The Challenge of Inculturating the Salesian Charism

in East Asia and Oceania

Fr. Alfred Maravilla, SDB – Paranaque, Manila 2003

1. Etymology of Inculturation¹

It seems that M.J.Herskovits in his work Man and his Works (New York, 1952) has been one who first used this term: “the aspects of learning which mark off man from other creatures, and by means of which, initially and in later life, he achieves competence in his culture, may be called enculturation”. J.Mason, S.J. in the article L’Église ouverte sur le monde in Nouvelle Revue Théologiquê 84 (1962) used the expression un catholicism enculturé. The final statement of the First plenary Assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in Taipei on April 22-27, 1974 spoke of “The local Church is a Church incarnate in a people, a church indigenous and inculturated”. The term gained wider acceptance in the 32^nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus which issued a decree “On promoting the work of inculturation of faith and Christian life” and on the decree on formation. The term used by the Jesuits was the Spanish enculturatión which was translated into Latin, the language of all their documents, as inculturatio. This was subsequently translated into English as inculturation. The term entered into the vocabulary of Pontifical documents when John Paul II used it for the first time in Catechesi Tradendae (n.53).

Before ‘inculturation’ had been widely accepted there were other terms proposed: Acculturation is a sociological concept which became widely used in anthropological sciences. It refers to the contact between groups of individuals having different cultures and the consequent change in the original cultural patterns of either both groups due to this contact with a culture other than one’s own. Enculturation is another technical term in cultural anthropology for indicating the learning experience by which an individual is initiated and grows into his culture. It is synonymous with ‘culture contact’. Indiginisation was not widely accepted since it has a restrictive meaning.

In order to safeguard the reciprocal character of the process wherein Christianity transforms a culture and a particular culture enriches Christianity by interpreting and formulating anew the Christian message Bishop Joseph Blomjous used the term interculturation. Although inculturation is in fact interculturation the term fell into disuse because it was sometimes understood as a mere transfer of faith from one culture to another.

The term inculturation is a term now commonly used in theological circles but one which needs a lot of explanation. It is a neologism and as such it’s meaning and employment has only been standardised towards the end of the 20^th century. It is a theological term generally used to denote the process of ‘living exchange’ or dynamic relationship between Gospel and culture; between the local Church and the culture of its people. The Gospel becomes inserted in a given culture transforming it from within by challenging certain values and cultural expressions. That culture, on the other hand, offers positive values and forms which can enrich the way the Gospel is preached, understood and lived thus enriching Christianity and the Church by interpreting and formulating anew the Christian message.²

It could be rightly stated that inculturation is the process by which "catechesis 'takes flesh' in the various cultures. It is a movement towards full evangelisation.³ It seeks to dispose people to receive Jesus Christ in an integral manner.

Inculturation is not only a blind acceptance of all the values of a culture or an external adaptation or accommodation of the Gospel to a particular culture with the desire to make the Christian message more attractive and superficially decorative. It is clearly a two way process. It is the integration of the Christian experience of a local Church into the culture of its people, in such a way that this experience not only expresses itself in elements of this culture, but becomes a food that animates, orients and innovates this culture so as to create a new unity and communion, not only within the culture in question but also as an enrichment of the Universal Church.⁴ This means that we not only take the religious or neutral elements from the culture, if such elements exist at all, but also those elements which constitute the specific identity of a culture and see how these could be re-interpreted to deepen our understanding of Jesus so as to be able to present him more effectively to the people of that particular culture.⁵

Inculturation, then, is ‘necessary and essential’⁶. It is a delicate task which consists in inserting culturally the Gospel in all levels of ecclesial life: language used in preaching and catechesis, in liturgy, in sacred art, in theological research. Correlatively the evangeliser needs to understand the local culture, know the minds and hearts of the hearer, their values and customs, their problems and difficulties, their hopes and dreams so that the Gospel may be proclaimed in the language and in the culture of its hearers⁷ and offered to all who freely wish to listen and respond with clarity and conviction but respectfully.⁸ This in turn affects the way the Gospel is preached, understood and lived.⁹ It demands too testimony of life, commitment for justice, human promotion and development, ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue because all these are aspects of the work of evangelisation.

Inculturation is not only the task of the Universal Church. The local Church is, in fact, the “locus of inculturation”.¹⁰ She is the primary protagonist¹¹ involving the whole local community of believers under the guidance of the local Pastor. The laity’s role is of paramount importance here because it is they who are called to transform society by infusing the ‘mind of Christ’ into the mentality, customs, and traditions of the society they live in.¹²

Although the real agents of inculturating the Gospel are those who belong to the culture itself, inculturation becomes more effective if the insider (local person) and the outsider (missionary) work together because the insider has a perspective that an outsider does not have while an outsider sees the result and consequences of the change advocated which an insider may not fully foresee. The more the local Church is inculturated into the local culture the more it enriches the universal Church.

