I believe that whenever E-3 evangelism takes place, the disciples naturally adopt some of the cultural norms of the missionaries. I don’t think that is a lesser result; it is the natural, realistic outcome. In my case, it was good for aspects of my American culture to be challenged by Korean missionaries. However, I do believe that missionaries in general need to be more careful than they have been to respect the culture of the disciples, to see the good in it, and to stop trying to make disciples who are replicas of themselves.

I think that the cultural tensions in UBF right now are healthy and normal. They are exactly what one would expect in any cross-cultural missionary movement at this stage in its development. A while back, I read The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society by Lesslie Newbigin. Newbigin lived as a missionary in India and experienced firsthand what happens when Christian missionaries bring the gospel to a society vastly different from their own. Along with the gospel, they carry a great deal of their own cultural baggage, but they are not really aware of it. This causes everyone to struggle with the fundamental question, “What is the gospel?” He observed that all cross-cultural missionary movements tend to go through four stages.
• Stage 1: Missionaries bring the gospel to a foreign land, carrying along their own cultural values and understanding.
• Stage 2: Native people are converted and discipled by the missionaries, imitating both the missionaries’ faith and elements of the missionaries’ culture.
• Stage 3: As the native disciples become more mature and independent-minded, they notice some discrepancies between (a) their own independent understanding of what the Bible says and (b) what the missionaries who discipled them are actually doing.
• Stage 4: A three-way dance ensues among the missionaries, the converts, and the Bible as everyone tries to figure out how the gospel message brought by the missionaries should be contextualized in the native people’s culture.
UBF is now engaged in that Stage-4 dance. The dance can be awkward and painful. It tests the integrity of our faith and our relationships with one another. As I recall, Newbigin came to two basic conclusions about what should happen.
• The missionaries cannot fully contextualize the gospel in the new culture. Although they will need to make concessions to the new culture, they cannot fundamentally change who they are.
• Therefore, it is the job of the converts to contextualize the gospel in their own culture, and it is the job of the missionaries to allow them to do this.

E3 evangelicism brings the gospel of Christ to people but it also brings the ideological baggage as well.