Overcoming communication barriers and boundaries in sharing the Gospel (Christian Faith) to Australia

Overcoming communication barriers and boundaries in sharing the Gospel (Christian Faith) to Australia

Introduction

If communication and is an art, it becomes difficult and more problematic in multicultural societies. Two people should make an effort to communicate well, and how much more two cultures, worldviews are different. Australia is going through the pervasive and rapid social, cultural, economic and technological changes. Pluralism and diversity are accepted as the personal and social realities. In the middle of all these changes, sign of revival of Christian faith and practice is very rare. Though the Catholics of Australia make 26% of the population but the increasing interest in spirituality is not reflected in the Christian Church. According to Mackay (1999), Christianity had never been an important or essential force in the political, social or cultural life of Australia, the way it has always been in the Western Europe or America. Unlike America or other western countries, religion and especially Christianity has always been a private matter and also an unimportant one.

Discussion

The language of the post-Christiana and secular Australia do not expressively connect with the Christian language and the Gospel language is becoming growingly limited and marginalized to the smaller sector of society. Churches maintain the traditional Christian language of their ancestors. Preachers and missionaries often fail to understand that ministering in 21st century is quite different from that of 20th century. Average listener cannot understand the core of the message with the theological terms that the ministers are fond of and are grown up with. Rather such language confuses them despite of being biblical. Without a contextualization of the Gospel no real communication of the Word of God is possible. Gospel communication can be performed only with reference to the totality of cultural factors involved in the communication. It is not a mere matter of literal translation, but an interpretation that requires the direction of the Holy Spirit.

The reality of multicultural society is that it exists with a variety of social worlds and its people are not grown up with the culture saturated by the Judeo-Christian values. Owing to this fact, it is the task to communicate gospel to the people where they are actually living along with their concerns and beliefs while looking for the ways to persuade them about the authenticity of Christianity. In order to communicate Gospel in Australia, a ...