The Bible as Authority as an Antidote to Cultural Imperialism

I’ve had recently read Lamin Sanneh’s thought-provoking book Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. One of the points that came through for me was that the very stress of missionaries on the authority of the Bible means that for indigenous Christians who come to share this belief, the missionaries cease to be their primary sense of authority. The Bible itself becomes their authority. The very inherent translatability of the gospel leads to the de-absolutisation of any culture, including Western culture, and, therefore, tells against stereotypical presentations of missionaries as cultural imperialists.

However, one thing Sanneh does not appear to consider in this connection is the way in which Western missionaries have sometimes still been treated as though they were the authoritative interpreters of the biblical message, even if the final authority was thought to lie in the biblical text itself. This phenomenon was partly due to the way in which some considered and presented themselves and partly due to the way in which they were regarded even in spite of their intentions to the contrary. There are elements of indigneous culture that often complicate the ability of indigenous recipients to develop their own biblically faithfully yet culturally appropriate version of Christianity. For example, when I was seeking to train Christian leaders in Pakistan many years back, I would at times try to get students to discuss what the biblical writer was saying in a particular text. However, given Pakistani cultural values by doing this I found I was undermining my own role. Since I was the teacher I was supposed to know what the text said and I was expected to simply tell them. Further, given the prior predominantly rote-learning educational experience of the students found great difficulty in thinking in a more reflective and abstract manner as to the implications of biblical truth for their own culture. Such factors, and there are many more that could be added, mean that even though translatability lies at the heart of biblical Christianity, nevertheless the development of biblically faithful indigenous Christianity is by no means an inevitable and automatic process. For the inherent translatability of the gospel to be realised in an indigenous culture there is a great need for outstanding indigenous leadership.

Posted November 26, 2010

www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au

Upon clicking 'Buy now' you will be redirected to paypal.com where you can securely and quickly complete your purchase with a few clicks.

Immediately after payment at PayPal you will be redirected to a download page which provides you instant access to your purchase.