contextual theology

Tapestry: On Jack-o-Lanterns

January 16, 2009 By heather Leave a Comment

First, I want to thank everyone who’s sent me encouraging notes on my blog, email, and facebook. This community means so much to me, and I love that I can depend on you guys to pray for me and love me. Thank you for reminding me I can trust God in this. Even though I know that, I need to hear it from my loving community over and over again.

Second (and here’s a jolted subject change!), I’m up today at Tapestry talking about one way we can evaluate different commands in the bible to know how we can honor them today and glorify God in everything we do, by looking at form, function, and meaning. It’s a continuation of the contextual theology series.

An excerpt:

Every form has a specific function, and this function shows a certain
meaning. If the function and meaning of the form are the same from one
culture to the next–and I mean the broader culture, not our church
subcultures–then by all means, keep the form. If it isn’t, then the
same form without the same function and meaning is meaningless at best
and confusing at worst.

Read the rest.

Filed Under: contextual theology

Tapestry: What's the Fuss? Tell Me What's A-Happenin'

December 5, 2008 By heather Leave a Comment

I’m up today at the Tapestry Blog continuing the conversation about contextual theology.

A taste:

"Contextual theology not only recognizes that we approach the Bible through our own cultural understandings or lenses,
it recognizes that the Bible was written in particular cultures. God
expressed and revealed himself through these different cultures. His
chosen people glorified and honored him in their cultures.

This is not to say we relegate everything in the Bible to being
merely cultural and therefore not applicable to us today. It is to say
that transforming our culture does not mean returning to any of the
cultures seen in the Bible, including the culture of the first-century
church.

This gets messy. How do we understand God’s revelation of himself and how we are to live as Christians today?"

Read the rest here.

Filed Under: contextual theology, culture, hermenuetics

Tapestry: Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?

November 21, 2008 By heather Leave a Comment

Today at Tapestry, I wrote about how our culture or worldview affects our reading of Scripture.

"C. S. Lewis wrote, ‘The character of evidence depends on the shape of
the examination… It determines how much of that total truth will
appear and what pattern it will suggest’ (Lewis, The Discarded Image, 223). In other words, we understand truth in light of the questions we ask and how we ask them.

Because of this, there’s not a Christian worldview but many
Christian worldviews. Worldview includes many components such as
economics, politics, knowledge (or epistemology), science, ethics, etc.
Religion is one part of worldview. Christianity both is influenced by
worldview and influences worldview. Christianity cannot exist outside
of culture, but it also transforms culture."

Read the rest: Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?

Read Part One of the contextual theology series (includes a list of some theological resources).

Filed Under: Bible study, contextual theology, epistemology, truth, worldview