Effective Evangelization through Contextual Theologies

Abstract

The presentation, guided by the theme “Contextual Theology” seeks to argue that contextual theologies are the indispensable means through which the Good News of the Kingdom of God can successfully touch the hearts of the human race. God’s revelation, as transmitted to the world through Scripture and Church Tradition, bears an essentially universal hallmark and as such its kernel is relevant for the entirety of humanity. In communicating the divine message, however, God has chosen to employ a secondary cause, namely the human language. The implication for this is that this Good News is couched in a specific human language though its utility is intended for humankind in general. Relying principally on John Paul II’s Encyclical Fides et Ratio which maintains that the Church has no preferred philosophy on the one hand, and that all cultures have an inherent philosophical system, on the other, the paper reaches four basic inferences, namely, (i) the need to comprehend the divine message in its original setting so as to pinpoint the substance behind the wordings of God’s communication; (ii) the need to interpret the retrieved immutable content using the purified contextual philosophy of specific peoples, thus creating a contextual theology; (iii) the need to disseminate the contextualized Good News among the people from whom the contextual philosophy has been previously gotten. The procedural last step above is what the presentation proffers as effective evangelization. This is the category of evangelization which spontaneously leads to the inner positive transformation of a person.