James W. Thompson, a senior New Testament scholar and scholar in residence at Abilene Christian University, presents a compelling book on the interplay of Christianity and culture in the New Testament. Beginning with a well-intentioned critique of H. Richard Niebuhr’s opus Christ and Culture, Thompson dialectically responds to the proposition that Christ came to transform culture. Contra Niebuhr, Thompson proposes an alternative view, one that takes into consideration the similarities between New Testament Christian experiences and the experiences of Christians in contemporary societies.

The book begins with a brief discussion on the enduring problem of Christians in society. As Niebuhr, himself, discussed, the enduring problem is the separation of Christ and culture (1). Christians today live in conflict with societal norms. Christians are considered offensive to pluralists. Like the experience of early Christians that were shunned by society, more and more Christians struggle to be in the world, while not of the world. Hence, in this book, Thompson asks the crucial question of how Christians should relate to their surrounding culture (10).

Instead of accommodating or adapting to culture, Thompson believes in the relearning of insights from New Testament writings (6). He favors holding the tension of differentiation and integration, as the New Testament authors have demonstrated (186). Thompson presents his case by examining New Testament writings like that of John and Paul. He also examines the experiences of early Christians during Second Temple Judaism and in a Hellenistic society (13-29). Thompson’s efforts reveal important insights on Christian response to cultures in conflict with Christ’s kingdom culture.

In chapter seven, Thompson studies Johannine literature and uses data from John’s writing to cement his proposition that Christians are called to form alternative communities, one bound by mutual love (140). He moves on to other voices in the New Testament in chapter eight. Thompson then ends his analysis of New Testament writings by exploring the extent of second-generation Christian’s engagement with culture. He ties up the entire book with a powerful conclusion, one that summarizes all insights learned, and stacking them up as warrant for his claim that the early Christian’s engagement and response to culture provide relevant guidance for Christians in contemporary society today.

I highly recommend this book to lifelong learners of Christian theology, mission, and ministry. Christianity is a religion that travels. As it traverses the globe, Christian worldview will have to engage in the culture of its recipient soil. The issues of Christian engagement with society then are not limited to post-Christian Western societies. It holds true for all parts of the world. There remains a call to hold in tension both differentiation and integration—to be in the world but not of the world. Insights from early Christians, and specially anointed people like Paul and John, can guide us in this endeavor.

Reviewed by Lora Angeline E. Timenia

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781666739466/christ-and-culture-in-the-new-testament/

In this review essay by seasoned missionary-scholar Dave Johnson, he takes a more nuanced approach to globalism, colonialism and the Filipinos efforts to contextualize the gospel and Church practices in the Philippines.

Hannah Keziah Agustin, “Colonialism Brought Evangelicalism to the Philippines. Churches Are Now Untangling the Two: Five Filipino Christian leaders weigh in on the American church’s influence on worship, culture, and politics” Christianity Today (June 28, 2023).

I would like to thank the editor of Pneuma Review for the opportunity to respond to Hannah Agustin’s article. I will divide this response into areas where I agree, issues that I think need clarification and points where I respectfully dissent. But first, I need to challenge her demographic facts. While she is correct that 80% of Filipinos are Catholic, the waters get muddied in identifying everybody else. The Pentecostal-Charismatic (PC) movement crosses all denominational lines and defies neatly packaged definitions. It also challenges statistics related to size. For example, the Catholic Charismatic movement, which holds as dearly to the Bible as do Evangelicals, numbered over ten million in 2008.[1] This does not include classical Pentecostals, such as the Assemblies of God and other groups, which are normally counted as Evangelicals, or Pentecostal Third Wave independent churches, some of which are huge. The origin of the majority of these churches, as well as some Pentecostal denominations, are indigenous. Considering that the population of the Philippines was 109.04 million in 2020,[2] it is safe to say that PC Christians comprise of at least 10% of the total Filipino population.

