Beyond the Gates of Splendor
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Cultural context
Beyond the Gates of Splendor exists as one of the best films indicating the missionary works in diverse cultures and its consequences. Elliot, E. (2010) explains that Beyond the Gates of Splendor features the feature-length documentary film that was released in 2004. In the cause of their missionary works trying in that unique culture, they are martyred. It unfolds the events and activities leading to the Operation Auca, which includes impacts of contacting the Huaorani tribe found in Ecuador by the American missionaries. The text originates from the Huaorani tribe, which possesses limited contact with outsiders hence possessing the practices of their religion like believing in animist. As per Rival (2002), they believe in lack of distinction between the spiritual and physical world, but the spirits exist in the world as a whole. Equally, they believe that rain forest exists as home and the outside world occurs as unsafe for their survival (Rival, 2002). Moreover, the plants offer medicines and poisons for healing and hunting, respectively, and they hold the culture from one generation to another.
Meaning of the Cultural Text
The text bears various messages to the Christians who intend to or work within multi-cultural ministries. Based on the film, the missionaries should get prepared for both spiritual and physical strength while conducting the cross-cultural evangelism due to different challenges faced like persecution (Elliot, 2010). Furthermore, the film indicates that missionaries should die for the word of God. As seen from the movies, the American apostles get martyred for the gospel (Ziegler-Otero & Ziegler-Otero, 2006). Similarly, cross-cultural evangelism should be based on the concepts of risk-taking since going to unknown land would result in different challenges and even persecution or torture by the local tribes or the target population.
Influence of the Movie to the People in Contemporary Culture
Beyond the Gates of Splendor movies significantly influence the individuals living in contemporary cultures. The contemporary customs comprise societies with modern characteristics which experiences various changes due to different social factors. On the same note, temporary cultures possess some influences from other cultures or communities due to high level of globalization experienced among the societies around the world. Based on Beyond the Gates of Splendor, it influences individuals from contemporary cultures in different ways. Firstly, people in modern world mingle freely due to cultural diversity which is the opposite case with the tribe in the movies (Ziegler-Otero & Ziegler-Otero, 2006). As a result, the film influences the people to maintain their purity of the cultures and to avoid the contamination (Elliot, 2010). Similarly, the movie affects the individuals from the modern culture system to hold various research works about the other tribes before visiting them for different purposes.
Contextualization of gospel refers to the activities involving speaking and spreading the word of God to groups of people with diverse cultural backgrounds in a manner that puts in considerations and adapting to their context and practices. Based on the movie Beyond the Gates of Splendor cross-cultural evangelist should live like those they evangelize just like Paul in the bible. Missionaries should identify themselves with the target population, which helps in hence adapting their lifestyle before introducing the actual gospel. As Paul explains “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews, I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:19–22).
References
Rival, L. M. (2002). Trekking through history: the Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador. Columbia University Press.
Ziegler-Otero, L., & Ziegler-Otero, L. (2006). Resistance in an Amazonian community: Huaorani organizing against the global economy. Berghahn Books.
Elliot, E. (2010). Through gates of splendor: the event that shocked the world, changed a people, and inspired a nation. Hendrickson Publishers.