Reflecting on inculturation, we often give the impression that inculturation is optional as if it was up to us to engage in it or not. There is a level of inculturation which might appear to be optional, in the sense that depends on the decisions of the Hierarchy especially in the realm of liturgy, such as: the language, music, colors of vestment, songs. But there is another level of inculturation at the level of human hearts, minds and feelings which is an almost natural process.
There is an old Latin saying which is a part of the philosophical Christian tradition: ‘Whatever is received by a person is received in his/her own way.’ The experiences of life, the level of intellectual development, fears inside, ancestral religious experience, all these elements condition the personal absorption of faith. In other words, in each continent, the people welcome Christian faith according to their own traditions, religious experiences and mindset. There is a process of inculturation, of faith which occurs in the depth of each person’s heart. An inculturation which cannot be controlled by any authority and hierarchy, only by the Holy Spirit who is called, with very good reasons, the first agent of evangelization.
There is a sentence often repeated by missionaries: ‘These people are Christians in the morning by going to Mass and go back to the traditional religion in the afternoon by visiting a witch doctor.’ I think that this behavior is almost inevitable. An element of syncretism is part of human life. Christian faith will never be totally absorbed by anybody. The Kingdom of God is fully only in Jesus; He will be always in front of us as our own leader and master; nobody can totally absorb Him. In the process of inculturation, an element of dichotomy is inevitable between the human limitation and the fullness of faith. Culture is part and parcel of our humanity which will never be totally redeemed in this world. Only with the resurrection that fullness will be established.
INCULTURATION MEANS RISKS
The majority of those people labeled as heretics were sincerely committed to faith and deeply concerned about a sound symbiosis between traditional or newly emerging cultures and faith. Heresy is part of the process of inculturation, of its limitations and inevitable mistakes. Without appreciating the contributions of heresies, we wouldn’t utterly understand the process of inculturation. Almost all ecumenical councils were occasioned by challenges of this kind. The same applies to the interventions of the congregation of faith upon one or another theologian who engages the Christian communities with new hypothesis and intellectual ventures. There is no inculturation without experimentations and risks.
In each person, a process of inculturation unfolds according to his/her natural identity: Filipino, Chinese, Mongolian, Indian, Arab and so forth. Each believer shapes, to a certain extent, the faith he/she has received. I am highly intrigued and fascinated by the surprises in this personal, uncontrollable mysterious perception of faith guided by the creativity of the Holy Spirit and characterized by an astounding pluralism and freedom. Each person is a microcosm. In each one of us, there is a unique interpretation of faith, unique inculturation of the inexhaustible fullness of God in Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
THE FIRST BLOSSOMING
Let us cast a bird’s-eye view of the history of the Church from the point of view of inculturation. The first millennium witnessed a blossoming of it; the second millennium saw a serious halt in the process, in the third millennium, a new opening. The first millennium marked a unique peak as inculturation went along with the penetration of faith in Asia, Mediterranean area, Europe and Northern Africa; a real explosion of Catholicism with the Holy Spirit as the great protagonist of the mission. The mission was embodied in a great variety of missionaries: men and women, laity, male and female monks, soldiers, merchants. Ordained ministers were a minority. Each local church had its missionary outreach.
The word of God which was translated in local languages begot local liturgies, one of the highest expressions of inculturation. Pluralism of languages and rites was undisputable. From this point of view, the last missionaries of the first millennium were Cyril and Methodius who translated the Bible in Slavonic and contributed to the richness of the Eastern Rites. The Encyclical Slavorum Apostoli of John Paul II provides deep insight on it. The first millennium marked as well the triumph of the local Churches though the system of patriarchies. Hierarchical centralization highly militates against inculturation.
The second millennium opened with a tremendous blow to inculturation when the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople parted in 1054. The real reasons were not theological but rather cultural and governance with a strong element of power struggle. Practically, they have nothing to do with the orthodoxy of faith. A very negative backlash occurred from the point of view of inculturation: one language − Latin − and one rite − the Roman − were imposed. Therefore, during the second millennium, mission meant taking the Roman rite to other parts of the world regardless of the local cultural connotations. During that millennium, not a single new rite was allowed by the pope. Yet, as long as the Roman rite is compulsory worldwide, inculturation will only be cosmetic and folkloristic.
A TRAUMATIC BLOCKAGE
Governance is an important component of inculturation. The second millennium marked the rise and ongoing development of the Roman Curia as a powerful means of control and imposition; the sound autonomy of the local Churches almost disappeared. The incomplete theology of the sacrament of ordination of bishops, fully clarified only by Vatican II, had a serious bearing on it. No wonder, therefore, that the first four ecumenical councils of the millennium were held in the Palace of Lateran, the residence of the Pope.
