reveals to us a large
number of the details by means of which God worked out our salvation. But this
content, as important as it is, does not in itself assure inspiration. The leading of
God that results in inspiration, and that process rather than the content conveyed by
means of it, is what is here in focus.
11
THE COMPONENTS OF RFVELATION

God has not left humanity helpless and hopeless. He has

not left himself without witness, even in the muteness of his
subhuman creation (Rom. 1:20; Ps. 19:1-6). He has witnessed
powerfully in and through human beings and supremely in and
through the Human Being, Jesus Christ. He has employed the
whole spectrum of cultural vehicles of communication,
showing a special preference for personal, interactional means.
And he has led human beings to commit certain accounts of
his workings to writing. God's Spirit, then, works with and
through all these vehicles to reveal God and his messages to
human beings.
Revelation, from this perspective (models 8f above and 8j
below), is like certain strong glues that require the mixture of
two substances at the time when they are used. I have used an
epoxy glue and a “plastic steel,” each sold in two containers.
The one container holds the base and the other what Is called
an activator. Neither of these substances will work by itself.
When they are mixed, though, they powerfully bond the
substances to which they are applied. In the process of
revelation, the informational component is the base, while the
Holy Spirit, usually in partnership with a human being, is the
activator. Without both components, revelation is only
potential, never actualized.
In what follows we look at certain additional aspects of
model 8: (1) the informational base of revelation, (2) the
activators, and (3) the receptors' will and the problem of human
sinfulness as it affects the revelational process. We then relate
the constancy of the message (model 10b) to the multicultural
nature of the Scriptures (model 9h) and the cumulativeness of
the revelational information therein contained (model 8k).
 The Informational Base of Revelation
Revelation is ordinarily conceived of as of two types:
general revelation and special revelation. Communicationally it
seems preferable to regard these as general and special
revelational messages or, getting down to their most basic
components, as general and special revelational information.

Model 8i
In an attempt to combat the Western cultural error of
equating revelation with information, we suggest that the
traditional distinction between “general and special
revelation” should be seen as a distinction between two kinds
(or sources) of information, not as a distinction between two
kinds of revelation. We thus develop the concept of general
and special revelational information.

Information in and of itself is powerless. Certain

information, however, can be predicted to have high impact on
virtually any receptor whether or not it is well communicated.
The message “Your house is on fire,” for example, will
ordinarily have high stimulus value for any receptor if it is true.
But the impact of the message comes from the receptor's
perception that that information is relevant to (i.e., meets a
need felt by) him or her at that particular moment. You, the
reader, for example, probably did not respond very excitedly to
that statement as you read it. For you did not perceive it to be
either true for you or relevant to your present situation.
Such is the nature of both general and special information
about God and his activities. They are both inert unless
activated by the receptor. There is no magic in the information
itself. Though some messages have more potential for high
impact on any receptor (e.g., “fire” vs. 2 + 2 = 4), it is still the
function of the receptor to transform a message from inert
information into impactful, action-producing meanings. This
fact has important implications for the way we look at the
various sources of information concerning God.
General revelational information concerning God and his
activities is defined by Ramm as “God's witness to himself for
all men” (1961, 17). It is information “universally given in
nature, in history, and in the reason and conscience of every
man” (Henry 1976, 2:9).

It is general in two senses: (i) It is a general revelation for

all men, i.e., it is not restricted to a specific man or people.
(ii) It is a general kind of revelation. In the correct
translation of Psalm 19:4 general revelation is not in the
form of speech or words; no voice is heard. The
theologians have appealed to the glory of God in the
heavens by day and by night (Ps. 19:1), the witness of the
created thing (…Rom. 1:20), the pre-incarnate logos (…
John 1:9), the inner moral dialogue (Rom. 2:14-15), and the
goodness of God in his providence (Acts 14:17) as
examples of general revelation. (Ramm 1961, 17)

Much general information of this nature appears to be

passed on via natural cultural processes—though perhaps not
every culture possesses the same selection of data. Some
things appear to be a part of all cultures, while others may be
present in some but missing in others. I have asserted (chapter
5) that among the basic human needs societies seek to meet are
spiritual needs, including the need for a relationship with the
supracultural God. It is well known that some sort of religious
quest, some sort of search for entrance into a “symbolic
eternity” (Goldschmidt 1966, 136), is a part of every society. If
we rightly understand passages such as Romans 1 and 2 and
Acts 10:34-35, there is communication from God embedded in
every cultural context. The psalmist points to the heavens and
claims that there exists a declaration of God's glory for all to see
(Ps. 19:1). Going beyond the psalmist, Paul states: “Ever since
God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal
power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are
perceived in the things that God has made” (Rom. 1:20 TEV).
There is, for example, a great similarity between the
proverbs of many peoples (e.g., Kamwe and Hausa of Nigeria)
and those endorsed as a part of the revelational information in
the Scriptures. Applying our yardstick model we find that these
fall well within the biblical tether (model 9c). Many (most?)
Euro-American missionaries have, however, been so New
Testament oriented, so competitive in advocating our
understandings in place of theirs, and so much attached to
special revelational information that they have often neglected
the possibility of using indigenous proverbs as stepping
stones to bringing such peoples to faith.
This communication or revelation from God in nature and
basic cultural heritage may be seen as vouchsafed to humanity
at creation and passed on through natural cultural processes.
The Old Testament Hebrew view is that the existence of God
and knowledge of his will are self-evident and universal
(Gärtner 1955, 103). A lack of response to God was seen, not as
a lack of knowledge but as resistance to or turning from him
(ibid., 35). In the New Testament, Acts 14:17 seems to imply
that God has never allowed a society to go without some
witness to him. It is apparently possible for humans to stifle the
purpose of this information (see Rom. 1:25) but not possible for
them to obliterate it completely (Rom. 2:11-16). And human
beings are to be held accountable for it. According to Paul, it is
possible, by means of this information, to glimpse at least
“God's invisible attributes, that is to say his everlasting power
and deity…in the things he has made” (Rom. 1:20 NEB) and,
apparently, on this basis to carry out the precepts of the law
(Rom. 2:14). The religious quests of human societies maybe
seen, then, as attempts to respond to that culturally embedded
communication called “general revelation.”
It appears from these passages that such general
information supplies enough knowledge to provide by itself
the basis for revelational activation. Some with a knowledge-
information concept of revelation have argued for the
sufficiency of natural revelation as a basis for salvation. For
example, “Rome believes in natural theology as a system, ‘a
rational system which is sufficient unto itself’” (Berkouwer
1955, 39). Maurier, a Roman Catholic, says that

men are able to reach a certain knowledge of God (Rom.

1:19-20). They carry within themselves the lights of the
 natural law (Rom. 2:14-15). They are judged according to
their consciences and what they have been able to know.
Finally, God does not withhold his grace from one who
does what is in his power; no man “in flesh and bone” is
irreversibly on the way to damnation. (1968, 5)

Evangelical Protestants, although recognizing the presence

and importance of such “natural knowledge of the Deity”
(Henry 1976, l:323ff.), have tended to conclude that such
knowledge (called “revelation”) is in itself insufficient to bring
a person to salvation. While affirming “that men stand
everywhere and always in direct knowledge relation to the
living God” (ibid., 324), evangelicals generally recognize that
there is something missing to activate that knowledge in such a
way that a saving faith relationship with God is the result.
Though human sinfulness is seen as the real culprit,
evangelicals often give the impression that humans also need
more knowledge than is provided by “general revelation.”
Even Berkouwer, who sees clearly that the real need is for
divine stimulus to overcome the sin problem, allows one to
infer that humans also need additional knowledge (1955, 285).
Henry, likewise, though again seeing the sin problem as the
primary reason for “man's reductive dilutions and
misconstructions of” general revelation, sees scriptural
revelation as taking “priority over general revelation” because
it “republishes the content of general revelation, objectively”
(1976, 1:223).
There is so much truth in these statements that I do not
want to dissociate myself from them entirely. Yet I feel that we
should not be allowed to turn to a consideration of “special
revelation” as if we are turning from a flawed type of
information to an unflawed type of information that somehow
has greater (even magical) power in itself. I agree that there is
potentially a qualitative difference between this special
information and the general information but suggest that it lies
in the difference in the stimulus value of information that is
specially related to the felt needs of specific human beings.
That is, the use by personal communicators of special
revelational information with the kind of stimulus value of the
message (if true) “Your house is on fire” makes a qualitative
difference in the communication. “General, revelation” of the “2
+ 2 = 4” type does not ordinarily have that quality of impact.
But note that for one who is desperately in need of the
solution to the “2 + 2 = ?” question, the answer “4” can be very
relevant and have an impact. Likewise, as noted above, even
the “Your house is on fire” message is not very impressive to
one who does not perceive that it relates to his or her real
needs. Thus, the important differences between general and
special revelational information lie not so much in the
information itself as in the way that information is used. There
is no magic in the information. There is, however, a great
difference in potential impact between messages that are
predictable and general (and, therefore, less easily
“repersonalized” in a present situation) and those that are
unexpected and specific to the felt needs of the receptors in the
present situation, (see above, chapter 8).1 General revelational
information is, from this point of view, not deficient, even as a
basis for salvation (see below). But it is so general and so
predictable that it is unlikely to attract the notice of most
people unless more stimulus is added to it. As Nida observes,
“The very predictability of the processes of the universe is too
great (in terms of information theory) ever to reveal with
certainty the uniqueness of the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ…. The creation confirms God, but does not define
Him” (Nida 1960, 221-22).
Yet throughout history (part of which is recorded in the Old
Testament) there have been (many?) people who have
responded to God in faith without the benefit of the special
information presented in the Scriptures. Even a large number of
those whose stories are recorded in Scripture fit into this
category. As important as the Scriptures are to us, it seems
evident that God has worked throughout most of history and
over most of the world's face without the receptors' being
aware of the special revelational information contained in the
Book. What should we conclude about this fact? Has God
refrained from working in all of these times and places? Or has
he provided extrascriptural special information in other places
and times? Or what?
We will put these questions aside for now and turn to the
source of information called “special revelation.”
Special revelational information concerning God and his
activities consists of information that God has revealed by
means of special intervention in human contexts. Ramm speaks
of this information (though he doesn't use this term) as “the
products of special revelation” or “the deposit of special
revelation” (1961, 125). These products, he says, exist in the
form of language (both spoken and written), in knowledge of
God, in sacred Scripture and in translations of Scripture.
“Special revelation is longer and wider than Scripture, but
Scripture is the heart and soul of special revelation” (ibid., 169).
Ramm, in his excellent treatment, details the “modalities,” or
processes and vehicles, by means of which special revelation
comes to us. Then he contrasts those processes with the
informational product as follows:

Something is said in revelation, and what is said is the

root and ground of our knowledge of God. Or to put it
otherwise, in revelation God is known, God is experienced,
but we are also given a true word of God which can be
reproduced—reproduced as witness, reproduced as
preaching, reproduced as tradition, reproduced as
Scripture. That which the modalities of revelation convey is
a product, a deposit, which itself can be called revelation.
(1961, 150)

Though it appears that Ramm would agree with me that

revelation is more than simply information, he properly
cautions against denying the informational, conceptual
component.2 In his own words, “Revelation cannot be
restricted to ‘encounter’ or to ‘event’ or to ‘illumination.’ If a
theologian is to be loyal to the full witness of Scripture, he
must grant that the conceptual side of the word of God is also
revelation” (1961, 151).
This product or deposit, centered in the Scriptures, is
supracultural Truth in cultural trappings. Enscripturated, it
consists of information concerning revelational events plus
their interpretations. Both the events in Scripture and their
interpretations consisted of information plus stimulus when
they happened. They, therefore, meet my criteria for labeling
them revelational (model 8f).

Model 8f
The process of revelation results from the application of
revelational (divine) stimulus to the information available
(whether general or special) in such a way that it has God's
intended impact on the receptor(s).
Yes, recording them informationalizes them. By this
definition, however, revelation involving these reports does
not again take place until they are “fertilized” or activated by
the stimulus of what may be termed “repersonalization” (see
below). This repersonalization may happen via the
communicational activity of another person or via the readers'
ability so to identify with the participants in the events about
which they are reading that they personalize God's message for
themselves under the continuing influence of the Holy Spirit.
Ramm, and evangelical orthodoxy, want to call this
informational product of God's past revelational activity
“revelation.” And so it is in a potential sense. But the
tendency to label static forms, even forms that are intended to
be used in Christian ways, is so often disastrous and even
idolatrous that I question the wisdom of employing the term
“revelation” for anything less than the total process by means
of which God and human beings participate in the actualizing
of the potential inherent in either general or special revelational
information.
The pitfalls into which the Pharisees, Judaizers, and many
closed conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics have
fallen and continue to fall are always with us in this regard.
When the product is misinterpreted and mislabeled as if it
were the process, idolatry is not far behind. Jesus said to the
Pharisees: “You study the Scriptures, because you think that in
them you will find eternal life. And these very Scriptures speak
about me! Yet you are not willing to come to me in order to
have life” (John 5:39-40 TEV).
The Pharisees' very reverence for the product of God's past
revelational activity was allowed by them to get in their way so
that they missed participating in the process of God's
continuing revelational activity. They, like many of us today,
were so impressed with the form(s) of past revelation that they
turned to preserving and elaborating on that form, rather than
using it for its intended purpose—to once again recreate, in
combination with Spirit-guided personal stimulus, impactful,
revelational meanings in the minds and hearts of contemporary
receptors of God's messages.
In the Pharisees' use of the Scriptures, the forms that God
intended to convey revelational meanings were transformed
into Idols by them and oppression for the recipients of their
messages. Such is always the result when reverence for
“information about” is substituted for vital “participation in.”
For information and knowledge in themselves are lifeless
means to be used by personal beings, not ends to be bowed
down to. They, like the Sabbath, were made to be used for the
good of human beings, not for their enslavement (Mark 2:27).
They, like the misuse of the written law, can result in death if
not activated by the stimulus of Spirit-guided repersonalization
(1 Cor. 3:6).
But this fact does not give warrant to go to the opposite
extreme. As Ramm points out, “Revelation cannot be restricted
to ‘encounter’ or to ‘event’ or to ‘illumination,’” as some have
tried to make it (1961, 151; see Coleman 1972, 94-96). The need
for something/someone to provide stimulus to go along with
the information (whether general or special) is clear. But there
must be some information, for stimulation alone cannot be
revelational. The quantity of information about God and his
workings may be very small or, as in general revelational
information, very general and predictable. But there must be
some information present. Perhaps the least information that
God can use is that stated in Hebrews 11:6: “…anyone who
comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards
those who search for him” (NEB).
The Bible is unique as a source of special information. Its
uniqueness lies in the fact of its inspiration (see chapter 10)
and in the specialness of the information that it provides. For
the theme of the Bible is redemption. The Bible, though
informational, introduces “an altogether new world of truth,
that relating to the redemption of man” (Vos 1948, 20). This is
why Christians have felt led to preserve it. Perhaps Vos and
especially Ramm (below) mean to include what I am calling
stimulus in their concept of redemption. Ramm says: “The
proper relationship between redemption and revelation must,
however, be carefully maintained. Unless this is done,
revelation appears as sheer didactic impartation of knowledge,
and not as the word of life. Redemption is prior to special
revelation” (1961, 70).
The uniqueness of the Bible as the source of special
information is that it presents us with information focused on
the redemptive process—a process “that centers in the
redemptive acts of Hebrew history from the exodus to the
resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and in the communication of
the meaning of these saving acts in both the prophetic and the
apostolic word” (Henry 1976, 2:10). Though the Bible is a
product, it recounts for us the same process that is the
intended result of the recombination of revelational
information plus stimulus. The focus on the process of
redemption and the recreation of that process today must,
therefore, take precedence even over a focus on the inspired
document that is intended to be so central in the recreation of
that process.

The danger in any discussion of inspiration is that an

excessive preoccupation with the subject matter is apt to
blind the theologian to this logical and axiological
priority of redemption over revelation. This is the basic
reason why strong books on inspiration seldom change
anybody's convictions. Redemption carries inspiration,
and not the opposite. Revelatory words apart from the
great acts of redemption are abstractions and carry little
spiritual power. (Ramm 1961, 80-81; emphasis added)
 Activating Revelational Information
A dynamic view of revelation requires something besides
the “intellectual product” that provides the base component
for additional revelational events. The Bible or any other
source of special information about God (e.g., Ramm lists
dreams, visions, the lot, angels, etc. [1961, 44-48]), if it is to
serve its purpose, needs to be used by personal beings to
stimulate revelational meanings (model 8j).

Model 8j
The full-orbed process of revelation requires both an
informational base and a Spirit-led personal activator.
Mickelsen (after Childs) refers to this stimulus as
“actualization” (1963, 175). This is “the process by which a
past event is contemporized for a generation removed in time
and space from the original event” (Childs 1962, 83). We will
discuss later (chapter 13) the “dynamic” or “meaning-
equivalence” aim of such actualization. There are, however,
several characteristics of such stimulus to dynamically
equivalent Christian meaning and behavior that need to be
treated here.
First, the actualization of revelational information requires
repersonalization. As emphasized repeatedly above, effective,
impactful communication is always from persons to persons
(model 7a and elsewhere). Knowledge and information in
themselves are not communicative. Indeed, they may be
deadening. People characteristically know more than they make
use of in their behavior. How will they live up to even what
they now know if they are not stimulated by someone to do
so? This is, I believe, the question beneath the surface of
Romans 10:14. For, “in both content and form, God's revelation
is uniquely personal” (Henry 1976, 2:10).
There are, however, in addition to the Holy Spirit who is
working both internally and externally with receptors, two
kinds of personal stimulus (“actualizers,” or activators). The
most obvious kind is external to the receptor. The second kind
is entirely internal to the receptor and involves the fascinating
capacity that human beings have to carry on internally both
ends of an imaginary conversation. Both kinds of stimulus can
be guided by the Holy Spirit and interact with the receptor's
feeling of need for whatever is recommended. And the decision
as to the results of such stimulus is up to the receptor.
Though we may speak of general and special revelational
information, all revelational stimulus is special in that it is
always guided by the Holy Spirit and “in a concrete form to a
specific person or group” (Ramm 1961, 17). Such stimulus may
work from either general or special revelational information but
always within the tether of Scripture, for God's general
information can never contradict his specially revealed
information.
External actualizers of revelation will ordinarily be Spirit-
guided human beings called and empowered to witness
persuasively concerning their interactions with God. Success
in such witnessing activity depends on the receptor's relating
the message of the witness to his or her own felt needs. These
needs may have already been a part of the receptor's
awareness or be brought to consciousness in the witnessing
interaction. (Human agency in this regard is treated in chapter
14.) The partnership between human beings and the Holy Spirit
is, however, crucial. Henry refers to the Spirit's position as that
of “supervision of the communication of revelation” (1976,
2:14). Henry's static model of revelation allows for “no new
truth” to be conveyed. He also makes the traditional distinction
between revelation and illumination (though, I feel, very
unconvincingly). He does, however, helpfully contradict his
static model and open the way for the more dynamic model
presented here when he says, “The Spirit illumines persons by
reiterating [stimulating?] the truth of the scriptural revelation
and bearing witness to Jesus Christ. Spirit-illumination centers
in the interpretation of the…sense of Spirit-breathed Scripture”
(1976, 2:15).
The internal process of actualization, in addition to being
guided by the Holy Spirit, ordinarily requires both a high level
of felt need and an inclination and ability on the receptors' part
to “repersonalize” the message for themselves. Though
learning to “carry on a conversation” with a book is a difficult
skill to learn, many do in fact develop it.3 The casebook form of
the Bible, by making it easier for receptors to identify with
those concerning whom they read, facilitates this internal
actualization for those with good reading skills. For the
estimated 70 percent of the world with minimal or no reading
ability (P. Smith 1975, 3), however, the written word alone Is not
likely to suffice. There need to be personal communicators as
well.
In quotations such as those from Henry above, we see
exhibited the traditional fear that leads evangelical orthodoxy,
on the one hand, to staticize revelation by reducing it to the
written records of holy history and, on the other, to reduce the
Holy Spirit's activity to a form of activity called “illumination”
that is of lesser status than the activity called revelation
considered to be now terminated. He fears that “unless priority
is given to the objectively inspired content of Scripture, Spirit-
illumination readily gives way to private fantasy and
mysticism” (1976, 2:15). Without denying the fact that much of
what purports to be Spirit-illumination may be misguided, I
believe that Henry and evangelical orthodoxy are giving up too
much in the attempt to gain an “objective” scheme for
measuring revelational truth. For the real problem they are
struggling with is not whether or not God is working in
contemporary life in the same way as he did historically, but
how to identify beyond the shadow of a doubt whether, in fact,
any given instance purported to be God's working is of God or
not.
To avoid the necessity of measuring contemporary events,
then, they reduce revelation to the static information
concerning “objectively inspired” (or better, objectified) past
revelations. Those events that happen today because of
divine-human interaction, though they may be of the same
nature as the events recorded in Scripture, are labeled by a
lesser term, “illumination.” This distinction is not demanded by
the difference in quality in the events but, rather, by the fear on
the part of the theologians lest they misevaluate something
that is not of God as being of God. Actually, the term
“illumination” might usefully be employed to designate what
I am calling “stimulus.” It could then be recognized to be an
essential part of all of God's revelational activity whether
past (and recorded in Scripture) or present. By labeling one
set of similar events “revelation” and another “illumination,”
however, evangelical orthodoxy, on the one hand, reduces
God's dynamic revelational activity to its static informational
component and, on the other, diminishes the status of the
activating component of all revelation—the Spirit-led stimulus
or illumination.
With respect to the difficult task of evaluating whether or
not given contemporary understandings, illuminations, or
(using my term) revelations, are, in fact, from God or not, I have
offered model 9a, the Bible as yardstick. The introduction of
this model does not necessarily eliminate fuzziness in
attempting to make such evaluations. It is hoped, though, that
we have thereby made an advance over previous approaches.
But even if we have not made an advance in our ability to
evaluate potential revelations with certainty, we are at least no
worse off than previous approaches in this area. Indeed, we
have gained considerably on them with respect to
understanding the dynamics of God's revelational activity.
If the validity of continuing revelation is accepted, there is
one aspect of the Bible as tether model (model 9c) that can
usefully be made explicit here. It is important that whenever
contemporary events and utterances are evaluated, that they
he measured by the tether of the Scriptures themselves, not by
that of some tradition of scriptural interpretation. This makes
the evaluational process quite difficult, and probably almost
impossible for those who are outsiders to the society in which
the events and utterances took place. For we never see the
Scriptures except within some interpretational context. Yet the
attempt to counteract such biases must be made. For the
history of Christianity is replete with illustrations of the
substitution of measurements of interpretation and
repersonalization traditions for those of the biblical tether. The
result is the kind of oppression for which Jesus scored the
Pharisees. The object of translational activity (see chapter 13)
and the other activities designed to communicate the
Scriptures (chapter 14) is to enable people to have more direct
access to and remain within the radius of God's tether. When
people are enabled to look directly to the Bible, they are able to
get beyond the staticizing influences that always accompany
the imposition of an outside tradition.
 The Will of the Receptors
The desired impact of inspired information, even when
fertilized by personal stimulus, is affected by another factor—
the will of the receptor (s). Before the fall, we as human beings
presumably wanted to see things God's way. In our sinful state,
however, we, like the disciples, though having eyes and ears,
so often fail to “see” and “hear” (Mark 8:18). Human
perception of reality has been distorted by the effects of sin on
our wills so that we refuse to “will to do God's will,” and
therefore do not perceive God's evidence in a convincing way
(John 7:17). This influence of sin on the human will affects the
response both to revelational information (general and special)
and to revelational stimulus.
Theologians have taken a variety of positions concerning
the relationship between the knowledge of God and his
purposes and the distorting influence of sin on this knowledge.
Typical of much evangelical thinking on this subject is the
position of John Calvin that, as outlined by Carl Henry, holds
that

God's objective revelation in nature no less than in

Scripture is clear and adequate. What interferes with man's
eager reception and appropriation is not some weakness in
the revelation, but man's own perversity. The majority of
those immersed in error are “blind amidst the opportunity
of seeing” and “notwithstanding all the displays of the
glory of God, scarcely one man in a hundred is really a
 spectator of it” (Calvin 1953, 1:5, 8). “The manifestation of
God…is…clear enough; but…on account of our blindness,
it is not found to be sufficient” (Calvin 1961, commentary
on Romans 1:20). The revelation itself is adequate for its
divinely intended purpose; hence man is both accountable
and guilty for this disposition of it. (Henry 1976, 1:337-38)

While I find myself in general agreement with the overall

thrust of such explanations, there is a certain lack of
preciseness with respect to the dynamics of the processes they
assume. Given the universality of knowledge of God and the
universality of the effects of sin, what differs in the situation of
those who respond to the revelation from the situation of those
who do not respond? I find singularly unsatisfying those
positions that postulate the capricious counteracting of sin-
blindness by the Holy Spirit for some persons but not for
others. Is not the “wooing of the Holy Spirit” as much a
constant as his revealing activity? To me the proffering of
salvation must be as universal as the revelation and human
sinfulness. For God does not will that any perish (2 Pet. 3:9).
The difference must lie today as ever in the human will
which, though infected by sin at every point, has not lost its
capacity to respond to God's revelational activity. God, in his
revealing activity, however, is able to break through the sin
barrier, at least for some. For the activating of the inspired
information by the Holy Spirit takes place within the
receptor(s). Those who, in spite of the effects of sin on their
wills, somehow receive the Spirit's stimulus, then, experience at
least enough of God's revelation to respond in saving faith to
him. We who love him see “things beyond our seeing, things
beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared
by God for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9 NEB).
Response is the desired end of receptor-oriented
revelation. And that revelation is directed to people today just
as specifically as the scripturally recorded revelations were
directed to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, to Amos, to Theophilus, to the
Galatians, to Timothy. But revelation “does not bring to
salvation all who comprehend it. Without personal
appropriation God's revelation brings salvation to no one”
(Henry 1976, 2:44). But those who will to adopt God's model
(John 7:17) and to respond to it in faith (Heb. 11) will be saved,
not by their knowledge but by their faithfulness to the One
who stimulated their response to himself (Rom. 1:17).
In revealing himself and those other things that God wants
human beings to know, he makes use of general and special
information plus personal stimulus to pierce through the sin-
affected human “will barrier.” In doing this, God seeks to elicit a
continuing faith response that is initially saving and from that
point leading on toward spiritual maturity (see chapter 17).
Glimpses of this process as it occurred in many lives are
recorded in Scripture. In the Book we see specific events
occurring in the lives of specific persons acting out and/or
interpreting their interactions with God in accordance with the
specific societies in which they were immersed.
These recorded interactions took place with a variety of
persons at various times and places in a variety of societies.
The constants in the process were (1) God, (2) the underlying
commonalities of human beings, including sin, (3) the constant
method (model 10a), and (4) the constant message (model 10b,
see below) of God. He employs the same processes to reach the
same kinds of people via the same kinds of culture using the
same message and method to bring about the same results
today.

The Constancy of the Message (Model 10b)

When the forms through which a message is communicated
call attention to themselves, it is easy for the receptor(s) to
focus on those forms and to miss much of the message.
Whether the forms disrupt or facilitate the flow of the message
is, however, a matter of the receptor's perception of them. To
the members of Western societies the forms of Hebrew culture
are perceived as so strange that they draw our attention to
themselves rather than to the message of God and its effects.
But in the Pauline epistles we see God's message phrased in
first-century thought forms similar at many points to those of
contemporary Europe. Though many things are different from
the way we think and do things, there is enough similarity
between Greek thought forms and ours that we see the
message with much less distraction resulting from the forms in
which it is phrased. Because of our cultural similarities to
Greece, then, God's message comes to us quite clearly through
the Pauline epistles but indistinctly, if at all, through the Old
Testament.
As a result of these cultural influences, many Westerners
have concluded that God changed his message when he turned
to the Gentiles.4 It is not uncommon at the popular level for
people to assume that the Old Testament way of salvation was
via adherence to the Law, while the New Testament way is via
faith in Christ. Hebrews 11 comes to them as quite a shock. For
the strangeness (from a Western point of view) of Hebrew
culture has obscured their view of a salvation-by-faith message
in the Old Testament. Yet Hebrews 11 contends that all of the
Old Testament “heroes of faith” were saved by means of the
same faith allegiance to God that they (we) have considered to
be a New Testament message.
Two other Western sociocultural biases also obscure our
view of the message of Scripture: (1) Western societies' bias
toward information for its own sake (see chapter 9), and (2)
Western societies' tendency to interpret history
evolutionarily, with Western societies at the top and all other
societies judged to be inferior because (we think) they
represent stages of culture that we have now outgrown (see
below on cumulative information, model 8k). To us, therefore,
the greater accumulation of information evident by the later
stages of the New Testament, plus the obvious “superiority”
(i.e., similarity to our perspective) of the material presented
there lead us to value those portions (with their Greek context)
more highly than the earlier portions (with Hebrew contexts).
We will deal with this in more detail below.
We tend to assume that those Scriptures that have greater
communication value to the members of our society have
greater revelational value to the members of every society.
What a shock it was for me to learn that the Nigerians with
whom I worked actually saw many aspects of God's message
more clearly in the Old Testament than in the book of Romans. I
had been taught to see Romans as the epitome of God's
revelation to humanity. Like Packer (and many others), I felt it
was “the fittest starting point” in Scripture (1958, 107). I was
anxious to lead these Nigerian church leaders into the depths
of the riches of God there recorded. But their perception of
Romans differed from mine. I had fallen into the pitfall spoken
of by Snaith of ignoring the Hebrew understandings of God
that form the basis of Christianity, in favor of Greek
“speculation” (theologizing). This, he says, is a “characteristic
feature of the history of Christian thought” (1964, 14). Snaith
continues: “Christians have been tempted to regard the Old
Testament as being but one of the many sacred books which
the world has known. They have thought therefore that it was
of small account for the Christian, who would do well to save
his time in a busy, thronging world and begin with the Gospel
according to Matthew” (ibid.).
My background had led me to assume that the Old
Testament should be treated as merely an interesting historical
foundation for the New Testament but without much
contemporary value. I had learned that

the former revelation lays the foundation for later

revelation. The law prepares the way for the prophets; the
earlier prophets lay the foundation for the later prophets;
the total Old Testament is the preparation for the total New
Testament. The life of Christ is the necessary backdrop for
the Acts and the Epistles. And the Book of Revelation
presupposes the fullness of interpretation of the Person
 and work of Christ as this is contained in the Epistles.
(Ramm 1961, 104)

Such a statement does point up an important aspect of the

unity of the Scriptures. But if one's cultural perspective leads
one to downgrade in value those components of Scripture that
are earlier in the procession and to overemphasize those
portions that come later, one is likely to miss a very important
fact: the essential message of the Bible is the same from
beginning to end.

Model 10b
The unchangingness of God (Mal. 3:6) demands recognition
of the constancy of his message.
One is likely to take more notice of the differences between
the Hebrew and Hellenistic matrices (the contextual component
dealt with in chapter 7) than of the sameness of the message(s)
(the informational component) couched in these matrices. Note
that, in terms of the interaction between context and
information (chapter 7), in a case like this the cultural
strangeness of the context interferes with the clarity of the
intended message. The message a Western reader receives is
more influenced by contextual features than the original author
intended that it be. The resultant message for the Western
reader of the Old Testament is, therefore, likely to be quite
different from what the author intended.
The people of another society (or subsociety), however,
may see God's essential message more clearly in Hebrew dress
than in Hellenistic dress. To them the philosophical, cognitive
approach of the apostle Paul in Romans may be as distracting
and confusing as genealogies and Palestinian agrarian, fishing,
and herding analogies are to us. Even if Romans should
contain more precise revelational information, one needs to ask
whether it is presented in a form that the intended receptors
can readily grasp. Romans was not simply written, it was
written to someone. It participated in a real interaction between
a real communicator and real human receptors. It was therefore
produced in such a way as to have maximum communicational
impact on that audience. This means that, even though as a
classic case it has been preserved for all, It will have greatest
Impact on contemporary audiences that most approximate the
original receptors. It will have less or different impact on
contemporary audiences that are less like the one to which it
was originally directed. For them the contextual component of
the Romans presentation of the message will interfere in the
same way that the Hebrew contextual component interferes for
Euro-Americans.
The Nigerians who saw less value in Romans than I did
were not rejecting the message of Romans. They were simply
responding to the fact that they could see the message of
Romans more clearly through portions of Scripture that were
originally written to communicate the message to people in
societies more like theirs. That is, in order to see clearly that
same constant message of God that the Scriptures present in a
variety of cultural forms, they preferred different case studies
than I did—for cultural reasons.
A conversation between a Gentile and a Jewish student of
Old Testament studies at Brandeis University illustrates the
same point. The Gentile asked the Jewish student what his
favorite passage of Scripture was. His immediate response was,
“The first eight chapters of First Chronicles.” These are
Hebrew genealogies. From my (Gentile) point of view I have
often wondered why God allowed so much space in his Word
to be “wasted” on such trivia. But to a Jew (and to many other
kinship-oriented societies around the world) genealogical lists
of this nature demonstrate in the clearest way the specificity of
God's love and concern that lies at the heart of the gospel.
Before turning to a discussion of the multicultural format of
the Bible (model 9h) and the cumulativeness of the information
(model 8k) therein presented, I want to attempt to define the
central, constant message. Looking at that message through
the biblical materials (as we must), we see what Ramm terms
“the one organic word of God” (1961, 101). He sees this “word”
(or message) as paralleling the oneness of the “people of God
throughout the different historical periods,” and points out,
“The different forms and conditions under which the people of
God existed do not fracture the people of God into a collection
of individuals; neither, then, do the different modal ties of
special revelation fracture it into many words of God” (1961,
101).
Ramm denies that the information contained in the
Scriptures should be seen as “a series of dots running across a
paper” or as “unrelated telegrams from heaven to earth” (1961,
102), when he says,

Even though revelation is ineradicably particular in the

 sense that the word of God always comes to some
particular man, it is not a miscellany of words. Each word of
God which came to the prophet or apostle is part of the one
word of God….
Revelation is a whole and is therefore organic. It is a
membered revelation. It does have parts, i.e., members….
But the parts of revelation when added together form an
organism. (1961, 102; see also H. Bavinck 1928, 409-10, cited
in Rogers 1977)

There are differences between the New Testament and the

Old Testament, to be sure. There are, as noted above,
differences in cultural matrix and differences in the extent of the
understanding afforded concerning God and his activities in
relation to human beings. As we move through the Scriptures
we gain greater insight into what God is doing and how he is
doing it. But we must guard against assuming that the message
is changed when (1) God (like Paul—1 Cor. 9:19-22) adapts his
communicational approach to the receptors or when (2) more
information concerning the message is presented.
We learn from the New Testament, for example, how God
went about making it possible for him to be legitimately just
and, simultaneously, to justify Old Testament peoples and New
Testament peoples alike on the basis of faith alone (Rom. 3:26).
However, such justification was never based on knowledge of
how God worked it out. Abraham, who had no way to know the
details of God's work through Christ, was saved by faith (or
rather, by faithfulness) just as we are (Rom. 4:3, 9; Gal. 3:6; Jas.
2:23). He, like us, was saved through Christ—for there is no
other way to God (John 14:6). There is no other “name”
through which salvation can be granted (Acts 4:12). But note
that “name” in such contexts signifies the authority of the
person of the bearer (Christ), not any magic that might attach
to the knowledge and utterance of a word.
My point is that, though the inspired information
concerning how God brought about our eternal salvation is
extremely valuable, God's message is no different than it was in
Abraham's or Adam's time even though we now know of the
occurrence of those redemptive events and their Spirit-guided
interpretation. It was then, and still is today, the message of the
eternal God who exists and who “rewards those who search for
him” in faith (Heb. 11:6). “What, then, was the difference
between” Old Testament and New Testament believers? asks
Anderson.

It was not that godly Jews were saved by “works” or by

their obedience to the law, for no one can ever be saved by
“works” and no Jew ever succeeded in keeping the law.
Believers under the Old Covenant were saved by grace
through faith, just as we are: that is, through the grace of
God in Christ…. Their knowledge was deficient, their
assurance often fitful, but their forgiven status identical
with ours. (1970, 99)

God holds people accountable for what they do know,

rather than for what they don't know (Rom. 1:32; 2:14-16). I
believe, therefore, that we can assume that those whose
understanding of God's message today is more like Abraham's
than like ours will be held accountable for the response they
make to the message as they understand it. People are not
required to respond to a different message today simply
because we, interpreting it from our sociocultural perspectives,
may understand it to be a different message. Information
concerning God's righteousness, his love, his redemptive
activity, human sinfulness, and all the rest is of the highest
value. But the fact that we now possess such information
should never be allowed either to obscure that basic message
or to be interpreted as having changed that message.
The information revealed to us concerning these details
has high value if used to stimulate a saving faith relationship
between human beings and God. But it distorts the essential
message if the information becomes the end rather than a
means to faith. The task of the Christian witness is to stimulate
the receptors to faith on the basis of whatever knowledge they
have, plus any information that the witness can helpfully
contribute and that is accepted by the hearers. The witness
does not do the proper thing if he or she distracts the
receptors' attention from the message to the supporting (or
subsidiary) information.
A point that is sometimes made to indicate a change in the
message is that we today are saved through faith in Christ,
whereas Old Testament peoples pledged their allegiance to
God. But this is a change only if we heretically believe that God
and Christ are two Gods rather than one. If “they” are one God,
faith in Christ the Son is the same as faith in God the Father—
and vice versa. Faith in God through the work of Christ as a
human being is, furthermore, an elaboration on our
understanding of the way God has always brought about
human salvation, not an alteration of that way. That is not a
change in the basic message. Insight concerning the historical
facts relating to the work of Christ and their inspired
interpretation can have high stimulus value in the
communication of the essential message. But even the
potential for this knowledge does not change the message.
This relationship between knowledge and faith is difficult
for Westerners to sort out due to our sociocultural
conditioning, for this cultural conditioning has led Westerners
to see the biblical presentation in terms of the differences in the
information presented rather than in terms of the constancy of
the message. We as Westerners have, in keeping with our
cultural values, produced written theological schemes to
interpret and transmit the meanings of revelational events
rather than developing ritual, ceremony, and person-to-person
oral transmission techniques. Our way is similar to the Greek
way, while the ritual-and-ceremony route is the way preferred
by Hebrews and Hebrew-like societies.
There is, as discussed below (model 8k), an increasing
accumulation of information concerning God's redemptive
activity in the Scriptures. We have been much impressed by
this. But perhaps our focus on these informational differences
has obscured our view of the change in the cultural context in
which the essential message is couched. The message of a
saving faith relationship centered around covenant, peace, and
tradition expressed ceremonially looks very different to us from
that same message centered around love, grace, and freedom.
Yet In many ways covenant, peace, tradition (“law”), tribe, and
ceremony in Hebrew society were the functional equivalents of
love, grace, and freedom in Greek society. The latter are not
necessarily superior ways of expressing the gospel, just
different culturally.
The apostle Paul was specifically attempting to reclothe
God's constant message in Greek cultural clothing (see von
Allmen 1975). His effort should not, therefore, be understood
by us as a denial of the validity of Hebrew-type cultural
clothing for the gospel. Our own cultural preferences should
not be allowed to prejudice us against certain (Hebrew)
portions of Scripture as they did Martin Luther. I believe it was
unconscious ethnocentrism on his part (like that with which we
all struggle) rather than, as he thought, a concern over
authorship that led him to be negative toward the books of
Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. Luther placed these
books at the end of his New Testament. Note the probable
ethnocentrism in the following statements from Luther's
preface to the New Testament written in 1522:

From all of these books, you can, in a flash…distinguish

which are the best. John's Gospel and St. Paul's epistles,
especially the one to the Romans, and St. Peter's first
epistle contain the true kernel and marrow among all the
books, for in these you do not find Christ's deeds and
miracles described very much but you find emphasized in a
most masterful way how faith in Christ overcomes sin,
death, and hell, and gives life, justification, and blessing—
which is the true nature of the Gospel. If I should have to
 choose between the deeds or the preaching of Christ, I
would prefer to leave the deeds go, for these don't help me,
but his words are the words of life Therefore John's Gospel
is the only Gospel which is delicately sensitive to what is
the essence of the Gospel and is to be widely preferred to
the other three and placed on a higher level. Likewise, the
epistles of St. Paul and Peter are to take precedence over
the three gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. To sum it all
up—St. John's Gospel, and his first epistle, St. Paul's
epistles, especially those to the Romans, to the Galatians,
and to the Ephesians, and St. Peter's first epistle—these are
the books which show you Christ and teach everything
which is needful and blessed for you to know, even if you
don't see or even hear any other book.…Wherefore St.
James' epistle is a true epistle of straw compared with them,
for it contains nothing of an evangelical nature. (Reuss
1891, 322, 329, quoted by Fuller 1969, 9, 10)

The only New Testament book traditionally thought to be

directed to a Hebrew audience that Luther seemed to respect
was 1 Peter. He is hard on Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation,
and the Synoptic Gospels, all of which either have been
understood as directed to Hebrew audiences or (like Mark and
Luke) center on the events in the life of Christ lived in a
Hebrew context. Luther is similarly hard on the Old Testament
(see Fuller 1969, 9:13). Note his preference for preaching and
theologizing over Hebrew-type recording of events. Fuller
(ibid.) quotes similarly ethnocentric statements from the
Scofield Bible. And Madvig (1977) critiques Carnell (1959, 58-
59) for similar, though better reasoned, tendencies.
As we study the Scriptures our cultural perspective is like a
magnet. It draws to us, as it were, those portions of Scripture in
which God's message is presented in ways most meaningful to
those of our sociocultural context. Those portions written to
people within Greek society, therefore, tend to speak most
clearly to us Euro-Americans, since we have been so strongly
influenced by Greek thinking. Thus we gravitate toward the
Pauline letters for cultural reasons. This is predictable and, I
believe, a part of God's plan, since in this way we are able to
hear God's message with a minimum of cultural adjustment.
Because of this fact, however, we can be misled into serious
error.
Such Euro-American Christian positions as those of Luther
and Scofield seem to have fallen into the assumption that,
because the Pauline letters speak most clearly to us, they are
therefore more inspired or more adequate in their presentation
of God's revelation than other portions of Scripture. Note
Lindsell's position in this regard:

All Scripture is profitable and all parts of it afford us

knowledge and insight into God's self-revelation, but the
didactic books such as Romans and Galatians, that open up
to us the great teachings about justification by faith, are of
more significance than some of the genealogical tables, or
the details of the history of the kings, or some aspects of
the journeys of the apostle Paul. The teaching books are
more important to us than some of the material contained
in the apocalyptic books. The latter are surely important,
 but less so than some of the other parts of the Word of
God. The Proverbs of Solomon do not rise to the level of
the gospel records. All of Scripture presents truth, but
some truths are central, others peripheral; some parts are of
the first magnitude in the scale of values and others of the
second. (1976, 38-39; emphasis added)

Luther's, Scofield's, and Lindsell's ethnocentric views are

specific examples of a position that afflicts all of us who study
the Scriptures from our position within Western societies. The
differences between Old Testament and New Testament seem
great to us. And we recognize that much of the interpretation
of the greatest of God's redemptive acts (the Incarnation) is
focused on by that part of the Bible closest to us culturally (the
Pauline epistles). We are easily led to deny the value for
anybody of the Old Testament and, like Luther, even of the
Hebrew portions of the New Testament, simply because we
don't feel their great value for us.
This is the result of a culturally inculcated evolutionary
understanding of revelation. There is some truth to such an
understanding, but it ignores the fact that one's cultural
conditioning has much to do with one's ability to understand
and appreciate the various sections of the Bible. If such views
are absolutized they become serious detriments to Christian
understanding and communication. It is predictable for cultural
reasons, as mentioned above, that Euro-Americans would be
more attracted to the Pauline epistles. Africans and many
others, however, with cultures more similar to Hebrew culture
than ours is, are more attracted to the Gospels and the Old
Testament. For their preference, unlike Luther's, is for narrative
presentations of events rather than for philosophical analyses
of their significance.
But what about those who see God's essential message
more clearly, rather than less clearly, via the Hebrew portions?
What about those who, like certain Kikuyu people of Kenya,
felt the Old Testament to be the final revelation? After all, it
was translated after the New Testament and it made much more
sense to them! Does this mean (as some contend) that their
understanding of Christianity can never be as adequate as ours
until they learn to love the Pauline epistles as we do? Certainly
not! It is enough that God appeals to them forcefully through
those portions of the Scriptures that are written in terms of
cultural perspectives more similar to theirs.
Could it be because of this kind of ethnocentric
understanding of biblical revelation that Bible translating in
non-Western languages often virtually ignores the Old
Testament? Commonly, in spite of the fact that a given society
may be concerned over kinship and genealogies, the first book
to be translated is Mark rather than Matthew. Then Acts,
perhaps John, and on through the whole New Testament. For
many societies this provides much that speaks to them only
minimally, while ignoring much (e.g., the Old Testament) that
would carry revelational truth to them with greater impact.
This gives us a different perspective on the fact that many
Africans want the Old Testament more than missionaries have
been willing to provide it for them. I have heard missionaries
interpret this preference, and the allied observation that many
African independent churches make great use of the Old
Testament, as owing to perversity or other sub-Christian
motivations on the part of the Africans. Could it be, though,
that it is need, rather than perversity, that leads Africans to the
Old Testament? What about Africans and those of the
hundreds of other societies that could see God's message more
clearly In Hebrew dress than in Greek? Should they perhaps be
provided with at least some of the Old Testament before they
receive all of the New Testament? The remarkable similarities
between the God-inspired book of Proverbs and the proverbs
of many peoples, for example (in spite of Lindsell's opinion),
can powerfully communicate messages from God to those of
other societies in terms maximally meaningful to them.
Could it be that the whole Bible is inspired and usable
today? Could it be that every portion of God's multifaceted
Word can still speak to someone, somewhere, if allowed to?
God has provided a multiculturally useful witness to himself
because its contents originate in, and therefore speak to, many
cultures.

Cumulative Information in Multicultural

Format (Models 8k and 9h)
The supracultural, transcendent God has, as we have seen,
chosen to reveal himself in terms that are comprehensible to
humans from within the human sociocultural context. He has,
then, chosen to transmit the record of certain of his revelations
of himself, and his supracultural messages to human life, in
human language and culture in order to effectively
communicate with human beings.
Thus the Old Testament records the supracultural God
communicating himself to Jewish people in terms of Jewish
thought patterns. He accepted from them typically Jewish
responses to his supracultural messages which, for their sakes,
he had clothed in Hebrew language and culture as the “best
minds and spirits of Israel adopted and adapted those elements
of their cultural heritage and environment—myths, customs,
laws, institutions, literary forms, and vocabulary—that were
useful in expressing their view and experience of God” (Blair
1975, 389; see also Kautzsch 1904; Hooke 1938).
In the Old Testament, therefore, God is perceived primarily
in terms of majesty, power, and justice, attributes that are both
true characteristics of the supracultural God and characteristics
expected of God from a Jewish cultural perspective. God,
however, also went beyond Jewish expectations (Wright 1950;
Snaith 1964)5 and revealed himself, in addition, as a God who
enters into covenant relationships with people. For, though
covenant relationships were already an important part of
Hebrew culture and in that sense not new, the employment of
such a concept for the relationship between God and humans
appears to have been very new and in that sense “beyond
Hebrew expectations.” Even when communicating this (and
other) unexpected revelation, God started where the Jewish
recipients of the revelation were (see model 10c, below). From
that point he then revealed new insights in a manner
comprehensible to them through the voices and pens of
thoroughly Jewish preachers and writers.
In the New Testament, likewise, we see this method of
God's revelation of himself both in terms of first-century
Palestinian culture (Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, James, Peter) and
in terms designed to appeal to those immersed in Greco-Roman
culture (Paul's epistles). In each case we see God starting
(though not ending) where people are culturally for the sake of
revealing himself to them comprehensibly. The apparent
differences between the loving God of the New Testament and
the stern judgmental sacrifice-demanding God of parts of the
Old Testament are not to be interpreted as indications that God
changes his approach to humans every few thousand years (as
traditional dispensationalism implies). They indicate, rather,
that the unchanging supracultural God usually (not always)
chooses to reveal himself in such a way that the members of
various societies may focus in on those aspects of God's
nature and activity most amenable to their cultural expectations
as to what God should be like. They then respond to him in
faith (a supracultural requirement) expressed in ways
appropriate to their sociocultural contexts.
The special information recorded in the Bible should not be
looked upon as a linear, evolutionary type of presentation of
God and his workings with human beings (Bright 1953, 193-94).

Model 8k
What is often termed “progressive revelation” consists of the
increase of revelational information from beginning to end
of the Bible, not the evolutionary superseding of one of God's
approaches by another, as if he couldn't quite make up his
mind.
 God's revelational information did not start from a simple
concept and proceed evolutionarily to a more complex concept
within a single cultural framework, as the concept of
“progressive revelation” (see Ramm, Henry, Mickelsen, etc.) is
likely to lead one to believe. That information is presented,
rather, in a series of “zoom-lens” views of God's interactions in
a variety of cultural settings. The Bible focuses at different
times on quite different sociocultural understandings of God's
constant message and its implications, each of which is guided
by the Spirit. And the accumulation of information developed
from studying these insights tends toward a
comprehensiveness of understanding of God that far exceeds
what could be given in terms of any single culture.
Hebrew culture, for example, allows for certain insights into
the nature of God that Greek culture is not so strong on (e.g.,
God's majesty). Greek culture, on the other hand, allows for
insights that Hebrew culture is not so strong on (e.g., God's
grace). And Euro-American and Asian and Latin American and
African cultural insights also have, under the leading of the
Holy Spirit, important contributions to make to the
comprehensiveness of the truth that God seeks to reveal
concerning himself and his interactions with humans. Indeed,
as Jacob Loewen (1974) suggests, we may never see the full
richness of God's revelation (the full range of his allowed
variation in human perception of his ways) until we are able to
participate in the multitude of different perspectives brought to
it by the multitude of languages and cultures in the world.

Model 9h
 God's constant message and method are presented in the
Scriptures in a variety of cultural forms.
The Bible is a multicultural document with something to
appeal to everyone in terms of cultural conditioning; and the
message of each part of the Bible is essentially the same
qualitatively, though there are differences in the quantity of
information available. But that message is packaged in terms of
differing cultural and psychological matrices, for, as Hebrews
11 (also Rom. 1:17; Hab. 2:4) points out, it is on the basis of a
single faith-response to God that God's people have always
operated, in spite of differences in culture and in the extent of
the information concerning God and his works that had been
revealed to them.
One way to make this view more explicit of the written
revelation is to portray the buildup of the quantity of
information “horizontally.” In this way we can show the
addition through history of information concerning the
message within a diversity of the cultural frames of reference in
which that message and the responses to it are illustrated. This
accumulation of information is what has been traditionally
labeled “progressive revelation” but is here termed “cumulative
revelational information.” It is signified in figure 11.1 by the
ascending line.
Fig. 11.1. A “ horizontal” view of the accumulation of the revelational information.