That said, she is correct in noting the strong impact of American evangelicalism in the Philippines. I share the respondents’ frustration about the importation of American culture, intentional or not, along with the gospel. While this is unavoidable to a certain extent, much could be done to reduce this by equipping missionaries with the tools of cultural anthropology. Unfortunately, most do not take advantage of this training. But the assumption of cultural superiority, intentional or not, also needs to be nuanced. This is not just an American problem. It’s a been a human problem since the time of Nimrod (Gen. 10) and Filipinos are no exception. Moreover, I have been appalled that perhaps as many as 95% of missionaries working here, whether from the West or other Asian nations, have made little effort to learn any of the indigenous languages.

All of the respondents mentioned things that the American missionaries brought into Filipino churches and allegedly forced on Filipinos. While much of this is true, none of the respondents mention efforts made by Filipino leaders to change things once the churches were turned over to them. This reflects the Filipino attitude of bahala na, which loosely means, “whatever will be will be and cannot be changed.” Fortunately, this is now beginning to change and I applaud these efforts.

Furthermore, the Filipino churches may be more indigenous than the respondents realize. Here, let me be clear that I am speaking from within my own PC tradition. In the Filipino Assemblies of God (AG), for example, the national ecclesiastical structure is almost a carbon copy of its counterpart in the States. How those leaders function within the structure, however, is completely Filipino. On the local church level, the differences between the churches in the Philippines and the United States are substantial.

More importantly, Obed Reliquette’s comment about American Evangelicalism’s attitude towards animism is largely true, but also needs nuancing in regards to the PC movement. PC spirituality, with its focus on the person and miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, resonates deeply with the Filipino’s original indigenous religious spirituality, which is focused on supernatural power. This morphed into Folk Catholicism in the Spanish era and continues to this day. This is probably the most significant reason for the stupendous growth of the PC movement in the Philippines in the last fifty years.

Finally, in an article about the Philippines, I do not understand why the author included a Filipino respondent living in the United States. The situation of Filipino-Americans, as reflected in their comments, is vastly different from Filipinos living at home. This should not have been included.

In summary, I agree with much of what has been said and share the respondents’ desire for greater indigeneity. I also think that the author should have done much more background research. Had she done so, she would likely have discovered that the situation is much more complex and nuanced than is reflected in this article. Thank you again for this opportunity.

PR

Notes

1. Christl Kessler and Jürgen Rüland, Give Jesus a Hand: Charismatic Christians: Populist Religion and Politics in the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila Press, 2008.
2. Population of Philippines 2020 – Search (bing.com) https://www.bing.com/search?q=population+of+philippines+2020

“Simplifying in the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”¹

“A massive intellectual revolution is taking place that is perhaps as great as that which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages. The foundations of the modern world are collapsing, and we are entering a postmodern world. The principles forged during the Enlightenment (c. 1600-1780), which formed the foundations of the modern mentality, are crumbling.”²

The current situation, which is being referred to as postmodern, is intimately connected with the notion of metanarrative and its demise. Western civilization has, until recently shared a common story. This common story was not explicit, nor was it intentionally constructed. In the pre-modern period and in the modern period, Western civilization has held had a common story.

Such is no longer the case.

Definition

The word metanarrative is a compound word coming from the word “narrative” and the prefix “meta.” Narrative refers to story and meta has the meaning of “with, after, from”. Combined, they give the notion of going beyond the story. More familiar is the term metaphysics. Physics has to do the material composition of reality and its function. Metaphysics goes beyond physics to look at being or the essence of reality. It asks the questions such as “What is real?”, “What is ultimately real”?, and “What is man’s [sic] place in what is real?”³

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, defines metanarrative as follows:

A metanarrative can include any grand, all-encompassing story, classic text, or archetypal account of the historical record. They can also provide a framework upon which an individual’s own experiences and thoughts may be ordered. These grand, all-encompassing stories are typically characterized by some form of ‘transcendent and universal truth’ in addition to an evolutionary tale of human existence (a story with a beginning, middle and an end). The majority of metanarratives tend to be relatively optimistic in their visions for human kind, some verge on utopian, but different schools of thought offer very differing accounts.⁵

Note the terms “grand”, “all-encompassing”, “classic”, and “archetypal.” One cannot overestimate the unifying role and nature of metanarratives.

