GOSPEL & CULTURE
This article is a reflection on the abiding issue of the relationship between the revelation of God given through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the diversity of culture that marks humanity throughout this earth. In one sense this is a recent discovery of theology that accrued from the ever widening circle of nations and cultures that have encountered the Gospel. What was once taken as a given message has been found to be infused with the cultural and historical heritage and biases of its promoters. In another sense this is an issue that has always been current since the first day the Gospel was preached by the Apostles. It may even be considered to have been an issue since the day God had to address a humanity that has diverged into different clans, tribes, cultures and nations.
Given the nature of the issue we are considering, it is relevant to note that this writer is a Singaporean by nationality and a Chinese by ethnicity. In the current climate of theology this little essay may be considered as a theological investigation from an Asian perspective. In this sense it may be seen as a contextual work. If it is seen from this perspective, however, some may feel that the content that follows lacks a specific Asian point of reference and therefore believe that it is not proper Asian theology. The issues which it addresses are rather broad and may read like what is found in many Western theological works. It may then be seen as no more than an extension of Western theology done by an Asian. This very factor relates directly to the reflection in this article. The different perceptual orientations that this denotes has to do with the relationship between Gospel and culture. Let us then begin our consideration of the relationship between Gospel and culture from a personal point of view, from the perspective of how a human being becomes a Christian.
I. THEOLOGISING ARISES FROM PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH GOD
The fundamental factor in how one becomes a Christian lies in ones personal encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ. One becomes a Christian when one recognizes and accepts who He is and submits to Him as Lord and Savior in repentance from sin. The consequence of this decision leads to the reception of the Holy Spirit from Him and the transformation of one's whole being thereof. Integral to this process of transformation is the transformation of one's value, belief, outlook and thinking. The process of understanding God, oneself and all of life and reality in the new light of Christ is the process of theologising. Therefore every Christian who truly follows the Lord Jesus is constantly engaged in theologising. It is a life process and a thought process that is integral to his discipleship. One may do it unconsciously. One may do it consciously. One may do it well. One may do it badly. In any case, as long as one takes one's faith seriously, one is engaged in it.
A. SOURCE OF ALL CHRISTIAN THINKING
Theologising is therefore the thinking process of every Christian. It is the process of conceptualising God, self, the meaning of life and all issues of life that arise from one's personal encounter with Christ. This encounter leads to understanding God in terms of the biblical revelation that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God, the only begotten Son. The significance of all life has to be understood in terms of who He is and what He has said and done. From the most mundane to the most sublime, from the simplest to the profoundest, from the most trivial to the most crucial, nothing is left out of the scope of its significance.
B. SOURCE OF ALL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
The task of studying and ordering Christian thinking is the task of Christian theology. It is theologising at a formal and systematic level. It has the fundamental aim of deepening our grasp of the biblical revelation, appreciating and applying its significance to our lives and organising Christian thoughts into coherent and systematic forms for study. understanding and application. This is theology as the expression of the life and thought of the faithful Church. However, as an academic discipline, modern theology extends from this basic purpose to include formal intellectual endeavors that relate any thought or issue to what is recognised as religious in society. It is recognised as Christian when it relates to the thinking of the Church through its history and existence. As such it may not necessarily relate to the biblical revelation, but to what the Church or Christians may have thought of or believed at some point of time. Theology that arises from or is understood on the basis of personal encounter with Christ would only see all such endeavors as meaningful to the extent that these can guide us as to the significance of the biblical revelation. In this sense then, personal encounter with Jesus Christ is the source of all theology.
II. CONTEXTUAL FACTORS
Once we recognise personal encounter with Christ as the source of Christian theologising and theology we see the universality of the Gospel and of the Christ. For it is the same Christ and the same Gospel that everyone encounters whoever and wherever one may be. At the same time we are impressed, some are more impressed, with the diversity of religion in human societies. We may be enthralled with the multiplicity and divergence of cultures and the difference of perception and context that persons of different nationality, ethnicity and places have of the religious - even to the extent of identifying who God is, what He may be like, or whether He exists. This raises the matter of the relationship between the universality and particularity of Christianity.
