Translating Gospel into Generational Cultures

The most recent session in the Generations in Conversation course focused on translation as an approach to contextualisation. As a theological text we used Darrell Guder’s book, “The Continuing Conversion of the Church”.

Process of Translation and Witness

We started with Darrell Guder’s background, working in Presbyterian and Lutheran settings, providing oversight for Young Life and developing theology in theological seminaries in the USA. He’s currently teaching at Princeton. See my post on Guder’s material at GodPost.

Guder starts by talking about the development of concepts of mission and evangelism as Christendom came under question. He invites us to found our understanding of mission in the nature of God – a relational God who lives in the tension of trinity – a missionary God who sends, is sent and lives in context.

Guder writes that
“Mission is to be a continuing process of translation and witness, whereby the evangelist and the mission community will discover again and again that they will be confronted by the gospel as it is translated, heard and responded to, and will thus experience ongoing conversion while serving as witness.”

At this point I thought that it would have been good to start with a context for Guder’s questions. I’d tried to do that by looking at recent television commercials and their attempts to translate into youth culture. What would make this session more effective is some insight from Guder on contexts in which he personally has encountered the need for translation.

Despite having photos, and PowerPoint presentations, the use of quotations almost always leads to glazed eyes, particularly after lunch!

Having said that, we had a look at the challenge of translation without the sin of control, as well as the inevitability of reductionism in which a form of Christianity is made out to be normative and becomes a distortion. See my notes at GodPost for more.

We took seriously Guder’s assertion that the basis of the Christian gospel is the Christ event rather than a set of ideas about Jesus.

Boomer Translation

As we had a couple of Boomers in the group we started out with an analysis of ways in which the Christian gospel has been translated into Boomer culture.

Informality rather than formality. Entertainment as a value. People and personality count. We are now used to the use of movie culture in gatherings of Christians, not only in the use of multimedia but also in the sense of storyline and multi-sensory experience. We have developed product placement without a strong sense of awkwardness. Think of the Purpose Driven campaigns.

The message of the cross has been developed in ways that help Boomers discover and explore meaning, destiny, purpose and personal fulfilment. Jesus gives me meaning in life. He’s my master – giving me purpose and direction. He’s mate, providing me with friendship and intimacy. He’s helps me matter, helping me make a difference.

We talked about the reductionism that was emerging with these translations. We were seeing the loss of values of sacrifice, generosity, and community for sake of community rather than “me”. Giving was often promoted by Boomers as a good investment. Time was now more valuable than dollars.

Post War Translation

We now went back a generation to explore what the gospel might mean for those before the Boomers. We looked at the values espoused and lives by those who carried the values of the Uniting Church Adult Fellowship. This was a generation who found meaning and purpose in service, helping others, often in formal ways such as the Blue Nursing Auxillary. These were people who often had very few resources but had gifts of time. Fund raising was carried out by using the skills shared by Adult Fellowship members. Meetings were associated with information sharing and enfranchisement. The election of a woman as the President of the Adult Fellowship was not just a case of filling a gap. It had emerged in a time when women had little formal say in the wider church. We noted that many people in the seventies were struggling to make the transition from fellowship group to small groups focused on discipleship, prayer, personal sharing and Bible Study.

The Christian Gospel for these earlier generations, was often linked with having a place, a job, or a role. There was a sense of following in the way of Jesus who helped people and gave them a job to do, caring for the widows, the orphans and the poor. We noted the development of organisations such as Lifeline and Blue Nursing as expressions of this translation of the Christian gospel.

As leaders we explored what the Christian good news might be now for older generations coming to terms with the growing complexity of life in the community. What might the good news of Jesus be for people as they experience generational dissonance? Their contribution to an intergenerational handing on of faith was participation in the gospel. As we connected older and younger together in mentoring and shared work projects the gospel would take on new meanings for both. We noted the trend of developing child care centres in aged care centres.

Gen X and Y Translation

We talked about streams and key leaders in the emerging generations. We were seeing a growing sense of creativity in the electronic and digital fields, linked with the visual arts, rock music and ethnic diversity. Culture was being mixed (as in hiphop) and created.

Understanding the Atonement, John DriverAs an aid to considering fresh expressions of the gospel for these emerging generations we considered the resource, 10 Gates to the Cross, based on John Driver’s book, “Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church.” A Mennonite missionary, Driver has worked hard to develop understandings of atonement that take seriously the contexts of ethnic origins, socio-economic situations, life searches and personality.

The ten New Testament ‘gates to the cross of Jesus’ are outlined by Gordon Miller in a translation of Driver’s work for the New Zealand environment. They are deliverance, suffering, leadership, martyrdom, transformation, cleansing, service, peace, forgiveness and family. Forgiveness is the one approach that we were used to using to guide people into making a life-changing connection with Jesus. On reflection though, we realised that many people did not fit that gate when they were led through the ‘sinner’s prayer’.

We looked at images of the cross in terms of Gen X and Y cultures.

Rather than just talking about Jesus winning a conflict and leading us into victory, we talked about Jesus struggling on our behalf to win us freedom and release.

The image of Jesus as our represenative, the leader, lent itself to the concept of modelling for us the re-invention of our lives in the image of God – helping us discover our true calling to life life with passion, desire, beauty and engagement with the Earth. We looked at the Earthy resurrection body as a key focus for starting again, following the Human One.

Another expression of Earthiness was the call to reconciliation in the context of peace, justice and ecology, being one with the land.

We examined the concepts of new ownership and slavery referred to in the New Testament. In the emerging generational context young adults were relating to Jesus as their mentor and coach rather than as their owner.

We explored the concept of adoption into a new family. This was good news for many young people who were longing for a community or context in which they were not alone.

We explored the New Testament concepts of cleansing and covering. Could this be linked with the relationship with God – ‘someone who will look after me’. Or were were we looking at the removal of shame, the feeling of being dirty, often linked with abuse? The development of a new state of purity, a fresh start, the removal of stigma and the development of a new identity? Inner healing and emotional wholeness.

We played with the images of bubble bath and flotation tank as well as the current trend to develop a ‘cleansing diet’. Could these be linked to explorations of the good news of Jesus?

The good news for emerging generations would need to include an experience of faithfulness. We looked back to the television advertisement for AIDS awareness, in which a woman has many partners before she finds the right one. Fidelity was an experience that was linked with the good news of Jesus.

The flotation tank took us to the exploration of the gospel in terms of 21st century justification. “I am free to be rather than achieve.”

We considered what this generation might learn from the pre-Boomer generations. Perhaps the capacity to live lives that involved sacrifice, community-related values and servant leadership. We are called to be helping others, even at a cost to our own happiness or comfort. We talked about examples of emerging missional church in which young Christians were developing a radical counter-cultural alternative to self-protection. There was a resonance with Jesus’ call to make a difference. We were called to be giving of ourselves in a non-sexual way.

We finished our time together buzzing with the good news of Jesus.

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