Terms Related to Contextualization

Accommodation: Most generally refers to changing the rituals, practices, forms, etc. of Christian practice in missionary's culture to fit those of a local culture. Technically, in Roman Catholic circles, it refers to the early Jesuit work in China (especially Ricci from 1583 on) and India (deNobili from 1605 on) built on the idea of allowing local cultural elements that are neutral in regard to the Gospel to be brought into the Christian faith. This was applied by Jesuits to rites involving ancestors in China, which they held to be mere social events. Dominican missionaries disagreed, and by the early 1700s this erupted in the so-called Chinese Rites Controversy. which eventually (1742) resulted in the Catholic church siding with the Dominicans.

Adaptation: the core idea parallels that of accommodation, but adapatation was used more in protestant circles. Essentially it refers to finding ways to express the Gospel in forms and ideas that are familiar to the culture. It can range from putting new meaning into indigenous words (e.g., the Greek word logos was taken by John and invested with new meaning in his Gospel) to the adaptation of liturgy (e.g., baptismal or eucharistic practices) to chaning church polity to fit local cultural leadership idealss. Central to the concept was not going beyond what the Scriptures allowed, which can be tricky to determine since the Scriptures themselves were written in cultural contexts.

Christianizing: In the Colonial era, the ideas of "Christianizing" entailed "civilizing" "savage" or "primitive" peoples and bringing them into the light of modern ways of life (whose benefits ranged from clothing to education to medicine to government to commerce).

Contextualization:

• As originally formulated, contextualization sought to go beyond the ideas developed when colonial dominance was still present and which represented more fairly the modern situation.
• One very significant shift had taken place in missions thinking: the development of the idea of missio Dei (the mission of God) which conceptualizes God's thinking of mission as world-focused rather than church-focused.
• In this sense, ideas such as "let the world set the agenda" looking to history and contemporary socio-political contexts to see how God was at work in missio Dei became a foundation for looking at "mission."
• No longer was Scripture exegeted and brought into a situation; rather, history was exegeted and became the beginning source of theological reflection. The shift towards relativism that was part of Western culture found ground in missiological reflections.
• The Scriptural text was viable as a case study, but norms were to be found in God's work in history rather than in enscripturated revelation.
• Evangelicals picked up on the term, but not the connotations of concrete context as starting point for theological reflection. Now that the term has found coinage in evangelical circles, the issue at stake is more focused on the definition of the term than its usage.

Incarnational: More recently gaining prominence, this term refers to the reality of Jesus taking on humanity as a model for missionaries in their practice of adapting to local culture. The extent of our ability to incarnate, however, will always be limited. Still, it is an important term in the cluster of terms dealing with contextualization.

Inculturation: Parallels contextualization, though used widely in Roman Catholic circles rather than Protestant ones. "The incarnation of Christian life and of the Christian message in a particular cultural context, in such a way that this experience not only finds expression through elements proper to the culture in question, but becomes a principle that animates, directs and unifies the culture, transforming it and remaking it so as to bring about a 'new creation.'" (Pedro Arrupe)

Indigenization: The so-called "Three-Self" approach, involving the development of churches which were self-propagating, self-governing, and self-financing. Developed independently by Rufus Anderson (American) and Henry Venn (British), it is sometimes called the Anderson-Venn Formula. John Nevius put the formula into missiological strategy in his planning for China which was actually put to practice by missionaries in Korea (the Nevius Plan). Tended to focus, however, on Western ideals towards which Non-Western churches were to strive.

Possessio: In reformed circles, referred to God's work in possessing a culture for Christ through establishing beachheads for the Gospel and gradually "conquering" the culture by making it more kingdom-centered. Any culture's ultimate defeat, however, was to come after the end of this present age. Peter Beyerhaus states:

We can distinguish between three stages of possessio: In the first stage God invades this occupied world of nations and establishes bridgeheads of his sovereignty. He does so by a chain of specific elections. Partly they belong to the history of biblical revelation, partly to the history of Christian missions. Here the whole emphasis lies on demonstrating the uniqueness of God's Godhead, and in guarding it against the insidious counterattacks of the present demonic usurper of the world. In the second stage these bridgeheads of elected communities become the basis of operation for a progressive reconquest of the whole ethnic and cultural territory which they represent. Here the principle of doctrinal exclusiveness of the missionary message is complemented by a strategy of a sifting inclusiveness: The distorted elements of the first creation are reclaimed for the Kingdom of Christ. The third stage, finally, lies beyond this present age. Here the Devil, the prince of this world, will completely be removed and the kingdoms of the world will totally have become the kingdom of the Lord and his Christ (Rev. 11:5). (Beyerhaus, "Possessio and Syncretism in Biblical Perspective." In Christopaganism or Indigenous Christianity?, ed. Tetsunao Yamamori and Charles Russell Taber, 119-42. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 120).

Transformation: Focuses on transforming individuals who in turn develop a transformed society. It focuses on our human responsibility (as opposed to the idea of possessio) to change and bring about change in the culture.