United Theological College, Bangalore

Topic: Gospel and Culture: Contextualization, Inculturation and Indigenisation

(Contemporary Theologies of Mission)
Moderator Dr. P.T. George
Presented by Lunkim Z. Khongsai
Introduction

The modern mission movement encountered a bewildering variety of peoples and cultures in
newly discovered worlds. At the outset it subsumed this diversity under the concept of
civilization, and Christianity was equated with Western ways. Because religion was seen as
the core of other cultures, the mission encounter with other people was seen essentially as
religious in character.1 The paper will mainly deal the understanding of Gospel and Culture,
Contextualization, Inculturation and Indigenization in the Third World countries.

1. Gospel and Culture

1.1. Culture

How should Christians relate to people of other faith, and how should missionaries respond to
the fact that young churches around the world were often copies of the western churches that
planted them and foreign to their contexts? The first was the re-emergence of local identities
and the rise of nationalism around the world. The second was the deep personal encounters
between missionaries and the people among whom they ministered. McGrane writes:

The emergence of the concept “culture” has made possible the democratization of
differences.... The twentieth-century concept of “culture” has rescued the non-European
other from the depths of the past and prehistory and reasserted him in the present; he is
once again contemporary with us. Twentieth-century culture was a concept forged in
the teeth of “evolution,” in a struggle to the death with “evolution” and the hierarchical
scheme implicit in it.2

This change in words reflects a profound shift in the way western people viewed other
peoples. In it people belong to cultures which enabled them to live in community. All
cultures are equally good, and their preservation is of unquestioned value. From a missionary
perspective, all cultures are equally capable of receiving and embodying the Gospel. The

1
Paul G. Hiebert, “Gospel and Culture: The WCC Project,” Missiology, Vol. XXV, No. 2. April 1997: 199.
2
Paul G. Hiebert, “Gospel and Culture: The WCC Project,” Missiology, 199-200.

1
Cultural values and identities of different communities are being rediscovered, refined and
sharpened by new challenges in the modern world. These differences are to be seen as
opportunities for learning from one another. It is new millennium leaders who will thrive will
be those who can handle cultural differences with success. We all will need to work towards
a measure of cultural literacy and sensitivity.3

According to S.M. Michael the term culture is one of the basic concepts in social science, and
it has been defined in different ways by social scientist. It is central to the definition of man
anthropology. According to many anthropologists the essential distinguishing factor between
man and animal is that men have culture. Hence, culture is specifically related to man.
Wherever human beings are, they adapt to a way of life, which is their culture. Culture is
looked upon as universal but also seen as the unique possession of a particular community.4

1.2. The Relation between Gospel and Culture in Mission

Mission should take the local context and the culture with seriousness; and the Gospel and
Culture should go hand in hand. A Gospel that will not be uncultured and rooted in any
culture where it is proclaimed becomes only a potted Gospel and when the pot is broken, the
Gospel is dried up.5

Every human being adopts a way of life influenced by customs, beliefs, social organisations
etc. Herskovits has drawn attention to the universal as well as the particular aspect of culture.
He says, “Culture is universal in man’s experience, yet each local or regional manifestation of
it is unique”.6 The most important aspect of a culture is its configuration or world-view. The
material and mental aspects of culture do not have the same grip on people. “A study of the
cultural development of mankind shows that a people change more easily elements of
material culture, but cling more tenaciously to forms of social structure and abandon with
great reluctance its traditions, and elements of mental and religious culture”.7

When we contemplate the relationship between Gospel and Culture, it is important to keep in
mind that basically the Christian faith is the same everywhere but the way it finds expression

3
Document on CCBI Consultation on “Dialogue of Cultures- Cultural Issues in Mission,” Mission Today, Vol.
II, No. 2, April-June 2000: 245.
4
S.M. Michael, “Christianity and Culture,” Indian Theological Studies, Vol. XV, No. 1, March 2003: 29.
5
G. Dyvasirvadam, “Mission in Transition: A Contextual Appraisal,” Mission Paradigm in the New
Millennium, edited by W.S. Milton Jeganathan (Delhi: ISPCK, 2000), 3.
6
S.M. Michael, “Christianity and Culture,” Indian Theological Studies, 33.
7
S.M. Michael, “Christianity and Culture,” Indian Theological Studies, 59.