From this perspective the greatest number of distinctions

between the various parts of the Bible are cultural rather than
theological. This is a quantitative statement and as such does
not refer to the obvious fact that there is a qualitative
difference between God's revelation of himself via Jesus Christ
and that via ordinary human beings or angels (Heb. 1:1-4). This
statement is intended to alert us to the danger of mistaking
quantities of cultural differences for qualitative differences. For
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever; he interacts with
humankind on the basis of the same set of principles yesterday,
today, and forever. There are informational differences, to be
sure, and human beings are held accountable for the
differences in the information available to them and the amount
of that information that they are able to comprehend.
With respect to the continuing revealing activity of God, it
must be emphasized that such revelation never changes the
essential message or contradicts anything that is in the
canonical Scriptures. It may and frequently does confirm and
elaborate on scriptural information, but it will never contradict
it. Furthermore, the range of variation in perception of God's
revelation demonstrated in Scripture shows the dimensions of
the range within which contemporary revelation can take place.
The Bible is our yardstick (model 9a) and our tether (model 9c)
—the latter to show the radius within which we range, the
former to measure whether any given potential revelation is in
or outside that range. Such perspectives are needed to deal
adequately with (1) the fact of the well-nigh infinite diversity of
humanity, (2) the fact that the living God operates today as he
always has by adapting to that diversity even in his leading
and revelational activity, (3) the fact that, though the Scriptures
are entirely adequate and normative, they are not complete in
the sense that they reveal to us everything that it is possible to
know about God, and (4) the fact that they do not anticipate all
that is necessary to know for us to make all the necessary
contemporary applications of Christian truth. We need the
constant revelational leading of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's
human partners to assist with that.

1. We could point to another distinction potential that relates to the receptors'

ability to imagine the impact of that message on then1 if they were in a situation
where that message would be appropriate. Such imaginative repersonalization of the
message could lead one to postulate an inherently greater impact resident in the
“ fire” message than in the “ 2 + 2” message.
2. See Coleman 1972, 86-104 and Pike 1962, 46-53 for good discussions of
the liberal-evangelical debate over these issues.
3. It should be noted that in societies and subsocieties without the kind of
reading tradition that encourages such “ conversations” with books, it may not even
occur to people that such internal repersonalization is possible. We who have such a
tradition dare not assume that others, especially those who don't read well or who
are members of societies without a highly developed tradition, are able to read in
this way.
4. See Bright 1953, 192-98 for a convincing assertion (though with a slightly
different focus) of the singleness of the biblical message.
 5. Snaith, while admitting the importance of setting Hebrew religion “ in focus
with respect to Semitic religion generally,” states that “ it is high time” to awaken
from “ the desire for comprehensiveness and broad-mindedness” and to focus also on
Old Testament distinctiveness (1964, 12-13). My position is that we should strive
to focus on balance and process. We should recognize the great similarities in the
forms employed but never neglect the fact that, with Israel, there was a distinctive
use of those forms (with and for God) that resulted, over time, in greater and greater
differences between Israelite religion and neighboring religions, which were once
quite similar.
12
REVEALED THROUGH CULTURE

In this the final chapter of the section on the dynamics of

God's revelation of himself in human culture we focus on the
way God works within the limitations of culture. God's choice
to work within such limitations plus God's method of starting
where people are, leads to the introduction of the very
important “starting-point-plus-process” model (model 10c).
The use of this model is illustrated first by a case study dealing
with the concept of sin in a Papua New Guinea tribal situation
and then by a consideration of the position of those who are
today chronologically A.D. but “ informationally B.C.” (model
10g).

Starting Point Plus Process (model 10c)

We have noted that God starts working with human beings
where they are, solely on the basis of their faith commitment to
him. This new allegiance issues in a series of changes in the
converts' behavior. The conversion process and the effects of
these changes on the converts' culture will be treated in detail
in chapters 17-19. Though the “ starting-point-plus-process”
model applies to all of those changes, it will be introduced here
in relationship to God's revelational activity.

Model 10c
The starting-point-plus-process concept holds that, though
allegiance to God is central to the message (model 13a), God
allowed in Scripture and allows today for a range of
understanding of himself (model 9b).

Western Christianity has characteristically taken a hard line

on human sinfulness. We have been impressed with the
evilness of human beings and the wide disparity between
human behavior and God's ideals. And there is plenty of
scriptural support for a negative posture toward human beings.
We have “gone astray” (Isa. 53:6), sinned and fallen short of
the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). When we have sought to be
righteous we have produced nothing more valuable than
“filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6). We deserve judgment and eternal death
(Rom. 6:23).
As true and impressive as this negative teaching of
Scripture is, however, I believe the message of God's love and
acceptance to be even more impressive. It goes beyond the
stereotype that people have concerning God and is, therefore,
communicationally most impactful. Why is it that God
steadfastly refused to break his agreement (covenant) with
Israel even though they continually broke their part of the
bargain? Why is it that God expressed himself to us through
his supreme act of love even “while we were yet sinners” (Rom.
5:8)? God starts with us in the basis of faith and counts that
faith as righteousness (Rom. 4:5, 22; Gal. 3:6; Jas. 2:23). But
what then? Does he accept subideal behavior on our part? He
must. But on what basis?
There are at least two ways to look at the points and
processes that occur in dealing with a topic such as this. One
way is to focus on the positioning of the points; the other is to
focus on the direction of movement involved in the processes.
The first focus gives one a grouping or what mathematicians
call a “set” made up of the items positioned at the various
points. A border can then be drawn around that grouping to
distinguish it from any other grouping, or “set,” of points. The
other focus is not so concerned with the position of the points
themselves as with the direction in which the items are moving
with respect to a central point or goal. This perspective leads
to a categorizing of items (for our purposes, Christians) not in
terms of their static positioning vis-à-vis those in other
positions but in terms of the directions in which they are
moving with respect to that central point or goal. Those
moving toward a given goal would therefore be in one
category, no matter how great the distance between them and
the goal, while those moving away from that goal would be in
another category, no matter how close they might be to that
goal1.
I would like to suggest that the basis on which God
interacts with (and reveals himself to) human beings is what I
will call a directional basis rather than a positional one (model
10d).

Model 10d
Contrary to much culture-bound Western theologizing we
 postulate that God has a “directional” rather than a
“positional” basis for accepting or rejecting humans.
Faith/faithfulness is, of course, both the starting point and
the sine qua non for a continuing relationship with God. But
the Scriptures lead us to believe that those who, like the thief
on the cross (Luke 23:42), simply reach out in faith at the last
possible moment are as completely accepted by God as those
who have expressed and developed their faith over decades.
Jesus' illustration of the kingdom by the use of the story of the
laborers who were all paid the same amount for unequal
amounts of work (Matt. 20:1-16) would also seem to indicate
that God has an attitude different from ours toward who is “in”
and who is “out.”
As Euro-Americans, our tendency would be to assume that
there are two compartments, one labeled THE SAVED, the other
labeled THE UNSAVED. We think, then, of people as being
positionally in one or the other compartment: We think of
those who commit themselves in faith to God through Christ,
and who therefore move “from death to life” (John 5:24; 1 John
3:14), as moving from a position in one compartment to a
position in the other compartment. We tend to see those in the
Christian compartment as distinct from those in the
compartment of non-Christians in terms of both their faith and
their behavior. In dealing with non-Christians who are
considering the possibility of converting to Christianity, then,
we are likely to lead them to believe that when they commit
themselves to Christ and “all things become new” (2 Cor. 5:17),
their behavior will immediately change radically because they
have somewhat mysteriously moved from one compartment
into another.
And yet in actual experience we find it impossible to
distinguish which compartment people are in on the basis of
their behavior. We can even be sure of great uncertainty in this
regard in evaluating those who belong to Christian groups.
Jesus pointed to one of the most dedicated groups of his day
(the Pharisees) and called them “hypocrites” (Matt. 23 and
elsewhere). He suggested that there will even be those who
have cast out demons and performed miracles in his name to
whom he will say, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:22-23). And he
forbade the disciples to pull up the “tares” (the unbelievers) in
the wheat field lest they inadvertently pull up some of the
wheat (the believers) (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43).
Perhaps Jesus was getting at the fact that it is impossible
for humans to distinguish Christians from non-Christians on
the basis of their behavior because such evaluations lead to
the positioning of all of those with similar behavior in the same
compartments. His basis, however, would seem to place the
emphasis on the direction in which people are going. Some may
(like the young wheat) behave very much like non-Christians.
But, since they are growing in the direction of greater
Christlikeness, they are among the saved. Others may (like the
tares) look very much like Christians on the outside. But they
are growing away from Christlikeness and are therefore among
the lost. We might picture the human scene as in figure 12.1
above (each arrow represents a person).
Fig. 12.1. Directional versus positional understandings of those “ in” Christ and
those “ outside” Christ. Read: The positional understanding of
Christianness sees all those in the compartment on the left as
positioned outside Christ and those in the compartment on the
right as in Christ. The directional understanding sees all those
who are moving toward greater Christlikeness as saved, no matter
what position they may occupy in the behaviorally defined
compartments.

Note that, though there may actually be a majority of those

headed toward Christlike commitment and behavior in the right
compartment and a majority of those headed away from such
Christlikeness in the left compartment, it is the direction, not
the position, that is determinative. It is the direction of the
process in which a person is involved that is crucial, not the
position of the point at which he or she stands. Not that
behavior is unimportant, for it is the deep-level allegiance and
motive behavior of those headed toward Christ at the extreme
left that save them and the deep-level allegiance and motive
behavior of those headed away from Christ at the extreme right
that mean that they will be lost. But surface-level behavior may
be quite misleading as a test of deep-level saving commitment.
 I do not intend to suggest that God is unconcerned with
the surface-level behavior of his people. For it is surface-level
behavior that others read to attempt to discern the deep-level
motivations and allegiance of his people. Indeed, we may
conclude on the basis of passages such as Galatians 5:22-23
that God wants his people to manifest “the fruits of the Spirit.”
But these fruits develop as the result of a process of growth in
a certain direction. The behavioral starting point for such
growth differs from person to person, however, for God accepts
people where they are behaviorally on the basis of their faith
commitment to him. In other words, God accepts a range of
variation in the behavioral starting points at which he begins
his transforming work with human beings. This he does both
on the social level and on the individual level. On each level we
can postulate that God has an ideal type of behavior that he
would like the individual or the society to practice habitually.
But he accepts people before they reach that ideal and refuses
to abandon them even if, after a period of time, they have not
arrived at ideal behavior. Yet many people in partnership with
God make a considerable amount of progress from where they
start toward God's ideal during the course of their Christian
experience. Likewise, there seems to be movement toward
God's ideals on the part of whole societies under the influence
of God (see chapters 18 and 19).
At this point we need to remind ourselves that we are not
simply discussing cultural forms. We are, rather, dealing with
the usage of cultural forms by people and the meanings people
attach to the forms. The cultural forms themselves are always
secondary to the usage and meanings attached to them.
 Fig. 12.2. Starting-point-plus-process model applied to four
fruits of the Spirit.

The diagram above (fig. 12.2) will provide the grid in terms
of which we will discuss and illustrate this matter. To show how
it works we will plot on it the starting point plus process of an
imaginary individual with respect to several of the “fruits of the
Spirit” (love, patience, kindness, and self-control—Gal. 5:22).
Note that we are indicating both a range of starting points and
a range of approximation to God's ideal once the process of
movement toward the ideal has begun.
Our imaginary individual, at the time of coming into a faith
relationship with God, is found to be totally impatient,
selectively loving, kind only to friends, and undisciplined. Note
that this individual starts at a different distance from God's
ideal at each point. During, say, ten years of Christian
experience, improvement to occasionally patient, loving most
people, kind to nearly all, and greater self-control occurs. Each
of these movements is in the right direction, toward God's ideal.
This person might (at least theoretically) have regressed or
remained stationary at certain points in surface-level behavior.
Only if this betokened a change of direction in deep-level
allegiance, however, would the person be lost. The greater
likelihood is that the deep-level movement in the direction of
greater faith commitment to God will bring about movement at
the surface level toward greater behavioral Christlikeness.
On the cultural level we may provide an illustration from
biblical data in quite a number of areas, for the Bible gives us a
good bit of insight into both the ideals of God and the places
where he has historically started his work with human beings. I
infer from this that God is willing to work with people today
who fall within the scriptural range of acceptable (though
subideal) behavior and to work with them toward the same
ideal goals.
Figure 12.3, below (p. 190), plots certain aspects of human
understanding of, and response to God as deduced from
scriptural data. According to Kautzsch (1904) and many others
(see McBane 1976), the early Hebrews believed in the existence
of many gods. The commandment “no other gods before me”
(Exod. 20:3) and Jonah's assumption that he could avoid
having to follow God's command by running away from God's
territory (presumably into the territory of some other god) are
among the scriptural evidences for this interpretation. Since
God accepted people who had this subideal belief, we include it
on the diagram in the acceptable category. In another scriptural
glimpse of God's attitude toward human response to him,
though, we find God rejecting those who worship Baal rather
than him (1 Kgs. 18). Apparently God was (and is) willing to
tolerate belief in other gods but not devotion to them. God
demands that he alone be the object of primary human
allegiance. We thus enter “Allegiance to Another God” as an
unacceptable starting point. Such an allegiance demands an
“allegiance encounter,” resulting in the radical replacement of
the old allegiance with commitment to God, before God's
process can even start.

Fig. 12.3. Starting-point-plus-process model applied to scriptural perceptions of

God's nature.

Perceptions of God as distant, judgmental, to be feared, and

perhaps even despotic are also plotted on the diagram as
subideal, though acceptable at the start of a people's
experience with God. I do not wish to suggest that there is no
truth in these perceptions of God. I suggest only that unless
balanced by a consciousness of God's personalness,
lovingness, forgiveness, and the like, such perceptions are
scripturally subideal. More balanced perceptions are implied in
analogies such as “shepherd” (Ps. 23), “father,” and “friend”
(John 15:15). A far less balanced view, indicating regression
rather than development, is represented by the unscriptural
American “Santa Claus” analogy.
Similar diagrams could be devised for a large number of
additional categories relating to understandings of, for
example, God's workings, human nature and behavior, doctrines
such as sin, salvation, faith, and the like. Since God has not
changed his method of operation, the scripturally allowed
range of starting points is still available today. So is the
process by means of which God's Spirit leads us toward his
ideals. We will deal in more detail with the change process later
(chapters 17-19). It needs to be noted here, however, that
fallible human beings neither start at the same points nor move
uniformly toward Christian ideals at the same rate when they
pledge their allegiance to God through Christ. A. given person
or group will at the start of the conversion process be at one
point with respect to one of the fruits of the Spirit and at
another point with respect to another of them (see fig. 12.2).
One individual may already be very kind but quite lacking in
self-control. The people of a whole society may, likewise,
already be characterized by a high degree of patience (as are
those of many African societies) when they come to Christ.
Thus, the starting points at which people actually begin vary
among themselves in their distance from the ideal.
People, then, do not focus uniformly on all of the areas in
their behavior that need development toward greater idealness.
Thus, while a given person or group may, after ten years, have
made considerable progress in one area, he/she/they may not
even have noticed the need for change in several other areas.
For example, Americans, affected as we are by the value our
society places on competitiveness, may not even notice the
unloving way in which we often compete with each other.
Members of societies that strongly focus on politeness in
interpersonal relationships, then, may fail to notice their lack of
truthfulness in many situations.

Which Ideals? A Case Study of a Cross-

Cultural Approach to Sin
A question raised by this consideration is: What ideal(s)
does God hold people initially accountable for—his or theirs?
It is commonly assumed that God only takes into account one
set of ideals—his. If this is so, Christian witnesses have but to
present their best understanding of God's ideals and leave it at
that. But if what we have been saying concerning God being
receptor-oriented is accurate, we need to consider the
possibility that God takes seriously the receptors' ideals and
any lack of correspondence between those Ideals and his own.
I will argue here that God endorses a two-step process in
leading people into greater approximation to his ideals. The
first step is to lead and empower (by the Holy Spirit) people to
live closer to their own ideals (model 10e).

Model 10e
In leading people from their initial faith response toward
 maturity, God adopts a two-step process.
It is a second step to lead and empower them to raise their
ideals to approximate God's ideals (model 10). They then claim
the power of the Spirit to assist them in living up to God's
ideals.

Model 10f
As the second step in this process, then, comes the raising of
the ideals in the direction of God's ideals as made explicit in
Scripture.

T. Wayne Dye (1976) has written a very important article on

this subject, stimulated partly by a course based on a previous
version of this book, partly by Pike 1962, 35-45. In it he
presents an approach to sin that seeks to be cross-culturally
valid. He illustrates this approach and its results from his
decade of missionary experience among the Bahinemo people
of Papua New Guinea. In what follows I lean heavily on Dye's
presentation.
How do cross-cultural Christian witnesses respond to the
differences between their perception of sin and that of the
people to whom they go? As Christian leaders in our home
country we have developed (on the basis of culture-specific
interpretational reflexes) an awareness of the discrepancies
between God's ideals and the sinful practices of our own
people. Having developed (or been taught) what we consider
to be correct biblical and theological understandings, we take
on ourselves the role of prophet (or judge), feeling we have a
special ability under God to “[sense] what is wrong for others
by noting what is wrong for [ourselves]” (Dye 1976, 27). We
take this habit and these instincts with us to the foreign
society, but often fail to distinguish properly between the
usefulness of this ability in our home context and its effect in a
society that is strange to us and, therefore, not amenable to our
interpretational reflexes. We are likely to assume that our ability
to judge discrepancies between God's ideals and the actual
practice in our society will carry over to the new cultural
context. Sin is always sin, isn't it?

But no matter how hard he tries to adapt externally, Joe

goes to another [society] with a heavy load of internalized
“cultural baggage.” Many of the things which he naturally
assumes to be right, sensible, and natural are not in fact
biblical ideals at all, but simply part of his own culture. For
instance, American values such as efficiency, punctuality,
and cleanliness are very important to many American
Christians, though hard to document from Scripture. Joe is
probably most aware of those things in the host culture
which would be wrong at home. (Dye 1976, 28)

The receptor people's behavior, being human and sinful,

will, of course, need to be judged by God's standards. There
will be plenty in that society and in the lives of its people that
will need to be dealt with. And the more involved we as cross-
cultural witnesses get with the receptor people, the more of
these things we become aware of. But our tendency is to work
(as we did at home) on the basis of the reflexes developed in
our home cultural context. We have probably never really
analyzed how we made our judgments or even whether the
judgments were always appropriate to groups within our own
society beyond the Christian community in which we
developed the reflexes. We probably never learned, even at
home, to distinguish between the values we hold simply as a
part of our cultural context and those we hold as Christians.
Such judgments are intertwined in our experience and not
differentiated when we make evaluations of other people's
behavior. As we learn the new culture and add evaluations of
that behavior to our store of evaluations of home-culture
behavior, it is likely we will attempt to be consistent. For we
have been taught as American Christians that God's ideals are
constant and unchanging. We believe, furthermore, especially
if we have received theological training, that we as Christian
experts see and apply those ideals accurately and consistently.
So we work cross-culturally (or among those of another
American subsociety), constantly speaking to our receptors
concerning the parts of the latter's behavior and belief that
seem worst to us. The receptors, of course, may not be much
concerned at all about those things Western Christians label
“sin,” though they soon become aware of the things a
missionary disapproves of. And though they have things in
their own experience that they feel are morally wrong, it may
never occur to them that the missionary is talking about moral
wrong. Though there are things they feel guilty about, the
cross-cultural witness probably has not touched on many of
them and they see no need to feel guilt over the items that
upset the outsider. Some hearers, often for motives unrelated to
the problem of sin, may respond and submit to the
indoctrination concerning what they are to label as sin. Many
have thus learned to “dutifully ‘confess' things about which
they feel no guilt” like smoking, drinking, polygamy and
dancing. They then become Christians often “without ever
repenting of the things which most trouble their consciences”
(Dye 1976, 28).

For example, in one area with which I am familiar, the local

evangelical missionary is extremely concerned with the
problems of polygamy, betel nut chewing and smoking. In
the thinking of the local people, good behavior is much
more a matter of avoidance of discord in the village than it
is of what they “eat.” Therefore, disobeying husbands and
leaders, refusing hospitality and inter-clan payments, and
expressing anger are to them far more serious sins.
The local missionary is eager to do what is right, but
this is not always communicated to the people. He is
extremely stingy with things they would normally share; he
doesn't even care enough to learn about their kinship
obligations. Furthermore, he appears to be angry
(“frustrated,” as he sees it) fairly often, so they perceive
him as frequently sinning. Local leaders seldom listen to
him. Many of his converts have not grasped the meaning
of living in obedience to God, and several have fallen into
sexual sin.
As a result, this missionary is convinced that he himself
must be the judge of the converts, for they do not show
enough evidence of real repentance to be trusted. He told
 me that he focuses on the relatively external matters of
smoking and betel nut chewing because he doesn't know
the people well enough to ascertain whether they are really
loving, etc. These external matters were the only “fruits
meet for repentance” that he could easily identify. (Dye
1976, 28-29)

What can Christian witnesses do differently? Should they

“compromise” Christian convictions by “lowering their
standards”? Or is there another way that will allow faithfulness
to the Scriptures and, at the same time, kindness to the people
to whom God has called them? The key lies, I believe, in
distinguishing, as the Scriptures distinguish, between God's
ideals and the way those ideals are communicated to and
responded to by sinful humanity. For God works with and
within relative human societies to promote his supracultural
ideals. And we must learn, as Peter has stated, that when God
works with humans, patience is not laxness (2 Pet. 3:9). God,
rather, exhibits the patience and loving concern that he
recommends even while he leads (not drives) us toward his
ideals.
Since God is receptor-oriented he takes seriously where his
receptors are as well as where he would like them to be
eventually. In Scripture we learn about definite standards or
Ideals that God has set up. Falling short of “God's glory” is sin
(Rom. 3:23). Wholehearted love for God and neighbor is the
ideal toward which humans are to aim (Matt. 22:37-40). The
purpose of Hebrew law and tradition was to bring people to
this love (Rom. 13:8-10; 1 John 3:4). To help us to see this aim
the Bible presents (1) negative commands (Exod. 20:1-17) and
specific sins to be turned away from (Mark 7:21-23; Gal. 5:19-
21), and (2) positive examples such as those of Jesus and
others committed to God and (3) verbalized ideals (1 Cor. 13;
Gal. 5:22-23). Though these ideals are articulated in terms of the
specific sociocultural contexts in which the biblical events
occurred, there is enough evidence in what we have learned of
the peoples of the world to suggest that most of these ideals
are universally known. But are they universally obeyed?
Dye records his discovery of this fact:

Back before they had had Christian teaching, I tried to

translate Jesus' list of sins in Mark 7. As each sin was
described, they gave me the local term for it. They named
other sins in their culture.
“What did your ancestors tell you about these things?”
I asked them.
“Oh, they told us we shouldn't do any of those things.”
“Do you think these were good standards that your
ancestors gave you?” They agreed unanimously that they
were.
“Well, do you keep all these rules?”
“No,” they responded sheepishly.
One leader said, “Definitely not. Who could ever keep
them all? We're people of the ground.” (1976, 39)

This kind of knowledge of the ideal, accompanied by the

frustration of a felt inability to live up to the ideal, appears to
be a worldwide phenomenon. I have experienced it in Nigeria.
Dye has found it in the Philippines as well as in New Guinea.
“Prohibitions against lying, stealing, murder and adultery arc
virtually universal, though exactly what constitutes each can
vary from [society to society]” (Dye 1976, 30). The
anthropologist Beals documents similar norms in India (1962,
50-52). People don't seem to need more ideals (especially
foreign ones) to increase their feelings of guilt and frustration.
What they need in the first instance is assistance in dealing
with their own ideals. Even if the missionary or other witness
is able to present only biblical ideals (rather than some mixture
of these with his or her own cultural ideals), the result on the
receptors can be demoralizing frustration rather than Christian
hope. For if they are already discouraged over their inability to
live up to their own cultural ideals, how much more
discouraging it is to discover that God's requirements are even
higher.
We have four sets of ideals to sort out, with partial overlap
between them: (1) God has supracultural standards that he has
revealed to us in his Word. (2) The revelational information,
however, comes to us clothed in the perspectives of the biblical
peoples within their cultural contexts. God's ideals
enscripturated are, therefore, mixed with the ideals of the
biblical societies. This fact enables us to gain an
understanding of the range of application of God's ideals in
human cultural contexts (model 9b: God allows a range of
acceptable variation). (3) Then we find that we have mixed our
perception of God's ideals with the ideals of our own society.
(4) Further, the people to whom we go have their own
sociocultural ideals.
Though these universal moral principles seem clear
enough, the actual realization of them is partly determined
by each [society]. Exactly what actions manifest kindness,
humility, peace, or self-control (Gal. 5:22-23)? An executive
in an industrial country is being patient if he waits for
someone ten minutes. A Bahinemo of Papua New Guinea
would think nothing of waiting two hours. In one village in
southern Mindanao, my daughter and I were given gifts
equal to a month's wages, as a demonstration of their
hospitality. In the U.S. the most lavish hospitality to a
stranger seldom adds up to a day's wages.
Even such clear statements as the Ten Commandments
have as it were, fuzzy borders. For instance, is it [defined
as] stealing to pick up a child's toy from a suburban
sidewalk? Yes, in the United States. No, in Mexico. In
ancient Israel one could pick and eat fruit while passing
through another man's orchard, but that would be
recognized by everyone as theft in present day Southern
California. Many Papua New Guineans see my culture's
practice of leaving the care of the elderly to the state as a
clear violation of the fifth commandment. My Bahinemo
brethren do not see taking a second wife as adultery, but it
would be for me. It seems that the essence of each
commandment is clear, but the edges are defined differently
by different [peoples]. God's universal standard must be
realized in different situations by different behavior. (Dye
1976, 30-31)

One major problem in dealing with matters such as these is

that we so often unconsciously employ the plain-meaning
model (see chapter 7) instead of the Bible-as-tether model
(model 9c) plus the dynamic-equivalence model (model 11).2
Thus we often end up with a procedure such as in figure 12.4,
below.
Another, more scriptural, approach is, however, available.
This starts where God starts—with the context of the receptors
rather than with that of the communicator. Romans 2:15-16
shows God's approach in a previous cross-cultural situation.
The Gentiles of that day, as well as of this, had enough of
God's ideals “written in their hearts” that they had a known
standard in terms of which to measure their behavior. Using
that standard in the same way that the Jews used theirs (the
“law”), they found that “their thoughts sometimes accuse them
and sometimes defend them.” This is the standard, according
to Paul, that God will use to judge “all the secret thoughts in
men's hearts.” Apparently, in spite of strong influences of
culture and sin on human understanding of God's ideals, God
will judge on the basis of that understanding.
The guilt that God seeks to work from is that which results
from perceived discrepancies between one's own ideals and
behavior, not from the imposition of someone else's ideals.
Note Jesus' words in this respect concerning the
forgivableness of a lack of guilt on the part of those who don't
know (John 9:41; 15:22; Luke 12:47-48). The Galilean towns that
refused to repent even after they had seen Jesus' miracles were,
however, to be judged severely (Matt. 11:20-24; 12:41-42).
God's judgments are based on the understanding of the
receptors (see also J as. 4:17).
 Within the Christian community, the Holy Spirit works with
these individualized and communal understandings to
enlighten the understandings of truth we already possess, to
bring to our awareness truths that are new to us, and to enable
us to have the power and the will to live closer to his standards
than previously. John 2:27, Romans 8:5-6, and many other
passages inform us about these activities of the Spirit.

Even an unbeliever's inner awareness of what is right for

him may be more demanding than he admits. His inner
standard is brought into play on all sorts of occasions in
daily life, and God will use this standard to judge him (Rom.
2:1-8). This explains some other words of Jesus. “God…will
apply to you the same rules you apply to others” (Matt.
7:2). Why? Because you are aware that it is wrong or you
wouldn't use it as a standard for others. “Everyone will
have to give an account of every useless word he has ever
spoken. For your words will be used to judge you, either to
declare you innocent or to declare you guilty” (Matt. 12:36-
37).
Francis Schaeffer explained this concept in Death in the
City (1969, 112-13). He compared it to a tape recorder built
into every person's brain. At the judgment, God will cause
this to play back, contrasting occasions when a man made
moral judgments of other people, with other occasions
when he himself did what he had condemned. Out of our
own mouths we shall be condemned. (Dye 1976, 32)
 Fig. 12.4. Improper procedure for applying God's ideals.

People can and do warp and disregard their consciences, of

course (1 Tim. 4:2). Sociocultural conditioning likewise affects
conscience.

It therefore cannot be exactly the same as the Holy Spirit's

voice, nor can it be a reliable guide to God's ultimate will for
an individual. On the other hand, it is each person's point
of awareness of right and wrong, and the principal channel
through which the Spirit convicts and enlightens (Prov.
20:27). Knowing this, Jesus appealed to the consciences of
the hypocritical Pharisees. As a result they couldn't bring
themselves to condemn the woman taken in adultery (John
8:7-9). It is the same way today. Preaching [that] results in
conviction must deal with the issues [that] are already
bothering the consciences of one's hearers (ibid., 32-33)

Within Scripture we see Paul allowing for the cultural

conditioning of people's consciences in 1 Corinthians 8,
“where the man who perceives an idol as alive sins if he eats
sacrificial meat” (Dye 1976, 33). To Paul, an idol is not a real
entity (1 Cor. 8:4). “But only the person who understands this
would be free to eat such meat” (ibid., 33). In Romans 14, Paul
sums up his approach to the whole matter, saying,

It is not the act itself which is important, but the underlying

character of one's relationship to God (Romans 14:17). A
man must do what he believes pleases God or be
condemned (Rom. 14:12, 18, 22, 23). Different people will do
different, even opposite things to please God (Rom. 14:2, 3,
5, 6).
God not only judges each of them differently, but
actually makes each one succeed in pleasing Him (Romans
14:4). Therefore, we must not be contemptuous of those
who feel obliged to follow rules that seem irrelevant, nor
should we feel we are more spiritual than those who do not
live up to our ideals of Christian behavior (Romans 14:10).
Put another way, each of us is answerable to God, not to
others. Only the Master knows exactly what He wants each
servant to do. We should not judge another person
because God may be leading him to obey in quite a
different way. Nevertheless, we must be careful not to do
things which are wrong for others and will tempt them to
follow our example (Romans 14:13-15, 20-21). (Dye 1976, 33)

God's (and our) acceptance of culturally inculcated ideals

as his starting point does not, as static theological models
would lead us to believe, imply either a lessening of his
standards or an absolutizing of those of any given society. For
his starting point is followed by a process—a process
exemplified in the Scriptures. This process is twofold: (1)
involving converts in living closer to their own ideals, and (2)
the gradual raising of those ideals (as Jesus did in Matt. 5) to
more closely approximate God's ideals. Missionaries may have
been personally experiencing the first of these for so long that
they have forgotten the frustration they felt as non-Christians
over their knowledge of high ideals without the power to live
anywhere close to them. Furthermore, they may have been
brought up in a society where long ago many of its ideals had,
at the surface level (often in form only), been made to appear
similar to Christian ideals. They may, thus, be aware only of the
products (i.e., ideals) of Christian commitment and remain
rather ignorant of the dynamic Spirit-guided and empowered
processes by means of which people have come to live close to
these products/ideals. In a context where awareness of these
ideals is new, however, it is the ability to initiate and work with
those processes under the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that
is needed by both receptors and the outsiders who advocate
the ideals.
The problem is that most of us Westerners have inherited
as a part of our exposure to monocultural, static theology what
is considered to be “a universal standard for sin.” We not only
believe in God's ideals, but we feel that we know them well
enough to impose them on others. Yet the missionary

has come to understand sin in quite a different way than

his hearers do. He finds it hard to believe that God is not
even speaking to those people about behavior which
would for him be clearly sinful. Without disciplined
application of the above principles, the only thing he
knows is to preach about “sins” for which they do not feel
convicted, and which in fact may not be sin at all for them.
At the same time he ignores other sins which are real
problems for them. In effect [the missionary]
unintentionally takes on the role of the Holy Spirit, instead
of cooperating with the Holy Spirit in His work.
In spite of all this, converts are won with such
preaching. But they still face some difficult problems. For
one thing, they may have a very long struggle learning
what God wants for them, since they hear through their
consciences. One result maybe a slavish obedience to
everything the missionary suggests or does, including
brushing one's teeth and putting flowers on the dinner
table. This inability to function independently greatly
delays the development of an indigenous church.
Eventually, if the converts are taught the whole range
of Scripture, or if they have the Bible for themselves, they
may come to see how different is the teaching they have
been given from their own sense of what is right. The result
is a breakaway, independent church. Barrett (1968) found
that among the more than 6000 independent churches in
Africa, a common reason given for separation was: The
missionaries were living inconsistent lives. In terms of
Romans 14, the Africans were tired of trying to live by
someone else's conscience.
One group of New Guinea highlanders responded to
the mission teaching and were baptized. For several years
they tithed, attended church, and followed the mission's
“Christian” behavior. Then one day the leaders told the
 missionary, “We ought to have done enough by now to
repay Jesus for his death” (Irwin 1972). They thereupon
reverted to paganism. Or did they? Had they ever known
real conviction of sin and forgiveness? Or had they only
heard about the things that would have been sinful to the
missionary if he were living there? (Dye 1976, 37)

Dye then goes on to suggest how cross-cultural witnesses

can “cooperate with” the consciences of their receptors.
Witnesses must first become learners. Nothing in their
background has provided them with the reflexes to guide them
to react properly in the new cultural world. These they can
develop (as Jesus and Paul did) only by long and intensive
learning, if then. Such learning, combined with knowledge of
scriptural ideals, will enable them to better sort out those areas
within the receptor cultural context where God wants to start,
from other areas (such as those that immediately attract
attention because they differ so much from the witness's own
culture). Such an investigation will likely show areas in which
the Holy Spirit has already begun his convicting work and will
certainly show many “points of contact” (Nida 1960, 211-15)
and many “redemptive analogies” (Richardson 1974) that can
profitably be used in the communication of the gospel. The
missionary will also find that most of the cultural structure is
quite compatible with and usable in Christianity.
There will be areas, though, where biblical norms conflict
with cultural ideals. In such areas God wants to work in and
through the sociocultural context for change. The missionaries'
problem is to learn to work in God's way, even against their
“natural” (i.e., socioculturally inculcated) instincts. Dye
suggests the following steps:

1. Learn the ethical system of your potential hearers.

2. Compare your findings with your own culture and
with the Bible. Become sensitive to the strengths and
weaknesses of yours and theirs. This helps overcome blind
spots and ethnocentrism.
3. Learn to live a loving life by their cultural
standards…as a witness to them without going against
your own conscience (2 Cor. 4:2). For each decision you
make, remember which cultural framework you are thinking
in: your own culture, their culture, or the New Testament
culture. Make decisions within the appropriate cultural
framework.
4. Preach repentance for areas in which the Holy Spirit
is already convicting…. Begin to teach with patience about
God's concern and standards for actions which, though
cultural, are in conflict with the Bible. Pray that you will be
able to accept those aspects of the culture which, though
galling, are compatible with the Christian faith.
5. Expect the Holy Spirit to be working, too. Keep
getting feedback to find out how He is working, and also as
a check on whether you are really communicating. Learn to
trust the insights of new converts.
6. Teach the converts to obey and rely on the Holy
Spirit. Teach them how to keep their consciences clear so
the Holy Spirit can use their consciences to teach them new
 truths. Expose them to the Bible, not just the “pre-
digested” form of your lesson plans. Teach them to take
from it the principles they need for wise and truly Christian
answers. (1976, 38-39)

Dye started with God where the Bahinemo people were to

use their sociocultural instincts with and for God. He explained
to them the expectations of God and God's disappointment with
them in terms of the differences between their behavior and
their own ideals. He then pointed out that God's redemptive
activity had been performed for the purpose of reuniting them
with him so that they could thereby live up to their own ideals.
Dye says:

This was a crucial step toward their conversion. For the

first time the Scriptures were linked to what God was telling
them through their consciences. Within a year most of the
people in that village had committed themselves to Christ.
Since that day in 1967, they have never lost the
awareness that in the Bible God is concerned about their
daily behavior and not just talking about strange taboos.
Since then, they have changed their source of authority
from inherited tradition to the Scriptures, and they have
been learning how Christ through His Spirit can come
inside them and give them the power to attain the
standards they could not keep before. All this has led them
into a vital relationship with God and produced a strong
indigenous church. (1976, 39-40)
 Would that all missionary endeavor were as dynamically
equivalent to the accounts in the book of Acts!

What about Those Who Are Today

“Informationally B.C.”? (Model 10g)
Given that God starts his process of transforming those
who hear of Christ from the point at which he encounters them,
what are the processes that he employs for those who have
never heard? If the issue is initial saving faith for those who
have never heard rather than the transformation of the
behavior of those who respond, what is the process by means
of which God reveals himself in and through culture? To deal
with this issue we introduce a model (model 10g) that
distinguishes between the chronological position of those who
have never heard and their position with respect to revelational
information.

Model 10g
In view of these aspects of God's interaction with human
beings, we postulate that God's method and message are
today the same as they always have been with respect to those
who may be chronologically A.D. but informationally B.C.

Revealed information (both general and specific) is

necessary for people to respond to. But such information is
ineffective unless activated by repersonalization, sometimes
by the receptor but perhaps more often by someone else.
Spirit-guided witnesses are, therefore, important, but not
because people cannot know enough to enlighten or condemn
them (see Rom. 2). Witnesses are needed basically to provide
the stimulus that the mere possession of information cannot
provide. The witness frequently stimulates both by
repersonalizing information already known and by adding
information previously unknown to the receptors.
“Paganism” is, according to Maurier (1968), the point at
which God starts his saving process. Maurier claims that
paganism has today, as it has ever had, enough information in
it that the addition of the proper communicational stimulus can
lead people to saving faith in God through Christ. Paganism
thus, in some sense, stands in continuity with the Christian
gospel. We have usually assumed discontinuity and
antagonism between Christianity and paganism. Yet it was
within paganism that God stimulated Abraham (and countless
others whose stories are not recorded in the Bible) to faith,
based largely on the knowledge they already possessed. In the
Old Testament, mention is made of a few of those outside Israel
who apparently came to saving faith without contact with the
people of God. Among them were Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18; cf.
Ps. 110:4; Heb. 7), Abimelech (Gen. 20), Jethro (Exod. 3), Balaam
(Num. 22-24), Job, and Naaman (2 Kgs. 5). These came within
paganism rather than within Israel to the same faith-allegiance
to the true God that those saved within Israel experienced. In
the New Testament, too, we get a glimpse of such a possibility
when, in Acts 18:24-19:7, we see that there were roving bands
of John the Baptist's disciples making converts without,
apparently, even having heard of Jesus.
 If the message and method are the same today as they were
in biblical times, we must ask the hard question concerning the
necessity of the knowledge of Christ in the response of
contemporary “pagans.” Can people who are chronologically
A.D., but in terms of knowledge, B.C . (i.e., they have not heard
of Christ), or those who are indoctrinated with a wrong
understanding of Christ, be saved by committing themselves to
faith in God as Abraham and the rest of those who were
chronologically B.C. did (Heb. 11)? Could such persons be
saved by “giving as much of themselves as they can give to as
much of God as they can understand”? I personally believe
they can and many have.
If this is so it in no way excuses Christians from the
necessity of communicating the gospel, however. It is fully
consonant with the strong scriptural imperative to
communicate God's message persuasively to all peoples. That
communication, though, is for the purpose of stimulating the
hearers to action (in this case, faith commitment to God). It is
not simply for the purpose of imparting new information (as
with a news broadcast). If this perspective is accurate, people
in non-Western societies, like those in Western societies, are
not lost for lack of information but for lack of a faith response
to God on the basis of what they already know. The task of the
cross-cultural communicator of the gospel is therefore, like that
of the pastor at home, to stimulate those who theoretically
know enough but have not acted on what they know to
employ their wills to respond to the God who has not left them
without knowledge of him. While cross-cultural witnesses may
and should use information that is new to their hearers, they
should be careful to (1) start from what their receptors already
know, then (2) focus on those portions of biblical information
that will be most acceptable and/or most impactful in
stimulating the receptor(s) to respond in faith to God.
Though this view does not in the least diminish the
imperative to witness for Christ to the ends of the earth, it does
change our understanding of the aim of Christian witness. It
focuses our attention on the proper function of witnessing—
stimulation to faith—rather than on the lesser end to which our
Western predilections would likely lead us—to inundate our
hearers with new information. I, as a stimulator who both know
the revelational information concerning Christ and have
experienced the revelational stimulus that comes from the
repersonalization of that information, need to repersonalize that
knowledge for my hearers within their frame of reference. Even
though I may accept the fact that God continues to save in the
same way as in Old Testament times, I dare not let that belief
either allow me to fall into universalism so that I assume that
people can be saved without making a commitment of their
wills to God, or lull me into assuming that because people
could come to salvation without specific knowledge of Christ
that, therefore, many will. People at all times seem to reject God,
even when they have plenty of knowledge of him.
No one is, of course, saved in any other way than through
Christ. There is no other authority (“name”) by means of which
salvation is possible (Acts 4:12). But the same was true for all
Old Testament believers. Whether or not they knew it (and
they usually didn't), they could only be saved through Jesus'
life, death, and resurrection. Salvation through faith-allegiance
to God through the authority and the saving work of Christ is a
constant of biblical revelation rather than a discontinuous
feature of the movement from Old Testament to New
Testament. The discontinuity from our perspective is in the fact
that chronologically A.D. people could know how God brought
about their redemption, whereas B.C. people could not know.
The fact that such knowledge now exists gives modern-day
communicators of the gospel an advantage over our
predecessors of being able to use that knowledge as a stimulus
to faith. It is the fact of Jesus' work, not the mere knowledge of
it, that has been and still is the only basis for saving faith for
both those who know and for those who do not know how God
worked out the details.
A helpful analogy is that of an electric light. One can turn
the switch and the light goes on, whether or not the person
turning it on knows how the electricity got from its source to
the light bulb. Even so, God's requirement for salvation is now
and ever has been the turning on of the switch of faith
commitment to him. He does not require us to know how that
faith activates the relationship between God and humankind. It
is important that there be experts (theologians) who study and
know as many details as possible concerning the process that
results in salvation, just as in electricity it is important that
there be electricians who know about the process by means of
which the electricity gets to the light bulb. But neither the
lighting of the light bulb nor the salvation of the believer
depends on the one who turns the switch having detailed
knowledge of how the power gets to its destination.
The clearest exposition of this position that I know is
provided by J. N. D. Anderson (1970). He quotes Peter, who
discovered “that God has no favorites, but that in every nation
the man who is godfearing and does what is right is acceptable
to him” (Acts 10:34-35 NEB). Anderson continues:

This cannot mean that the man who tries to be religious

and strives to be moral will earn salvation, for the whole
Bible denies this possibility. But does it not mean that the
man who realizes something of his sin or need, and throws
himself on the mercy of God with a sincerity which shows
itself in his life (which would always, of course, be a sure
sign of the inward prompting of God's Spirit, and especially
so in the case of one who had never heard the gospel),
would find that mercy—although without understanding it
—at the cross on which Christ “died for all”? (Anderson
1970, 102)

G. Campbell Morgan, in his commentary on Acts 10:34-35,

writes in the same vein that morality cannot save, nor can
knowledge. For “no man is to be saved because he
understands the doctrine of the Atonement. He is saved, not
by understanding it, but because he fears God and works
righteousness” (Morgan 1945, 220, quoted by Anderson 1970,
102).
Anderson cites Zwingli and George Goodman (a popular
Brethren Keswick Convention speaker of his day) as holding
this view as well (see also C. S. Lewis 1956; 1970, 102; and W.
White 1969, 207-8). “Can we doubt,” Anderson says,
 that God is able to speak directly to the human heart, and
particularly so when neither human messenger nor printed
page is available to bear their testimony? What of
Melchizedek or Balaam, for example, in the Old Testament,
who from outside the covenant people clearly heard and
obeyed (or, in Balaam's case, in part obeyed) the voice of
God? What of the warnings given in dreams to such
persons as Nebuchadnezzar and Abimelech? What, indeed,
of the call of Abraham the Aramaean? (Anderson 1970, 103)

Goodman asks whether a person can be disqualified from

grace merely for lack of knowledge. “If so, where in Scripture
do we have the exact amount of knowledge required set out?”
If one is to have assurance of his salvation, knowledge is
important; but “for grace it is not so much knowledge as a right
attitude towards God that matters” (Goodman [n.d.], quoted in
Anderson 1970, 104). God's message and method are constant.
This position with respect to the place of knowledge
should not, we reiterate, result in diminution of missionary
activity or urgency. It should, however, help us to recognize
that we must go as those who stimulate to faith by witnessing
—not as those who merely convey information and knowledge.
We must go, not (as we may ethnocentrically assume) because
our hearers could not be saved (for lack of knowledge) but
because they, like those in our home country, will not
ordinarily respond in faith to God on the basis of the
knowledge and stimulus they now have. In recognition of this
fact, God places us “under orders, explicit and unequivocal, to
go to all the world with the good news” (Anderson 1970, 106)
concerning salvation by faith alone. Any time we exchange
that good news concerning faith for bad news concerning lack
of knowledge or bad news concerning the necessity of prior
adoption of one particular set of understandings (ours), we
have betrayed the cause of the One who has called us.
We have now completed our discussion of the dynamics of
God's revelation of himself in culture. We next turn to viewing
God's constant message in certain alternative forms.

1. I am indebted at this point to my former colleague at the School of World

Mission, Paul G. Hiebert, for input from the thinking of mathematicians concerning
“ sets” and “ fuzzy sets” (see Zadeh 1965). This input has sharpened my ability to
formulate the ideas that follow. What I call here a positional basis or model
corresponds roughly with a mathematical “ set,” or “ fixed set,” where positioning
within certain borders is determinative for categorizing. What I call a directional
basis or model corresponds roughly with what Zadeh calls a “ fuzzy set,” where the
direction of movement with respect to a given goal is determinative for
categorizing.
2. Not formally introduced yet; see chapter 13.
 Part 5

THE CONSTANT MESSAGE IN

ALTERNATIVE FORMS
13
DYNAMIC-EQUIVALENCE TRANSLATION
OF THE CASEBOOK

As the preceding chapters have attempted to make clear,

God has manifested an intense desire to see himself
communicated to humanity. In this chapter we seek to illustrate
and develop that concept by discussing the translation of the
Bible. Translation is basic to all kinds of worldview change,
including paradigm shifting, conversion (whether Christian or
not), and transformational culture change. All appeals for such
changes require that the recommended change be
communicated via conceptual translation to the receptors
within their linguistic and conceptual frame of reference. Even
in “scientific revolutions” that result from paradigm shifts,
Kuhn states, “what the participants in communication
breakdown can do is recognize each other as members of
different language communities and. then become translators”
(1970, 202).
How much more important is effective translation in
stimulating conversion to Christianity (or even to the
perspective presented in this book). For since translation
allows the participants “to experience vicariously something of
the merits and defects of each other's points of view, it is a
potent tool both for persuasion and for conversion” (Kuhn
1970 202).

Overview of Translation Dynamics

Translation, in addition to its value in channeling new
concepts to new hearers, has also an important impact on the
translators. For they must face their own material in a new way.
“A translator must be able to describe the world to which the
language being translated applies” (Kuhn 1970, 200 n. 17,
based on Nida 1945). If translators are translating the Bible (or
other ancient materials) they need to understand the cultural
worlds of the Bible as well as that of the receptor language
(whether their own or another). The language and culture
expertise that this demands of the translators is enormous.
One major purpose of this book is to enable Christian
communicators both to realize the importance of developing
translational expertise and to increase their ability to develop
such expertise. The insights that have come to the author in
these areas from his study and practice in Bible translation are
woven throughout this book. In this chapter we focus more
specifically on these germinal insights and especially on the
important concept of “dynamic” or “meaning” equivalence.
The changes taking place in understanding of what good
translation is are both very instructive and crucial to the
perspective being developed here. I will first introduce the
change in perspective, then critique the literal or “formal-
correspondence” model as a backdrop for our discussion of
the dynamic-or meaning-equivalence model.

