More often than not, “partnering in missions,” means small churches give what little money they think they can afford to a larger church or a missions sending agency that will handle mobilization, screening, indoctrination, training, sending, and maintenance of missionaries on the field. This is not “partnering,” it’s outsourcing.

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In response to Dr. Malcom Yarnell’s Shall We “Build Bridges” or “Pull Down Strongholds”?

Posted March 17th, 2008 by Ernest

After reading Dr. Malcolm Yarnell’s paper entitled, Shall We “Build Bridges” or “Pull Down Strongholds”? I was inspired to respond. I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but here’s an excerpt:

I, however, believe that the gap between the mainstream culture and the “Christian” subculture many Americans find themselves in should be filled. This should not and cannot be accomplished by efforts to “make the church relevant,” but by ceasing the active propagation of the myth of Christian culture. In other words, if our churches valued indigenous interpretation of scriptural truth, we would see expressions of Christianity that reflect (and therefore affect) the cultures in which we find ourselves. Churches would be “relevant” (I prefer “contextually appropriate”) if we stopped making people look like us in order to follow Jesus. But because many of us fail to see the cultural influences on our own Christianity. If we think that ours is a pure Christianity, unaffected by the world and its cultures, it makes sense that we would be wary of missional contextualization.

Please read the entirety of my way-too-long response, entitled:

In Response to Dr. Malcolm Yarnell’s Shall We “Build Bridges” or “Pull Down Strongholds”? A practitioner’s decidedly unacademic answer to an esteemed theology professor’s uninformed opinion.

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Filed under:Christianity, Communication, Culture, Incarnation, Missiology, Misunderstood

4 Responses to “In response to Dr. Malcom Yarnell’s Shall We “Build Bridges” or “Pull Down Strongholds”?”

  • Alan Cross Says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 4:30 am

    Thanks, Stepchild. I think that a big problem that we have is that we don’t quite realize how steeped in a fallen culture the white, Baptist church in the South is. We have never recognized that, so we sit from a place where we are drowning in accomodation to the culture and we critique others who are trying to speak to people in a language that they understand. Culture is inescapable. It is the air that we breathe. God, when He became flesh, made his dwelling among us. In other words, He operated in culture. We seem to be having the same discussions that Niebhur was engaging in in the last century.

    In reality, if we are guided by the gospel, we will find the ability to communicate cross-culturally much easier than we can imagine. It starts with humbling ourselves.

    Thank you for the time and energy that you put into this.

  • Todd Says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

    Stepchild,
    I prefer you practitioner’s perspective.

  • Paul Says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    I think there is one aspect of Dr. Yarnell’s paper that vividly illustrates a weakness in his approach to what is “culturally” acceptable. Dr. Yarnell lives in an academic culture, yet proposes in this paper to speak, not to the academy, but to the church. Yet he writes as if he is writing for the academy. How many lay persons does he think all of those Greek words will have any meaning for? For that matter, how many pastors will those Greek words have any meaning for?

    And so, in some sense, his failure to rightly exegete his target audience actually becomes a hindrance to the message he hopes to share. In this case I doubt it is a major hindrance. After all, we still have the English words along with the Greek ones. But I think it is illustrative of your point.

    And I couldn’t agree more.

  • stepchild Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 11:42 pm

    Thanks, guys. I won’t pretend that what I’ve written makes any sense, I just really felt compelled to respond to Dr. Yarnell’s paper. He just doesn’t seem to understand the complexities of communicating across cultures. My perspective, however, is quite pragmatic, and that’s not always the best way at arriving at truth…

    I wonder why Dr. Yarnell wrote this paper. Is it a response to a current over-emphasis on contextualization? Why does he bring the emerging church into a discussion of cross cultural ministry?

    Anyway, thanks again.

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