2
may differ from culture to culture. Studies on culture and Bible reveal that the community in
which the Holy Book was compiled and edited was itself for many centuries influenced by
several civilizations and cultures, but what is unique for the Bible is that the material
borrowed or incorporated from other cultures were transformed into profound insights into
the nature of God and human. The basic message will remain permanent and unchangeable
although the external trappings may vary.8

In the post colonial age the Church reaffirms culture as an important dimension of her
mission in the world. It is necessary to retrieve the profound meaning of faith as it is unfolded
in the Old and New Testament. For Israel faith was a radical commitment to God the best
example of which is the faith of Abraham. The same is true also about the New Testament,
where we find Jesus demanding a very personal commitment from the people to become his
disciples and the members of the kingdom of God. For Paul the inner meaning of faith was
the decisive factor for belonging to the new dispensation of Christ.9

The representatives of accommodation model have a static concept of both Gospel and
Culture, and their relationship. In the transition from one culture to another, the given,
unchangeable gospel gets stripped of its old cultural cloth and dressed with a new one. The
new culture is also considered as a constant which, in a way, is supposed to be baptized by
the Gospel. Beside the metaphor of the cloth, the picture of the kernel and the husk is
frequently used in this context. Missiological has evolved a variety of models for the
description of the relationship between Gospel and culture, a relationship which, however,
can be reduced essentially to two basic types: the traditional model of accommodation or
adaption- which at times in Protestant missiology was referred to as the indigenization model
and the model of contextualization.10

2. Contextualization

Contextual theology is a form of Christian theology necessary today in view of the increasing
consciousness of plurality of religions, worldviews, philophies, cultures, and socio-political
system.11 Contextualization began to be used by Shoki Coe and Aharon Sapsezian, in 1972,
8
.M. Michael, “Christianity and Culture,” Indian Theological Studies, 55-56.
9
Document on CCBI Consultation on “Dialogue of Cultures- Cultural Issues in Mission,” Mission Today, Vol.
II, No. 2, April-June 2000: 246.
10
Bruce J. Nicholls, Contextualization: A Theology of Gospel and Culture (Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1979),
21.
11
Hans Waldenfels, “Contextual Theology,” Dictionary of Mission Theology, edited by Karl Muller (Maryknoll,
New York: Orbis Books, 1998), 84.

3
under the directions of the Theological Education Fund. The TEF report for that year,
Ministry and Context, suggested that contextualization implies all that is involved in the
familiar term indigenization, but seeks to press beyond it to take into account “the process of
secularity, technology and the struggle for human justice which characterized the historical
moment of nations in the Third World.”12

The contextualization model has been elaborated through the debate on the third world
theologies, as it is being carried on very distinctively, for example, in the Ecumenical
Association of Third World Theologians. According to the thematic emphasis, two main
currents can be distinguished: liberation theologies, which focus more on socio-economic and
political questions, and inculturation theologies, which are more oriented towards culture and
religion.13

2.1. According to some Scholars view of Contextualization

According to Eugene S. Heideman contextualization provide space for the incorporation into
the life and practice of the church elements found in the cultures of Asia, Africa, and
indigenous peoples around the world. Although the term was at first received with
considerable hesitation by evangelical mission agencies, it has come to play a major role
across the theological mission spectrum. Paul Hiebert has set a clear statement of the issues
involved in contextualization and advocates a process of “critical contextualization” as
missionaries and church leaders accept old beliefs, rituals, stories, art, songs and customs into
the life and practice of the Christian community. In that process, “the old is neither rejected
nor accepted uncritically. It is explicitly examined with regard to its meanings and functions
in the society, and evaluated in the light of biblical norms.14

Jesurathnam emphasized that contextualization is certainly one of the most important issues
in mission. Doing mission contextually is not an option it is really a missiological imperative.
Contextualization is part of the very nature of mission itself. Contextualization in mission is
essentially concerned with how gospel and culture relate to one another across geographic
space and down through time. In fact, it is a perennial challenge of relating the gospel to
culture, in this sense, the concern of contextualization is ancient and traditional; at the same
time, it is something new in continuity with the old and the traditional. The term
12
Bruce J. Nicholls, Contextualization: A Theology of Gospel and Culture, 21.
13
Volker Kuster, “Accomodation or Contextualization,” Mission Studies, Vol.XVI-1, 31, 1999: 157-172.
14
Eugene S. Heideman, “Syncretism, Contextualization, Orthodoxy and Heresy,” Missiology, Vol. XXV, No. 1,
January 1997: 39.

