In Judges 6:25–26, God instructs Gideon to pull down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah pole next to it. Destroying both, he is to use the wood to offer a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord according to the instructions for burnt offerings. Confronted with idolatry, God’s people are instructed to destroy, not remodel.
The book of Judges is not typically the sort of place that one goes for missiology. However, I was reading Judges 6 recently and I couldn’t help but think of how differently Gideon dealt with idolatry than some contemporary missionaries. Rather than dabbling with a repurposing of the idols, Gideon destroys them at the Lord’s command.
Unfortunately, contemporary missionaries have been encouraged for the last couple of decades to consider whether the Baals might be a potential way to worship the Lord of hosts after all. At least some of the encouragement to dabble with idolatry in our missionary methods has come from the overall approach we have taken to discussing the important topic of contextualization.
Over the last three decades, much of the contextualization discussion has been framed by John Travis’s C-Spectrum. It is my contention, however, that the C-Spectrum itself is a conversation-biasing heuristic that distorts the discussion with unhelpful assumptions about what contextualization should be. The spectrum itself stacks the deck and creates a tilted playing field. In this article I want to suggest that if we stop using the C-Spectrum to analyze contextualization it will help us to reorient the contextualization discussion in a more faithful direction.
The C-Spectrum Used and Misused
In 1998, John Travis wrote a brief article that sketched his observation of a spectrum of ways that he observed gatherings of believers forming in Muslim contexts.1 Travis called these gatherings “Christ-Centered Communities” and he described six different types, ranging from a traditional church (C1) to secret believers in Jesus with no visible connection to other believers (C6). In presenting this spectrum, Travis states that his intention was not to create a prescriptive or evaluative model for contextualization, but simply to present a variety of examples that he identified on the field.2
1. The original article, John J. Travis, “The C1 to C6 Spectrum: A Practical Tool for Defining Six Types of ‘Christ-Centered Communities’ Found in the Muslim Context,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 34, no. 4 (1998): 407–8, is reproduced in the popular Perspectives curriculum with a chart added by Joshua Massey in John Travis, “The C-Spectrum,” in Perspectives, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne, 4th ed. (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2009), 664–65.
2. Contesting the use of the spectrum as prescriptive, John Travis, “The C1-C6 Spectrum after Fifteen Years,” Missio Nexus, October 1, 2015, writes, “I explained that the C-Spectrum was primarily descriptive. I had hoped it would increase awareness among cross-cultural workers of various ways God was moving among Muslims. I had also hoped it would bring greater unity and mutual respect among workers who were using different ministry approaches but who had the same goal of seeing God’s kingdom grow. I mentioned to our friends some of the limitations I saw in the C-Spectrum as well. After hearing our story, our friends felt that the C-Spectrum had often been misunderstood or misused…”
| Figure 1: Summary Chart: C1–C6 Spectrum in Missions3 | ||||||
| C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 | |
| Features of Christ-centered Communities | Traditional church Using culture, both language and other forms, which are foreign to local Muslim culture. | Traditional church Using culture foreign to local Muslim culture, but using daily language. | Contextualized community Using local cultural forms. Rejecting Islamic religious forms. | Contextualized community Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable Islamic forms. | Community remaining within Muslim community Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable and reinterpreted Islamic forms. | No visible community. Secret believers may or may not be active in religious life of Muslim community. |
| Socio-Religious Self-Identity of Believers | Christian | Christian | Christian | Follower of Jesus | Muslim Follower of Jesus | Private follower of Jesus |
| Muslim Perception | Christian | Christian | Christian | A kind of Christian | A strange kind of Muslim | Muslim |
3. This table is from John Travis, “The C-Spectrum: A Practical Tool for Defining Six Types of ‘Christ-Centered Communities’ Found in Muslim Contexts,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, 4th ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2009), 664–65.
The spectrum has come to describe three layers of contextualization related to the form and features of the “Christ-Centered Community,” the identity of the community from the perspective of the participants, and the identity of the community from the perspective of outsiders.4 Heated debates within evangelicalism have focused on what Travis labels “C4” and “C5” on his continuum. In C4, the Christ-Centered Community is described as “Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable Islamic forms” whereas “C5” is described as “Using cultural forms and biblically acceptable and reinterpreted forms.”5 In addition to the features and forms, these categories also assess how believers are perceived by the surrounding Muslim community as either “a kind of Christian” (C4) or “a strange kind of Muslim” (C5). In practice, then, C4 communities may pray five times per day and use Qur’anic names for biblical characters in their gatherings, but C5 believers maintain their prayers in the mosque and affirm the Qur’an as spiritually helpful by personally and internally reinterpreting Islamic forms according to gospel ideas.
4. See especially the chart in Travis, “The C1-C6 Spectrum,” 664, that was adapted from Joshua Massey, “God’s Amazing Diversity in Drawing Muslims to Christ,” IJFM 17, no. 1 (2000).
