About the time of my last post
(many moons ago), I was talking with a pastor who was skeptical about the
concept of honour-shame as a way of viewing the gospel. On the one hand, it
seems he perceived it as a threat to the integrity of the gospel of Christ by
some trying to be “relevant” to culture; on the other hand, at one point he
said he just didn’t understand the big deal about honour and shame.
Fair enough. Up to this point in
The Multifaceted Gospel blog I have been trying to clarify what we mean
by “the Gospel”, so that we don’t cross over into something that is less
than the Good News of Jesus Christ.[1] In
fact, my goal here isn’t really about making the gospel relevant so much as making
it comprehensible.[2] When
we try to communicate, we need to speak the other person’s language (linguistic
comprehensibility). We also need to connect our message to the thought patterns
and worldview of the listener (cultural comprehensibility). This is not
compromise; it is responsible communication. Otherwise, our listener will end
up like M’pudi in The God’s Must Be Crazy when he said, “I understand
the words, but the meaning?” or like Nicodemus when he said, “How can these
things be?”[3] If our only concern is for
linguistic meaning and we ignore cultural meaning, we may as well be speaking
ancient Ugaritic.
Beyond honour-shame, what is the
big deal about any of the various facets of the Gospel? I think it’s
important for us to recognize at least three reasons for trying to understand
the Good News of Jesus from different perspectives:
(1)
The Bible presents this Good News in a variety of ways. I’ve tried to
show this in previous posts. The Bible is rich in imagery and descriptions of
God’s character and His salvation.
(2)
People have different mindsets and ideas about what is important in
life. If we consider how people learn, new concepts (and language) can only be
grasped when they are connected to existing understanding. This is why
mnemonics are so powerful in learning. However, while connections between new
ways of thinking need to be connected to known concepts, responsible
communication of the Gospel must also challenge the existing models.
Wholesale adaptation to existing models almost inevitably leads to syncretism –
a mixing of Gospel truth with incompatible ways of thinking and even idolatry.
But before you jump to, “Ah-ha! I told you so!” you need to remember that this
principle includes the traditional Western (guilt-innocence) model of
sharing the Gospel, which can and sometimes does become reduced to a set of
intellectual propositions to be affirmed, in contrast to a life to be lived.[4] And
yes, the danger exists with an honour-shame perspective, a power-fear
perspective, a purity-pollution perspective, a relational perspective, or any
of the other perspectives we’ll be talking about.
(3)
Each facet of the biblically revealed Gospel shows us something that we
can easily miss if we reduce the Gospel to our favourite perspective (whether
it be honour-shame or guilt-innocence or any other facet). So, for example, an
honour-shame perspective helps us to see our value in God’s eyes and how He
longs to bring healing to our shame – whether it is a result of our sin or of
rejection by sinful society. It also reminds us of the importance of God’s
honour, and that our lives are to exalt Him as our King. A relational
perspective reminds us that God calls us to know Him and has invited us
into an relationship with Him that is incredibly intimate. It also highlights
how much our relationship with Him and with others has been broken through our
rejecting Him and His ways. We are called to walk with Him and to love
Him with all our hearts, mind, souls and strength. And the more traditional
guilt-innocence perspective reminds us of God’s goodness, that He cares about
what is just and right, yet is merciful. The cross is still central to our
faith. One of my purposes is to explore this richness in various facets in
future posts.
[1] See especially “What is the Good News?”, “The Same Animal?” and “A
Framework for the Gospel”.
[2] In Col. 4:3-4, Paul
asks for prayer that he would “declare the mystery of Christ” clearly, as he
ought. There actually is a place for adapting forms in order to not
place unnecessary stumbling blocks in the way of seekers, though that isn’t
what I’m writing about here. And I would suggest that there is a difference
between finding where the gospel is relevant in our lives and changing the
message in order to make it more palatable. There are gospel implications in
every area of our lives.
[3] I believe Jesus was
intentionally stretching Nicodemus’ categories. While we need to be responsible
communicators, we also need to stretch listeners (and ourselves!) beyond their
comfort zone.
[4] There are, of course, truths we need to affirm, but to reduce the
Gospel to intellectual assent only is not true faith. See James 2:17-19, Rom.
6:1-2, Gal. 5:16. Note that I am not advocating salvation by works – it is
by grace through faith. Nevertheless, as a person puts their trust in Christ,
by the power of the Holy Spirit there is transformation in the believer’s life.
The pervasive problem of much of the North American church is what Bonhoeffer
calls “cheap grace” and an almost gnostic separation of justification and
sanctification which is totally unbiblical.
[5] The Haggadah (the
“telling”) is the text for the Passover Seder celebration. One portion, the Dayenu,
declares that any one of HaShem’s acts of deliverance would have been
enough for us to be grateful, but HaShem went far beyond what was necessary
with superabundant salvation.
