Gospel and Culture Topics

Every time I teach Gospel and Culture, I'm amazed at the range and scope of the topics chosen by students for the Critical Contextualization Project. They choose a belief, practice or symbol from a religion or cultural group and followed Paul Hiebert's four-step process of critical contextualization (Understanding Folk Religiions (2000): 21-29). They presented this week briefly in class and wrote a 3,000 word research paper using an adapted form of Hiebert's process: 

Phenomenological Analysis (what in the world is it),
Ontological Critique (compare and contrast with other cultures and religions),
Theological Evaluation (what the Bible and theological sources have to say about it if anything),
Missiological Transformation (how to respond with the Gospel if encountered in mission and ministry).

​Here are the topics my 33 students covered this year: 

• Reiki
• Scarification
• Christmas trees
• Brazilian Macumba
• Rumspringa
• Mut'ah (temporary marriage)
• Deja-vu
• Glossalalia in Pentecostal Christianity
• Ka'bah
• Amen
• Death in Japanese & Norse culture
• Sexual purity in hook-up culture
• Dreams in Eastern cultures
• Auras in Wiccan spirituality
• Ancestor veneration in Chinese culture
• Mariology 
• Egyptian funerary rites

• Dreamcatchers in Native American practice
• Gabriel the angel in Muslim context
• Incense in Buddhism
• Green witchcraft
• Spiritual warfare & Anxiety/Depression
• Day of the Dead
• Samhain
• Mermaids/Sirens
• Rosary
• Snakes & Arrows board game
• Santeria 
• Funeral rites in the U.S.
• Icons in Greek Orthodoxy
• Sacred waist thread
• Gargoyles
• Holy Week processions in Latin America