Abstract
‘Intercultural Theology’ began in the 1970’s as a way of expressing theological mutuality and equality between cultures. Since then, the word ‘intercultural’ has gained currency in a number of fields, secular and religious. This article explores the possibilities of speaking of mission as ‘intercultural’ rather than ‘cross-cultural’ as a way of expressing the cultural engagement that is more appropriate to a postmodern world. The inadequacies of the cross-cultural approach, with its roots in modernity, are examined in the light of the complexity and diversity of cultural identities today. Intercultural mission in contrast is relational, mutual, dialogical, open-ended, and creates space within which God’s missio dei can be experienced. Two examples are offered of intercultural mission in practice. It is suggested that this resonates with Bosch’s proposal for a new paradigm for mission in a postmodern context.
Introduction
It is now 23 years since Bosch’s Transforming Mission was published, and although there has been an attempt to revive the book’s influence with an anniversary edition in 2011 (Bosch, 2011), I wonder whether the paradigm shift which David Bosch was proposing is yet to emerge, or even whether it has got lost in the intervening years. Where have all the paradigm shifts gone? Perhaps the notion of a ‘paradigm shift’ feels rather tired and very ‘90s’. Or perhaps we see it as an intellectual tool never actually experienced in practice because we only know it in hindsight and not when we are going through it. Perhaps we can only think in terms of an ongoing transformation, and certainly new paradigms do not emerge overnight. Reppenhagen and Gruder suggest the need for multiple paradigm shifts in post-Christendom cultures (Bosch, 2011: 547). To be sure, there have been many changes in global mission in those 20 years: the integration of church and mission as ‘missional church’; new ways of being church; the centrality of integral mission; massive growth in Pentecostal Christianity; ‘reverse mission’ from the Global South; new levels of inter-faith engagement, to name just a few. Across the world, mission is much more on the agenda for the Church today, and mission ‘from everywhere to everywhere’ has been a fact of global mission for a number of years.
And yet it is very easy for mission practitioners to revert to familiar and traditional ways of thinking, using the tried and tested paradigm of cross-cultural mission, based on assumptions about what mission is that have hardly changed since the 19th-century missionary era. Maybe each generation has to re-think missionary principles afresh. But I would like to propose in this article that we need to move beyond thinking in ‘cross-cultural’ terms in favour of an approach to mission that is ‘intercultural’, which I think resonates well with David Bosch’s vision. His postmodern paradigm is essentially dialogical, relational, contextual, vulnerable, open, holistic, communitarian and ecumenical in the best sense, and all of these characteristics and more are there in what I am calling ‘intercultural mission’. To be sure, Bosch wanted to preserve the best aspects of historical models of cross-cultural mission, and it is self-evident that we will always need to cross some cultural boundaries in seeking to ‘make disciples of all nations’. Mission will always be in that sense ‘cross-cultural’. Bosch also saw that we were in a period of transition, so it is not surprising that cross-cultural mission is very much there in his own thinking. But Bosch was concerned that ‘the entire western missionary movement of the past three centuries emerged from the matrix of the Enlightenment’ (Bosch, 1991:344), and that this had led to a cross-cultural approach to mission rooted in modernist thinking. He insisted that ‘the mission of the church needs constantly to be renewed and re-conceived’ (Bosch, 1991: 519), and therefore I suggest that the manner in which we do mission today needs to be re-conceived as ‘intercultural’ rather than ‘cross-cultural’, and that this is much more appropriate for a postmodern world. We will clarify what we mean by ‘intercultural’, critique the inadequacies of the cross-cultural model, trace the historical development of inculturality in theology and mission, discuss the relationship with intercultural theology, and finally explore further the implications of intercultural mission with two examples of it working in practice.
What is Meant by ‘Intercultural’?
The word ‘intercultural’ has had wide currency in secular theory for some time. Generally it refers to the relationships between cultures; so, for example, we can find plenty of material on the internet about ‘intercultural education’, meaning how we teach and train young people to relate across cultural boundaries with respect and understanding of cultural diversity. The word is frequently used to mean ‘multicultural education’ or even ‘multicultural antiracist education’ (Nesbett, 2004:3).
