Tag: Cross-Cultural
Crossing Cultures: Theology versus theology
Their critical contextualization of who belonged in Jesus’s kingdom, who were the real Christians, freed the gospel from ethnic cultural imprisonment, and opened the door to for an all-peoples Church.
Creating a Truly Chinese Church
A truly “Christian” Chinese church will not only be thoroughly enculturated, but it will also retain the entire “rule of faith” shared by the rest of the universal church. Finally, Chinese Christians, knowing they are part of the universal church, will continue to seek to share the joys and trials of the indigenous churches of all other cultures. Such a church would be biblical, God-pleasing, and truly Chinese.
Collective Misunderstanding
Deeply committed Syrian Christians traveled thousands of miles to plant a church in China, enjoyed a season of imperial favor during which the gospel took root and spread, and succeeded in communicating the essential message of Christ’s suffering for the salvation of the world and his resurrection from the dead.
Crossing Cultures: Conveying the Gospel
Worldviews are extraordinarily resistant to change, and archetypical cultural and gospel metaphors shape how missionaries convey the gospel across cultural boundaries. That is why it is so important for Chinese missiologists to “understand and critically integrate” imported cultural and metaphor worldview presuppositions lest what they “staunchly affirmed as biblical may have had more to do with nurturing cultural mores…than with God’s eternal truth,” as Brent Fulton writes.
The Transformation of Overseas Chinese Churches: “Three Highs and One Low”
Overseas Chinese churches need to equip immigrant congregations to become people on the move, learn to grow and blend together in mixed groups, achieve cross-cultural missions together, and establish gospel partner relationships with other churches, instead of going it alone.
Faith Across Continents
Peter Anderson’s Story of Service in China
Readers who appreciate a detailed, chronological account of Christian work in China over the past few decades, and are also interested in Anderson’s personal journey, will enjoy this book….and will most likely enjoy the stories Anderson shares, including the joys and challenges he encountered along the way.
Who’s in Charge?
As with many Christian China narratives, the questions we ask shape the storyline. If “Who’s in charge?” is not the right question, attempts to answer it will undoubtedly prove unsatisfactory. Perhaps a better starting point would be, “How shall we lead together?”
Crossing Cultures: The Promise and the Blessing
As with Abram, so with us: we are the beneficiaries of that promise and blessing. We are invited to leave, to go, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with Jesus Christ, the living image of our living God. Going includes learning to minister cross-culturally. That is our blessing, our calling, our mission.
How I Learned to Love the CUV
I have learned through shared faith and life experiences with my Chinese sisters and brothers to view the Chinese Union Version of the Bible as a faithful, elegant, and eminently readable translation (信、雅、达)—one that consistently draws me closer to my Lord.
Taking Confucian Spirituality Seriously
The Renovation of the Heart in Dallas Willard and Zhu Xi
We should not erect an artificial barrier to sharing the gospel of Jesus by insisting on a Western language that non-Christians in Asia are not familiar with. Jesus is the answer, yes, but to what questions? East Asian people have a rich tradition of spiritual formation in the general sense of renovating the heart.