The Transcultural Gospel: Jesus Is Enough for Sinners in Cultures of Shame, Fear, Bondage, and Weakness

by E.D. Burns

Missions today is loaded with “silver bullet” methodologies that promise much but deliver little. This practical little book reminds us that the clear teaching of the gospel is relevant and powerful throughout the ages and throughout human culture. Aspiring missionaries and pastors will be greatly helped by this book in thinking through the complex issue of contextualization and its implications in cross-cultural ministry. – Brooks Buser President, Radius International

119 pages, Paperback

Published September 7, 2021

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book 5 stars because Burns offers a gospel correction to a pervasive missiological paradigm that is frequently taught at a popular level in local churches and implemented at a practical level on the mission field. It was not an easy read nor was it always easy to understand (perhaps due to the repetitive structure of the book, though I understand Burns’ purpose for choosing it). Nevertheless, I greatly benefited from this book. Burns evaluates the conventional wisdom of the cultural, sociological, and missiological paradigms of honor/shame, innocence/guilt, and power/fear cultures via the “transcultural gospel.” Burns argues that “the gospel of Christ is transcultural. Do not try to chop of any its edges to fit any culture” (xiv).

Burns believes that the prevalent three-fold paradigm (honor/shame, innocence/guilt, power/fear) is too simplistic. The “macro-cultural orientations and their corresponding value systems” are more complex in light of both cultural reality and biblical revelation. Burns suggests the following macro-cultural value paradigms: guilt/righteousness, shame/honor, fear/peace, bondage/freedom, and weakness/strength (4).

He explains his approach: “Having evaluated some of the widely accepted value systems, such as fear/power and guilt/innocence, I believe the biblical evidence doesn't fully support those pairs. I have reframed them as fear/peace and guilt/righteousness and have prioritized guilt/ righteousness as central to the other pairs, from which they all emanate. Also, I have coined pairs of values systems (e.g., bondage/freedom and weakness/strength) based on biblical evidence that I perceive fits within their respective cultural orientations, which I elaborate and illustrate” (5).

Burns presents the central argument of his book as follows:

This book argues that the centrality of a guilt/righteousness paradigm is the standard key to unlocking the gospel for the world's macro cultural value paradigms of shame/honor, fear/peace, bondage/freedom, and weakness/strength. Trust alone receives Christ Himself and His benefits/blessings secured by His righteousness and atonement. Those gospel benefits/blessings are the true substance of the patterns of God's image valued in some cultural orientations. The exchanges of Christ's righteousness and His benefits/ blessings for our unrighteousness and curse depend on His substitution and imputation” (4).

Burns explains that “the main point of this book is to provide a helpful model for how the historical ‘great exchange’ of the gospel Christ's substitutionary death and imputed righteousness relates to some of the world's macro-cultural orientations and their corresponding value systems” (3).

Finally, Burns maps the layout of his book:

The introduction outlines this book's background, main ideas, and goals. Chapter 1 briefly surveys the centrality of the Bible and basic doctrines that missionaries should consider when thinking through how to explain the gospel cross-culturally. Chapter 2 highlights and unpacks the centrality of Christ's penal substitutionary atonement and righteousness and our response of faith alone. It argues for the centrality of a guilt/righteousness paradigm for all other cultural value systems. Chapter 3 discusses how to apply a guilt/righteousness paradigm to shame/honor contexts. Chapter 4 takes the same paradigm and applies it to fear/peace value sys-tems. Chapter 5 considers it in bondage/freedom value systems. Chapter 6 applies the guilt/righteousness paradigm to weakness/ strength value systems. Finally, the conclusion rehearses and illustrates the big ideas of the transcultural gospel model” (xvii).

Perhaps the greatest value of this book is that it helps the reader experience rethink the popular presentation of these cultural paradigms as they relate to evangelism, discipleship, and missions. Serious missionary practitioners will want to wrestle with Burns’ thesis.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book. I appreciate his efforts to not itemize the gospel into subcultures but to show how it transcends all cultures. The gospel addresses all people equally. And the gospel has in and of itself the power to engage all people from all cultures. I find it interesting how in English we distinguish in some way guilt from sin—Farsi does not do that. It is the same word. I think his not giving the naming rights to the West for guilt-innocence/righteous was good, and a better category is bondage/freedom bc of the Western desire to be autonomous. This is a good correction. I also appreciate how he made notes that many in the West tend to think other cultures are closer to the gospel because they have a collectivistic background which is simply not true (especially when you understand how people come to understand the Bible, not by mere knowledge or social position but God’s grace and power)but a western concept. I also enjoyed how practical this book is.

I did not necessarily know who he was referring to in saying missionaries are creating different gospels in attempts to make the gospel relevant. I’ve read a lot on this and haven’t experienced that, or at the level he describes. Perhaps it is out there and his larger books cite sources, but most people I have read or encountered are not creating other gospels but simply trying to show the breadth of the gospel to engage all peoples. What I read seemed to clearly center on God’s righteousness, man’s sinfulness, and Christ's death and resurrection as primary. I don’t doubt people do what he says but It seemed a bit strawman at times. Also, while there is a tendency to try too hard and strategize to engage people, I have found, that the bigger issue is Westerners not doing enough to learn culture in a way they can effectively speak to the hearts of people. Especially, in places where westerns have done no to little language to truly understand how someone thinks, even if they speak good English. I am amazed by how many Western workers do not even simplify the English language to engage people who speak English as a second language. A lot of this also affects how we engage people, train and disciple them. We have a strongly Western approach, not that the Eastern one (whatever that may be) is better. But we need to engage people where they are and this is difficult, if even possible to do well, without good cultural knowledge, experience, and I would say, a decent amount of language. This is a danger as well. People are usually aware of how others are unlike them but rarely aware how they too are other.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burns wrote a book that I wish all church planters and missionaries would read. It's a book I wish pastors would work through so they can better understand how to refute the wonky practices of many modern missionaries. I also wish pastors would use this a tool to help better sift through who they elect to send out from their church to the field.

It's worth your time and I am excited about the "fuller academic treatment" Burns is working on.

[Zach Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not my favorite topic of study, but this is an excellent book and response to a lot of the other works in the intercultural space, which for the most part are complete garbage. Burns doesn’t compromise and is properly grounded in biblical truth throughout his examination of intercultural communion.

[Elizabeth ‘Andy’ Terrall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the expanded version, Ancient Gospel Brave New World, much more helpful.