There is much secular debate about the future of multiculturalism in the light of its failures to generate social cohesion, and in the field of social policy, interculturalism is being promoted as the alternative. For example, sociologist Ted Cantle promotes interculturalism as a way of managing community relations much better in a world defined by globalization and super-diversity (Cantle, 2012). He argues that as all countries become more multicultural, a new framework of interculturalism is needed to mediate these relationships and that this will require new systems of governance to support it. Others suggest that interculturalism provides a middle way between assimilation and multiculturalism where there are tensions with the integration of ethnic minorities (e.g. Emerson and Choudhury, 2011).
In many applications, ‘intercultural’ seems like just another word for ‘cross-cultural’. This is reinforced by its use in numerous courses on cultural understanding in the field of ‘intercultural studies’, both secular and Christian; and in mission Fuller’s mission teaching and training is done through their ‘School of Intercultural Studies’, which I am sure is doing a great job in equipping its future missionaries to relate cross-culturally with sensitivity, respect and appropriate contextualization. All Nations Christian College speaks of cross-cultural mission at the heart of their training, but then describes their undergraduate programmes as ‘Biblical and Intercultural Studies’, so perhaps for them also the words are interchangeable.
However, ‘intercultural’, in the sense that I am using it here, goes somewhat further than this mere correspondence. It begins from a presumption of cultural and relational equality and mutuality, and from the very outset of the relationship it invites us to put to one side our own cultural predilections, preferences and prejudices, emptying ourselves kenotically of all power intentions, more willing to receive than to give, open to where the Spirit is leading, and as open to our own spiritual and cultural transformation as to that of others. In the words of Fornet-Betancourt, we together create a ‘community of worlds that are different and yet in solidarity with each other . . . that are reshaped by means of the interaction of their members . . . [where] the organising principle . . . is the leading and normative idea of “mutuality”’ (Fornet-Betancourt, 2008: 219). Such mutuality is only possible from a non-judgmental starting point which assumes that no culture has an inherent superiority over another. If this sounds like cultural relativism, it does not rule out the existence of a supracultural truth which judges all cultures, including our own. Paul Hiebert notes that to avoid judging other cultures by the standards of our own, we have first to experience the ‘shattering of our monocultural perspectives of truth and righteousness’ (Hiebert, 2009:197). We then face the ‘abyss of relativism’, and move beyond that to an affirmation of transcultural norms based on Scripture and from there to an affirmation and critique of cultures.
But he insists that ‘at the heart of intercultural mediation is good intercultural relations based on true Christian love’ (Hiebert, 2009: 188). This enables us to relate to others through our common humanity, which for him is the starting point. For Hiebert, that enables us to love people and to love their cultures, which means being unconditionally committed to the people we meet, affirming their personhood and the gifts God has given them. These are the values which inspire my understanding of intercultural mission.
This work builds on my thinking about interculturality in the context of migration and how it works in our relationships with asylum seekers (Corrie, 2014). In the context of mission alongside migrants, hospitality is a key mission concept, and this is identified by George Newlands as lying at the heart of intercultural theology and closely related to the theme of unconditional grace (Newlands, 2004: vii–viii). Intrinsic to this are the notions of trust, openness, compassion, the willingness to embrace, and generosity: Christian faith contributes the gospel of God in Jesus Christ. But if it is to be saved from elitism, generosity also requires mutuality and reciprocity. Generosity is paradigmatically open to listen, to learn, to share mutual hospitality. (Newlands, 2004: 8)
Hospitality also holds within it the possibility of surprise, the willingness for reciprocal hospitality, and the love that takes the risk that the grace that is offered may not be received. Mission as hospitality can be seen as an invitation to a divine banquet where we sit down together and experience the grace of God’s hospitality. We invite people to taste and see, but at the same time we ourselves are tasting something new of God’s grace. We also recognize God in one another, there is a shared experience of life, and truth is discovered as richly diverse. Those who thought they were hosts are invited to become guests, so we are both hosts and guests to one another. Cathy Ross sees hospitality as a metaphor for mission, whose main aim should be creating space within which the mission of God can happen: the divine invitation from God to enter into a loving relationship with God, is about allowing people the space to come to God in their own way; to become the person God created them to be. (Ross, 2008)
So hospitality involves a giving and receiving within a shared space of encounter with God. That encounter may well be experienced as the invitation to receive Christ through repentance and faith, but the space enables someone to make a free response and not in any sense manipulated by us, as if we could do that anyway.
