Cross-Cultural
Ministering to Muslims: The Dialogue between Timothy I and the Caliph Mahdi
Introducing the Arab Christian Heritage to the Chinese Church
In AD 781, during the reign of Mahdi, the third of the Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad and spiritual and temporal head of the Muslim religion, Timothy and the caliph convened for a two-day dialogue in Arabic with portions in Syriac. The fraternal dialogue format with the caliph was in the form of questions and answers.
Crossing Cultures: Theology versus theology
Their critical contextualization of who belonged in Jesus’s kingdom, who were the real Christians, freed the gospel from ethnic cultural imprisonment, and opened the door to for an all-peoples Church.
Crossing Cultures: Conveying the Gospel
Worldviews are extraordinarily resistant to change, and archetypical cultural and gospel metaphors shape how missionaries convey the gospel across cultural boundaries. That is why it is so important for Chinese missiologists to “understand and critically integrate” imported cultural and metaphor worldview presuppositions lest what they “staunchly affirmed as biblical may have had more to do with nurturing cultural mores…than with God’s eternal truth,” as Brent Fulton writes.
Who’s in Charge?
As with many Christian China narratives, the questions we ask shape the storyline. If “Who’s in charge?” is not the right question, attempts to answer it will undoubtedly prove unsatisfactory. Perhaps a better starting point would be, “How shall we lead together?”
From Andrew Gih to Hudson
Documenting a Legacy of Adoption and Faith
It was a wonderful testimony of God’s blessing to discover that Hudson’s documentary is helping to fulfill the legacy of Andrew Gih. After watching the documentary, you might want to get an update on Hudson.
Sharing the Gospel: Franchise or Indigenization?
Nothing succeeds like success, and many Christian ministries have adopted a franchise-like pattern based on a founder’s compelling vision facilitated by a highly structured and quality-controlled delivery system…[But] can the gospel be franchised? I think not.
Crossing Cultures: Capacity and Insight
Expectations for new missionaries as well as for their sending bodies should include a long-term developmental perspective that recognizes on-field difficulties as expected and as the normative shaping events God intentionally uses to develop cross-cultural ministry capacity.
“I Always Knew He Was There”
Discovering Faith Across Cultures
Right then and there, in our apartment, [two Chinese friends] made the decision to follow Jesus. Something he said that evening has stayed with me for the past 25 years. He stated, “I always knew he was there. I just didn’t know his name.”
Just Listen
“If the… global body of Christ can be there and say, ‘We are together here with you. I have my struggles, and you have your struggles, but we are together, praying to God together and seeking his guidance and help together,’…that can be very comforting and can be an encouragement.”
Crossing Cultures: Ethnocentric Conversion
The Apostle Peter’s ethnocentric conversion exploded into fullness through an unanticipated personal interaction with Cornelius, a gentile military officer who lived out his fear of God in household leadership, generosity, and constant prayer (Acts 10:1–2).