Everyone comes from a culture
Read:
• Chapter 10: Sunquist, S. W. (2013). Understanding Christian Mission: Participation in Suffering and Glory. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Pub. Group. ISBN: 0801036151
• Chapter 4-5: Elmer, D. (©2006). Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christlike Humility. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Books. ISBN: 0830833781
• Chapter 5-6: Hunter, G. G. (©2010). The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West– Again (10th ed). Nashville: Abingdon Press. ISNB: 1426711379
Everyone comes from a culture, and weds that culture into his/her understanding of politics, family, religion, etc. Often in the past, people have mistaken the trappings of Western culture to be parts of Christianity. How can missionaries (and Christians in general) present Christianity as it is, apart from our American culture, and help those in other cultures see its truth, without trying to make them Americans? Make sure to give particular examples of things that are a part of Western culture that might be considered part of Christianity, though it is not.
Sample Solution
Everyone comes from a culture
Throughout history, all Christians have lived in specific cultural contexts, which they have, to varying degrees, embraced and rejected. Regardless of a positive or negative attitude toward their surrounding culture, all Christians must respond to their surrounding context. It is in Christians of many and various responses that Christianity gains its unique multi-cultural and polyvocal texture as a world religion. Christians have a history of taking that which is not Christian, and then filling it with Christian meaning. For those Christians who take a more guarded approach to surrounding cultures, their message will be one of caution.