Here then are some of the key themes at the heart of the meaning of ‘intercultural’. I am going to unpack this further in this article, but I hope this is sufficient for us to see that it is a way of doing mission that is not one-way, neither ‘top-down’ nor ‘bottom-up’, and moves us beyond the mindset that mission is simply about crossing cultural boundaries to give something to people or do something for them. But you may still want to ask: why do we need to replace the ‘cross-cultural’ paradigm? Is not ‘intercultural’ at the same time cross-cultural by necessity and in the end amounts to the same thing? What actually is wrong with ‘cross-cultural’ mission? Let me try to deconstruct that notion and explain why it is important to move beyond it.
The Inadequacies of Cross-cultural Mission
We have already noted that mission will always involve relating across cultural differences, even when I personally witness Christ to my next door neighbours, who, like me, are white, British and middle class. You would think that should be relatively easy for me. But I have realized that in many respects we have very different cultural assumptions, which reinforces the fact that our cultural identities are multi-layered and highly complex. I cannot assume I know where they are coming from, or that being white British ought in itself to give us an immediate rapport. This highlights the first problem with the ‘cross-cultural’ approach, which tends to see culture in clearly defined terms with an identifiable set of characteristics uniformly shared across the culture. But cultural identities are much more complex and hybrid than these generalizations: everyone has a unique set of cultural variables and a complex set of sub-cultures. Cultures are in constant change, absorption and exchange, and cannot be understood as clearly defined and delimited identities. Even the use of the word ‘culture’ is fraught with difficulties since it is a construct determined by a number of variable factors and characterized by diversity.
This problem is well described by Kathryn Tanner, who outlines the historical development of the idea of ‘culture’ from modern to postmodern understandings. In the modern view, the anthropologists viewed it as a single, even if complex, unit, something given and already formed. But for Tanner . . . it seems less and less plausible to presume that cultures are self-contained and clearly bounded units, internally consistent and unified wholes . . . a postmodern stress on interactive process and negotiation, indeterminacy, fragmentation, conflict and porosity replaces these aspects . . . (Tanner, 1997: 38)
So cultures are now dynamic and interactive, and cross-cultural analysis loses its ability to describe fixed characteristics. Culture is now more a place where people come together in engagement rather than agreement or consensus, and this can just as easily be conflictual as it is in finding commonality. ‘Cultural identity becomes, instead, a hybrid, relational affair, something that lives between as much as within cultures’ (Tanner, 1997: 57, 58). So because cross-cultural models have been hugely influenced by the modern view, they tend to be one-directional from within discreet and clearly defined cultural boundaries. Postmodernity deconstructs all boundaries and makes communication multi-directional, networked, indiscreet, pluralistic. In reality there are the ‘boundaries’ because we experience them as such, but now they are very diffuse and porous, and cultural identities are very complex and changing the whole time.
However, armed with a simplified view of cross-cultural communication, representatives of the Western missionary culture have also assumed that the members of the ‘receptor culture’ have needs which they consider themselves called and equipped to meet. But this need is truly multi-dimensional and often overwhelming, and so it is tempting to simplify the encounter. We identify those of the receptor culture as the ‘needy’, the ‘vulnerable’, those who receive, and those who come from the missionary culture as ‘the givers’, who have the power to effect change since they see themselves as blessed with the resources to meet the perceived needs, as they see them. Why else have they been equipped, trained and sent? They are ‘taking the gospel’ and all its blessings, and offering it to the receptor culture (a phrase which means by definition that they are on the receiving end) with all its transforming power to meet their individual and corporate need and to change their situation. To many Western missionaries, this model of cross-cultural mission seems incontrovertible and has been predominant through mission history. There is such an imbalance of need that missionaries with all their resources of money, technology, administration and human capacity as well as their theology and spiritual experience, inevitably find themselves giving to the receptor culture, who in turn find themselves on the receiving end of the gracious and sacrificial service of the missionaries. The flow of energy, experience, expense and evangelism is overwhelmingly in one direction. And why not, since what is offered is usually gratefully received, so it seems like a ‘win-win’ situation.