Since people change, evidently culture evolves. Inculturation, therefore, can hardly ever be said to be definitely achieved. It is a difficult, long, courageous and continuous process which is but the fruit of a progressive maturity in the faith.¹³ It is a slow process which takes time¹⁴ and implies patience and guidance.¹⁵

In her work of evangelisation the Church must respect every culture and must not ask people to renounce it.¹⁶ Inculturation, however, can never compromise the Christian message Gospel. Since the Gospel is all about metanoia, that is, conversion or change of heart, if therefore the Gospel enters a culture and it changes nothing, there is no real inculturation. Once the Gospel enters a culture that culture must undergo metanoia at its most profound level. The change that takes place as a result of this encounter does not destroy a culture. Instead it purifies and elevates it¹⁷. A particular culture is prompted to open itself to the newness of the Gospel’s truth which responds to every human person’s profound longing for the Absolute and be stirred by this truth to develop in new ways to attain the fullness of life.¹⁸

In fact inculturation implies purification of certain values, rites, traditions, practices that are contrary to the Gospel. Culture is a product of the human person who has been stained by original sin. Cultures could be sinful and destructive. They could be cultures of death rather than of life. It must do away with all that is not worthy of humanity in its traditions, all that is a consequence of accumulated guilt and social sin. In every culture then, there are elements of sin that need to be healed, ennobled and perfected.¹⁹ In certain cases which are considered as anti-Gospel' It is important to grasp the 'value' people see in them in order to bring about the necessary metanoia. Our premise is that people insists on doing things or keeping a practice because they see a value in it.

Stages of Inculturation

The inculturation process has 3 stages. The first stage in the process of inculturation consists in the Christian life and message becoming present within a given culture. Normally it coincides with first proclamation, primary evangelisation and the formation of a group of faithful in a given cultural area.

The second stage of the process occurs when the local Church has gained sufficient ability in understanding the various elements of the local culture. This begins the stage of transformation, meaning the effects of evangelisation are now becoming evident. If transformation is integrally faithful to the tradition of the faith, if it is meaningful and comprehensible to the modern language, to modern culture, then it is already by itself a new thing either in relation to tradition or to the new culture created.

The work of transformation presumes a profound knowledge of the culture which comes in contact with the Gospel so that an authentic discernment may take place in such work.

The third stage begins with the establishment of a new communion of the local Church with the culture of its people, then with the whole of humanity and with the Universal Church. The stage of communion enriches the whole Church because the variety of manners of expressing and living the faith are integrated in unity and communion which is expressed not in uniformity but in legitimate pluralism.

2. Christological Model of Inculturation²⁰

The incarnation and the whole paschal mystery both serve as the perennial model of inculturation. The incarnation cannot be viewd separately from the paschal mystery. A clearer and more accurate picture of the incarnation emerges when we use as model the whole paschal mystery of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection. The Church inserts herself into a the different cultures. The pre-pauline Christological hymn quoted by Paul in his letter to the Philippians (Phil.2, 6-11) presents to us a parabolic pattern: Through his kénosis the divine Logos descends to take human form and because of his humility is exalted as Lord. The hymn underlines that through this kénosis the divine Logos, in taking the inferior human nature, not only abandoned divine majesty and honour due to him but he also accepted to live a life of obedience, of humiliation and of suffering, revealing to us the truth and making visible the glory of the Father. He took on human form to bring salvation to all.

Because of his kénosis Jesus Christ will receive his glory. But he will receive this glory only when he returns to the presence of the Father which will ultimately be the result of the agony of the Cross. Like Christ’s kénosis inculturation itself is not the end. It is but the preparation of the humus so that the mystery of salvation, realised in Christ, may be effectively announced to all. It is a slow and arduous process. But it is the only way to glorification; the only way to purify every culture and render it open to Life.²¹

The dignity of the human person is rooted in this very incarnation of the divine Logos, revealing to us the mystery of our won existence.²²Through the incarnation of the divine Logos, inserting himself into humanity united himself to each person, raising him to sublime dignity and introducing him to the life of the Trinity. Hence, the person of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is the point of departure in the work of evangelisation because he is our salvation and in him each person finds the answer to the mystery of his own existence. He illumines the reality of humanity because by revealing the mystery of God and of his love Christ reveals man to man.²³

Like the kenosis of Christ, inculturation is insertion. Christ renewed fallen humanity from within by making himself part of it. Just like Christ who incarnated himself into a specific culture and milieu, missionaries too must immerse themselves in the cultural milieu of those whom they are sent, moving beyond their cultural limitations and striving to make the Gospel incarnate in different cultures.

Inculturation is also introduction. By incarnating himself Jesus introduced us into the life of the Trinity. By inculturating herself the Church introduces peoples, together with their cultures, into her own community.

