Contextualization Quotes

“Separate text from context and all that remains is a con.”
― Stewart Stafford

“When ideas are detached from the media used to transmit them, they are also cut off from the historical circumstances that shape them, and it becomes difficult to perceive the changing context within which they must be viewed.”
― Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Trans

“All overt and covert emotions would shrivel without the beam of contrast and comparison to supply context and implication. We need the value of counterpoise to recognize and distinguish between similar and dissimilar concepts. How do we identify the importance of hope if we never felt despair? How do we appreciate the value of society and companionship until we experience solitude and loneliness? What would any relationship be unless draped with the boughs of thoughts and feelings, without the ongoing interaction between conscientious action and unreserved devotion, without endless empathy fused with boundless love? In the ring of time, without the verve supplied by both the real and the imaginary, life would be bland, insipid, and lackluster.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Where religious doctrines exist, for example, they can only become real to the extent that there exist concrete semiotic practices by which they can be enacted, embodied, experienced, and transmitted. But those practices will be subject to such factors as logistics, aesthetics, economics, or prior history, that are independent of the logical, political, or emotional demands of and constraints on doctrine itself. [...] Even textual forms as relatively autonomous, portable, and durable as written scriptures depend for their persistence and power on social dynamics surrounding contextualization and entextualization.”
― Webb Keane

“It is often out encounter with culture that first reveals to us our own culture.”
― Tim Chester, Unreached

“Not only were people to be liberated from socio-political and economic oppression, but from theological oppression as well.”
― James A. Maxey

“God values the mother tongue, even for people who may know other languages.”
― Harriet Hill

“A fruitful ministry will not abandon the gospel by overcontextualizing to its place and culture, nor will it privatize the gospel by undercontextualizing to his place and culture.”
― Stephen Witmer, A Big Gospel in Small Places: Why Ministry in Forgotten Communities Matters

“There are substantial issues that remain, however, related to direction, hierarchy, and paternalism in missional mentalities. The heart and the willingness behind going are to be applauded. Jesus modeled an incarnational gospel and contextual approaches are to be valued over attractional models like those found in the megachurch movement. Concerns abound, though, in the shadow of the colonial legacy. How does one reclaim or reform a concept that has been so thoroughly corrupted and has taken on so much baggage? Is repentance enough? Can the form actually be redeemed and repurposed?”
― Randy Woodley, Decolonizing Evangelicalism: An 11:59 p.m. Conversation

“Also, in Joel 2:16, it says, “Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the aged, gather the children…” This was a command meant to gather the people in Zion to fast and repent. It would not make sense for the women of the “congregation” to solely be sanctified through childbirth, because women who were still pregnant, had babies that were still developing, or were unmarried would not be able to be “sanctified,” since it is highly improbable for a woman to immediately give birth at the beginning of the assembly. If women had to be sanctified through childbirth, then the entire “congregation” would not be sanctified, as was commanded, because not all women could give birth right when the assembly began.”
― Lucy Carter, Feminism and Biblical Hermeneutics

“History creates context; context creates meaning.”
― Scott Allen, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors And Closing Deals Online: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online with Online Social Networking

“Answer must be molded compatible with context, contextless answer creates only more problems.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“My main aim was to recontextualize Gray's visual work, to show it is as unique and autonomous as his literary works and to make a wider public aware of the incredible body of work over 65 years. The key to this would be promoting it through exhibitions and events as well as ordering his visual material and creating an online resource through which to experience it.”
― Sorcha Dallas, Alasdair Gray: Ink for Worlds