Metanarrative and Worldview

From the September 3, 2016 blog post “My quest for a great fall show (network TV edition)”:

Happy Fall, everyone! ‘Tis the season to find a new t.v. obsession and I am always looking for new shows that bring religion, sci-fi, & fantasy together in a pop-culture package.

If we want to break the dependency cycle, we must better understand the cultural context where we want to do business and ministry.

Abstract

Failure to take insufficient cognisance of local contexts leads to outsiders’ encouraging business in Africa resulting in a trail of dependency. Pertinent differences between African and Western contexts addressed in this article include; understandings of magic, orientation to feasts, recognition of mystical forces, language background, family arrangements, understanding of money, philosophy; dualism vs. monism, the penetration of ‘corruption’, awe of Whites, and more. Such differences are best compensated through a process of immersion in the foreign context. This can be achieved if a foreigner determines to confine themselves to local resources and languages in their operations.

Note: in his references to Africa and Africans the author draws on personal experience. Clearly, not all of Africa and not all Africans are the same.

Introduction

This article shows how worldview differences between Africa and ‘the West’ impact on business practices. Their impact is often such as to result in efforts at instigating and guiding business by the West leaving a trail of dependency. Extant differences are very complex in their practical outcome. Because of this complexity, it is not possible to design a strategy for dealing with them from a distance. The wise businessperson wanting to avoid creating dependency will plan and implement their activities in such a way as to remain vulnerable to and thus able to adjust to contextual surprises. A crucial way of doing this is to confine one’s business intervention in a foreign context to the use of local languages and local resources. Such practice is known as vulnerable mission. This is not a guaranteed strategy, but a means of maintaining sensitivity to local stresses. Following such strategy can result in business success being rooted in the local market. Such a business can continue without outside subsidy or control.

Differences

Westerners want to believe that African people are no different from ‘us’. The prospect of finding differences between African and Western people’s cultures can be terrifying. That is why racism is so broadly condemned in the West. Yet in fact there must be differences, and those differences are likely to affect the functioning of business. Some differences in socially overt behaviour that affect how someone engages in business arise from deep variations in ontological understanding. For example, very unlike Western dualism that distinguishes material from spiritual forces (classically by means of science) in African monism things and even being itself are defined by the ‘spiritual’ forces inherent in them (Tempels 1959:51).

“Once someone has prayed for you, say you are healed” the preacher said to this congregation. “You may feel no different, and you may notice no changes, but there is no point in being prayed for and then denying the power of prayer” he explained. This rather radically counter-scientific approach to healing is widespread in parts of Africa familiar to me. “Better to ask than to say nothing, because you have nothing to lose by asking and might just get something” said an African person to me, explaining part of the reason why African people are quick to ask for assistance from foreign visitors. Critiquing the prosperity gospel can be countered by some African people’s saying “but we believe God can indeed bless some people with riches.” It is hard for a Western Christian to know how to respond to such a comment; does one want to deny people blessing?

Introduction

Not long ago, I attended Commencement exercises at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. I was there to see a student named Kofi receive his law degree and to celebrate with his mother, Afi.¹

Afi came to the United States from Togo with her husband more than twenty years ago so they could pursue graduate studies in Los Angeles. Her husband and I were classmates at the University of Southern California and they invited me to join them for a home-cooked African dinner. We became close friends. They had three children when they came from Togo, and two more were born after their arrival. Their fifth child, Mensah, has Down Syndrome.