Hearer-Oriented Translation
God's desire to communicate himself to human beings has
involved him in a variety of interactions with humans. One
important result of this, as mentioned above, has been the
production of the Bible in the original languages Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek. For by now

the Christian Church has spread into the entire world where
thousands of languages are spoken. Is the Christian
revelation restricted to its original languages and to those
people who know them or is it capable of universal
distribution? The answer is that the Christian revelation is
universal and it achieves its universality concretely by the
medium of translation so that the translated Scriptures
becomes one of the products of special revelation. (Ramm
1961, 188)

God's desire to convey his message to humans within the

human cultural and linguistic frame of reference necessitates
the translation of God's casebook. God's Spirit has therefore
been very active through the years in leading people to
translate the Bible. Ramm suggests that such extensive
involvement in Bible translation is demanded (1) because of
“the universal character of Christianity,” (2) “in order to fulfill
‘the stewardship of the Bible’” that: results from the fact that
“the Church is the custodian of the Scriptures,” and (3)
because God intends that each national regional church
possess its own scriptural “product of special revelation…the
Christian graphē in its own language” (1961, 188-207). The
dynamic nature of Christianity requires that Christians
constantly give themselves to the translation and
interpretation of the Scriptures so that “what is said in special
revelation may be eventually said in all the languages of the
world” (ibid., 195). Though “the Christian Church can never
grant: any version the same status as it does the graphē in its
original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek” (ibid., 200), it is possible
for good translations to be “authentic products of special
revelation” (ibid., 196). For “content of special revelation is not
dependent upon the language into which it is first cast for its
truthfulness” (ibid., 197).
With the number of distinct (i.e., mutually unintelligible)
languages in the world estimated by Wycliffe Bible Translators
at 6,809, the attempt to translate God's Word into every one of
them is indeed a formidable undertaking—especially since the
task of translation is so demanding. Nevertheless, Wycliffe
figures show that by the end of 2003 an adequate whole Bible
had been translated and published in 405 languages, the whole
New Testament in 1,034 more, with at least one book in an
additional 864 languages. Thus, one or more books of the Bible
exists in a total of 2,303 of the world's languages, with
translation work in process in 1,410 additional languages
(www.wycliffe.org [7/14/2004]). This makes some part of the
divine casebook available to approximately 97 percent of the
world's population. The total number of speakers of the
remaining several thousand languages comprises but 3 percent
of the world's population (United Bible Societies 1975, 83).
But the question must be asked concerning just how
adequately these translations are conveying the message of
God to those for whom they are intended. For, even beyond the
tremendous handicap to intelligibility that widespread illiteracy
and semiliteracy presents, it must be observed that many of
these translations are not giving the impression that God has
really mastered the language into which his Word has been
translated. The readers and hearers of such translations,
therefore, often assume that God is a foreigner or out of date or,
perhaps, that he has a speech defect (e.g., he can't say “has,”
only “hath”). Thus when, during World War II, J. B. Phillips
asked a group of British youth if they thought God understood
radar, their instinctive answer was no (Phillips 1954, 65). They
had the impression that God was at least three hundred years
behind the times—“an old gentleman who lived in the past and
was rather bewildered by modern progress” (ibid.). The Bible
translation that they continually heard and that provided the
language of prayer and church ritual (the King James Version)
could leave them with no other impression.
Phillips, however, perceiving that such an impression was
not the one that God intended, endeavored to produce a
translation that is “hearer-oriented.” In dealing with “essential
principles of translation,” he states as follows:

There seem to be three necessary tests which any work of

transference from one language to another must pass
before it can be classed as good translation. The first is
 simply that it must not sound like a translation at all. If it
is skillfully done, and we are not previously informed, we
should be quite unaware that it is a translation, even
though the work we are reading is far distant from us in
both time and place…. I would…make this the second test:
that a translator does his work with the least possible
obtrusion of his own personality. The third and final test
which a good translator should be able to pass is that of
being able to produce in the hearts and minds of his
readers an effective equivalent to that produced by the
author upon his original readers. (Phillips 1958b, ix;
emphasis added)

The task of the translator, as Phillips (and more recent

translation theorists) sees it, is to “incarnate” the written word
in the language of the receptors. It should (1) sound natural to
them, and (2) have an impact on them as equivalent as possible
to that experienced by the original readers of the original
writings in the original languages. This process of necessity
involves translators in interpretation. They are to be divinely
led interpreters of the words and thoughts of the original
authors to those of another people in another society and
another time. Their interpretation is not properly done if it is
simply “a manipulation of the words of…Scripture to fit some
private point of view” (Phillips 1958b, x). The interpreting is,
rather, to be like that of “skilled interpreters in world affairs
[who] do not intentionally inject any meaning of their own”
(ibid., x). As Phillips sees it, “the translator's function is to
understand as fully and deeply as possible what the New
Testament writers had to say and then, after a process of what
might be called reflective digestion, to write it down in the
language of the people today” (1958b, x.).
The task of the Bible translator is, therefore, the same in
essence as that (1) of God when he seeks to communicate in
language across the cultural-supracultural barrier, (2) of any
witness (such as the authors of Scripture, a missionary, or a
“personal worker”) who seeks to communicate the message of
God to any person or group who stands on the other side of a
cultural and/or psychological barrier, or (3) of any preacher
who seeks to correctly and helpfully interpret and apply the
message to the lives of his hearers. All, if they are to
communicate effectively, must be hearer-oriented, presenting
their (i.e., God's) message with relevance and impact according
to the basic principles of communication science discussed
above (chapters 8 and 9).

Model 11a
The dynamic, meaning-equivalence model maintains that the
aim of translation is to bring about an equivalence between
the response of the contemporary hearers/readers of the
translation and that of the original hearers/readers of the
communication recorded in the document being translated.

Formal Correspondence: An Inadequate

Model
The once prevalent literalistic, or “formal-correspondence,”
model of translation is based on a very limited understanding
of translation. The focus of this understanding is on the
surface-level linguistic forms through which the message is
conveyed. Primary attention is given to the words employed
and the specific details of the grammatical structures of the
source language. The major concern with respect to the
receptor language is often little more than to discover the
corresponding word forms in that language and to render the
original as literally as possible. Since those who translate
literally see languages as merely alternative codes for the same
reality, they seek insofar as possible to render each word in the
source language by a single word in the receptor language. In
the name of consistency, then, they attempt to always render a
given source-language word by the same receptor-language
word. Even the word order of the source language is often
followed.
The focus on the minute analysis of the linguistic surface
structure of the source language is not a wrong emphasis but a
partial one. It tends to minimize the attention paid to the deep-
level cultural and worldview context in which words participate
and from which they derive their meanings. Word-for-word
translation and the consistency principle are, however, the
result of misunderstandings of the nature of language and of
the translation process itself. The results of such emphases
tend to be wooden and foreign-sounding. The literalists' focus
sees but dimly the livingness of the original encoding of the
message. Furthermore, it often ignores completely the
contemporary cultural and linguistic involvement of any but
the most theologically indoctrinated of the readers. Its aim is to
be “faithful to the original documents.” But this “faithfulness”
centers almost exclusively on the surface level forms of the
linguistic encoding in the source language and their literal
transference into corresponding linguistic forms in the receptor
language. As discussed previously, however, when the forms
are retained from culture to culture and language to language,
the meanings are inevitably changed.
Among the typical characteristics of formal-
correspondence translations are the following:
First, formal-correspondence translations aim to simply
transfer the word forms of the source language into what are
supposedly the corresponding word forms of the receptor
language. When Paul employs a word that in Greek is used as
the name for “bowels,” the King James Version renders it
“bowels” (e.g., Phil. 1:8; 2:1). In spite of the fact that the term is
clearly being employed figuratively (signifying “affection” or
“kindness”) in these passages, the King James translators felt
bound to what they understood to be the basic meaning of the
word.
Other examples of such inadequate literalism shared by the
King James, American Standard, and Revised Standard
versions are found in Mark 1:4, where the English word forms
“baptism of repentance” are employed to express what would
more naturally be conveyed in English by an expression such
as “turn away from your sins and be baptized” (TEV); Matthew
3:8, where “bring forth…fruits meet for repentance” is used to
express what in Greek signified something like “do the things
that will show that you have turned from your sins” (TEV); and
Luke 20:47, where “which devour widows' houses” is the literal
rendering of what in English would have to be represented as
“who take advantage of widows and rob them of their homes”
(TEV).
Figure 13:1. Illustrative translations of the Greek word sōma
(“ body”), adding NRSV, NIV, NLT, and JBP to Nida and Taber
(1969, 15).
 Figure 13.2. Illustrative translations of the Greek word sarx
(literally, “ flesh”), adding NRSV, NIV, and NLT to Nida and
Taber (1969, 17).

Second, a formal-correspondence translation attempts

insofar as possible to render each given word consistently in
the source language more or less mechanically by the same
term in the receptor language. Thus the Revised Standard
Version translates the Greek word sōma as “body” in each of
the following verses: Matthew 6:25; Mark 5:29; Luke 17:37;
Romans 12:1; and Colossians 2:11, since “body” in English may
be taken to be the main “literal” meaning of the word and the
translators wanted to be consistent. What they did not seem to
understand is that the Greek word and the English word are far
from exactly equivalent to each other. The Greek word sōma
covers a much broader area of meaning than the English word
“body,” frequently referring to a person's whole self rather
than to only the physical body. If, therefore, the English
translation is to be true to the Greek meaning rather than
simply representing the so-called literal form of the Greek, sōma
should be differently rendered whenever the context so
indicates. In Mark 5:29, for example, the English rendering that
most naturally conveys the Greek meaning of sōma in that
context will be “herself,” (as in NEB, TEV, and JBP) rather than
“her body” (as in RSV, NRSV, KJV, ASV, NIV). In Luke 17:37,
then, a more accurate rendering would be “corpse” (NRSV,
NEB), “dead body” (TEV) or “carcass” (NLT), and in Romans
12:1 it would be “selves” (NEB, TEV), and in Colossians 2:11 it
would be something like “lower” or “sinful nature” (NIV, NEB,
NLT) rather than the RSV's puzzling but literal “body of flesh”
or, worse, NRSV's “the body of the flesh.”
 Figure 13.3. Illustrative translations of the Greek word dikaios
(“ justified” adding NRSV, NIV, and NLT to Nida and Taber
(1969, 18).

Following Nida and Taber, we can instructively chart this

contrast by citing the relevant portion of these verses as
rendered by three formal-correspondence translations (RSV,
NRSV and NIV) and four dynamic-equivalence translations
(NEB, TEV, NLT, and JBP).
For further exemplification of this point, compare the
translations of the words (sarx and dikaios) in formal-
correspondence translations such as King James, American
Standard, Revised Standard, New Revised Standard, or New
International Version, and a good dynamic-equivalence
translation such as Good News for Modern Man (TEV),
Phillips, or New English Bible (see figs. 13.2 and 13.3).
Literally thousands of such illustrations can be produced
from the King James, American Standard, and (New) Revised
Standard versions and hundreds from the less literal New
International Version. These formal-correspondence
translations from Greek and Hebrew, on the one hand, obscure
and sometimes obliterate the intended meanings and, on the
other, appear unnatural to or mislead the reader.
Following are illustrative differences in translation from
seven English versions of the Greek sarx (literally “flesh”) and
dikaios (literally “justified”).
The third set of typical characteristics of formal-
correspondence translations are produced in adherence to
nineteenth-century concepts of the nature of language. These
concepts saw each language as an alternative code made up of
a different set of labels for the same reality. Early in this
century, however, anthropologists and linguists began to
recognize that understandings of reality are structured
differently by different peoples and that these differences are
strongly reflected in their languages.1 There is, therefore, no
such thing as an exact correspondence between a given word
in one language and the most nearly corresponding word in
another language. If we depict cultures (including their
languages) as geometrical figures divided by lines to indicate
the way these cultural structures segment reality, we can in
very oversimplified fashion Indicate the differences between
the older concept and the modern one (fig. 13.4).

Fig. 13.4. Differing understandings of cultural and linguistic

diversity.

Since cultures and their languages do not correspond

exactly with each other, formal-correspondence translations
frequently are found, to create the misimpression that God
requires us to learn a foreign (i.e., Hellenized or Hebraicized)
version of English before we can really understand him. Such
translations do this by employing English labels (words) to
designate the segments into which the Greek or Hebrew
languages are divided, not those into which English is divided.
Preachers using literal translations, then, have to devote much
of their time to explaining that the apparently English, words
don't, in the Bible, have their normal English meanings. They,
rather, have Greek and Hebrew meanings, which only those
who have studied the original languages can properly
understand and explain.
An oversimplified diagram of the formal-correspondence
understanding of the process of translation would look like
this:

Fig. 13.5. The formal-correspondence understanding of the translation process,

where “ C”=concept.

Attention is given by the translator to understanding the

concept linguistically and to transferring it literally into the
receptor language in, as far as possible, the same number of
words as were required in the source language.2 If the cultural
and/or linguistic situation contains implications that the reader
of the receptor language cannot understand (and it always
does), it is considered invalid to add even brief explanatory
phrases (paraphrase) to the translation. For the process of
translation is conceived of (in keeping with certain values of
Western societies) as basically word-centered rather than idea-
centered. Any such addition of words is considered
“paraphrase,” which is regarded as taking liberties in the
translation process and, therefore, not allowed in a “good”
translation.
Such an approach to translation means (among other
things) that the reader of the receptor language is held
accountable for a good bit of knowledge of the source cultural
context from which the linguistic structures derive their
meanings. If, for example, Hausa is the source language, a
formal-correspondence translation into English of one of the
most common types of question-answer situations would be
intelligible only to one who knows Hausa (or another language
that shares this particular characteristic). An English speaker
who does not already understand Hausa will get exactly the
opposite of the intended meaning via a literal translation of the
following exchange:
Question: “Isn't there any work for me?”
Answer: “No.”
An English hearer/reader of this literal translation would
assume that there was no work for the questioner, since the
literal translation of the answer is “no,”—unless, of course, the
English speaker knows enough Hausa to be able to ascertain
the true meaning in spite of the translation. What is actually
being said, in the proper Hausa manner, is the following:
Question: “There is no work for me is there?”
Answer: “Not true. On the contrary, there is work for you.”
Some such expansion (paraphrase) of the words is
absolutely necessary and entirely appropriate in order to make
the meaning of the translation equivalent to that of the original.
For the differing impact of the corresponding linguistic forms in
the two different cultural contexts needs to be compensated for
in the translation. A translation that requires the hearer/reader
to fill in the necessary additional understanding or to depend
on experts for the true meaning is inadequate and bound to be
misinterpreted.

The Dynamic-or Meaning-Equivalence Model

Informed translators, however, attempt to produce
translations that do not require the readers to supply such
additional understanding or expertise. They aim to produce
translations that are so true to both the message of the source
documents and the normal ways of expressing such a message
in the receptor language that the hearers/readers can, by
employing their own interpretational reflexes, derive the proper
meanings. In formal-correspondence translations such as the
Revised Standard, American Standard, King James, New KJV,
NASV, and, largely, NIV, there is a non-English flavor because
the translators have not carried their task far enough. They
have not made sure that the English renderings function
equivalently to their referents in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
The impression is of stiltedness and foreignness, since it does
not represent the way people talk and write in English.
Informed translators have come to recognize that “a so-called
word-faithful translation may well result in a meaning-faithless
translation” (Ramm 1961, 203).
The great difference in such translations as Phillips,
Today's English Version, New English Bible, New Living
Translation, and the (old) Living Bible3 is owing to the fact that
their translators got beyond the mere surface-level word-and-
grammar forms both in the source and in the receptor
languages. Those translators had to dig more deeply into both
the source languages and cultures and the receptor language
and culture and then to carry their renderings more totally into
the kind of expression that is natural to the receptor language
and culture. To do this, Phillips states that

I have found imaginative sympathy, not so much with

words as with people, to be essential.…I have attempted,
as far as I could, to think myself into the heart and mind of
Paul, for example, or of Mark or of John the Divine. Then I
tried further to imagine myself as each of the New
Testament authors writing his particular message for the
people of today…. This has been my ideal, and that is why
consistency and meticulous accuracy have sometimes been
sacrificed in the attempt to transmit freshness and life
across the centuries. (Phillips 1958b, xii; emphasis added)

The “consistency and meticulous accuracy” to which

Phillips refers, and which he says he sometimes sacrificed,
however, were only those defined in terms of the formalistic,
literalistic translation theory that he was breaking away from. In
another, more important, sense Phillips was demonstrating
consistency and accuracy—but in the transfer of meaning
rather than the mere carrying over of language forms. He was
attempting to produce a translation consistent with the aims of
God and the authors—to communicate. He aimed to be
accurate with respect to the use God and the authors sought
to make of language. He aimed to use language as a vehicle to
make the message understandable, not as something that
needs to be studied microscopically by the readers to wrest its
meaning from it.
These writings, says Phillips, “are alive, and they are
moving—in both senses of that word—and their meaning can
no more be appreciated by cold minute examination than can
the beauty of a bird's flight be appreciated by dissection after
its death” (1958b, xi).
The new aim is to go beyond the focus of the earlier
translation theory. There is still focus on words, grammar, and
expression—but for the purpose of building a communicational
bridge over which meaning can pass between the author and
the contemporary hearer. And building such a bridge must take
into account the cultural and linguistic involvement of both the
ancient author and the contemporary hearer. The informed
translator endeavors to be faithful both to the original author
and message and to the intended impact that that message was
intended to have upon the original readers. Such a translator
seeks to elicit from contemporary readers of the New Testament
a response as equivalent as possible to that elicited from the
original readers of the slangy, communicative Koine (=
common people's) Greek. Thus, in recognition of the
nonequatability of languages, informed translators seek
renderings that go beyond mere correspondence in form. They
use receptor-language constructions that function in the
receptors' cultural world to convey meanings that are
equivalent to the original meanings in the New Testament
Greek-speaking world. Due to the nonequatability of the forms
of languages and cultures, these meanings will never exactly
duplicate the original meanings in the Greek world. But they
should carry as nearly as possible an equivalent impact in
English. Such a dynamic/meaning-equivalence translation is
described as “the closest natural equivalent to the source-
language message.” It is “directed primarily toward
equivalence of response rather than equivalence of form” (Nida
1964, 166). The quality of such a translation (as of any
translation) is to be evaluated

in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the

message in the receptor language respond to it in
substantially the same manner as the receptors in the
source language [responded to the original]. This response
can never be identical, for the cultural and historical
settings are too different, but there should be a high degree
of equivalence of response, or the translation will have
failed to accomplish its purpose. (Nida and Taber 1969, 24)
 An important concomitant of this dynamic view of Bible
translation is the fact that effective translation involves more
than simply the conveying of information. According to Nida
and Taber,

It would be wrong to think…that the response of the

receptors in the second language is merely in terms of
comprehension of the information, for communication is
not merely informative. It must also be expressive and
imperative if it is to serve the principal purposes of
communication such as those found in the Bible. That is to
say, a translation of the Bible must not only provide
information which people can understand but must present
the message in such a way that people can feel its
relevance (the expressive element in communication) and
can then respond to it in action (the imperative function).
(1969, 24)

This understanding of what is involved in translating the

Bible is considerably more aware than previous
understandings of the complexity both of language (and
culture) itself and of the process of moving concepts from one
language to another.
The new understanding of what translation involves
recognizes that the central aim is communication, not mere
literalness for its own sake (or out of reverence for words
regarded as too sacred to change). For the biblical writers
intended to be understood, not to be admired or to have their
writings so highly thought of that they would be transmitted in
unintelligible or misleading forms. Faithful translation involves
doing whatever must be done (even including a certain amount
of explanatory paraphrase, such as in the Hausa example
above) in order to make sure that the message originally
phrased in the words and idioms of the source language is
faithfully phrased in the functionally equivalent words and
idioms of the receptor language.
For the real issue in translation lies outside the mere words
of the source and receptor languages in and of themselves. It
lies in the impact of the concepts embodied in the linguistic
forms on the reader/hearer. If the impact is such that it results
in wrong understanding, misunderstanding, or lack of
understanding on the part of the average, unindoctrinated
reader/hearer, the translation has failed. Thus it is that a
primary question asked by the new approach is, “How does the
receptor language require that this concept be expressed in
order both to be intelligible and to convey an impact equivalent
to that experienced by the original readers/hearers?” Whatever
of paraphrase must (because of the requirements of the target
language and culture) be included in the translation to make it
equivalently intelligible and impactful is legitimately to be
called “translation.” It should not be dismissed as “mere
paraphrase” (in a negative sense) or (as in KJV) italicized as if it
were optional matter inserted at the whim of the translator.
Such a revision in our understanding of translation theory
has been made possible by a plethora of new insights into the
nature and functioning of language and the linguistic
capacities of humans. In this area the conclusions (models) of
anthropologists, linguists, psychologists, and other behavioral
scientists are coming to be regarded as more realistic than the
speculations of the philosophers and philologists, on which
most theological conclusions concerning language have been
largely based.
These insights provide us with new and instructive
perspectives on both linguistic communication and the process
of transference (translation) from one language to another.
Following Nida and Taber (1969, 3-8) we may summarize several
of these insights as they relate to our topic:
1. Each language has its own genius, its own
distinctiveness, its own special character. Each has its own
grammatical patterns, its own peculiar idioms, its own areas of
vocabulary strength and its own weaknesses and limitations.
2. To communicate effectively in another language one
must respect this uniqueness (both the strengths and the
weaknesses) and work in terms of it. Attempts to “remake”
languages to conform to other languages have been
monumentally unsuccessful. The effective translator is,
therefore, “quite prepared to make any and all formal changes
necessary to reproduce the message in the distinctive
structural forms of the receptor language” (p. 4).
3. Anything that can be said in one language can be
represented adequately (i.e., within the allowable range)
though never exactly, in another, unless the form is an
essential element of the message. Thus, as with poetry, when
the form is essential to the full meaning, one might say that
translation is impossible. However, this is simply an extreme
example of the fact that a translation can never mean exactly
what the original did. There will always be losses of
information (largely contextual) contained in the original and
gains of information due to the requirements of the receptor
language. And this fact of translation is an example of the fact
that “no communication, even within a single language, is ever
absolute (for no two people ever understand words in exactly
the same manner)” (p. 4). But though translation and
communication can never transmit the original intent
absolutely or exactly, they may be adequate if the focus is on
the content to be transmitted rather than on the mere
preservation of the literal forms of the source language.
4. To preserve the content of the message the form must be
changed. It is a fact that different languages express quite
similar concepts in very different ways and no concepts in
exactly the same ways. The faithful translator, therefore, in
attempting to convey an equivalent message in terms of the
genius of the receptor language must alter the form in which
that message was expressed in the original language.
If an equivalent meaning is to be conveyed, the forms
employed must be as appropriate for expressing those
meanings in the receptor culture as the source forms are in the
source culture. The appropriate forms should be largely those
that are natural (with respect to the given meaning) in the
receptor language, rather than those that happen to
correspond in some formal way to the source-language words.
Heavy borrowing of terms with which the receptors are not
familiar is also to be avoided. If the source language and the
receptor language participate in fairly similar cultures (as do,
e.g., English and any of the European languages) changes of
form in going from one to another will usually not be great. But
the greater the linguistic and cultural distance between the
source and the receptor languages, the greater the number
and extent of the formal changes required to preserve the
meaning. This principle has had an interesting effect on even
the literal translations. The greater cultural distance between
Hebrew and English has forced the translators to do a better
job of translating the Old Testament than they have often done
of the New. They have to embody good interpretation in the
translation or the result makes no sense at all. The smaller
cultural and linguistic distance (often more apparent than real)
between Greek and English has, however, given rise to greater
literalism in New Testament translation, since literal translations
from similar languages seem to make good sense.
Distance between languages need not, however, always be
distance between mutually unintelligible languages as, for
example, between contemporary English and contemporary
Zulu or Hindi. It may just as well be from generation to
generation in the same language as, for example, between
contemporary English and seventeenth-century “King James”
English, or between contemporary Greek and first-century
Greek.
5. The languages of the Bible are subject to the same
limitations as any other natural languages. It is not, therefore,
proper to treat them as too sacred to analyze and translate
according to the best principles of translation between any two
normal languages. The biblical languages are no more perfect
or precise than other languages for, according to Nida and
Taber (1969, 7), some seven hundred grammatical and lexical
ambiguities have been counted in the Greek Gospels alone!
Biblical languages, like all others, show great strengths in
certain areas and great liabilities in other areas.
Furthermore, as is true of all languages, the Greek and
Hebrew vocabulary, idiom, and grammar that we see employed
in the Bible participate fully in and have their intended meaning
only in terms of their interaction with the culture in which these
languages were used. The authors did not invent unknown
words or use them in unknown ways except as anyone is
allowed by his or her society to innovate on occasion to
convey new insight. “All the vocabulary was itself rooted in
the finite experience of men and women, and all of the
expressions must be understood in terms of this type of
background” (p. 7). That is, it is the message of the Bible, the
meanings that God intended to convey, that are sacred, not the
languages themselves, even though it is in terms of these
finite, imperfect, culture-bound languages that the sacred
messages are conveyed.
6. The writers of the Bible books expected to be
understood. To many Americans, the idea that the authors
expected to be understood comes as a shock. For they are
accustomed to hearing and reading God's Word from a literal
translation and accustomed to hearing preachers forced to use
great amounts of their pulpit time trying to explain into
intelligibility the strange-sounding “translationese” of these
versions. Yet, “the writers of the Bible were addressing
themselves to concrete historical situations and were speaking
to living people confronted with pressing issues” (p. 7). They
were not trying to be obscure. The translator, therefore, to keep
faith with the original authors and the God for whom they
spoke, is obligated to attempt to produce a translation that
makes the same kind of sense in the receptor context that the
original writing made in the source context.
7. The translator must attempt to reproduce the meaning of
a passage as understood by the writer. It is the writings of
Matthew and Luke, for instance, that we are to translate, not,
as some have contended, the deduced Aramaic words of Jesus
that these authors are reporting in Greek. And this is true even
when there are apparent contradictions, as when in the
Beatitudes Luke quotes Jesus as saying, “Blessed are the
poor” (Luke 6:20), while Matthew refers to the “spiritually
poor” in the parallel passage (Matt. 5:3). Nor should the
translator read back into the author's words subsequent
meanings of these words, as has often been done. This was the
case when the King James Version translators read back into
the Hebrew almah (“young woman”) in Isaiah 7:14 the meaning
“virgin.” They were influenced in their translation by the fact
that several hundred years after that passage was written the
“maiden” (Jerusalem Bible's rendering) to which that prophecy
referred was in fact a technical virgin. Thus, when Matthew
refers to that prophecy (1:23), he employs the Greek term for
virgin. A similar “reading back into” has resulted in the Living
Bible translating John 21:15-17 in such a way as to draw a
sharp distinction between the two Greek words for “love” used
there by John. The translation of these words into English
should not differ, however, since throughout his writing John
employs phileō and agapaō interchangeably, and English
covers the whole area of meaning with one word, “love.” The
Living Bible translation is influenced by the subsequent
historical fact that the Christian church came eventually to
employ agapaō to the exclusion of phileō to refer to God's
love.

Fig. 13.6. Dynamic-equivalence translation procedure.

This dynamic/meaning-equivalence model of translating

goes far beyond the formal-correspondence model in its
understanding of language, the cultural setting of language,
and the complexity of the translation process itself. This leads
to a new and more demanding set of procedures that contrast
markedly with the simplistic direct approach to translation of
the literalists. The procedure may be briefly indicated by the
diagram in figure 13.6.4
Even good, dynamically equivalent translations of the Bible
cannot do the whole job of communicating the Christian
message, however. There must be, as explained above (chapter
11), repersonalization of the message in the receptor's frame of
reference. There must also be frequent explanations of cultural
backgrounds, applications to present situations, and the like
that are not properly a part of translation. These we term
“transculturations.” We now turn to this aspect of our
treatment.

1. See especially the writings of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. A
valuable corrective to the temptation to carry “ the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis” too far
is provided by Nida 1971.
2. The RSV translators, for example, naively pride themselves on the fact that
the RSV is “ terse,” containing “ fewer words than the former authorized versions,
and certainly fewer than…Weymouth, Moffat and Goodspeed” (Weigle 1946, 56-
57).
3. Though these translations are all receptor-oriented, they are of two types.
Phillips, TEV, NEB, and New Living Translation are interlanguage translations
from the original languages into English. LB, however, is an intralanguage
translation, from one style of English (that of the ASV) into another style of
English—a receptor-oriented style. Both types of translation are valid.
4. Modeled after certain of the diagrams in Nida 1960.
14

DYNAMIC/MEANING-EQUIVALENCE
TRANSCULTURATION OF THE MESSAGE

Behind the meanings of the Bible and Christian experience

that can be translated lie deeper meanings that can be
expressed only in greater life involvement between
communicators and receptors than translation allows. This life
involvement includes linguistic communication but is not, at its
most effective, limited to mere verbalization. The verbalization
that does occur (and there may be much) is most effective
when it is most closely related to the personal experience of the
participants.
A translation is tied to the historical setting in which the
original events occurred. A translation, even a meaning-
equivalence one, dare not change the cultural setting of the
original events. In most attempts to communicate the Word,
however, the essential messages of God need to be
“transculturated” into the receptors' cultural setting.

We Participate in God's Communication

 Model 11b
The transculturating, or contemporary communication of the
message in word and life, should he dynamically equivalent
to (i.e., should lead people to create the same meanings today
as do) the examples of such communication that we see in the
Scriptures.

For today's receptors, Jesus needs to walk their paths, eat

in their homes. The receptors need to live and learn, as the
original disciples did, in Jesus' presence today. For this they
need dynamic witnesses, living and speaking a meaning-
equivalence message in terms of the receptors' perceptual
grids. That is what this chapter is about.
Like those with whom the Master shares his plans, we are
“in the know.” Like those who have received the full Spirit-
guided impact of effective communication from God, we are
transformed into those committed to the cause for which he
gives himself. Like those who share a commitment with God, we
are called to participate in his communicative activity. We
“stand in Jesus' shoes” today. “As the Father sent me, so I
send you” (John 20:21), said Jesus. And Paul admonishes us to
go, characterized by the attitude of Christ and following his
example (Phil. 2:5). We are to continue the personal,
interactional communication that God has carried out with and
through his people through the centuries.
God undoubtedly can still communicate to humanity
directly, as he did with Adam, Abraham, Moses, and many
others. But for some reason most of the time he chooses not to
communicate directly. He seems to prefer to communicate
indirectly, involving human beings in the process as his
partners in the process of communicating. Someone has said,
“Without him we can't, but without us he won't.” This
observation, applies to most areas of God's interactions with
us. Though on occasion God speaks or acts directly in the
human arena, as when he appears or speaks through angels or
visions, the vast majority of the time he works through humans
to interact with humans. So he calls us to participate with him
in his desire to cross communicational barriers to get his
message across to humanity. As he once came as a human
being, so he continues to reach human beings through human
beings. We go with God in Jesus' stead (2 Cor. 5:20). His
method is still incarnational.
We are God's agents and partners. We are also his
ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20), his heralds (translated “preachers”
in 1 Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11), and his witnesses (Luke 24:48; Acts
1:8). As ambassadors, heralds, and witnesses we are
responsible persons (partners), possessed of a degree of
freedom and self-determination but linked inseparably to the
source of our authority and that to which we testify.
As witnesses, we are pictured as those who have been
personally involved in an experience and, having been
involved, can faithfully testify (as we would in court) to the
occurrence and details of that event. As heralds, we give
reports in “good voice” that have not originated with us. For,
behind our report “stands a higher power. The herald does not
express his own views. He is the spokesman for his master….
Heralds adopt the mind of those who commission them, and act
with the plenipotentiary authority of their masters” (Friedrich
1965, 688).
 In the ambassador analogy, the focus is on the fact that we
are official representatives “of the highest rank,” as those who
are “accredited to a foreign sovereign or government as the
resident representative of his own sovereign or government”
(Webster's Dictionary 1967). Thus we stand accredited by God
as his official representatives to the world from the “kingdom
of God.” And in this we stand “in the shoes” of the Son of God
himself.
An attempt to understand and apply these three analogies
uncovers several valuable insights:
1. We are to be ambassadors, heralds, and witnesses for
Christ, not for ourselves. Witnesses are to speak on their own
behalf, though in court at least one is under oath to speak “the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” as the person
perceives it. But heralds or ambassadors cannot speak for
themselves alone. For they speak or act on behalf of another—
the ruler and/or government they represent. They must
frequently consult with their leader and attempt as faithfully as
possible to apply the leader's solutions to the problems at
hand. And even when, on occasion, a herald or ambassador
might say, “This is my opinion, not my leader's,” the hearers
are unlikely to grant him or her the privilege of an independent
opinion. Thus we treat Paul when he makes similar statements
(1 Cor. 7:6; 2 Cor. 11:17).
2. Our witness is to be to our experience with God. Here,
under the more widely employed witness analogy, we are a bit
more free than if we were simply heralds or ambassadors. At
this point John and the other New Testament writers both state
and show the way. We are to testify concerning “that which we
have seen and heard” (1 John 1:3). But, because of the
uniqueness of the experience of each of us, we are not to be
conformed to a single “party line.”
Indeed, in a court of law, if two witnesses present their
stories in too similar a fashion they will be suspected of
collusion and their testimonies discounted. People are not the
same and no two people will perceive even the same event in
exactly the same way. There is a range of allowable variation,
and their accounts of the event will differ at significant points
—unless they have gotten together ahead of time and agreed
to parrot the same story. Such collusion and harmonization of
accounts involves, according to Paul D. Fueter (1971), the
“mythologization” of the account. This drive to harmonize and
to arrive at a single “authorized” (and mythologized) version of
any given event or set of events he sees as a natural human
tendency. And there is plenty of evidence, especially from the
folklore of every society, to support his point.
It is significant to observe that the biblical writers manifest
a wide variety of individual perspectives. We can be certain,
therefore, that they did not get together to mythologize their
impressions into a single harmonized account. They spoke as
individual witnesses. Fueter suggests

that the biblical authors, whether priests or prophets,

apostles or evangelists consistently fought against man's
natural tendency to mythologize…. The very fact that four
different Gospels and not a harmony were recognized as
fundamental by the Early Church proves that it was
concerned about historical events as seen through several
 eyes. When one is aware of the human tendency to
mythologize any great man's sayings and life, one must be
amazed at the deliberate effort of the evangelists to situate
the time and place of the events they are recording. Luke's
introduction, Papias' description of how Mark's Gospel
came to be written, John's statement as to his purpose,
Matthew's composition, all point the same way. The Early
Church did not mythologize as some schools of
theologians want us to believe, but controlled the media at
its disposal. It wanted to curb the religious enthusiasm for
legend and hero worship. (1971, 444; emphasis added)

The impact of the unharmonized testimonies of a wide

variety of individuals, all witnessing according to their own
perceptions concerning a transforming relationship with God,
whether in biblical days or in our own, powerfully supports the
validity of the message. And an important concomitant of such
variety of witness is to “delegendize,” or demythologize, the
witness.
3. We not only witness for God and in terms of our
individual perceptions of our interaction with him, we also are
to witness for the sake of others. We are, according to Jesus,
sent into the world just as he was sent: into the world (John
17:18). We, like him, are not “to be served, but to serve” and to
give our lives for others (Matt. 20:28). Our witness, like John's
(I John 1:3; John 20:30-31), Luke's (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-5),
Paul's (2 Cor. 5:20), and that of the other writers of Scripture, is
for the sake of others.
Indeed, both the witness and the herald/ ambassador
analogies must have been chosen because they show the
necessity of receptors as well as the necessity of a source. For
both witness and herald/ambassador are obliged to speak and
act relevantly as well as truly. A witness who does not present
testimony intelligibly or in such a way that it is perceived by
the hearers as bearing on the case is a worthless witness.
Likewise, heralds'/ ambassadors' testimonies are discounted if
their representation is perceived as unrelated to the interests of
the country in which they serve.
To employ for the moment an impersonal analogy, we are to
function like electric cords that are plugged in at the “human
end” as well as at the “God end.” Otherwise there is no way
that the “current of God,” the message that we are called to live
and deliver, can get to those around us for whose sakes we
were commissioned ambassadors. Unfortunately, all too often
the impression given by those who train people for witness is
that if we are careful to plug in solidly at the God end, the other
end will take care of itself. Such, however, is not the case, as
thousands of theologically sound but irrelevant-to-hearer
sermons, Bible studies, Sunday school lessons, books,
“personal” witnessing encounters, missionary efforts, service
projects, and the like amply testify.
In this connection it is worth repeating John V. Taylor's
heartbreaking statement made in a 1971 lecture at the School of
World Mission, Fuller Seminary: “When my son decided to
give up on the Church, he said to me, ‘Father, that man [the
preacher] is saying all of the right things, but he isn't saying
them to anybody. He doesn't know where I am and it would
never occur to him to ask!' ”
 Our witness is to be for the sake of others (as well as for
the sake of God). Bitter experience, such as this has, however,
time and time again demonstrated the ease with which a
message that is intrinsically the most relevant, needed
communication the world has ever known can be perceived as
irrelevant. And this can happen even when that message is
handled by very devoted witnesses. As witnesses (God's
electric cords) we are to be plugged in tightly at both ends.
4. We are to witness persuasively. And here scriptural
teaching concerning our role transcends the witness analogy.
A herald or ambassador, however, frequently has to speak
persuasively on behalf of “a higher power” to see that the
master's or government's best interests are served. For, as Paul
emphasizes throughout the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians, our
consuming desire to please God (v. 9) commits us irrevocably
to speak a message the aim of which is the reconciliation to
God of those to whom we speak (v. 19). It is for this reason that
we attempt to persuade people (v. 11). Indeed, we “implore”
them to “be reconciled to God” (v. 20 NEB).
Approaches to witness that consider mere “presence” or
“dialogue” without persuasion as sufficient have not taken the
herald/ambassador analogy seriously (see Tippett 1973). Nor
have they taken the example of Jesus and his early followers
seriously. In reaction against certain very real excesses—such
as proselytization aimed at simply converting the hearer to the
culture of the speaker (see chapter 17)—they have abandoned
the ultimate aim of the gospel message, the reconciliation of
people to God. In place of seeking to reconcile people to God,
they have given themselves to what is a marvelous means for
accomplishing the end (i.e., dialogue or presence) as if that is
the intended end of the process. They have focused upon the
fact that in order to serve our Lord properly we have to be
genuinely with those whom we serve. This is called “Christian
presence,” and it is a good starting point, as is the kind of
sympathetic “dialogue” with them that shows them we are as
willing to learn from them as we are to teach them.
Dialogue is a marvelous methodology, which provides a
much needed corrective to the self-centered, “I have all the
answers, you have none” spirit that Christians have often
manifested. But the discovery of a better means of presenting
the message of God to which we have been called to witness
does not warrant the abandoning of the aim of the message—
the reconciling of people to God. We are to get genuinely
“with” those to whom we witness, and we certainly have much
to learn from them. But our primary model for witness is Jesus
Christ, and he had something of supreme value to communicate
as well as something to learn (Heb. 5:8).

A Dynamic/Meaning-Equivalence Message
We have now dealt with both the human witness and how
to properly translate the written witness. In each case this
approach recommends a primary focus on the receptor in
addition to the traditional importance accorded to the divine
source of the message. But what should the message itself look
like to the receptor?
Just as a translation should be dynamically equivalent to
the original writings in its impact, so should the message that
flows through either the personal or the written witness. As I
have attempted to point out above, the effective
communication of that message involves both a credible
witness and a good translation. But in order to be properly
perceived by the hearer, that message has to be
“transculturated” in a dynamically equivalent way.
The term “transculturate” is intended to signify with
respect to culture what the term “translate” signifies with
respect to language. Transculturation includes translation in
the same way that culture includes language. But translation,
as important as it is, is only the first step toward
transculturation. For even though, as suggested in chapter 13,
the translation cannot avoid a certain amount of interpretation,
the translator of the Bible is not free to provide the degree,
extent, and specificity of interpretation required to establish the
biblical message solidly in the minds of the hearers. Nor is it
within the province of a translator to elaborate on the written
message to approximate that of spoken communication. The
translator is not free to give the impression that Jesus walked
the streets of twenty-first-century American cities. A
translation is tied to historical facts. In transculturation,
however, the aim is to represent the meanings of those
historical events as if they were contemporary events.
Transculturation is the task of the Spirit-led communicator of
the message. The clearest scriptural statement concerning this
role is in Romans 10:14-17 (my translation): “…how can they
come to faith if they have not understood the message? And
how can they understand if the message is not communicated
to them?…For faith results from a person's responding to an
understanding of the message, and the message results from
someone communicating Christ.”1
The idea of transculturating the message is not new,
though the label we use may be. There are, however, certain
dimensions of the process that may be clarified and elaborated
by approaching them from this perspective. (1)
Transculturation starts with the process that every faithful
interpreter of the Scriptures goes through in seeking to exegete
from these documents the meanings that the original authors
sought to communicate to their hearers. (2) It then involves the
would-be communicator in an attempt to understand the
relevance of these meanings for his or her audience. (3) It
involves the interpreter in the communication of the message
to the hearers in a manner dynamically equivalent to the
manner employed by the original participants (whose stories
are recorded in Scripture).
Translation aims to provide a faithful written record of the
biblical events. Transculturation attempts to take both speaker
and hearer behind that record into a re-creation of equivalent
events in today's cultural context. Frequently, within Western
and westernized churches, the major approach to
transculturation is via monologue preaching. This is
unfortunate, for there are a number of other communicational
vehicles that facilitate transculturation and repersonalization
more effectively than monologue. Among these we may list
drama (including film), storytelling, musical presentation
(including ballad), and the powerful transculturation that takes
place in and through the dedicated living of faithful Christians.
Whenever and however the biblical meanings are abstracted
from the Scriptures and re-created as original events in new
places and times (even when stimulated by outsiders), there we
have transculturation. Good translation is a limited form of
transculturation and, as noted above, is an important first step
toward effective, vital transculturation. Poor translation can
block effective transculturation.
If would-be communicators are members of the same
culture and subculture as their hearers, they may communicate
very effectively if they transculturate by simply speaking in
familiar ways as if to themselves. If, however, the hearers
participate in one or more cultures or subcultures different from
the communicators' own, the latter must devote considerably
more effort to putting themselves “in the place” of the hearers
—within their frame of reference (see chapter 8). In the first
case, communicators engage in a one-step process of
transculturation from the biblical cultures into their own. In the
latter case the process involves two steps: the attempt to
understand the message in terms of the communicators'
cultural frame of reference and the attempt to understand it
from the hearers' point of view. The less obtrusive the
communicators' own cultural understanding is in the
application of the message within the hearers' frame of
reference the better.
 Fig. 14.1. The steps in transculturating.

New insight into this process may be gained if it is thought

of in terms of the dynamics of the three situations in figure 14.1
(p. 220).
It is important to note at this point that the process of
transculturating should not be limited to simply discerning
information from the Scriptures and preaching it. We are, rather,
to analyze the total source situation, not merely the
informational portions of it, and to do a total job of
equivalently communicating the original message(s) in the
contemporary situation. We must study such things as the
relevance and impact aspects of each situation, the personnel
involved, the interpersonal dynamics and the cultural factors,
including the understandings and expectations of both the
communicator(s) and the recipient(s) of the communication.
Transculturation involves contextual understanding of both
the original and the contemporary situations and contextual
communication. The basic approach to transculturation should,
therefore, be that recommended for all communication in
chapters 8 and 9, above. The message of God lived out
intelligibly and credibly in the life of the Christian
communicator within the receptor's frame of reference is the
most impactful form of transculturation.
There are, however, several other forms. Much more
effective transculturation could often be done in preaching
services by endeavoring to involve the congregation in the
process of transculturation. We might, for example, lead a
congregation to attempt to understand and imitate the process
Luke went through in producing his Gospel. When
considering this Gospel book for communication to a group of
Christians we must first consider whether we want our
audience to identify with Luke or with Theophilus. If with
Theophilus, we might ask: Should I, the communicator in this
situation, take Luke's position? Or do we all together identify
with one or the other? Or do we simply “look over their
shoulders,” as it were, and not really become participants in a
dynamically equivalent situation? Much of what goes on in
most churches takes the latter attitude. We so often focus only
on the product of communication, rather than on the process,
that it is difficult for us to even imagine what might be
involved in another alternative. But let us attempt a
suggestion or two.
Suppose I, the communicator, decide to play Luke's role
and to put the audience in that of Theophilus. My
transculturation of the situation might well involve props such
as a desk, a desk lamp, paper, and writing supplies. I would be
sitting at the desk as if writing. If this were done in a church
service it would probably require a microphone hung
unobtrusively around my neck. My attempt to re-create the
situation would likely start with some such words as:

Dear Mr. Jones,

There have been several others who have written

accounts of the events that we have recently experienced
around here, including the reports of those who were
eyewitnesses from the beginning. But none of these
accounts has been written specifically for you. So I felt,
knowing your great interest in these matters, that you'd
appreciate a detailed account. Accordingly, I have done my
best to investigate every aspect of the events surrounding
the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
so that I can write them up especially for you—so that you
can be assured that your understanding of these events
squares with the facts.

The message could consist of a typically American-type

(as opposed to Luke's Greek-type) presentation of selections
from the Gospel. Luke's aim was primarily to provide
information, as a historian does. The selection and
presentation of the events recounted should be such as to
convey that information. But the information needs to be
conveyed with the degree of relevance and impact appropriate
to the kind of vehicle being employed (apparently an extended
letter or even a short book).
If, in our attempts to transculturate, we chose to focus
upon (1) a single event recorded in the Gospel, (2) our joint
participation as a Christian pastor and a Christian congregation
in the task of transculturating one portion of the total Christian
message, and (3) the fact that the message we are dealing with
is badly needed by the outside world, we might approach it as
Fueter puts it in the following excerpt:

A Sunday morning. A church. The preacher is in the

pulpit…he invites the faithful to take into their hands a
duplicated sheet and says:
We are Christians, and as such, are committed to
the task of communicating the Good News of Jesus to
people around us. But this means two things: first, to
translate the biblical text into a language immediately
understandable by those among whom we live. Second,
getting this translation into their own culture so that
they can discover, with us, what it means.
This is no easy task. Your pastor cannot do it for
you. He does not really know the language of your
non-Christian neighbors. Neither does he know your
particular cultural situation. He can only help you to do
this.
So this morning, we have not gathered as
“consumers of the Gospel” to listen to it for our
comfort and help. No, we have come to read together a
 passage of the New Testament in our new common
language translation in order to learn how to
communicate it to others.
We shall then ask ourselves the question, “How
can we communicate this biblical text to others?” To do
this, we shall try to understand the communication
situation which the passage reveals, to whom Jesus
speaks, what their attitudes are, what media and
methods he uses.
After reading Luke 15, the preacher asks questions
already set out on the duplicated paper (on which the
text is written out in full) and a lively exchange ensues.
Congregation and pastor together transculturate the
story of the prodigal son, looking for cultural
equivalents of the two sons, of the far away country
and of the feast. And a great joy comes over them all….
(Fueter 1971, 437; emphasis added)

Such an experiment endeavors to involve the congregation

in the dynamics of the process that was important to Luke (and
to God). We have available to us the product that he produced
in his situation. Transculturation asks the question, “How
would he have done it if he were in our shoes?” That is, what
should a product dynamically equivalent to Luke's product
look like today? The pastor in the example above is inviting his
congregation to join him in re-creating for a modern-day
Theophilus (the name means “lover of God”) an equivalent
presentation of the message that Luke (and God) recorded in
the Scriptures.
A transculturation is not tied to the historical facts of the
original, as a translation is. In a translation it is inappropriate to
give the impression that Jesus walked the streets of Berkeley or
London or Nairobi. But a transculturation, in order to reach its
target audience effectively, may do exactly that.
Two printed products of the transculturation process are
the Letters to Street Christians (1971) and The Cotton Patch
Version of several portions of the New Testament (Jordan 1968;
1970; 1973). Each of these “cultural translations” goes beyond
simple translation in an effort to transculturate the message,
aiming at alienated groups who are put off by much of what
comes across to them in the standard translations. These
groups are characterized by a kind of social and historical
isolation that leaves them either unimpressed with or negative
toward translations laced with references to historical,
geographical, and cultural phenomena that are strange to them.
The idea of transculturational presentations of the biblical
materials makes especially good sense for “street Christians”
and blacks, and for many additional groups both within and
outside of the Western world. I believe that the production of
transculturations should in many cases be a higher priority
than production of even the best kind of translations.
The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew interprets Matthew
2:1-6 as follows:

When Jesus was born In Gainesville, Georgia, during the

time that Herod was governor, some scholars from the
Orient came to Atlanta and inquired, “Where is the one
 who was born to be governor of Georgia? We saw his star
in the Orient, and we came to honor him.” This news put
Governor Herod and all his Atlanta cronies in a tizzy. So he
called a meeting of the big-time preachers and politicians,
and asked if they had. any idea where the Leader was to be
born. “In Gainesville, Georgia,” they replied, “because
there's a Bible prophecy which says
‘And you, Gainesville in the state of Georgia,
Are by no means the least in the Georgia
delegation;
From you will come forth a governor, Who will
wisely guide my chosen people.'”

In this version the major departures from strict translation

are in the personal and place names. Jordan, who was a fine
Greek scholar, goes back to the original context and, to make
that specifically meaningful to his audience, renames most of
the epistles. Thus, Romans becomes “The Letter to the
Christians in Washington”; 1 Corinthians becomes “A Letter to
the Christians in Atlanta”; Galatians becomes “The Letter to
the Churches of the Georgia Convention,” while Philippians
becomes “The Letter to the Alabaster African Church,
Smithville, Alabama.”
In the salutations at the ends of the various epistles,
Jordan “updates” the personal names. Thus he renders
“Columbus” (Colossians) 4:10: “Rusty, my fellow jail-bird,
sends his greetings to you, as does Mark, Barney's cousin”; “1
Atlanta” (1 Cor. 16:19): “Adrian and Prissy…send special
greetings”; Philemon v. 23: “Pat, my cell-mate in Christ Jesus,
sends his greetings, as do Mark, Rusty, Damon and Luke, my
co-workers.”
The “Two Brothers from Berkeley,” who produced Letters
to Street Christians to reach a very different group, with a very
different orientation toward history and geography, felt
compelled to leave out the “personal historical references”
(1971, 8). They have avoided all reference to places and
specific persons (except Jesus and God), numbered rather than
named the epistles, and even kept from referring to slavery in
the letter to Philemon (letter 13). Note their handling of the
following passages:

James 2:15-17: Like if a brother or sister doesn't have any

clothes or enough to eat and you say “see ya around, keep
warm and eat right.” If you don't give them any food or
clothes, what good is all your rhetoric? A plastic trust in
Jesus that doesn't cause you to act like Him is DEAD.

1 Cor. 13:7: God's love can take anything that's thrown at it;
it never stops trusting and never gives up hope; it just
never quits. In fact, man, when everything else is smashed,
God's love still stands.

Col. 2:2-3: Get your joy from being tied to the rest of the
family by the Father's love. Get your heads into God's
secret plan: That's Jesus, the source of all wisdom and all
true knowledge.
 Both of these printed attempts at transculturation are
masterful in their approach to the problem (though they are
strictly limited because they are in written rather than personal
form). They dare to be specific to their audiences and thus free
to be true to God's imperative to communicate rather than
simply to impress. In this, they demonstrate the deep concern
of their authors for the total communicational situation, not
simply for one or another aspect of it. This total concern is also
a feature of the previous examples. In each of these
illustrations, the focus and the major effort in preparing for the
presentation is a dual one. Both the original situation and the
contemporary situation must be in view at all times just as is
true in translating the Bible. Incidentally, it is worth noting that
the translators of each of the “cultural, translations”
exemplified above worked from the Greek as well as “to the
American.”
Unfortunately, too many attempts to communicate the
gospel (either in print or orally) get bogged down for one or
more of the following reasons: (1) The focus may be almost
totally on the information (“the truth”) contained in the
Scriptures rather than on the truth as communicated with
which the case history deals. (2) The focus may be (as in much
preaching) so totally on the explanation of the details of the
original situation that the result is merely a history lesson that
takes the hearers back to Bible days. Such presentations do
not bring the biblical message relevantly and impactfully to the
life experience of the contemporary hearers. (3) At the other
extreme, the focus may be so completely on the contemporary
situation that any device is resorted to, from prooftexting to
completely ignoring situational similarities between biblical and
contemporary events. This, too, divests the Scriptures of the
dynamic nature of their message. (4) The form of presentation
may be so impersonal (e.g., lecture or “prepositional”
preaching style) that few of the hearers would ever suspect
that the message originated in real-life situations and is meant
to be expressed in real-life situations today. (5) The application
of the message may be so generalized that it never “hits”
anyone in the audience. In these and other ways the impact of
the communicational event is reduced to that of mere oratory or
other types of performance in front of people in place of the
intended meaningful communication to people. Effective
transculturation of the gospel message demands the kind of
identification (Hesselgrave 1973) and “culturally relevant
witness” (Beekman 1957) that have been advocated
throughout this volume.
Just as in the divine casebook we have a balance between
event and interpretation (Mickelsen 1963, 58-65), so effective
transculturation needs to be balanced. Mere dramatizing
without applicational interpretation becomes simply
performance. At the other extreme, however, mere
interpretation (as in much sermonizing) without any
“eventness” to it is arid. Transculturation that is dynamically
equivalent to the scriptural balance will not go to either
extreme.
Theologizing (see chapter 15) and all other attempts to
adapt Christianity to indigenous societies should be a form of
transculturation like that in which the apostle Paul (and other
scriptural authors) involved themselves. Unfortunately,
though, Paul's successors have often ignored the fact that the
message must be transculturated into cultural forms
appropriate to each new generation. Most often the forms of
the group in power have simply been imposed upon any new
receiving groups (whether the children of the group in power
or the members of a different society or subsociety).
Paul, however, in reaction against the lack of proper
transculturation, opposed the “orthodox” Judaizers (Acts 15).
These were members of “the establishment,” not the new
believers who were actively transculturating the gospel (von
Allmen 1975, 49). Jesus, too, waged a running battle for
culturally relevant transculturation against the “orthodox”
retainers of the old cultural forms. Later, following the examples
of Jesus and Paul, Roman churches opposed the establishment
of their day to transculturate Christianity into Roman forms;
once Roman forms became distortions of Christian life and
worship, then, Luther and others resisted the Roman “party in
power,” Wesley broke from Anglicanism, the Nazarenes split
from the Methodists, and probably more than seven thousand
African congregations and denominations 2 have broken from
Western mission churches.
The lack of proper attention to the transculturation of the
message by orthodoxy stems, I believe, from the same kind of
insensitivity that often characterizes those in power. Even
Christians when in power often simply label as “heretics” any
who transculturate the gospel into the forms of cultures or
subcultures other than those of the group in power. There was
and is, of course, genuine heresy that should be identified and
eschewed. But by one knowledgeable estimate (fames Packer,
private conversation), at least half of the early church
controversies labeled “heresies” by the “orthodox” ought
rather to be seen as valid cultural adaptations (like those of
Jesus and Paul).

