Inculturation - The Gospel In Time & Space

Bulletin Column for March 8, 2020

            It was two thousand years ago that St. Paul stepped into the agora in Athens and gave his famous speech in Acts 17. In it, he referenced all that was good among the Athenian people – most notably, that they were very religious. So religious were they, in fact, that they had a shrine dedicated “To An Unknown God”. Paul used that idea as a launching-point to explain that there IS a God (only one, in fact) and that He has revealed Himself to us in His Son, Jesus.

            This idea of finding what is good in a culture and incorporating the Gospel into it is called inculturation, and it is one of the main themes in the Pope’s latest document on the Church in the Amazon. In it, he recognizes that to be effective evangelists, we must seek to inculturate the Gospel – not to change the essential teachings, but to make it palatable, understandable, and relatable to each and every culture.

            This is not a new idea. St. Justin Marytr (died approx. 150AD) wrote that pagan philosophers contained “seeds of the Word” – hidden elements of truth that point the way to the One Truth. It was controversial in his day, but St. Thomas Aquinas used Aristotle and his logic to explain the Catholic Faith. The Vatican II document “Ad Gentes” (“To the People” – Document on Evangelization) instructs all Catholics:  “In order that they may be able to bear more fruitful witness to Christ, let [believers] be joined to those men [unbelievers] by esteem and love; let them acknowledge themselves to be members of the group of men among whom they live; let them share in cultural and social life by the various undertakings and enterprises of human living; let them be familiar with their national and religious traditions; let them gladly and reverently lay bare the seeds of the Word which lie hidden among their fellows.”

            How inculturation is best accomplished has been the subject of debate in the history of the Church. When Sts. Cyril and Methodius began to evangelize Russia and Eastern Europe in the 800s, they began using Slavic languages in the liturgy. Other missionaries criticized this so strongly that the brothers were instructed to appear in Rome before Pope Nicholas I to explain their evangelization methods. They ended up receiving the Pope’s blessing to inculturate the Gospel in the Slavic language and customs, and were so successful as missionaries that the Orthodox Church gives them the title of “Equal-To-Apostles”.

            In contrast, a Jesuit named Matteo Ricci sought to evangelize China in the mid-1600s. He was extraordinarily successful, converting many nobles, artists, and the ruling class. So well-respected was he that the Emperor paid him a salary as his personal expert on all things Western, such as mapmaking and linguistics. He converted thousands to the Faith, but ran into trouble when he allowed the Chinese to keep certain customs (such as calling God “Tianzhu”, which was a pagan word for “Lord of Heaven”, and permitting Chinese Catholics to continue venerating their ancestors). Were certain Confucian rituals compatible with Christianity? Ricci thought so, but the Pope thought otherwise, and in 1645, the Pope declared that any ritual that originated with Confucianism or Chinese culture was thereby contaminated and must be purged if a Chinese person would become a Catholic. Heartbroken, thousands of Chinese left the Faith, and due to this intransigence, the Church shrank to a miniscule part of the Chinese population.

            (Interestingly, in 1939 the Church re-opened the issue, and Pope Pius XII reversed the decision, allowing Chinese Catholics to participate in some rituals that honored their deceased ancestors and other cultural rituals. But by that time, China was not interested and his decree did not lead to renewed missionary work).

            So how can inculturation be practiced well? First, we must distinguish between what is essential and what is tangential to the Faith. The essentials cannot change. Morality, the Creed, the Scriptures – all of these things make up the Deposit of Faith which is the same in every culture. But there are other things that we associate with the Faith but which are not essential – for example, in tropical countries, most priests don’t wear black but light blue or white clerical shirts!

            This distinction is what caused the recent brouhaha about priestly celibacy. Some wanted to dispense with it entirely, seeing it as an obstacle to true inculturation. Others defended it, saying that while not part of the Deposit of Faith, it is essential for evangelization in the modern world. In his document on the Amazon, the Pope sidestepped the question.

            The other important task of inculturation is to identify those elements of culture which are compatible with Christianity, which are positive goods and serve as preparations for receiving the fullness of the Gospel. For example, Pope Francis praises the Amazon peoples for their strong family bonds and respect for the land, which can be used as preparation for the Gospel. But the key word is “preparation” – we seek to learn from other cultures only so that we can preach the fullness of the Good News with them. Then, the Good News can be incorporated into their culture, purifying it and transforming it. There are elements in every culture that need to be purified, including our own – and the Gospel has the healing power to do this!