In 1990, when Mensah was not yet a year old, Afi’s husband completed his dissertation and traveled to Togo, stating his intention to get things ready for his family’s reentry home. He never returned. Afi did everything in her power to find him, enlisting the support of friends to write letters and seek him out, but it became increasingly clear that he had abandoned his family.

Prioritizing the needs of her children, Afi determined that she would stay in Los Angeles in order to find the support and education for Mensah that she would not be able to find in Togo. With five children ages thirteen and younger, living in an apartment in Los Angeles, Afi called on God to help her.

The journey of the next seventeen years was marked by hardships beyond description, including heart problems, battles with the Los Angeles Unified School District, immigration hearings, threatened deportation, and all the issues faced by children and youth coming of age in urban America.

Afi speaks to God with the same passion and honesty as the Psalmist David: “My children are Your children. Do not let them die. Don’t abandon us, as my husband did. We trust in You. Deliver us and bless us and make us a blessing!”

Seventeen years after she was abandoned by her husband, Afi and her children and grandchildren watched Kofi walk across the stage, shake hands with the Dean of the Law School, and receive his Juris Doctor degree. God had answered. Kofi is not the only success story in this family. Afi’s eldest daughter is a nurse. Her second daughter graduated from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, and is now a surgeon. The son who follows Kofi graduated from an Ivy League university and is now in medical school. Mensah is now in his twenties and is thriving.

Afi embodies, for me, a kind of “Global Pentecostal Renaissance.” She is a woman of profound and unshakable faith. She believes that God is the highest purpose of life, without whom nothing is possible. She sees visions. She does battle in spiritual realms. She prays in tongues. She does not doubt that Satan is out to destroy her and her family and that God is her shield and refuge. Not only does God defend her, He goes on the offensive and leads her to victory over death, hell, and the grave. She can tell you stories of miracles without which she would be dead and her family would be lost.

Afi is also a woman of learning. She earned a Ph.D. in French at UCLA. She teaches at a community college. She demanded that her children take advantage of every educational opportunity and would not take “no” for an answer. When Kofi was fourteen, he decided he wasn’t going to go to school any more. She called the police and said, “I need you to make my son go to school.” He relented. She refused to let her children be crippled by self-pity related to their father’s departure. Her faith and her commitment to education are inextricably linked.

Pentecostal Christianity, at its best, looks like Afi, integrating a passion for God with a passion for learning and a passion for loving service.

In this extended reflective essay, I contemplate the potential of Pentecostalism as a global learning movement and the potential of Pentecostal higher education to be a catalyst for a Global Pentecostal Renaissance.²

Global Pentecostal Renaissance is here defined as a Spirit-empowered awakening among Christians worldwide that integrates a passion for God, a passion for learning and creative expression, and a passion for redemptive service and mission.³ In order to explore this idea, the study is organized around four essential questions: What are Pentecostal attitudes toward learning? What internal resources does Pentecostalism have that make it a learning movement (and what are some possible impediments)? What Biblical and historical precedents are there for a Global Pentecostal Renaissance? How might Pentecostal higher education contribute to a Global Pentecostal Renaissance?

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Pastor Tony Richie wraps up our discussion on how the church should respond to postmodernism.

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

Introduction and Overview

The editorial staff of Pneuma Review (PR) is to be commended for its facilitation of this conversation about “Postmodernism, the Church and the Future” through a series of interactive articles (Winter 2007 through Winter 2009). It shows their continuing commitment to PR’s original visionary mission “To lead Pentecostal/charismatic believers to a greater understanding of God’s Word” and assist “church leaders in equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.” It also generates “greater dialogue between Evangelicals” and fosters “an open forum”.¹ As they opened up the discussion, PR editors explained their rationale. Some Christian leaders and thinkers see the shift toward postmodernism as a threat, others as an opportunity. PR feels its readership “needs to hear from today’s theologians and practitioners to get a well-rounded perspective.”² They intentionally assembled a diversely representative panel for that very reason. As I share their initial supposition, and as a member of that original panel, I am excited at their gracious invitation to do a kind of “wrap up” of the conversation that has now been going on for about two years. I am further motivated by general agreement with Stanley Grenz that, “the emerging task of evangelical theology is that of coming to grips with the postmodern condition.”³ Arguably, PR has put its finger one of the most urgent needs for discussion today.