The consequence historically was that Western cross-cultural mission turned into a one-dimensional imbalance of power, resources and service. At its worst, Western missionaries saw no need to ‘contextualise’ what they were doing and saying; utterly confident in their own cultural identity, and its Christian endorsement, and taking with them a supracultural, eternal gospel, they were absolutely sure of what the receptor culture needed and what they ought to do to receive it. They assumed that the receptor culture was in total spiritual darkness, as well as being economically dependent, and would therefore have nothing to contribute to their own transformation. The missionary culture simply presented the gospel in the terms with which they themselves were familiar, they planted churches in their own image, believing that to be the best way of being church, and they were not prepared to waste time creating dialogue with indigenous beliefs which were at their worst satanic.
We may object that we have moved on from these attitudes because mission is no longer dominated by Western assumptions. Mission is now predominantly non-Western. Jehu Hanciles argues persuasively that non-Westerners bring a new paradigm of mission, which is radically different from the way Western mission has been done in the past because it offers itself in weakness, risk, diversity and dependency (Hanciles, 2008). I’m sure this is true. However, non-Westerners have learnt their theology and mission from the West, and therefore are tempted to make the same mistakes: they can have cultural leadership models that are authoritarian, they can too easily assume that what works well back home will work elsewhere, and they can be defensive of their cultural identity. Non-Western mission may be ‘from below’ in many respects, but it can easily fall back into a ‘top down’ approach to doing mission. To be sure there are plenty of examples of humble servanthood, and mission from the global South is often done from great sacrifice and vulnerability.
It is also true that in more recent years the recognition of the need to contextualise the gospel has complicated a pre-determined, top-down and one-way strategy, although there are still plenty of examples of it, especially in short-term mission. For example, I have heard the frustration of some Latin American leaders with short-term missions to their continent who come ‘shooting from the hip’ as it were with all the cultural sensitivity of a bull in a china shop. Have we not surely become more culturally aware and sensitive? Sometimes I wonder. And it is perfectly possible to do the contextualizing and still remain in control of the process; so whether it is contextualization requiring translation, adaptation, inculturation, or theological relevance, the missionary culture has all the advantages to be able to retain the initiative, the resources, the decision-making and the authority structures required to achieve what to them will seem an appropriate contextualization.
We may be in the age of mission ‘from everywhere to everywhere’, but an imbalance is still prevalent in the relationship between the churches of the West and the Global South, and this came to the surface at the 2010 Lausanne III Conference in Cape Town. Distinguished Ecuadorian theologian Rene Padilla noted that ‘all too often Christian leaders in North and West, especially in the United States, continue taking it for granted that they are responsible for designing the strategy for the evangelization of the world’ (Padilla, 2011). He observed that even the Conference programme commented that ‘the basis of organizational leadership, control of financial resources and decision-making power of the strategy tends to remain in the north and west’ (‘Day Six – Partnership’ of the Congress programme).
Perhaps the most trenchant critique of Western cross-cultural mission comes from Jim Harries and his ‘Vulnerable Mission’ alliance (www.vulnerablemission.org). He would prefer it if Western missionaries stayed away from Africa, unless they are prepared to go with nothing except themselves, with no preconceptions, and only willing to use local languages, resources and thinking. For Harries, this is true contextualisation, and it requires a humble ‘missionary poverty’. This is what it means to be totally vulnerable (Harries, 2012). In his 20 years in Africa, Harries has seen enough of the wrong kind of cross-cultural mission, creating dependency, power inequality, and the disempowerment of local resources, to come to these radical conclusions. Is he over-reacting, and are his ideas realistic? I am not entirely convinced. For all the mistakes the West has made in mission, it ought to be possible to have genuinely mutual partnerships within which the West can make a valuable contribution which is offered with the unconditional grace of an intercultural approach. It is interesting though that Harries sometimes uses ‘vulnerable’ and ‘intercultural’ interchangeably, and I think he as a person can be seen as a good example of intercultural mission.
