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Contextualization is the kind of book I loathe, and the style makes it even more difficult to bear. However, if someone wants to have an outline of everything going on in this area, Moreau's book is the place to start.
I found it ironic to be reading the book while teaching a graduate course in urban ministry. My students shared the same emphasis upon the efficacy of the Word, good works flowing from the central message of the church in the city - the Gospel of Christ.
Moreau's work is the ultimate example of the rationalistic, philosophical, statistical efforts started by Donald McGavran, whose non-theological graduate work made him reliant on numbers and the study of mass movements.
McGavran earned a degree at Yale Divinity, a school often denounced by Tim the Plagiarist for being liberal. Yale Divinity had no Lutherans on the faculty at that time - just like Mequon today.
McGavran's doctorate came Columbia University, in education:
Gary McIntosh:
Later, he studied for his Ph.D. degree at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College. Training in educational theory at Columbia was greatly influenced by John Dewey. “Dewey spent slightly over a quarter of a century on the regular faculty of Columbia University. He was appointed in 1904 and retired in 1930; the next decade he spent as an emeritus but active professor, drawing a full salary and continuing to teach graduate students” (Ryan 1995:156). While McGavran must have encountered Dewey’s educational pragmatism during his studies at Columbia, McGavran never mentions or credits Dewey for any of his evangelistic insights.
McGavran lived and worked in the liberal, ecumenical Disciples of Christ, so he also participated in the World Council of Churches (boo hiss).
Where are the Disciples today? They work jointly with the United Church of Christ, whose ministers register for conferences as male, female, and transgender. The Disciples were too timid to allow homosexual ministers in their own sect, so their lavender group transferred to the UCC, where such things are embraced, loud and proud.
That gives the context for Contextualization.
The author earned his MDiv at Trinity in Deerfield, one of the favorite training schools for WELS and the LCMS (along with Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek Community Church). Moreau also earned a D.Miss. at Trinity, three years later. A D.Miss. may be tougher than the laughable D.Min., but it is not a PhD. Seminaries are not noted for having difficult doctorates, but ministers love to be called "Dr." Clever marketing has extracted the maximum amount of money for minimal efforts. I may print up some D.Min. diplomas and sell them on the Net.
But I am not knocking the labor involved in this work. Believe me, no one will ever try this again. Moreau has categorized every possible contextualization scheme on this planet. Not surprisingly, he teaches intercultural studies at Wheaton College.
The table of contents for the book indicates its content.
Table of Contents
Foundations for Evangelical
Contextualization
1: Models and Maps of Contextualization....................................... 27
2: Presuppositional Concerns in Contextualization 1:
Revelation .................................................................................... 49
3: Presuppositional Concerns in Contextualization 2:
Interpretation .............................................................................. 73
4: Discerning the Good from the Bad in Contextualization ........ 103
5: Concepts That Shape and Constrain Contextualization........... 119
6: Tools for Analysis and Application in Contextualization ......... 141
Section 2
Mapping Evangelical Models of
Contextualization
Introduction............................................................................... 174
7: Mapping Examples of Evangelical Contextualization............... 177
8: Initiator as Facilitator................................................................. 203
9: Initiator as Guide........................................................................ 221
10: Initiator as Herald....................................................................... 239
11: Initiator as Pathfinder................................................................. 259
12: Initiator as Prophet..................................................................... 277
13: Initiator as Restorer..................................................................... 295
14: Future Trajectories...................................................................... 311
Appendix A: Dean Gilliland’s Map............................................. 325
Appendix B: Marc Cortez’s Map................................................. 335
Appendix C: Charles Van Engen’s Map...................................... 343
Appendix D: A Composite Map of Gilliland, Cortez, and Van
Engen 353
Appendix E: A Visual Evangelical Semantic Domain of
Contextualization 361
Appendix F: List of Initiator Examples....................................... 369
References................................................................................... 381
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McGavran and his friend C. Peter Wagner set the stage for the enormous growth of Fuller Seminary and its alliances in all denominations (ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELS, CLC sic) - including Roman Catholics. As a mass movement, Church Growth has emptied the Christian Church of content and replaced it with entertainment, coaching, and statistics. Ministers are clowns, and clowns are liturgists.
Where is the growth from the Church Growth Movement? The latest eructation--Emergent Church--is simply more ashamed of the Gospel, the name "church," and any confession whatsoever. The group that refuses to have a confession of faith will not stop there but keep going until the Scriptures are also removed.
Craig Groeschel has all denominations giving his sermons. I see the same series being offered on the Net (as if they are original in that parish) in ten congregations at a time, many sects at a time. They all have the same copied message, the same Scripture, the same title, and even the same Groeschel graphics. But that is fine for Lutherans, because DP Engelbrecht says, "Everyone plagiarizes."
Since McGavran started with two questions - Does it work? and What are the numbers? - We have to ask the same questions today, the questions they do not want to address, because their only concerns for these disciples are - Does it make money for me? Does it give me an easy life?
If you want to see why most Evangelicals are running full-speed into apostasy, buy this book and share with your cell group.