Problems of Different Perceptions in

Transculturation
A distinct benefit of living and working outside of one's
own society is that one learns so much about one's own
cultural frame of reference and way of doing and looking at
things. One becomes aware that people of other societies
actually perceive reality differently, and so one comes to
recognize the deep truth of anthropologist Edward Sapir's
statement that people of different societies, speaking different
languages, are not simply attaching different linguistic labels to
elements of the same real world but are actually operating in
terms of differing realities (1929, 209). That is, reality at the
perceptual level is culturally and subculturally defined rather
than being a function of biology or environment. And this is
just as true of Euro-American societies as it is of the societies
of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Our own perception of
reality is pervasively affected by our own sociocultural
conditioning and by such subcultural perceptual frameworks
as an academic discipline or an occupational or residential
social grouping.
In an absolute sense, reality and truth remain one. But, as
pointed out previously, it is a fact of life that perceptions of
that reality and truth differ greatly from society to society, from
subsociety to subsociety within each sociocultural context,
and even from individual to individual within a given
subsociety.
What, for example, does the word “church” signify? It all
depends on whom you talk to—for meanings are in people, not
in words. For one group the word signifies such things as the
“body of Christ,” a fellowship of believers, God's people, “the
elect,” or a house of worship. For another, though, “church”
signals religious fanatics, hypocrites, pious “out of it” people,
spoilers of fun, strict rules, irrelevance or superstition. Which
of these lists most nearly captures the contemporary attitudes
of the majority of Americans toward the church? And what
does this fact suggest with regard to the perception that most
Americans carry around with them concerning Christianity?
Research could be conducted to discover the meanings
people assign to any number of terms commonly employed by
evangelical Christians, such as “be saved,” “believe,”
“preaching,” “Sunday school,” “hymns,” and “Christian.” The
result will be very similar to that regarding the word “church”
and will demonstrate the wide difference between the
perception of Christianity that the “indoctrinated” carry in their
minds and that which outsiders and even unindoctrinated
insiders hold.
E. A. Nida starts his excellent book on the communication
of the Christian faith, Message and Mission, by saying:

The major difficulties in communication result largely from

the fact that we take communication for granted. Whenever
 we hear someone speak, we tend, to assume that what is
meant is precisely what we understand by these words. But
words do not always mean what we think they mean, even
in our native tongue. (1960, 1)

The problem is complicated enormously when, we attempt

to translate or transculturate our concepts into other languages
and sociocultural contexts. For the “hearing” or perception of
the message is at least as dependent on the way in which the
receptor “decodes” it as it is upon the way the would-be
communicator phrases it (Nida 1960, 34).
Unless the communicator is very careful to take adequate
account of the hearer's perception at every point, the potential
for miscommunication is great. And even if the communicator
is aware of the perception factor, the audience may include
such a mixture of people that some will still mishear the
message. The greater the difference between the perception of
a given matter by communicator and hearers, the greater the
likelihood of misperception of the matter by the hearers. This is
why we of Western societies have greater difficulty
understanding and transculturating Old Testament messages
than New Testament messages (especially from the epistles of
Paul). The Greek perception employed by Paul is closer to (and
has had more influence on) our cultural perception than that of
the Hebrews. This also explains why Luther preferred Romans
(written toward Europe) to James (written in Hebrew thought
forms).
The book of Acts records several striking examples of
cross-cultural miscommunication in attempts to transculturate
Christianity. These likewise were due to culturally defined
differences in perception. Among them were the experience of
Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Acts 14:8-18) and of Paul at
Athens (Acts 17:18). In the healing of the cripple at Lystra, Paul
and Barnabas were attempting to communicate by deed and
word something like, “God is concerned with alleviating the
suffering of a crippled man.” The people of Lystra, however,
interpreted this message in terms of their (rather than Paul and
Barnabas's) cultural frame of reference. That frame of reference
assumed that only the gods could heal. Since these “men” had
healed someone, therefore, they must actually be gods
masquerading as humans. Their conclusion was, “The gods
have come in human form.” And they proceeded to worship
Paul and Barnabas. In the Athens example, certain Athenian
philosophers apparently overheard Paul preaching in the
marketplace and noted the frequent occurrence of the terms
“Jesus” and “resurrection” in his preaching. This led them
(basing their judgment on their own cultural background) to
understand that Paul was advocating the addition of two new
gods (named “Jesus” and “Resurrection”) to the pantheon. For
those who wanted to hear more are recorded as saying, “He
seems to be setting forth new gods.”
Fortunately, in both of these cases Paul was able to get the
kind of feedback that enabled him to see that his message had
been wrongly understood. On the basis of such feedback he
was able to adjust and/or amplify his message to bring about a
greater degree of conformity between what was heard and what
was said. Even so, the record states that the people of Lystra
were scarcely restrained from offering sacrifices to them. Most
of the Athenians, on the other hand, once they got the
message straight, either derided it or lost interest in it.
Similar examples can be multiplied endlessly from
contemporary times. A young Liberian who had received his
Western schooling under missionary auspices once told me
that his understanding of John 3:16 was something as follows:
“God so loves Europeans that he accepts as Christian any
African who turns his back on his own customs and becomes
converted to Western culture.” No missionary had ever said
such a thing to him. But the total effect of his understanding of
the missionary operation was such that he heard the Christian
message in just such a vastly distorted form. Unfortunately, in
this and many similar cases, little was done to remedy his
culturally conditioned misperception (as Paul did at Lystra)
until it was too late. For, he told me, “Having understood
Christianity to be simply the religion of Western peoples, when
I decided to reject Western culture, I rejected Christianity with
it.”
The missionaries, speaking from within their conceptual
framework and, therefore, failing to transculturate, had spoken
of Christ as the way to a right relationship with God and the
source of real life and power. The Liberians, however, heard of
a competing foreign religion promising new life and power via
European culture. The missionaries set up schools and
hospitals to show God's concern for the Liberians. But the
Liberians heard messages concerning God's endorsement of
these institutions as vehicles for condemning their institutions
and Europeanizing themselves as persons.
These and many other misperceptions came pouring forth
from this man as we talked—misperceptions that were largely
predictable in terms of his cultural conditioning. But the real
tragedy lay not in the misperceptions themselves, as wide of
the mark as some of them were, but in the fact that they were
allowed to go uncorrected. Apparently the missionaries did not
take his culturally conditioned perception of their message
seriously. Nor did they solicit the kind of feedback from him
that could have led on their part both to an understanding of
the perceptual differences and to the kind of adjustment that
Paul and Barnabas sought at Lystra. For Paul and Barnabas,
having received and taken seriously the feedback, tore their
clothes and rushed into the crowd, crying at the top of their
voices, “Men, men, why are you doing these things? We are
only human beings with feelings just like yours!” (Acts 14:14-
15 JBP).
Essential to the process of transculturating the gospel
message are both the necessity for taking the hearers'
perception seriously and the determination on the part of the
communicator to correct whatever misperception occurs. These
facts are true both of the communication of the gospel and of
the communication of Christian theology. We now turn to that
kind of transculturation labeled “theologizing.”

1 It is a pity that even the better English translations (e.g., TEV) employ
misleading terms such as “ preach” and “ proclaim” rather than “ communicate” in
contexts such as these. As the author of the article on keryssō in the Kittel New
Testament wordbook complains the almost exclusive use of ‘preach’ to translate
nine more frequent and twenty or more less frequent Greek words results in the loss
of something which was a living reality in primitive Christianity” (Friedrich 1965,
703).
2 David Barrett estimated that there were five thousand such congregations and
denominations in 1968.
 15

DYNAMIC-EQUIVALENCE
THEOLOGIZING

Theologizing is another type of transculturation. All

theologizing is culture-bound interpretation and
communication of God's revelation. Good theologizing is Spirit-
led, even though culture bound. In spite of the impression
often given that theology is an absolute, once-for-all kind of
thing, theologizing is a dynamic, continuous process.
Theologies that attempt to be once-for-all expressions of God's
workings are static and dead. Dynamic-equivalence
theologizing 1 is the reproducing in contemporary cultural
contexts of the theologizing process that Paul and the other
scriptural authors exemplify.

Producing Theology
Model 11c
Theologizing (doing theology) is to be dynamically
equivalent today to biblical examples. We are to re-create the
scripturally endorsed theologizing process, not simply
 transmit the theological products of yesteryear.
Any time theologizing devolves into the mere “buying and
selling” of past theological products as it often does (e.g., the
mere passing down from generation to generation of Lutheran
or Reformed Theology), it fails to serve its proper function.
In the following pages we deal first with producing
theology. Models 12a, b, and c are developed to aid our
understanding of this process. We next turn to the important
process of communicating theology. Theologizing and culture-
bound perception is the next topic. We conclude with a case
study of non-Western theologizing.
The academic field of study known as theology is defined
by F. R. Tennant as the discipline that

sets forth the contents and implications of the revelation of

Christ. It consists of a systematic exposition of doctrine
and of the course of its development,…the historical,
critical and exegetical study of the Bible and the history of
the church, its institutions, etc. Thus theology is a science,
or a group of connected sciences, that, on the one hand, is
in touch with general philosophy…and, on the other hand,
is more or less isolable in that it deals with the deliverances
of distinctively religious experience and its pre-eminent
manifestations. (1962, 61B)

Theology as we know it is an academic perspective on, or

perception of theological information from a philosophical
point of view. It is the product of a specific historical process
within Western societies, and this history includes a specific
deep and abiding relationship between Western theology and
Western philosophy. This relationship between theological
inquiry and leisured Western philosophically oriented scholars
has resulted in a large body of extremely insightful perceptions
of the portions of reality revealed to people by God in and
through the Christian Scriptures. But this body of perceptions
cannot be exhaustive for at least three reasons: (1) the
perceptions have been generated almost totally from within a
single sociocultural context (and this in spite of the fact that
the source materials were recorded in terms of the thought
patterns of very different societies—Hebrew and Greek); (2)
the perceptions have been generated almost totally within a
single academic discipline, or group of disciplines, within
Western societies; and (3) even within this strictly limited frame
of reference, understandings differ, change, and develop—i.e.,
they are never absolute understandings even though they are
attempts to understand the absolute God.
We do not mean to simply criticize when we point to the
fact that theology as we know it has been generated almost
totally from within a single sociocultural context, but it is a
point that must be kept in mind in discussing theologizing. We
merely point out that this is a limitation, and a serious one. If,
then, we are tempted to absolutize the perceptions of our
culture-bound understandings of the revelation of God, we are
in danger of incorporating ethnocentric understandings into
our theology. None of the revelation about which we
theologize took place within the Western European context or
was recorded in a Western European language2. This being
true, it behooves us to be very humble about our
interpretations of the Bible.
For example, theological interpretations concerning the
place of knowledge in Christian experience are often based on
the automatic Western interpretation of John 8:32 as referring
to cognitive knowledge. “You shall know the truth and the
truth will set you free” is, therefore, interpreted to mean that
piling up cognitive knowledge is crucial to attaining freedom.
But in the Greek it is not cognitive knowledge that is in view
here but experiential knowledge. The New Testament places
no premium on cognitive knowledge, only on experiential
knowledge. Our translators could help us a lot if they would
translate, “You shall experience the truth and the (experienced)
truth will set you free.” Likewise, with regard to the
communication of the gospel—as we have mentioned, the
word “preach,” interpreted from a Western perspective,
misleads readers into assuming that God endorses monologue
presentations of the gospel. Theologians, then, develop a
“theology of preaching,” based entirely on a monocultural
misinterpretation of scriptural words that, far from advocating
monologue, actually mean “communicate as effectively as
possible, with whatever means available, a message that comes
from someone else.”
The cultural boundedness of such interpretations does not,
however, obviate the value of all of the perceptions of absolute
truth dug out by Westerners. Many Western theologians are
able to get beyond their tendency to interpret Scripture from a
monocultural perspective much of the time. Much of scriptural
truth is understandable even across time and cultural
difference. But we need to be aware of the problems raised by
monocultural interpretations of Scripture and the theologies
produced by those without a cross-cultural perspective.
The same can be said concerning the perspective of a
single academic discipline or of those whose involvement with
Scripture is primarily a “thought involvement” rather than an
experience involvement. Every discipline focuses in on certain
things by specializing in its own perspective (as do cultures
and individuals). But, as a byproduct of this specialization, it
becomes unable to see other things clearly, if at all. It is, for
example, very difficult for academic theologians to correctly
understand the apostle Paul if they have not themselves
served as missionaries. Paul was a missionary and that fact is
crucial to interpreting his theological perspectives. Those who,
without missionary experience themselves, see Paul primarily
as a theologian tend to informationalize and academicize the
things he said and did as if his primary aim, like theirs, was to
think theologically rather than to write pastorally to those
influenced by his missionary activity. Paul's theology was
“missional theology,” not systematic theology or even biblical
theology (though the latter is closer to his thinking).

Model 12
This model postulates and elaborates on the concept of cross-
culturally valid theologizing that is at the heart of this book
and has been anticipated in previous sections of the book.

What we are observing is that Western approaches to

theologizing, though of great value to those specialized in
Western ways of interpreting reality (Western worldviews), are
“ethnic theologies” (model 12a) specialized for Westerners, and
especially for Western academics. They are not necessarily
transculturally applicable perspectives (the aim of
“ethnotheology”).

Model 12a
It is possible to distinguish between narrow culture-specific
theologies (such as Western theologizing) and more broadly
based theological perspective developed in this book by
labeling the former ethnic theologies and the latter
ethnotheology. Ethnic Christian theologies attempt to
develop and apply theological insights within a single
society or, as with Western societies, within a single set of
closely interacting societies. Christian ethnotheology seeks
to study as wide a variety as possible of such ethnic
theologies and to develop cross-culturally valid
understandings of God and his workings.
There are, to be sure, cross-culturally valid insights within
narrow ethnic theologies because (1) they are based on a
single set of revelational documents inspired by the one God,
and because (2) they relate to human beings at the basic level
where the influence of cultural diversity has least influence.
But the theological enterprise needs to compare the insights of
narrow, ethnic theologies, be they Western, Asian, African, or
any other, to discover the transculturally valid expressions of
the revealed truths of God.
Another, more technical, way of understanding this fact
would be to apply to it one or both of two anthropological
models commonly employed to distinguish between the
understandings of a single society and those that are cross-
culturally valid. The first (and older) of these models focuses
on the difference between the description of a particular
culture (termed “ethnography”) and the generalizations that
can be made concerning culture in general on the basis of
comparison and analyses of data from many cultures (called
“ethnology”) (see Hoebel 1972, 11-12). Applying this model to
theologizing (model 12b), we may speak of the description of a
specific cultural (or subcultural) approach to Christian
theologizing as a Christian theography. The term “Christian
theology,” then, would be reserved for theological
generalizations based on comparisons and analyses of a large
number of single-culture Christian theographies such as those
produced within Western societies or those produced within
African societies. Note, however, that we are speaking here
only of Bible-based Christian theographies—never of
indigenous, non-Christian understandings of God that might
also be labeled theographies, though not Christian
theographies.

Model 12b
The descriptions of ethnic theologies may be called
theographies just as, within anthropology, descriptions of
individual cultures are called “ethnographies.” The term
“theology” then, would be reserved for use as the label for
the cross-culturally valid understandings labeled
“ethnotheology” above.
 The second anthropological model of value here is the
distinction originally applied to cultural data by the Christian
linguist Kenneth Pike (1967, 37-72; 1962, 35-45) between etic
perspectives and emic perspectives. An emic perspective is the
“folk perspective” (Hunter and Foley 1976, 52ff.) of inside
participants in a given society. An etic perspective is that of an
informed outside analyst (see also Pelto 1970, 67-88; Harris
1968, 568-604, for detailed discussions of the etic-emic
distinction). Outside analysts develop a series of categories in
terms of which they view and compare the specific data of
many cultural systems. They speak of the subsystems (e.g.,
religion, politics, economics, social structure, worldview, etc.)
of culture and illustrate each from their understanding of the
content of each subsystem. The insiders may not use these
categories at all, since they are not necessarily comparing them
with similar practices of other peoples. But the analysts need
such categories to facilitate their cross-cultural comparisons.

Model 12c
Looking at God and his works as an insider within a given
sociocultural context gives one what may be termed an emic
understanding of a Christian theology. An outside analyst
who compares emic theologies to gain a cross-cultural
understanding of theology, on the other hand, seeks to
understand theology from an etic perspective.

As model 12c we may suggest that we speak of emic

(insider) Christian theological understandings and etic
understandings (based on analytic comparisons by outsiders).
An emic Christian theology, then, would be a specific cultural
variety of Christian theology, appropriate for those immersed in
it but lacking in comparative perspective (like monocultural
Western theologies). An etic approach to Christian
theologizing, on the other hand, attempts to compare and
discover universally applicable theological categories of
Christianity on the basis of analyses of many emic varieties.
These three submodels of model 12 are designed to
highlight the distinction between the important, though narrow,
specific ethnic, emic theographic types of understandings of
God and the broader etic, cross-culturally valid
ethnotheological understandings that this book aims to point
to. Model 12b would admit only the latter to be labeled
“theology,” since it alone is based on comparisons between
culture-specific perceptions from a variety of cultures. There is,
to date, very little of this kind of theologizing being done. The
case study on sin in chapter 12 is a good example of the kind of
data on which such theologizing must be based.
The subcultural differences in theological understandings
within Western societies provide a small glimpse of what
broader cross-cultural theologizing would look like. For even
within a single society and a single discipline the perception of
truth is anything but monolithic. The history of Western
theologizing is full of individual and group (subcultural)
differences. These were often labeled “heresies” if they didn't
seem to square with the perceptions of the group in power. But
such differences often stimulate reactions. And both the
original differences/deviations and the reactions are studied by
succeeding groups. The original differences, the reactions, and
the subsequent study of them, then, provide learning
experiences and a broadening of theological perspectives for
those involved. And these learning experiences result in a
deepening of their understandings of Christian truth and the
range of legitimate perception of that truth.
Theologizing, therefore, is a process taking place at the
human perceptual level. This process, indebted to diversity of
perspective and approach, is helped when the participants in
the process are granted the freedom to dissent and to pursue
the discovery of truth in terms of their own frames of reference.
Theologizing is a dynamic discovery process engaged in by
human beings according to human perception. It is not simply
the passive acceptance of a doctrinal product “once for all
delivered.” It proceeds according to the rules of Spirit-led
human interaction with God, rather than by means of simple
indoctrination. And this is true even though we are dealing
with the divine revelation of a portion of absolute truth.
Theology, then, must always be seen as the result of a
dynamic process of human theologizing. It should not be
confused with the changeless, absolute truth that remains in
the mind of God. That divine truth is beyond our reach in any
total sense (1 Cor. 13:12), even though God has seen fit to
reveal an adequate amount of insight into it via the Spirit-led
perceptions of that truth recorded by the authors of Holy
Scripture.
In an attempt to make explicit the importance of seeing
theologizing in this way, Robert McAfee Brown discusses ten
propositions that affirm “the value of experiential-contextual
theologies” (1977, 170). Among the points that he makes are
the following: (1) “All theologies are contextually conditioned.”
(2) “There is nothing wrong with theology being contextually
conditioned.” (3) “It may take others to show us how
conditioned, parochial or ideologically captive our own
theology is.” (4) We should be excited rather than upset when
we hear such alternative theological perspectives, for they
expand our understandings. (5) Even if we could once ignore
such voices, we can no longer. (6) Contemporary alternative
theologies are reminiscent of certain theological innovations in
Western societies. (7) The point of contact between our
traditions and these new theologies is Scripture. (8) We should
“take the same kind of critical look at our own traditions” that
we take at those of others. (9) “Only in creative tension with
the widest possible perspective can we develop theologies
appropriate to our own particular situations.” (10) Since within
the church the ultimate loyalty is not simply to nation, class, or
culture, the church is uniquely suited to provide the context
within which the task of creative theologizing can take place
(1977, 170-74).
Daniel von Allmen, then, with much the same aim as Brown,
has studied Paul's part in what he calls “the birth of theology.”
He sees all theologies (theographies), including Pauline
theology, as the result of “contextualization” done by certain
people within a group to meet the needs of that group.
Missionaries, translators, and those who “sang the work that
God had done for them” (1975, 41) provided the raw materials
for theologizing in the early churches. These consisted of
expressions of need, translations, and transculturations
(including preaching) of the message in Greek, and partial
preliminary formulations in culturally appropriate fashion.
The Greek mystery religions apparently provided much of
the matrix for the early theologizing. Von Allmen points to
Paul's mysticism, rites based on the unity of the initiate with
the divinity through death and rebirth, and a “dying rising
god” as examples of this fact (1975, 45). Paul saw those who
opposed this process as heretics. In von Allmen's words,
“Putting it provocatively, one may say that heretics in the New
Testament are not those who preach the Gospel by becoming
Greeks with the Greeks but rather the conservatives who,
because they hesitate to win new culture for the service of
Christ, run the risk of being drowned by that very culture”
(1975, 49).
Most important, though, is to recognize that what was
going on in those days was not simply “a contextualization of
an existing theology.”

Any authentic theology must start ever anew from the focal
point of the faith, which is the confession of the Lord Jesus
Christ who died and was raised for us; and it must be built
or re-built (whether in Africa or in Europe) in a way which is
both faithful to the inner thrust of the Christian revelation
and also in harmony with the mentality of the person who
formulates it. There is no short cut to be found by simply
adapting an existing theology to contemporary or local
taste. (ibid., 50)

If we are to be true to the dynamism of the early days of the

Christian movement, we should be involved both in producing
new theological formulations and in encouraging others to do
the same. We are to some extent unfaithful to our calling when
we become simply “consumers” of theological products and
teach students simply to be consumers as well. “That is why,”
says von Allmen, “we should look upon theological education
as the communication of working techniques and building
materials” (1975, 51), rather than as simply making available to
students the past products of the efforts of “expert”
theologians.

Rather than teach a theology (even a theology that claims

to be a “New Testament theology”), what we should try to
do is to point out what the forces were that governed the
elaboration of a theology on the basis of the material
furnished by the primitive church. This is the reason why,
in my opinion, the study of the history of traditions in the
early church is of capital importance in Africa even more
than elsewhere. In so far as this study takes us back
beyond any already developed theology to the stage at
which the theology of the New Testament was still being
worked out, it should enable us to uncover the forces that
governed the making of that theology, in order that we may
in turn let ourselves be guided by the same dynamism as
we set about creating a contemporary theology, whether it
be in Africa or in Europe. (von Allmen 1975, 51)

Accordingly, this book should be seen both as encouraging a

study of the dynamics of the production of theology and as
itself an effort to suggest and lay the foundations for a new
approach. The major dimension of the approach here
advocated—the cross-cultural perspective—is the key to
carrying out what von Allmen is recommending. For it is this
perspective that provides us with the tools with which to get at
the processes to which contemporary theologizing should be
dynamically equivalent. In seeking to derive lessons from “the
history of traditions in the early church,” for example, we need
to look very carefully at the cultural factors at work. We need
to ask which of those varieties of theology branded “heretical”
were genuinely out of bounds (measured by scriptural
standards), and which were valid contextualizations of
scriptural truth within varieties of culture or subculture that the
party in power refused to take seriously. It is likely that most of
the “heresies” can validly be classed as cultural adaptations
rather than as theological aberrations. They, therefore, show
what ought to be done today rather than what ought to be
feared. The “history of traditions” becomes intensely relevant
when studied from this perspective.
We are dealing, then, with the perception of supracultural
truth and with the understanding of the process by means of
which the perceptions are analyzed and systematized so that
they are regarded as relevant by the hearers. For theology, like
every other presentation (transculturation) of the Christian
message, must be perceived as relevant by the hearers if it is to
fulfill its proper function within the Christian movement.
Theology perceived as irrelevant is irrelevant. Theology that is
merely passed from one cultural context to another, rather than
being developed within that context, is frequently judged as
irrelevant whether in Euro-America, in Asia, or in Africa. In
America, theology perceived by the hearers as mere academic
philosophizing is often judged to be irrelevant not on its own
merits but simply because the hearer judges irrelevant the
framework in terms of which the theology is proclaimed. That
is, theological truth must be re-created like a dynamic-
equivalence translation or transculturation within the
language and accompanying conceptual framework of the
hearers if its true relevance is to be properly perceived by
them. Theologizing, like all Christian communication, must be
directed to someone if it is to serve its purpose. It cannot
simply be flung out into thin air.
For this reason the missiologist Bengt Sundkler states that
“theology is, in the last resort, translation. It is an ever-
renewed reinterpretation to new generations and peoples of the
given Gospel, a reinterpretation of the will and the way of the
one Christ in a dialogue with new thought forms and culture
patterns…” (1960, 281).

Communicating Theology
Theology is, therefore, not only to be produced but to be
communicated. And culture and subculture pervasively affect
this process at three points: (1) in the theologian's
understanding of God's revelation, (2) in the communication of
these understandings, and (3) in the receptor's perception of
that communication. If, then, Christian theology as we know it
in Western philosophic garb is to be of value (i.e., perceived as
relevant) to Latin Americans, to Asians, to Africans, it must be
transculturated (contextualized) into the concepts and
language framework in terms of which they operate. If, likewise,
theology is to be of value to psychologists, to sociologists, to
chemists, it must be “transdisciplinated” out of its present
Western philosophico-historical mold into the conceptual and
linguistic frame of reference of these disciplines. If, further,
theology is to be perceived as relevant by factory workers, by
farmers, by engineers, by youth, by hippies, by blacks, by
feminists, it must be translated into terms and concepts
meaningful to each group. And the responsibility for this lies
on the would-be communicator—in this case on the
theologian. For too long have many theologians simply
paraded an unintelligible static theological product before their
public on the assumption that there is nothing more relevant
than theology. The fact is, however, that relevance is as
relevance is perceived.
The process of transculturation of theology is not new, but
it is a very serious matter today. There is ample evidence both
within and outside the Western world that Christian theology
is very often either misperceived or perceived as irrelevant
(see, for examples, Bennett 1975; Cox 1973). This is, however,
not because the content of theology is irrelevant in and of
itself, or even because people are unconcerned. It is simply
because theology has so often been presented in terms
meaningful only within the theologian's frame of reference,
rather than transculturated or transdisciplinated
(contextualized) into that of the hearer.
 Theology must be “deprovincialized” (Cox 1973, 171; Ramm
1961, 23). It must be understood that the task of theologizing is
the privilege and the responsibility of every Christian person
and of every Christian group. For the Christian world is
seriously deprived as long as it continues to allow theologizing
to remain the private preserve of a single discipline within a
single culture. We need the ethnic theologizing of Africans, of
Asians, of Latin Americans, of psychologists, of sociologists,
of chemists, of factory workers, of farmers, of engineers, of
youth, of hippies, of blacks, of feminists. We need to enter into
the Spirit-guided perceptions of these and a vast number of
other cultural, subcultural, disciplinary, and occupational
groups to come to a broader and better balanced
ethnotheological understanding of God's truth. For this truth
transcends the capacity of any single individual, or group, or
discipline, or culture to grasp fully even that portion of it that
has been revealed to us. Every individual, group, discipline,
and society has much to offer the rest by way of insight and
specialized understanding.
Missiologist A. R. Tippett once told me in a private
conversation that it was his experience as a missionary to the
Fiji people, rather than his study of Western theology or his
experience in Western churches that taught him most of what
he understands to be a sound doctrine of the church. A
Western cultural perspective, focused as it is on individuality,
seems peculiarly blind to a large number of important aspects
of this doctrine of the church which, among other things,
recognizes the human need for well-integrated groupness.
Fijian culture seems to have long provided for this need,
though Western behavioral scientists are just now coming to
assert it. When groups within such community-oriented
societies come to God, they immediately understand much
more about many dimensions of “people of Godness” (i.e., the
church) than most members of individualized Western societies
know. After hundreds of years of experience with Christianity,
we Westerners have learned a few intellectual things about the
church. These things may well be helpful to more communally
oriented peoples if we share them in the proper way. But we
need also to learn from them those aspects of open, communal
interpersonal interinvolvement that are a part of biblical models
of churchness but tend to be deemphasized within Western
societies. In this way participation in other ethnic
understandings of God's revelations can instruct us as
outsiders concerning the dimensions of the etic,
ethnotheological perspectives that we need if we are to present
God's message effectively in a multicultural world.
Many of us who have served in Africa can point to a
heightening of our understanding of and respect for the Old
Testament (even the genealogies) as a result of our African
experience. It is exciting to begin to enter into the riches of the
majority of God's Word by beginning to see these portions
through the eyes of people closer to Jewish culture than we
are. The message of the Old Testament and the New Testament
is the same (model 10b). But many Westerners need to be
shocked into understanding this by exposure to the response
of non-Western peoples to that message in Hebrew cultural
garb. Westerners then learn to view the Old Testament as a
fully valid, fully inspired, and still usable record of divine-
human interaction.
Similarly, theologian and psychologist Thomas Oden has
discovered new dimensions of theological understanding by
attempting to view theological truth from a psychological point
of view. Oden, in teaching theology, has discovered how
difficult theology phrased in the language and concepts of
traditional theology (i.e., the philosophico-historical frame of
reference) is for even his theology students to understand.
Theology phrased in the language of psychology, however,
gets across to them very well. Apparently, he says,
“psychology is their home territory linguistically” (Oden 1974,
36). He has found it necessary to trade one type of emic-ethnic
conceptualization of theological truths that is, at least for those
students, now out of vogue, for another emic conceptualization
of the same truths that is in vogue. Neither emic understanding
is inherently better than the other. Each is best for those
immersed in it.
Theology, if it is to be perceived as relevant by students
such as these and by a significant proportion of the rest of
America's student generation, must be
translated/transculturated into the (emic) linguistic and
conceptual framework of the behavioral sciences—for this is
where these students live. For them, there need to be one or
more behavioral-sciences-based theologies rather than simply
philosophy-based theologies. And if there are not such emic
theologies today, Christian psychologists, sociologists,
anthropologists, and others with both behavioral science and
theological credentials should be encouraged to develop them.
What is here being advocated is, first, the need to
recognize the limitedness of the cultural and disciplinary
perspective of what is presently known as theology. This
limitedness affects both the understanding and the
transmission of Christian theological truths. Second, we need
to develop (in some cases to continue a development already
started) a diversity of cultural, subcultural, and disciplinary
approaches to the study and presentation of theological
perceptions of God's truth. We have always recognized, of
course, that truth of one kind or another is discoverable from
within the framework of a multiplicity of disciplines and
cultures. But we must recognize that much of this truth is of
high relevance in the understanding and communication of
God and his works. The breadth and depth of theological truth
available to us in the revelation of God is simply not attainable
by or containable in a single sociocultural or a single
disciplinary context.
Third, we need to learn to communicate Christian
theological insight in a receptor-oriented, emically valid way to
each particular group of recipients. Unfortunately, many
theologians (and preachers) take an extractionist approach to
communicating theology (see chapter 8). They steadfastly
refuse to budge from the presentation of theology in traditional
Western theological terms, for they have often come to regard
these traditional formulations as sacred. How different is this
approach from that of our Lord and the apostle Paul, who
adopted the linguistic, cultural, and situational frames of
reference of their hearers. Many missionaries, likewise, insist
that their converts convert not only to Christ but to a particular
Western emic, ethnic understanding and verbalizing of
Christian theology (see Kraft 1963, reprinted 2002). Jesus'
approach, however, was to phrase theological truth in terms of
whatever emic conceptual framework was appropriate to his
hearers. He employed certain kinds of parables with the
masses, life involvement (including a variety of verbalizations)
with the disciples, reserving the overt use of Scripture largely
for the Pharisees and Satan. Paul articulated the same approach
when he stated that he sought to be a Jew to Jews and a Greek
to Greeks (1 Cor. 9:19-23).

Theologizing and Culture-Bound Perception

As pointed out in chapter 2 and elsewhere, there is always
a difference between reality and human culturally conditioned
understandings (models) of that reality. We assume that there
is a Reality “out there” but it is the mental constructs (models)
of that reality inside our heads that are the most real to us. God,
the author of Reality, exists outside any sociocultural
structuring. Human beings, on the other hand, are always
bound by sociocultural, subcultural (including disciplinary),
and psychological conditioning to perceive and interpret what
they see of Reality in ways appropriate to these conditionings.
Neither the absolute God nor the Reality he created is
perceived absolutely by culture-bound human beings.
It is, however, as already pointed out, possible to perceive
God adequately. For he has revealed himself to human beings
within the human cultural context. Furthermore, he has guided
certain people to record their perceptions of experience with
him and guided his people to preserve and pass on certain of
these records. This preservation and passing on of the records
is for the benefit of other people, most of whom participate in
quite different cultural, subcultural, and psychological frames
of reference from those whose perceptions have been
preserved in the Bible. And because, beyond the diversity of
human frames of reference, (1) human beings participate in a
pervasive common humanity, (2) because the perceptions
recorded in the Scriptures focus on the same unchanging
message from God, and (3) because God's Spirit is active in
guiding people into God's truth, the study of this inspired
casebook yields understandings adequate for human salvation
and sanctification.
This study has traditionally been labeled “theology.” Since,
however, theological inquiry, being human and therefore
culture bound, yields culturally conditioned differences of
perception, it seems proper to speak of “theologies” at this
perceptual level. At this point it may be useful to distinguish
between these theologies and the absolute theological Reality
that lies outside culture in the mind of God himself. This latter
is only knowable to human beings in adequate, though not
absolute glimpses, as through a dirty window (1 Cor. 13:12).
The object of theologies is to come to ever more adequate,
accurate, understandable (by the group in focus), and
communicable perceptions of the glimpses of God's absolute
Truth (with a capital T) embedded in the inspired casebook.
But, since perception differs so from society to society (and
even from subsociety to subsociety and discipline to
discipline), emic understandings perfectly satisfactory for one
group are frequently perceived as somewhat less than
satisfactory for another.
Witness a change that has taken place in at least certain
segments of American Christianity from a predominant concern
for quantity of life (i.e., everlastingness) to a much greater
concern for quality of life (i.e., in terms of meaningfulness).
Unfortunately, for modern Americans, the previous
quantitative emphasis continues to be catered to in Bible
translations and, often, in evangelical preaching and
theologizing. This leads to a comparatively greater use in
translation, preaching, and theologizing of quantitative
expressions such as “eternal” or “everlasting” life than of
qualitative expressions like “abundant,” “real,” or “meaningful”
life. And allegiance to such a fact has kept many American
Christians from recognizing that theologically it is just as
appropriate to speak of Christ as offering “real” or
“meaningful” life as to speak of the quantitative aspects of this
life. Yet the Greek word used for “life” in the New Testament
(zōē) focused on quality of life. It contrasted within the
language with bios (animal life) (Bultmann 1964). So the New
Testament focuses on a “real, meaningful life” that extends
forever. It does not exclude the quantitative dimension, of
course, for it makes that dimension explicit by adding the word
“everlasting.” English, however, since we have only a single
word for life, loses the qualitative dimension implicit in the
Greek zōē, unless the translator makes this dimension explicit in
English.
In previous days it has seemed appropriate for Christian
communicators (and theologians) in America to present God as
providing life that “extends forever and that is also very
meaningful in the here and now.” Due to changes in the
concerns and attitudes of our people, however, many English-
speaking groups today best hear God's message, which
includes both emphases, when it is presented (and
theologized) as “God offers life that is very meaningful in the
here and now and that also extends forever.” It is incumbent on
theologies that they be adapted to the emic realities of the
frame of reference in which they are developed and to which
those who use them seek to communicate. We do not do
justice to the revelation if we cling to theological expressions
appropriate in other societies or other times in our own society
in preference to an equally valid and much more relevant
expression of the glimpse of absolute Truth involved.
Christian theologies are, like all other Christian
understandings, tethered to the Word (model 9c). Though they
are to be emically, ethnically valid, they must fall within a
biblically acceptable range of variation (model 9b) as measured
by the Bible as yardstick (model 9a). This range of variation
will, of course, include both what the author intended to say
and what God intended to say with and through the author. At
the receptor's end, due to cultural and temporal distance, the
author's intent is only approximately discernable at best.
Discerning that emic intent is one of the major reasons for
doing biblical exegesis. The doing of good exegesis depends
on the ability of exegetes to transcend their own emic
perspectives, as best they can, to identify psychologically with
the author and to “think the author's thoughts” as if they, the
exegetes, were a part of the original context. Of great assistance
in this task is for contemporary exegetes to experience life in
contemporary societies similar to those of biblical times. There
is not ordinarily enough livingness to library-based exegesis to
enable one to achieve the kind of personal identification with
the scriptural authors in their sociocultural contexts that such
exegesis demands.
Discerning authorial intent is, however, but one part of the
exegete's task. For God is also speaking. And God's speaking is
to us and to those to whom he has called us in contemporary
emic contexts. The Christian theologian is, therefore, to
discover and apply God's meanings (as best they can be
determined) in each contemporary cultural context as well. Just
as the author's intent, if it could be discovered, and God's
intent for the original situation were specific to that situation,
so the theological transculturation of God's message through
the Word to today's contexts should be specific to those
contexts. Even when we feel that we have satisfactorily
determined what the author and God intended for the original
hearers, we still need to be open to what he seeks to say to
contemporary hearers in contemporary cultural contexts. These
messages will be within the range of allowable interpretation
of the original utterances but may differ from our emic
understandings.
Absolute supracultural Truth is not synonymous with the
theology that John Calvin developed by interpreting Scripture
to speak to the needs (as he perceived them) of sixteenth-
century Geneva. Nor is it the same as that developed by John
Wesley to speak to the needs (as he perceived them) of
eighteenth-century England. Nor does it correspond with that
of any of the prominent twenty-first-century theologians as
they struggle to understand the revelation in relation to
twenty-first-century Switzerland, Germany, England, or
America. These are all culture-bound theologies—valuable as
expressions of particular perceptions of God's Truth but not
synonymous with it. These are all (at least insofar as they are
true both to the inspired revelation and to the surrounding
cultural context) attempts to translate and transculturate the
Truth of God into the linguistic and cultural frames of reference
of the people for whom these theologies were developed (often
academics within these societies). They have, however, no
inherent claim to perpetuity except and unless people of other
times and other sociocultural contexts discover them (or parts
of them) to be of value in their contexts as well.
Theologies, then, become an important part of the
necessary repackaging of the Christian message as it moves
from society to society and from subsociety to subsociety. If
theologies are properly in tune with their sociocultural
contexts, they will manifest differences of focus, differences of
understanding, and differences of expression proportionate to
the differences between the societies and subsocieties in
which they are involved. This is true even though there are two
strong pulls toward uniformity: (1) the fact that theologies in
order to be Christian are based upon the biblical revelation, and
(2) the fact that beyond cultural differences human beings
share an extensive common humanity. But such differences of
focus, understanding, and expression are necessary if the
theologies are to be meaningful to the consumers of these
theologies.
 It is tragic, therefore, when a given theological system (or
creed based thereon) is adopted by or imposed upon those of
another society or subsociety. This error often results when a
given approach to theology is regarded as highly prestigious,
and/or proponents of that theological system assume that the
system is absolutely correct and relevant for all times, places,
and peoples, and/or the proponents have the power to impose
their system on others. The result is frequently that the
receptors are so turned against the given theological system
that both the recommended theology and the quest for relevant
understandings are abandoned—often with all other
commitment to Christianity as well. Such is too often the case
in America today, for there is an increasing divergence between
the concerns and expressions of academic metaphysical
philosophical modes of thought in which much theology (even
much “biblical theology”) is still couched and the concerns of
contemporary Americans. Or, as with many Christian churches
in non-Western societies, the only approaches to theology
offered are often preoccupied with certain theological concerns
of a former stage of Western societies. These churches are
then forced to choose between theological domination by
Western approaches to theology and rebellion against the
proponents of these theologies. The latter choice involves as a
concomitant the loss of all the other valuable assistance that
these churches have available to them by continuing their
friendly association with Western missions.
If we could first understand the pressing need for the
development of home-grown, culturally relevant theologies
that freely borrow from, but are not dominated by, foreign
theological models and second encourage Christians
everywhere in dependence upon the Holy Spirit to theologize
freely, the Christian church would be much richer. To date,
though things have improved somewhat since the original
publication of this book, the attitude has often still been more
one of repression of theological diversity, especially outside
Western culture. And we of the West, as well as those of other
societies, are being denied theological insight because of this
lack of positive regard and respect for the perspectives of
those other peoples.
By cutting ourselves off from the insights of people
immersed in other cultural contexts, we of the West are in
danger of developing and perpetuating certain culturally
conditioned kinds of heresies. We need, for example, the
criticisms of Christians influenced by Islamic understandings
who would point out to us that Western theological
presentations of the doctrine of the Trinity sound more like
tritheism than like monotheism (see Nida 1959). The use of the
word “person,” which in contemporary English signals that the
“persons” of the Trinity are separate individuals, is a major
problem in this regard. The use of persona (= actor's mask) in
Latin to label the three parts that the one God plays seems
within the scripturally allowed range. But belief in three Gods
which, as Nida points out, is probably the folk belief of large
numbers of Western Christians, seems clearly outside the
allowable range and, therefore, heretical.
Other, perhaps lesser, candidates for accepted substandard
doctrinal perspectives perpetuated within Western societies
relate to the concepts Son of God and Son of Man. Westerners
who have not had experience in societies similar to patrilineal
Hebrew society are likely to automatically interpret the God as
Father and God as Son analogies as indicating a hierarchical
Father superior/ Son subordinate relationship between God
and Jesus. In societies like Hebrew society, however, it may be
contended that the firstborn son is at least as important as the
father in the household. When Jesus called himself Son of God,
his original hearers understood him to be claiming equality
with, not subservience to, God (see Luke 22:70-71; John 10:33-
36). The term for Son of Man, on the other hand, meant what
the equivalent expression usually means today in languages
related to Hebrew—man or human being (see LaSor 1961, 42).3
Monocultural Westerners, unable to understand this term as a
part of normal language (since European languages do not
ordinarily employ such an idiom), have tended to see it as a
technical term whereby Jesus claimed messiahship.
Theologizing by those of non-Western societies (if within
scriptural limits) can both enrich the rest of us and alert us to
deficiencies in our commonly held interpretations. Through the
study of such theologizing we can better see just how
contextualized and culture bound our theologies are (see
Brown 1977, 170-74, quoted above).
Monica Wilson, in attempting to assess what. “special
insights” there may be in traditional African religion that could
make a contribution both to African Christianity and to the
universal church, points to four key ideas. The first area is in
the relationship of human beings to human beings. Africa can
teach the rest of the world much about the closeness of
community. The responsibility of one for another and the
effects of the actions of each on the other are well known to
Africans and could be taught to others to deepen their
Christian experience.
Second, Africans are constantly conscious of the reality of
evil. In Africa, evil was seen as anger, hate, envy, and greed
festering within men, unconfessed, bottled up. In one area after
another, then, we find a stress on speaking out, on confession
of anger and hate, for it is thought that reconciliation can only
follow the admission of evil thoughts.
Third, Africans “bridle” or restrict competition. Competition
has gotten out of hand in the West in just about every area of
life. Africans know how to be still, how to cooperate, how to
get along with each other.
And, fourth, the African “apprehension of reality through
ritual rather than dogma” provides “a balance to the intellectual
emphasis of the West.” With respect to death, Africans accept
it and work out their grief in ritual. This is radically different
(and more satisfying) than “trying to pretend it does not exist,”
as Westerners often do (Wilson 1971, 137-41).
Western monocultural theological interpretations often
appear to be less biblical than such African emphases. Yet they
have been allowed to stand because the interpreters, as
members of the same cultural traditions, have shared and
failed to question many of the same presuppositions. It may be
helpful, therefore, to cite a few examples of non-Western
theologizing.