‘Intercultural’ focuses on the relationship between representatives of different cultures. But culture itself is formed and changed through such interactions. Cultural identity is not formed in isolation, but in dynamic relation with others. It is true that cross-cultural training has always encouraged missionaries to recognize that they take their culture with them in mission, and that they need cultural sensitivity; but I wonder how many missionaries assume the givenness of what they take with them; and when they start out do they really anticipate just how much their cultural assumptions, identity and even habits, will change as a result of their cultural interaction? There is a process of discovery here which is developmental rather than linear; it cannot be anticipated or planned for.
So to summarize: Cross-cultural mission tends to be linear, deductive and strategic, setting out from first principles and moving logically through to a desired outcome. This maybe because it has its roots in enlightenment thinking, which has been so influential on the Western missionary movement and evangelicalism. An intercultural approach implies a process of understanding that is provisional, more open to change, with a journey that is open-ended. For this journey, I suggest that the cross-cultural approach is no longer fit for purpose.
Intercultural Theology and Mission
Historical Developments
The definitive account of the historical development of intercultural theology comes from Birmingham-based ecumenical missiologist Werner Ustorf (Ustorf, 2008, revised and republished in 2011), who suggests that 1975 was the first time the word was used explicitly in relation to theology. The thinking arose as a consequence of decolonization and postcolonial discourse, which questioned Western hegemony and encouraged the west to repent of its colonial attitudes. It recognized that all theologies are contextually influenced and that all have value in the universal search for truth. This de-colonized theology was inclusive, open, mutually affirming and global and recognized ‘the other’ on equal terms socially, culturally and religiously. If we affirm these values, it means that intercultural mission should help us to distance ourselves from the paternalism and arrogance of an assumed superiority in how we understand or do mission.
So intercultural theology was born out of the conclusion that Western categories could no longer be used to describe or discuss non-Western forms of Christianity. It was recognized that these were profoundly discontinuous with a Western gospel and thus needed their own vocabulary and frames of reference. The huge cultural, religious and contextual diversity globally made it very difficult for simple universal categories, so that non-Western theologies recognized the need to develop their own ways of responding to their own issues and Western theology would lose its privileged status. The theological driving force would be the local cultural and historical context, not global doctrines or transcendent denominational traditions. The role of theology shifted to a response to particular cultural contexts, which would necessarily remain open and avoid finality or closure.
In line with this, in the 1970s and 1980s, the debate about interculturality was coterminous with the discussion about ‘development’ and the rejection of the Western imposition of solutions to poverty in favour of context-based solutions which formulate policies for change on the ground and involving local people. Gradually mission studies came to be understood as intercultural theology, which began to replace ‘mission’. It was also recognized that ‘intercultural’ ought to include ‘inter-religious’ since in many contexts culture and religion are inseparable. Ustorf suggests that intercultural and inter-religious communication are comparable, since similar epistemological presuppositions are operating in how we perceive ‘the other’.
Interculturality and Universality
There are a number of problems with Ustorf’s approach from an evangelical perspective if we want to retain a mission mandate which challenges all cultures with the demands of the Kingdom. Ustorf is right to say that cultural and religious identities should be considered together, though exploration of inter-religious relationships takes us beyond the scope of this paper in which our focus is on the intercultural. However evangelicals will want to resist theological relativism and affirm the existence of a supracultural truth which speaks prophetically to every culture. This means that there will limits to our affirmation of the faith of others. Intercultural mission does not mean a naïve endorsement of the culture or belief of others. But if we replace ‘mission’ with ‘intercultural theology’, or ‘intercultural studies’, does this imply that ‘mission’ no longer has any currency? Ustorf notes that Margull stopped using the term ‘mission’ because for him it was based on a Christian claim to a universal truth that he saw as no longer credible (Ustorf, 2011: 23). This signals the rejection of mission as a proclamation of a gospel that makes universal demands. Intercultural mission however can retain the importance of mission as proclamation, except that now the proclamation is first of all for God to make and it is proclaimed to us as well as to others, and through others to us as well as through us to them. Interculturality demands that we listen together to the demands of the gospel, not making those demands in a unilateral way, but recognizing our own vulnerability to them. We have a gospel to proclaim, but when we do it interculturally it is also speaks to ourselves.
