Each culture and person has unique obstacles to encountering Jesus

Everyone is religious. So whoever does not believe the gospel, follows an idol story. Idol stories are counterfeit gospels that can’t fulfil.

For each culture or person that looks differently: A British person’s obstacles might be miracles, sexual morality, science … whereas for a Muslim American foreign policy might be an obstacle to encountering Jesus.

Everyone has different “probability structures”¹. Each individual/culture finds things harder to believe about the gospel story. That is why Contextualisation is important. We engage with the counterfit narratives and show how The Gospel is subversive fulfilment of idol stories. We confront and connect.

The book Jesus – Conflict and Contact between Christians and Muslims is a great example. It shows how Jesus subverts and fulfills the hopes of Muslims.

Footnotes

1. From Plugged In – Connecting Your Faith with Everything You Watch, Read, and Play, originally by American scholar of religion Peter Berger ↩