(Download) "Engagement with Cross-Cultural and Global Dimensions (Essay)" by Currents in Theology and Mission # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Engagement with Cross-Cultural and Global Dimensions (Essay)
- Author : Currents in Theology and Mission
- Release Date : January 01, 2011
- Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 244 KB
Description
This practice is necessary because we live in an increasingly global, multi-cultural, and religiously plural world. Jesus commands us to proclaim the gospel among all the nations, and thus among people of all cultures and languages. According to John's Gospel, God sent God's Son out of love for the world, "not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17). Jesus sends his disciples into the world in the same way as the Father has sent him (John 20:21). If we are to bear effective witness to God's love in Christ, it is important that we value what is true in people's cultures, enter their world, and engage their contexts with sensitivity. We need to listen and learn from them and creatively interpret the gospel in a way that speaks to their dreams, struggles, and deepest longings. This corresponds to the basic structure of the gospel. God meets people in Jesus Christ where they are; they do not have to become something else first. Paul speaks of becoming everything to everyone for the sake of the gospel (1 Cor9:19-23; see also Acts 17:2-31; Phil 4:8). The Christian message transforms what it receives from various cultures, and it is transformed by them. In going into all the world, the Christian message becomes multilingual, multicultural, and pluralistic. (1) The persuasive power of a religious tradition lies in its ability to assimilate the truth present in other cultures and religious traditions without losing its identity. If Jesus Christ is God's love for the world, and if he is the incarnation of the Word through whom God created all things and cultures, we will not fully understand the wonder of what God has done in Jesus Christ until we see all reality summed up into him.