Non-Western Theologizing: A Case Study

 In seeking to overcome the effects of extractionist
theological teaching, a growing number of non-Euro-American
thinkers are attempting to imitate in their own cultural contexts
the process that the apostle Paul went through in the Greek-
speaking world. The following words of John V. Taylor
highlight the efforts of several such thinkers:

Christ has been presented as the answer to the questions a

white man would ask, the solution to the needs that
Western man would feel, the Saviour of the world of the
European worldview, the object of the adoration and
prayer of historic Christendom. But if Christ were to
appear as the answer to the questions that Africans are
asking, what would he look like? If he came into the world
of African cosmology to redeem Man as Africans
understand him, would he be recognizable to the rest of the
Church Universal? And if Africa offered him the praises
and petitions of her total, uninhibited humanity, would they
be acceptable? (1963, 24; emphasis added)

To an African, for example, a Christian theology that can

offer no more than an impersonal Western medical approach to
disease is not only culturally unacceptable but scripturally
inaccurate. Africans, unlike theologians bound by a Western
cultural worldview, know that illness is not usually caused by
mere germs. And when they study the Scriptures they find
abundant confirmation of their point of view and abundant
disconfirmation of the theological understandings of the West.
Illness, by the way, is a matter of theological (not simply
medical) understanding in virtually all societies except those
influenced by Western secularism and even still in traditional
segments of highly westernized societies.
The African expects that anyone speaking for God will
automatically be concerned with healing and exorcism. If, then,
the person of God attempting to communicate Christ in
traditional Africa will not or cannot address the illness problem
effectively, the person can expect to make little if any real
impact on traditional African worldviews with what is to them
an inadequate proclamation of Christian truth. For that
person has failed to follow the example of Christ who, dealing
with a people with similar expectations in this regard, combined
in himself what we of the overspecialized West regard as two
different tasks—the ministry of proclamation and that of
healing. In this and other matters of Christian proclamation in
non-Western societies, all with important theological
ramifications, it is

an ironical thing that the West, which is most concerned

with the spread of Christianity in the world today, and
which is financially best able to undertake the task of
worldwide evangelism, is culturally the least suited for its
task because of the way in which it has specialized itself to
a point where it is very difficult for it to have an adequate
understanding of other peoples. (Smalley 1958a, 64;
emphasis added)
 So we continue to send out doctors who by training and
interest are ill-prepared to employ their skills in such a way as
to reap maximum benefit. They do not realize that, from African
points of view, they alone among the missionaries effectively
demonstrate their close contact with God by healing physical
illness. Yet these doctors, in keeping with their home-culture
perspective, frequently disclaim the spiritual ministry that the
receptor society expects of them. And we compound the error
by continuing to train and send missionary and national
pastors and evangelists with no knowledge of medicine. These,
from African points of view, can “talk a good game” but give
no convincing demonstration of their close relationship to God.
High on the list of reasons why five thousand or more African
independent movements have broken away from missionary
Christianity is the fact that the mission churches, preoccupied
with the concerns of Western theologies, did not pay adequate
attention to matters of health and. illness—matters that are to
the African highly theological (Barrett 1968).
Thus the Christ that we present is only the partial and
powerless Christ we have perceived from studying the
Scriptures from within our Western secular frame of reference.
We tend to present only the part of God's revelation focused
upon by our culturally and disciplinarily bound theologians
and other expositors as providing answers to the questions in
our minds. Other questions, often of prime concern to the
members of another society, have either not been posed by us
at all, or have been posed but seldom taken seriously.
Pentecostalism is the exception. It deals positively with the
faith/healing issue and is being mightily used of God in Africa,
Latin America, and elsewhere.
To Africans and multitudes of others throughout the world
there may be nothing clearer in all of God's Word than the fact
that God (not merely medicine) heals physical as well as
spiritual illness—unless it be the fact that God deals effectively
with evil spirits. But again Western theology, at least as
practiced, is virtually silent or even negative toward the
existence and constant activity of such spirits. Likewise, the
theological treatments of Western Christianity regarding
people in their group relationships, the spirits of the departed,
the significance of ritual—including traditional naming and
initiation ceremonies as well as baptism and the Lord's Supper,
the place of celebration (including dance) in Christian life and
worship, etc.—are less than satisfying to Africans. Westerners
have specialized many of these concerns into the realm known
as “secular” and, therefore, regard them as beyond the purview
of theological consideration. But to multitudes of Africans
who, in spite of the onslaughts of westernization, are still in
possession of a more integrated perspective on life, these are
theological issues.
Thus it is refreshing to note the recent emergence of
several sincere attempts to apply African insight and
perspective to the interpretation of the Bible and of
theologically generalized Christian truth based on the Bible. It
is not without significance that this growing freedom on the
part of Africans comes hand in hand with the very rapid
development of African independent churches and other
movements toward indigenization of Christianity in Africa. But
it is matter for rejoicing nonetheless, for at least two reasons:
(1) at last there is hope that African Christianity will begin to
hear Christ addressing himself to a larger number of “the
questions that Africans are asking,” and (2) at last we of the
Western world will be able to have our own theological
horizons broadened by being exposed to the insight of African
perceptions of Christian truth.
In New Testament Eschatology in an African Background
(1971), John S. Mbiti, regarded by many as black Africa's
leading contemporary theologian, struggles with the meaning
of Christian eschatology to a people (his people—the Akamba
of Kenya) with a virtually two-dimensional concept of time.
This concept has no distant future. It is, therefore, virtually
limited to perceiving reality as either present or past. This kind
of conceptualization and other features of the Akamba
worldview strongly affect their perception of Christian
teaching, and so have important implications for the
development of Akamba theological understanding.
Mbiti is no mean theologian and is not limited to African
perspectives in his treatment. Nor does he completely reject
Western understandings, though he finds them partial and
incomplete — providing little more than “the solution to the
needs that Western man would feel” (Taylor 1963, 24). Rather,
on the basis of a deep study of the Scriptures and of Western
interpretations, plus the assumption of the potential validity of
perspectives on time other than the Western past-present-
future lineal concept, he works toward an African
understanding. He concludes that the New Testament—
especially those portions directed primarily to Jewish readers—
can very well be interpreted by those basing their findings on
African worldview assumptions. And this can be done without
the prior necessity (often naively required by traditional
approaches) of the African adopting a non-African concept of
time.
Specifically, he sees the Jewish two-dimensional division of
time into “This Age” and “The Age to Come” united in the
Incarnation into a single time-transcending, present kingdom of
God. This kingdom, though looking forward to the Parousia,
does not require a three-dimensional concept of time as
prerequisite to understanding it. An understanding of Christian
eschatology may, therefore, be legitimately approached from an
African two-dimensional background, even though these two
dimensions do not correspond exactly with the two Hebrew
dimensions.
If such an approach is attempted, the African worldview
will not remain unchanged. One result of building Christian
eschatology upon an African conception of time will be the
invasion of the African worldview by the Christian eschaton,
producing perhaps for the first time an African teleology. An
approach to such an African-based Christian eschatology and
the consequent development of an African teleology have
been hindered to date, Mbiti contends, by an excessive overlay
of Western cultural interpretations of the Scriptures to which
Africans have been required to subscribe. Now, after more than
a hundred years of missionary effort in Africa, theologians like
Mbiti are beginning to emerge who take seriously both Christ
and African culture. Mbiti and others making similar attempts
may from time to time err as they sail such uncharted seas—
making mistakes that will be as African as the insights—but at
least certain Africans now know they can and must look
directly to the Holy Spirit for their leading, and this bodes well
for the future of theology in Africa.
In another volume, Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs
(Dickson and Ellingworth 1969), Mbiti joins seven other
Africans in dealing with theological issues of special relevance
to Africa. The volume is the result of a consultation of African
theologians that became

an expression of a deep longing that the churches of Africa

might have an opportunity of thinking together of the
Christian faith which had come to them…through
missionaries of a different cultural background who…could
not fully appreciate the reactions of their converts to their
faith in the light of their own traditional beliefs and
practices. (1969, vii)

In the belief that “the urgent predicament of the Church in

Africa today is that of the apparent foreignness of
Christianity” (ibid., 13), these African scholars set themselves
the task of discovering

in what way the Christian faith could best be presented,

interpreted and inculcated in Africa so that Africans will
hear God in Jesus Christ addressing himself immediately to
them in their own native situation and particular
circumstances. (1969, 16)
 Dr. Raimo Harjula, formerly of Lutheran Theological
College, Tanzania, defines Christian theology as “the critical
reflection on, articulation and translation of God's self-
disclosure, especially in Jesus Christ, in and for a given
historical and cultural context” (1972, 1:18). From this point of
view, theology is a functional, dynamic, relevant thing whose
purpose is “to interpret…Christ in terms that are relevant and
essential to African existence” (Sundkler 1960, 211). Just as
Acts 2 records that the Christian witness went forth in the
various languages of the hearers, so must Christian theology
be heard by Africans (and others) embodied in their own
conceptual categories. For, though “the Gospel is absolute,…
its framework and embodiment…are something relative, which
vary according to the historical and cultural context” (Harjula
1972, 2:4-5).
A European armchair theologian like Barth, for example, can
perhaps be excused for being pessimistic concerning the value
of “natural religion,” if one understands his theologizing as at
best designed to handle issues of interest to Western
theologians at a particular point in time. African Christians,
however, cannot afford the luxury of such pessimism. They
must provide intelligible yet Christian answers concerning
what, in the old cultural ways, is compatible and what is
incompatible with Christianity. They must develop what Henri
Maurier calls a “theology of paganism”—an. understanding of
“the meaning of paganism in the history of salvation” (1968, xi).
In what sense (if any) can it be maintained that “the grace of
God has never deserted mankind and that, even among the
pagans, some men have responded to it”? (Maurier 1968, xii).
 Perhaps Maurier has the answer in the distinction he makes
between (1) the fact that pagans continually search for God
and (2) the various non-Christian religious systems that
imperfect human beings have created as an expression of this
search. These expressions inevitably consist of complexes of
truth and error and constitute, at best, imperfect means and, at
worst, obstacles to people in their search (1968, xii). But
whether or not this approach be deemed helpful to Africans
(and others), there is no doubt that it attempts to deal with an
issue of critical importance to Theologia Africana.
Critical also are a host of related issues of but academic
importance to Western theologians, such as the question of
the identity or nonidentity of a given tribal deity with the
Christian God—or even of the son of a tribal deity and the Son
of God (as among the Yala of southeastern Nigeria—Buckman
1978). Further, “how is the Christian understanding of Creation
and the ‘Fall' related to the hundreds of African myths of
Creation and the Supreme Being's ‘departing' or ‘going far
away' due to man's misdeed or misbehavior?” (Harjula 1972,
5:19). And what about ancestor veneration? Are those who
honor their ancestors breaking the first commandment (“no
other gods before me”), or obeying the fifth (“honor your
father and your mother”)? And does Jesus' preaching “to the
spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:19) hold out any hope for the
salvation of Africa's ancestors? Such issues as these, as well
as those related to health and spirits, can be virtually ignored
by Western theologians, but they are live and pressing issues
in the minds and hearts of Africans. Many continue to turn
sadly from Christ because they hear only solutions to the
needs felt by certain Western people. African theologians
cannot ignore African issues.
Nor can Indian theologians ignore the equivalent issues in
Indian societies as they press themselves upon the
consciousness of Indian Christians. For to India, as to Africa,
Latin America, Oceania, and other areas missionized from the
West, Christianity “has been like a pot-plant transplanted
into a garden” (Boyd 1969, 259). In the early days the imported
soil in the foreign pot sufficed to sustain its growth. But, as
time passed, the roots grew large and shattered the pot from
within, often to the dismay of the foreign “gardeners,” so that
now the gardeners no longer have

to bring the water of the Word from a distant source, for the
plant has struck its own deep tap-root to the perennial
springs. It grows larger and more luxuriant than it ever did
in its bleak northern home…. The western confessions have
indeed been channels for bringing the Water of Life, but
they are not the only ones and the Indian Church must…
develop its own confessions [which will provide for the
Indian churches an] understanding of the deepest Christian
insights into the very nature and being of God, Christ, man
and the world, and their expression in Indian language
which can be understood and so accepted. (Boyd 1969,
259-60; emphasis added)

But the Indian, African, American, and other developers of

an indigenous theology must feel free of the obligation to
conform to the theological maxims of another culture or
subculture. They may or may not have studied Western
theology. Their guidelines, however, do not lie there but, rather,
in their own Spirit-led understanding of Scripture and its
applicability to their own cultural world. If a theology is to be a
culturally relevant expression of supracultural Truth, the
theologian

must not keep looking over his shoulder to see if he is in

step with Aquinas or Calvin or Barth; rather he must “look
unto Jesus,” the hope of glory who is present in his
Church.
As he does so, basing himself firmly in the Christian
Scriptures and using all the resources of thought and
terminology which are available to him, the inner,
underlying Truth, of the Christian faith will make itself plain.
(Boyd 1969, 261; emphasis added)

So, likewise, should the Western theologian demand and

make use of such freedom from theological expressions bound
to the history and culture of past times and circumstances
within Western societies. For, if Sundkler is right that theology
is meant to be “an ever-renewed reinterpretation to…new
generations and peoples of the given Gospel…in a dialogue
with new thought-forms and culture patterns” (1960, 211), this
necessity for constant renewal applies just as much to the
movement from generation to generation within a single
society as it does to movement from one society to another.
That is, we need intracultural transculturations of theology as
well as intercultural transculturations.
Contemporary Western theologizing must not hide its head
in the sand of traditional theological models that are becoming
increasingly irrelevant in contemporary Western frames of
reference. We cannot conscientiously ignore pressing
theological problems raised by new currents such as the rise of
the behavioral sciences. The apathy of contemporary
Christians toward what Western society knows as Christian
theology and toward preaching based thereon provides in our
context the same kind of protest as that prominent in Africa,
India, and other missionized areas of the world. This protest:
against: a message that promises so much but is expressed so
irrelevantly has, fortunately, led in both areas (the West and
the Two-Thirds World) to a lively surge toward theological
independence that must be regarded as promising. For this
independence will result in. theological experimentation, with
its promise of new and renewed theological insight.
Where such a surge toward independence and theological
experimentation has not occurred, only apathy toward
Christianity remains. This, unfortunately, is the popular
response of much European Christendom where nominal
church membership is accompanied by an almost total
unconcern for the Christian message and the institutions
responsible for proclaiming it. Academicians still study
Christianity but seldom transculturate its meanings into vital,
life-related, wor1dview-changing concepts. In Denmark, for
example, amid linguistic and architectural symbols betokening
considerable past commitment to Christianity, plus 97 percent
nominal church membership, estimates of active church
involvement are less than 5 percent of the population. The
preference of Danish and other European churchmen for
preserving, studying, and debating academically the
theological products of the past rather than engaging in the
transculturating process has had much to do with the
deadness of European Christianity at the popular level. This
deadness could be the lot of Africa and India as well if the
example of men like Mbiti and Boyd is not followed.

Conclusion
What we have termed absolute, supracultural Truth exists
—outside culture and beyond the grasp of finite, sinful human
beings. But God provides revelation of himself within the
human cultural context. Much of this, including detailed
records of his supreme revelation in Jesus Christ, has been
recorded and preserved in the Christian Scriptures. To the
understanding of this revelation, a variety of Spirit-led human
beings apply a variety of culturally, psychologically,
disciplinarily, and otherwise-conditioned perceptions. On this
basis they develop theologies appropriate to their own insights
and experiences, and instructive to others of similar and
dissimilar backgrounds.
If, as certain absolutist theologies seem to assume, God
simply “did theology” through humans, all Spirit-led theologies
and theologians would come out with the same answers on all
issues. Differences in theologies would have to be explained
wholly in terms of the presence of the sin factor. More is
involved, however, than simply the sin factor (though I would
not want to be interpreted as denying the pervasiveness of sin
in human experience). There are sincere culturally and
otherwise-conditioned differences in perception that have to
be regarded as the primary factors influencing differences in
theological understanding. For the sin factor is more or less
constant for everyone, whatever the cultural context and,
therefore, affects all (not just certain) perceptions.
But in spite of both sin and culture, God apparently
chooses to work in partnership with (not simply through)
humans in theologizing (as in all other areas of life). He seems
not to be very concerned with conformity, or even with the
absolute correctness of the conclusions reached. He seems to
be more concerned with the process of theologizing and its
appropriateness to a given individual or group at the particular
stage of Christian development at which the individual or the
group find themselves. If this be true we may assume that God
is in favor of the development of theologies that not only
derive from his revelation of himself in the Scriptures but show
a maximum of relevance to the emic-ethnic situation out of
which and for which they are developed—as long as they fall
within the allowable range of acceptable variation set by
Scripture.
In the following part we turn to a consideration of several
aspects of the influence of dynamic-equivalence Christianity
on the cultural matrix in which it is operated.
 Notes
1. A previous version of some of this material has been published in Theology,
News and Notes (Kraft 1972b; 1972c).
2. The Greek languages stand by themselves within the Indo-European family
of languages. They show neither an alignment with the I-E language groupings to
the east of them nor with the groupings to the west and northwest that one would
ordinarily regard as Western European (e.g., Romance, Germanic). Hebrew and
Aramaic, of course, belong to a completely different family from I-E, renamed
Afroasiatic (Greenberg 1966).
3. This is true, for example, even in a language as distantly related to Hebrew
as Hausa of West Africa.
 Part 6

THE MESSAGE AFFECTS THE

FORMS
16

DYNAMIC-EQUIVALENCE
“CHURCHNESS”

The organism that we call “church” should also be

dynamically equivalent to biblical models. As with
theologizing, however, we have often been content merely to
transmit the church product developed in one generation to
those of another generation or that produced in one society to
those of another society. As with theologizing, translation,
revelation, and all other products of Christianity, however, it is
crucial that each new generation and people experience the
process of producing in its own cultural forms an appropriate
church vehicle for the transmission of God's meanings. We
may thus speak of and recommend “dynamically equivalent
churchness.”1 Such a new use of previously existing cultural
forms plus the necessary borrowing and internal development
of new forms brings about change in the culture. This and the
following four chapters focus on such Holy Spirit-stimulated
change.
In this chapter we treat the people of God within culture,
the concept of dynamic-equivalence (D.E.) churchness, and the
matter of equivalence to biblical models. The final section of
the chapter is a case study in D.E. church leadership.

The People of God within Culture

What does it mean to be the people of God, a fellowship of
the committed, within culture? For Israel it first meant the
moving of a fair-sized family group (Gen. 12:5) from one part of
the Middle East (Haran) to another (Canaan). This family lived
according to its familiar Semitic and nomadic customs. But
under Abraham, its patriarch who had come out of idolatry into
a faith relationship with the true God (Heb. 11:8-9), the family
began to modify certain aspects of its culture because of its
allegiance to God. Because it had separated itself from its larger
culture and become an entity unto itself, Abraham's developing
tribe was more free to modify its culture than heretofore. In the
cultural history of Abraham's (and God's) tribe as recorded for
us in the Bible, we are Informed concerning a large number of
the cultural concomitants of the divine-human interaction that
started when Abraham met and pledged allegiance to God.
We see that Abraham's tribe grew and changed until it
became twelve tribes under Jacob's sons, a nomadic people
(again) under Moses, a conquering people under Joshua, a
rather unsettled but sedentary conglomeration of related
peoples under the judges, a unified theocracy under Samuel, a
kingdom under Saul. In each case we see God and his people
working together in terms of the changing Semitic culture that
Abraham and his family took with them from Haran. At various
points in its history Israel needed (or wanted) to revise its
governmental patterns. Factors such as changes in lifestyle
(from nomadic to sedentary), size, and diversity, with frequent
disorganization (as under the judges), required such changes.
Changes were also required (and for similar reasons) in the
religious patterns. The patriarchal system where the head of
each family served as its religious leader worked fine for a small
tribe. But a grouping of growing tribes was better served by
the specialization of one of the tribes, Levi (see Exod. 32:29), to
function as priests. Later there was developed (in several
stages) a highly elaborate ritual. Then preachers (called
prophets) sprang up whose function differed from that of the
Levitical priesthood, and a prophetic tradition became
established. By New Testament times we become aware of a
number of additional adaptations, such as the synagogue, the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, the monastic Essenes, and the
politically activist Zealots.
All of these developments (with the exception of those
listed in the last sentence) are described for us by Old
Testament writers in terms of the part God played in
establishing each new approach. And well they might be, since
he was leading at every point. But there is a human side to the
divine-human interaction as well. And even when the change is
agreed to grudgingly by God (as when Israel wanted a king—1
Sam. 8:1-9), it is in response to a cultural felt need on the part
of the people of God. We observe, therefore, throughout the
Old Testament, familiar types of human cultural dynamics
always co-occurring with the acts of God.
Such adaptation to and of culture has continued in God's
workings, as recorded in the New Testament and in subsequent
church history. The New Testament records a series of
experiments engaged in by the people of God. These, in the
cultures of that day, served functions such as government,
worship, and ritual equivalent to those served by the parallel
cultural forms in Old Testament Hebrew culture. God had not
given up on Israel or changed his mind concerning the
appropriateness of their forms in former days, as certain
interpretations of the Scriptures (e.g., Dispensationalism)
would contend. He simply continued to do as he had always
done—to interact with humans in terms of the cultural forms
appropriate to the receptors.
There was, of course, in Christ a mammoth infusion of new
information and new stimulus into the human scene. And this
infusion made obsolete (“fulfilled”) certain aspects of the
previous system (e.g., blood sacrifice) for the Jews. But this
infusion, though differing in degree and kind from previous
infusions, was in many respects similar in its impact to
previous infusions that had come through Moses, Elijah,
Amos, and many others. The method of operation (i.e., working
in terms of the sociocultural structures as they were) was
confirmed rather than discarded.
But the cultural setting in which Jesus and his followers
operated had become different in many ways from those
depicted in the Old Testament. The Jews were a politically
demoralized segment of a large empire and, perhaps because of
this, more than ever before aware of the world outside the
confines of their nation. Furthermore, their failure to continue
to update their religious system had left them religiously
demoralized. Some though (e.g., the Essenes and the Zealots),
were apparently stimulated to experiment with new approaches
to religion or politics (they may not have distinguished
between them as thoroughly as we attempt to).
Meanwhile the gods of the Greeks had all but died for them
as well. Throughout the Old Testament we are largely left
unaware of what God was doing in the rest of the world, except
as it impinged upon Israel (as in the captivities and Jonah's
“long-way-around” trip to Nineveh). This is undoubtedly
because the authors and compilers of Old Testament Scripture
were neither informed about nor interested in the rest of the
world, not because God was inactive there (see Rom. 10:18).
But in the more internationally aware context of the New
Testament we are not only given glimpses of the Greco-Roman
world outside of Israel but see the Jewish Messiah and his
Jewish disciples vitally concerned for it.
The changes in perspective at every point are primarily
cultural, not theological God has always been concerned for
the whole world. And he has always entered into interaction
with those of any group who have responded in faith to him
(Heb. 11:6; Acts 10:35-37). In the Hebrew context, then, there
developed a people of God with whom God interacted in terms
of the successive stages of that culture (model 4a). They
perceived him in terms of their cultural involvement, entered
into a culturally required covenant with him, and established
and maintained themselves as a tribe and then a nation with a
common ancestor (Abraham) and a single God. God confirmed
for them with little or no change large portions of their Semitic
culture (including, apparently, the majority of the law and the
dietary and other cultural regulations) to such an extent that
Hebrew culture (including the law) is completely recognizable
as Semitic in comparison with other Semitic cultures. There
were, however, a great number of changes that occurred in
Hebrew culture (as they do in every culture) over the passage
of time. And many of these (e.g., movement from henotheism to
monotheism, movement from polygamy to monogamy) were, I
believe, specific results of the interaction with God that was
taking place within Hebrew society.
In New Testament times we see this interactional process
continuing in the more culturally heterogeneous setting of the
Greco-Roman world. There is still a people of God interacting
with God in terms of first-century Hebrew culture. We may
assume that the Jerusalem church, for example, still required
circumcision and that its members would not eat pork. But,
unlike in the Old Testament, we are also made aware of God's
interaction with non-Jewish groupings of his people. These
groupings called themselves “the Way” (Acts 19:9, 23) or
“Christian” (Acts 11:26) or simply “the Gathering” or “the
Group” (the contemporary meaning of ekklēsia, which has
been translated “church”) rather than Israel. And they
worshiped and ritualized and organized themselves according
to a variety of culturally appropriate ways rather than simply in
a Hebrew way (though Jewish Christians followed the
contemporary Hebrew synagogue pattern).
But the differences between the forms in terms of which the
New Testament peoples of God interacted with God and those
of the Old Testament Israelites were again primarily cultural
rather than theological. The Old Testament operation of God
was not, as some evolutionary theological positions contend,
merely “a type of the church”—as if God were only practicing
at that time for the real game to be played later! It was a full-
fledged involvement of God with human beings in the same
very serious “game” that is still going on. And they played by
the same rules in that day. God's method of operation
throughout has been to adapt his approach to human
sociocultural reality. The fact that today in Western societies
we organize the people of God into churches rather than into
tribes and nations (like Israel) shows a cultural change rather
than some drastic alteration in God's method of dealing with
humans.
Such cultural changes recorded in the Bible and the large
number of subsequent examples of the “inculturating” of
“people of God-ness” in a variety of societies help us to better
understand God's method of dealing with humans in terms of
human culture. And such understanding leads us to relate the
topics of the previous section to our understanding of what
God intends for the church today. We can see, thus, that (1) the
whole of the casebook (including the Old Testament) is useful
in instructing us concerning God's operation with his people
today, and (2) God desires that today's organizations of his
people function in ways dynamically equivalent to those of the
best scriptural examples.

Dynamic-Equivalence Transculturation of the

Church
 Contemporary churches should bear the same resemblance
to the scriptural models (both Old Testament and New
Testament) of God's interaction with humans in culture that a
faithful dynamic-equivalence translation of the Scriptures bears
to his interaction with humans in language.

Model 11d
The church, too, is to function in a manner equivalent to that
of the early churches, not simply reproduce their forms.

Churches should not appear to be cultural “translationese.”

They should not be filled with cultural forms distorting the true
interactional intent of God, such as the “thees and thous,” the
technical jargon (e.g., justification, sanctification, etc.), and the
overliteral idioms (e.g., “bowels of mercies”) of the King James
Version. A contemporary church, like a contemporary
translation, should impress the uninitiated observer as an
original production in the contemporary culture, not as a
badly fitted import from somewhere else.
Those planting and/or operating churches should work in
accord with the seven basic propositions for Bible translators
outlined in chapter 13. They should (1) recognize, (2) respect
and work in terms of the unique genius of the receptor culture,
knowing that (3) anything (such as the church) expressible in
one culture is expressible in another. However, they should not
hesitate (4) to alter the (Hebrew and Greco-Roman) forms in
terms of which the original churches were expressed, for they
should realize that the content expressed, not the forms in
terms of which that content was originally expressed, is
sacred.
Church leaders should understand (5) that the biblical
cultures were fully human cultures, dignified by the fact that
God worked within them but not sanctified thereby; the Bible
demonstrates God's willingness to work in terms of any culture
rather than his desire to perfect and impose a single culture.
They should further understand (6) that the church is meant to
be intelligible to the world around it; that God expects to be
made intelligible to humanity by means of the church. And
faithful church people are (7) to work toward this end by
consciously attempting to produce church structures within
the receptor sociocultural context that are dynamically
equivalent to those portrayed (though partially) in the pages of
Scripture.
Applying this model to church planting would mean
eschewing attempts to produce mere formal correspondence
between churches in one society and those in another. A
church that is merely a “literal” rendering of the forms of one
church—be it an American church or a first-century Greco-
Roman church—is not according to the dynamic-equivalence
model, for it is not structured in such a way that it can
appropriately perform the functions and convey the meanings
that should characterize a Christian church. It will always
smack of foreignness, of insensitivity to the surrounding
society, of inappropriateness to the real needs of the people
and the real message of God to them. For its forms have not
been exchanged, via transculturation, for those appropriate in
the new setting.
A “formal-correspondence church” usually models itself
slavishly after the foreign church that founded it, whether that
founding church be a Euro-American missionary body working
outside Euro-America or a denominational heritage taken from
one part of Euro-America to another. If that church has bishops
or presbyters or elders, the younger church will have them too.
If that church operates according to a written constitution, the
younger church will as well. If that church conducts business
meetings according to Roberts' Rules of Order, the younger
church will likewise. And so it will be with regard to
educational requirements for leaders, times of worship, style of
worship, type of music, structure of church buildings,
behavioral requirements for good standing (e.g., refraining from
smoking and/or alcoholic beverages), types of educational,
medical, and benevolent activity entered into, even expression
of missionary concern (if any) on the part of the younger
church.
And all of this may be imposed or, in the case of long-
established churches such as those in Europe and America,
continued in utter disregard for the culturally appropriate
functional equivalents and the indigenously understood
meanings of all these things in the society in which the
younger church is supposedly witnessing. The impression
such churches give to the people of their cultural world is one
of foreignness and outside domination, even though the
leadership of these churches may well be “their own people.”
This “indigeneity” of leadership, however, is only in a formal
sense, since these leaders have been carefully indoctrinated
into the foreign system in order to attain the positions that
they have within the system. By no stretch of the imagination
can such a church (whether in Africa or in America) be
appropriately labeled “indigenous,” contextualized, or
dynamically equivalent to biblical models. It may be “self-
supporting, self-governing and self-extending” (see Stock
1899; Tippett 1973, 154-59 for discussions of this three-self
formula) and still be “slavishly foreign” (Smalley 1958a, 52), for
the patterns employed are those of another society or
subsociety from a foreign geographical area or a previous
generation.
Though a contextualized or dynamically equivalent church
will ordinarily be characterized by the kind of self-functioning
embodied in the three-self formula, not every church that
governs, supports, and propagates itself can be properly
labeled “indigenous” or contextualized except in a very
superficial, formal sense. For “although these three ‘self
elements may be present in such a movement, they are
essentially independent variables” (Smalley 1958a, 51-52) rather
than diagnostic criteria of indigeneity/contextualization. The
mere fact of self-government, self-support, and self-
propagation does not ensure that the church in question is
contextualized. The contextualization (if present at all) lies in
the manner in which such selfhood is expressed. That is, a
simple evaluation of the structured cultural forms of
government, propagation, and support is not sufficient. One
has to look also at the ways in which these cultural structures
are operated and the meanings attached to them both by the
church itself and by the surrounding community. As Smalley
observes,
 There is, for example, a church which is advertised by its
founding mission as a great indigenous church, where its
pastors are completely supported by the local church
members, yet the mission behind the scenes pulls the
strings and the church does its bidding like the puppets of
the “independent” iron curtain countries. (Smalley 1958a,
54)

There are many churches where the real power is no longer

directly or indirectly in the hands of foreigners. Indigenous
people are now in charge, maintaining the foreign forms and
imposing them on new generations with little regard for the fact
that the forms they impose convey very different meanings to
the new generations.
The true aim in this as well as in every other aspect of the
propagation of Christianity, however, is not formal
correspondence but dynamic or meaning equivalence, of the
type discussed in chapter 13 for Bible translation. For, as Nida
points out, Christianity is not like Islam which through the
Qur'an, “attempts to fix for all time the behavior of Muslims” by
setting up an absolutely unbending set of forms to be adopted,
never contextualized or even adapted. In contrast, “The
Christian position is not one of static conformance to dead
rules, but of dynamic obedience to a living God” (1954, 52).
A dynamic-equivalence church produces an impact on the
people of the society of which it is a part as nearly equivalent
as possible to that which the scripturally described peoples of
God produced upon the original hearers. In that equivalence
the church will need leadership, organization, education,
worship, buildings, behavioral standards, and means of
expressing Christian love and concern to the people of its own
society who have not yet responded to Christ. But a
dynamically equivalent church will employ culturally
appropriate forms in meeting these needs—familiar, meaningful
forms that it will possess, adapt, and fill with Christian
meanings.
At the beginning of their employment by the church, these
forms may be only minimally adequate to the tasks at hand. But
in the course of their employment by the Holy Spirit with the
church (see Allen 1956), they will begin the process of
transformation so well exemplified in the history of some word
forms that the early church “captured for Christ.” Such a word
was the Greek agapaō, which, according to Quell (1964, 21-35),
was a weak word, often meaning no more than “to be satisfied
with something.” It was, however, transformed by the church
into the distinctively Christian word for “love” (see chapter 18
and Kraft 1973a for more detailed discussions).
What is desired, then, is the kind of church that will take
indigenous forms, capture them for Christ, adapt and employ
them to serve Christian ends by fulfilling indigenous functions,
and convey through them Christian meanings to the
surrounding society. When the term “indigenous or
contextualized church” means this kind of church, well and
good. But such a designation has too readily been assigned on
the basis of mere formal correspondence to the sending church
rather than on the basis of true dynamic equivalence to a
biblical model for the church. And such formal
correspondence, carrying with it the pervasive impression of
foreignness and irrelevance to real life, is disturbingly
counterproductive in terms of the powerful, relevant impact on
human beings that Christianity is intended to have. When,
however,

the indigenous people of a community think of the Lord as

their own, not a foreign Christ; when they do things as
unto the Lord, meeting the cultural needs around them,
worshipping in patterns they understand; when their
congregations function in participation in a body, which is
structurally indigenous; then you have an indigenous
Church. (Tippett 1973, 158)

That is, Christians should feel that their church is an

original work within their own society. A dynamically
equivalent or contextualized church, then, is “a group of
believers who live out their life, including their socialized
Christian activity, in the patterns of the local society, and for
whom any transformation of that society comes out of their felt
needs under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the
Scriptures” (Smalley 1958a, 55).
According to the foregoing conception, a dynamic-
equivalence church would (1) convey to its members truly
Christian meanings, (2) function within its society in such a
way that it plugs into the felt needs of that society and
produces within it an impact for Christ equivalent to that which
the first-century church produced in its society, and (3) be
couched in cultural forms as nearly indigenous as possible.
 This necessitates ascertaining the biblical forms, functions,
and meanings to which the church in the receptor society is
expected to develop dynamic equivalence. For this information
we look primarily to the New Testament (though for many
situations the Old Testament offers more easily transculturated
models). The book of Acts and the Pastoral Epistles provide
many insights into matters of organization, leadership,
fellowship, witness, and worship. Insights into behavioral
matters are likewise found in these books and also in the
Corinthian Epistles. Certain other epistles focus more on
doctrinal matters. To these models contemporary churches,
whether in Euro-America or overseas, are to develop
dynamically equivalent forms within and relevant to their
contemporary cultural matrix. Techniques of exegesis have
been developed to enable us to discover these New Testament
meanings for application in Western life. Our emphasis now
must be on dynamically equivalent exegesis for other societies.
In attempting to discover a dynamically equivalent form of
preaching I once asked a group of Nigerian church leaders
what would be the appropriate way to present a message such
as the Christian one to the village council. They replied:

We would choose the oldest, most respected man in the

group and ask him a question. He would discourse,
perhaps at length, on the topic and then become silent,
whereupon we would ask another question. As the old man
talked, other old men would comment as well. But
eventually he and the others would do less and less of the
talking and we would do more and. more. In this way we
 would develop our message and it would become the topic
for discussion of the whole village.

I asked them why they didn't employ this approach in

church. “Why, we've been taught that monologue is the
Christian way,” they replied. “Can this be why no old men
come to church?” I asked.
“Of course!” they said. “We have alienated them all by not
showing them due respect in public meetings.” Thus it is that a
preaching form that, may be appropriate enough in Euro-
American society—dynamically equivalent in that society to
New Testament models—loses its equivalence when exported
into another cultural context. It becomes counterproductive.
The same occurs with respect to leadership. Because New
Testament churches appointed bishops, elders, and deacons
does not mean that churches today must label their leaders by
these terms or expect them to lead in the same (rather
dictatorial) ways that were appropriate for those leaders in their
society. These were simply some of the types of leadership
appropriate to the various societies and subsocieties of the
areas spoken of in the New Testament.
We see, in fact, not a single, once-for-all leadership pattern
(of forms) set down in the pages of the New Testament. We
see, rather, a series of experiments with cultural
appropriateness ranging from a communal approach (Acts 2:42-
47) to, apparently, leadership by a council of “apostles and
elders” (Acts 15:4, 6, 22), to the more highly structured patterns
in the Pastoral Epistles. In each case, the pattern was
developed in response to the felt needs of the members of the
society and subsociety in which the particular local church
operated. Thus we observe certain organizational differences
between the Jewish Jerusalem church and the Greek churches
with which Timothy and Titus were concerned. Likewise we
observe, in the Acts account of the appointment of deacons
(Acts 6:1-6), the development in a culturally appropriate way of
a new form to meet a need not anticipated at an earlier stage in
the life of the Jerusalem church.

Dynamic/Meaning-Equivalence Church
Leadership: A Case Study
The Pastoral Epistles list in detail attributes felt to be
culturally appropriate to church leaders in the Greco-Roman
part of the first-century church.2 But, as is the case with the
various types of leaders referred to above, the focus is
constantly on appropriateness of function rather than on
standardization of form. The lists of characteristics catalogued
for the original hearers illustrate some of the things implicit to
church leadership in that society at that time. According to the
apostle Paul in 1 Timothy, such a leader should be of
unimpeachable character, which in that culture meant being
“faithful to one wife, sober, temperate, courteous, hospitable,”
etc. (1 Tim. 3:2 NEB). A leader possessing these attributes
would attain and maintain the proper reputation within and
outside the Christian community.
Assuming that in such a list the Scriptures both designate
culturally appropriate forms and point to supraculturally valid
meanings, we may ask how such a list ought to be
transculturated into other societies. We suggest that this
passage designates (and illustrates for that society) at least
irreproachability, self-control, and good will to others as
requirements. In a dynamic-equivalence church the leaders are
therefore to manifest such characteristics as will communicate
these meanings to the people of their society. It will thus be
possible to generate equivalently appropriate listings of the
forms through which these meanings will best be expressed in
today's receptor societies. The forms in such a list will be
functionally equivalent to those in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, but
not necessarily the same in form. For different societies, while
showing a considerable degree of similarity in such matters
(due, I believe, to human commonality), focus on slightly
differing aspects according to their differing value systems.
In contemporary American society, the criteria would
include such scripturally listed items as serious, self-controlled,
courteous, a good teacher (or preacher), not a drunkard, not
quarrelsome, upright, doctrinally sound. Such items as
hospitable, dignified, no lover of money might or might not be
specified in such a list but would probably also be expected by
Americans. Americans would not, however, necessarily be so
insistent that their leaders demonstrate their ability to manage a
home and family well, since they tend to choose younger
leaders than seem to be in focus here. Such a factor would
probably be a consideration with an older person and,
Americans might contend, ought to be in any society if things
are to run smoothly. Nor would Americans say, as it was
necessary to say in the Greco-Roman context, that
irreproachability demands that the person never have more
than one marriage,3 since they allow and even encourage a
person to remarry after the death of a first spouse. Many
American churches, though, would disallow (that is, not regard
as beyond reproach) a pastor, at least, who had remarried after
a divorce.
An American list, then, would include most of the items on
the Greek list, though some of those specifically mentioned by
Paul would probably be left implicit rather than made explicit by
us. Americans, though, would probably want to add a few
things such as administrative ability and perhaps even youth.
Owing to similarities between Greco-Roman and American
societies, the lists will be fairly similar.
If, though, Americans develop an equivalent list for a
radically different society such as many in Africa (e.g.,
Kamwe/Higi of northeastern Nigeria), we will find some
additions to and subtractions from the list. And there will be at
least one major reinterpretation of a criterion, though the
criterion is basically the same. Greed, being the cardinal sin of
Kamweland, would be one of the major prohibited items, and
conformity to culturally expected patterns of politeness one of
the more important prescribed items. Hospitality and its
concomitant, generosity, would he highlighted to a much
greater degree than for either Greco-Roman or American
societies. Soberness, temperance, patience, and the like would
appear on the Kamwe list, and more highly valued than on the
American list. Kamwe would, in addition, focus on age and
membership in the royalty social class. They would,
furthermore, strongly emphasize family management—certainly
much more strongly than would Americans and probably even
more strongly than did Greco-Romans.
Herein would lie the most significant formal difference
between the Kamwe ideal and either of the others. For, in order
for such a leader to function effectively in a way equivalent to
that intended for the first-century leaders, he would not only
have to manage his household well but would have to have at
least two wives in that household! “How,” the Kamwe person
would ask, “can one properly lead if he has not demonstrated
his ability by managing well a household with more than one
wife in it?” The Kru of Liberia, with a similar ideal, state, “You
cannot trust a man with only one wife.”
 Figure 16.1. Leadership lists for Greco-Roman, American, and Kamwe societies.

Fig. 16.2. Analytic procedure for arriving at the forms to be employed by a

dynamically equivalent church.

If, then, we place the lists side by side and arrange each in
approximate order of priority, we can compare the similarities
and differences between the culturally prescribed formal
characteristics deemed requisite for Christian leadership in the
three societies (see fig. 16.1, p. 254).
If we added columns listing the formal characteristics of
ideal leaders in the various cultural varieties portrayed in the
Old Testament it would become even more clear that God
chooses to work in terms of the forms of each culture in order
to attain his purposes. We deduce, therefore, that the principle
of dynamic equivalence in leadership patterns is the ideal
recommended by the Scriptures.
It must be made clear, however, that we are here speaking
only of God's starting point. Once God begins to work within
the people of a society, his interaction with these people
inevitably results in the transformation of at least certain of
their customs. To maintain, as I have above, that a dynamically
equivalent Kamwe church would have polygamous leadership
is not to say either that God's ultimate standard is polygamy or
that this particular criterion for dynamically equivalent
leadership will never be changed. It is, in fact, likely that it will
be changed, just as through God's interaction with the Jews,
polygamy died out in Jewish culture—over the course of a few
thousand years. When, however, a missionary or other leader
steps in and attempts to impose foreign criteria on the Kamwe
church, it produces a kind of formal correspondence to a
foreign model, rather than a dynamic equivalence to New
Testament models. In this way the dynamism so apparent in the
early churches is severely compromised.
And so it is with each of the elements in the life, doctrine,
and worship of churches. The New Testament needs to be
interpreted in its cultural context with respect to the functions
served by the forms employed (as illustrated above). Then the
various characteristics of the receptor church should be
evaluated to ascertain the appropriateness of the forms
employed in conveying meanings and meeting needs in ways
equivalent to the New Testament models. The priority must be
for conveying in the receptor society a content that is
equivalent to that conveyed in the original society. This may
require that the cultural forms in terms of which that content is
expressed differ widely in the receptor culture from those of
either the New Testament or of the culture of the missionary. As
with translation, so with the transculturating of the church—
the extent of the divergence of forms should depend upon the
distance between the cultures in question.
Evaluating the appropriateness of present and future
approaches to churchness may be done by following an
analytic procedure parallel to that described in chapter 13 (fig.
13.6) as necessary to dynamic-equivalence translation (note
the numbering of the steps in fig. 16.2).
On the basis of such an analysis it is possible to arrive at
more ideal bases for what church planters and builders—both
indigenous and expatriate—are really commissioned to be
involved in with God. For integral to sound theology at this
point (and at most points) is sound anthropology. Dynamic
equivalence is the model for churches that we should practice
and teach. Formal-correspondence models of the church result
in the same kind of foreign, stilted product as the Bible
translations produced according to that model.
Having considered the dynamic-equivalence model as
applied to “churchness,” we now turn to an application of the
model to Christian conversion.

1. Kraft 1973b is a previous version of parts of this chapter.

2. The making of such “ ethical lists” to state the required qualifications of
various types of leaders was, apparently, a common practice in Greek society. See
Easton (1948, 197-202) for a useful discussion of this custom and examples of lists
of such leaders as king, general, ruler, and midwife.
 3. See such commentaries as The International Critical Commentary, The
Moffatt Commentary, and others on the interpretation of the “ one wife” verses (1
Tim. 3:1, 12; Tit. 1:6) as referring to “ digamy”—the marriage of a man to another
wife after the death or divorce of his first wife. Also see Kraft 2001.
17

CHRISTIAN CONVERSION AS A DYNAMIC

PROCESS

If churches are to be dynamically equivalent to those of the

Bible they must be made up of members who have become a
part of them in a dynamically equivalent way. But what is this
way? To attempt to answer this question we will seek to
examine the dynamics of Christian conversion from the
perspective being developed here. Our aim is to probe the
implications of dynamic-equivalence conversion (model l1e).
 Inadequate Models

Model l1e
Christian conversion should also be dynamically equivalent
today to its scriptural antecedents. It should not be changed,
as it was by the Pharisees and Judaizers, into mere
conversion from one culture to another.

We will look first at certain inadequate models, then at the

biblical concept, constants in the conversion process, and the
contrast between conversion to Christ and conversion to
another set of cultural forms.
Because of a lack of awareness of God's desire to adapt his
approach to human beings to the cultural matrix in which they
are immersed, positions have been developed that advocate
but a single method of entrance into the community of God.
Such positions are usually defended in terms of the proper time
for baptizing converts. Certain denominations (e.g., Baptist,
Mennonite) hold strongly to the concept of “believers'
baptism.” That is, they contend, no persons are properly
admissible into the community of God until they have
consciously decided for Christ on the basis of their own free
choice. Other denominations (e.g., Roman Catholic, Lutheran,
Reformed), however, contend that children born into Christian
families may validly be initiated into the family of God as
children on the basis of a commitment by their parents to raise
them in the Christian way. This practice is intended to imply
that, at an appropriate point in their lives, those who have
already been baptized on the basis of their parents' confession
and commitment will themselves consciously opt for
Christianity.
Out of recognition of the fact that some initiatory ceremony
is appropriate soon after the birth of a child into a Christian
home, “believers' baptism” churches have developed
dedication ceremonies. Churches practicing infant baptism, on
the other hand, have typically developed for their youth a
program of catechetical instruction designed to lead them to
conscious decision for Christ and his church. At the end of
such instruction the fact that these youth have now made such
a decision is made public by means of a confirmation ceremony.
Thus the advocates of each position have come to recognize
the need on the part of their youth for both kinds of ceremony.
What is being recognized, though unwittingly, is the fact of
cultural difference between “first-generation Christians”—
those converted “out of the world,” having consciously
chosen to align themselves with the people of God—and
“second-generation Christians,” who have been raised in
Christian homes. In the case of the former, conversion may
involve a radical departure from their former lifestyle. In the
case of the latter, however, there may be little or no behavioral
change evident as a result of the conscious decision to
personally affirm one's commitment to the Christian community
in which one has been participating since birth.
And Christians, conditioned by the Western cultural
dictum maintaining that whenever there are competing views
on an issue only one of them can be correct, have argued this
matter hotly. But, as in so many theological debates, the real
issues are not theological but cultural. The cultural situation of
a person who has lived for twenty years or more according to
habits that disregard Christ and then converted is vastly
different from that of a person who, having been brought up in
the church, has never really known any other way of life. The
behavior of the latter is already largely conformed, at least
externally, to what the church regards as Christian standards.
If, as is often the case, those who grow up in the church are
given the impression that conversion to Christ can only mean a
dramatic, Pauline about-face, they are likely to become quite
confused.
Delbert Wiens (1965) has come to grips with just such a
situation in the Mennonite Brethren Church. He describes how
the conversion experience that was, for the “great-
grandfathers” of the mid-twentieth-century generation of
Mennonite Brethren, “a violent struggle to ‘give in’ to God,
followed by a shattering experience and then peace” (1965, 4),
has become for a contemporary six-year-old simply an
affirmation “that he has placed himself in the only way of life
that he has ever really known” (p. 5). Yet (at the time of Wiens's
article (1965), the denomination continued to require that the
youths validate their own experience by recreating something
quite similar to the experience of the great-grandfathers (and
of the apostle Paul).1
The young person, even after consciously affirming
allegiance to Christ (at a very early age), is taught that
conversion is “a radical changing of the way” (p. 6). How, then,
are young people to be assured that they are truly saved if
they have never lived in such a way that their turning to Christ
was a radical departure from that lifestyle? Thus the instruction
that the young people of Mennonite Brethren background (and
of many other conservative Christian backgrounds) receive in
their church concerning conversion “helps to create the
necessity of doubt and the rebellion which leads to that sinful
position from which the young person can meaningfully turn in
a ‘conversion’ that will match the experience of his great-
grandfathers” (1965, 6; emphasis added).
Many, therefore, embark (at least symbolically) upon an
excursion, or “detour,” into the world in order to experience at
least some of those things that the denomination has defined
as the kind of “worldly” things on which Christians are to turn
their backs. These sins are labeled rather specifically in
testimonies by those who, now sure of their salvation, had first
committed them and then turned from them. They include such
things as smoking, drinking, movie-going (though this in the
midsixties was “losing its symbolic power, except for the very
protected” [ibid., 11]), sexual sins, and the like. Some form of
identifying with hippie subculture was for a while a fashionable
detour into the world “from which one can be reformed when
settling back in the safe patterns of a normal Mennonite
Brethren church” (p. 11). Wiens is struck by the “joylessness
of their performance” and notes, “It is almost as if they are
fulfilling a duty, a duty that builds up a heavy charge of guilt
which then is discharged in the ‘rededication’ that follows”
(1965, 11).
The immediate effect of this conversion experience may be
very much like that of the great-grandfathers. But the long-term
results are too often to produce
 a satisfied staid “pillar” of the church who is deeply
suspicious of anyone who wants to change any aspect of
the status quo. Too often such a person seems to make no
further attempt to grow in Christian grace, to grapple with
the Scriptures, to deepen his Christian commitment. He
remains satisfied with certain symbolic gestures which
identify the in-group. He may even tithe. (Weins 1965, 11)

Nevertheless, churches like the Mennonite Brethren at least

require conversion. The extreme to which many of the
denominations have gone that induct their members via infant
baptism is often much worse. They may give the impression
that all those whose names are on the church rolls (via infant
baptism) are automatically Christians, whether or not they
subsequently act upon that membership.
A model of conversion that is equivalent in its dynamics to
the examples set forth for us in our divine casebook, however,
will focus on more than simply the initiation ceremonies (such
as baptism, confirmation, or rededication) or a single act such
as a “conversion experience.” It will, rather, focus, as the
biblical records focus, on the total dynamic relational process
that a living, lifetime relationship with God is intended to be.
Such a relationship involves many “peak experiences”
(Maslow 1964), of which the first may or may not be the most
significant. For many, that first real encounter with God was a
great one. For many others, however, it was so undistinguished
that it has gone unremembered.
It is very important for most people to be clear as to just
where they stand in relation to the group (in this case the
church) that they are seeking to enter. For this reason, as Van
Gennep points out (1908; see Keesing and Keesing 1971, 214-
17 for a summary), most societies provide recognition
ceremonies or “rites of passage” for their members by means of
which societies Inform both the Individual and the group at
large concerning the stage of development in their relationship.
Two kinds of such ceremonies are termed “rites of
incorporation” and “rites of consolidation.” Any viable group
needs both types—the one to induct new members, the other
to regularly reinforce the feeling of group solidarity (as Sunday
worship services reinforce solidarity in churches). And in
general it is good to have more than one incorporation rite and
a considerable number of consolidation rites.
According to this terminology, ceremonies that accompany
such important times in life as birth, puberty, marriage, and
graduation are rites of incorporation for the person(s) entering
a new status, for they signal and symbolize the induction of a
person into the next stage of his or her life. They often also
serve a consolidational function for those who celebrate with
the initiate(s). Such recognitions let the person and the group
know where the person stands at a given stage of life. Child
dedication, infant baptism, confirmation-class graduation, adult
baptism, joining the church—these are all incorporation rites
and play an important part In the Incorporation of a person into
the life of a church. Their importance should not be minimized.
More attention should, however, be given to two aspects of
this matter: (1) the cultural or subcultural appropriateness of
the form employed to symbolize the transition, and (2) the need
for additional incorporation rites (with accompanying
additional statuses) after the transition into church
membership.
The early church chose water baptism as the preferred form
for symbolizing the passage of a person into church
membership. The selection of that particular form was quite
appropriate culturally, both for Jews and for many Greeks,
because water baptism was employed as the initiation
ceremony both for proselytes to Judaism and for entrance into
the Greek mystery religions (Oepke 1964, 529-46, on baptizō).
Males were, of course, circumcised as well if they became Jews.
The meaning to be symbolized is, however, initiation into
the people of God. The choice of form should therefore be
based upon its cultural appropriateness for dynamic
equivalence to the New Testament in signaling that meaning to
those involved. When a traditional form symbolizes something
different from its intended meaning (e.g., oppression by a
foreign religion, as in India, or pressing one into the old
people's mold, as in contemporary America) serious attention
needs to be given to revising the form. Holding to religious
forms that have lost their intended meanings, as the Pharisees
did, is superstition.
R. D. Winter has suggested (informally) that a coffin might
be a more meaningful initiation form than water in
contemporary America. The person being initiated would lie in
the coffin with the lid down and be described as “dead in
trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Then the pastor would lift the
lid of the coffin, free the person, and announce that he or she is
now “raised to new life in Christ” (Eph. 2:4). Many non-
Western societies have indigenous initiatory rites that would in
their cultural contexts more adequately convey scriptural
meanings to them than either water or coffins. Such forms
should be experimented with if contemporary incorporation
into the people of God is to have an impact on today's people
equivalent to that of baptism on New Testament peoples. The
possibility also exists of developing ceremonies according to
traditional patterns to which the historical rite of water baptism
is added. This would allow both dynamic equivalence in
meaning and identification with the worldwide transcultural
community that employs the historical form.
We need to give more attention to the development of
statuses with accompanying incorporation rites beyond
induction into church membership. How frequently the
impression is given that joining the church signals the end of
one's Christian training rather than the beginning! For many
churches there are no more stages beyond church membership
for a person to be incorporated into (except for those few who
go on to become church leaders). A. R. Tippett points out that
those denominations believing in a “second blessing” or a later
“filling” by the Holy Spirit seem to do a better job than other
Christian groups in bringing their members to Christian
maturity. This is because they designate one or more statuses
to be aimed at beyond church membership. There are, then,
further stages of incorporation symbolized by rites of
incorporation beyond the church-joining ceremony.
Some churches effectively (though often subconsciously)
challenge their members to greater maturity by either formally
or informally designating involvement in giving (e.g., tithing),
missions, Sunday school teaching, visitation, a search for
spiritual gifts, and the like as spiritual status-raisers. For other
churches, all such attempts are largely ineffective. Many
church leaders scorn such efforts to induce and mark spiritual
progress toward maturity on the basis of the belief that it is
improper to depend on such “unspiritual” means to bring
about spiritual ends. I believe that such people fail to
understand that God's way is to work with, rather than against,
psychologically and culturally appropriate mechanisms to
bring about spiritual ends.
One basic problem here is that Euro-American churches are
patterned closely after the school system. They fail, however,
by providing neither the examinations and grades that push
people to new statuses in school nor any functionally
equivalent mechanisms. Schools without examinations and
grades would stimulate as little learning and growth as
churches do. Churches peopled by those who have learned in
school to depend on the push toward achievement of exams
and grades should not be surprised when school methods
minus effective status-raisers produce little growth.
Consolidation ceremonies such as the Lord's Supper,
festivals, corporate worship services, retreats, conferences,
and the like, though important to the life of the church, will not
be treated in detail here. Suffice it to say that these too should
be frequent and culturally appropriate. The lack of cultural
appropriateness (even to the in-group) of such rituals as
worship services (both at home and abroad) is a major cause of
the lack of solidarity of many segments of the contemporary
church.
 The Biblical Concept of Conversion
Our attention (as Westerners), when we turn to the Bible, is
most often attracted by such dramatic examples of conversion
as those of Paul (Acts 9), the Philippian jailer (Acts 16), the
Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8), the Samaritan woman (John 4), etc.
But what about the disciples? When were they converted?
And the majority of the major characters of the Old Testament?
There is no doubt that these people were consciously
committed to God. But how did their commitment come about?
Must we postulate for every one of them a dramatic “bolt-out-
of-the-blue” type of experience that somehow escaped the
notice of those who recorded their other experiences? Certainly
not.
Nor can we support a single prescribed pattern for
conversion from an informed study of the words employed in
the Bible to designate the conversion experience. The key
concept signaled by the primary biblical words (Heb. shuv; Gr.
epistrephō) is “turning,” or “returning” (Bertram 1971, 722-29).
In the pages of the Old Testament we see the concept
developed with primary reference to those who were, or
thought they were, once close to God but needed to return and
to reassert their loyalty to the God who had entered into a
covenant relationship with them (see Holladay 1958 for a
detailed discussion). The New Testament builds on this same
concept in its use of the Greek words for “turning.” The central
focus remains that of turning, changing direction, reversing
the direction in which one is headed so that it is toward rather
than away from God (see Barclay 1964). In the Old Testament
prophets and throughout the New Testament this concept of
turning is coupled with the need for repentance (Gr. metanoia)
from the error and willfulness that led the person astray.
It is notable, however, that no single set of specific forms
for such a radical reorientation is prescribed—in spite of the
fact that this turning is to be complete and total. It is to involve
repentance and a turning from the previous direction of life. It
is to lead to a transformation of all life and relationships. For
Israelites such a return to God often involved sackcloth and
ashes, since this was the culturally appropriate form for
showing contrition. To the disciples Jesus simply said, “Follow
me” (meaning, of course, “Commit yourselves to me”). John the
Baptist, on the other hand, employed the well-known initiation
rite for proselytes to Judaism but with a new meaning. For he
was applying it to people who were already Jews. As
throughout Scripture, so with respect to conversion, the
requirement is specified as a function, a dynamic response to
an invitation by God. The form that that response takes is not
determined once and for all by God or by some statement of
Scripture or tradition. It is, rather, to be appropriate as an
expression of that meaning to the culture of those to whom the
appeal is made.
The fact of the matter is that the biblical focus is upon a
relational interaction that may be entered into via a number
of culturally and psychologically appropriate ways. Each of
these relationships is both entered into and continued on the
basis of a human faith-response (allegiance) to the divine
invitation. But only some are the result of a crisis-type about-
face. Much more frequently we may assume from scriptural
silence on the matter that the human participant in the
interaction more or less grew or was trained into relationship
with God. Conscious commitment was there, and not
infrequently we are treated to descriptions of peak experiences
in the individual and/or corporate lives of these people of God.
But neither the start of the commitment nor any spectacular
concomitants of it are very often in focus.
This is especially true throughout the Old Testament,
where most of the record deals with those whose home
conditioning was such that they were (like the Mennonite
Brethren youth) to all outward appearances already
behaviorally more similar to than different from the people of
God with whom they lived. When, however, as in Jonah or in
the New Testament (especially Acts), an appeal for conversion
is made to some person or group (either outside or within
Israel) who have neither grown into nor dramatically converted
to God, the response is more likely to be spectacular, since the
amount of behavioral change required is great. But it is the
distance between where people actually are and where they
should be to demonstrate their new allegiance of their heart
that properly determines the kind of ceremony that should
accompany the reorientation. Dramatic concomitants of a
turning to Christ are not ordinarily to be expected of those
whose behavior already largely conforms to standards labeled
“Christian” by the community they join.
For Paul, who persecuted Christians, the change had to be
dramatic in this one respect at least. Since he was a Pharisee,
we may assume that the major part of the highly commendable
habitual behavior of the Pharisees was retained by him—but
with the kind of change of reference point (see below) that
Jesus proclaimed as necessary if the Pharisees were to get
straightened out. For the disciples, however, the change was
much less spectacular, though no less real.
 Constants in the Conversion Process
Though the cultural and psychological forms related to
conversion are variable, we may point to several important
constants implicit in the biblical descriptions of God's
interactions with his people. These form the grid for our
attempt to understand the biblical concept of conversion.
The first of these constants is a conscious allegiance (faith
commitment) to God. Throughout the Old Testament it is plain
that not all of those biologically descended from Abraham were
the people of God, except in a potential sense. Jesus makes this
fact very clear in his denunciations of the scribes and the
Pharisees. And Paul states it plainly when he says that “not all
the people of Israel are the chosen people of God. Neither are
all Abraham's descendants the children of God.…Instead, the
children born as a result of God's promise are regarded as the
true descendants” (Rom. 9:6-8 TEV).
For it is by faithfulness to God (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17; Heb.
11; etc.) that a relationship with God is established and
maintained. And faithfulness implies conscious allegiance. In
the New Testament, when the gospel is presented primarily to
Gentiles, the need for such conscious faith-allegiance is made
even more explicit (e.g., Acts 16:31, and throughout Acts).
The Scriptures (Old Testament and New Testament) do not
often focus on either the fact or the nature of the initiation of
this allegiance. In dealing with Gentiles there is reference to the
newness and consequent discontinuity of such an allegiance
with their previous religious commitment (e.g., Acts 17:30). For
Jews, though, the focus is more often on the continuity
between the Jewish commitment to God and that advocated by
Christianity (e.g., Luke 24:25-27; Acts 2; etc.). The necessity for
a conscious pledge of allegiance on the part of the members of
each of these groups is emphasized, but whether such a pledge
involved radical discontinuity with the past or simply a
renewed affirmation of one's commitment to the same God on
the basis of new information (concerning Christ) does not seem
important to the authors of Scripture.
Their focus seems, rather, to be on the second of these
constants — the fact of a dynamic interaction between God
and human beings that issues from a person's conscious
allegiance to God. The authors of Scripture usually show
sublime unconcern for the satisfaction of our curiosity over
just how Noah or Abraham or Joseph or David or Peter or John
or Cornelius or Lydia came to their allegiance to God. Did some
of them have spectacular conversion experiences? We aren't
told. What we are informed about is the continuing series of
divine-human interactions that issued from allegiance to God
on the part of the biblical personages.
 Fig. 17.1. Model of the decision-making process.

