The missionary’s acculturation is only the first step. Those hearing the Gospel also need to make it their own. The Gospel is a new reality, which requires those who welcome it to accept changes and to incorporate new values. The missionary proclaiming the Gospel will then help the inculturation which happens to be the process by which a foreign value, alien to a culture, is accepted, reworked and inserted in the host’s culture. Such a process can only be done by people from the host’s culture, especially by people aware of their cultural identity and able to confront the challenges of interculturality.
Inculturation is time–consuming and usually takes place when specific people are able to formulate a synthesis between their cultures, their communication patterns and values that incorporate outside. This is the process that allowed European Christianity engage the Gospel on classical culture. Just think of the work of Thomas Aquinas, who was able to formulate a new theology using tools provided by the Greek–Roman culture. Think of the great painter Giotto, whose paintings influenced all the great artists who followed him. Giotto’s intuition was to recognize the identity of each participant in the scenes he depicted. All individual characters that appear in his works are recognizable and distinct, be they important people or simple folk.
Inculturation does not occur naturally, neither it is simple. It requires preparation and it is time–consuming. This is not to be confused with adaptation. Unfortunately, many local Churches have given space to adapt – especially in the liturgy – and have invested little on the true inculturation.
Missionaries can facilitate the process of inculturation, providing the necessary tools: recovery of the historical memory of the elderly and oral literature, evaluation of the history of a people, of a culture of critical knowledge, knowledge of the local language and its critical analysis. These, and others, are elements that allow us to grasp the structure of a culture and the opportunity to take a step forward with the inclusion of new values. It is a long and tortuous process which takes time and, often, those working on it do not see the end of their work. However, this is a work that needs encouragement and support.
Today, Europe is no longer sending a great number of missionaries around the world. The country with the highest number of missionaries is Korea, while Africa is the continent with more religious personnel working abroad. This shift in the cultural set up of mission brings not only new challenges, but also helps the Church to formulate a new inculturation of the Gospel in today’s world.
