Foolishness to the Greeks: Thoughts [Some]…

February 28, 2007 | 8:45 AM

Newbigin’s book draws heavily on observation and history. Only in the first and last chapters does he bring forth illumination from the Scriptures. In the middle chapters, he spends a considerable amount of time discussing the influence science, politics, and religion have on modern Western culture. The final chapter is a call for the Church to communicate the Gospel to that modern culture; it is the essence and culmination of all the previous chapters. He is sound in his understanding of Biblical terms and theology, although few specific Scripture passages are discussed in depth. Newbigin’s final points mentioned previously reflect his sound theology and understanding of God. He spends the entire chapter specifically dealing with the Church and its duty. In doing so he also outlines each point with Biblical support.

Where Newbigin’s strength lies is in his missiological methodology. It is not overtly discussed much, but the entire book is a guide to understanding culture. He begins by briefly profiling a culture; in this case it is the modern Western culture. Then he moves on to how the culture understands literature, and in particular how that culture examines the Scriptures. Next Newbigin looks at the scientific and political aspects of that culture and compares them to Christianity. Finally he looks at how the Church can engage the culture in the indigenous language.

In the first chapter, Newbigin defines several terms that are necessary in order to understand the rest of the book and cross-cultural communication of the Gospel: culture, contextualization, and the Gospel itself. Contextualization has been defined in this paper already.

By the word culture we have to understand the sum total of ways of living developed by a group of human beings and handed on from generation to generation. Central to culture is language. … Around that center one would have to group their visual and musical arts, their technologies, their law, and their social and political organization. And one must also include in culture, and as fundamental to any culture, a set of beliefs, experiences, and practices that seek to grasp and express the ultimate nature of things, that which gives shape and meaning to live, that which claims final loyalty. I am speaking, obviously, about religion (3).

Certainly it is the definition and explanation of culture that lays the foundation for all that follows. Likewise, Newbigin defines the Gospel as “the announcement in the series of events that have their center in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ something has happened that alters the total human situation and must therefore call into question every human culture” (3-4). Certainly there would be no missiology without an understanding of the Gospel and its application to a specific culture.

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