At this point I want to digress from my main point to

outline a dynamic view of the decision-making process that
human beings employ and God works with in his interaction
with people. A. R. Tippett (1973, 123) has developed a similar
model (from which the following has been developed) but with
a slightly different emphasis. The following model (unlike his)
focuses in on the fact that the process of conversion is made
up of a multitude of (often very small) decisions by human
beings in interaction with God. Each of these decisions may be
conceived of as the result of a process involving points of
stimulus, realization, decision, and “new-habit,” interspersed
with periods of developing awareness, consideration, and
incorporation. This scheme may be diagrammed as in figure
17.1, above.
The process that leads to decision starts with a stimulus.
This stimulus may be a matter of communicated information,
observation, a new thought that seems to spring into one's
mind spontaneously, or any other set of factors. Such a
stimulus may then be pondered by the individual or group,
increasing awareness of its implications, requirements, and
above all the need to make a decision with regard to the
stimulus. This awareness leads to a point of realization of the
potential relevance of such a decision to the person or group.
This realization in turn issues in a process of consideration
(the decision-making process) and a point of encounter or
decision. When the decision is made, then, the process of
incorporating the new orientation into the life of the person or
group begins. This culminates in the development of a new
habit of behavior, attitude, relationship, etc.
Certain decisions are much more important than others, in
the sense that they occasion a greater number of other
changes in the life of the person or group. There is an
enormous difference in this respect between a decision to
change the type of toothpaste one uses and a decision to
change the point of reference around which one orients one's
life from self-interest to Christ. But the process of making each
decision is the same.
Likewise, the emotional concomitants will differ greatly
from decision to decision and from person to person. One
person may without fanfare receive a stimulus to alter hairstyle,
quietly consider it, and unemotionally incorporate the idea into
habitual behavior. Another, however, might react quite
emotionally at every point. With respect to “falling in love,”
though, I suspect that a very high proportion of Americans are
stimulated, come to realization, decision, and habituation in this
matter with a considerably greater degree of emotion involved.
It may be observed that the emotionality of the response is
directly affected by such things as (a) the newness or
unexpectedness of the experience, (b) the psychological
makeup of the person(s), and (c) the release of tension (if any)
that the decision provides from what the person or group
considered to be pressing problems. Thus various points in
many decision-making processes might be “peak experiences”
(see Maslow 1964) for certain persons or groups, particularly if
their society or subsociety (e.g., denomination) encourages a
high level of emotion in this area of life. For others, almost no
“peaking” will occur. For many, though, the presence or
absence of peaking in the decision-making process will depend
to a considerable extent on the degree of release afforded by
the decision from the tension of having to live with an
unresolved problem.
Returning from our diversion to focus on the dynamics of
God's interaction with people in the conversion process, we are
now prepared to incorporate the foregoing understanding of
decision making into our discussion. For, when a person or
group decides for God, God becomes a participant with that
person or group in the operation of this decision-making
process. And even before the decision for Christ is made, we
are led by the Scriptures to understand that God is active in
influencing human beings to decide for him (e.g., Acts 14:17).
What we are dealing with is a process that starts prior to
the specific decision that one might label the point of
conversion and normally continues well after that point. That
process consists of a large number of discrete decisions, many
of which precede the point of conversion and lead up to it.
Many of these decisions, however, follow that point and build
upon it. And one decision may be identifiable as the one that
initiated the turning. We call that the conversion point. Many,
some, or none of these decisions may be accompanied by high
emotion—depending on factors such as those listed above.
Furthermore, the level of awareness of the person or group will
vary with respect to these decisions. Certain of them may
(often because of the emotion involved) remain very vividly in
the memory of participants. Others will be noticed at the time
but quickly forgotten. Still others will not be noticed at all.

Fig. 17.2. Composite diagram labeling God's activity and human activity in the
conversion process.

Meanwhile, God is working with us (Rom. 8:28), performing

the process of “wooing” while our decision making leads us to
greater awareness, regenerating us as we are converting and
sanctifying us while we are maturing. A composite diagram
follows that attempts to label God's activity, human activity,
and the interactional decision-making process (D) described
above. Note that each D in figure 17.2 stands for the whole
process (including stimulus, awareness, realization,
consideration, decision, incorporation, and new habituation).
The third constant in the conversion process—in addition
to the conscious-allegiance and dynamic-interaction constants
— is that of growth or maturation. The decision-making
process described above is not aimless. It has a goal. We are to
“continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). And positively regarded
biblical characters, such as Abraham, Joseph, David, Elijah, the
disciples, and Paul, demonstrate a process of maturing as a
result of their interactions with God. None of these is or
becomes perfect, but the direction in which their decisions
move them is toward that goal. Thus Joseph, after several
years in a dungeon, could see God's hand in the evil actions of
his brothers (Gen. 45); David repented of his great sin (2 Sam.
12:13; Ps. 51); Peter and the other disciples grew from cowards
fleeing at the crucifixion into firebrands for God at and after
Pentecost, etc. But the growing, maturing aspect of the
conversion process is in continuum with the turning aspect of
the process. It is characterized by the same progression of
decisions that run through each of the previous stages of the
process.
A fourth constant is the need for the conversion–
maturation process to take place in community. People are
made for relationships with other people. The direction in
which human beings develop is strongly affected by the type
and quality of interpersonal relationships that they enter into.
The people of God need other people of God to whom to relate
to assure the direction and nature of their growth. This need
constitutes one of the major reasons for the institution of God's
groups that we call churches.
It is in the context of relationship with other people of God
that the initial allegiance is to be fed until it becomes the central
point of reference in terms of which believers make all
decisions and around which they reorient all living. In this
context, one's relationship with God becomes vital, habits of
Christian behavior are developed, spiritual gifts discovered,
and spiritual maturity developed. Pity the Christian who is not
part of a vital, tightly knit, sociologically healthy group of
God's people, for they are one's spiritual family. Without them
one cannot expect much spiritual growth.
The fifth constant (or, perhaps, “desirable element,” since it
often is prevented) is that human beings' part in the conversion
process ought to be in keeping with the sociocultural context
in which they are immersed. The forms taken by their
developing awareness, their maturing in their relationship to
God, and their interrelationships with other people of God are
to be those appropriate to their own society, not to that of
some other group. The following section of this chapter treats
this constant in greater detail.
 Cultural Conversion versus Christian
Conversion
What the Mennonite Brethren “establishment” is described
as expecting of its young people is what I refer to here as
“cultural conversion” or “conversion to a culture or subculture
that is not that natural to the convert.” This expectation is
similar to that of the Pharisees, who sought to convert
everyone to their subculture as a prerequisite to knowing God
(see Matt. 23:4, 15). It is also the sin of the Judaizers who
followed Paul from place to place telling his Gentile converts
that conversion to Hebrew culture (the meaning of
“circumcision”) was pre-or co-requisite with conversion to
Christ. The Roman Catholic Church (in, e.g., the time of the
Reformation), the Anglican Church (at, e.g., the time when
Wesley broke from it), and virtually every other denomination
has fallen into this same error in due time. It is the error of
imposing upon one group of people the forms of Christianity
appropriate to another group (the one in power) but not to that
of the group in question. Missionary bodies have frequently
erred in this way, requiring the members of other societies to
convert to Christ by first converting to Euro-American culture.
Each of these groups is advocating an indirect conversion
to Christ, the primary focus of which is the exchange of the
convert's religious/cultural structures (insofar as possible) for
those of the witness. This can and frequently does happen
with respect to the “vertical” progression of generations within
a single society, as in the case of the Mennonite Brethren.
Diagramatically we may represent this situation as in figure
17.3.

Fig. 17.3. Intergenerational cultural conversion.

Note that youth are not free to understand or respond to

God directly in terms of their own subcultural structures. They
are expected to convert (at least symbolically) to a previous
form of their culture—that which their great-grandparents were
comfortable in. That subcultural approach to following Christ
had become the norm since the great-grandparents were the
ones who developed the denominational distinctives.
When, as with the Judaizers and much modern missionary
work, it is prescribed that people respond to Christ via religious
(cultural) forms totally different from their own, a kind of
“horizontal” conversion takes place—from one culture/religion
to another. This differs only in degree, not in kind, from the
“vertical” conversion from youth subculture to a variety of
adult subculture (that of the great-grandparents) prescribed for
Mennonite Brethren youth. This requirement of a “horizontal”
indirect response to God may be diagrammed as follows:

Fig. 17.4. “ Horizontal” cultural conversion required in response to God.

This approach to conversion requires that the person from

culture B respond to God in terms of cultural forms appropriate
to culture A. In order to do so, of course, one must learn a
good bit of culture A. When those of culture A present the
gospel with this in mind, they are employing the extractionist
approach, described in chapter 8. Conversion in response to
such an approach may result in a genuine relationship with
God on the part of converts. Or they may simply convert to the
culture of the witness without developing a saving
relationship with God. The tragedy of this latter result cannot
be overestimated. Many have perceived Christianity to be
simply advocating a new set of cultural forms (religion) instead
of a new faith-allegiance that can be expressed in any set of
cultural forms. The result is widespread nominalism (following
the forms) with little real understanding of essential
Christianity (the faith) on the part of young churches.
The early churches struggled with this problem (see Kraft
1963). Peter, for example, was a Jewish Christian. Though he
was a Christian, the message had come to him in the cultural
forms of first-century Jewish culture, and he had responded to
it in a Jewish fashion. He thus continued to live according to
Jewish cultural patterns (Acts 10:15), though at times making
certain adaptations (Gal. 2:11-14). In Acts 10, however, God
approached Peter in a typically Jewish way (through a vision)
and asked him to carry the message that he had received and
responded to in Jewish culture to Cornelius, a Roman.
Peter could have assumed (and probably did) that only
Jewish culture was a suitable vehicle for God's communication
and only a Jewish type of response acceptable to God. It would
have been very natural for him to feel that way. Nevertheless
he, like Jonah, agreed to take God's message to an outsider—
probably expecting either that nothing would happen or that if
Cornelius responded to God it would be via conversion to
Jewish culture.
Through the vision and the subsequent response of
Cornelius and his household, however, God communicated to
Peter that at least one group of “unclean” Roman persons was
acceptable to God. Peter testifies to his newfound discovery,
saying, “I now realize that it is true that God treats all men on
the same basis. Whoever fears him and does what is right is
acceptable to him, no matter what [culture] he belongs to”
(Acts 10:34-35 TEV).
Because of Peter's experience and the much wider
experience of Paul, the early church leaders were forced to call
a gathering of the apostles and elders (Acts 15) to make a
decision with regard to Gentile converts and Jewish culture.
The Judaizing Christians were insistent that Jewish cultural
forms were the only proper forms for human response to God.
To them there was no coming to Christ without being
circumcised and converting to Jewish culture. But in the
council in Acts 15 these early church leaders were able to work
it out so that it became official policy not to require Gentiles to
become Jews as the means of becoming Christians. Thereafter,
Gentiles were at least theoretically free to respond on the basis
of their faith expressed in Gentile, rather than Jewish, cultural
forms.
As mentioned above, church history provides many
illustrations of reversion to a demand for “cultural conversion.”
To many contemporary denominational and nondenominational
groups it is obligatory that one be converted to a particular
philosophy, theology, or worldview if one is to be considered
Christian by them. Faith alone is not enough for them. It has
to be faith as understood by and expressed in terms of their
particular subculture. Such groups tend to identify their
understanding of and approach to God with “that of the first
century,” as if the early churches were unified and
contemporary social diversity were irrelevant.
Unfortunately, many persons possessing such inadequate
views concerning the relationship of cultural forms to Christian
faith find their way into pastoral and missionary work. They
then advocate conversion to a Christianity that, like that of the
Judaizers, focuses strongly on purely cultural issues, as if
these were the essence of our faith. The big thing is to get
those who convert to conform to the moral ideals of their
variety of Western culture on the assumption that this is nearly
synonymous with “Christian culture.” One major focus of
certain Christian publications in Africa is even aimed at
converting Africans to Western dating and courtship patterns!
The organizational and worship patterns (Including music) of
the home denomination are also pressed. And on and on,
including theological formulations, antipolygamy and anti-
common-law-marriage rules, etc.
In the matter of conversion, our extreme Western cultural
Individualism has led many missionaries and pastors to
advocate only conversions that occur “one by one against the
social tide” (McGavran 1970, 299). And this in disregard often
of (1) the fact that the receiving society allows no decisions of
such magnitude to be made except as the result of intensive
group discussions culminating in a “multi-individual”
agreement to convert as a group (see Tippett 1970, 31-33), and
(2) the fact that such group conversions, now known as
“people movements” (McGavran 1955) are recorded rather
frequently in Scripture (e.g., Jonah; Acts 2:41; 4:4; 10:44; 16:31-
34).
Conversion, however, and all its concomitants such as
organization and government, moral standards and worship
patterns, if they are to be dynamically equivalent to their
counterparts in the Scriptures, must be as much a part of the
receiving culture as the Jewish sacrificial system was a part of
ancient Hebrew culture and Paul's theologizing was a part of
Hellenistic Hebrew culture. We continue to advocate formal
correspondence to forms of Christianity appropriate to other
cultures or subcultures (see chapter 13) at the expense of
serious distortion to the vital here-and-now, right-where-the-
hearer-is nature of the gospel. Conversion, like Bible
translation and every other aspect of God's contemporary
interaction with humans, is to be dynamically equivalent to its
biblical precedents.
The basic question is whether or not the advocates of
Christianity recommend that a person or group be free to
understand and respond to the Christian message in a manner
appropriate to their own sociocultural context. Are they to be
“allowed” to interact with God directly, as it were? Or must they
come to and grow in Christ via conversion to the cultural forms
of the culture or subculture of those from whom the message
came to them? Is the proper response to Christ and the process
of conversion that accompanies it via Pattern I or Pattern II in
figure 17.5?
If converts respond according to Pattern I, their
conversional and maturational interaction with God will be in
terms of the culture of the witness. They have been “extracted”
from their own culture and taught that understandings of
Christianity as formulated in terms of the foreign culture are to
be their points of reference as they seek to “grow in grace” (1
Pet. 3:18). The quality of their whole subsequent relationship to
God will be influenced in major ways by their ability to learn
fully the foreign culture.
 Fig. 17.5. Two patterns of conversion to Christianity.

If converts respond to and learn to interact with God in

terms of their own culture, however (Pattern II conversion), the
normal problems of growing in Christ will not be complicated
by the necessity to also learn another culture. The process of
conversion after their faith-allegiance decision will be of a
radically different nature. The transformation of their life (and
that of the group of Christians of which they are a part) will be
more freely from within, in accord with the principles dealt with
in the next two chapters. This kind of freedom to interact
directly with God may (ideally) be encouraged by the witness
from whom the converts have heard the message. Or it may
result from the converts' breaking away from the cultural forms
recommended by the witness at some point after they have
learned to respond to God in terms of them.
 Conclusion
We may usefully summarize five principles concerning the
dynamic relationship of Christian conversion to the culture in
which it occurs:2

1. Christian conversion is not tied to a single culture any

more than the gospel itself is. Conversion can and
should take place within and in terms appropriate to the
culture of the receptors. God's offer of salvation and the
“wooing of the Holy Spirit” are constants. So is the
need for a right relationship with God and neighbor on
the part of human beings. The divine-human
interactions (if any) that take place in response to these
constants occur within the cultural frame of reference of
the human participants.

2. When people are converted, they begin to change their

worldview. They go through a paradigm shift (Kuhn
1970, 202, 204). Within their culture,

“Conversion” means a “turning” away from old

ways toward new ways, a basic reorientation in
premises and goals, a wholehearted acceptance of a
new set of values affecting the “convert” as well as
his social group, day in and day out, twenty-four
hours of the day and in practically every sphere of
 activity—economic, social, and religious. (Luzbetak
1963, 6)

This changing of worldview, while radical, often takes a

long time. The accompanying revision of habitual
behavior that results from such worldview change is
likely to be an especially slow process.

3. The change accompanying Christian conversion is a

three-step process. The first step is a change of
allegiance from the old primary allegiance to an
allegiance commitment to the true God. This change of
allegiance issues in a new principle of
evaluation/interpretation. Seeing things in this new
way, then, results in changes in behavior. This process
results in the receptors changing (“transforming”) their
culture. The process may be interfered with if the
converts simply change their culture in the direction of
that of the witness, rather than under the direct
guidance of the Holy Spirit within their culture. (See
chapter 18 for a detailed discussion of these steps.)

4. Christian conversion should be in accord with the

decision-making patterns of the converts' society. The
advocates of Christianity need to become familiar with
those patterns and to work in terms of them rather than
 to impose the patterns of their own society or
denomination as if those alone were Christian.

5. Openness to Christian conversion on the part of the

receptors is usually conditioned by the receptors'
ability to relate the gospel message to their felt needs.
As Loewen points out,

the willingness to change religion will often depend

on how well the present religion meets the daily
needs. Because religion is so thoroughly integrated
into the total fabric of life, there will be motivation
for change only when a system frustrates an
individual or a whole society at some rather crucial
point. (1967, 53)

A perceptive advocate will be able to discover these felt

needs and to present the gospel in relation to them. An
effective witness may also be able to help receptors
discover needs of which they were previously unaware.

1. I understand that there has been a good deal of improvement in this

situation among Mennonite Brethren since the early 1960s. Many other
denominations are, however, experiencing a similar situation, often without
understanding why.
2. I am indebted to Thomas Frillman (1977) for stimulating much of this
summarization.
18
TRANSFORMING CULTURE WITH GOD

In much of the preceding discussion our attention has been

focused on the fact that God desires to start where people are
in his interaction with them. At various points, however,
mention has been made of two additional important facts: (1)
culture is always in the process of being changed, and (2) God
desires to participate with human beings in guiding culture
change.
In alluding to these aspects of our subject I here introduce
the concept of “Christian transformational change” (model 13)
and elaborate on some of the aspects of the concept. The
places of reevaluation/reinterpretation and rehabituation in the
transformation process are developed. We deal next with the
centrality of conceptual (worldview) transformation in the
process, proceed to the principle of “working with” culture to
bring about transformation, then present a case study dealing
with conceptual transformation as exemplified in linguistic
change. In chapter 19, then, we develop certain principles for
bringing about Christian transformational change in cultures.

Transformational Culture Change

 Model 13
Christian transformational changes are cultural changes
from the inside out. Such changes start with worldview
change initiated by those inside a society. They work like
yeast (Matt. 13:33) to transform the culture from within in
such a way that first the meanings and then at least some of
the structures of that culture (the forms) are altered to serve
God's purposes better.

A change or series of changes in a culture may be labeled

“transformational” if it/they involve a radical (though usually
slow) revision of the meanings conveyed via the cultural
form(s) involved. This label refers to the nature and intensity of
change rather than to any distinctly different kind of change.
Many such changes take place quite naturally within culture.
Several such transformations are illustrated below. But when
the process of cultural transformation is engaged in by the
people of God in partnership with God there is an aim, a
direction to the change that is different from that of a
transformational change motivated by some other set of
factors. This aim is to increase the suitability of the cultural
structures to serve as vehicles for divine-human interaction.
The Dutch missiologist J. H. Bavinck uses the Latin word
possessio to label this concept, stating in explanation of his
choice of the term that “the Christian life does not
accommodate or adapt itself to heathen forms of life, but it
takes the latter in possession and thereby makes them new.
Whoever is in Christ is a new creature” (1960, 178-79). I agree
with Bavinck that Christians are to capture or take possession
of cultural forms and to employ them with new meanings. But,
since this process is to take place as people within the society
first change their usage of the forms, I prefer to focus on what
seems to be the inside process of transformation rather than
what could be interpreted as an outside process of capturing.
The result, however, is the taking captivity (possessing) of the
cultural forms for Christ to transform first their usage and then,
if necessary, their form. Christians, like yeast (Matt. 13:33), are
to work at this process with God from within a society. We are
to use the forms (i.e., the dough) already there in such a way
that they are gradually transformed (though occasionally
replaced) into more adequate vehicles of the meanings that
God seeks to convey through them. This is “possession” of
cultural forms, but it is from the inside rather than from the
outside. Though it may never be complete possession (or
transformation), the impact may be considerable.
This is the kind of change that eventually did away with
polygamy in Jewish society, so that by New Testament times
the custom was disapproved and very seldom practiced in
Jewish culture. Over a period of several centuries, the Jewish
people had developed culturally appropriate alternative forms
to fulfill the functions decreasingly served by polygamy. A new
way of looking after the rights and needs of widows was one
tiling that had to be developed (see Acts 6:1 and Jas. 1:27 for
New Testament Jewish concern over this matter). A system of
hiring rather than marrying additional members of a family's
labor force was another necessary innovation. An alternative
way of handling barrenness (quite frequently, unfortunately,
involving divorce) involved the revision of another set of
cultural factors, and so forth.
 The transformational process is not easy. Habits of long
standing are not ordinarily replaced rapidly or without some
trauma. In general, though, the slower the transformation takes
place, the fewer and less drastic the changes that have to be
made over any given period of time. And the fewer and less
drastic any given set of changes, the less traumatic the
transformational process.1
Doing away with the practice of slavery in Western society
is another example. We are near enough to this change to
appreciate a bit more both the extent to which the custom was
interwoven into the fabric of the lives of at least certain
segments of Western society and how extremely difficult it is to
work out all the changes that have to be made. The fact that in
the United States the slower transformational process was
interfered with by the impatience of the nonslaveholding
segments of the population in imposing their will on the
slaveholding segments through war has made many aspects of
the process considerably more traumatic. The pressure exerted
by that interference undoubtedly speeded the process
somewhat, but it also increased the trauma.
The necessity for the former slaveholders to develop new
habits with respect to getting the work on their plantations
done is the most obvious of a long series of required changes.
The former slaves themselves, however, have undoubtedly
suffered most from the fact that the transformation was
speeded up, for they found themselves suddenly cast out into
a society from which they had always been protected. They
often had learned very little of what they needed to know to
function successfully as free persons in that society; so, many
failed. Whites, further, even those who had pressed for
emancipation, had not prepared themselves to regard African-
Americans as people rather than as “slave things.” Thus the
rapidity of the change caught both groups by surprise, as it
were, and the problems of sorting out the results will,
unfortunately, probably take generations yet.
Had the changes taken place more slowly—
transformationally rather than by a revolution—things might
have been better. It is doubtful that the totality of the trauma
experienced by all involved could, in a slower process, have
come anywhere near equaling what we have gone and are
going through the way it is. For even yet large numbers of
African-Americans have not found it possible to develop the
habits, attitudes, and skills that will enable them to function
well in contemporary American society. Nor have whites in
general learned to accept African-Americans as equal human
beings (“us” rather than “them”). For the conceptual cores of
both African-American and white worldviews have been only
slightly altered. We have succeeded in the easy part—we have
changed some peripheral customs. But, probably because of
the rapidity of the peripheral changes, many of us have “holed
up” in our traditional worldview (including the strong feelings
of what the “place” of African-Americans and whites should
be) rather than seeking to change it in such a way that, it
supports the changes in the more peripheral areas of our
culture.
True transformational change, as opposed to more
superficial external alteration, is (as pointed out earlier) a matter
of change in the central conceptualizations (worldview) of a
culture. It is this worldview of a society or subsociety that
governs the way the members of that society/subsociety
perceive reality. It also governs the “output” or response of its
people to that reality. When change occurs in the worldview,
its effects ripple throughout the rest of the cultural structuring.
Changes in any of the other aspects of the culture also
produce ripples. But such ripples result in pervasive change in
the total culture only to the extent that change is effected in the
worldview. From there, people generate change throughout the
culture.
With respect to attempts to bring about change at the
worldview level (such as the emancipation of African-
Americans), a basic problem of the transformational approach
is how to keep the pressure on for change while at the same
time assuring that such change will be minimally traumatic.
Many who claim to advocate slow change in areas such as race
relations are in reality not pressing for change at all. They are
simply ignoring the need for transformation. I do not side with
them. A useful discussion of a number of aspects of this
problem from a somewhat different point of view is found in
Verkuyl and Nordholt 1974.
My aim is to discover (1) how desired change can be
brought about constructively rather than destructively at the
worldview level and (2) how to press for such change in
Christian rather than un-christian ways. Such problems have
faced God and his people through the ages. There is, therefore,
a considerable amount of insight to be gained from the
Scriptures on these matters. Furthermore, this volume is itself
an attempt to assist in the effecting of what I believe to be
desirable worldview change in a minimally traumatic way. The
discovery of how to do it well is also crucial to the purpose of
this book.
We started by suggesting the need of and possibility for
conceptual transformation, or “paradigm shifting,” and have
sought to press for such change throughout the volume. This
process is paralleled by the processes of Christian witness and
conversion that have formed the subject matter of the book. In
both transformational processes the same steps need to be
followed: (1) a change of allegiance that issues in (2) a
concomitant. change in the evaluational principles within the
person's/group's worldview and (3) a resultant series of new
habits of behavior.
First, the basic change upon which transformational
processes are built is the change in allegiance (model 13a).

Model 13a
The use of this transformation process by Christianity is seen
as initiated by a change from whatever previous allegiances
were in vogue to allegiance to God.
With respect to Christian conversion, this change is from
allegiance to such things as self, tribe, or occupational or
material allegiances to faith-allegiance (commitment) to God
through Christ. With respect to lesser changes, such as that
encouraged by this volume, the change of allegiance is from,
one paradigm or set of assumptions and models to another.
Second, this basic change produces a major change in the
worldview principles in terms of which one evaluates as many
of the aspects of life as the new allegiance is applied to (model
13b).

Model 13b
Evaluations and interpretations of each aspect of life are
made in terms of the claims of the new allegiance.

Changes in allegiance are of different magnitudes. A

change from allegiance to self to allegiance to God is intended
to result in transformation in every area of life. Unfortunately,
whenever this change is reduced to a mere change of the
surface-culture thing we call “religion,” the extent of the
transformation is usually severely reduced. Change of
allegiance from one religious system to another often devolves
into the kind of cultural conversion dealt with in the previous
chapter. Other paradigm shifts and model changes are usually
also less pervasive than Christian conversion. Often surface-
level experiences, such as a change of career, a new friendship,
marriage, or a change of perspective, involve only partial
change in evaluational principles. The change of perspective
advocated throughout this volume, for example, is intended to
be an adjunct to, rather than in competition with, one's basic
allegiance to God. Exposure to the models presented here is
intended, however, to affect in a major way certain of the
evaluational mechanisms of the reader's worldview.
A short-circuiting of the evaluational process is a frequent
occurrence whenever an allegiance that is intended to be
pervasive is applied only to selected aspects of life. Such is the
case when people evaluate what they do in church on Sunday
according to their commitment to God but refrain from applying
such evaluation to their business practices throughout the
week. Understandings that focus on Christianity as surface-
level religious forms rather than as worldview-generated values
and commitments often give rise to the short-circuiting of
Christian transformation in this way.
Third, the intended result of a new allegiance followed by
reinterpretation and reevaluation on the basis of that allegiance
is revision of behavior (model 13c).

Model 13c
The reevaluation and reinterpretation lead to rehabituation
—changes in habitual behavior issuing from the new
allegiance and the consequent reevaluational process.
Psychological and sociocultural health demand a high
degree of consistency between belief and behavior. A new
allegiance, if it is to produce health rather than illness, should
result in “rehabituation” (see below) as well as in
reinterpretation and reevaluation. As stated in the previous
chapter, the overt manifestations of such new behavior may be
greater (as in the case of those converted to Christ from
radically un-Christian lifestyles) or lesser (as in the case of
those brought up in the Christian way). But even in the latter
case, the new habit of relating one's behavior to a new
Christian commitment is a significant, though less visible, type
of rehabituation.
 Reevaluation/Reinterpretation (Model 13b)
and Rehabituation (Model 13c) in the
Transformation Process
Apart from the mandate to convert persons, the task of
Christianity vis-à-vis any given culture or subculture is
primarily the transformation of the conceptual system
(worldview) of that culture. Such transformation is
accomplished by bringing Christian understandings of
supracultural truth to bear on the worldview of the culture. As
has been pointed out continually in previous sections of this
book, these understandings of the supracultural will always be
clothed in the perceptions and conceptualizations of a cultural
worldview. Thus we may learn much about effecting Christian
transformation from a study of how societies in contact
influence each other's worldviews.
I do not contend that the Scriptures present us with a
culturally unencumbered Christian worldview to which
people are to be converted in total replacement of their own
cultural worldview (see McGavran 1974, 8-9). The view here
presented is that we may study many aspects of the process
and results of conceptual transformation as seen in the
scripturally recorded working of God with his people within a
variety of Hebrew and Greco-Roman cultures. There are in the
scriptural presentations supracultural values and principles
(Kingdom Principles) that have been introduced into the
cultural worldviews of the biblical cultures. These are, then,
cultural worldviews with Kingdom Principles included.
 We are, therefore, not to convert conceptually to a
scriptural worldview that is supposedly a “Christian”
worldview. We are, rather, to attempt to transform our
contemporary conceptual framework in the direction of the
insights we discover into supracultural truth from our exposure
to case studies such as those recorded in the Bible. An
important part of this transformation is our own
reinterpretation and rehabituation to a new (more Christian)
perspective on reality. That is, the place to start is with
ourselves as individuals and in groups of committed Christians
(churches).
Paul says in Romans 12:2 that we are not to conform to the
standards of this world (including its interpretations of events),
but, rather, we should allow God to transform us inwardly—
deep down in our minds and hearts. We are to learn in our
experience with God to reevaluate and reinterpret all events
from his perspective and to make this our habit of life.
Reevaluation and reinterpretation thus become the first step
toward transformation (whether for an individual or for a
group), and rehabituation the second.
The Scriptures are full of references to such reevaluation,
reinterpretation, and rehabituation. Jesus both predicted and
admonished us to such when he said, “And what happiness
will be yours when people blame you and ill-treat you and say
all kinds of slanderous things against, you for my sake! Be glad
then, yes, be tremendously glad—for your reward in Heaven is
magnificent. They persecuted the prophets before your time in
exactly the same way” (Matt. 5:11 JBP).
Joseph reevaluated and reinterpreted a whole major portion
of his life during and after the events that culminated in his
great statement, to his brothers: “You meant to do me harm;
but. God meant to bring good out of it by preserving the lives
of many people” (Gen. 50:20 NEB). Paul reinterpreted the
handicap that he calls a “thorn” (2 Cor. 12:7-10). In writing to
Philemon, Paul reinterpreted the relationship between a
slavemaster and a believing slave. Symbols such as baptism
and the Lord's Supper were reinterpretations of previously
existent rituals as, later, were the Christmas tree and the dates
of Christmas and Easter. Death is reinterpreted by Christianity
to such an extent that Paul (and thousands of others down
through the centuries) could regard death as “gain” (Phil. 1:21).
Job reinterpreted his sufferings in spite of all the advice of his
friends.
My good friend Len Pennel reinterpreted the fact that he
was forced to lie on his back day in and day out, unable to walk
or to work. For he had learned, like Paul, “to be content,
whatever the circumstances may be” (Phil. 4:11 JBP). And the
fact that to Len even his incapacitation was to be interpreted as
usable by God not only transformed his own use of his
circumstances but had a powerful influence on the spiritual
development of many of us younger people who regularly
visited him.
A Christian interpretation of life leaves us with no doubt
that even in trivial events “God works for good with those who
love him” (Rom. 8:28 TEV). We are compelled to see God at
work in every one of the thousands of “normal” situations in
which we are involved daily. I came to see this graphically on
one occasion when the brakes failed in my automobile. My
Christian evaluational perspective enabled me to see that even
car brakes and my operation of them are not merely governed
blindly by cause and effect. The Maker and Sustainer of the
universe participates with me in my use of both the brakes and
the laws of cause and effect that come into play when I step on
the brakes.
This, of course, is one of the Christian rationales for prayer.
God is there, he participates with us, he delights in hearing
from us, and he even allows us to change his mind on occasion
(see 2 Kgs. 20:1-6; Luke 11:5-8). And we Christians are to
interpret all of life in terms of our recognition of this fact and
then to develop habits of thought and behavior appropriate to
this reinterpretation. One of my acquaintances has so
habitualized this understanding of God's involvement in all of
life that his reflex action when he sees or hears of a problem is
to immediately pray to God about it. This habit is, in fact, so
much a part of him that he has difficulty maintaining an
appropriate degree of detachment from the events depicted in
television or movie drama. Often he finds himself so wrapped
up in such TV presentations that when someone in the drama
is depicted as getting into difficulty, his instinctive reaction is
to begin to pray for that person! The humor of that particular
expression of the habit notwithstanding, such a habit (applied
in real-life situations) is, I believe, a proper expression of a
Christ-transformed worldview.
But the standard Angloamerican worldview denies the
participation of God in day-to-day events. Many of the
subcultural varieties of Angloamerican worldview, in fact, deny
the very existence of God. These attitudes toward God,
therefore, are prime candidates within this worldview for
Christian transformation. Indeed, the atheistic extreme, like the
allegiance-to-another-god extreme, is one of the very few
conceptual elements of this or any society that Christianity
requires to be transformed as a precondition to faith, rather
than simply as a fruit of that faith. Such alternative allegiances
demand confrontation and replacement, “For anyone who
comes to God must believe that he exists” (Heb. 11:6 NEB).

Factors Affecting Conceptual Transformation

Any attempt to bring about Christian transformational
change in a society (whether one's own or that of another)
must constantly take cognizance of two facts. The first of these
is that Christian transformation of a culture is primarily a
matter of transformational change in the worldview of that
culture. It is to the heart of a society, just as it is to the heart of
an individual, that God's appeal is made. With a tree, it is clear
that anything affecting its roots will affect the branches that
derive their sustenance from those roots. The centrality to
culture of worldview and its functions with its concomitant
conservatism raises one set of problems with regard to any
attempt to transform it.
A second fact, however, raises even more problems. This is
the fact that any disequilibrium at the center of a culture
ramifies strongly throughout the culture. If, therefore, some
major aspect of a people's worldview conies under attack from
without or suspicion from within the society, the effects of
such calling into question will manifest themselves in many
areas of the people's thought and behavior. For many American
Indian tribes such disequilibrium was brought about when they
came into conflict with white invaders. Previously many of
these tribes had conceived of themselves as “the people.”
They, like the Jews, saw themselves to be a superior people,
blessed and protected by God in their own territory. Their
conquest and subsequent utter domination by whites,
however, forced them to abandon this important understanding
of their relationship to reality, leading them into demoralization
and psychocultural disaster. White Americans, of course, have
a similar belief concerning our own superiority, invincibility,
and divine support. And much contemporary psychocultural
malaise within American society is rooted in the fact that we
Americans are being forced to take more and more seriously a
variety of indications that we have been misled with respect to
this part of our perspective on reality.
Cultural disequilibrium is frequently the result, even if it is
the influence of Christianity that is leading people to question
some of their basic conceptualizations. We have discussed one
example above (i.e., slavery in America). John Messenger
(1959; 1960) documents a particularly disturbing instance when
he describes the disequilibrium occasioned by the calling into
question and partial displacement of the Anang (Nigeria)
conception of God's attitude toward sin and forgiveness. The
indigenous concept of God's response to sin is vastly different
from the Christian concept as it has come to be understood by
the Anang. But the indigenous view has been largely
discredited, at least among the youth.
 Whereas abassi [God] is conceived in the indigenous
religion as one who is largely unforgiving and will punish
all misdemeanors, the Christian God is regarded as a
forgiving deity…. Belief in a divine moral code and the
ability of abassi to punish any deviations from its strictures
are the most potent social control devices in Anang
society. The acceptance by youth of the concept of a
forgiving deity has greatly reduced the efficacy of
supernatural sanctions and has actually fostered
immorality. Lacking well-developed internal controls and
freed from important external restraints, the Christian can
deviate from prescribed ways of behaving with impunity.
(Messenger 1959, 102)

Had the Anang been presented (at least initially) with a

more Old Testament understanding of God's attitude toward sin
(requiring less drastic reinterpretation), the transformation of
the Anang conceptualization might have been less traumatic
and disintegrative. For an Old Testament understanding is
clearly culturally closer to the Anang than the Euro-
Americanized understanding of the New Testament. It is,
furthermore, scripturally endorsed as a place where God is
willing to start.
Given the radical difference between a Christian
perspective and that of societies uninfluenced by Christianity,
is it possible to keep them from “cultural explosion”? For some,
perhaps not. Perhaps Satan has so taken control of the minds
and hearts of some peoples that rather sudden and total
disruption of their worldviews is the only workable approach to
leading them to Christ. But for most it is my conviction that
such is not the case. In these it is the gospel as yeast rather
than as dynamite that God desires.

Working within the Cultural Context to Bring

About Transformation

Model 13d
Transformational change results from working within in
order to change. We need to learn to employ cultural
mechanisms for change, not to destroy the culture and those
processes along with it.
Bringing about Christian transformational change is a
particular way of using the cultural patterns and interpersonal
dynamics available to us. We have spoken about using culture
and the reference points that may be looked to when culture
change is consciously encouraged. Christian transformational
culture change seeks to be guided by a supracultural point of
reference as understood through the Bible and to involve the
Holy Spirit in bringing about the reinterpretations and
consequent transformations.
In order to bring about such change (if one is inside the
sociocultural context) or to stimulate it (if one is an outsider),2
persons are more likely to be effective if they first arc aware of
the cultural patterns and processes of the sociocultural context
in which they work. Then they must learn to work with or in
terms of these patterns and processes to bring about the
changes they seek. It frequently happens, of course, that
Christian transformation is brought about by those who
employ cultural patterns and processes of which they are
unaware. Certainly, few of the great transformations of history
have involved the kind of analytical understanding of
sociocultural patterns and processes that is available to us. It
would be going much too far to suggest that a lack of this kind
of analytical knowledge always meant that those who sought
to transform were naive concerning their cultural structures. On
the contrary, Calvin in developing a representative type of
church government, Wilberforce in his efforts to abolish
slavery, the early Christians in deliberately transforming the
meanings of countless Greco-Roman linguistic and cultural
forms, and many others were aware that they were employing
available social patterns for Christian ends.
Indeed, they succeeded largely because they chose to
work to a great extent with the sociocultural processes in order
to ultimately work against them. Wilberforce and his co-
laborers made their point because they appealed to the already
partially awakened sensibilities of their compatriots. The
process of reinterpretation of the meaning of slavery was
already well underway. Likewise with Calvin, who worked in a
country “where there already existed the beginnings of a
representative democratic system” (Winter 1962). The
transformations they sought were extensions of processes that
were to some extent already underway rather than the initiation
of completely new processes. Thus they were working with the
society as well as speeding up and at least partially redirecting
the process of culture change. It is unlikely that these changes
would have taken place as rapidly or with such widespread
impact throughout the society had it not been for the
Christianity-inspired efforts of such men.
At least with respect to the slavery issue there was already
a groundswell of public opinion in England on which
Wilberforce and the other leaders of the antislavery movement
could capitalize. That is, these advocates of change were
speaking to a widely felt need within the society. A large
problem arose in England and even more in America, however,
over the fact that those who most strongly felt the need for
change were not those who were involved in slaveholding.
Thus in America's individualistic, pluralistic society the
change, once made, involved the imposition of a change
advocated by one segment of the society upon another
segment, of the society. And most of those most vitally
affected neither felt the need for the change nor were prepared
to make the major adjustments in lifestyle, occupation,
acquisition of assistance in labor, etc. that such a change
entailed. Nevertheless, speaking in terms of the society as a
whole (rather than in terms of the subsocietal varieties within
the country), the antislavery forces were promoting a change
that spoke to a widely felt need.
The development, and spread of representative democracy
in the Germanic countries after the Reformation was likewise
due in large part to the widespread existence of a felt need
among at least certain of the Germanic subsocieties of Europe.
An important part of the felt need was the conviction that
whatever political system was practiced in or supported by
Rome was to be rejected. But even such negative feelings
produce important felt needs.
When desired changes can be attached to felt needs,
therefore, the advocacy of these changes is facilitated
considerably. Usually the advocates can devote their attention
primarily to winning others to their point of view
(reinterpretations) concerning the issue(s) and to stimulating
them into action in changing the present situation. There are,
however, frequent situations where we are seriously hindered
in our attempts to bring about transformational change by the
existence of one or more of the following conditions:

1. The problem may be completely unrecognized by those

affected by it.
2. The problem may be more or less recognized but felt to
be “natural” (i.e., biological) rather than learned (i.e.,
cultural). Since it is “natural,” it is felt that nothing can
be done about it.
3. The problem and the possibility of doing something
about it may both be recognized, but there is not
sufficient agreement among those who have the
influence to advocate change effectively as to what to
do to create enough social pressure to effect change.

At points where any of these factors are at work it is

important that Christians learn to employ the analytic
techniques, including the reinterpretations, of the behavioral
sciences as tools to discover both the existence of social
problems and possible approaches to their solution. This is
equally true whether the problems be those of our own society
or those that outsiders (perhaps missionaries) think they can
see in other societies. Analyses and proposed solutions must
focus on recognitions such as (1) the centrality of worldview,
(2) the necessity that, cultural equilibrium be maintained
(especially as it pertains to the worldview) if the changes are to
be properly constructive rather than destructive, (3) the
superiority of slow transformational (yeast-like) change to
revolutionary (dynamite-like) change, (4) the place of allegiance
and paradigm shifts issuing in reinterpretation and
rehabituation within the culture in transformational change,
and (5) the desirability of an informed, use of all these
processes to achieve Christian ends.

A Case Study of Conceptual Transformation

Sociocultural contact typically stimulates changes in
culture and language that issue in expansion, redefinition, and
replacement of the conceptual categories of the culture.3 These
are expressed in its language. If the contact is at all prolonged
or intense, such changes may be extensive, particularly if the
receptor society regards the source people as prestigious.
English, for example, had prolonged contact with French in a
context where French was regarded as more prestigious than
English. This prolonged contact, accompanied by its
concomitant definition of the prestige factor and the
predisposition of English-speaking people to borrow readily
from languages that they regard as prestigious, resulted in the
large-scale borrowing into English of French concepts,
vocabulary, and even certain grammatical features.
Such, processes of expansion and replacement through
borrowing of concepts and the vocabulary that labels them are
fairly well understood. What is not always so well understood,
but is ultimately of greater importance in the interaction of God
with people in culture, is the process of cultural and linguistic
transformation. This occurs when, through innovation, words
and concepts already present in the society are redefined or
otherwise expanded in scope to accommodate the “new wine”
of the innovative influences. Typically, the forms of the
concepts and their word-labels remain virtually the same, but
the meanings people attach to them and the uses to which they
are put change to a greater or lesser extent in accordance with
the requirements of the new concepts and situations
introduced into the culture. The words and concepts undergo,
as it were, the kind of reevaluation, reinterpretation, and
rehabituation process to accord with a new allegiance that is
described above for personal transformation. This process, like
that of borrowing, is a normal feature of sociocultural change
and adaptation. Thus we find the meanings of words being
changed, sometimes radically, both in denotation and in
connotation, as the cultural reality that they express is
changed.
In English, for example, we can point to such words as
“manufacture” (originally meaning “make by hand”) that has
been “transformed” via the Industrial Revolution and the
introduction of mass production. When the society's allegiance
to handwork was greater, this word expressed a key feature of
that commitment. As the cultural focus changed from
handwork to mass production, this central word was
“transformed” into a symbol implying large-scale, at least semi-
automated, assembly-line production of consumer goods.
The word “turnpike” originally signified a turnstile-like
device employed to obstruct an enemy in a narrow passage.
When the society changed so that such a device was more
prominent at the entrance to a toll road than as a means of
defense in war, the word became transformed to signify that
entrance gate (whether or not the gate looked like a turnstile).
And then, when the toll roads themselves gained greater focus
than the entrance gates, the word underwent further
transformations (based on changing sociocultural practices) to
enable it to be employed (1) to designate toll roads with gates,
(2) to apply to many toll roads that had no gates, until now (3)
even roads that no longer require toll may be called turnpikes.
A concept such as “education” has been changed from
referring to child rearing to signifying formal schooling.
“Intercourse” has been specialized from intimate social or
business dealings to sexual relations. “Money,” though once
referring only to metal coinage, now designates paper forms of
exchange and even credit cards. “Cool” used to have purely
physical connotations but now has come into widespread use
to denote calmness under stress and even mere positive
affirmation or agreement. And many, many other concepts in
English-speaking areas can be pointed to as having undergone
processes of greater or lesser conceptual transformation in
response to the pressures of particular changes in our society.
Some of the most striking examples of linguistic
transformation have come from the introduction of the
allegiance to Christianity into a society. The Greek word
agapaō (and its derivatives), for example, was transformed
from a word whose “etymology is uncertain, and its meaning
weak and variable,” a word that lacked “the power or magic of
eraō” and “the warmth of philein” and often meant no more
than “to be satisfied with something” (Stauffer 1964, 36) into
the distinctively Christian word for love. This concept was to
Paul “the only vital force which has a future in this aeon of
death” (ibid., 51) and to John “the principle of the world of
Christ which is being built up in the cosmic crisis of the
present” (ibid., 52).
Likewise, the translators of the Septuagint chose to
transform the word kyrios into the Greek equivalent of the
Hebrew Yahweh, rather than to employ despotēs, a term “which
was also possible and perhaps more natural in terms of current
usage” (Foerster 1965, 1082). Apparently kyrios was not widely
employed with reference to God, or even to the Greek gods. It
meant “lord” merely with reference to one human being who
held legal rights over another. And even when, presumably
under the influence of the Septuagint, the process of
transformation was underway, “it was in common use only in
certain places where it corresponded to native, non-Greek
usage” (ibid., 1051). In these areas, however (especially in
Egypt), the word came to be “particularly used in expression of
a personal relationship of man to the deity, whether in prayer,
thanksgiving or vow, and as a correlate of doulos (=slave)
inasmuch as the man concerned describes as kyrios the god
under whose orders he stands” (ibid., 1052). Thus the way was
paved for the use of the term with reference to God the Father
and to Christ with the implication of “the personal, legitimate
and all-embracing sovereignty of God” (ibid., 1088) clearly
stamped upon it.
Thus, likewise, was ekklēsia transformed from meaning
simply “the lawful assembly of a Greek city-state, comprised of
those with full citizenship rights” (Tippett 1958, 12) customarily
“summoned and called together by the herald” (Schmidt 1965,
513), into the distinctive designation for the church of Christ in
its local sense (1 Cor. 1:2), in regard to the universal church (1
Cor. 10:32), and, later, in reference to “one of the household
Churches (1 Cor. 16:19) that were springing up throughout the
Greco-Roman world” (Tippett 1958, 14). The same type of
transformation took place for term after term, concept after
concept in Greek as a result of the birth and development of
Christianity and the commitment of considerable numbers of
Greek-speaking people to it.
But Greek is far from the only language within which this
kind of semantic and conceptual transformation has been
stimulated by Christianity. The introduction of Christianity into
society after society in our own day (not infrequently
combined with massive westernization) has resulted in
strikingly similar linguistic adaptation in hundreds of the
languages of the world. Wherever, for example, a Christian
preacher or Bible translator has chosen to employ indigenous
rather than borrowed terms for God, for forgiveness, for love,
for faith, or for any of the distinctive concepts of Christianity,
the process of Christianity-stimulated conceptual
transformation has begun.
Thus, at least for Christians of the Kaka and Bulu tribes of
southern Cameroun, the indigenous term chosen to translate
the word “God” is undergoing radical transformation. The term
Ndjambie referred indigenously to an impersonal, mythical
cosmic spider. It is, however, being invested with meaning-
transforming denotations and connotations because of its
adoption by the Christian church as the designation of the
Christian God (see Reyburn 1957). This term was chosen,
according to Reyburn, because “there is no better native
term…and a foreign word would be lacking entirely in the few
equivalences which do exist” (ibid., 192).
Some translators, in an attempt to avoid syncretism, have
(according to Nida) employed a borrowed term for “God” on
the assumption “that the native people will automatically come
to understand by the borrowed word…exactly what we
understand by the same term” (1947, 205). This approach is not
usually successful, however, since “in almost every case the
native will immediately try to equate this new name of God with
one of the gods of his own religious system” (ibid.). The result
is usually some sort of understanding like that of the Aztecs,
who equate Dios with the sun, the Virgin Mary with the moon,
and consider Jesus the offspring of the two. “Before the
translator realizes it, instead of being able to fill an empty word
with the proper meaning, he has a name which has already
been given a content from the pagan religion” (ibid.).
Much better is the approach that employs indigenous
terms, even though they, like “the Greek word theos, the Latin
deus, and the Gothic guth, could hardly be termed exact
equivalents to the concept of God as taught in the Bible” (Nida
1947, 206). These were, however, generic terms rather than
names of particular, specific gods, such as Zeus, Jupiter, or
Woden, each of which was associated with “a great deal of
legend as to the individual peculiarities, excesses, and immoral
actions of the particular gods” (ibid., 206). The generic terms
that “designated any important supernatural entity” were taken
by the Christians and “by context and teaching made [to] apply
to only one such entity” (ibid., 206). Nida recommends that this
“transformational” approach be employed in similar situations
in today's languages.
Tippett documents the results of nearly a century and a half
of such conceptual transformation in Fijian (1958, 27-55) and, in
concluding his presentation, he points to the similarity
between the processes of ethnolinguistic transformation in Fiji
and those we can trace in New Testament Greek. He refers to
these processes as “a continuity of the forces and factors that
operated in the Apostolic Church” (ibid., 57) and suggests that
“we have here a method of God's work with man. So much there
is to glorify Him, which lies dormant in life, awaiting discovery,
awaiting the right mind to discover it and give it to mankind.
Nothing brings home this truth better than the study of biblical
and ecclesiastical ethnolinguistics…” (ibid., 56-57).
Tippett goes on to suggest that in these modern
continuations of the book of Acts (i.e., in the “young”
churches) we observe and participate in something exciting
and different from the experience in our “home” churches.