So far, the PR postmodernism conversation has included some notable contributions. In “Emerge or Submerge” Dave Livermore asks “Is ‘cultural relevance’ an effective and theologically sound wineskin for the emergent church or is it moving Christianity toward oblivion?”⁴ Next Winfield Bevins wrote “Retro Faith: A Christian Response to Postmodernism,”⁵ and B. Keith Putt “From Babel to Pentecost: Proclamation, Translation, and the Risk of the Spirit”.⁶ My own prior contribution to the postmodernism conversation was “Effectively Engaging Pluralism and Postmodernism in a So-Called Post Christian Culture: A Review Essay of Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.”⁷ Craig A. Carter contributed “The Myth of Relativism: Christianity in a Postmodern World,”⁸ and Philip Graham Ryken, “Answers to Questions.”⁹ Finally, Frank Viola wrote “A New Kind of Church for a New Kind of World.”¹⁰

I will return later to these thinkers and their ideas. For now, I begin taking a closer look at the topic at hand: postmodern culture and a Christian engagement of and/or response to it. Throughout, I exhort us to bear in mind Hal Knight’s comment that “what is central is a concern to proclaim the truth of the gospel in a postmodern world” because “whatever hope we have rests firmly and ultimately in the risen and living Jesus Christ and in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.”¹¹ Now I will discuss to what extent or in what way we ought to engage postmodern culture as Christians.
 

Wondering about a Worldview on the Rise: Orientation

By way of explanation, this “wrap up” will revolve around certain presuppositions that I will present here. An important Early Church Father, Origen, taught that Christians, like the ancient Israelites, are right and wise to “spoil the Egyptians,” that is, to take from their treasures of knowledge whatever is valuable for divine service in the journey of faith and life. Herein Origen also warned those who “sojourn” in Egypt that, “not many take away … only the useful”. He strongly recommends prayerful study as a safeguard.¹² Therefore, non-Christian culture, according to this perspective, may have something positive to contribute to Christian belief and practice but we must approach it circumspectly. Perhaps, as Thielicke suggested, we can enlist the wisdom of this world as an ally of faith but we must listen carefully to the instinct of the children of God.¹³

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future
A Pneuma Review discussion about how the church should respond to postmodernism

A Review Essay of Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.

“Pluralist!” “Postmodern!” Lately these two terms are increasingly, and sometimes carelessly, bandied about as especially descriptive of the present age. They signify such complex concepts that sometimes even defining the terminology can be difficult. To make matters even more intimidating for many of us, pluralism and postmodernism also exist in both religious and secular forms with widely variant philosophical, political, and theological schools of thought and levels of radicality. In fact, they may be descriptive of an even deeper seated condition of being post-Christian. “Post-Christian” describes a personal or societal world view no longer rooted in the language and assumptions of Christianity, though it previously originated and existed in, and thus emerged from, that environment. Importantly, a wide range of continuing attitudes from open embrace to complete exclusion exist toward Christianity itself.¹ Yet the basic meaning of pluralism and postmodernism is understood easily enough. “Pluralism” at its most fundamental level simply observes the fact “that there is an actual plurality of religious and other beliefs, practices, and so on in the world.” It proceeds from that point to varying degrees of representation either embracing or eschewing implications of that acknowledgment.² “Postmodernism” essentially identifies a disposition questioning the Enlightenment/Modernist argument for the sovereignty and ubiquity of reason as being reductionist at best and dismissive of or skewed against other important elements of reality (e.g., imagination, intuition, tradition) at worst. Again, it proceeds from that point to varying degrees of representation either embracing or eschewing implications of that acknowledgment.³ Christians are currently divided about the consequences of these paradigmatic developments. Some are hopeful about possibilities while others are fearful of pitfalls.⁴ At this point, humbly admitting that I’m not an expert or authority in these matters may be helpful; at least, it will certainly be honest. I’m more or less a typical pastor and preacher struggling to make sense out of today’s world. I suppose that is why I find Newbigin so challenging and stimulating.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Eerdmans, 1989), 264 pages, ISBN 9780802804266.

