Cultural Analysis and Thematic Biblical Theology –Cross-Cultural Approach of Gospel Communication

Abstract

Anthropology, missiology and missionary anthropology’s literature present several methodologies, models, approaches and ideas for intercultural communication. Dialoguing with this literature and based on the case study of the Konkomba people of Ghana, the main objective of this study is to explore and generate ideas and principles for integrating cultural and biblical theological themes to better contextualise and communicate the Gospel through evangelisation in contexts and sub-contexts of Konkomba culture and traditional religion. The problem is how is culture to be analysed and organised, and how are the cultural findings to be used to facilitate cross-cultural evangelization through thematic biblical theology in similar contexts to the Konkomba people of Ghana. This study is organised in two phases. The first part develops and presents an anthropological approach for cultural analysis, based on the theoretical foundations of intercultural communication, anthropology and missionary anthropology, and presenting a case study of the Konkomba people of Ghanaian a functionalist-interpretivist framework. In it the findings are divided into four dimensions: historical, ethical, social and phenomenological. The essential cultural elements are investigated culturally by using a questionnaire of215 items and the resultant cultural analysis generates a profile of the target group. The second phase of the study uses a missiological framework provided by elements of the Four-Horizons Model, Tridimensionality Model and the Grand Story approach for organizing and presenting the biblical themes in a hermeneutic perspective, engaging with the main cultural questions previously identified, answering them biblically and dialoguing with the audience for a comprehensive applicability. The hypothesis of this study is that by focusing on the combination of cultural and theological elements, using the case study among the Konkomba people of Ghana, analysing its profile in the four proposed dimensions and engaging the cultural questions with biblical answers presented by thematic biblical theologies, it would result in a missiological approach (called Kerygma Approach for Sociocultural Investigation and Gospel Communication) that is relevant to evangelization in similar contexts to the case presented. Four steps were taken to build this approach: identify the main theories about intercultural communication; define, through case study analysis (of the Konkomba people of Ghana)the essential cultural components required for this cultural analysis; describe the central elements in the biblical message and identify the missiological presuppositions required for communicating with them; and organize the essential biblical themes using a missiological framework, so they relate to the essential cultural components to promote intelligibility and effectiveness in cross-cultural evangelisation.