A. CONTEXTUAL LIMITATION OF EVERY CHRISTIAN
Every human being, and therefore every Christian, lives in a particular milieu of life. This milieu includes his ethnicity, nationality, social strata, Iocality, language and lineage. Such factors affect his perception, values, beliefs and behavior. As a person lives he accumulates personal experiences of life and creates a personal history that again similarly affects him. No human being is ever free of these factors because life, being and identity never exist or develop in a vacuum or in isolation but always in the midst of these.
B. COMMON GROUND OF EVERY CHRISTIAN
The common ground of every Christian is that we have all encountered the same Gospel and met the same Christ. Christ is He who has come from beyond us to be one of us. He is God come to us as man. In His divinity He is the One God whom everyone meets. In His humanity He has to be identified in the same way that every human being is identified - in terms of His ethnicity, nationality, social strata, locality, language, lineage, and personal history. Therefore His life experiences are those of a human being and thereby relevant to all of us. It also means that the One True God has revealed Himself as one particular man who has to be recognized in the particularity of what we see as human contextual factors and human limitations. This takes away the possibility of generalisation or of confusion of identity. It roots divine revelation in the personhood of a human being who has to be recognised on the basis of all the particularities of who a specific human being is. Revelation has therefore to be understood on the basis of these particulars and not on the basis of some form of generalisation. The radical declaration of the biblical Gospel is that this one man is the One True God of all! It is this Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ and the One True God of all mankind and all creation whom all humanity is called to meet and surrender to in worship and obedience.
C. CONTEXTUAL DISTINCTIVES
Every human being can only meet this Christ from the perspective of his own identity and personhood, involving thereby all the human factors that is in one's make-up. This is the basis for identifying and understanding the contextual factors that are involved in any meeting and relationship with Him. It stands on the same relational basis as how one human being might meet and relate with another. The importance and uniqueness of one's meeting with Him lies in His distinctive identity and personhood as being both fully God and fully man. These factors are equally relevant for how one community, society, nation or any human group may relate to Him. Therefore there are always contextual distinctives to be considered and encountered in our encounter with Him. These contextual distinctives, however, does not have to do with His identity and personhood. It has to do with appreciating our own biases and distinctives in how we relate with and perceive Him. It also identifies for us how and why each one's encounter or each group's encounter with Him may differ from one another.
D. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Basic to the advancement of humanity, human knowledge and ability is the possibility and ability to expand beyond one's immediate horizon. The process of being able to understand, master and transcend one's circumstantial context is integral to the process of personal growth and development. Otherwise the totality of one's knowledge and ability need not exceed what one can grasp at birth. Therein lies the value of cross-cultural exchanges. The particularity of who the other is and what the other has or knows give each one of us the possibility of expanding beyond our own immediate horizon. The very distinctiveness of each one of us as a person or a human group becomes the resource by which we can each transcend our own situation to receive from and contribute to each other. This is a process of mutual enrichment as fellow human beings living in the same world. Interaction between cultures is an on-going integral factor in the development of all cultures. When God came to us as man in Christ He brought the realm of the divine into the realm of the human and the realm of the human into the realm of the divine. In meeting Him who is the One True God, we not only transcend cultural and human boundaries but also transcend the confines of humanity itself into the realm of the divine. As we each encounter Christ from the particularity of our own milieu we each see the same Christ from different perspectives. At the same time the one divine reality impresses upon all our different human contexts. There is therefore a different facet of the one godhead to be learnt from the particularity of each's context. This is true of all human encounter with Him but especially so for those who accept Him as Lord. In this way we grow to know Him better, know the world better, know each other better and know ourselves better under His Godhead and Lordship.
E. UNIVERSALITY
The cross-cultural fellowship and communion of all believers in Christ will help us to better appreciate the core, scope and depth of the universality of who He is and what He has revealed. It helps us in identifying what are contextual factors and what are universal factors and what are the proper meaning and effect of these. Common to all is the Person of Jesus Christ who is the revealed Living Word of God and the Bible as the Spirit-inspired written revelation of His Person. The process of theologising on and from this basis therefore belongs to all who profess Him as Lord. It gives us the range of teachings and matters that is common to all who meet Him. However, in that one is never entirely free of the personal contextual factors that shape one's perception and comprehension, there is always scope for the sharing of our reflections on these common bases of the faith. In so doing each is sharing out of each's own faith and so provides the basis for the greater appreciation of its significance inter-personally, inter-culturally and universally.
