Critical Engagement with Context: A Pneumatological Approach to Context’s Capacity for Revelation

Contextual theology, by drawing attention to the ways in which context affects theology, has critically reshaped the way we do and think about theology. From a contextual perspective, theology is merely speculative or naively subjective unless theologians acknowledge the contextual underpinnings of their work. But the concept of “context” itself warrants critical examination as well. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork with Adivasi (indigenous) Christians in India, this paper offers a critique of the way context functions in contextual theology and proposes a new way of understanding the revelatory capacity of our contexts.

While studying contextual theology among Adivasi Christians in India, I found that my Adivasi interlocuters understood and related to their context in many different ways. Contextual Adivasi theologians looked to their context to shape or even determine their theology, but the Adivasi context itself was contested: even among those Adivasis who were Christian (the majority of Adivasis continue to practice their traditional religions or have converted to Hinduism), their diverse experiences as belonging to different tribes, denominations, generations, socio-economic classes, and geographical regions made it challenging to speak of an Adivasi context. The discipline of contextual theology, however, led Adivasi theologians to generalize about their context and interpret it through a particular hermeneutical lens that, in far too many cases, obscured the actual ways in which Adivasi Christians experienced and understood God at work in their lives. This, in turn, limited theology’s potential to be relevant and liberating, undercutting the aims of contextual theology.

In this paper, drawing upon my fieldwork with Adivasi Christians, I make two theoretical arguments. First, I argue that what we call “context” is indeterminate. It not something objective or capable of determining theology; rather, the ways in which we make sense of and engage with our contexts reflect our own constructive work of ordering, interpreting, and refashioning the complex interweaving of factors that make up the world we inhabit. In other words, I contend that context cannot function as a “given” for theology; it is a dynamic reality that demands engagement. We are shaped by our contexts, but we also shape them, even simply by virtue of the way we conceptualize them. And that conceptualization, in turn, reflects our pre-existing theological beliefs and commitments. Systematic and contextual theology need each other.

My second argument is that a critical reading of context opens up new avenues for understanding revelation. Context—like its predecessor concept, culture—often has been interpreted theologically in light of the doctrines of creation, the fall, and redemption. On this account, our contexts are created good but have been polluted by human sin. The incarnation of God in Christ not only leads to the redemption of individuals but also restores the ability of the finite (our contexts) to bear witness to the infinite. Our contexts themselves becomes sites of God’s revelation, and we draw closer to God through an appreciation of God’s presence in our cultures, languages, and contexts. The challenge is simply to discern what in our contexts is good and what is bad, that is, what points us toward the divine presence and what leads us astray.

A critical approach to context, however, recognizes that people may not be talking about the same thing when they refer to their contexts. People may draw the boundaries of their context in different places. They may notice and pay attention to different things. They may interpret those things in different ways and assign them different priorities. Even if they share the same vision for the future, they may disagree about how to achieve it. This plurality of perspectives on our shared existence and God’s presence in our midst, however, is not something to be lamented. Instead, I argue, it is a means of God’s ongoing revelation in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit.

My invocation of pneumatology at this juncture draws upon the work of Kathryn Tanner and Kevin Hector, who describe a “social-practical” approach to the mediation of the Spirit (Hector, Theology without Metaphysics, 284). On this account, the Spirit is at work in the world primarily through ordinary processes of human reasoning and discernment (rather than through exceptional, immediate, and direct communication with individuals). Responding to worries that this might insulate the church from critique, Hector and Tanner both defend a role for the Spirit to challenge prevailing discourses through prophetic voices and open the church to “the surprise of the new” (Tanner, Christ the Key, 292).

Building upon their work, I argue that contexts reveal God in and through human processes (which, per Hector and Tanner, mediate the work of the Spirit) of negotiating the diverse perspectives that we encounter as we seek to make sense of the world, our place in it, and God’s presence. My account of the Spirit’s work, however, is slightly more active and relationship-driven: I contend that the Spirit intentionally and consistently guides us into encounters and relationships with others whose experiences challenge our own narratives. We are drawn closer into the mystery of Christ crucified through these moments of cognitive dissonance and the discomfort of walking with those whose perspectives we cannot understand or appreciate. Thus, my emphasis is on the disruptive potential of the Spirit, who leads us to question present forms of perception and judgment by confronting us with other perspectives on the world we share and God's activity in it.