Reclaiming culture to share the message of Christ.
Embedded in a culture, there is usually some practice or understanding which can be used to demonstrate the Gospel.
Of course, the idea was not really new. Jesus used the technique all the time in his story-telling: “The kingdom of God is like…….” Many of the prophets and various preachers throughout the years have used it as well. The Gospel stories are so familiar to us that we often completely overlook the fact that Jesus’ method of communication was totally revolutionary, used redemptive analogy within story-telling, and was something very close to street theater.
The concept of redemptive analogy is very close to that of contextualisation – that is – presenting the Gospel in terms which relate to the particular culture.
Defining redemptive Analogies
Redemptive Analogies  |
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| (article) | A key to meaningful communication of the Christian gospel in all cultures. There are customs or beliefs which can be built on to illustrate the Gospel meaningfully each individual culture. |
| Defining Redemptive Analogies |
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| (article) | Don Richardson’s books Peace Child and Eternity in Their Hearts discuss the theory and practice of understanding, recognizing and using redemptive analogies. |
| In Search of Redemptive Analogies? Part 1 |
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| (blog) | Mainly applied to North American Culture |
| Youth Workers as Cross-Cultural Missionaries |
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| (article) | Using Harry Potter as an example and exploration of redemptive analogies |
| Culturing Christianity |
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| (article) | A discussion referencing different approaches |
| Redemptive Analogies in Outreach |
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| (link list) | A list based resource for using redemptive analogies |
| Cultural Insights Inc. |
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| (website) | A mission assisting people to find context relevant vehicles for Christian communication and organizational planning |
| What Colour is Jesus? |
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| (article) | How Can We Present Jesus to a New Culture Without Bringing Our Own? |
| Christ in the Qur’an |
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| (pdf) | A extensive article on the nature of Christ represented in the Qur’an |
| Aloha Ke Akua Ministries – Culture Specific/Based evangelism |
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| (article) | Article on contextual evangelism |
| Dramashare |
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| (website) | Christian resource for drama scripts and much more. |
| Christ the Tao |
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| (website) | Exciting page by David Marshall showing how knowledge of God is universal, and also gives redemptive analogies from Taoism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Marshall is also the author of True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture and Jesus and the Religions of Man |
Contextualisation
| Contextualisation – an explanation | |
| (DOC) | Dr. Phil Parshall gives us another helpful explanation of the concept of contextualisation in a church planting situation. A very thorough work. |
| Muslim Contextualisation |
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| (pdf) | International Journal of Frontier Missions online journal discussing the issue of contextualising for the Muslim world |
| Contextualisation in Paul’s teachings |
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| (article) | The missionary principles of Paul and how they could be applied today |
| Contextualisation |
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| (article) | Gospel Communication article on how to make the message relate to the culture |
| Communicating wisely with the world |
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| (article) | How to relate to the culture around us |
| AD2000 – Contextualisation links |
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| AD2000 has a large link list of articles and resources that discuss, define and model contextualisation | |
| AD2000 – Contextualisation among Muslims |
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| AD2000’s large link list of articles and resources that discuss, define and model contextualisation in the Muslim context | |
| newWway.org |
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| (website) | Essential insights for communicating in relevant ways to the modern world. |
| The X Spectrum |
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| (article) | Gospel Communications article defining the contextual position of Christian websites |
| How to encounter a new culture |
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| (article) | A helpful article for beginning research on a new culture |
| American Cultural Assumptions |
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| (article) | An article helping to expose some of America/western cultural assumptions |
| Contextualisation |
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| (pdf) | International Journal of Frontier Mission article on the use of contextualisation in missions |
| 10 ways to avoid becoming a missionary |
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| (article) | I am reminded of a very funny TV sketch of many years ago: the late (Jewish) comedian Marty Feldman attempting to get good terms from an insurance agent ‘to insure himself against the danger of becoming Jewish’. What terms would be offered, perhaps, against the awful fate of becoming a missionary? OK, we are not all called to be cross-cultural missionaries in person. And the mission field does start outside our front door. Or at the end of our modem. But it remains true that there are still huge needs overseas which can only for the foreseeable future be met by cross-cultural workers from outside those countries. And, err, it’s a funny thing, but there is one gender which seems twice as good at hearing God’s voice, if their numbers overseas are a reflection of it. Mission statesman and author Stewart Dinnen’s short article is just a little bit challenging. |
| Global Mapping International |
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| (website) | A range of CD’s, maps, and overheads including ‘World of Islam’ which contains a number of books by contextualisation expert Phil Parshall |
| Paul and the Contextualization of the Gospel |
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| (article) | Study by Michael Depew. |
| Lifting up the Fatwa | |
| (DOC) | Dr. Phil Parshal shakes the C5ers with this new article called, “Lifting the Fatwa”. A must read for contextual church planters! |
