Message and Mission (Revised Edition)

Eugene A. Nida

Description

How can the church meaningfully and intelligently engage cultures with Christianity?

Eugene Nida, a leading scholar and devout Christian, presents a thorough study of the means and methods which best communicate Christianity to people of diverse backgrounds. Dr. Nida is uniquely equipped to write this book. He is a well-known specialist in linguistics, anthropology studies, and the interpretation of the Christian faith, who worked with missionaries on translation problems for over thirty years.

Foreword

Preface to the Revised Edition

1.    An Introduction to Communication

2.    The Theological Basis of Communication

3.    The Structure of Communication

4.    Form and Meaning in Communication

5.    Language as Code System and Information

6.    Language Symbols and Meaning

7.    Message and Media

8.    The Dynamics of Communication

9.    Scripture Translation and Revision as Techniques of Communication

10. The Structure of Societies

11. Communication and Social Structure

12. Psychological Relationships in Communication

13. Religion and Communication

14. Religious Symbolism and Behavior

15. Christian Movements

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Missions
• Christian Ministry
• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity
• Communication

Informations

• Publié par: William Carey Publishing
• Date de parution: 17 décembre 1990
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780878088904
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright 1960 by Eugene A. Nida
Revised edition copyright 1990 by Eugene A. Nida
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations emodied in critical articles or printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First edition in 1960 by Harper Row, Publishers
Reprinted 1972, 1975 and 1979 by William Carey Library.
Revised edition, 1990, published by
William Carey Library
P.O. Box 40129
Pasadena, CA 91114
1705 N. Sierra Bonita Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91104
Library of Congress CIP Number 60-11785
ISBN 0-87808-756-7
Unless otherwise specified, all major quotations of the Scriptures used in this book are from The Holy Bibles , Revised Standard Version, copyright 1946, 1952, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and reproduced here by permission.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword
Preface to the Revised Edition
1 An Introduction to Communication
The Mysterious Power of Symbols/The Abundance and Variety of Communication/Communication of the Christian Faith
2 The Theological Basis of Communication
History of the Tension Between the Church and Culture/Two Contrasting Approaches to Communication/Christ and Culture/Fundamental Principles of Inter-personal Relations/Application of the Principles of Equity and Love to Problems of Cultural Change/God s Communication with Men/A Biblical View of Communication/Implications of the Biblical View of Communication/The Supernatural Character of the Divine Communication
3 The Structure of Communication
Communication within a Setting/The Lack of Correspondence Between Cultures/The Lack of Correspondence Between Participants/A Three-Language Model of Communication/The Formal Nonidentity of Messages
4 Form and Meaning in Communication
The Formal Nonidentity of Cultures/The Meaning of a Message in Terms of the Cultural Context/The Purpose of Communicative Procedures
5 Language as Code System and Information
Language as a Communication Code/Signs and Symbols/Characteristics of Symbols and Codes/The Limitations of Symbols/Encoding and Decoding/Information Theory
6 Language Symbols and Meaning
The Nature of Meaning/Meaning and Perception/The Meanings of Words as a Conceptual Map of Experience/The Range of Meaning of Words and Groups of Words/Perspectives of Meaning, Depending Upon the Participants in Communication/The Problem of Meaning Through the Centuries/The Restructuring of Meaning/Fundamental Facts About the Meanings of Words/The Possibility of Effective Communication
7 Message and Media
Method and Mechanism of Communication/The Contents of the Message
8 The Dynamics of Communication
Nativistic Movements/Indigenization vs. Syncretism
9 Scripture Translation and Revision as Techniques of Communication
Diverse Types of Translations/Translation as the Closest Natural Equivalent/Principles of Equivalence/Revisions of the Scriptures
10 The Structure of Societies
Types of Social Structures/Diagrammatic Models of Social Structure/Communication within Social Structures/The Communication Patterns in Totalitarian and Democratic States/Communicative Approach to Urban Society/The Structure of Face-to-Face Societies/Communicative Approach in a Face-to-Face Society
11 Communication and Social Structure
The Problem of Heterogeneous Societies/Communicative Approach to a Heterogeneous Society with Included Face-to-Face Constituency/Orientations of Societies Toward Life/Principles of Communication and the Social Structure
12 Psychological Relationships in Communication
The Psychological Attitudes of the Source Toward the Symbolic System of the Message/The Psychological Attitudes of the Receptor Toward the Symbolic System of the Message/Psychological Relations Between Source and Receptor/Degrees of Identification in Terms of Levels of Communication/Cultural Barriers to Identification/Basic Ingredients in Effective Identification
13 Religion and Communication
Practice of Religion/Beliefs that Underlie the Practice of Religion
14 Religious Symbolism and Behavior
Behavioral Consequences of Religion/Tensions on the Scale of Symbolic Behavior