Ustorf seems to agree with Hick that ‘any idea of Christian mission as a conversion project to the one and only “true” religion must necessarily become incoherent’ (Ustorf, 2011: 27), which seems to capitulate to Hick’s pluralism. It is perfectly possible to argue for the coherency of Christian belief. But that doesn’t mean we cannot be open to our understanding of God being modified. He also associates convictions about truth and universal values with colonial imperialism, which many would see as simplistic and overplayed. Thus for Ustorf, decolonization and de-imperialism must necessarily involve ditching these notions. But the fact that colonialism used universals as tools of oppression does not invalidate them; it merely illustrates the abuses to which colonialism, and by association mission, was capable.
But there is undoubtedly an intrinsic tension between interculturality and universality. This can be a creative tension if it is recognized that universality is only found through bringing together insights which are culturally specific of time and place. Universality does not need to mean a single, undifferentiated truth. It can be a blending of a spectrum of perspectives, much as white light is experienced as a spectrum of colours. After all, the NT gospel emerges not from one but out of four gospels. In our intercultural relationships we want the ‘other’ to retain their ‘otherness’, the particular colour of their perspective and experience of culture, so the aim is not to dissolve difference in the interests of universality. Also discovery of truth and meaning is a dynamic process, which will always be in tension with unchanging Truth, so our intercultural aim is a critical dialogue in a listening, self-reflective and learning environment. In reality there are universals built into the intercultural relationship from the outset: Christians relate together on the basis of their common experience of the risen Christ, and they relate to others on the basis of their common humanity, their createdness in the image of God, and their shared responsibility for the global world. These are universal and unconditional moral values which transcend cultural and religious particularities.
The Limits of Interculturality
Intercultural theology does not set out to achieve normativity, and intercultural mission does not work with any single model of mission, even if there is a framework of universal meaning within which the dynamic relationship between cultures is situated. For this reason, Cartledge and Cheetham suggest that interculturality works better as a style or an approach: ‘It is a methodological rather than an ideological commitment . . . which does not necessarily have doctrinal alteration at its heart’ (Cartledge and Cheetham, 2011: 3). We are not suggesting that interculturality embodies a universal truth with a fully-developed philosophical framework. Furthermore, intercultural relationships are inevitably constrained by the many differences of education, income, gender, experience, so that an encounter on one level (e.g. culture, or faith) is at the same time limited by the impossibility of engaging with every other level at once. It is important that the ‘other’ always remains ‘other’; I am not aiming to make them like myself by sharing my perspective: the sharing of difference is intended as a mutual enrichment so that our identity as ‘other’ is if anything reinforced: we become more fully the people we are with our distinctive cultural identities. If in the course of that encounter we or they are transformed then that is the work of the Holy Spirit, not ourselves. This goes to the heart of our missionary aim: if it is not us who do the converting, our aim is to give the other a different, maybe new, perspective which may be transformative, but which is left open. Otherwise we can easily turn the encounter into a power relationship and we are back with a cross-cultural mission approach which lacks mutuality and can become manipulative and coercive. We ourselves need to be open to the call of God on our lives to be disciples. ‘Discipleship itself must necessarily take on an intercultural style’ (Ward, 2011: 30) because we need each other, as Christians and as human beings, as we learn together how to follow Christ.