4
contextualization includes all that is implied in indigenization or inculturation, but seeks also
to include the realities of contemporary, secularity, technology, and the struggle for human
justice.15

According to Bruce J. Nicholls Contextuality is the capacity to respond meaningfully to the

gospel within the framework of one’s own situation. Contextualization is not simply a fad or
a catchword but a theological necessity demanded by the incarnational nature of the word.
The concerns of the advocates of contextualization are valid. As well as addressing the gospel
to the traditional cultural values, must take into account contemporary social, economic and
political issues of class struggle, riches and poverty, bribery and corruption, power politics,
privileges and oppression- all the factors that constitute society and the relationships between
one community and another.16

Robert L. Gallagher opines that the object of contextualization is to bring the gospel message
to all nations in such a way that they understand the truth of Christ as accurately as the people
of the early church did. Contextual theology is a means of mission in a particular context. 17
The challenges of contextualization were evident in Moravian mission. Our message might
be one hundred percent accurate but unless it is communicated in a way that makes cultural
sense to the hearer, it might be one hundred percent irrelevant.18

2.2. Contextual Theology of Mission

Theologies emerging from Asia, Africa and Latin America are often termed “Third World
Theologies” or “contextual theologies.” According to Kirsteen Kim “contextual theologies”
is an appropriate term for theologies which are conscious or even unconscious attempts of
Christians in locality- wherever it may be- to relate and express the Gospel in the context in
which they live. Stephen B. Bevans shows that contextualization of theology takes place in
the North as well as in the South. Schreiter and Bevans the missiologist helped to establish
contextual theology as a form of study and illustrate the way in which it derives from mission

15
R. Yesurathnam, “Contextualization,” Mission Paradigm in the New Millennium, edited by W.S. Milton
Jeganathan (Delhi: ISPCK, 2000), 52.
16
Bruce J. Nicholls, Contextualization: A Theology of Gospel and Culture, 21-22.
17
Kirsteen Kim, “Missiology as Global Conversion of Contextual Theologies,” Mission Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1,
2004: 39.
18
Robert L. Gallagher, “The Integration of Mission Theology and Practice: Zinzendorf and the Early
Moravians,” Mission Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2008: 202.

5
experience. Contextual theology arises not only directly from missiological reflection but also
from developments in philosophy and systematic or dogmatic theology.19

Bruce J. Nicholls opines that the patterns of contextualization will be largely limited to
selected parts of the Third World. As a broad generalization, two levels of contextualization-
cultural and theological. The former relates primarily to the two surface levels or segments of
culture behaviour and the use of artefacts. On the other hand, the deeper levels of culture,
namely the world view and cosmology and the moral and ethical values that are derived from
them, are the primary concern of the theologian.20

Darrell L. Whiteman opines that in a spirit of humility is a fundamental requirement for

contextualization. According to him contextualization leaves us with three challenges (1)
contextualization changes and transforms the context- this is the prophetic challenge; (2)
contextualization expands our understanding of the gospel because we now see the gospel
through a different cultural lens- this is the hermeneutic challenge; (3) contextualization
changes the cross-cultural witness because people will not be the same once they become part
of the body of Christ in a context different from their own- this is the personal challenge.21

2.3. Contextual theology from Tribal Perspective

Contextual theology is the need of the hour in the Church anywhere in the world. The
expansion and consolidation of Christianity in the early centuries in the Roman Empire and
Hellenistic culture were accompanied by efforts to interpret the Christ event and God
experience in context of the society and culture. Such a process is necessary also in the tribal
context, if Christianity is to take deep root in the cultures of tribal peoples all over the world.

