Enoch Wan. In this paper, we will focus on the topic of practical contextualization. I regard this article as a sequel to the last one on theological contextualization and my intention is to move from a general discussion of theological methodology to suggestions for practical Christianity in terms of evangelizing Chinese.
For the purpose of being context-specific, the socio-cultural context of Hong Kong Chinese is chosen for this article with the full knowledge that Chinese people are vast in number, diverse in culture and varied in accordance to local contexts: e.g. “Chinese in the Mainland” (華人) with five major ethnic groups (i.e. Han, Manchurian, Mongolian, Muslim, and Tibetan), and dozens of minority groups; “overseas-born-Chinese” (OBC), including those who have immigrated to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, USA, Canada, etc., and “local-born-Chinese” (LBC), including American-born-Chinese (ABC), British-born-Chinese (BBC), Canadian-born-Chinese (CBC), etc. Generalizations of all Chinese are not helpful when fruitful discussion is intended.
Though there are many aspects of practical contextualization such as style of Christian living and worship, patterns of social interaction and religious institutions, processes of membership recruitment and integration, etc., we will examine the following three: conceptualization, expression and application of evangelism as an illustration of practical contextualization for Hong Kong Chinese.
Relational Realism for Christian Ministry 關係論與基督教事工 