III. HISTORICAL PROCESS
The reality and necessity of personal encounter with the Christ who is from beyond does not mean that each of our encounter with Him is an isolated event in time and space. On the contrary, the Gospel of Christ has a history of human transmission. There is a history to the proclamation of the Gospel. Human to human encounter and interaction takes place pari passu with personal encounter with Him. This is so because He has chosen to make Himself known through the proclamation and witness of those who profess Him as Lord. The community of those who so profess and proclaim Him is the Church.
A. SPREAD OFTHE GOSPELASTHE MISSION OF THE CHURCH
The Church has to be understood as the distinctive community that the Christ has called into being and sustains. The mission for the transmission of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the exclusive task of this community. The Church has always to be distinguished from the society or nation in which it is found, although it is never isolated from these. The Church always exists, lives and works out its mission in specific localities and in particular socio--cultural milieus. In this way the spread of the Gospel is a socio-historical human to human, group to group process. There are three fundamental elements: First and absolutely foremost is the divine authorship of the Gospel and the divine leadership and empowering of the Church for its embodiment and transmission. Without the divine input there is no Gospel, no mission and no Church. Second is the socio-cultural and personal realities of the particular churches as the human witnesses and communicators of the Gospel. Third is the socio-cultural and personal realities of the intended or actual human recipients of the Gospel. The spread of divine revelation always occurs in the midst of and through the human milieu. It comes from beyond but lives and grows within the human and earthly realm. The divine and the human, the vertical and horizontal, outworks in correlation. Therefore hand in hand with revelation from above are socio-cultural and personal factors that shape its impact and our grasp of its meaning.
This correlation between the divine and the human transmission of the Gospel may lead us to think that we never get a pure Gospel but only and always an acculturated one. I believe, however, that this is an inaccurate and damaging supposition. The Gospel is Truth and therefore absolutely real. It is a reality authored by divine design and fiat. It may clash against or harmonise with other existent realities but it is always a reality and has the force of reality on all life. Indeed it is the pre-eminent reality that shapes, reshapes and transforms all other realities upon which it impinges. One's perception of it will always influence how it affects one's life. How one responds to it will affect one's life. How one may view or treat others or oneself by one's perception and response to it will affect one’s life. Yet none of these can ever change the reality of what the Gospel is itself. The supposed "pure" Gospel is the very reality which we encounter in meeting Christ. As such it is the reality that confronts us in each and every of our very own context and thus necessitates that we need to take account of it from where we are and from who we are. The cultural and personal factors of our human situation are themselves realities that are confronted by this God and His Gospel. We cannot therefore abstract the Gospel from cultures for its very reality includes its impact on all cultures. It is the reality that impacts all humanity and all the cosmos as one. There are thereby common truths to be grasped by all cultures for it is the one God who is the foundation of all and the one Gospel that is for the salvation and transformation of all. The diversity of humanity is itself integral to the one reality to which the one God addresses with the one Gospel. Therefore God, Gospel and cultures have to be understood together according to each's reality and in their correct relationship with one another. The multitude of insights, perceptions and conceptions are all facets of the one whole of which Christ is the author, centre, foundation and eschatological end.
There is a crucial qualification to the unity of reality upon which the Gospel impacts. It is that we live in a fallen world and a fractured reality. There are thus enormous expanses and degrees of misconceptions, errors and sins to be corrected, cleansed, healed and saved. The oneness of reality cannot therefore mean that we simply find a way of fitting every existing conceivable belief, thought and perception into some kind of whole. The reality of the Gospel is itself the judge and plumbline for what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil. It effects the processes of purging, correction, reformation, transformation and new creation. Only the obedient and matured Church can rightly discern the truth and grow in its understanding, embodiment and expression of it. Only the Church perfected in Christ at the end of time may grasp it in entirety. The path for the Church and for the world, from now until the eschaton is the path of the outworking of the Gospel upon this fallen world.