5. Travis, “The C1-C6 Spectrum,” 664.
Again, Travis claims that this spectrum was not intended to prescribe, endorse, or strategically engineer any particular approach. However, regardless of intention, many missiologists have utilized this spectrum to propose the validity of various approaches to contextual expression of Christian faith. I believe the spectrum—whether intended as a contextualization tool or not—has come to distract from the essence of what evangelical contextualization must be. Rather than a discussion that is primarily about cultural forms, we must return to contextualization as a conversation primarily concerned with cross-cultural communication.
Contextualization is Communication
One of the hallmarks of evangelicalism has been its belief that the Creator God has spoken to humanity in the Bible.6 In speaking, the Creator has revealed himself, communicating who he is in both proposition and by demonstration. In this self-communication, Justin Schell identifies the mission of God as, “God’s revelatory work intended to establish a divine-human communion within creation.”7 As such, missiologists David Hesselgrave and Edward Rommen’s words from several decades ago still ring true: “The missionary’s ultimate goal in communication has always been to present the supracultural message of the gospel in culturally relevant terms.”8
6. D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 1989), 4.
7. Justin Schell, The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 2.
8. David Hesselgrave and Edward Rommen, Contextualization: Meanings, Methods, and Models (Pasadena, CA: William Carey, 1989), 1.
The primary aim of Christian witness, then, is to receive God’s self-revelatory communication and to declare and display it so that it is understood to say what it intends to mean. Whether a word, form, or adaptation “fits” in the cultural context is less important than the consideration, “Does this word, form, or adaptation communicate the biblically intended meaning?” After this latter question has been answered he may address the question of cultural relevance. If God’s aim is communicating himself, then his witnesses must likewise ensure that their words, forms, and adaptations all reinforce clear communication of what they have received.
If, however, we consider the assessments noted above, those used to differentiate C4 from C5, we note that both of them are merely assessing external forms for how they fit in an existing society. Neither category considers what is being communicated or how communication is received within the context. In fact, the only mention of the Bible in either assessment is to permit that which the Bible does not preclude.9 Thus, not only do I take Travis at his word that he did not intend the scale for contextualization strategizing, but I would also suggest that his scale cannot be used to assess contextualization. Since it does not consider whether the adaptations of forms communicate biblical meaning, Travis’s scale is useless for considering evangelical contextualization strategies.
9. The language of “biblically acceptable” demonstrates that the intention is simply to ensure that the Bible would not overtly preclude these forms, not that these forms would communicate the biblical intention.
| Figure 2: C4–C6 Spectrum in Missions10 | |||
| C4 | C5 | C6 | |
| Features of Christ-centered Communities | Contextualized community Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable Islamic forms. | Community remaining within Muslim community Using local cultural forms and biblically acceptable and reinterpreted Islamic forms. | No visible community. Secret believers may or may not be active in religious life of Muslim community. |
| Socio-Religious Self-Identity of Believers | Follower of Jesus | Muslim Follower of Jesus | Private follower of Jesus |
| Muslim Perception | A kind of Christian | A strange kind of Muslim | Muslim |
10. This adapted table is from Travis, “The C-Spectrum,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, 664–65.
Unfortunately, since the scale has been employed to discuss the legitimacy of particular contextualization strategies, the conversation has been subtly biased away from the realm of communication of biblical meaning. Instead, the realm of what qualifies as “biblically acceptable” comes into view. The scale obscures the more primary discussions related to how the words, forms, or adaptations might communicate biblical meaning by shifting focus to what might be native to the culture and not precluded by the Bible. Such distance from communication means that this is not an evangelical contextualization conversation any longer.
Georges Houssney, an Arab Christian who has written extensively about the harm of over-contextualized missions, argues that the apostle Paul’s stated aim was communication across cultures. He cites Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 1:17–25 as evidence, writing, “[Paul] did not create a culturally sensitive message to avoid a negative reaction by his hearers. He understood his audience very well. He knew what they wanted to hear, but deliberately did not scratch them where they itched.”11 Likewise, in 2 Corinthians 4:2, Paul explicitly addresses the temptation to twist God’s Word to elicit a specific response, writing, “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” Tampering with and obscuring the Word under the banner of contextualization is not an option for Christians, even if it is a temptation.
11. Georges Houssney, “Would Paul Become a Muslim to Muslims?” in Chrislam (Garden Grove, CA: i2 Ministries, 2011), 71.
Case Study: Insider Movement Mentality
An example of contextualization that has sold its communication birthright for the porridge of cultural acceptability is the variety of approaches that are described as the “insider movement.”12 One of the leading proponents of insider methodologies, John Travis, developed the C-Spectrum as a contextualization heuristic that actually obscures the task of biblical communication. It does so by presenting differing opinions on what forms missionaries are comfortable using. The tell that this is not a faithful scale, however, is that those observing Christ-Centered communities in the C5 expressions see them as “a strange kind of Muslim.”13
12. This is one of those catchall terms that has come to describe a number of different approaches to contextualization that all differentiate themselves from one another by various specifics. Regardless, these all have in common the desire to utilize as much of Islamic culture as possible in the localized practice of biblical faith. Rebecca Lewis, a key proponent of Insider Movement methodologies, defines Insider Movements as “Movements to obedient faith in Christ that remain integrated with or inside their natural community.” Rebecca Lewis, “Insider Movements: Honoring God-Given Identity and Community,” 16–19 in IJFM 26, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 16. Lewis goes on to further identify two key markers of Insider Movements as being the retention of pre-existing social networks in contrast to the creation of a new community and the maintenance of one’s social identity as a Muslim.
