The Church Through Time

"The incarnational Christian realizes that the gospel travels through time not in some ideal form, but from one inculturated form to another. In the words of one theologian, the “fiction” of a “‘pure’ and ‘naked’ Christianity” has done much damage. What missiologists call “the culturally indigenous church” is the aim of the incarnational church. Max Stackhouse makes a distinction between the “textuality” of the church—its faithfulness to the gospel—and its “contextuality”—its faithfulness to the world in which it finds itself. That distinction is absolutely critical." 

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0