Lesslie Newbigin (1909-98) was truly one of the towering figures of the twentieth century when it comes to the theory and practice of Christian mission. And this book is his now classic contribution to that increasingly complex and controversial endeavor. A native of Great Britain educated at Cambridge, as a young man he was converted from agnosticism to Christianity when he saw a vision of a huge cross touching heaven and earth. A man of boundless energy and profound intellect, Newbigin then spent nearly four decades as a missionary in India, also building a lasting reputation as a great ecumenical leader. Although he himself humbly claims to be only “a pastor and preacher” he is often hailed by others as a scholar and thinker.⁵ The Gospel in a Pluralist Society is in fact a clear and cogent articulation of how contemporary paradigm shifts such as pluralism and postmodernism may inform and influence Christian identity and ministry in what is now sometimes called a post-Christian society.⁶ One would be hard pressed to find another book that takes more seriously or navigates more skillfully both commitment to historic Christianity and engagement of contemporary cultural contexts. It is a must read for anyone intending to integrate those same ideas today. At times provocative, always informative, seriously studying it promises to be potentially transformative. Therefore, be warned: one reads at a certain (worthwhile) risk!

How can we use the internet to effectively introduce people to Jesus?

Andrew Halloway is Publishing Manager for Christian Publicity Organisation in Worthing UK. (He was previously an editor and writer at CWR, who among other things produce the daily notes EDWJ/Every Day Light, also available by email from Crosswalk.com. CPO produces evangelistic leaflets, tracts, booklets and overprinted invitation cards for church events. They have always based their ministry on two vital principles:

• that evangelistic literature should be as modern, lively and graphically well-designed as secular material.
• that editorial content should relate to the things that people are interested in, and only then offer, in a non-preachy accessible style, the Christian angle.

These two essential communication principles are equally important in online evangelism. Andrew kindly shares his view of these principles.

Communicating the Gospel in a secular, postmodern culture

As secular culture has moved further and further away from Christianity, it has become increasingly necessary to change the traditional evangelistic approach in order to communicate the Gospel. On the whole, we can’t earn an opportunity to be taken seriously when talking about Jesus or God until we have connected with people on issues they are already interested in. We have to earn the right to be heard.

In the not too distant past, there was a time when most of those who weren’t card-carrying Christians at least had an understanding of the claims of Christianity, and assented to its view of the world and its morality, even if they didn’t have an active faith themselves.

The situation is now completely different: Christian values are competing with a vast array of other competing values, and people are either ignorant of the basics of Christianity or misunderstand them. In the West we have reverted to a pagan culture which is comparable with the first-century Gentile Romano/Greek world that the first Christians found themselves in Jesus’ own ministry was to the House of Israel, and though he had a few significant ‘evangelistic’ encounters with Gentiles, he never left the environs of Judea, Galilee, Samaria and Decapolis. In contrast, he commanded his disciples to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. That meant that his disciples would have to tackle evangelism in a different way to preaching the Gospel in the Jewish monotheistic context they had been used to. However, much of Acts features the apostles going to Jewish communities in the pagan world before reaching out beyond that. Therefore, there aren’t too many examples in the Bible of how the Early Church evangelized the Gentile world, but we know from history that they certainly succeeded. However, the Apostle Paul’s sermon at Athens on ‘the unknown God’ is perhaps the best example we have of the kind of evangelism that we now have to engage in, in our own post-Christian culture.