Christianity is a global, multicultural faith in part because it can and must be translated and adapted to every different time and place. The New Testament is surprisingly non-prescriptive–indeed, barely descriptive–about forms of worship, leaving the door wide open for full cultural contextualization and expression, at least potentially. The origin story of the early church is precisely a narrative of breaking language barriers at Pentecost. The most extensively narrated next story is that of Peter and Cornelius and the crossing of full-height cultural barriers. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman: a time would come when worshippers would not be limited to any particular place but would worship (anywhere) “in spirit and in truth.”
Over the past two millennia, the church has thrived when it consciously and humbly embraced the diverse cultures of the places it has reached. Unfortunately, at times, the church has also caused significant harm by conflating its culture from one place with the gospel it claimed to share in another place.
The arrival of Christianity in the Bay Area serves as a cautionary tale. Early Franciscan missionaries were part of a broader movement to colonize the Americas. They rejected the existing lifestyles of California Natives and instead imposed on them Spanish and Latin American architecture, food, agriculture, clothing, language, and forms of faith and worship, along with the gospel. This disruption led to population collapse and the near-total loss of languages and cultures. Even on its own terms, the effort failed, and the missions were secularized after 64 years. For Native people throughout the Americas, this mix of Christianity, forced conversions, enslavement, and cruelty was inseparable, leaving a grim legacy the church must still reckon with today.
In recent decades, descendants of Bay Area tribal peoples have worked hard at language and culture recovery and celebration, organizational and community development, and government recognition. However, the missions period remains profoundly painful, and raises critical objections by Native people and others against Christianity.
The Jesus People movement in Berkeley and the Bay Area during the 1960s and 70s exemplifies a culturally contextualized approach to the gospel and its relationship to place. In the midst of the Free Speech Movement, the rise of folk and rock music, antiwar protests, and rapid changes in lifestyles and fashion, a Christian counterculture emerged. NCB has its roots in the Berkeley-based Christian World Liberation Front of the time, and NCB’s Radix magazine was originally a “street newspaper” named Right On! “Two brothers from Berkeley” (Jack Sparks and Paul Raudenbusch) published Letters to Street Christians, paraphrasing the New Testament epistles. Here’s 1 Cor. 1:18:
Dig it! For those who don’t know Jesus, the cross is jive, but for us who know Him it is the power that has changed our lives.
Although quaint to us now, at the time, such “hippie talk” was daringly fresh and relevant, especially compared to the “King James” Version that was still being widely used.
Now, half a century later, in this same spirit, NCB focuses on the meaning and expression of Christian faith in our particular time and place. “Discerning gospel faithfulness together in the San Francisco Bay Area” is a precise statement of our calling.
Recently, the two of us collaborated on a NCB presentation, “Memory, Land, and Place,” using our ancestral backgrounds (Asian American, Native & Mexican American) to explore the cultural context we live in and its implications for the gospel. We’re also both part of NCB’s inaugural Cohort Program, an intergenerational, multiracial group of fourteen people committed to nine months of reading and meeting together to discern gospel faithfulness in this post-pandemic, AI-embracing, climate-changing, post-election era, as it unfolds in the Bay Area.
We hope to nurture a fruitful combination of unchanging aspects of the gospel with enduring traditions and fresh, creative expressions. It would be easier if scripture provided a fixed, one-size-fits-all form and practice of faith. But God invites us to share in both the joy and the hard work of discerning, translating, sharing, and living out the gospel for our own time and place. NCB seeks to be a space that recognizes and celebrates our unique cultures and histories while striving to understand how our Christian faith, in all its diverse expressions, is truly good news here and now.