One Gospel, Many Cultures: Doing Theology in Context

Culture is defined as the shared values and practices found in a community. Cultural values are then varied from one social group to the other. In contrast, gospel is static. The values and principles from Scripture do not change. Moreover, when gospel and culture tensions occur–especially in the application of the gospel message in a specific culture–do believers from a specific culture adopt the culture of the Bible? If so, is there one unified culture in the Bible?

From the Canaanite culture to the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures, Scripture exhibits many cultures. Should the believers from a specific worldview follow all the cultural practices of the Bible? Can the believers from Kerala or Bihar in India hold on to their own indigenous cultures? How might one appropriate the message of the gospel in their respective cultures? Contextualizing the gospel is an important task in the practice of Christianity. This means that the identification of the principles of contextualization is important in order to answer the aforementioned questions.

One Gospel, Many Cultures will be a valuable addition as these pertinent questions on gospel and culture are addressed by renowned scholars.