In the light of the above, the transmission of the Gospel of Christ includes within its scope the process of intra-cultural, inter-cultural and cross--cultural ferment in the interaction and relationship that develop from the encounter between God and man and between the communicators and recipients of the Gospel. It is a three-way process. It should be noted that the same person or group may be both recipient and communicator. For all who receive the Gospel are called to be witnesses of it. It is also noteworthy that the communicator-recipient relationship is a reciprocal dialogue and not a one--way monologue. For our grasp of the Gospel grows through our inter-personal and inter-cultural appreciation of it. It is not the process of a know-all passing on everything to a know-nothing. It is the process of our salvation and continuing transformation under the common Lordship of Christ and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Both communicator and recipient are changed by God and by each other in the process of transmission. Each shares what was received or is being received from above and offers all up in worship. This always involves cultural change. Culture is essentially dynamic not static. It is always in motion, always a process, as its members interact, meet with new situations and do new things. It may improve or deprove, grow or shrink. It may absorb from other cultures, absorb other cultures, or be absorbed by others. The absorption of a culture means that it exists in part or in whole as a part of a larger and more complex culture. It is often that a process of exchange with a degree of mutual absorption occurs and common features and reciprocal relationships develops. If there is no adherent of a culture who is not also a member of a larger community or culture in which it exists, the absorption process is total. These are possibilities that may occur in the process of transmission. Resistance to all change does not help a culture. A static culture can only die and become fit only for a museum or as a showpiece of the past. It is always a matter of which way to go, never a matter of stopping. The process of the transmission of the Gospel brings a transforming impact on both the transmitting and receiving cultures under the work of the Holy Spirit. It breathes new life into both. It brings the divine dimension into the matrix of our cultural dynamics which would otherwise be limited only to the human and the fallen. This is the distinctive and unique contribution of the Gospel to all cultures and all humanity. In this way the socio-historical transmission of the Gospel is a trilogue of God-communicator-recipient.
B. THE GOSPEL AND THE WEST
From the days of the New Testament the Gospel was preached to all in all directions. It was to go from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria and on to the ends of the earth. There are evidences that this early missionary spread went as far as India and China, the oldest civilizations of the East. However, in the progress of history it chiefly took significant cultural and national root in the ancient Roman Empire - including Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. These became the early heartland of Christianity. Subsequently its influence was weakened or lost in North Africa with the advent of Islam but expanded to North America and Australasia with the settlement of Europeans there. Today the countries where Europeans have settled and become the main culture have come to be collectively known as the West. Christianity has become a factor in the collective identity of these nations. This idea of what the West is has become a ubiquitous and useful collective term for current affairs and political parlance.
It should however, be noted that this concept of the West as Christian has the negative effect of hampering the impact and spread of the Gospel. This negativity is two-fold: on the one hand it has blurred the crucial distinction that exists between the Gospel as the revelation of God and the West as a cultural and political collectivity. On the other hand it falsely implies that the Gospel is antithetical to the non-Western countries. It falsely and wrongly suggests that the Gospel is native to the West and foreign to the non--West. This is a serious confusion of revelation and culture. It is totally clear from the Bible that the Gospel has always been and will always be for all mankind and therefore always native to all humanity and foreign to none. Its nativity lies in that God has become Man in Jesus Christ. It does not lie in whether or not one has heard the Gospel or received it. It is fundamental to the meaning of the divine revelation. It is not a matter of its historical or cultural spread.
The universality of the Gospel for all humanity is most relevant and important for the continued mission of the Church today and for the appreciation of the Gospel in both the West and the non-West. The Church has to re-establish and re-proclaim the divine distinctiveness and relevance of the Gospel in the West and to present the crucial relevance and importance of the Gospel in all the non-Western nations which have not come to recognise the Gospel as their own. It is important to note that it is not merely the Church in the West that has to do the task in the West and the Church in the non--West that has to do the task in the non-West. It is the Church wherever it assembles in worship and service that is called to bring the whole Gospel to the whole world. The same idea of the West as being christianised and the others as not, has been taken into the very thought life of those who believe. It has brought about, for many, a false and damaging idea that the Western churches evangelise the world and correct themselves but the churches in the non-West only evangelise their own lands and learn from the West how to do so and what is Christian. This is absorbing the imperialism of the world into the life of the Body of Christ. It hinders, even cripples, the genuine work of the Holy Spirit and the Church in spreading the Gospel by creating a much mistaken notion of the Western cultures as models of Christianity and of dependency on the West and the churches therein in place of true dependency on the Christ.
