Contextualization: tailoring good news

In the United States, 1 out of every 3 people claims to be “evangelical.”
In France, 1 out of every 250 people claims to be “evangelical.”
In my last blog entry I claimed that this makes a difference in how one goes about sharing the gospel.

France’s past (see RELIGIOUS SMOKE blogs) explains its paucity of evangelicals. Christ must, therefore, be shared in ways that the French understand in light of, and in spite of, their past in order to help them journey toward a relationship with Him in the present and experience intense enjoyment with Him in the future. This is contextualization.

By the way, contextualization needs to be applied everywhere, whether it be the Czech Republic, the Central African Republic, Canada, S. Carolina or S. California. The gospel never changes, but the way it is presented must be tailored to the person in light of her/his culture and context.

As Lesslie Newbigin stated, “[Contextualization] directs attention to the actual context, shaped by the past and open to the future, in which the gospel has to be embodied now."


So let's look at contemporary France's context. It was founded upon the thinking of philosophers reacting to religious carnage. These secular prophets excoriated the monarchy and Catholic authorities for their atrocities. While the philosophers denounced religious abuses they freely borrowed Christian concepts and ideals, stripping them of Christianity (and later God) to form the intellectual foundation upon which many Europeans build their lives today.

The following is an overview of a few major philosophical voices and the foundation stones that they laid. From their writings one sees that much European thinking has been staunchly anti-religious since 18th century when the United States became one nation under God. The philosophers' teachings are a major cause for the slowness of evangelism and disciple making in France today.

We will pick up the story in the 16th century…

THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS REACTED AGAINST THE CARNAGE ENGENDERED BY RELIGION WEDDED TO MONARCHICAL POWER
More than 4,000 Huguenots (believing French Protestants) were murdered in Paris during the Saint Bartholomew massacre (April 24, 1572). Neither women, nor children were spared. “The bodies, stripped naked, were thrown into the Seine,” a nationwide persecution ensued.

The French monarchy and Roman church joined forces in slaughtering the Huguenots

A Catholic neighbor invited my wife to go see the film "La Reine Margot" which depicts the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Afterward she exclaimed to Louise, "Why did I have to pick this film to see with you (a Protestant) ?!"

Louis XIV abrogated the Edict of Nantes (1685) and sent out the dragoons, the “booted missionaries.” “These soldiers lodged themselves in Protestant homes and exerted immense pressure so that the people would return to the religion of the king: theft, violence, rape were the means used by these ‘converters.’”

King Louis XIV

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV

Protestant "pastors had two weeks to leave France, while the other Protestants were no longer permitted to leave France, under pain of the galleys or prison.” It is said that when the Huguenots emigrated France lost its soul.

PHILOSPHERS CREATED A FRENCH FOUNDATION BASED UPON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES PURGED OF GOD
Philosophers decried the harshness and the Wars of Religion. Christendom (the dominant religion wedded with the political power of the Monarchy) incontrovertibly proved itself to be murderous and was “denounced as superstition.” The stage was thus set for the French Revolution.

The storming of the Bastille

Even though the French Revolution and the subsequent revolutions it catalyzed attempted to make breaks from religion, many Christian concepts were nonetheless retained; Christian ideals simply assumed secular forms. Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette comments:

“It is highly significant that this series of revolutions had its beginning and its early course in Christendom and that the ideas which inspired and shaped them had their birth and initial formulations in lands and among peoples which for centuries had been under the influence of Christianity. Many of the revolutionary programmes repudiated that faith, but most and perhaps all of them embodied ideals and conceptions which had come through it. They took only part of what had been given by Christianity and to a lesser or greater extent distorted what they took, but even when they did not recognize or acknowledge their source, they were deeply indebted to it."

The French Revolution freed the people from the domination and abuses of the allied French monarchy and Roman church. The revolutionaries dealt with those institutions in a way that resembled Old Testament judgments and established a secular state based upon Christian and Enlightenment values. The resulting French Republic was designed to promote the Rights of Man and to protect its people from religious power.

