Inculturation Re-visited

Rome Losing Interest?
Unlike the late Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict seldom speaks about inculturation. But the fact that he has set up a new Congregation for New Evangelization, with a special Synod due in 2012, indicates that he is taking the postmodern culture seriously, especially in relation to the serious loss of faith by so many baptised Catholics in the West. The African Synod of last year hardly mentions inculturation, with the emphasis being on conflict resolution in a strife torn continent. Ecclesia Africa (1995) strongly encouraged inculturation as an urgent priority.

An Other-Wordly Theology
Has the need for inculturation diminished? Arbuckle (2010:xix) quotes Paul VI “The split between the Gospel and culture is without doubt a drama of our time, just as it was of all times. Every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture, or more correctly, of cultures” (Evangelii Nuntiandi 1975:20). The Church has had a long history of propounding other-worldly theology, where the Catholic Church is a ship to board, and avoiding contact with the world, to sail up to heaven, our true home. The Letters of Paul looked forward to an imminent parousia, so the world was a place with which to minimize one’s exposure. Many theologians were monks who had left the world, and so their theology was also other-worldly, as was the influential theologian, Augustine, who wrote about the City of God (to be desired) and the City of the World (to be avoided). This is one reason why our faith is so divorced from real life, from our culture, from history and from pressing social, political and economic circumstances. Many people believe that the message of Christ does not belong in politics, or economics, yet the Good News needs to be brought into all aspects of our lives, even sport and entertainment!
The Catholic Social Teachings, which took off in 1891, have been very poorly disseminated to the laity. These teachings are incarnational, they take root in the specific circumstances of our time. Pope Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate (2009) tackles the problems in the world economy. He often talks about evangelizing the economy and politics. Our Church is trying, but there is a lot of catching up to do to bridge the gap between faith and real life (which includes culture).

Fears for the Mass
Despite many references to inculturation in the past century, the drive from Rome has lessened. One possible reason is the fear of diminishing the Eucharist, where Rome has been keen to ensure that the Eucharistic celebration conforms to the proper Rites, and is not carelessly experimented with. But there has been an over-emphasis on inculturation of the Mass, to the exclusion of evangelization, homiletics, catechetics, missionary practice, theology and philosophy.

The Vatican Documents
There are various Vatican documents which encourage inculturation. Gaudium et Spes (44) advises that the Christian message be adapted to the language, philosophies and concepts of the people. Catechesi Tradendae (51) encourages comprehensive cultural analysis and understanding. The missionary encyclical Redemptoris Missio (=RM)(1990:52, 53), also encourages inculturation and missionaries should “immerse themselves in the cultural milieu of those to whom they are sent”.

Defining Inculturation
Inculturation is a two-way process by which the Church incarnates the Gospel in a different culture and secondly, introduces the receiving culture into the Christian world-view to make the faith more readily understandable (cf RM 52). It is a two-way dialogue between faith and culture. We analyse the culture (SEE), judge it in the light of Scripture and Tradition (JUDGE), and derive a missionary strategy (ACT). In the one direction then we set out to Christianise the culture (challenge wrong values, insert new values, build on existing values and enhance good values). In the other direction we seek inculturate Christianity. We seek to express the faith in terms of the receiving culture’s ways of thinking, so that the message will find a deep and permanent home. We look for stepping stones in the culture as a pathway leading to the previously unknown of the Christian faith (for example, the practice of animal sacrifice is a stepping stone to the understanding of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but not an alternative, obviously).

The new culture always provides new insights into Christianity, expanding our body of theological knowledge. We need to unearth the treasures of the new culture, to discover the treasure, the hidden Gospel from the influence of the Holy Spirit, which blows where it will, and is the source of all goodness wherever it is found.

All Communication is Cultural
There is no such thing as a culturally neutral message. The West believed it preached a “pure” or culturally neutral Gospel, but in fact it was a highly Eurocentric message, underlain by a solid foundation of Western values, philosophies, and generally culture-specific ways of communicating. There is no shortage of African and Latin American scholars who bemoan the way in which their indigenous cultures were mistreated, over-ridden or seen as irrelevant. There is also no doubt that as a whole the West has tried to force a new value system on top of an existing one without understanding the existing worldview and attempting to dialogue with it and treat it seriously. As a result, conversion has not been as profound as was hoped for, and the traditional worldview, largely ignored, still has a decisive influence on many converts. Hence the old adage: “Mass in the morning, witchdoctor at night”. There is no doubt that there is a dual religious system in the minds of many converts. It is easy to look backwards, especially with new knowledge and insights, and to pick out mistakes, but I do not doubt the sincerity of the many missionaries who left homes to do primary evangelization.

