Product Description

As an unparalleled introduction to missionary communication, this thoroughly indexed book examines world views, cognitive processes, linguistic forms, behavioral patterns, social structures, communication media, and motivational sources.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #262823 in Books
• Published on: 1991-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

From the Back Cover
This revised edition of Dr. David Hesselgrave's great work Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally updates the original edition and interacts with the most recent literature on this increasingly important topic. The original edition went through fifteen printings and, very deservedly, has come to be one of the most widely used textbooks on Christian cross-cultural communications. The revisions in this new edition are extensive and carry on the high level of discussion maintained throughout the original edition, taking into account, for example, the current discussion on the relationship between form and function and the enormous body of literature that has sprung up recently on contextualization. To enhance the volume's usefulness for students, Dr. Hesselgrave has added an extensive bibliography of twenty-five pages on various aspects of cross-cultural communications. This revision of Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally is superb. It raises a great book into a unique category, undoubtedly the finest book on this topic available today.

About the Author
David J. Hesselgrave served as a missionary in Japan for twelve years. He is now professor of mission and director of the School of World Mission and Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Part I
COMMUNICATION AND MISSION
Chapter 1
Communication, The Missionary Problem Par Excellence
John listened intently as the chapel speaker repeated his basic thesis with arresting cogency and conviction. In his message the speaker had demonstrated that world evangelization is not only commanded in the Scriptures but is also logically possible. “We can evangelize the world—now!” he declared. To John it seemed so forceful, and even simple, really. If thousands would be willing to go—right now! There seemed to be no doubt. We could evangelize the world if we would just “go and tell.”
Thirty years later John boarded a plane en route to a missionary convention for Christian young people. In anticipation of counseling inquiring youth, he reflected upon his own experience on the field. He recalled how eager some of the people—especially the young—had been to hear his message. He recalled the frustration of trying to get his message across, first through an interpreter and then, haltingly, by speaking the new language himself. He remembered how complicated his task had become as he settled in one place to instruct the believers and, with God's help, mold them into a church. Name after name, face after face, crisis after crisis came to his mind: the struggle to understand the personal problems of those people, problems at once so similar and so very different from those of his experience; the emergence of Christian leaders and viable congregations; the hours in the study, with small groups, in the pulpit and platform, and behind a microphone; the furloughs and research at the university to master materials relevant to his target culture.
Time passed quickly. After a few minutes with a book on missionary strategy and a brief conversation with an affable seat partner, John arrived at his destination.
That night John found himself in a youth rally that was fairly bursting with youthful enthusiasm. After some rousing songs and a series of five-minute reports from the fields, the speaker began his message with carefully articulated words: “Young people, we can evangelize the world now, by the end of this decade….”
Although it is obvious that we must pick and choose according to our purpose, any one-word or one-phrase summary of our missionary task in the world runs the risk of reductionism. However, the question we must face is this: Do we hasten the accomplishment of our mission by repeatedly referring to it in terms of its narrowest dimension?
Let the reader not misunderstand. The word evangelize (euangelizo) is used some fifty-four times in the New Testament; evangel or gospel (euangelion) is used seventy-six times; and evangelist (euangelistes) is used three times. These are good words. They are biblical words. And we are to evangelize the world. We can evangelize the world. We must evangelize the world. The world will be evangelized. But more must be said about the matter.
The danger of reductionism is seen in the English theologian C. H. Dodd's resort to another primary word, proclaim (kerysso), and its related forms proclamation (kerygma) and herald (keryx), in order to sum up the New Testament mission and message. Michael Green rightly takes issue with Dodd and insists that kerysso is but one of three great words used in the New Testament in this connection, the others being the previously mentioned euangelizo and martyreo (bear witness). Green urges a careful consideration of all three terms in order that a “broader-based understanding of the early Christian gospel” might emerge.
Green's point is well taken. But in order to understand the scope of the task it is instructive to examine still other New Testament words used in connection with the apostolic ministry of the church:
Syncheo (confound)—Acts 9:22 8. Noutheteo (admonish, warn)—Acts 20:31 2. Symbibazo (prove)—Acts 9:22 9. Katecheo (inform, instruct)—Acts 21:21, 24 3. Diegeomai (describe)—Acts 9:27 10. Deomai (beg, beseech)—2 Cor. 5:20 4. Syzeteo (argue)—Acts 9:29 11. Elencho (reprove)—2 Tim. 4:2 5. Laleo (talk)—Acts 9:29 12. Epitimao (rebuke)—2 Tim. 4:2 6. Dialegomai (reason with)—Acts 18:4 13. Parakaleo (exhort, urge)—1 Peter 2:11 7. Peitho (persuade)—Acts 18:4
We will return to some of these words at various points in our discussion. I list them here to support my contention that if we desire to succinctly summarize our missionary task, one of the best words available to us is the word communication. In view of the challenges and questions currently facing the church, this is the term Hendrik Kraemer settles on in order to put the task in a “wider and deeper setting”:

