I’m starting my first class today as a student at Biblical Seminary. I’ll be working ever so slowly on a Masters in Missional Theology. Hopefully God will use this to enrich my work as a law professor and in the local church, as well as to deepen and broaden my own faith. My first course is an online class in World Christian History. We started with this great quote:
“. . . All historically visible Christianities are partial manifestations of an essence that is never seen in an unmixed form, and can never be seen in its wholeness and entirely on earth. The ‘God’s eye’ view of the eternal of the Christian Church is just that. Every manifestation of Christianity is partial because it is always a composite. The churches never escape their social context and the value of their host society. So the Christian message and the Christian life always combine elements drawn from the ethos and assumptions of the age (which, of course, Christianity, in turn) help to shape.” Evan Cameron, Interpreting Christian History, pg. 86.
Nice.
3 replies on “Christian History — Contextualization”
Good luck today! Are you taking day or night classes?
Anytime day or night — it’s online!
I am excited for your Dave. That quote is a mouthful but so true. The church is never a pure as we would like and never as detached from society as we would like. Perhaps it is not meant to be. I am beginning to see the radically cultural nature of scripture and the church. We are incarnational. By the way, I have one of your mom’s watercolors on my wall at home — a gift from Ted. Very beautifully done by a beautiful soul. I have such a burden to see the generations come together as Paul urges in Titus. I thank God every time I see it happen.