Some Theological Reference Points
A number of theological reference points have already been noted: kenosis, grace, hospitality, discipleship, the Trinity. The key to them all is the Incarnation in which Christ ‘pitched his tent in our midst’ (one way of reading John 1.14), but first as a helpless baby, the weakest and most vulnerable form of being human, putting aside all pretensions to power and status (kenosis), offering himself freely (grace), welcoming and indeed embracing our humanity (hospitality), beginning his encounter with the world with nothing to give and everything to learn (discipleship), all in the context of open and life-giving relationships rooted in his primary relationship with His Father (the Trinity). The Incarnation is explored in relation to interculturality by Bolivian theologian Marcelo Vargas, who notes that Jesus’ confidence in his own identity is what enables him to take up the towel of servanthood. This suggests that intercultural mission brings people together, with confidence in their own identity, to empower them to work for a common vision, which in Marcelo’s situation is one of justice and equality: ‘Interculturality does not deny universal values, on the contrary, it looks for universal means which allow for justice and equality’ (Vargas, 2013). His experience is that the interaction between those of different cultures causes them to relocate, renew and revitalize their identities because it creates the space within which Christ can do his transforming work.
This notion of created and creative space is referred to by Bhabha as ‘third space’ (Bhabha, 1994), a neutral place which does not identify fully with either culture, but within which both cultures are prepared to be self-critical of their own cultural assumptions. It is an open space where creativity is allowed to flourish, and it is mutually negotiated so that both cultures have a stake in it. To use a metaphor from the theatre, it can be seen as a stage on which the drama of the gospel is creatively experienced by everyone involved in the enactment of the story. Improvisation is a key skill: we have a script for the drama of the Kingdom of God, but that script only comes alive as it is enacted. The meaning of the script is discovered together and it requires creativity and imagination on both sides. As we join in the drama of the gospel we all enter into the story line of its script, some for the first time, others more familiar with the script discover new dimensions of its meaning. This resonates with Vanhoozer’s idea of the gospel as ‘essentially dramatic’, understood through ‘theo-dramatic reason: ‘theology’s primary aim is to help disciples discern how best to “stage” the gospel of the K/God in concrete situations’ (Vanhoozer, 2007: 109). Such space gives God, as the director of the drama and the author of the script, the opportunity for his missio dei to be experienced. Jesus created such a space within which his disciples were given the freedom to explore and discover the ‘life in all its fullness’ which he was offering them, and they were all to some extent improvising the story of the gospel as they went along.
Intercultural Mission in Practice
It is easy to theorize about this, but theology and mission have to be rooted in experience and work in practice. Here are two examples, one from history and the other contemporary, which incorporate the principle of interculturality and do it creatively and imaginatively, but with no predetermined outcomes.
Vincent Donovan, Christianity Re-discovered
The classic story of Donovan’s transforming experience with the Masai continues to resonate, and is read enthusiastically by students today who recognize a new way of doing mission which shares many of the values of interculturality. It begins with the failure of the classical approach to mission which assumed an institutional church bringing medical, educational and theological expertise to a largely ignorant and needy people in a very top-down way. Donovan wanted a completely different approach by simply spending time with the people, listening to them, sharing their understanding of God, and just seeing what would happen. He admitted his own vulnerability, he took the risk of rejection, and it was a mutual encounter in which he was learning new things about faith the whole time. ‘I have no theory, no plan, no strategy, no gimmicks – no idea of what will come. I feel rather naked’ (Donovan, 1982: 15–16). Something new emerged from the encounter, which was an expression of faith appropriate for that context. He was very dependent on God’s missio dei, and there is a remarkable recognition by the Masai that God had indeed been searching for them when they had not been looking for him. The theme of mutual hospitality also becomes prominent as Donovan shares their lives and their hospitality with him.
The Feast, Birmingham, UK
This organization describes itself as ‘a Christian charity based in Birmingham, to promote community cohesion between Christian and Muslim young people. The Feast is empowering young people to become peacemakers and spearhead social change’ (www.thefeast.org.uk). It began with an initiative in 2000 which brought together about 50 Christian and Muslim young people in what was then called ‘Youth Encounter’. They did fun things together and in that context shared their understandings of faith and learnt about their similarities and differences. This then became The Feast in 2008 when a Trust was formed with charitable status. They have grown considerably and now have a full-time Project Manager, an administrator, a schools worker, and Christian and Muslim youth workers. They have involved about 400 young people in their events as well as many more through their work in schools.