| The Methods of Jesus |
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| (article) | Scroll down – it’s not the top item. |
| The Engel Scale |
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| (article) | Understanding the way people move up a scale of spiritual understanding. |
| More Engel Scale |
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| (article) | ‘Tell it often by Bill Bright and Mark McCloskey |
| The Gray Matrix |
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| (article) | A very helpful modification of the Engel concept. It is also explained in the context of web evangelism, in the down loadable RTF 34k file Manifesto for the Future. |
| Indonesian Contextual Fellowship | |
| (pdf) | Check out the story of our Indonesian contextual fellowship video project! |
| Internal or External | |
| (doc) | This document discusses what is more important. Does the external appearance of a person have as much value as the internal change? |
| From C1 – C6 | |
| (pdf) | Comparing Approaches used in the Muslim World. The C1 – C6 compares and contrasts types of ‘Christ- Centered-Communities’ (groups of believers in Christ) |
| Contextualisation forum |
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| When the indigenous people of a community think of the Lord as their own, not a foreign Christ; when they do things as unto the Lord meeting the cultural needs around them, worshiping in patterns they understand; when their congregations function in participation in a body, which is structurally indigenous; then you have an indigenous Church” (Alan Tippett, in Lidorio 2002) | |
Country specific redemptive Analogies
| Possible redemptive analogies for African culture |
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| (article) | A list of commonalities between African traditional culture and Christianity |
| Contextualisation of the Gospel in Sukumaland, Tanzania |
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| (article) | Different ways that African proverbs, sayings, stories and symbols can be used to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Sukuma ethnic group and other people in East Africa. As described in the two books: “Towards An African Narrative Theology: Something Good From Africa: Enriching World Christianity with African Wisdom”, and “Were You There? Stations of the Cross: Scripture Meditations as Written Theology, Religious Paintings as African Symbolic or Visual Theology.” |
| Doing Theology in a Chinese Context |
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| (pdf) | The Chinese world is increasingly raising up its own theologians—both those trained in the Western world as well as those trained in Asia. For both groups, one of the most vexing issues in Chinese theology continues to be ancestor worship. In this article Nancy Porras attempts to analyze some current Chinese thinking on the subject while also offering her own helpful insights. |
| Doing Theology Among the Ibanags |
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| (pdf) | The Philippine Islands are home to dozens of tribal groups like the Ibanags who consider themselves Catholic but who are very much animists. In this article Clifford Peters describes the Ibanags and their worldview and offers guidelines for doing theology among such a people. |
| Doing Theology Among the Zuni |
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| (pdf) | Although the Zuni have been acquainted with the Gospel for some 400 years, they have yet to embrace Christianity. Why is this so? Calvin here offers an explanation and suggests new approaches based upon a more thorough understanding of the Zuni worldview. |
| The Malay Funeral Rite: A Ritual Analysis |
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| (pdf) | Keys to reaching a people are usually not apparent from superficial contact. Here, among the Muslim Malays, an in-depth analysis of a vital ritual sheds light on what strategies might be used in communicating the gospel to them both clearly and effectively. |
| Global Mapping International |
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| (website) | Top missions resource supply among other things a CD of 27,000 African proverbs, with ways to bridge them across to a Christian application! African Proverbs mailing list is also a regular source of proverbs – check also Rev Peter Addo’s insight into his Ghanain Ga culture and proverbs. |
| Redemptive analogies in Russian culture |
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| (article) | A clear discussion of Russia and it’s culture and possible redemptive analogies in the culture |
| The Issan People – research and redemptive analogies |
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| (article) | A well researched profile on the Issan people group with possible redemptive analogies |
| Christ in Thai culture |
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| (book) | A summary of the book – ‘Poles Apart’ |
| Contextualisation: An Adapted Rice-Feeding Ceremony |
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| (article) | “On 22 Jan 2000 we did a Rice-Feeding Ceremony for Lydia (our baby). We had thought for a while that this would be a good opportunity to attempt a contextualised traditional Newar ceremony. It would also be a good opportunity to feast our Newar friends who have so often invited us to their functions. It would help build friendship and trust……” |
| Review of True Son of Heaven; How Jesus fulfills the Chinese culture |
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| (book) | Describes various aspects of Chinese culture, history and philosophy and shows how they can be viewed as analogies or “bridges” to aspects of the gospel. |
| Missions in China |
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| Here you will find various articles by Dr. Enoch Wan. The most recent additions address the subject of Christianity in the East and West, as well as development of a “Sino-Theology.” | |
| Finding more info about Redemptive Analogies |
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| (link list) | A list of resources for different countries |
| Matrix – Western Movie Example |
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| (website) | Another film page which finds Christian parallels in a secular movie. |
| Redemptive analogies in Western youth culture |
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| (online store) | Bible studies for youth groups using redemptive analogies from western culture |
| Hollywood Jesus |
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| (website) | This site is employing a technique to extract meaning from current films. Of course, you don’t need to dig very deep into Tom Hanks’ The Green Mile – it’s more than an allegory already! May God use it to turn many people to Him….. |