3. Inculturation

Inculturation describes how the Christian faith interacts with a culture by influencing its
people’s understanding of the gospel and the way in which it is practised and shared within
that particular culture. The objective of inculturation is to enable the gospel message to be
readily understood, accepted and lived out in the thought-forms of the culture as it is
expressed in its vocabulary, arts forms and imagery.22
19
Kirsteen Kim, “Missiology as Global Conversion of Contextual Theologies,” Mission Studies, 43.
20
Bruce J. Nicholls, Contextualization: A Theology of Gospel and Culture, 24.
21
Darrell L. Whiteman, “Contextualing the Gospel,” Missiology, Vol. XXV, No. 1, January 1997: 4.
22
P.S. Raj, “Inculturation,” Dictionary of Mission Theology: Evangelical Foundations, edited by John Corrie
at.al. (England: Inter Varsity Press, 2007), 181.

6
During the past several centuries the Church was not in a position to face the challenges of
inculturation. The reason was that due to the impact of the Reformation and Rationalism,
faith in the Catholic tradition, was presented in rationalistic terms and less in personal
categories. However, after Vatican II faith is now seen more as a personal commitment and
related to and affecting the day-to-day life of the people where the impact of culture is also
very much visible.23

According to Aloysius Pieris inculturation is something that happens naturally. It can never
be induced artificially. A Christian community tends to appropriate the symbols and mores of
the human groupings around it only to the degree that it immerses itself in their lives and
struggles. Inculturation is the by-product of an involvement with a people rather than the
conscious target of a program of action. People creates a culture, it is therefore, from the
people with whom one becomes involved that one understands and acquires a culture.24

Inculturation is a matter of fidelity to our reality, principle, economy, truth and grace of the
incarnation of God’s word. It is neither an escape from our reality and context or it is a world
of illusion. Roest Crollius says “The inculturation of the Church is the integration of the
Christian experience of a local Church into the culture of its people in such a way that this
experience not only expresses itself in elements of this culture, but becomes a force that
animates, orients and innovates this culture so as to create a new unity and communion, not
only within the culture in question but also as an enrichment of the Church universal”.25

Underlining the encounter between culture between culture and Gospel, Redemptoris Missio
says, “It is not a matter of purely external adaptation, for inculturation means the intimate
transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity and the
insertion of Christianity in the various human cultures”. Emphasising the importance of the
process of encountering the world’s cultures, the Church not only transmits her truths and
values and renews cultures from within, but she also takes from the various cultures the
positive elements already found in them...”26

3.1. The Important of Inculturation

23
Document on CCBI Consultation on “Dialogue of Cultures- Cultural Issues in Mission,” Mission Today, Vol.
II, No. 2, April-June 2000: 246.
24
Aloysius Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988), 38.
25
L. Stanislaus, “Globalization and inculturation,” Mission Today, Vol. V, No. 1, Jan- March 2003: 24.
26
Stanislaus, “Globalization and inculturation,” Mission Today, 24.

7
Subhash Anand opines that people encounter the Gospel within their culture. Culture, which
is dynamic, shapes and is shaped by humans. Hence “Evangelisation and inculturation are
naturally and intimately related to each other”. The church accepts what is positive in them.
This is borne out by the history of the Church, but is of greater urgency today in Asia “where
Christianity is still too often seen as foreign.”27

Inculturation guides the concrete life of the people of God, directing it towards visible forms
of witness and of social action characterized by justice, freedom, fraternity, equality,
participation, solidarity and communion. In this sphere, a deepening of the practical and
liberating dimension of the Christian message is of great relevance.28

3.2. The Possibility of Inculturation

Inculturation is possible because of the spirit “continually sows the seeds of truth among all
peoples, their religions, cultures and philosophies”. Since “a false separation between the
Redeemer and the Holy Spirit would jeopardize the truth of Jesus as the one Saviour of all”,
the work of the spirit among the nations is a preparation for Jesus. 29 The Holy Spirit is the
principal agent of the Church’s mission. The spirit’s presence is everywhere, in history,
people, cultures and religions.30 Inculturation means that we not only take some religious or
neutral elements from the traditions, if such elements exist at all, but also those that constitute
their specific identity and see how they can be reinterpreted to deepen our understanding of
Jesus and to present him more effectively to the people of Asia. This is only in accordance
with the belief that it is through these cultures and religions that “the Father prepares the
hearts of Asian peoples for the fullness of life in Christ”. The Church can undertake
inculturation confidently precisely because the spirit is “the prime agent of inculturation,”
“the prime agent of the Church’s dialogue with all peoples, cultures and religious.” Only
when “the Spirit gathers into unity all kinds of people, with their customs, resources and
talents,” will the Church become “a sign of the communion of all humanity,” this will enable
her to use “images of Jesus which would be intelligible to Asian minds and Cultures”.31