The Bible itself is written against a background of many cultures and traditions (such as the Yahwist, Elowist, Priestly to name but a few examples). Jesus himself used local, specific cultural situations to present his message. The American Catholic, currently Professor of Theology and Culture, Gittins (CSSp) (1987:240) uncompromisingly regards good will and missionary zeal as shamefully inadequate when it comes to missionary work! People have a right to culture and to ignore this is to trample on their holy ground, at the cost of confusion and forcing the traditional religion underground, or creating an unhealthy syncretic mix of beliefs. Conversion is a deep inner process, which requires knowledge of culture, myths, symbols and rituals.

The Incarnation as the Theological Basis for Inculturation (Goldie, Unisa thesis, 2006)
“The Word became flesh, he lived among us” (Jn1:14) is the basis by which God translated himself into humanity. This is the Biblical and theological basis for continuing this process across all cultures. As a soul enters a body, so the Gospel takes flesh in a culture. God leaves an atemporal reality to come to a concrete, temporal reality with its own particularities. Jesus commands us to bring the Gospel to all nations, therefore to repeat the incarnation in all the different cultures. Via the command to do mission, Jesus accepts other cultures and becomes inculturated in successive traditions, becoming himself, for example, an African (Shorter 1988:80).

Inculturation and the Paschal Mystery (Goldie, Unisa thesis, 2006)
The Paschal Mystery sees the Risen Christ in his transformed state, overcoming all limits of time and space, as well as human barriers such as cultures, classes, gender. In Christ, all people and therefore all cultures, find their home in him. The Easter Mystery makes it possible for any culture to accept Christ, by virtue of this universal and therefore trans-cultural power. It is his way of offering himself to all creation, promising that when he was lifted up (Cross and Resurrection), he would draw all people to himself.

The post-resurrection Christ belongs to all cultures, he is trans-cultural and all creation comes together in him (Hearne 1990:94). Gaudium et Spes (22) asserts that the Holy Spirit enables all people to participate in the Paschal Mystery in a way known only to God, but this does not in any way detract from the need to do mission. God does not save people in opposition to culture, it is through culture that people are saved. In the Risen Christ there is the new glorified being, and the old, the wounds, the breaking of bread. Culture also retains something of the old, but also takes on something radically new, enabling members to live life to the full. Thus newness and continuity are enabled by the Paschal Mystery (Shorter 1988:84).

Grace and Revelation are of a higher order than human culture, so where there is a conflict between faith and culture, the latter must yield to the teachings of Christ.

The Universal Church and the Particular Church
Evangelii Nuntiandi (=EN) (61) refers to the church as universal, outside of the limits of time and space, and so is far more than the sum of the particular churches. But the universal church puts down its roots into a variety of social terrains, otherwise it would remain an abstraction. The universal church is incarnate in the individual churches (EN 62). As it puts its roots down, its universality is enriched by new insights from the particular churches. The particular church does inherit fixed customs from the universal church, it is certainly not an entirely new body. It needs to remain one with the vine or cease being a vehicle of sacramental graces (cf Jn 15:4-6).

Postmodern Culture
The postmodern culture is, it would seem, part of the very air we breathe, to which traditional cultures are increasingly exposed. Rome has recognised this and has in fact organised meetings in Africa with the churches to assess the effect of the postmodern world on primal religions. Inculturation must therefore take into account the forces of change in a globalized world.

Conclusion
Inculturation remains as important as ever, but is perhaps more complex. Bevans (2002) defines context as history and current circumstances (the consideration of which has led to liberation theology), the culture (inculturation, anthropology, sociology) and the process of change. The recent African Synod was concerned with the current political circumstances in Africa, and the need for conflict resolution. Some missionaries have despaired at the seeming fruitlessness of their missionary work when observing civil strife, hatred and violence perpetrated by converts. However, the political situation is an essential part of the context and cannot be ignored. Also, we need to remember, that the West, despite some 2000 years of Christianity, engaged in two major world wars in the twentieth century, when Christian nations took up arms against each other, with millions of deaths!

References
Caritas in Veritate, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI
Catechesi Tradendae 1979. Pope John Paul II
Evangelii Nuntiandi , 1975. Pope Paul VI
Ecclesia in Africa, 1995. Pope John Paul II
Gaudium et Spes, 1965. Vatican II.
Redemptoris Missio 1990. John Paul II

Bevans, SB. 2002. Models of contextual theology. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, USA.
Gittins, AJ. 1987. Gifts and strangers. Meeting the challenge of inculturation. Paulist Press, NJ, USA.
Hearne, B. 1990. Christology is basic to inculturation, in Inculturation of Christianity in Africa (Okure & Tiel, editors).
Shorter, A. 1988. Towards a theology of inculturation. Geofrey, London, UK.
Goldie, P. 2006. Catholic mission to the black people within the archdiocese of Cape Town. UNISA Masters thesis.