When Christian missionaries speak of 'messianic Judaism' or 'messianic Islam', they are basically referring to Christians engaging in deep level contextualization, so deep that at first glance the followers may not even seem Christian as you'd normally recognize it. But when you look deeper Christ is at the core of everything. In this respect I would quite happily accept the label of 'messianic New Ager' or 'messianic Occultist' amongst those who understood the term, though in truth this sort of language is generally reserved for the deepest forms of contextualization. I can't claim to go quite that deep, though I do prefer to call myself 'an initiate of the Jesus mysteries' to 'a Christian' if the truth be known.
For me that is really helpful.
Doubly so as the post goes on to flag up some sites of interest in contextualising the gospel in neo-paganism.
Journeys In Between: Contextualization vs Syncretism:Filed in: contextualisation, syncretism, Christian, neo-pagan, culture
2 comments:
Interesting.
I always thought that Messianic Judaism was not missionary at all, but was Jews who had concluded that Jesus really was the Messiah, but saw no need to adopt what they saw as an alien Gentile Christian culture.
In that sense, it had nothing to do with contextualisation.
I see what you mean and I think you have a point. However, I think that there is some value in thinking about it as contextualisation in that Messianic Judaism is in many ways a new development because it is not about Jewish believers in Christ joining a largely gentile church but forming church in a Jewish culture. In that sense it is contextualisation. That is what, it is being argued, contextualisation is about. I gather that messianic Judaism is missionary and the contextualisation, as outlined, is a helpful dimension in that.
That's not well expressed, but I hope you get what I mean.
Post a Comment