The historical importance of the Gospel for the West and the association that has developed thereby is not without its significance. It provides the Church and all humanity with a live and on-going socio-historical case of how the Gospel has impacted and is impacting cultures, nations and empires - how it has flowered or is bearing fruit and how it has been diluted, deflected or rejected. There are many vital lessons for all to draw from. The Church in the West, with its many historical and current leaders and teachers of the faith, has the blessing, by virtue of this long and deep association, of the time to reflect upon and express the divine revelation in depth. Yet the depth of reflection and expression does not necessarily mean greater accuracy or better discipleship. Greater age can bring with it the loss of cutting-edge clarity and vigor. It is also sadly possible to be profoundly wrong as well as profoundly right! It is right to respect the historical heritage of the Gospel in the West but it is wrong to therefore assume or assert any primacy on belief and truth therein. The simultaneous occurrence of the decline of the Church in the West, along with the meteoric rise of secularism therein, and the surge of growth of the Church and fervor for the Gospel in the non-West in recent decades amply demonstrate the veracity of this assertion. In so far as the Church in the West with its heritage of belief in the Gospel abides in faith and shares of its faith it is a steward to all the Church of the treasures it has received from the Lord in and through its life - past, present and future. At the same time it will benefit from the input of the Church in the non-West for new insights into the faith and for stirring it to fresh zeal for the Lord. In the eyes of the Lord and in His design He has only One Church in the world for all times. Whatever is received from Him by His Church anywhere and in anytime is meant to be a blessing for all in all places and at all times. We are all called to share of what we have received from Him and to give to and receive from each other in Him. In this matter, it is crucial to distinguish between the Church in the West and the West as a cultural and political collectivity. Furthermore it is necessary and much more precise to identify that there are many distinct nations and cultures within the West and not to see it merely as a collectivity. In this way we can see more clearly and accurately that the abiding contribution of the Church in the West lies in the particular cultures or nations, or those aspects of culture and nationhood, that it has led to new birth in Christ and the experience it has of being a witness of the Gospel within those cultures and nations, both in its successes and in its failures.
C. THE GOSPEL IN THE NON-WEST
Wherever there is genuine faith in Christ as Lord and Savior there is a genuine church and a genuine witness for Christ in that place. The new work of the Spirit has brought the Gospel to the continents and nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia which are not identified as the West. It is very important for the Body of Christ that the churches in these cultures and nations understand and express their identity and faith as being Christian in these cultures and nations. This is so because of the Incarnation, a principal truth in the Gospel, in that the divine has put on the human in Christ Jesus. We have noted that the Gospel touches all human realities at once. It is therefore relevant to all cultures for culture is integral to being human. It is the faith of those in each culture that can best, if not exclusively, express the divine within the context of that culture.
It is through the faith of the members of a culture that the dual impact of the critical and creative aspects of the Gospel can best, if not only, be fully realised within that particular culture. The critical impact of the Gospel - the Gospel as the plumbline and judge of what is right or wrong, good or bad -means that there will be features within each culture that would need to be rejected or corrected. The creative impact of the Gospel means that the Gospel will always bring forth a new birth of that culture - at least within the lives of those who believe within it. The culture will grow anew with new perspectives and new modes of understanding and expression afforded by the Gospel. If a culture has no believers, or if the believers are removed or alienated from the culture of which they are members, then the prospect of the redemption of that culture is lost. There is also the painful and fearsome possibility that a culture may be so flawed by sin that it should be eradicated from the earth and die eternally. This is a judgement that only God can make on the basis of His Gospel. It has happened to Sodom and Gomorrah and to the Canaan which ancient Israel was ordered to eliminate. In this day of the Church it can occur much less devastatingly and much more positively through the total conversion of a whole culture or nation whereby all the old ways are voluntarily rejected in the light of the Gospel. This is a process that is integral to the transformational impact of the Gospel within the lives of those who believe within each culture. It is a work of the Spirit and cannot be artificially augmented or manufactured. It is intrinsic to one's transformation by the Holy Spirit under the Lordship of Christ. For culture is always embodied within the lives and identities of human persons and groups, it is the very fabric of what makes each of us who we are as a human person or group. This is why it is important that those who believe within each culture need to find expression for their faith within that culture. This also means that the Gospel in the non--West is a new enterprise of the Spirit through which many more new aspects of divinity and humanity await to be discovered and learnt. It gives the prospect for the further growth of the understanding of God, of divine revelation, of the Bible and of the Gospel for the Church and for all humanity. It is necessary to the full and proper appreciation of the whole Gospel, of the God who is its author and of humanity as His object of creation and redemption. This cannot be seen as merely a process of simple additions to what we already know. It points to the possibility of major revisions of what we may now hold as staple.