The second grave blow of the millennium to inculturation occurred in 1517 with the separation of Nordic Europe from the Latin Church of Rome to the Protestant Movement. Even in this drama, the main reasons were cultural, political, financial and governance rather than theological. The great communion Jesus prayed for was once more shattered for cultural reasons, wrapped in theological and juridical visions which did not bear that pluralism which is at the core of Catholicism. On top of this, add the confusion between faith and culture, and faith and religion. It was impossible to conceptualize unity in diversity, only unity in uniformity. When diversity was emerging, the protagonists were excluded from the communion in the church. Phenomena such as the inquisition, the crusades in Europe against the heretics, the controversy of the Chinese rite and parallels in other regions are indicators of a traumatic blockage vis-à-vis of inculturation which lasted until Vatican II, particularly the Ecumenical Council which laid the conditions for a new era.
THE RECOGNITION OF DIVERSITY
The two main theological highlights of the Ecumenical Council with a strong bearing on inculturation are: the relationship between the Church and the world and the rediscovery of the theology of the local Church. All other important documents such as the one on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, on Revelation Dei Verbum, and on Mission Ad Gentes will have a real impact only if framed and cemented in the above- mentioned theological highlights. Let us start with the relationship between the Church and the world amply treated not only in Gaudium et Spes but also in Nostra Aetate and in Dignitatis Humanae.
The Church sees the world as the interlocutor par excellence to engage and to be challenged in the journey towards the fullness of the future for all humanity: the Kingdom of God. The world is identified with creation; the Church accepts the world with its immense pluralism, diversity and autonomy. The world should not be absorbed in the Church; the world means the state, civil society, science, culture, environment, etc. The members of the Church are integral part of the world with their own mentality, history, science, political organizations, cultures and so forth. In Gaudium et Spes, cultures are recognized with their own identity, values and limitations.
Nostra Aetate complements Gaudium et Spes by asserting the unique importance of all religions and therefore the deep respect of the Church for all of them. It is not possible to respect cultures without respecting religions which are at the very core of cultures! The great challenge related to this is that the Church pursues the conversion of all to Christ Jesus which seems to include the end of all non-Christian religions. How do we combine into one homogeneous and logical vision these two elements which seem to contradict one another: respect for cultures on one side and, on the other, commitment to their ‘regeneration’ by changing radically their core that is their religious identity through conversion to Christ? Evangelii Nuntiandi tries to elaborate an answer (nn.17-21) but the challenge is far from being properly met.
The other great pillar of Vatican II as far as inculturation goes is the theology of the local Churches. First of all, the recognition of the local Churches by the Roman Church in Orientalium Ecclesiarum with their own rites, language, liturgy, canon law, spirituality and theology, all of them were in the first millennium. To understand exactly what local Church means, Orientalium Ecclesiarum is crucial because it recognizes as valid and legitimate those local Churches. It is theologically far richer. Chapter III of Ad Gentes is completely dedicated to the local Church. These two documents are to be complemented with Lumen Gentium’s Chapter 3, with the formal recognition of episcopacy as the apex of the sacrament of ordination whereby, in a given local church, the bishop is seen as the direct representative of Christ. Without this theological vision of episcopacy, no real local Church would be possible and, therefore, inculturation would be unattainable. With this theological opening set by Vatican II, a new chapter in inculturation has started.
FULLY AFRICAN AND CHRISTIANS
I arrived in Africa (Uganda) for the first time in June 1971, two years after the first trip of Pope Paul VI at the end of July 1969. On that occasion, he launched in Kampala two great slogans. The first: Be fully Christians − be fully Africans. And the other: Africans, be missionaries to yourselves. It was not easy then and it is not easy now to pass from the slogans to full application and implementation of the message. Both slogans are fully in line with inculturation. The first advocates a deep encounter between Christian faith and the African identity encapsulated into the many cultures of the continent. The second recognizes the maturity of African Christians to take the lead of the apostolate in the continent. The pope recognized that the encounter between the African world and Christian faith had reached that level of maturity which allows sound and fruitful apostolate.
The pope was consistent with his convictions expressed in the two slogans by inaugurating local structures of support thereby promoting local governance. SECAM (Symposium Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) was the umbrella governance structure for all the continents with headquarters in Ghana. With this decision, Paul VI made a great step forward in decentralizing the Catholic Church: the local Churches of all continents had their own local governance structures with a great financial investment. The process went even further: the continents were divided into ecclesial zones in order to render governance more efficient and speedy. Africa, for example, was divided into nine ecclesial zones. Nairobi, where I am writing this article, was part of AMCECA zone which included Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and five other surrounding countries.
Unfortunately, this promotion of local governance through the process of decentralization of the Roman Curia and through the empowerment of the continental Churches was reversed later during the Pontificate of John Paul II. The continental synods could retrieve the path opened by Paul VI in obedience to Vatican II if theologically understood and organized in a different way. That is, the local Churches of each continent are to be at the head of the process of preparation and dissemination of the synod by using the local governance structures already in place. Moreover, it would be better to celebrate each continental synod in the respective continent and not in Rome.
THE ROLE OF INDEPENDENCE
The word inculturation was formerly accepted in a Vatican document Catechesis Tradendae (no. 53), in 1978 even though the concept was amply debated and accepted in the Synod of Bishops on Evangelization in 1974. The debate was propelled by African bishops who, in a famous memorandum to the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, insisted that the terms aggiornamento and adaptation of Christianity to local cultures were inadequate and proposed the word inculturation. This concept would have expressed in far better way the process of the encounter between the Christian faith and human cultures. The African bishops with their own peoples emerged from the first decade of independence of Africa in the sixties. Such a political event was declared by John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (no. 38) as a sign of the times. An expression which means a social event with highly theological value, a kind of revelation of God’s will for a particular time and place and, therefore, it has a kind of mandatory component for the Church and for the world.
