A Multiplicity of Perspectives

This is the third in a series of posts on the need for solidarity in global missions. You can read the first two posts here and here.

Revelation 5:9 celebrates the decisiveness of the work of Jesus who “redeemed people for God by [His] blood from every tribe and language and people and nation.” Moreover, mission has transformed the map of global Christianity. The whole center of gravity of world Christianity has moved from the West to the South and East.

Christopher Wright explains.

At the start of the 20th century, only ten percent of the world’s Christians lived in the continents of the south and east. Ninety percent lived in North America and Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. But at the start of the 21st century, at least 70 percent of the world’s Christians live in the non-Western world—more appropriately called the majority world.

More Christians worship in Anglican churches in Nigeria each week than in all the Episcopal and Anglican churches of Britain, Europe, and North America combined. There are more Baptists in Congo than in Britain. More people in church every Sunday in communist China than in all of Western Europe. Ten times more Assemblies of God members in Latin America than in the U.S.

In the midst of this new reality, in order to perceive the richness of global Christianity, we must include the recognition the multiplicity of perspectives and contexts from which people read the biblical texts. What one person of one culture brings from that culture to their reading of the biblical text may illuminate dimensions of the text itself that someone of another culture may of not seen so clearly.

This variety goes right back to the New Testament. The four Gospels themselves were written with four different audiences in mind. The Epistles are all written to different churches in different cultural contexts. Acts tells a more complicated story. From Jerusalem the church spread. Antioch became the place where followers of Jesus were first called Christians and became a center of westward expansion. Additionally, Ephesus became the center for the spread of the gospel in Asia Minor. And Paul was eager to make Rome a base to take the gospel further west into Spain. Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Rome were all simply one center among many.

James Brownson writes,

One of the most obvious phenomena of early Christianity is the way the movement crossed cultural boundaries and planted itself in new places…This tendency of early Christianity to cross cultural boundaries is a fertile starting point…because it places the relationship between Christianity and diverse cultures at the very top of the interpretive agenda.

Whether we like it or not, every reader of the Bible is an interpreter. But we tend to think that our understanding is the same thing as the Holy Spirit’s. However, we invariably bring to the text all that we are, with all of our experiences, culture, and prior understandings of words and ideas.

Therefore, we need to be sensitive to the fact that the biblical text can only be interpreted within its own context (exegesis) and that the application (homiletics) of its message demands an awareness of our own cultural context. In other words, every interpretation must do justice to the text and at the same time connect with our own common humanity.

So, within the reality of a new global church, fresh reading of Scripture is possible through the shared work of Christians from various parts of the world. In addition, only through a shared work with other Christians from various parts of the world, can a hermeneutic truly be missional.

Therefore, the best way we can fully understand the complexity of the gospel message is to learn from others who are seeing the story from different angles. It takes the whole church, in all of its differences, to know the fullness of God’s mission in the world. Only in a diverse partnership can we illustrate the power of the reconciling nature of the gospel.

2 Responses to “A Multiplicity of Perspectives”

1. Jason Egly says:

   June 16, 2011 at 10:13 am

   Excellent. Thank you for this fantastic post and the reminder of the need to break down the monolithic walls we’ve built in our churches.

   Reply
   • Michael Carpenter says:

     June 16, 2011 at 5:07 pm

     Thanks Jason.

     Reply