D. TRUE CATHOLICITY
The catholicity of the Church stems from the catholicity of the Gospel. The catholicity of the Gospel lies in the very universality of its impact. We have noted this in asserting that the one Gospel relates to and affects all humanity through all its cultural and national diversity. The catholicity of the Church, whatever its other significance, includes the truth that it is the universal community of all mankind in all its cultural, national and human diversity who are united as one in Christ by the outpouring and indwelling of the Holy Spirit with whom it is baptised by Him. This is not the obliteration of all diversity by the imposition of a singular order or of one super culture that absorbs or eliminates all existing cultures. It is the redemptive transformation of all cultures so that each is cleansed of sin and born anew in Christ. It is intrinsic to the salvation of humanity to be truly what it is as the faithful image of God. Cultural diversity and associations of people as nationalities, ethnicities and groups are inherent features of being human. In that what God has given to us in the Lordship and Salvation of His Christ is the redemption of our humanity, it implicitly and necessarily includes the redemption of the full range of cultural, national and human possibilities and modes of expression. This is not the preservation or continuation of all cultures as they are because all cultures are fallen for humanity is fallen. Rather, it means their transformation through cleansing and new birth - a new flowering after being purged of all that is fallen. In this light, the Church is and has to be differentiated from the communities and societies wherein it lives for it is created and called to be the new humanity that embodies and witnesses to these realities of the Gospel before the world.
The catholicity of the Church in Its cultural and national implication implies that there are two basic levels of expression: Locally every church everywhere is called to be a local witness of the Gospel in terms of the lives of the believers that make up that local community. In this sense it is to embody within its life the Gospel expressed truthfully and relevantly through the very cultural and human milieu within which it lives, with which it belongs and identifies. It is at this level that we can find the redemption and rebirth of a particular culture or a particular nation or social entity. Globally, the relationship between local churches and between Christians is to embody, reflect and express the unity, harmony and diversity of redeemed cultures within the Body of Christ. The barriers which turn distinctiveness into divisions, differences into conflicts, and the relativism which turns diversity into bizarre permissiveness, freedom into choice without morality - all being features of our fallenness - should find their termination, correction and transformation in the inter-personal and inter-corporate relationships of those who believe. The concrete manifestations of this occur at the local and personal levels across the globe, side by side and hand in hand with the local redemption and transformation of the local cultures and communities. Put another way, within the lives of persons and communities that profess the Lordship of Christ, we should find the inner transformation of the cultures and nationalities of whom they are members and the genuine mutual acceptance of all differences as diversity in unity with the purging and correction of all that is against the revealed Gospel and the God who is its author. In this way no culture or nationality is debarred but all are enhanced. All cultural and national identities find new life and new affirmation on the basis of a common and united humanity under the common and absolute Lordship of Christ as God.
CONCLUSION
In closing, it should be recognised as a fact of theological reflection that every Christian everywhere needs to reflect on the revelation that God gave in Jesus Christ. It is integral to one's response to personal encounter with Him. This is not the domain of any particular culture or any particular group within the Church. It belongs to the whole Body of Christ. It is in essence a collective and corporate activity as well as a personal one. It is possible to make the mistake of trivialising what is done in a particular culture or from a particular cultural perspective by assuming that it is purely of local significance. Any culturally specific reflection, because it still bears upon the nature of divine revelation as we may perceive it, is worthy of attention from the wider body precisely because it may yet inform others of what is the content and meaning of the revelation. There is also a very important sense that, because we are human beings, all theological reflection can only be done on the basis of seeing truth from the perspective of whatever is our culture, personality or situation! It is equally possible to make the corresponding mistake of imperialising one particular body of theological literature or culture as being above all others and thought to be central to truth. The test of any sound theology is whether such a contribution improves or helps the accuracy, scope and depth by which we grasp the Gospel revelation for what it is, irrespective of the culture from which such a contribution may come. Yet this does not in anyway lessen the need for culturally specific response and reflection to the Christ and the Gospel in each situation or group. For the realities of any particular situation has to be met in the concrete right there insitu on the basis of the revelation. Christ is never encountered in general. He is always encountered in Person by our persons for the persons that we are in all our particularities of who we are and where we are.