1. This is the faith position of anthropological orthodoxy. It has, however,

been questioned by Margaret Mead (1956), who hypothesizes that the rapid, rather
total cultural transformation that took place within a single generation among the
Manus islanders was a more humane type of change than a more gradual process
would have been.
2. See Barnett 1953 for a discussion of the fact that only those within a society
can innovate within that culture. Outsiders, in order to influence change in a
culture, must communicate the need for change to at least one influential insider so
effectively that that person convinces others and the change is brought about by
those inside the sociocultural context.
3. See Kraft 1973a for a previous treatment of some of this material.
19

PRINCIPLES FOR TRANSFORMING

CULTURE WITH GOD

In chapter 4, as a part of our discussion of culture change

(model 3f), we introduced the concept developed by Barnett
(1953) that makes a distinction between the cultural insiders
who may “innovate” or make changes within their own culture
and those who advocate changes that must be implemented by
others. Advocates of change may be cultural insiders or
cultural outsiders. Cultural outsiders, though they may
advocate change, may never themselves make the changes
they advocate in another society. Only insiders may make such
changes.
At this point it is appropriate to apply the advocate-
innovator concept to Christian transformational change of
culture. We will call this application model 13e.
 Principles for the Outside Advocate

Model 13e
The place of advocates and innovators is crucial to the
transformation process.
There are important things that can be done by cultural
outsiders (out-culture advocates) but these must not be
confused with what may be done by cultural insiders. The
latter may function only as innovators (or implementers) and
in-culture advocates of change. We will first discuss principles
for the outside advocate, then deal with factors influencing the
advocacy of change and the place of movements in cultural
transformation. To illustrate and amplify the place of cultural
insiders in the process of cultural transformation, then, we
present a case study on what to do about the “generation
gap.”
According to this model the outsider can never be an
innovator or implementer, only an advocate of change.
Christians are, however, commissioned by God to be witnesses
to (advocates) and persuaders of people concerning Christian
transformation at both the individual and the group level. We
are commissioned to advocate the allegiance to Christ that
issues in Christian reinterpretation and transformation in the
lives and cultures of which we are aware (including but not
limited to our own society).
The cross-cultural communication of the need for
allegiance to Christ, the response to that message, and the
consequent reinterpretations that lead to transformational
change are dealt with throughout this volume. I will not repeat
that material here but simply summarize briefly several of the
important factors that every advocate of cross-cultural change
ought to keep in mind. Each factor is implicit at one or more
points in the preceding chapters.
First, it is of paramount importance that advocates of
change seek to understand the cultural element that they
suspect ought to be changed from the point of view of the
people. One need not approve of the custom or attitude, but
Christian concern dictates that one respect the point of view of
the other society. For those within that society were taught the
integrated lifeway of which that element is a part in the same
way that we were taught our lifeway. And they accepted it as
the correct way of life just as uncritically as we accepted our
own customs.
Cultural practices should be interpreted in their proper
cultural contexts, however, not as a denial of scripturally
revealed supracultural ethical standards, but as the first step
toward advocating change in that direction. In chapter 12 I
have attempted to outline the steps to be taken on the basis of
this understanding.
Even such a custom as infanticide must be approached in
this way. The worldview of one tribal group of northern Nigeria
dictated that each young girl prove her fertility before marriage
by bearing one or more children. Since a child will not be
defined as a human being in that tribe unless he or she is a part
of a family, children born to such young, unmarried girls were
regularly exposed to die, without (apparently) feelings of guilt
on the part of the adults. From their point of view this act
seems to no more be considered murder than contraception is
in the eyes of most Americans. For, from their perspective,
these children were not yet persons. Their biological birth
simply functioned to prove the girl's marriageability. Having
served that function, the biological entities (babies) were
disposed of, lest they become socially alive. Since the society
had no structures to look after children born out of wedlock,
permitting such children to live would have been very
disruptive for the society.
Most Americans are horrified at the very thought of such a
custom. Our culturally inculcated worldview (which we often
consider to be Christian) leads us to believe that life—defined
by our society as biological life—is sacred. We are also taught
our society's belief that life starts at least at birth, if not at
conception. We therefore find it well-nigh incomprehensible
that there might be any other defensible understanding of what
life is and when it begins. To these people, however, life is
defined sociologically with less reference to biological events
such as birth and death than characterizes our society. That is,
life to them is life in proper relationship to society, which
involves being part of a properly constituted family and kin
group. Furthermore, even as part of such properly constituted
groupings, a child's (sociological) life does not begin until, by
attaining a certain age, it proves that it has “come to stay.” If,
then, the group decides that the potential entering of that child
into life cannot take place properly, it is necessary for the
group to dispose of such a potential threat to its well-being.
Understanding such a custom, though, is not approval of
it. But such understanding should enable the advocate of
change to better assess the extent to which that society would
be upset if such a custom were to be legislated or pressured
out of existence. Such disruption, if done in the name of
Christianity, would assuredly result in serious
miscommunication of vital parts of the Christian message.
Understanding the important place of that custom in the
culture should considerably modify and improve the outsider's
approach to advocating change in it.1
Second, advocates seeking effective transformational
change should try to encourage a minimum number of critical
changes in the worldview, rather than a larger number of
peripheral changes. Peripheral changes, such as forcing a
society to allow all its babies to live or enforcing monogamy in
formerly polygamous societies, are more likely to prove
hindrances than helps to true Christian transformation—
because of the way the changes are brought about, not
because the changes themselves are undesirable. For they tend
to “ripple” misleading information into the worldview (see fig.
19.1).
The typical approach toward polygamy, for example,
provides the people with little or no assistance with the basic
problems of readjustment of their worldview. Often, therefore,
strange things happen to their concept of God. God may
traditionally have been conceived of as endorsing the society's
leaders and such values as the society's responsibility to
provide marriage (i.e., social security) for every woman. When
change of a custom such as polygamy is, however, forced on a
people, disruptive messages concerning God ripple inward to
the worldview—messages such as: he has turned against
traditional leaders (because they have more than one wife) and
against traditional customs in general.

Fig. 19.1. The rippling effect of the interpretations of forced changes on the
worldview of a culture.

Furthermore, they get the impression that God favors

familial irresponsibility on the part of the men (since they are
expected to cast out their “extra” wives and children). He no
longer wants the women to be socially secure (in the
knowledge that the society will provide marriage, home, and
fulfillment for each of them) or to be able to get assistance with
their work around the home (traditionally provided via
polygamy). Nor does God want men any longer to strive to
attain prestige (traditionally associated with investment of
surplus wealth in larger families involving more than one wife)
but, rather, wishes them to be dominated by their wives (who in
an enforced monogamous marriage can taunt and disobey their
husbands with impunity, since they know that their husbands
are not free to resort to traditional disciplinary measures such
as marrying another, beating, or divorce).
The God who once was conceived of as supporting them is
now seen either as having unreasonably turned against them in
favor of the white people and their customs or as having been
defeated and displaced by another God—the God of the
whites. In either case, this single peripheral change in the
family structure results in such a high degree of confusion and
disequilibrium in the conceptual core (worldview) of the culture
that there is little chance for the gospel message concerning
salvation through a faith relationship with Christ to be heard
clearly. If that message is heard it may not be attractive to them
(since this God appears to be so unreasonable).
The typical result is that thousands of potentially
responsive members of traditionally polygamous societies
disqualify themselves from becoming Christians, conceive of
Christianity as available only to whites and those who convert
to Euro-American culture, and equate Christianization with
schooling, since only through schools can one learn all the
Euro-American conceptualizations concerning God and his
rules for Christians.
A more Christian (biblical) approach to the whole polygamy
problem would have been to appeal directly to the people at
the worldview level for more essential changes first, as God did
in the Old Testament. Outside advocates of Christianity should
first study and analyze the key matter of allegiance in the
society in order to discover what the cultural conceptualization
of God and his relationship to humans is, and then put their
energies into advocating reevaluation and reinterpretation on
the basis of Christian principles at that point. Paul tackles the
problem at just this point in his address to the Athenian
philosophers on Mars Hill (Acts 17:22ff.). If, as happens in
many of the societies of Africa, God is seen as far away and
basically unconcerned with humans, though positive toward
them, the transformation of that conceptualization alone would
be a fruitful starting point. Indeed, where great turnings to
Christ have occurred, it is usually because the people have
transformed their conceptualization at just: this point in the
direction of a Christian understanding of God and his
relationships with human beings.
If God comes to be seen (and experienced) as near,
concerned and active in his relationships with people, ripples
from understandings such as the following move out from the
worldview to the periphery of the culture: (1) God is basically
supportive of our way of life; (2) the power of God is to be
utilized to enable us to live up to our own ideals first and then
to transcend them if necessary; (3) God favors social stability
in the family and throughout the society; (4) God wants things
done “decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40); (5) God seeks to
help us with problems that we recognize as problems rather
than to turn our eyes to matters concerning our way of life that
are bothersome to others; (6) if we commit ourselves in faith
allegiance to God, he wants us to reevaluate and reinterpret
every aspect of our life in terms of our commitment to him and
to revise our cultural behavior accordingly.
Fig. 19.2. Change in worldview results in the rippling of change out into the
periphery of culture.

By first transforming such a core concept as the people's

understanding of and commitment to God, such peripheral
matters as polygamy and infanticide will be dealt with in due
time, and with a minimum of trauma, under the leading of God—
mediated, frequently, through the helpful counsel of aware and
understanding outsiders. Meanwhile, though, the people of
God will follow him according to their own intelligible customs.
In polygamous societies, the people of God may not only
include but be led by Christian polygamists (just as in the Old
Testament) until such a time as changing the custom becomes
a Spirit-led priority item of God's people (the inside
implementers). Without the interference of the static caused by
outside pressure to change such a peripheral custom, then, the
message of God will be heard as good news concerning
salvation rather than as bad news concerning polygamy (Nida
1954, 131).
A third important factor in advocating change relates to
those to whom the appeal is initially made. We must assume
that God is interested in seeing whole groupings of people turn
to him rather than simply a minimum number of relatively easily
reachable fringe people. Through study of the society, then,
outside advocates need to discover who the opinion leaders
are in the society. These are not necessarily those who appear
to the outsider to be in political or religious power in a society.
The latter are often largely preservers of the status quo and/or
implementers of decisions made at other levels. Preservers and
supporters of the status quo often lose their followings if they
change their views. An opinion leader, on the other hand, is
one whose opinions are sought and followed, whether or not
the person is in an official position of leadership and whether
or not the person suggests change in the status quo. An
outside advocate needs to discover who these people are and
to appeal to them to alter their views and to influence the rest
of the society to alter its views.
Advocates of Christianity have tended to ignore, to steer
clear of, or to give up on such opinion leaders. But if such
persons are not won over as friends, they will inevitably
become enemies and lead the resistance against Christianity.
We would do well, therefore, to approach them directly. It is of
great importance that they be won over, both for the sake of
the initial communication of Christianity and for the sake of the
leadership they will provide in the often massive
reinterpretation process issuing on such conceptual change.
Fourth, closely related to the previous factor is the
recognition that transformational change is accomplished more
efficiently and effectively if advocated by groups than if
advocated simply by individuals. “Social change of any
magnitude at all cannot be made by individuals” (Gerlach and
Hine 1970, xxii). This is why movements are of such great
importance in cultural transformation. Undoubtedly this
recognition lies behind the fact that God seeks to establish in
every society one or more communities (churches) called by
his name.
In 1955 McGavran began to bring to our attention the fact
that history is full of “people movements” to Christ. From the
great turnings recorded in Acts 2:41 and 4:4 to a number of
significant turnings in India, Africa, New Guinea, and
elsewhere in our day, this kind of “multi-individual” Christward
movement has been mightily used by God to expand his
kingdom. When people come in groups, the process of cultural
transformation is typically both facilitated and speeded up. For,
on the one hand, there are more people working at it and, on
the other, there is greater cross-fertilization of ideas, producing
greater stimulus to change. Appeals for both conversion and
cultural transformation should, for maximum effectiveness, be
directed primarily to socially homogeneous groupings of
people and to leaders who will influence such groups (see
below on the place of movements in cultural transformation).
Fifth, the final factor to be dealt with here is the time factor.
If transformation is to be effective it needs to take place both at
the level of thought and at the level of behavior. And
developing the habitual behavior (rehabituation) appropriate to
new conceptualizations ordinarily takes a considerable amount
of time. All too frequently, those of us accustomed to the
relatively rapid rate of change occurring in many sectors of
Western societies tend to underestimate the time required for
most peoples to habituate transformational changes
adequately. Our tendency is to want them to move much more
rapidly than is consonant with the depth of the changes
required. Consequently, a second and a third and a fourth
major change is often recommended before the first one has
been fully assimilated. Under such pressure for rapid change
the kind of cultural disequilibrium discussed above is a
foregone conclusion. People need time to reformulate their
lives (see Loewen 1968b, 198-99). Loewen (1968a; 1968b; 1969)
provides an excellent treatment of this whole area.
It is better to encourage change in such a way that (1) only
a bare minimum of basic changes in worldview are
recommended, (2) the appeal for such changes is made to
opinion leaders who, when convinced, will influence large
numbers of their compatriots, (3) attention is devoted, on the
one hand, to providing the Scriptures in their language and, on
the other, to providing instruction in how to use the Scriptures
in direct dependence on the Holy Spirit as their point of
reference for Christian transformational change.

Factors Influencing the Advocacy of Change

 The worldview of the receptor pervasively influences any
attempt to advocate change. This is true whether the advocate
is regarded as an outsider or an insider, for it is the worldview
of a society, subsociety, or individual that will specify which, if
any, areas are closed to change (transformation) and which are
open. And for those areas specified as open, the worldview
determines just how open and on what conditions.
We may usefully summarize a representative number of
these factors in the figure 19.3. The stance taken by the people
under the influence of their worldview concerning each of
these factors and to groupings of them greatly influences the
attitudes and behavior of one social group with respect to
ideas that come to it from the members of another group. A
discussion of the factors follows.
 Fig. 19.3. Factors influencing acceptance or rejection of worldview change.

If the basic premises on which the worldview of the

receptors is based are similar to those of the advocate, the
potential for acceptance, or at least of understanding, is
increased (1). Understanding and acceptance are not, of
course, the same thing. But, other things being equal, an
increase in the ability of the receptors to understand will
increase the possibility that they will be favorably disposed
toward the idea. If, for example, one's worldview regards the
addition of fertilizer to the soil as impermissible, tampering with
an area of life that lies wholly within the province of God, it is
unlikely that a simple recommendation that fertilizer be used
will be either understood or accepted. If, however, both the
recommender's worldview and that of the potential receptor
accept the premise that such tampering is legitimate, the
arguments of the recommender are likely to be understood and
regarded as convincing.
If, even in spite of similar worldviews, such a
recommendation were to come to the members of a social group
whose attitude toward their own culture was so positive that
they believed they had no need of suggestions from outside,
the likelihood is that even good ideas would be rejected (2).
Such was the case when attempts were first made to innovate
Western (Christian) schools into Hausa (Muslim) society. The
Hausas, who believed in and operated qur'anic schools, saw no
need for what they regarded as inferior Western schools
promulgating an inferior Western value system. At the time of
independence (1960), however, they found themselves
competing at a disadvantage with their more thoroughly
westernized compatriots of other tribes because their cultural
pride led them to reject, while certain other tribes, manifesting
perhaps a less positive attitude toward their own educational
techniques, accepted educational innovation.
Likewise, the attitude of a group toward the source of a
would-be innovation affects the likelihood of acceptance (3). If
a group despises the source, the likelihood of acceptance of
ideas from that source is diminished—no matter how
persuasively such ideas may be communicated.
Because of their worldviews, certain groups are more open
to cross-culturally communicated ideas than others (4).
Western societies in general have manifested a remarkable
openness to such innovation. We believe in and expect to find
good ideas coming to us from societies and subsocieties other
than our own—especially if we respect the source. Many
societies have, however, traditionally taken the opposite
posture and have been virtually closed to innovations
advocated by outsiders.
In sociocultural dynamics, change tends to beget change.
A society that is changing its culture rapidly tends to believe in
change, and therefore to readily accept recommendations for
further change, even if the recommenders are outsiders (5). If,
further, there is a tradition of borrowing in the society, the
potential for acceptance is increased (6). If, however, the
tradition is one of rejection, the potential for acceptance is
decreased.
In our day when the intensive impact of westernization is
producing widespread cultural disruption, the effect is
frequently greater or lesser demoralization on the part of the
receptor people (7). Such demoralization constitutes a serious
morale problem resulting frequently in both the questioning of
the self-sufficiency of the ideological underpinnings of the
society and a predisposition to experiment with innovative
approaches to a restructuring of the ideology (8). People
cannot live without values, and when the old values are called
into question a people will bend every effort to discover new
values and to integrate them into a new, more satisfying
worldview.
A. L. Kroeber documents such a happening among the
Kota of the Nilgiri plateau in South India (Kroeber 1948, 503-8),
while Anthony Wallace points to such occurrences in literally
thousands of societies throughout the course of history
(Wallace 1956; see also Ramseyer 1970). In each case cultural
breakdown issuing in psychological demoralization and doubt
of the sufficiency of the traditional answers to the problems of
life has issued in a conscious attempt on the part of certain
members of the society to reformulate or accept from an
outside source a more satisfying worldview around which to
reconstruct their cultural structures. The roots of most of the
world's religious movements—from Christianity to nativistic
religious, political, and economic movements—are usually to
be found in such revitalization of societies that were in some
advanced state of self-doubt and demoralization. Societies in
such a condition are peculiarly susceptible to the
communication of Christian faith.
Before this stage of cultural demoralization is reached,
however, there may be an almost opposite attitude toward
ideological change. If a group feels threatened rather than
secure in the face of intensive outside influences toward
change, it may be less, rather than more, receptive to the
advocacy of change (9). Such is the case with many Latin
American Indian tribal groupings who, because of their lack of
sociopsychological security, are prone to react to even very
worthy suggestions by rejecting them without serious
consideration.
Such societies tend to develop a highly resistant rather
than an adaptive attitude toward new ideas (10). American
fundamentalists (and other closed conservatives) have been
characterized by a similar approach to issues such as
evolution, biblical criticism, and cultural relativity. Rather than
considering the possibility of revising their worldview to
incorporate any truth in the new ideas, fundamentalists have
characteristically built their walls higher and thicker to keep
themselves and their children insulated from concepts they
define as “anti-Christian.” The result is frequently the opposite
of their hopes. For, one way or another, many children of
fundamentalists become exposed to such ideas and end up
adopting them all uncritically in more or less total reaction
against their fundamentalist ideology. A more adaptive
worldview will characteristically examine even initially
threatening concepts and accept at least those parts of the new
concepts that can be easily integrated into their value system.
With regard to persons who advocate a given idea, much
depends on the prestige assigned to them by the potential
receptor group (11). On the basis of its worldview, a group will
expect worthy ideas from certain types of persons and not from
others. If a society believes the privilege of innovation belongs
only to those of royal lineage, it may well require that even an
outsider demonstrate royal connections before the new ideas
will be taken seriously. Or, if a group expects to accept
innovative ideas only from those who have demonstrated their
abilities from within their cultural context, it is unlikely that a
person who has not acquired such credentials will be taken
seriously. For this reason certain rural northern Nigerian
societies were initially very resistant to agricultural innovations
even from prestigious Euro-Americans, since they had never
observed these “agricultural experts” to have actually grown a
superior crop (or any crop) of guinea corn.
The relationship of the proposed idea to an area of felt
need in the society is clearly an important factor in its potential
acceptance (12). All worldviews have within them areas of
inconsistency and/or inadequacy that are to a greater or lesser
degree a part of the consciousness of the society. Wise
Christian advocates seek to discover the questions concerning
reality that the people of the society regard as beyond their
ability to answer. They then attempt to communicate in such a
way that the hearers perceive a relationship between that
communication and questions they feel to be left unanswered
or poorly answered by their present perspectives.
Similarly, an idea is more likely to gain acceptance if it is
congruent with the receptor society's present frame of
reference than if it is discontinuous with it (13). If the new can
be built upon or grafted into the old rather than being
introduced as unconnected or even in competition with it, the
likelihood of acceptance is increased. In recognition of this
fact, perceptive doctors working among peoples who believe
that disease is always caused by personal spirits have learned
to discuss germs as if they were personal rather than
impersonal forces. Likewise, with respect to the acceptance or
rejection of a “world religion” such as Christianity or Islam.
The crucial issue is not the dedication of the advocate but
whether or not the recommended changes in worldview can be
fitted into the receptors' conceptual framework without
completely remaking it.
These factors are not mutually exclusive. They frequently
overlap or occur in association with each other. It is clear that a
society with a highly positive self-image (2) may also be
characterized by such things as lack of respect for other
peoples (3), pride (7), and self-sufficiency (8). Or it might feel
itself so secure (9) that it adopts a very adaptive posture
toward new ideas (10). And the list is by no means exhaustive.
It should be clear by now that such worldview-based
factors as these pervasively affect both the process and the
results of Christian advocacy. No communication takes place in
a vacuum. There are always presuppositions, beliefs,
understandings, concepts in the minds of the participants that
pervade the presentation and the reception of the
communication. Furthermore, the personal worldviews of two
persons within the same social group will differ slightly,
affecting the communication process in a variety of ways. The
worldview differences between members of the same social
group will, however, be very small compared to the differences
between persons of different groups. The greater the difference
in worldview between groups, the smaller the number of
mutually accepted presuppositions and the greater the
difficulty in adequately and effectively advocating Christian
change.
 Movements and Cultural Transformation
A significant study of two “movements of social
transformation” within American society appeared in 1970
(Gerlach and Hine 1970). Though that study took place long
ago, the findings are still helpful at this distance in time since
they are largely compatible with what I am here recommending.
The authors deal explicitly with a topic that has remained
largely implicit in this volume relationship between
“movements” (including Christian movements) and social
transformation. It will be helpful, therefore, to survey their
findings in our attempt to come to better understandings of the
principles for transforming culture.
To this point we have allowed the assumption that
transformational change is primarily a slow, gradual process.
Such an assumption is largely true, but it is not the whole
story. Much transformational change is gradual from start to
finish, but much deep and lasting cultural transformation has
involved what we might term a cultural “peak experience” or
paradigm shift. This is not unlike (on the cultural level) the
point of conversion that we described on the individual level
(chapter 17).
Typically, transformational culture change that involves
such peaking will involve (as with individual conversion) a
series of preparatory developments that take place over a
period of time. Such developments often produce what Tippett
calls a “reservoir of tension” (1964, 81-82) that eventually
becomes intolerable and issues in a kind of “flash point” for
change (Barrett 1968). This is followed by a bringing together
of the various cultural factors into a new conceptual
configuration (a paradigm shift). Such a shift in turn sparks a
series of rapid sociocultural readjustments, most of which start
within a short period of time. Less rapid changes of many kinds
develop from such peaks over an extended period of time.
Culture, however, does not have an existence independent
of the people who operate it. Thus, when we speak of cultural
transformation, whether gradual or rapid, we must assume that
we are speaking primarily of the people who bring about that
change. When we speak of the preparation for rapid
transformational change, we mean that the people within that
society (or at least sizable groupings of them) have felt a need
and prepared themselves to bring about the changes necessary
to meet that need. Such recognition and preparation typically
issue in the mobilization of the people concerned and the
mounting of a “movement” with the specific aim of bringing
about the changes recommended. To do this, the participants
in a movement set about implementing such changes in the
lives of the concerned group(s) and converting others to their
cause. Gerlach and Hine define the phenomenon of
“movement” as

a group of people who are organized for, ideologically

motivated by, and committed to a purpose which
implements some form of personal or social change; who
are actively engaged in the recruitment of others; and
whose influence is spreading in opposition to the
established order within which it originated (1970, xvi)
 Christianity at its start became such a movement, as did
Islam, communism, the Protestant Reformation, the Industrial
Revolution, the evangelical awakening, black power, women's
liberation, Pentecostalism, and countless other developments.
These phenomena are often of the same nature as the
“scientific revolutions” described by Kuhn (1970). Some
movements have been culturally revitalizational (Wallace 1956),
providing the necessary reintegration to give a dying society
with its culture a new lease on life. But many movements,
though dramatic, have merely redirected the course of part or
all of a fairly healthy society. People movements to Christ may
fit into either category. It is of great concern to those who seek
to extend the kingdom of God on earth to learn how to
advocate such Christward movements effectively.
According to Gerlach and Hine, a movement is
characterized by at least five key, “operationally significant”
factors:

1. A segmented, usually polycephalous, cellular

organization composed of units reticulated by various
personal, structural, and ideological ties.
2. Face-to-face recruitment by committed individuals
using their own pre-existing, significant social
relationships.
3. Personal commitment generated by an act or an
experience which separates a convert in some significant
way from the established order (or his previous place in it),
identifies him with a new set of values, and commits him to
changed patterns of behavior.
 4. An ideology which codifies values and goals,
provides a conceptual framework by which all experiences
or events relative to these goals may be interpreted,
motivates and provides rationale for envisioned changes,
defines the opposition, and forms the basis for conceptual
unification of a segmented network of groups.
5. Real or perceived opposition from the society at
large or from that segment of the established order within
which the movement has risen. (1970, xvii; see also p. 199)

The presence and interaction of such factors result in “an

autonomous social institution” that “lifts off and becomes
capable of social life and growth even beyond the limits of the
conditions that originally gave birth to it (ibid., 199). Such an
institution, then, continues its transformational activity among
the originating group and spreads to “groups where the
generating conditions do not and never did exist” (ibid., xxiii).2
Gerlach and Hine study Pentecostalism and black power as
examples of movements that are, from their point of view, both
“revolutionary” and “religious” (ibid., xviii).2 Though both
movements are studied within American society, and are
therefore in many respects suspect as bases for cross-cultural
generalizations, there are a number of principles that should at
least be tested cross-culturally. Furthermore, Gerlach as an
anthropologist is sensitive to the cross-cultural dimensions of
their study.
In spite of the tendency for Pentecostals to be politically
conservative and negative toward social action, “the social
change associated with Pentecostalism, especially in non-
Western societies moving toward industrialization, is largely an
inadvertent consequence of personal change, but is
nonetheless real” (1970, xix). The Pentecostal movement,
though overtly seeking to be only religious, is revolutionary
whether it seeks to be or not. Black power, on the other hand,
seeking to be revolutionary may be seen as religious, if that
term is used to designate any rather all-encompassing
allegiance rather than simply an allegiance to a supernatural
being.

Pentecostalism, we suggest, is conceptually revolutionary.

It encourages an experience through which an individual
believes himself to be radically changed; many converts
behave accordingly in social situations.
Black Power, on the other hand, is clearly a movement
which seeks to accomplish social change with entirely
human means. But it is religious in the sense that it requires
the commitment of the individual to something greater than
self…. If we view as religious a commitment of oneself to
something not only greater than oneself, but transcending
even the body of believers, then the Black Power
Movement can be viewed as religious. (1970, xix)

The kind of movement for sociocultural transformation that

Gerlach and Hine describe is both conceptually revolutionary
and characterized by a religious type of commitment. This is
the kind of mechanism for transformation of greatest interest to
us. The authors, furthermore, identify these movements as
parts of and contributions to greater social changes that are
occurring. They suggest that major cultural “advances” are
accompanied by radical allegiance changes of this kind. This
they see as presently occurring worldwide. It is thus possible
to see Pentecostalism and black power, along with other
contemporary movements, “as parts of a cultural revolution
that is broader in scope than a mere social revolution within
one society” (1970, 204).
In studying movements, Gerlach and Hine observe,

the first question to ask…is, are the five basic factors

present and interacting? The second concerns its
relationship to the particular society in which it has risen: is
it an isolated phenomenon or does it seem to be one strand
in a multilinear change? The third question is, what is its
relevance beyond that society? (Gerlach and Hine 1970,
203)

Several helpful points concerning the place of movements

in cultural transformation can be usefully summarized as
follows:
1. A movement does not require that a majority of the
people in a group favor it before it can be initiated. A
movement is, in fact, a good example of “the type of social
change that can be caused by a dedicated minority willing to
call out the repressive force of the majority” (ibid., 204).
2. Once a movement has achieved a life of its own “the only
type of crackdown which can stop it decisively is complete and
crushing force” (ibid., 205). Gerlach and Hine are interested in
the place of social opposition in the development of
movements. In the characteristics of movements cited above
they see “real or perceived opposition from the society at
large” as necessary. Whether or not this is universally true, we
can point to early Christianity and many other movements for
illustrations of the importance that social opposition can have.
The authors frankly state that for any number of past and
present movements, “opposition to the movements, no matter
how justified or on what grounds, simply strengthens
movement adherents and propels them in the direction they are
already going” (1970, 207).
3. With respect to attempts to reform churches without the
presence of a movement, the authors suggest that
“contemporary efforts to revitalize, either from the top of the
religious bureaucracy down or from the bottom of the local
church up, have resulted in remarkably little lasting change in
the overall picture” (ibid., 207).
Concern for the lack of vitality and even the initiation of
programs to change the situation have little effect, for, “without
the enthusiasms of a true movement, the inertia of tradition is
too strong” (ibid., 207). Probably the advocacy of any
paradigm shift (including the ones advocated in this volume),
without the accompaniment of a movement is doomed to
substantial failure. For example, throughout the bureaucracies
of America's government, churches, and educational
institutions,

individuals and groups are generating ideas about how to

 solve problems of education, jobs, housing, and
community relations. But it appears that changes are being
successfully implemented only if they are on a small
enough scale so that a group of dedicated people in one
department or organization can actually initiate and carry
them out. (Gerlach and Hine 1970, 208)

4. In facing the problems of a society or an institution there

is a basic difference between the way participants in a
movement seek solutions and the way the “establishment”
seeks solutions. “Movement participants seek ways to resolve
or remedy the generating conditions…which can lead to
revolutionary change,…while members of the established order
seek solutions as a means of avoiding revolutionary social
change” (Gerlach and Hine 1970, 209). Often when the power
structure attempts to attack “the problem,” they attack also any
movement-type operations that are seeking to remedy the
problem.
5. Most revolutions are not generated with the idea of
fomenting revolution. They begin as protests of one kind or
another with “demands for changes in the existing system, not
specific blueprints for social institutions of the future. Positive
goals are only vaguely defined in terms of large-scale ideals”
(Gerlach and Hine 1970, 210). To some extent those who
advocate Christian transformation may become exceptions to
this rule if they add to their “vaguely defined…large-scale
ideals” some more “specific blueprints.” We hope that this
volume will help us to do this more effectively than heretofore.
6. Movements involve major changes in the self-image of
the participants. In the black power movement Gerlach and
Hine see a major contribution to a “new image of the male role
and of family structure in black society” (1970, 211).
Conversion and commitment to a cause can, in this respect
accomplish “what social workers and integrated blacks have
been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish for years by
persuasion and moralistic preachment” (ibid., 211), for “a
movement taps a source of human energy which is unavailable
to those using conventional means” (ibid.).
7. Long-term social changes often result from the fact that
movements, whether or not they succeed, initiate experimental
new approaches to the solution of needs that are more widely
recognized throughout the society. For example, recent youth
movements within American society have begun experimenting
with new approaches to problems considered as at best
“necessary evils” by much of the rest of society. Among these
are “rigid scheduling of time, depersonalization of work,
escalating material demands, non-democratic corporate
structures” (Gerlach and Hine 1970, 213). By refusing “to train
for ‘successful’ participation in the existing order,” stressing
“cooperation rather than competition,” rejecting “the
traditional American bases for division of labor,” and
innovating in “marriage patterns, child rearing practices, and
methods of group decision making,” it is possible that these
youth are initiating changes that will survive even if their
movement fails. It is even possible, if their movement succeeds,
that it “might constitute a better ‘survival group’ in the event
of large-scale disaster than any that exists in conventional
society” (Gerlach and Hine 1970, 213-14).
 Whatever happens to the movement itself, the models that
it pioneers often diffuse into the rest of the society. Such
diffusion frequently brings about a shift in value orientations
(worldviews) from which the rippling of changes throughout
the society is generated. As such changes “in grass roots
activities” are instituted, “the more adaptive of the small
innovations diffuse and crystallize until an ex post facto
recognition of the new social structure is possible” (ibid., 216).
The “interactions between the movement and the
established order” create “selective pressures” in the direction
of the changes being advocated by the movement. Such
factors as the degree of commitment of the participants, the
movement's viability as a continuing operation, and the
response of the members of the established order affect the
ability of the movement to effectively bring pressure for
change to bear on the rest of the society.

Those who are neither committed to a movement nor

definitely opposed to it, who have escaped the so-called
polarization, occupy what might be called the interface
between the movement and the established order. As one
student of the dynamics of social change has suggested,
accelerated change occurs at the interfaces of the human
world—just as geological shifts occur along fault lines. It is
not the mere aggregation or acquisition of disparate ideas
from which the great advances of mankind have come, but
from a “certain type of mental activity which is set up by
the opposition of different idea systems.” (Gerlach and
Hine 1970, 216, quoting from Fabun 1967)
 Those cultural insiders (innovators) who seek to participate
in the advocacy throughout a society of the changes
pioneered by a movement need, according to Gerlach and Hine,
to orient themselves in several ways if they are to be effective.
Those who, either by chance or by choice,

find themselves along the interface between a movement

and the established order must: first, understand the nature
of the movement and the five basic factors crucial to its
growth; second, allow movement participants,
demagogues, and preachers to identify the areas of social,
economic, political or religious life that require change;
third, accept the necessity for fundamental rather than
developmental change and be able to tell the difference;
fourth, either in relation to or independently of the
movement, embark on the Vision Quest for the shape of
things to come. (1970, 216-17)

Movements, in addition to their power to bring about

change directly, are powerful indirect forces for change. They
serve to heighten the consciousness of many of those outside
the movement itself, to identify aspects of the cultural system
that require change, and to experiment with models for new
structures. Movements also frequently win converts to the
possibility of using “the dynamics of a movement” to bring
about whatever changes they deem important. Conscious
understanding of movement dynamics “makes possible the
intentional utilization of the vitalizing energy produced by the
process” (ibid., 217). For those who seek to participate in a
movement, the authors point out that it will involve five things:

1. Personal commitment on the part of individuals who

believe they have the power to initiate changes within
their own sphere of influence;
2. enthusiastic persuasion of friends, relatives, and
neighbors to join in the small-scale effort;
3. articulation of beliefs and ideals appropriate to this
particular period in national and world history and to
this particular stage of technological development;
4. flexible, non-bureaucratic cell-group organizations
which can be created, altered, or dissolved at the desire
of participants; and
5. expectation of and willingness to face opposition from
those dedicated to the maintenance of the status quo in
spite of its present deficiencies, weaknesses, and flaws.
Opposition may come in the form of physical force, or
various types of pressure exerted through institutional
channels. Or it may come in the form of ridicule from
those who are still secure in the notion that power is
based only on position within and ability to manipulate
the existing power structure. (1970, 217)

Such a consideration of movements is very helpful to us in

our attempts to understand the factors that can be important in
Christian transformation of sociocultural structures.
Apparently God already knows that “the most obvious fact
about social, religious, or political movements is the amount of
power that can be mobilized outside the power structure of a
society, and the surprising pressure this power can exert upon
that structure” (ibid., 218).
The whole Bible demonstrates the power of a few who are
deeply committed to God in bringing about impressive
sociocultural change. So does postbiblical church history. So
do contemporary Christian movements such as Pentecostalism
in Latin America (Wagner 1973) and African independent
churches (Barrett 1968).

Principles for Insiders: What to Do about the

“Generation Gap”?
Cultural insiders may innovate by implementing changes in
their own cultural structures. They may also become “inside
advocates” who attempt to persuade others within their
societies to make changes. Christians are called to both
implement and advocate changes. On the basis of our Christian
allegiance to God through Christ we are to evaluate every
aspect of our sociocultural lives and to change the ways we
use our customs in keeping with this allegiance. (The matter of
reevaluation and rehabituation has been dealt with in chapter
18.) Those principles apply to all Christians who innovate
Christianity within their society. Principles of witness
presented throughout this volume and the principles of
advocacy above apply to the cultural insider seeking to
persuasively advocate change for others. What follows
illustrates the application of many of the principles dealt with
throughout this book to the problem of how a Christian may
innovate Christian transformational change in response to the
American problem of the “generation gap.”
Many useful examples might be cited to illustrate the value
of reinterpretive understandings that come to us via behavioral
science analysis in our attempts to transform at least our own
use of our customs. One of these is the recognition stemming
from anthropological fieldwork that it is not biology but the
customs and attitudes we are taught as we learn our culture
that makes the adolescent years turbulent for American youth.
We now realize that American youth rebel because they have
been carefully (though unconsciously) taught that they must
achieve beyond the level of their parents' generation. In order
to do this they must set themselves against that generation in
theory and in practice, thus establishing their own position in
life. The youth of many traditional societies were not taught
such things concerning their relationship to their elders and
therefore did not rebel (see Mead 1970 for her analysis of the
American generation gap).
As Christian Americans we may decide that youthful
rebellion against parents is not appropriate to Christianity. Yet
we and our children find ourselves so conditioned by our
society that not only our youth (who perhaps don't know any
better) but we ourselves (who ought to know better)
automatically come to relate to each other in terms of the
expected intergenerational hostility. What do we do about this?
The approach here advocated would be (1) to recognize the
problem as a cultural problem, (2) to recognize our ability to
transform at least our own approach to the matter, (3) to deepen
our analytic understanding at least to the point where we
understand the major cultural components that produce the
situation, and (4) to develop a strategy for dealing with it in a
more Christian manner than would be possible if we simply
allow ourselves to be driven along blindly by our society. We
should come to realize, for example, that our school system
plays a major role in producing the problem, for our children are
carefully taught in school that their parents cannot be trusted
for expert knowledge about very much. Flowing from this is the
categorization of two important groups of adults into
antithetical groups of experts (e.g., most teachers, scientists,
authors, etc.) and parents (together with a variety of other
adults, including certain teachers who seem to be behind the
times). A frustrated pastor once came face to face with the
effects of this cultural conditioning when he asked his youth
leader, “How come you can say the same things to my
daughter that I say, but she takes them from you?” For that
daughter, the youth leader fit into the “expert” category.
There are at least four levels on which Christian parents
may work to transform their own (and others') use of American
attitudes and customs to counteract such intergenerational
antipathy and the part the schools play in producing it. First,
they would do well to help their children to change their
conceptualization (their model) regarding education to
recognize that the term “education” is not synonymous with
schooling. Rather, education is a much broader and deeper
process in which we are all engaged at all times. What we learn
in school is but a small part of the totality of our educational
experience. And the information we obtain in the classroom or
from books is only a part of the overall educational experience
in which we are engaged. Furthermore, the significant factor in
education is the ability of the learner to learn a wide variety of
things by transforming every event into a learning experience.
Thus the myriad of nonacademic things that go on inside and
outside school (including at home) are at least as important to
one's education as the academic things. The large number of
people other than teachers (even parents) whom one
encounters are at least as important to learn from as teachers
are. But learners must see to it that they use every opportunity
educationally and look to every adult as a potential teacher.
Second, parents should recognize the child's conditioning
with respect to the source of expertise and work with (or in
terms of) this conditioning in order to make it work in the
desired direction rather than in an undesirable direction. They
should see to it that their children are put in constant contact
with people in the expert category (e.g., school and church
teachers, pastors, etc.) who will endorse and reinforce the
kinds of things the parents wish to have their children learn.
For most, this should mean the choosing of church,
community, and friends with careful attention to the needs of
the children. For some it will mean the placing of their children
in Christian schools or home schooling them. There is,
however, a tendency for many parents who send their children
to Christian schools or who home school them to regard such
alternatives as escapes from cultural reality rather than as more
effective means of facing and transforming reality. This fact
should cause those who adopt my point of view to think
through their choice of an alternative approach before going
that route.
Third, another constructive approach to this problem is for
parents to realize that both the parent and the teacher
categories are basically depersonalized “thing” categories
(stereotypes) to the young person. This fact is also due to the
child's American cultural conditioning. That is, the young
person has simply learned to categorize people as the rest of
American society does into landscape (or scenery 3),
machinery, and people (Iwanska 1957). To the young person,
both teachers and parents fit, to some extent, into the second
of the impersonal categories—they are machines. Machines are
those on whom one depends to perform vital functions but
whom one doesn't get to know as real human beings.
Aware parents, seeking to use but transcend the ordinary
impact of this characteristic of American society, will do what
they can to become persons to their children. This would, of
course, involve the (probably gradual) sharing of themselves
with their children—as human beings, not as stereotyped
parents. It should cover the wide spectrum of their experience,
not in a preachy way but in a person-to-person, friend-to-friend
way. This kind of relationship typically allows even the sharing
of personal hangups, kidding over parental mistakes, treatment
of the youngsters as persons (they are often in the parents'
“thing” category) who are listened to and granted respect,
trust, and responsibility. Such a use of culture not only
transforms the performance (use) of the culture by parents and
their children, but transforms their relationship to each other.
Fourth, another approach to this problem of
intergenerational antipathy is for parents to win their way into
the teacher (expert) category by proving to the children their
expertise in some area of importance to the children. This
approach is not as available to all parents as the previous
three, since the child, by school experience, is conditioned to
respect primarily academic-type activities. A father who, for
example, sought to win his way into the expert category by
proving his excellence at auto mechanics might not succeed
with his children, since their schooling has labeled auto
mechanics as a second-or third-class specialty. A combination
of this approach with the expansion of the young people's
awareness of what education is may, however, bring about
success. A mother who is a teacher, however, may so win her
youngsters' respect that they seek to learn more by choosing
to do research projects on topics like “what my mother
teaches.”
Practicing and communicating to others such ways of
working in terms of one's culture in order to transform it for
Christ can provide significant input for others who are
struggling with the same kinds of problems. Felt needs may
combine with demonstrably effective approaches to produce a
broader cultural transformation. This is especially true when
groups of people (like churches) band together to bring about
such cultural transformation, first in their own usage and then
rippling out to the usage of others.
This could be the case if we would study and learn from
Christian communities such as the Hutterites. The Hutterites
have taken control of their use of Euro-American cultural
patterns and made modifications that “mainline” Christians
could well emulate in at least four important areas (Kraft 1972a;
see also Beals and Spindler 1973, 207-61; Hostetler and
Huntington 1967; Hostetler 1967):

1. The Hutterites emphasize community. Human beings

are social creatures and need interinvolvement to a
much greater extent than the American brand of
Western society encourages. The process of
individuation by means of which our society prevents
such close personal interinvolvement between people
is consciously resisted by the Hutterite communities,
and their example should be seriously considered by
any who seek Christian transformation of American
culture.
2. Within their communities, the Hutterites “educate more
for living (not simply for thinking) in schools that
provide an extension of the family and a continuation of
the family's teachings rather than becoming competitors
for the children's allegiance and contradictors of the
values endorsed by the home” (Kraft 1972a, 15).
3. The Hutterites provide for their young people well-
defined transition points at which each youth first
becomes an apprentice adult (age fifteen) and then a
full adult (age twenty). In this way both the youth and
the adults know the stage at which anyone is at any
given time and what the expectations are. There is,
apparently, very little of the teenage insecurity so
evident in other American subsocieties, occasioned by
the fact that neither teenagers nor adults know at any
 given time whether the former are to be regarded as
children or as grownups.
4. The Hutterites seem to have learned the lesson of
smallness. They organize their communities into groups
of about 125 in order to preserve and encourage the
kind of face-to-face interaction among their members
that will enhance their interdependence, mutual
concern, and mutual involvement. In these ways they
produce and maintain community and effectively work
in terms of the majority of Western cultural patterns in
order to transcend them.

From the perspective of “standard” American society, the

Hutterite adaptations seem ideal. There is, however, at least
one major problem. They train their children to live only in a
“closed” society. If for some reason the Hutterite youth leave
the community, they discover that they have been poorly
prepared to handle the bewildering array of choices, decisions,
lifestyles, and people with differing opinions with which they
are faced in the “open” society. They have been taught the
validity of only one way of life and often cannot effectively
cope with the diversity outside (see Beals and Spindler 1973).
Certain Christians may feel that they should imitate aspects
of the Hutterite pattern, such as taking control of the children's
schooling either by sending them to Christian schools or by
home schooling. If so, the problem of whether to train for an
open or a closed society needs to be faced squarely. Many
Christian schools and home schoolers train for a closed
society, but no such society is provided for the young people
to enter. They are expected to enter the open society
effectively but with the kind of training that often hinders them
in maturely facing and choosing between a wide variety of
options. The alternative is Christian schooling or wise home
schooling that teaches how to live responsibly in an open
society, including how to evaluate and choose among a
number of available alternatives on the basis of Christian
principles. Though I believe this could be done, it would take a
high degree of wisdom and openness on the part of those who
run the Christian schools or who home school.

1. For the record, the change of this custom has been dictated by governmental
forces beyond the control of missionaries. One adaptation is for the group to still
require proof of fertility in this way, but for childless Christian couples of other
tribes to adopt certain of the babies.
2. The more comprehensive approach being developed in this volume obviates
the necessity of postulating what I believe to be a false dichotomy between
“ religious” and “ revolutionary.” As I see it, both groups are actively pursuing
worldview change via advocacy of the three-pronged process described above. Each
seeks to bring about change in allegiance, evaluational perspective, and consequent
behavior. It is unhelpful to employ the term “ religious” change to designate what is
a much more widely occurring phenomenon—a basic change in primary allegiance
from which flows radical, often revolutionary, change of belief and behavior. Gerlach
and Hine, in order to make this point, find it necessary to apply the terms
“ revolutionary” and “ religious” (which, though complementary, they see as
contrasting) to both groups.
3. The scenery category includes the mass of fellow students and any similar
group that the child doesn't get to know or become involved with.
 20

AN APOSTOLIC FAITH?

Can contemporary Christianity regain the dynamic of the

Christianity that turned the first-century world upside-down?
Throughout the preceding chapters we have attempted to
suggest that it can be done and to show how to go about it.
Here we summarize by recommending a return to an apostolic
faith. A personal postscript concludes the book.