One of the most important effects of this trend set in motion by the attempt to rediscover the marching orders of the Church is the new awakening of evangelistic responsibility to the world in many Churches. But here bewilderment begins. At the very moment a Church commences to turn away from the introversion in which it is steeped by its acceptance of being primarily an established institution, and looks at its real field, the world, a new realism awakens. Innumerable questions immediately assail such a Church, such questions as: What am I? To what purpose am I? Am I fulfilling this purpose? Where and how do I live? In a ghetto, or in living contact with the world? Does the world listen when I speak to it, and if not, why not? Am I really proclaiming the gospel, or am I not? Why has such a wall of separation risen between the world and what I must stand for? Do I know the world in which people live, or do I not? Why am I evidently regarded as a residue of a world that belongs irrevocably to the past? How can I find a way to speak again with relevancy and authority, transmitting “the words of eternal life” entrusted to me?
Amidst the welter of such questions, engendered by a newly awakened apostolic consciousness, communication has become a problem with which the Churches everywhere are wrestling. Apparently one could express it as well in a different way and inquire after the best and most appropriate methods of evangelism. But that is not right. In that case we would have done better by giving to our discussion the title “The Problem of Evangelism.” The word “communication” puts the problem in a far wider and deeper setting.

I too want to explore the missionary “problem” in its larger dimensions. As a matter of fact, even the word “communication” does not do justice to biblical prescriptions and descriptions having to do with the missionary task, but it does get nearer to the heart of it. Let me say, then, that in this book we will concern ourselves with communicating Christ across cultural barriers to the various peoples of the world. I will assume a commitment to Christ, the Holy Scriptures, and world evangelization. The primary focus will be on the relationship between Christian communication and world cultures.

Customer Reviews

Milk (http://justinfarley.blogspot.com/2009/06/milk.html)
I recently completed a reading critique of David J. Hesselgrave's Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally. Here are a few of my observations:

1. The author's main purpose in writing this book is to reconnect the message of Christ with the reality of the culture (Hesselgrave, 26). He recognizes that Christ followers have been entrusted with the mission of reaching out to the world, that they can reach out, that they must reach out, and that they will reach out. However, the issue rarely raised is how they will reach out and what the responses of the recipients will be (24). Any strategy ought to rely heavily upon an allegiance to Christ, include the truths of the bible, and embody one's very call to cross-cultural communication.

2. The author's instruction on the understanding of culture was helpful. He defines culture as methods of perception, emotion, and judgment. Mores are determined at birth and developed through childhood, held in common with others, incorporated into much of society, and morph over time (Hesselgrave, 100). Cultural categories include innovation, interaction, and ideas (101). One of the missionary's greatest challenges is discovering the "deeper levels of values, beliefs, and worldviews" (102).

Another item of instruction that was appreciated was the teaching on Chinese perspectives which were influenced by Lao-Tzu's stress upon the Tao and nature while Confucius' teachings focus upon humanity and community (Hesselgrave, 259). They view the supernatural as "a variety of deities, devils, and spirits," nature as the result "of the Tao acting through the principles of Yin and Yang," and humanity "by nature good and kept that way by being in touch with the Tao and education" (263).

3. The most helpful part of the book was the instruction on assisting people on their search "for the pure spiritual milk, that by it [they] may grow up into salvation" (1 Peter 2:2, ESV). Every communicator has the responsibility to "speak that which must be heard, understood, and heeded" (Hesselgrave, 602). Each culture is looking for identity, leadership, purpose, and forgiveness (610). The ways in which given societies consistently and completely deal with each issue will vary greatly (604).

4. The quotation that seemed particularly important was the description of going into "the uttermost parts of the world [as taking] on cultural as well as geographical significance. Yet numerous missionaries have entered cultures without any attention whatsoever to the social structures, evidently assuming that the culture would be a carbon copy of their own or that differences would prove to be unimportant" (Hesselgrave, 454). Two main aspects of communication include one's cultural worldviews and societal expectations. For example, the West has often mistaken their role with creation being that of domination rather that of dominion. Likewise, personal liberties have been overstressed at a great cost to corporate wellbeing (456).