1 Bible Science and Culture Integrated How much can we borrow from the culture to make the message more relevant?

2 Dangers of Miscommunications— Syncretism  Huge Gulfs between… Bible’s Historical and cultural setting and contemporary life Our cultural setting and target audience’s setting  Without proper understanding the message is meaningless and irrelevant Liberals emphasize #2 Needs for both to be understood

3 Anthropological Contribution to Missions 1. Can bring understanding to cross-cultural situations ej—we have two Christmas’: Santa Claus and Jesus without mixing 2. Can provide insights into specific mission tasks Bible Translation and language learning with minimizing can help with distribution and loss of meaning 3. Understand process of conversion including normal social changes 4. Can help Gospel be relevant to hearers 5. Can help build bridges between culturally diverse people

4 Theological Assumptions  God’s Mission—to revel Himself to all mankind through those who know Him  Authoritative Scripture of God’s revelation of Truth to man Becomes the standard of all Truth and Righteousness As God’s Word, the Bible becomes our message to the lost Message is always giving to people in a historical-cultural setting  Christocentric understanding of Scripture in the light of Christ  Ministry of the Spirit who prepares the hearts to receive the message then brings them on to maturity  The Kingdome of God is to bring everyone under His authority  The Church—to unite in community and to build up one another  The Priesthood of believers—not the responsibility of a few

5 Scientific Assumptions  Naturalistic Theories of cultural evolution--where man has evolved from so-called “primitive societies” to complex organizations, from irrational to rational, from magic to religion and science  Human experience is not a random set of events with no purpose or meaning. “Cultural Evolution” is not a reality  By 1930’s cultural evolution was not credible, rather diversity in human societies seen as self-contained, integrated systems—the unique traits are key to their survival as a society  Cultural anthropology rejected cultural evolution focusing on systems of ideas, beliefs, and symbols Focus on assumptions that underlie cultural beliefs, individual worldviews Must understand the explicit symbols and implicit beliefs to communicate with minimum of distortion

6 Integration of Concepts for Greater Understanding  Variety and Unity of humanity Differ in biological and psychological make-up but have human universals Share most physiological functions, similar psychological drives and need for social organizations

7 Integration of Concepts  Attempts at a holistic model—most are fragmented approaches Reductionism—reducing all dimensions of human life to one type of explanation Stratigraphic approach—to holism—stacking theories on top of each other  Each model is a self-contained explanation of some part of human life  Collection of fragmentary understanding’s gathered by various methods analysis  Still do not give holistic view of humans  These factors are all interrelated—fail to see starvation, illness, ignorance, addictions are rooted in human sin

8 Stratigraphic Approach to Holism This approaches secularizes most of our live leaving it outside theological critique Theological Model Anthropological Model Sociological Model Biological Model Physical Model

9 More on Integration of Concepts  Missionary worldviews separates science and religion, supernatural and natural is a Greek philosophical origin, not biblical origin  Holistic Approach—A comprehensive understanding of humans as whole beings, recognizing that our knowledge is always imperfect Each area has insights that relate to each other Culture molds peoples preferences physically Complementarily

10 An Integrated Approach to the Study of Humans Human Spiritual Physical Psychological Social Biological Cultural