27
Subash Anand, “The Asian Synod and Inculturation,” Mission Today: A Journal of Missiological and
Ecumenical Research, Vol. II, No. 3, July-September 2000: 332-340.
28
Angelo Amato, “Christological Reflections on Theology of Inculturation,” Mission Today, Vol. V, No. 3,
July-Sept 2003: 266.
29
Subash Anand, “The Asian Synod and Inculturation,” Mission Today: A Journal of Missiological and
Ecumenical Research, 333.
30
Stanislaus, “Globalization and inculturation,” Mission Today, 24.
31
Subash Anand, “The Asian Synod and Inculturation,” Mission Today: A Journal of Missiological and
Ecumenical Research, 333.

8
According to Dyvasirvadam inculturation as an integral dimension of mission is described as
the incarnation of the Gospel in a particular culture when a generation or a particular group of
people encounter the gospel and change their attitudes and manner of behaviour, this change
find expression in their way of life; in the form of symbol and art, spirituality and celebration
etc. If such group of people is prevented from not doing so, such culture expression of the
Gospel is a natural, creative process.32

3.3. Areas of Inculturation

The inculturation of Christology is a primary task, because it is the foundation of the whole
of theology. In culturating liturgy, while keeping in mind “traditional cultural values,
symbols and ritual”, we need to take very seriously the changes in culture and the “needs of
the poor, migrants, refugees youth and women”. There also the need to adapt the formation of
evangelizers to the cultural context of Asia”.33

4. Indigenization

According to Shoki Coe Indigenization is a missiological necessity when the Gospel moves
from one cultural soil to another and has to be retranslated, reinterpreted, and expressed
afresh in the new cultural soil. Indigenous, indigeneity, and indigenization all derive from a
nature metaphor, that is, of the soil, or taking root in the soil. It is right that only the younger
churches, in search of their own identity, should take seriously their own cultural milieu.
However, because of the static nature of the metaphor, indigenisation tends to be used in the
sense of responding to the Gospel in terms of traditional culture.34

The impression has been given that indigenisation is only applicable to Asia and Africa, for
elsewhere it was felt that the danger lay in over-indigenisation, an uncritical accommodation
such as expressed by the culture faiths, American way of life etc. But the most important
factor, especially since the last world war, has been the new phenomenon of radical change.
The new context is not that of static culture, but the search for the new, which at the same

32
G. Dyvasirvadam, “Mission in Transition: A Contextual Appraisal,” Mission Paradigm in the New
Millennium, 4.
33
Subash Anand, “The Asian Synod and Inculturation,” Mission Today: A Journal of Missiological and
Ecumenical Research, 335.
34
Shoki Coe, Mission Trends No. 3: The Third World Theologies, edited by Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F.
Stransky (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976), 19-20.

9
time has involved the culture itself. So in using the word contextualization is to convey all
that is implied in the familiar term indigenization.35

Conclusion

When the people hear the Gospel, they respond to it in their own way of life, reflection and
celebration. This response is expressed in their own language and culture. The people who
respond to the Gospel in terms of their culture and traditions are the agents of inculturation.
Here, the local people become the agents of inculturation. 36 And also Contextualization is an
evolving stream of thought that relates the gospel and the Church to a local context. It takes
seriously the contemporary factors in cultural change. Christian life should be adapted to the
mentality and character of each culture, and local tradition together with the special qualities
of each national family, illumined by the light of the Gospel. So, new particular churches,
each with its own traditions, have their place in the community of the Church. The role of the
Church in the modern world should be simply to proclaim the death and resurrection of
Christ and its implication for modern humanity. The Christian worldview should have
universal implications as well as meaningful for the particular cultures as a whole.

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36
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10
Gallagher, Robert L. “The Integration of Mission Theology and Practice: Zinzendorf and the
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