The Role of Culture in Gospel Communication



The Role of Culture in Gospel Communication

Introduction

The movements of Christianity place a strong emphasis on the communication of Gospel around the world. The process of communicating gospel is a process of continual tension which requires a proper synthesis of the message in the gospel, communication medium and the cultural aspects involved in communicating gospel. There are several issues that come underway while communicating the gospel to the different regions of the world. It is due to the fact that people thinks that the Christianity is only confined to the western culture. It is true to some extent that gospel has been associated to the western culture and the communication of gospel has taken place through the culture robes. Gospel cannot be isolated form culture; however, in order to spread the message to the world, there is a strong need for communicating gospel to different cultures using different means and methods of gospel communication. It has also been observed that the pure gospel is nothing without the integration of culture in it. Earlier, the communication of gospel has taken place through the integration of different cultures of the world including the European culture, Greco- Latin and Hebraic cultures. Despite of the broad range of cultural aspects in the gospel communication, there is still a belief that gospel can only be associated to the western culture and in order to adopt the message of the gospel, one needs to adopt the western culture.

This paper discusses this perception in a more synthesize way and attempts to identify the role of culture in gospel communication. It describes the need for gospel communication across different cultures of the world and the interactions of people belonging to different cultures to the gospel. It discusses the principle of contextualization and applies it to different cultures of the world. The role of media in communicating gospel is also analyzed in the paper.

The Need for Communicating Gospel across Cultures

The communication of gospel across different cultures is not an easy task rather it requires an in depth study of the cultural aspects and the ways through the message of gospel can be integrated into their culture. The priests should follow the method of Jesus while communicating the gospel into different cultural specific communities. Jesus used to enter into a community and taught the teachings and gospels by integrating the context of the culture of the specific community. The context of culture needs to be integrated within the communication process of gospel that would produce better results. If the cultural aspects and context is not analyzed then there is a possibility that the message could be transferred in a viable manner to the people. The communicating of gospel across cultures requires an in depth understanding of the cultural and traditional values and these values and practices should not be compromised while communicating the gospel.

The lifestyles and traditions of the community play an important role in understanding the context of their cultures and ...