Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Reinhold Niebuhr
One of the hallmarks of social media is its impressive ability to highjack things out of context. If something can be yanked from the ground of original meaning and repurposed, the agents of the internet can—and usually do—do it. Whether it’s a freeze-frame innuendo, a proof-text aspersion, or a clipped video defamation, the maestros of the media can sound-bite a fact out of all truthfulness.
Taking things out of context is not a new thing, of course. Perhaps the most notable target for misappropriation is the Bible. The scriptures have long been plundered and employed to justify all manner of ambition, agenda, and unrighteousness. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me becomes a mantra for personal achievement. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” becomes the guarantee of a piece of the American pie. And the current favorite, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” becomes a shield for blatant immorality and perversion. Another favorite is the apostle Paul, who is excised from the kingdom of God and vilified as an enemy of the very grace that he championed. Jesus himself is extracted from his life and message to serve as a firebrand or a free ticket. The gospel can be whatever you want it to be, and Jesus is the all-purpose poster boy.
But decontextualizing scripture isn’t the only way to repurpose it. Pundits and pastors have mastered another art less overtly propagandistic. Rather than lifting Bible passages out of context (which is easier to spot, at least by the biblically literate) they instead disarm and redirect these verses by interposing a light-warping contextual lens between the scriptures and their audience. By heaping historical, cultural, and textual qualifications upon the text, these scholars purport to uncover its true intentions. What the text actually says, they claim, is not what it means. This practice is what I call the contextification of the gospel, and it can be as misleading as a gospel cut loose from context altogether.
To provide examples of contextification would not be very helpful, since there are as many possibilities as there are Bible verses. Not only that, a single verse can be contextified in different ways depending on the underlying agenda. There are, however, tell-tale signs by which efforts to contextify the scriptures can be recognized.
In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul writes, We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Paul recognizes that the working of the true gospel does not rest in eloquent words or plausible explanations but is manifest by deep conviction through the power of the Holy Spirit. This, then, is the lens through which we can perceive attempts to contextify the gospel.
One of the signs of contextification is the effort to lessen the scripture’s impact and implications. The goal of legitimate contextualization is to magnify the original sense; contextification, on the other hand, seeks to minimize or subvert the original sense. Legitimate context enhances what the text actually says in order that we might frame a proper perspective. Contextification, by contrast, starts with a perspective and works to align the scripture accordingly.
Another sign of contextification is the muting of Spirit-prompted conviction, especially a conviction that demands repentance. Both John the Baptist and Jesus heralded the kingdom of God with the call to repent and believe. Contextification often lessens or even eliminates the gospel’s demand for real repentance by redefining what it means to be a sinner. The biblical “acts that lead to death” are now culturally determined, and a contextified righteousness draws its substance from the patterns of approved social practice. A contextified gospel rarely requires genuine repentance.
Ultimately, contextification of the gospel erodes the authority of the scriptures themselves. The received text, it is assumed, is archaic and unintelligible, and it must be qualified, modified, or even dismissed where it cannot be reconciled with modern sensibilities. If the gospel is to remain relevant, say many, it must be reinterpreted for our times. In 1999, John Shelby Spong, then the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, published his provocative manifesto Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Contextification is the attempt to rescue Christianity from the grip of Holy Writ by telling us, as did Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Then, again, what if it does?