They have three main aims: to help young people to explore faith, to build friendships and to change lives. They are creating a ‘third space’, mutually negotiated between members of the community, within which issues of faith can be discussed with respect, openness and confidence, so in that sense it is dialogical. It is strongly relational and the friendships formed between the young people empower them to be transformative in their communities and amongst their peers. This is a difficult thing for young people to do and they are offering themselves to it in vulnerability and uncertainty. But they meet ‘on a level playing field’ culturally and spiritually, there is a mutuality of respect and trust, and a creativity and openendedness about their activities. The young people are encouraged to come to it with a willingness to learn and be changed by the process, and they find that many of their preconceptions about each other are deconstructed. There is a journey of discovery experienced by both Christians and Muslims as they participate in what is a community ‘theological’ experience. This fulfils many of the criteria of intercultural mission.
We may agree that it is intercultural, but we may however want to ask: is it mission? Not in the conventional sense of going to another culture with an evangelistic intention of converting them and planting a church. But if mission is about giving God the opportunity to work out his missio dei through changing people’s lives and their understanding of Him, then this definitely fulfils the criteria. The possibility of the transformation of individuals and communities speaks of the manifestation of the Kingdom of God in a holistic sense. Witness is there in the sharing and testimonies of the Christian young people, and they grow in their discipleship as their own faith is challenged and they learn how to articulate their faith. Adult workers also have an opportunity to be salt and light as they shine for Jesus in all that they do and say. If mission is about peace-making, reconciliation and building bridges for the gospel then this is certainly mission.
Here then is a creative response to the changing cultural contexts of our inner cities which require a new paradigm set free from the constraints of traditional conventional cross-cultural mission.
Conclusions
We have suggested that intercultural mission with its openendedness and provisionality challenges the preference for a cross-cultural linear path to a desired outcome with measurable success. Some evangelicals may object that interculturality makes too many concessions to a dialogical approach in which we simply bring ourselves to the conversation. What has happened to proclamation, we may ask? Dialogue doesn’t feature too highly in manuals on church growth, and for many this approach will seem too ecumenical. But intercultural mission does not require us to compromise our understanding of the gospel, or our commitment to making Christ known. It offers a new approach to the world, to culture and to individuals, but it does not require us to change what we bring to the encounter of ourselves, our convictions, and our commitment to the gospel. One way or another, these truths will come out as the intercultural encounter progresses. If we fear that ‘mission as proclamation’ has got lost in this paradigm, we may need to think differently about how that proclamation is made. Many evangelicals in the West are finding that they have to adopt an intercultural approach in an increasingly diverse, multifaith society as the only meaningful way to build relationships and create space within which God can work out his missio dei purposes. There was a time when evangelism was conducted through crusades. That gave way to evangelism through courses, notably Alpha. Maybe we are into a time when evangelism is best done through conversation. Andrew Goddard, in his summary of the legacy of Rowan Williams, notes that ‘The primary model of evangelism Rowan has offered the church . . . is that of journeying in conversation’ (Goddard, 2013:64). He goes on to quote Williams as saying: I do want to convince people, but at the same time I need to recognise the very intuitive, unpredictable nature of how people begin to see things. The worst thing I could do is to try and manipulate people into it. But I’m happy to talk about it. (Goddard, 2013: 64)
The irony is that those who set out to be cross-cultural often find themselves becoming intercultural as they discover their vulnerability, ignorance and ineffectiveness, and find themselves receiving more than they are giving and learning more than they are teaching. Much better therefore to begin with an intercultural approach, which I suggest could be truly ‘transforming mission’ at every level, individual, cultural and corporate.
So to finish where we came in, I do think we may need to take another look at Bosch because, for all our veneration of him, in many offices I go into he is sitting there on the shelves now largely unread and forgotten. I think we will find that interculturality is at the heart of his emerging ecumenical paradigm, with its ‘bold humility and humble boldness’ (Bosch, 1991: 489). Of course there are times when great courage is needed for the stand that we take as Christians, and in some contexts a direct and costly prophetic voice needs to be heard. But Bosch saw that in a post-modern world we do have to think differently about how we do mission, how we build relationships, and how we approach those with different cultural assumptions from our own. I suggest that an intercultural approach is the most appropriate one for our current context, and that the promise of intercultural mission is radical and transformative for the gospel in our world today.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.