contextual theology

When I was in junior high, a friend of my father would engage me in theological debate. Of course, I wasn't up to the task, but I consider it part of my training. I loved every minute of it.

"Why didn't you wear a head covering in church today, Heather?" he'd ask.

I'd stammer and stutter. I didn't know then about the cult prostitutes and the new Roman woman. But the one phrase that caught me said, "But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, she should cover her head."

Most of us recognize that certain things in the Bible were written for certain times, certain cultures, and we don't practice them today. For example:

- do we practice the Sabbath from sun-down on Friday to sun-down on Saturday?

- do we sacrifice doves at the birth of a child?

- do we greet one another with a holy kiss (on the lips, no less!)?

- do we refrain from braiding our hair?

C. S. Lewis wrote, "The character of evidence depends on the shape of the examination... It determines how much of that total truth will appear and what pattern it will suggest" (Lewis, The Discarded Image, 223). In other words, we understand truth in light of the questions we ask and how we ask them.*

Ever wonder why the greeters at the doors of your church don't welcome you with a smack on the lips? (In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul exhorts the believers to greet one another with a holy kiss.) Or why we don't share everything in common as the brothers and sisters in Acts 2 did?

All of us practice contextual theology. Contextual theology recognizes that: