Introduction

From a comprehensive understanding of culture we move on to focus our attention on Inculturation, a word not easily met with except in post-Vatican II documents. A similar word “enculturation” was familiar with cultural anthropologists. Enculturation was introduced into theology by Pierre Charles. But it was Fr. J. Masson who first coined the phrase inculturated Catholicism in 1962. I remember him using this term often in our Missiology classes in Rome. Julian Saldanha says, “According to Y. Congar, the term “inculturation” was coined in Japan.[1]

The term inculturation is a loaded one. It stands for all what we know about incarnation of the Word and about culture. Seriously taken both incarnation and culture are beyond our human capacity to understand them exhaustively. Limiting ourselves to inculturation we may say summarily that it is the process of giving birth to “culturally rooted Churches, rooted in the life and culture of the people.” It is to plant a Church and attentively seeing and caring for its growth through different phases of its maturity. It is a process humanly speaking will never end except in Eternity. Here we must affirm that to plant a Church is much different from transplant a Church, a Church that has grown in another culture or community.

Two citations are very important at this point. The first is from Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi. The other is from John Paul II.

The first, succinct and powerful reads, “The split between Gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time, just as it was of other times. Therefore every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture, or more correctly of cultures. They have to be regenerated by an encounter with the Gospel. But this encounter will not take place if the Gospel is not proclaimed.”[2]

From John Paul II we have the following programmatic utterance. He writes, “a faith that does not become culture is a faith not fully accepted, not thoroughly thought out, not faithfully lived.”[3] This deepest link between faith and culture is brought out by the same John Paul II when he writes in the encyclical Redemptoris Missio, “Through inculturation the Church, for her part, becomes a more intelligible sign of what she is, and a more effective instrument of mission.”[4] We are also told that , “Inculturation is a slow journey, which accompanies the whole missionary life. It involves those working in the Church’s mission ad gentes, the Christian communities as they develop, and the Bishops, who have the task of providing discernment and encouragement for its implementation.”[5]

Before proceeding with the other aspects of Inculturation some brief terminological clarification may be in place.

Adaptation: Adapting the Christian message to make it intelligible and understandable to the people sounds good. At the same time it remains subjective. The term does not express the indissoluble link between Christian message and local culture. Adaptation should make it clear whether it is of the missionary or of the message. It denotes something external.

What applies to adaptation can also be said of other similar terms like accommodation, contextualization (originally referred to theological education in non-western countries) to, indigenization (stresses promotion of local ministries) and localization.

Acculturation:  It denotes contact between cultures (other than one’s own) and the ensuing change. In Anthropology it simply means  culture-contact.

Interculturation: It stresses the interdependence of cultures for mutual enrichment.

Enculturation: It is the process by which an individual becomes part of a given culture.

Incarnation: It is the process specifically of Christian religion. It means God became Man. He was born of the Virgin Mary. Incarnation is the basis and model for inculturration.

Inculturation: It is the process by which a particular Church expresses its faith and life in and through the local culture. Inculturation has to be always accompanied by interculturation (Vincent Anthony). ‘Since every culture is limited both in its vision and expressive resources and no single culture can exhaust the depth of Christian faith, any attempt to live the Christian faith exclusively in one culture restricts its scope and makes the local Church get isolated into a ghetto” (Jose Panadan and Vincent Anthony in Inculturation and Local Church, footnote, 332). It is in the Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae (1979) of John Paul II the term “inculturation” appears for the first time in a major papal document.

 The Process of Inculturation

A genuine understanding of the local Church will always stay with the heart of the Good News. And Inculturation touches the heart of the Gospel. How the Good News takes root in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus is do0ne through a process called inculturation.

In this process there are three factors: first, there is the

Good News. This good news is not in the air, because it reaches man in one cultural form or another. Jesus himself was not someone abstract. He was born a Jew. He lived in Palestine bound by time and space: He was born in a particular year and in a specific place. He was culturally conditioned.  But the Good News he came to communicate helped to transform Jewish culture and all other cultures. In this sense the Good News is not Greek or Aramaic or English. It is what Jesus communicated to us in Aramaic, and we now, in English or in any other language  of the world.

Therefore the effort to separate the core of the Gospel from its cultural expressions or the effort to convey the same (namely, the core  or essence of the Gospel) with others in any language or form or means is a process. This process may take a long time and much energy. It may last one’s whole life too. Paul VI reminded the Church of this life long task when he wrote of the importance of “assimilating the essence of the gospel message and of transposing it, without the slightest betrayal of its essential truth.”[6]

The second factor is the evangelizer himself /herself who has his/her own culture/language/ways and means of communication. Then there is the culture of the community, say the parish community. These various factors have to be seen in the culture of the universal Church which has develop a culture of her own.

Hence when we realize that inculturation has to take place in this scenario of multiple cultures, it becomes a  multi-layered process. The way to go forward through this multi-layered process is DIALOGUE at all levels. And dialogue calls for understanding of culture/s at different levels and in depth along with strengthening the various network of ideas through bringing in the Spirit of Christ through individual and community prayers.

Stages in Inculturation

1. The response of a culture to the first and on-going announcement of the gospel

2. The process by  which the Christian life and message insert themselves into a particular culture

3. The process which makes the message of Christ penetrate a socio-cultural ambient, promoting its genius and values.

These points are summed up forcefully by FABC when it said, “Inculturation consists not only in the expression of the Gospel and the Christian faith through the cultural medium, but includes, as well, experiencing , understanding , and appropriating them through the cultural resources of a people.”[7]  The strong and weighty observation made by David J. Bosch in Transforming Mission is worth citing here:

“The [above] process of inculturation had been so successful in the West in the past, says Bosch, so much so that Christianity had almost become the religious dimension of that culture. In the course of time, unfortunately, Christianity got so highly domesticated by the Western culture that it did not easily allow the gospel to go through the same process in other cultures.”[8]

In its final analysis, the process and the fact of Inculturation clarifies, strengthens and affirms the over all and specific IDENTITY of the local  Church. It realizes more and more its place in the Universal Church. Fr. Pedro Arrupe says it all when throws light on the concept and reality of Inculturation as a central  element  in the reality of evangelization: “Inculturation is the incarnation of Christian life and of the Christian message in aparticular cultural context, in such a way that this experience not only finds expression through elements proper to the culture in question, but becomes a principle that animates, directs and unifies the culture, transforming it and remaking it so as to bring about a new creation.”[9] In the same vein Kavunkal concludes, “ Becoming a local Church through inculturation would thus mean becoming a dynamic, prophetic, and counter cultural presence in the presence of other cultures and religions, which will include transforming the dehumanizing elements in those cultures.”[10] Jesus’ exhortation to be salt of the earth and the light of the world sums as simply as possible the inculturizing effort of any local Church. Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi describes concretely what should be the result  of a Church that is inculturizing and inculturated.  The process of inculturation affects through the power of the Gospel “…people’s criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of God and the plan of salvation.”[11]

To conclude this reflection on the process, stages and content of Inculturation it is good to cite fully the simple but convincing words of Samuel Rayan and Parmananda Divakar.

Rayan writes, “ The faith falls like a seed  into the folds and furrows of every new historical situation –a new culture, a new age, new society, and new religious conceptions and sensitivities. There it dies and rises to new existence; and the sapling draws sustenance from the milieu, builds itself up with the human and religious that is there, and waxes strong in God’s light and air without let or hindrance. The faith will bear its own flower and fruit, but in terms of the light , soil and air with which it builds itself, in terms of the situation and the needs, possibilities and experiences of the people whose faith it is. No living thing frows according to rules written down in a book or orders given from far or near. Life develops from within according to its own inner dynamism. Any pruning found necessary is done  not  for uniformity’s sake but to secure greater fruitfulness, and it is done  by the responsible, believing, reflecting community itself. There can be no question, then of importing or exporting made and canned liturgies, theologies, Church structures and dogmas. These in the process of the communication of the Gospels, have to  keep dying  and rising , sprouting and growing afresh in every locality and every age within the context of concrete needs and challenges…”.

Divarkar  says, “ This is the challenge of inculturation that faces the Church everywhere, whether in areas and communities that have just been evangelized or in the traditionally Christian ones: new ways of  living the faith must be found to satisfy new and more varied needs, arising from new and perhaps strange situations –ways that are rooted in the past but creatively alive to a preent that is so quickly overtaken by the future; hence also, men and women must be found who can trace these ways for others, people who are solidly established in tradition but alive and vibrant to the Spirit as he acts in all the ambiguities of the present hour, opening out into the uncertainties of the future.”

Rayan adds:” A faith or Church which does not grow from seed or sapling, which does not pass through the risks and pains of growing up, but is ready-made and imported, is likely to remain static and sterile.”[12]

After having seen that Inculturation is the best way to allow the Good News take root in the culture (life ) of  a people, we shall have a look at the different milestones of the long journey to “Inculturation”.

Limits of Inculturation

Interculturation

Inculturation is never ready-made. It is a process unending. And the realization that all theologies need one another  -challenging, influencing, invigorating  and encouraging each other.

Today no one works alone. It is applicable also to cultures. Hence Interculturation.

Both inculturation and Interculturation can impact all areas of Christian life.

THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR INCULTURATION

Introduction

CREATION

INCARNATION

REDEMTPION

PENTECOST

Conclusion

The assurance of Jesus “Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Mt 28:20). “Do not be afraid” (Mt 28: 10) is the strength of the missionary as the Church undertakes everything in Her power to make the Gospel Message become the flesh and blood of the believing  community through inculturation.