discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 68
68 A Global Church
their lives. Immigrant and refugee populations will be attracted to biblical passages
that speak about God’s righteousness extending to “strangers and aliens”
(Ephesians 2:19, NRSV). An honor/shame continuum based on God’s redemptive
acts is attractive to Muslims and those from the Far East. For them to hear
that Jesus honored His Father by dying for humanity’s shameful acts is very
powerful. Liberation theology, which in many people’s minds focuses too narrowly
on economic and political issues, grew out of the realization in Latin
America that Yahweh is a God of justice who takes the side of the oppressed. In
this regard Joon-Sik Park wrote in an article about John Howard Yoder, “God
is not indifferent to exploitation, pain and poverty and his presence is clearly
linked with their elimination.” 17
Contextualizing theology does not mean that theology simply responds to
questions posed by the culture. Theology has its own questions to pose to cultures.
For instance, some Asian cultures need to hear the biblical affirmation
that Yahweh is a God of mercy as well as holiness, while many in the West
need to hear that He is a God of holiness as well as mercy. People living in areas
where animism is widespread need to see the biblical portrayal of God as
transcendent but not remote, since animistic cultures often think of the Creator
as remote and uninvolved with the world.
Being a Change Agent
As the gospel has moved into different cultures, it has confronted sinful
practices and issues of injustice. That, too, is a part of contextualization since a
truly contextualized church will have a strong prophetic voice. All believers live
in “a warped and crooked generation” (Philippians 2:15). Mention has already
been made of Bartolomé de las Casas and his denunciation of the enslavement
practices of European colonists. William Carey pushed to outlaw sati, the Hindu
practice of burning widows alive on their husbands’ funeral pyres. In the early
20th century, Gladys Aylward fought against foot binding in China, a practice
that crippled women for life. Amy Carmichael gave her life to rescuing
children from temple prostitution in India. The work of Mark and Gloria
Zook, missionaries with New Tribes Mission, was made famous by the EE-Taow
film. As the Zooks worked among the Mouk people of Papua New Guinea, the
gospel changed that group’s pattern of deceit and ill-treatment of women. Internal
revenge killings were wiping out the Waodani people in Ecuador when
Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot went to live among them. As the Waodani
came to faith in Jesus, they emerged as a healthy, viable people group.
Churches in Central and Eastern Europe were active participants in the
events that brought down the iron curtain. On December 22, 1989, Baptist pastor
Peter Dugulescu led 100,000 people in reciting the Lord’s Prayer in a Ro-