Attaining independence, though a highly political event, had a great cultural component. Independence, in other words, urged the world and the Church to take cultures far more seriously than ever before during the colonial time. Independence, though primarily a political event, had a strong cultural dimension as well, otherwise the identity of the different countries would have been jeopardized.
Independence laid the emphasis on local leadership, hence local governance: it accelerated tremendously the Africanization of leadership in the state, in civil society and in the Church. When Mozambique in 1975 gained independence and the first African bishops were consecrated, Samora Machel, in the speech to honor the occasion, reminded the newly- elected Mozambican bishops that their election was due to him who had fought for the independence of the country.
He had a very strong point! The local political leadership forced, in a sense, the Church to replace the expatriate leadership with a local one and to accelerate the training of local ministers. There is no doubt then that the independence of Africa was a major event in the process of inculturation from the point of view of governance.
SAINTS AND SCIENCE
No wonder, therefore, that Paul VI, in his above-mentioned visit to Uganda, ordained 14 African bishops. After that celebration, he went to Namugongo, the shrine of the 22 Ugandan Martyrs who were declared saints on 18th October 1964 by the same pope. He went to pay homage to their relics and to the different sites of their martyrdom. A saint is the triumph of the Gospel in a person, the recognition of successful inculturation: fully African and fully Christian. The Ugandan Martyrs didn’t have time to be westernized; they didn’t have time even to pass from the basic kerygma to a full-fledged catechesis as required by a formally-organized catechumenate. All of them were lay persons such as Blessed Victoria Rasoamanarivo from Madagascar and Isidore Bakanja from Democratic Republic of Congo. Without saints, inculturation would remain at the level of theological speculation. The apex of inculturation occurs in human beings, particularly the saints who are guided by the Holy Spirit and enlightened by the Gospel message in their own concrete circumstances of life.
For this reason, the call of John Paul II to all local Churches in all continents to keep the memory of the saints, primarily of the martyrs, had great value from the standpoint of inculturation. The invitation implied the investment of energy and finances in promoting a collection of data in a systematic, critical and scientific way. Inculturation has a strong scientific component.
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY THEOLOGY
In 1977 in Dar es Salaam, the theologians of the Third World founded an association named EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians). It was an important date for inculturation in all young Churches of the south of the world. They spelled out as well what type of theology they were talking about − a theological reflection on Christian experiences in different continents. A theology remarkably different from the European one traditionally taught in seminaries which hardly had any reference to daily life and new historical emerging situations. The theology advocated by them had to be highly interdisciplinary with explicit references not only to philosophical concepts but secular sciences as well such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, politics and so forth.
A theology without these points of contact with human life, wrapped up in a kind of ivory tower, would have been totally irrelevant and ultimately useless both to Christian communities and to the civil society. Inculturation has a lot to do with relevance vis-à-vis the daily problems vexing human beings of today according to the continents they live in. Since theological reflection is vital for the evangelizing task of the Church and in the process of inculturation, the African Synod underlined the importance of promoting centers of research and of higher studies: “Catholic universities and higher institutes in Africa have a prominent role to play in the proclamation of the salvific Word of God. They are signs of the growth of the Church insofar as their research integrates the truths and experiences of the faith and helps internalize them” (Church in Africa, no. 103).
INEVITABLE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
Another sign of the inculturation of the Christian message is the impact that it has for the social transformation of the society of a given continent. It means effective promotion of human rights, justice and peace, integrity of creation, governance and reconciliation. The social teaching of the Church at universal level is through the encyclicals of the popes and the statements of Pontifical Councils, such as the one for Justice and Peace and of the other for Relationship with Culture; and at the local level, through the interventions of the Episcopal Conferences at continental, regional and national levels. The link between inculturation and social transformation hasn’t been sufficiently underscored particularly in Africa, where inculturation has been relegated mostly to the realm of the liturgy.
Yes! One of the signs of weak inculturation is the scandalous divorce between faith and political life, faith and ethnicity, faith and boundless corruption at all levels of public and private life, touching all institutions such as the state, civil society and religious denominations. Without such an inculturation, as an outstanding Catholic African politician Julius Nyerere stated in the sixties, the Africans will little by little lose interest in religion. Very inspiring reflections from this point of view are found in a famous book of a Noble Prize laureate: Albert Luthuli, killed by the apartheid regime in South Africa in a fake road accident in 1961. The tile of the book is: Let My People Go.
Let me conclude with a quotation from the African Synod: “The Synod considers inculturation an urgent priority in the life of particular Churches, for a firm rooting of the Gospel in Africa. It is a requirement for evangelization, a path towards full evangelization, and one of the greatest challenges of the Church in the continent on the eve of the third millennium” (Church in Africa, no. 59).