13. Travis, “The C1-C6 Spectrum,” 664. Furthermore, in the same C5 expression, the so-called socio-religious identity that C5 believers have of themselves is that they are “Muslim followers of Christ.” The retention of the category of “Muslim” hangs and falls on the legitimacy of the argument that there is such a thing as socio-religious identity that is not polluted by idolatry when Islam is included. I would contest the legitimacy of such a category and further believe that even if it were a legitimate sociological identity, the pollution of Islamic idolatry makes it untenable for a genuine Christian to persist in retaining it as a part of their identity.
A basic predisposition of this group is to argue that much of what we typically understand as religious culture is more broadly related to a whole web of sociological identities. Thus, in the same way as a Christian in America need not renounce their American identity, Insider Movement advocate Rebecca Lewis shockingly argues that we should not treat the label “Muslim” as exclusively idolatrous. Instead, she proposes a more nuanced understanding of what she terms socio-religious identity where social norms and religious symbolism are a complex matrix of self-understanding, only some of which is idolatrous.14
Raising the level of complexity beyond mere religious affiliation, Lewis suggests that there are many aspects of Muslim culture that need not be jettisoned to be a faithful follower of Christ. For example, since prayer and bowing before the Lord are commanded by the Bible, the five daily prayers in Islamic culture can be adopted without significant adaptation. One can keep the fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan without concern because Jesus does not dictate the forms of our fasting. And since “Muslim” comes from the Arabic word for “submission,” one can retain their Muslim identity because it is appropriate to be submitted to God in Christ.
However, this approach is both biblically untenable and confusing. Attempting to see the five daily prayers as similar to biblical commands requires a person to only have the most superficial interaction with the idea of prayer in Islam. This Insider Movement viewpoint never asks the question, “What might it communicate to the other people in the mosque if I do exactly as they do?” Retaining the identity of “Muslim” as if it is just another adjective to describe a person’s posture is to falsely contend that it would not be received explicitly as a religious descriptor. If communication is the goal of contextualization, the proposals of the Insider Movement are revealed to be clearly confusing rather than culturally clarifying.
14. See Lewis, “Insider Movements,” 18.
A Plea for Communication-Centered Contextualization
For a Christian community who has inherited a global commission, the discussion of contextualization cannot be avoided. Despite the complexities of crossing cultures, languages, and times, the unchanging gospel and the enduring Word of God must be communicated in such a way that the peoples of the world hear and understand the Word of God. Contextual communication requires long hard work of both knowing the Bible and knowing the cultures and people to whom you are trying to communicate the Bible. It is difficult, but it is made more difficult when we forget that it is primarily a task of communication.
In failing to focus the discussion of contextualization on communication, the C-Spectrum and insider movement advocates suggest that superficial forms can be adopted when the Bible doesn’t explicitly prohibit them. Such a proposal fails to consider that every form comes laden with meaning, and non-Christian religious forms are not merely neutral, but idolatrous. That such attempts to repurpose idolatrous forms can avoid causing confusion is demonstrably false, foolishly naïve, and unconcerned to consider whether the forms continue to communicate the biblical message.
Instead of beginning our contextualization conversation with the C-Spectrum’s discussion of biblical acceptability, let us strive to consider what forms most clearly communicate the biblical message. In various courses and trainings, I have attempted to convince students that rather than having the goal of “contextualization” we should have the goal of “context textualization.” We should not primarily want to make Christianity fit into pre-existing forms within a culture; we should want a culture to encounter the culture-transforming message of the Bible. This means not softening the biblical offense by embracing familiar religious forms, but attempting to communicate the text of the Bible, letting it confront, commend, and conform believers into biblically transformed communities. While the language of “context textualization” is far too clunky to hope that it will catch on, I was pleased to find in a recent book by Harold Senkbeil and Lucas Woodford the same sentiment: “The most pressing need for the church’s missionary task in this difficult cultural moment is not contextualization but textualization.”15
15. Harold Senkbeil and Lucas Woodford, The Culture of God’s Word (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2026), 43.
Christian: the missionary task is one of communication at its core. The power of the Word applied by the Spirit is sufficient to call sin-dead hearts to life in ways that our creative presentations cannot. If as evangelicals we truly trust the Word to do the work, let us not busy ourselves or confuse our audiences with anything but the work of communicating the powerful message of Scripture. Like Gideon, we are given a charge to represent God for who he is on his terms. To do so, we need not squint at Baal to see if we can find a resemblance to God. In our efforts to communicate cross-culturally, we cannot placate or plaster over idols—we are to smash them with the clear statement of the gospel.