15 Christian Movements
Indigenous Christian Movements/Circumstances Favorable to the Development of Indigenous Christian Movements/Facts Which Provide the Initial Impulse for Christian Movements/Internal Problems in the Growth of Christian Movements/(External Opposition to the Growth of Christian Movements/The Cooling Off of Christian Movements/The Reduction of Entropy to a Minimum
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Foreword
I would like to take the occasion of the republication of this very important book to briefly point out for a new generation of readers who Eugene Nida is and how important his ministry has been in laying the foundations on which we now build.
All those who seek to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ cross-culturally owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to God for raising up Dr. Nida. God has given him enormous intellectual gifts plus the ability to helpfully apply theory in the practice of Christian ministry. God has, furthermore, allowed him to serve for a whole generation as Translations Secretary of the American Bible Society, from which position he has been able to travel, write, consult and in many other ways to maximize the use of his gifts in helping the whole Christian world.
Before Nida there were those who recognized the need to do something about the desperate situation that Bible translation enterprises had fallen into. In the English speaking world there was widespread recognition of deficiencies in the King James Version that supposed improvements such as the English Revised Version, its sister the American Standard Version and even the Revised Standard Version did not do much to help. Meanwhile, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, of which Nida was a part in the 30s and 40s, had come on the scene and began applying the insights of the science of linguistics to Bible translation into non-Western languages. This led to the pioneering of new understandings of how Bible translations ought to be produced, understandings that Nida was able to develop and apply in the 50s and 60s under the auspices of the Bible Society. The contemporary revolution in Bible translation theory and practice owes a greater debt to Nida than to any other single individual.
Before Nida there were those who recognized that something needed to be done to improve the cultural sensitivity of those who attempt to carry the Gospel cross-culturally. There were even a few places where one could obtain training in this area. But nothing before or since has given the positive stimulus to the development of applied missionary anthropology produced by Nida s efforts in the 50s and 60s. His 1954 book, Customs and Cultures was a landmark. In it he made missionary anthropology intelligible and attractive to cross-cultural workers. Perhaps more important, though, was his ability to sponsor through the Bible Society consultants William Smalley, William Reyburn, William Wonderly and, later, Jacob Loewen, who advised and wrote on cultural as well as linguistic and translation topics. This was the era during which, through Nida s support and Smalley s editorship, the Bible Society undergirded the influential journal Practical Anthropology . Generations of God s servants and the people and organizations they influence will be indebted to the pioneering of these men and that journal for the assistance they gave in overcoming the civilize in order to evangelize mentality of Christian missions.
Before Nida there were a few voices raised in concern over the weaknesses of Christians both cross-culturally and back at home in their understanding and practice in the area of communication. But none have been as helpful as Nida in combining insights from anthropology, linguistics, translation theory and other sources to produce more helpful approaches in this very important area. These insights were captured by Nida in the first (1960) edition of this book, Message and Mission . Through that first edition, then, Nida s insights have been passed on to a generation of Christians seeking to communicate the Gospel and have been found invaluable.
Though other books dealing with intercultural communication have been published since 1960, we who teach courses in this area look in vain for any that combine the depth and breadth of Nida s insights into the subject. The abiding value of the book seemed to indicate, therefore, that it should be kept in print. Yet there were certain structural features of the original edition that seemed to present some users with problems. Certain chapters were quite long, others very short. Furthermore, some subtopics seemed to fit better with topics in other parts of the book than with the ones with which they were placed. And the chapter dealing with the theological basis for communication seems to work better at the beginning than at the end of the book.
With the desire to keep the book available but to improve on its structure, then, I set a class in intercultural communication at the School of World Mission, Fuller Seminary, to carry out a series of minor revisions. Our desire has been to maintain the original content while updating names and improving the structure of the book as a whole. Accordingly, little content has been changed, but the original ten chapters have been molded into fifteen, with some rearrangement of parts. In addition, a small amount of updating of content and bibliography has been done.
I thank God, William Carey Library, Eugene Nida and each of those who have participated in this project (see the list of names in Nida s new Preface) for the opportunity to get