Robespierre, on the eve of the apex of the Terror (June 8, 1794), formally introduced the worship of the Supreme Being. Though his brand of religion did not last long, deism became the predominant belief of the Enlightenment with the philosophers as its high priests.

Robespierre and "the Terror"

Voltaire (1694-1778), denounced the religious hypocrisy of his day. In "Candide or optimism" (required reading in many French high schools today), the main character was interested in seeing the priests of the country of Eldorado. The old man with whom he spoke replied, “My friend, said he, we are all priests.” Candide retorts, “What! You have no monks who teach, who argue, who govern, who plot, and who burn the people who are not in agreement with them?”

Voltaire described the reputation of the religious leaders of his day; he was instrumental in transitioning France from Catholicism to deism, from the pre-modern era ruled by religious tradition, to the modern era ruled by reason. The Enlightenment accelerated, and its “deadening effects” in the religious sphere spread like a black plague.

The French title of Voltaire's book is "Candide ou l'optimisme" (Naïve or optimism)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) spoke of the “ardent missionaries of atheism” of the late 18th century. Then the 19th century saw “movements which seemed to threaten the very existence of the faith” in Europe. People increasingly put their belief in Man, in reason, in progress.

In "Reveries of the Solitary Walker," Rousseau presented his revelation that “man is naturally good and it is by these institutions alone that men become evil!”

August Comte (1798-1857) birthed Positivism, “which for many intellectuals… became a substitute for Christianity.” Positivism was the belief in “an invincible law of the progress of the human mind, to replace theological beliefs or metaphysical explanation.” It had “place neither for ‘subjective knowledge,’ nor for the idea that truth might vary according to its context.”

Positivism's hope was placed in politics that were “founded on a rational organization of society, as well as on a new religion without God: the religion of Humanity.” Positivism presupposed that “humans always act rationally.” This was the twilight of religion; the light of science had come. And the Enlightenment juggernaut plowed through the West.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) continued the deification of Man. Nietzsche's superman, Zarathustra, guided Western people into the 20th century declaring, “God is dead."


HOW'S YOUR CONTEXTUALIZATION?

Americans may react to all of this saying, "So what? Nobody reads philosophy anyway!" Not so. It is part of my cultural context. My son is a senior in French public high school. Phillip is a music major, but nonetheless has six hours of philosophy class per week (four hours on Monday morning!). His required reading list includes Voltaire, Rousseau, Zola, Diderot, Camus, Sartre and others.
If you are American, you been heavily influenced by the thoughts of the Founding Fathers (whether or not you have read their works). If you are an American evangelical, how much are you influenced by writers such as D. James Kennedy, Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels, Lee Stroble, Rick Warren and others? That is how much Europeans are influenced by the philosophers.

The philosophers' staunchly secular teachings, concomitantly based upon and hostile towards Christendom, are accepted or assimilated by most Europeans. The philosophers' defense against religious atrocities was to embed secular armor into people's intellect through their teachings.

In light of this French and European context, Stuart Murray says, “In post-Christendom evangelism and discipling will both take longer. Evangelism will start further back and move more slowly;… Patience is essential for mission and community-building after Christendom."

By the way, how is your contextualization? My context causes people to be harder toward the gospel because "Christians" in my city burned Protestants at the stake.
Are you faithful to keep the gospel unadulterated while tailor-making its presentation to your interlocutor? (see 1 Corinthians 9:19-23; Colossians 4.3-6). Are the non-Christians around you really understanding who Christ is and what life with Him could be like? Or have you been ignoring historical and cultural elements that are keeping your unbelieving friends from wanting to know Him? How might you tailor your presentations of the good news in order to help them to become better acquainted with Jesus?

Sources (you can purchase the philosopy books mentioned above at Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/) :
Lesslie Newbigin, “Can the West be Converted?” 2.
Bost, 90, 142;
Denimal, 59-60, 63-64;
Latourette, 765-769, 1004, 1008, 1010, 1015, 1063;
Voltaire, “Candide ou l’optimisme,” 315.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire," 58, 206;
La Philosophie de A à Z (Paris: Hatier, 2000), 78.Friedrich Nietzsche, "Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra," 116-117.
Stuart Murray, "Church After Christendom," 156.