Responding to this contextualization issues The big question is what should people do with their old cultural ways when they become Christians, and how should the church respond to African traditional beliefs and practices? Mainly the gospel is preached to people who already have a system of beliefs and practices that make sense to them, about the worldview and about ultimate realities.
The Adventist Church must discourage this practice and help church members to follow the biblical principles. The Adventist members are wrestling with the conflict between African traditional beliefs and Adventist biblical beliefs. Since the church has not adequately addressed these problems, the danger of syncretism can easily undermine true Christian living. …show more content…
The functional substitutes are suggested new rituals or ways that will help the people replace their old African traditional beliefs and practices with methods that follow biblical principles without creating a cultural void or cultural vacuum. The substitutes will help to re-orient the minds and thinking of people so that they can embrace biblical teachings. It could be that a lack of functional substitutes is part of the reason why church members have continued to practice dual allegiance even after becoming Christians. Critical contextualization will be used to deal with African traditional beliefs. Critical contextualization is an approach whereby old beliefs and customs are neither rejected nor accepted without examination. They are first studied with regard to the meanings and places they have within their cultural setting and then evaluated in the light of biblical …show more content…
The process begins with gathering information about funeral rituals. At this stage the church neither rejects nor accepts old beliefs and customs. Traditional beliefs are first studied with regard to the meanings and places they have within the people’s cultural setting. There after the Pastor should lead a Bible study related to the questions that old customs and traditional practices pose. In this case the pastor can use the occasion of a funeral to teach the Christian beliefs about death rituals. This is an opportunity for the pastor to present biblical truth. The pastor can also choose to conduct the Bible study on Sabbath afternoon so that the congregation can be actively involved in the study. This gives the congregation an opportunity to critically evaluate their own past customs in the light of their new biblical understandings and to make a decision regarding their use. Hiebert adds, “It is important here that the people themselves make the decision, for they must be sure of the outcome before they will change. At this point leaders can only share their personal convictions and point out the consequences of various decisions, but they must allow the people to make the final