Bearing bold witness: the gospel in human context

This year’s speaker at the 25th anniversary J.J. Thiessen lecture series, held Oct. 21–22 at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, was Dr. Paul G. Hiebert, one of the world’s leading missionary anthropologists.

“It’s a privilege to come ‘home’,” said the tall and genially rumpled Distinguished Professor of Mission and Anthropology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. “I’m of the tribe of Menno.”

Introducing himself further, Hiebert quipped, “I’m an MK (missionary kid) which means I have cultural schizophrenia, an MB (Mennonite Brethren) which means I have theological schizophrenia, and an MA (missionary/anthropologist) which means I have professional schizophrenia.”

Hiebert’s four lectures on “Doing Missional Theology” demonstrated, on the contrary, that he has integrated this array of competing influences. He has forged not only a conviction of the gospel’s continuing relevance, but extensive insights into how it can be communicated.

Doing missions, Hiebert argued, is a way of doing theology. Missiological theology complements systematic and biblical theology, seeking to translate or “contextualize” what the Bible says to humans in a particular setting. This involves the non-judgmental study of people and their beliefs and practices, the study of Scripture, and the process of discipling. It starts where people are and moves them to where they should be.

Theologizing, Hiebert reminded his audience of students, faculty and community participants, is always done in a human context. Our final authority, therefore, is not our theology, but Scripture.

The principles of the gospel in the human context, said Hiebert in his second lecture, are threefold: the gospel must not be equated with any one cultural context; the gospel must be expressed in each cultural context; and the gospel calls all cultural contexts to be transformed.

Cultural transformation

Such transformation must penetrate more than the behaviours, signs and material artifacts of a culture. Under the surface lie rituals and myths, still deeper lie belief systems, and underneath all is worldview. Theories of worldview are still emerging, Hiebert said, but he defined worldview as our categories of thought, or what we think with. “It’s hard,” he acknowledged, “to think about what you’re thinking with.”

The last two lectures considered the gospel in the context of modernity and in the context of postmodernity. “Don’t bury modernity yet,” Hiebert cautioned; in much of the world, it is still the driving force. In modernity, science holds the privileged position as “public truth,” while religion or faith is “private truth.” It is further characterized by a mechanistic root metaphor (an engineering mentality, order before relationships), objective knowledge, individualism (you make yourself), and the myths of redemptive violence and romantic love.

Postmodernity is a reaction to modernity. (As is fundamentalism in places, noted Hiebert.) Its popular manifestations include cultural pluralism, utilitarianism (does it work?), and “receptor-oriented communication.” But we’re already moving beyond postmodernity, Hiebert said; “we’re looking for a new paradigm.”

He proposed that Anabaptists offer the solid ground of post-postmodernity beyond the “river” of postmodernity. Crucial to the worldview they hold is the Kingdom of God, and more pointedly, Jesus as King.

Hiebert elaborated a practice of history and witness that begins, not with a meta-narrative, but with the plots of our own lives. We fit our stories into a group story, then into world history, then into cosmic history. “History will give us meaning . . . because it moves into eternity,” he said. He urged his listeners to “bear bold witness” and to offer people choice.

Paul Hiebert was born in India in 1932 to missionary parents, John and Anna Hiebert. He grew up in India, served 6 years as a missionary there and maintains close ties with the India church. He has taught at various universities and seminaries, including Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Cal., and (since 1990) Trinity Evangelical Divinity Seminary. Many of his articles and books have become standard anthropological/missionary texts.

Behind the ideas

In an interview between lectures, Hiebert revealed a little more of the man behind the ideas. He was strongly influenced by his parents – “my mother was one of those indomitable women; my father was my hero” – and a home life filled with reading and animated discussion. His marriage to Frances (Flaming) provided further intellectual companionship. “She was the theologian, I’m the anthropologist.” They had three children and five grandchildren. Frances died in 1999, after a nine-year “pilgrimage” with cancer.

Hiebert’s personal “paradigm shifts” began with his conversion, under his father’s ministry at the South Side mission in Minneapolis. (He later pastored, and still has his membership in, the church that grew out of this mission.) Then, he rededicated his life to God during revival meetings while a student at Kodaikanal School in India. A third shift came during his missionary work, when he dropped some of the fundamentalism he had picked up during his seminary studies. “I re-discovered my dad’s way and embraced my Anabaptist roots.” A fourth, the use of anthropology to study missionary methods, was “more of an unfolding shift.”

Paul Hiebert has had a distinguished career. When asked what he would like to be remembered for, he paused, then said, “As someone who has sought to follow after Christ. It’s as simple as that.”