Toward an Apostolic Faith for Contemporary

Society
Those possessed of dynamic, apostolic faith dared to work
with God to transform Hellenistic culture. And this same
dynamic, daring, experimenting attitude has been adopted by
Fijian Christians (see chapter 18), African independent
churches, Latin American (and North American) Pentecostals,
“Jesus People,” and countless other Christians in a variety of
societies—working with God at the transformation of their
sociocultural structures. However, whenever and wherever the
church has turned from being venturesome and retreated into
static forms of expression it has lost its dynamic. In the
institutional church today most people would probably point
to such areas as theology, organization, and worship as dead
areas (though since the original publication of this volume,
many churches have come alive in worship). The reason is not
hard to find—”establishment” Christianity (the party in power)
has tended to content itself with indoctrinating new
generations and new societies into forms of Christianity that
are no longer culturally appropriate. Established Christianity
has feared to alter the forms lest in so doing the content should
be lost. By so doing, however, it has unwittingly assured that
the content would be largely lost.
The dynamic of Christianity, however, is not in the
sacredness of cultural forms—even those that God once used.
The Christian dynamic is in the adventure of participating with
God in the transformation of contemporary cultural forms to
serve more adequately as vehicles for God's interactions with
human beings. What we seek is a Christianity equivalent in its
dynamics and meanings to those displayed in the pages of the
New Testament. But we often fear to break loose from the old
familiar forms. We may recognize the need for a new dynamic,
but our cultural conditioning often mitigates against our
engaging in the kind of experimentation that might lead us to
discover it.
For, American society, like all others, has designated certain
areas of our culture for experimentation, while others are
designated to remain “as they always have been.” We are
encouraged to doubt previous solutions, to seek new answers,
to experiment, to innovate in areas such as technology, foods,
travel, clothing, and even, lately, sex. We are continually
besieged with the latest “discoveries” in clothing styles, soap,
toothpaste, automobiles, appliances, etc. We are encouraged to
develop new wants to stimulate us to purchase more and more
of these items. It may escape our notice, however, that in
certain areas of life, Americans take a very different attitude.
Innovation is neither valued nor, often, even allowed in many
areas of the American legal system, where “precedent” is the
major criterion in coming to a decision. Likewise in government,
athletics, and religion. In such areas Americans are quite
conservative.
Thus, our sociocultural conditioning with regard to the
cultural expression of our faith, called “religion,” is in the
direction of static continuance of tradition rather than toward
experimentation and innovation as it would be if this were a
technological area. And such conservatism in religion seems to
be the rule rather than the exception among the peoples of the
world, especially where supernaturalism is a strong worldview
value. Only when it becomes obvious to the members of a
society that their religion isn't doing its job or when it is likely
that they will gain more spiritual power by changing will they
begin to experiment. Then sometimes a people will change their
attitude and the part of their worldview that kept them
religiously conservative, for, as we have pointed out (chapter
3), worldview forms the core of culture and is usually followed
habitually. It bridges the gap between the “objective” reality
outside people's heads and the culturally agreed-upon
perception of that reality inside their heads.
A people's worldview and their religion in a “healthy”
society are integrated with and supportive of each other. When
a worldview and its religion get out of step, people often lose
their way. American Christians, for example, no longer look to
Christianity to validate large segments of their cultural life.
More often they see their cultural values as in conflict with
Christianity. For a static religion poorly serves a dynamic
society (even if the society designates religion as a
conservative area).
But this Christianity that is proving inadequate is not
essential Christianity. The religion that Americans (and the
victims of Western secularism around the world) are turning
their backs on is not the dynamic equivalent of the faith that
turned the first-century world upside-down. The Christianity
they know is culture bound. It is simply the religious aspect of
a culture that seeks, almost superstitiously, to preserve the
“sacred” forms of worship, organization, and theology that
have been passed on by former generations.
This Christianity has been found wanting because it is
static. Its doctrines seem eternal because, as James points out,
they deal with an unreal conceptual world where nothing
moves (James 1968, 88). Miracles and other visible forms of
God's manifestation of himself are often understood as
something that once happened but will not again. God, after
briefly breaking into the human scene to do some very unreal
things, seems to have died or departed into a far country never
to work in that way again. The church is seen by many as a
mechanism for preserving the static memory of such events by
regularly transporting its adherents back to first-century
Palestine. Sermons have often become mere history or
language lessons.
 Life is not like that, however. And there is another
perception possible of the God who interacted and continues
to interact with human beings, of the case histories of real-life
events that are recorded in the divine casebook and of the
church that can result from this divine-human interaction. A
reexamination of the data from the point of view developed
here can alert us to and instruct us in that living perception.
From this point of view, the lifeless biblical characters begin to
live again—and, surprisingly, look and act just like people we
meet every day. Furthermore, biblical English, Greek, and even
Hebrew begin to look like workable languages, operated by real
human beings, rather than like carefully constructed
philosophical systems that trip up all but the most expert. Jesus
becomes believable and God comes back to life.
We badly need such a dynamic understanding of
Christianity, for our Western societies are headed for hard
times. Things have already fallen apart for millions of our
contemporaries because they have turned from the faith
commitment to God that could provide a vital core to their
worldview and thus their culture. As the anthropologist
Kluckhohn has said, “A system of beliefs, profoundly felt, is
unquestionably necessary to the survival of any society, but
an increasing number of Americans debate the extent to which
the dogmas of any organized Christian Church are compatible
with contemporary secular knowledge” (1949, 190).
Addressing himself to a similar cultural situation ages ago,
God asked Jeremiah: “If you have raced with men and the
runners have worn you down, how then can you hope to vie
with horses? If you fall headlong in easy country, how will you
fare in Jordan's dense thickets?” (Jer. 12:5 NEB).
How indeed will we fare when life tumbles in on us if we
haven't learned to participate with God daringly in a
Christianity that is dynamically equivalent to that of New
Testament times? Such a faith commitment not only transforms
individuals but also can provide the basis for the
transformation of cultural forms such as American individuality
into organic groupness (which is what the church is meant to
be). It can transform unimaginative, impersonal, prepositional,
“sacred” but dead preaching into something genuinely
communicative (e.g., employing drama, dialogue, etc.). It can
transform static theological formulations into understandings
of the creative divine-human use of culture that dynamic
interaction between human beings and God demands. It can, in
fact, provide the spark around which our rapidly disintegrating
society revitalizes. For cross-cultural studies demonstrate that,
in order to survive,

every culture must define its ends as well as perfect its

means. The logical and symbolic expressions of the
ultimate values of a civilization cannot arise directly from
scientific investigation.…A mechanistic, materialistic
“science” hardly provides the orientations to the deeper
problems of life that are essential for happy individuals and
a healthy social order. Nor does a political philosophy such
as “democracy.” Men need tenets that…are meaningful to
the viscera and the aesthetic sensibilities. They must be
symbolized in rites that gratify the heart, please the ear and
eye, fulfill the hunger for drama. (Kluckhohn 1949, 248-49)
 The ideological impoverishment of American society
seriously cripples it, and this kind of crippling is a
contemporary fact in all societies that, under the influence of
westernization (often mediated by Christian missions), have
had their indigenous worldviews irreparably damaged. And

this process of deterioration can, if not checked, lead to the

death of the society. Population may fall even to the point
of extinction as a result of increasing death rates and
decreasing birth rates; the society may be defeated in war,
invaded, its population dispersed and its customs
suppressed; factional disputes may nibble away areas and
segments of the population. (Wallace 1956, 270)

Or there may be communicated to the disheartened society

a new ideology, usually super naturalistic in focus, around
which the society rallies and rebuilds. Such “deliberate,
conscious, organized efforts by members of a society to create
a more satisfying culture” are termed by Wallace “revitalization
movements” (1956, 279). Wallace holds that literally thousands
of such occurrences have taken place in history, including a
wide variety of nativistic, revivalistic, vitalistic, millenarian, and
messianic movements both outside and within Western
societies. Wallace sees the origins of Christianity, Islam, and
possibly Buddhism as well as many other religious phenomena
to have been in such revitalization movements (pp. 267, 279).
Social breakdown, therefore, provides a fertile setting for
the return of Christians to a more dynamic understanding and
expression of their faith and for the communication of this faith
to others. May all Christians return to a vital, apostolic faith.
May we then fearlessly venture out with God from the
staticness of our culture-bound religion to participate actively
with him in the transforming power of dynamically equivalent
Christianity.

A Personal Postscript
We have now come to the end of this presentation. I have
attempted to develop at least certain aspects of a cross-cultural
approach to Christian theologizing. To do this I have
suggested a series of thirteen models as grids in terms of which
to view the realities we seek to understand. I have attempted to
apply certain of the perspectives of anthropology, linguistics,
communication science, and translation theory to the task of
theologizing.
Has the effort been worthwhile? For me it has, even though
I am not entirely satisfied that I have always said what I intend
to say in the best way. As a part of my becoming whatever God
is making me, though, the attempt to formulate these thoughts
has been a valuable exercise. I can point to measurable growth
in myself as a result. Whether or not this particular product is
of value to anyone else, the process of producing it has for me
been an exciting learning experience.
Has the effort been worthwhile for you, the reader? Only
you can answer that. Many readers of this volume have told
me they have been considerably helped. This, of course, is
greatly encouraging to me. Others, however, have been
disturbed—at least by portions of the book. They feel that I
have been too daring, perhaps unwise or even heretical. I am
sorry for that kind of reaction but pray that those of you who
find yourselves in this category will do two things: (1) be
patient, God is not finished with me yet, and (2) choose those
things here presented that you regard as helpful to you in your
present circumstances, use them, and ignore the rest. I have
tried in the early chapters to make you feel free to reject those
parts of this presentation not congenial to you. This is but one
perspective on a Reality that is bigger than all of us. It is a
sincere groping after the Truth, but it is not itself that Truth. It
has been helpful to me, but you are different from me. Perhaps
this approach can be of maximum help only to those most like
me. The point is, you are free to disagree and/or to pick and
choose what seems most valuable to you and present those
insights to others like yourself.
Some of you may not see much of value here because you
feel it has all been said before. My discovery of Ramm, Special
Revelation and the Word of God (1961), was in response to the
comment of one who heard me present a portion of this
material. He simply said, “Bernard Ramm has already said all
that!” I have tried in several chapters to respond to the truth of
that comment by quoting Ramm extensively. Or, you may have
learned all of this through the many studies of
contextualization that have been produced over the past thirty
years. If the positions I take are already “old hat” to you, I
apologize to you for being unable to challenge you more.
Will this effort be judged worthwhile as a stimulus to more
effective Christian witness “to the regions beyond”? I pray so.
The feedback over the past twenty-five years indicates that
many have valued the book and been greatly helped. I am hard
on missionaries. I am a missionary, and my standards are high
for myself and for my colleagues. We dare not handle a first-
class message in a second-or third-class way. My prayer is that
God will use this effort to lead at least some to first-classness
in their transmission of a more clearly understood message.
Will this effort enable any who have found Christianity
wanting to retain or to return to their faith? I pray so. This
approach has helped me to face more confidently many of the
issues that have turned others from God and Christ. Not all
problems have neat answers even yet, but I feel that I am not
now forced to live with as great an amount of ambiguity as
formerly. My prayer is that some of those for whom the old
models have failed will find it possible via these models to
retain and develop their Christian commitment.
Will this effort help to release some evangelicals from the
hold of reactionary, fear-based theological positions (e.g.,
Lindsell 1976) into the “dynamic obedience to a living God”
(Nida 1954, 52) that is, I believe, the birthright of those
committed to Christ? I pray so. The God who has accepted and
worked with such cultural and personal diversity as we see in
the Scriptures just doesn't seem as concerned as closed
evangelicals and fundamentalists are over which theory of
inspiration or of the atonement or of matters of biblical criticism
his people adhere to. Whether or not one adheres to a
particular metaphysical philosophy in developing such
theories seems secondary in God's eyes to whether or not one
demonstrates allegiance to God via love toward sisters and
brothers (see 1 John 3:10-11; 4:7-8, 11). No set of fallible
theories or models for interpreting God and his workings is
worth advocating in un-Christian, unloving ways.
Is this effort to do theology differently a partial fulfillment
of Rosemary Ruether's prophecy in answer to the question,
“Whatever Happened to Theology?” I don't know. She says:
“For the foreseeable future the pioneering edge of thought will
come…from places on the edge with little prestige, from the
meetings and communities of those who can recognize this
crisis, not as the ‘end’ but as the only avenue to new hope”
(1975, 110).
Ruether claims that “the entire paradigm of consciousness
that has governed the life of Western society and its reflection
in theology has lost its credibility” (ibid.). José Míguez Bonino
feels that contemporary theology “has tried to prolong its
existence when the conditions that gave it birth and made it
possible have entered their decline and demise” (1975, 112). In
a similar vein, John Cobb sees the decline of theology as “a
result of the widening gap between the beliefs nurtured in the
Church and the dominant culture of our time” (1975, 117). If
these contentions are even partly true, perhaps experimenting
with different models such as these will help. Perhaps such
experimentation can point the way toward something to replace
the kind of closed conservatism that the fear of relativism has
driven many to (see the prediction of Dayton 1976, 979). I don't
know.
I hope the exercises we have engaged ourselves in this
book are an example of the “deprovincialization” of theology
that Harvey Cox calls for (1973, 169-71). In another place Cox
states: “Theology is being done today—in curious places,
under unusual sponsorship, by unauthorized persons,
unnoticed by those who read only the right journals” (1975,
115). As I look back over the twenty-five years since
Christianity in Culture was published, I see that the kind of
voices Cox speaks of have begun to reverse the provincial
nature of Western theology, but the process has a long way to
go. I hope that the book you read has played at least a modest
role in that kind of deprovincializing of theology and our
approach to how Christianity is lived in culture. I invite you to
join me in carrying this experiment further.
 Appendix

AN OVERVIEW OF THE
MODELS

A. Perspective Models (Chapters 2-5)

As basic perspective models we list the concept of critical
realism, the concept “biblical Christian,” and the application of
anthropological insights. These concepts are basic to all that
follows.

Model 1 is the concept of critical realism. This perspective

(developed in chapter 2) postulates that there are two realities:
(1) what God sees and (2) what human beings see. God sees
things as they really are. We refer to this reality by using
capital letters—REALITY or Reality. Human beings, however,
see as “through a dirty window” (1 Cor. 13:12). What we
perceive is relative and we refer to it by using small letters—
reality. As humans, we see REALITY but immediately interpret
it in ways affected by our own training and experiences as
“reality.”

a. The concept of model. A model is a tool that we use in

our attempts to understand portions of reality. It
represents a “small r” perspective interpreting Capital R
REALITY. If we are correct in identifying the concept of
 model with the “dim image in a mirror” concept (1 Cor.
13:12), we may be able to claim an important
correspondence between this understanding and the
way things really are. If not, we are still searching. For
better or worse, though, this presentation assumes the
validity and usefulness of the model concept.
b. The concept of paradigm shift. When a person or group
comes to look at a given subject from a different
perspective, we can say they have changed their model,
theory, or paradigm. For example, when people,
following Jesus' lead began to regard God as Father
rather than as king, they underwent a model or
paradigm shift. We will use the term paradigm shift to
refer to any shift of perspective within a worldview,
whether it is at the level of paradigm or model.

Model 2 is an attempt to conceptualize a biblical

Christian. This model (developed in chapter 2) is both a basic
perspective model and a revised theological model. Much of
the support for it comes from the building up of the argument
of this book. If the initial presentation of it in chapter 2 is not
convincing, please read on. The model may be more credible by
the end of the book than it is at the beginning. It seems
important, though, to present at least these basic assumptions
at the start, since everything that follows depends on them in a
major way.

a. Model 2 postulates a difference between the inspired

scriptural documents and all human interpretations
 of that data. It is biblical to refuse to venerate
traditional systems of interpretation. All such
theological systems are fallible, no matter how helpful
they may have been to other people in other times and
places. Each such interpretive system is developed from
a given perspective that was at least potentially valid
for those who developed it. The needs of today's
peoples, however, are not best served by simply
adopting the product of valid past efforts at
interpretation (as if that too were inspired). Rather,
today's peoples themselves must engage in the process
of developing scriptural interpretations that are as valid
for them in their contemporary contexts as past
interpretations were for those who developed them in
their contexts.
b. Biblical Christianity, whether in theological or other
areas, is dynamic, not static. This submodel
recommends that we engage in a process equivalent to
that portrayed in the Bible. We are not simply to
preserve the past as the Pharisees and Judaizers
attempted to do. For the God of the Bible is alive, and
we are to be alive in and with him. Life demands growth
and dynamic change. Conservatism for its own sake is
contrary to biblical Christianity.
c. Biblical Christians are to be open to innovation and
diversity as God's Spirit leads them individually and in
groups in growth. Growth is risky and venturesome and
is not characteristic of closed-minded persons. Our
biblical examples are, therefore, venturesome, open to
 the Spirit's leading and growing. The closed-minded
Pharisees and Judaizers who, like the unprofitable
servant in the parable of the talents, sought to preserve
rather than to risk and grow, are not to be imitated by
biblical Christians. Biblical Christians are to be open
rather than closed conservatives.

Model 3 (chapters 3-5) is the application of

anthropological insights to topics that have been considered
“theological.” This model involves the application of several
submodels (seven are here specified) developed within
anthropology. The most basic of these deal with
anthropological views of culture and basic humanity. Though
there is a good bit of discussion within the discipline
concerning these understandings, I have attempted to hold
close to anthropological orthodoxy, except where Christian
assumptions are injected.

a. The culture concept is the anthropologist's way of

labeling the nonbiological, nonenvironmental reality in
which humans live. Here we postulate a view of reality
that sees certain phenomena as best explained in terms
of this mental construct. We also advance a particular
understanding of that mental construct as labeling only
structure, never people. It is so basic to the perspective
of this book that two chapters (3 and 4) are devoted to
developing this understanding of culture. That is, I here
attempt both to look at reality via the culture model and
to develop a model of culture itself. In this
 conceptualization of culture, there are certain closely
related submodels that are crucial to the
understandings toward which I seek to lead the reader.
Many or all of these could be subsumed under the
culture model, but it seems best to make them explicit as
submodels 3b-3g.
b. The sociocultural (including linguistic) adequacy
submodel is more frequently known as “cultural
relativism.” It postulates, on the one hand, the
nonabsoluteness of any cultural or linguistic forms and,
on the other, the essentially equal adequacy of the
ways in which different sociocultural structuring affects
the lives of those immersed within them. This
anthropological model forms the basis for model 4e
(chapter 6).
c. A worldview is seen as lying at the heart of every
cultural entity (whether a culture, subculture, academic
discipline, social class, religious, political, or economic
organization, or any similar grouping with a distinct
value system). The worldview of a cultural entity is
seen as both the repository and the patterning in terms
of which people generate the conceptual models
through which the adherents of that entity, the
subscribers to that value system, perceive of and
interact with reality. I suggest that the basic appeal for
Christian conversion and for whatever conceptual
transformation this book can bring about is to be made
at the worldview level. I use interchangeably the terms
“paradigm shift,” “worldview change/ transformation,”
 and “conceptual change/ transformation.”
d. Another important submodel from anthropology is the
form, function, meaning, usage model (developed in
chapter 4). A cultural form is any cultural element,
whether material or nonmaterial. Any custom, any word
or other linguistic pattern, any material or nonmaterial
product of human activity is a cultural form. These
forms are developed and perpetuated within a cultural
system because they serve functions regarded by their
users as important. As they are used, they become
vehicles of meaning from and to their users.

I contend, in applying this model to the relationships of

Christianity to culture, that it is the intent of God to see
Christian meanings communicated through human cultural
(including linguistic) forms. Meanings, according to this model,
are conveyable to human beings only via cultural forms (often
called “symbols”). The forms employed in any given
communication are therefore crucial to the success or failure of
the communication. It is thus incumbent upon the
communicator to use those cultural forms that will best be
perceived by the receiver(s) of the communication as
conveying the meaning intended by the communicator. For, it is
observed, within a variety of cultural contexts a variety of
cultural forms must be employed if essentially the same
meaning is to be conveyed. There do not seem to be any
cultural forms that convey exactly the same meanings in every
society (Nida 1960, 62-93). We observe, furthermore, that if the
same form is retained from society to society, the perceived
meaning gets changed. Constancy of meaning from context to
context is maintained by altering or replacing the forms
employed in such a way that they are interpreted by the
receptors as conveying the intended meaning within that
specific context.

e. Another important submodel of the culture concept (as

here developed) is the distinction between the patterns
or structuring of culture and the uses to which people
put that structuring (the personal performance). It
distinguishes between the essentially neutral forms and
functions of cultural structures and the nonneutral,
subjective use that human beings make of these
structures. This usage stems from subjectively held
meanings in the minds of communicators and results in
subjectively perceived meanings in the minds of
receptors. In building our approach to Christianity on
this model, it is postulated that sinfulness lies primarily,
though not exclusively, in these subjective usages and
meanings rather than in the cultural structures
themselves. The structures, though, due to the
sinfulness of the human creators of the structures, are
tipped (as with an uneven playing field), but are not evil
in and of themselves. See Rom. 14:13-23 for what I
understand to be a scriptural recognition of this
principle. It is also postulated that divine-human
encounter takes place within cultural structures at the
usage and meaning level rather than as a result of a
negative stance that God takes toward the structures
 themselves (see chapter 6).
f. Spinning off from these understandings of culture is a
model of culture change. This model recognizes that
cultural structures are constantly being changed as a
result of the choices made by the people who use them.
Stimulus for change may come from within or outside of
a society and is closely related to the evaluations that
people make concerning their cultural behavior.
Negative evaluations of cultural behavior frequently
lead to changes in personal performance. These, in
turn, lead to alterations in the patterning of the culture.
Understandings of culture change and of reference
points for change lay the groundwork for the
discussion (in chapters 18 and 19) of cultural
transformation on the basis of Christian input.
g. Though cultures differ markedly from each other, the
superstructure of human commonality (chapter 5) on
which they all are built demands that they provide
satisfying answers to essentially the same sets of
questions. The approaches to answering such
questions and the conclusions arrived at show
remarkable human creativity and understanding as well
as limitations of various kinds. But underlying the
cultural diversity “people are more alike than cultures”
(Goldschmidt 1966, 134).

B. Ethnotheological Models I (Chapters 6-7)

 The first of two series of revised theological
(ethnotheological) models is developed in chapters 6 and 7.
This series is the result of the application of the preceding
anthropological models and submodels to theologizing.

Model 4, the God, humanity, and culture model, postulates

a particular relationship between God, human beings, and the
cultural matrix within which they interact. Five aspects of this
model are detailed.

a. The first aspect of this model (chapter 6) suggests that

the Christian God should not be perceived either as
against, merely in, or simply above culture. It sees
God as outside culture but working in terms of or
through culture to accomplish his purposes. Since
human beings exist in total cultural immersion, God
chooses to relate to us in terms of our cultural matrices.
His attitude, therefore, is not to be seen as either
negative or positive to human culture as such. Culture
is, rather, a vehicle that, though often used by humans
contrary to God's will, may be used by him for his
purposes.
b. Within this model, theology is seen as culture-bound
perception (chapter 7) with, as pointed out under model
2a, no inherent claim to sacredness simply because it
deals with sacred subject matter. Theological insight is
culture-bound even though the meanings (truth) that
theologians probe into originate outside of culture with
God.
c. The primacy of such supracultural meanings over the
cultural forms that God employs to convey them must,
therefore, be recognized. As model 3d shows, the
cultural forms that are used for God are extremely
important. For they can either accurately convey or
utterly confuse the transmission of God's truth. But the
forms are important as means not as ends, as conveyers
not as containers. It is the meanings that God wants to
convey that are crucial.
d. The concept of the supracultural and the cultural is
detailed as part d of this model. Under this heading we
seek to make explicit the culture-boundness of human
beings, on the one hand, and the freedom from culture-
boundness of God (except when and as he chooses to
work in and through culture), on the other. Note that it
specifically does not postulate any kind of God-
endorsed culture. It employs the term “supracultural”
only adjectivally to mean “non-culture-bound.”
“Supracultural” can apply only to beings and meanings
that originate outside of culture. These meanings may
also be called “Christian” if they are from God. The
cultural forms through which they are conveyed to
culture-bound human beings can be called neither
supracultural nor Christian.
e. Biblical cultural relativism postulates that God
recognizes and employs the sociocultural validity
principle (model 3b). He is seen to take into account (1)
the endowment and opportunities of people, (2) the
extent of revelation available to them, and (3) their
 cultural patterns. His interactions with people are
therefore relative to these factors. This is not an
absolute relativity, of course, but a recognition on
God's part of the reality of human immersion in culture.
Imitating God in this respect means that we are to
apply the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12) at the cultural level
as well as at the individual level, since God is no more
partial to one culture over another than he is to one
individual over another (Acts 10:34). Nor does he seek
to impose the forms of one culture on another as the
Pharisees (Matt. 23 and elsewhere) and the Judaizers
(Acts 15:1-2 and elsewhere) did.

Model 5 is labeled ethnotheological hermeneutics. In

many ways the implications of the present study have their
greatest significance within theological study for the way
biblical hermeneutics is done. This model attempts to outline
four important features of an ethnotheological approach to
interpretation in culture. The remainder of this book elaborates
on these and suggests additional features.

a. As an important part of this model we postulate that

human perception of God's truth may be adequate,
though never absolute. God's communication of himself
is purposeful. Human understanding can discern and
respond to what God has revealed in such a way that
his purpose is accomplished even though we see dimly
rather than absolutely (1 Cor. 13:12).
b. A second aspect of this model is the importance of going
 beyond the “grammatico-historical” method to a
“culturo-linguistic” or “ethnolinguistic” method of
interpretation. We are in strong agreement with the
conviction of biblical scholars that the biblical writings
need to be interpreted in their cultural contexts. The
input of the perspectives of contemporary
anthropology and linguistics, however, enables us to
probe more carefully and more surely into those
contexts than did the perspectives of history and
philology upon which grammatico-historical
methodology is based.
c. Attempting to understand supracultural meanings as
presented in their cultural contexts involves the
necessity to discern differing levels of abstraction.
Certain of these meanings are presented in Scripture via
specific applications in the original cultural contexts.
Other meanings are stated in more general
“propositions.” It is postulated that there are three
levels of abstraction: the culture-specific level, the
general-principle level, and the basic-ideal level.
d. The total process of biblical interpretation involves
attention both to the original biblical cultural contexts
and to the cultural context within which the interpreter
lives. Thus biblical interpretation becomes a “dialogic”
process between the interpreter in his or her cultural
context and the message of God presented in and
through the biblical cultures. We therefore discuss the
sense in which biblical interpretation is a “two-
culture dialogic” process.
 C. Communication Models (Chapter 8)
Model 6, the first of the models from communication
science, is that of receptor-oriented communication
developed in chapter 8. Ten basic principles of communication
are outlined in relation to this and the next model. Model 6
holds that the evaluation of any communicational event must
be made at the receptor's end. It is not enough for the initiator
of the communication to speak or behave accurately. What the
communicator says and does must be perceived by the
receptor as the communicator intends if the communication is
to serve its proper purpose. Three important aspects of this
model are:

a. The aim of each communicational interaction must be to

bring about a substantial correspondence between the
intent of the communicator and the understanding of
the receptor. There are, however, slippage and
interference in communicational interactions that assure
that what is understood is never identical with what is
intended. Communicators aim at bringing about as great
an identity as possible between their meanings and
those of their receptors. They settle, however, for an
understanding of their intent within a range of variation
that is acceptable to them (see model 9b below).
b. For, the receptor is the final formulator of the message.
The meanings that result from the communication are
formulated in the receptor's mind in response to the
stimulus of the communicator's message. These
 meanings depend at least as much on how the receptor
perceives the message (plus paramessages) as they do
on how the communicator formulates it. Communicators
may, however, present new information in their
messages that the receptors add to their store of
building materials for new meanings.
c. But the meanings that ultimately result from the
communicational process are made largely from
materials already resident in the receptors (Berlo
1960). This the receptors combine with any new
information in response to the stimulus of the
communicational interaction. The symbols used to
communicate messages are, therefore, stimulators of
meanings constructed by the receptors rather than
containers of meaning simply passed by the
communicators to the receptors. What the receptors
respond to is (according to this model) the result of the
impact of the symbols (cultural forms) employed on the
receptors, stimulating them to produce new meanings
largely from the concepts that already exist in their
heads.

Model 7, communication with impact (chapter 8) is the

next model. If impact is crucial to effective communication, it is
of great significance that communicators know how to bring it
about. A message that is simply intended to convey
information does not have to relate closely to the felt needs of
the receptor. Messages intended to influence the behavior of
the receptor, though, if they are to be effective, need to be
presented in such a way that the symbols employed stimulate
the desired response. The impact of the message is judged by
the kind of response it stimulates. We detail five features of
this model.

a. For a message to have high impact it needs to be

understood as personally as possible by the receptor.
Person-to-person communication maximizes the
possibility that the impact will be high, especially if
there is high identification between the participants.
When impersonal communication techniques are
employed and/or when people relate to each other not
as human beings but in terms of their stereotypes of
each other, communicational impact is decreased.
b. The potential for high-impact communication is
increased the more completely the communicator, the
message, and the receptor participate in the same
frame of reference. Either the frame of reference of the
communicator or that of the receptor may be chosen.
The impact on the receptor, is, however, likely to be
considerably greater if the receptor's frame of reference
is employed. Though much Christian communication
seeks to “extract” the receptors from their context into
that of the communicator, God's communication is
“identificational” or “incarnational”—i.e., involving the
communicator in working in terms of the frame of
reference of the hearers as Jesus did.
c. Within the same frame of reference, the credibility of the
communicator is crucial to the kind of impact that the
 message conveys. Communicators who earn high
credibility with their audiences will be able to convey
high-impact messages. Communicators isolated from
their receptors by stereotype barriers tend to find the
impact of their messages low. To overcome the barrier
created by a stereotype, communicators need to act in a
way that identifies them not with the stereotype but
with the human being to whom they seek to
communicate. Such “unpredictability” in terms of the
stereotype increases the communicational impact. God
employs this principle also.
d. When the message is credible by relating specifically
rather than generally to the receptor's real life, the
impact is increased. General messages elicit general,
low-impact responses. Messages specifically related to
the receptors' felt needs, on the other hand, have high
impact. God's communications (both past and present)
are specific to the lives of his receptors, and therefore
have high impact.
e. Meanings that the receptor discovers have higher
impact than the mere presentation of predigested
informationalized messages. Communicators who seek
high impact should try to present themselves and their
messages in such a way that the receptors are led to
discover a life-changing relationship to both. The
ultimate impact of communicational events is signaled
when the receptors identify with both the
communicator and the message by committing
themselves to the communicator's cause. This is the
 kind of impact that God seeks and he conducts his
communicational activity accordingly.

D. Ethnotheological Models II (Chapters 9-19)

Model 8 (developed in chapter 9) deals with the nature
and components of God's revelation in culture. It applies
communication-science insight to an analysis of what God has
done in the process of revealing himself to human beings. This
model has eleven subparts.

a. The first assertion made under model 8 is that God is

receptor-oriented in his revelational activity. His
concern is not simply to make an impression on
humanity but to be understood accurately and
forcefully in order to elicit the response he seeks from
his human receptors. The receptor-oriented
communicational model is here applied to understand
better how God goes about revealing himself.
b. Such receptor-oriented revelation involves God in
communicating across the gap between his
supracultural realm and that of culture-bound
humanity. To do this he is seen as employing the
communicational principles detailed in chapter 8
(models 6 and 7). In seeking to be understood by
human receptors, God interacts with them within their
frames of reference via credible human communicators
to present a life-specific and life-transforming message
in such a way that humans can discover its validity for
 their lives and commit themselves to God and to his
cause. In this, God seeks to stimulate the development
of impact-laden meanings in the receptors. The ultimate
example of impactful, receptor-oriented revelation is the
incarnation of God in Jesus.
c. Whenever God communicates, he reveals something
new concerning himself. The basic message (the
meanings) remains quite similar but its encasement in
new specific vehicles (cultural forms) results in partial
newness of meaning. Such revelation ranges within the
acceptable limits of variation allowed by God and set
forth in Scripture (see model 9).
d. Revelation from this point of view is a dynamic,
continuing cotmmunicational process, rather than
something that started and stopped in the past and has
now become static. The livingness of God, the
livingness of his receptors, and the dynamic nature of
communicational interaction demand a dynamic
concept of revelation.
e. The information that is an important part of the
revelational process must, therefore, be distinguished
from the dynamic process itself. Information from God
is important both as an input to God's revealing activity
and as a product of it (Ramm 1961). But information, no
matter how sacred, must not be equated with revelation
itself. There are general and special revelational
information, but each needs activation to become
revelation in a contemporary context.
f. The process of revelation results from the application of
revelational (divine) stimulus to the information
available (whether general or special) in such a way
that it has God's intended impact on the receptor(s).
The revelational process, like certain glues, requires a
base (information) plus an activator (the personal
stimulus of God, usually in partnership with a human
being) to come into being. Neither the base nor the
activator is effective all by itself even if, as in the case
of the Scriptures, the information therein presented is
the “deposit” (Ramm 1961) of certain of God's previous
revelational activities. Even that base needs activation
via “repersonalization” (see chapter 11 for further
elaboration).
g. Revelation, like redemption (Vos 1948, 6), is both
objective (or objectified) and subjective. Some prefer
to label the objectified (enscripturated) component
“revelation” and the subjective (contemporary)
component “illumination” or “enlightenment” (Vos).
The model here presented labels what appears to be the
same process by the single term “revelation.” We
distinguish, though, the objectifled and subjective
components employed in the process.
h. We postulate that the revealing activity of God today is
equivalent in its dynamics within today's cultural
contexts to that which we read about in the Bible. We
label this dynamically equivalent or meaning
equivalent revelation and thus seek to make manifest
the similarities between this process and a series of
 other processes within Christianity that are also to be
dynamically equivalent to the processes recorded in the
Bible (see model 11).
i. In an attempt to combat the Western cultural error of
equaling revelation with information (see model 8e,
above), we suggest that the traditional distinction
between “general and special revelation” should be
seen as a distinction between two kinds (or sources) of
information, not as a distinction between two kinds of
revelation. We thus develop the concept of general
and special revelational information in chapter 11.
j. The full-orbed process of revelation requires, then, both
an informational base and a Spirit-led personal
activator. The repersonalization of revelational
information functions with respect to that information
much like the activator functions with respect to the
base in the application of substances such as epoxy
glue.
k. The recognition that we have greater understanding of
God by the end of the Scriptures than was available to
those at the beginning needs to be registered. In
recognition of the constancy of the message (model
10b), though, it needs to be pointed out that what is
often termed “progressive revelation” consists of the
increase of revelational information from beginning
to end of the Bible, not the evolutionary superseding of
one of God's approaches by another, as if he couldn't.
quite make up his mind. This understanding is closely
related to model 9h, and they are treated together in
 chapter 11.

Model 9 conceptualizes the nature and functions of the

Bible in culture. Eight features of this model are treated.

a. Among the important functions that the Bible can serve

is as a yardstick by means of which to measure God's
contemporary revelations of himself and his will. The
adequacy of the biblical repository of previous
revelation is such that contemporary messages from
God will not fall outside the range there allowed.
Making such evaluations with preciseness is still a
problem but it is helpful to recognize that:
b. The Bible allows a range of acceptable variation rather
than contending for one single right ideal with
everything else labeled unacceptable. A latitude must
be allowed in the correspondence between the
perception of the receptor and the intent of the
communicator. God takes this factor into account and
works with people whose understandings and behavior,
though subideal, fall within an allowed range of
variation. Communicationally, latitude must be allowed
at two points: (1) where the divine intent is encoded in
inadequate human language, and (2) where the receptor
perceives and responds to the message. This concept
anticipates the starting-point-plus-process aspect of
model 10.
c. In addition to providing measurement (model 9a, above),
we see the Bible as a tether. As the confirmed inspired
 record of the way God works, the Bible provides the
“set radius” within which contemporary revelational
encounters may occur. Events that occur outside that
range are by definition not revelational. Within this
tether the contemporary repersonalization of the
Scriptures is also to occur. Parts a, b, and c of model 9
combine to conceptualize the fact that the Scriptures
show us both the range within which God works and
the borders at either extreme of that range. We
recognize that God often presents ideal understandings
(e.g., Matt. 5:28 on adultery and 5:21-22 on murder),
exhibiting one extreme of the range. But he also shows
where he is willing to start at the other end of that
range. The biblical, range, then, provides the tether
within which contemporary interaction with God can
move and the yardstick by means of which it is possible
to evaluate whether or not contemporary practices can
be considered biblical.
d. The Bible, then, is seen as an inspired collection of
classic cases from history (chapter 10) exemplifying
certain of God's past interactions with human beings
for the instruction and guidance of those who now seek
to follow in their footsteps. This understanding
contrasts with the academic-oriented approach that
either explicitly or implicitly represents the Bible as if it
were simply a kind of technically worded textbook on
history and theology. The casebook model does not
deny either the existence or the importance of the
historical and theological material in the Bible. Nor does
 it deny the right, even the obligation, of students of the
Bible to develop theological generalizations
(conceptual formulations) on the basis of scriptural
data. This model simply speaks to the fact that the
Scriptures are a collection of “classic” materials (i.e.,
time tested and found to be of enduring value) that
were produced for particular people at particular times
and places. When there is in the Bible historical and
theological systematization (as there frequently is) it is
done with the particular target audience and situation in
mind. Each document” is a specific presentation (a case
study) dealing with the problems and participants in a
specific context. The Bible is not a generalized, highly
coordinated, textbook presentation.
e. The Bible is a joint product of human and divine
partnership. It is both God's Word and human words
(Berkouwer 1975, 22-23). It is a product of the
interactions between God and human beings in culture,
as well as an inspired record of certain of these
interactions. It records God's communicational
(revelational) activity and enhances the continuation of
that activity in other places and times. It records God's
message and method as perceived (under inspiration)
by human beings and spoken/written by them in terms
comprehensible to other humans.
f. The inspiring activity of God is understood to be dynamic
—an example of the continual leading activity of God.
Inspiration is not static, as if it were a method God
once used but has since abandoned. Static views are
 postulated as arising from fallacies endemic in Western
societies such as the overvaluing of printed material,
the search for an authority beyond the taint of human
fallibility, and the tendency to overestimate the
differences between what happened in history and
what is happening now.
g. Such dynamic inspiring/leading of God results in a
Bible that presents truth with impact. The Bible, like all
of God's communicational activity, is receptor-oriented
for maximum impact. It does not merely present
information as a textbook might but, in casebook
fashion, records the kind of “alive and active” (Heb.
4:12) events that it seeks to stimulate. It seeks to bring
about true relationships, not simply to record true
information. It: is truth presented with impact.
h. God's constant message and method are presented in
the Scriptures in a variety of cultural forms. This fact
is instructive to us in a historical sense and also as an
example of the validity of a variety of cultural
understandings and expressions of the message that lie
within the biblical tether today. The divine-human
interactions recorded in the Scriptures occurred in
various cultural contexts, even though several of them
may be labeled “Hebrew.” This fact makes explicit for us
a variety of acceptable expressions of such interactions
based on differences of culture, extent of knowledge
available, and, consequently, human perception.
Such insight into the breadth of the culture,
knowledge, and range of perception within which God
 is willing to work today is extremely useful for those
attempting to witness faithfully in a multicultural world.
The Bible provides “zoom-lens” views of God at work
in each of the varieties of culture therein represented.
This increases our understanding of how he desires to
work in present-day societies that are similar to those
represented in Scripture.
The cultural contexts in which God is scripturally
recorded as working are, therefore, to be seen
“horizontally” rather than “vertically.” Each cultural
variety is as valid as each other (model 3b). There is no
essential superiority to the presentation of the Gospel
message to Hellenistic audiences in terms of a focus on
their core values (e.g., grace, logos) over the
presentation to Hebrew audiences in terms of their core
values (e.g., tradition, law, sacrifice). The accumulation
of revelational information (model 8k) should, of course,
make a difference for those who know that information.
But how to relate to this fact is also shown in a
“horizontal” view of biblical revelation—people are
accountable for what they know (model l0g).
Knowledge, then, is increased within the context of
Christian commitment (model 10c).

Model 10 deals with the way in which God interacts with

human beings. This model has at least the following seven
aspects to it.

a. In chapter 10 we introduce the constancy of method

 concept. The point made is that the Bible reveals the
constant method by means of which the unchanging
God (Mal. 3:6) seeks to communicate his constant
message (model 10b, below). This method, well
articulated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22, involves
extensive adaptation by the communicator (God) to the
cultural context of the receptors in order by all means to
win those within that context. God, like Paul, is seen as
approaching Jews in Jewish ways, Greeks in Greek
ways, Euro-Americans in Euro-American ways. God is
seen as always working in partnership with human
beings in terms of the communicational principles
developed in chapter 8 to lead people revelationally
(i.e., in and into his will). The majority of differences
between one portion of the Scriptures and another
(including those called “dispensations”) are here seen
as applicational, cultural differences rather than
differences in the basic method or message. All of
these, plus the large number of other scriptural
additions to our knowledge concerning how God
works, are seen as revelational in that they all add to
our understandings of things that we could or would
not have discovered otherwise.
b. The unchangingness of God (Mal. 3:6) demands a
recognition of the constancy of his message (chapter
11). This concept holds that the basic meanings (i.e.,
the message) that God seeks to communicate remain
constant throughout the Bible and history. There are
differences of application and expression of this
 message in a variety of cultural and personal contexts, a
selection of which have been recorded in the
Scriptures. There is, furthermore, a significant
cumulative increase of information concerning God and
his works from beginning to end of the Bible (model 8k).
But the basic message is just as available to the
peoples reported on in the early portions of the Old
Testament as to those of the New Testament (Heb. 11
documents this). That basic message has not
undergone change from the beginning of time.
This is a different view of God's revelational activity
than that of understandings that postulate changes in
the message at points in history when God involves
himself in some major new manifestation (e.g., the fall,
the giving of the law, the coming of Christ, Pentecost).
Such understandings tend to give the impression that
increases in information concerning the workings of
God (often termed “progressive revelation”) add to that
which must be known as a precondition to salvation.
We here distinguish between valuable knowledge
about God's message (the total revelation) and that
essential message itself (the core of the revelation).
c. All of this demands a starting-point-plus-process
concept (chapter 12). It can be observed from scriptural
data that, though allegiance to God is central to the
message (model 13a), God allowed for a range of
understanding of himself (model 9b). There are two
additional dimensions of this range: (1) a variety of
potential starting points, and (2) a revelational
progression from a subideal starting point toward the
ideal. With respect to the former, we know that God
would not accept as valid (i.e., saving) a faith-allegiance
to another god (e.g., 1 Kgs 18:17-40). He did, however,
accept, on the basis of their faith commitment to him,
those who believed in the existence of other gods (e.g.,
Jonah). He also accepted as valid starting points Old
Testament understandings of himself that appear to us
overbalanced in the direction of seeing him to be
excessively distant (Deut. 10:17; Job 33:13), judgmental
(Deut. 32:39-43), and even capricious (1 Sam. 2:6-8; Job
9:12). Such distance between God and human beings is
understood as being bridged by mercy in the Old
Testament, like that of an exalted, powerful king toward
his subjects (Exod. 20:6; 33:19). From such perceptions
of God, we see in Scripture the people of God moving
over time to models of understanding him as close
(Matt. 1:23), like a father (Mal. 2:10; Rom. 8:1.5), and
relating to human beings in love (1 John 4:8; Rom. 8:39).
This understanding can be applied (as in chapter
12) to understanding any doctrine of Scripture (e.g., sin,
salvation, conversion, doctrine of humanity, etc.) and
any scriptural treatment of behavioral patterns (e.g.,
marriage customs, the Ten Commandments, love of
neighbor, etc.). It can, furthermore, be applied to
contemporary witnessing situations where the question
is, “Will God accept such a subideal belief or custom as
a starting point in his working with the group? Or must
that belief or custom be immediately rejected if these
 people are to be called by God's name?” Scriptural
evidence suggests that God allows, but seeks to
transform, most subideal beliefs and practices except
those that require faith-allegiance to another god (see
model 13).
God starts where people are, rather than demanding
that they immediately conform to his ideals. All people
seem, however, to live according to a dual standard.
They have cultural ideals but ordinarily live somewhat
below them at what anthropologists call the level of
“actual” (also misleadingly called “real”) culture. This
is, we believe, where God starts—if that behavior lies
within his allowable range.
d. Contrary to much culture-bound Western theologizing,
we postulate that God has a “directional” rather than
a “positional” basis for accepting or rejecting
humans. Though many groups, such as the Pharisees
and the Judaizers, maintained doctrinal and behavioral
positions that would seem to be acceptable to God,
they were rejected. It is postulated here that the reason
lay in the fact that they were moving (or had moved)
away from their allegiance to God. The thief on the
cross, on the other hand, though behaviorally and
doctrinally outside any humanly defined acceptable
position vis-à-vis God, cast himself in the direction of a
saving faith-allegiance to God and was saved.
e. In leading people from their initial faith response toward
maturity, God adopts a two-step process (chapter 12).
He first seeks to lead and (by the Holy Spirit) empower
 people to live closer to their own ideals than they have
ever before been able to. His first standard in the
process that issues in conversion is the cultural ideals
already known by the convert—providing, of course,
that these lie within God's allowable range. And his first
step is to lead people to live closer to those ideals.
f. As the second step in this process, then, comes the
raising of the ideals in the direction of God's ideals as
made explicit in Scripture. In spite of much
contemporary Western Christian practice that seems to
assume that God is less patient today than in biblical
times in leading people toward his ideals, we maintain
that his method remains the same in this regard.
g. In view of these aspects of God's interaction with human
beings, we postulate that God's method and message
are today the same as they always have been with
respect to those who may be chronologically A.D. but
informationally B.C. That is, since God's method and
message have not changed, he must interact with those
who are today informationally like Old Testament
peoples on the same basis as that which he employed
with those peoples. The Scriptures give us ample
insight into these matters. This insight, then, is
contemporarily applicable, not merely of historical
interest.

Model 11 is the dynamic-or meaning-equivalence model

(developed in chapter 13 and applied in chapters 13-17). Much
of what is presented in chapters 6-12 both contributes to and
presupposes this model. It is closely related to anthropological
and communicational concepts (see especially models 3d, 4c, 6-
10, and particularly 8h) but is most clearly developed within
(Bible) translation theory (see Nida and Taber 1969). It
maintains that the aim of translation is to bring about as near
an equivalence as possible between the response of the
contemporary hearers/readers of the translation and that of the
original hearers/readers of the communication recorded in the
document being translated. This model sees the translated
Word acting as a communicational stimulus toward the re-
creation of an impact on today's receptors that is (roughly)
equivalent to that recorded in the Word.
This theory of translation contrasts with the form-oriented
literal-translation ideal. That ideal, based on inadequate
understandings of language and culture, seeks simply to move
from the language forms of the source language directly to the
corresponding forms of the receptor language. It fails to see
the often radical differences between the worldviews
underlying the structuring of languages and cultures and the
consequent need for interpretation and paraphrase in
translation to make the intent of the original intelligible to the
new receptors. Dynamic/meaning-equivalence theory seeks to
go more deeply both into an understanding of the dynamics of
the original situations and into the receptor language and
culture to create there a communicational stimulus that will
function in as nearly an equivalent way as possible today.

a. This model, since it has been developed by Bible

translation theorists, is applied to and exemplified with
 relationship to Bible translation while it is being
explained (chapter 13).
b. The transculturating, or contemporary communication,
of the message in word and life should be dynamically
equivalent to (i.e., should lead people to create the same
meanings today as do) the examples of such
communication that we see in the Scriptures (chapter
14).
c. Theologizing (doing theology) is to be dynamically
equivalent today to biblical examples (chapter 15). We
are to re-create the scripturally endorsed theologizing
process, not simply to transmit the theological products
of yesteryear.
d. The church, too, is to function in a manner equivalent to
that of the early churches, not simply to reproduce
their forms (chapter 16). The purpose of the church is
seen to lie in the transmission of Christian meanings to
and in today's world, not in the preservation of
traditional cultural forms. The latter may have served
well in past times and other places but need to be
replaced by appropriate receptor-culture forms that
convey equivalent meanings today.
e. Christian conversion should also be dynamically
equivalent today to its scriptural antecedents (chapter
17). It should not be changed, as it was by the
Pharisees and Judaizers, into mere conversion from one
culture to another. Conversion is a lifetime process,
consisting of continuous divine—human interaction
and a continuing series of human decisions.
 Model 12 (developed in chapter 15) elaborates on the
concept of cross-culturally valid theologizing that is at the
heart of this book. Much of that material has been anticipated
in previous sections of the book, but at this point three useful
contrasts, implicit in the model, are introduced.

a. It is possible to distinguish, between narrow culture-

specific theologies (such as Western theologizing) and
the more broadly based theological perspective
developed in this book by labeling the former ethnic
theologies and the latter ethnotheology. Ethnic
Christian theologies attempt to develop and apply
theological insights within a single society or, as with
Western societies, within a single set of closely
interacting societies. Christian ethnotheology seeks to
study as wide a variety as possible of such ethnic
theologies and to develop cross-culturally valid
understandings of God and his workings.
b. The descriptions of ethnic theologies may be called
theographies just as, within anthropology, descriptions
of individual cultures are called “ethnographies.” The
term “theology” then, would be reserved for use as the
label for the cross-culturally valid understandings
labeled “ethnotheology” above.
c. Looking at God and his works from inside a given culture
gives one what may be termed an emic understanding
of theology. An outside analyst who seeks to
understand theology cross-culturally, on the other
hand, attempts to develop an etic understanding of
 theology.

Model 13 is the Christian transformational change model

(chapters 18 and 19). I see both Scripture and anthropology
advocating effective cultural change from the inside out.
Changes in worldview (paradigm shifts) are the most pervasive
and effective kinds of cultural change, though usually the
most, difficult to initiate. Such, changes need to be initiated by
those inside a society (Barnett 1953; see model 13e, below).
They then work like yeast (Matt. 13:33), to transform the
culture from within (see model 13d, below) in such a way that
first the meanings and then at least some of the structures of
that culture (the forms) are altered to serve God's purposes
better. The changes in meaning and usage are the most
important part of this process, since most of the structures
(forms) are essentially neutral and, therefore, just as usable for
Christian purposes as for other purposes.

a. The use of this transformation process by Christianity

is seen as initiated by a change of allegiance to God
from whatever previous allegiance(s) were in vogue.
This change of allegiance often involves one or more
“power encounters” (Tippett 1973).
b. The second step is at least a start on the reformulation of
worldview in such a way that evaluations and
interpretations of each aspect of life are made in terms
of the claims of the new allegiance. “What does God
desire in this area of life?” is a primary worldview-
transforming question.
 c. The reevaluation and reinterpretation lead to
rehabituation—changes in habitual behavior issuing
from the new allegiance and the consequent,
reevaluation process.
d. The whole process of working to bring about
transformational change in that within which one is
immersed necessitates some such model as working
within in order to change. We need to learn to employ
cultural mechanisms for change, not to destroy the
culture and those processes along with it.
e. The place of advocates and innovators (Barnett 1953) is
crucial to the transformation process. Principles are
developed in chapter 19 to assist us in understanding
the place in this process of those who actually effect
changes (innovators) and those who seek to persuade
others to make changes (advocates).

This completes the summary of the models here employed.

There are additional concepts to be found throughout the book
that could probably be elevated to model or submodel status.
But this listing should suffice to highlight at least the major
models and their constituent features. Note that one
presupposition of the use of model theory is that models (and
even constituent features of models) can stand or fall by
themselves. These models and constituents do not necessarily
all stand or fall together. If you, the reader, find one or more of
these concepts unacceptable, you are free to reject it/them
without rejecting the remainder of the presentation.
See the outline above on pp. xxxi.
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