Inculturation implies too adaptation. The purpose of the incarnation is compared to the Son of God taking human flesh and adopting human culture as a necessary concomitant of his human nature. The model presented here is Christ’s own inculturation, his own cultural education as a first century Jew of Galilee. He expressed himself through the Jewish culture. He lived their way of life. On the other hand this solidarity was necessary for the spread of the Good News. This is also true of the Church. Inculturation is a necessity if we are to continue Christ’s mission. “With the same thrust with which Christ himself, by his incarnation, bound himself to the particular social and cultural conditions of the people among whom he lived”.²⁴

3. Types of Inculturation²⁵

Inculturation ad intra refers to the different forms in which the Christian community expresses, teaches, celebrates and lives the faith in a particular culture. The four main areas are spirituality, discipline, theological reflection and catechesis and Liturgy. In this type of inculturation importance is accorded to liturgical inculturation especially the Eucharist which is the beginning and end of the preaching of the Gospel, the font and summit of evangelisation.

Inculturation ad extra means the penetration of the Christian experience into a particular culture, promoting dialogue among cultures, facilitating dialogue with attitudes of veracity, patience and trust. The area of inculturation is the entire human culture. This type of inculturation tries to create conditions for mutual esteem, of reciprocal trust and clarity in ones fidelity to the truth so that in the encounter of cultures each one could commit oneself to give one’s very best. Similarly it stimulates the cultures to open themselves to the newness of the Gospel truth and to find in it an incentive for future development. This type of inculturation penetrates the Christian experience into a particular culture creating a living exchange between Gospel and culture: the Gospel is incarnated into local cultures while these cultures are introduced into the life of the Church. The Christian community becomes then capable of contributing in a unique manner to the creation of new expressions of their own culture which are closer to the ideals of the Gospel and to Christian life. This type of work presupposes certain criteria of discernment so as to be able to single out in the culture those elements which are evangelical and those which are opposed to the Gospel. Among the new areas needing inculturation ad extra are bioethics, ecology, science, art and leisure, family and education. ²⁶

In inculturating the faith there are certain principles to be kept in mind:

1. Distinguish faith and Culture. First identify the item. What is it really? It is important to identify what the 'issue' is. Then ask how Jesus would relate to this and what does Tradition say about it. The fact is that there is no cultureless Christianity and never a yet fully Christian Culture. The Christian faith is therefore, never culturally neutral. Much of our practices in Christianity are tied up with our cultural traditions. Often time the elements of a local society denounced by the catechist were those in variance with the values and traditions of the catechist, but may not have been in variance with the Gospel message. It is often hard to separate essential Christian principles from one’s own cultural expression of these very principles.

On the one hand faith is not a product of any culture because its origin is God’s grace. It cannot identify itself exclusively with a particular culture. On the other hand the Gospel is said to be truly incarnated only if the local people develop their own cultural forms for expressing their new found faith in Christ.

2. Discover Original Biblical and Dogmatic Meanings from the cultural forms of the Bible and the historical context of the dogmas. In the Old Testament God revealed his universal salvific plan to the Jews in a language they could understand, using the cultural forms and expressions of the Near East cultures. He started from where the people were embedded in their own culture. On the other hand it is important to remember that ‘the Gospel message cannot be purely and simply isolated from the culture in which it was first inserted (the biblical world or more concretely the cultural milieu in which Jesus of Nazareth lived), nor, without serious loss, from the cultures in which it has already been expressed down the centuries; it does not spring spontaneously from any cultural soil; it has always been transmitted by means of an apostolic dialogue which inevitable becomes part of a certain dialogue of cultures’.²⁷

3. Communicate Biblical and dogmatic meanings in a way which ensures the maximum transfer of meaning which is as close as possible to their original meaning. The Scriptures, Tradition and the Magisterium aid us in understanding the original biblical meanings and dogmatic definitions. It is important to remember that since the Gospel is always inculturated in the culture of the catechist, hence every Gospel proclamation always passes through the cultural screen of the catechist before it reaches the catechised. This is minimised if the catechist consciously tries to free the Gospel from these while at the same time using the cultural forms of the catechised.

4. Ultimate Goal of Inculturation

Inculturation has no other goal than helping every human person, of different cultures to mature in his faith so as respond more fully to God’s own self-revelation. We can say that our faith is mature if it has taken root in the matrix of our being so that we may truly believe and love as Christians rooted in the authentic values ones our own cultural traditions. But for this to happen, the Gospel must be presented with tools, methods and expressions coming from the cultures themselves. This is what we mean by inculturated faith, a faith that is transmitted and expressed through our people’s culture or cultures. ²⁸

For Salesians in East Asia and Oceania

Though the term inculturation itself is not found in the Constitutions one article speaks of the need for every Salesian missionary to make his own the values of these people and shares their hopes and anxieties.²⁹

On the contrary the constitutional texts seem to express great concern regarding unity in essential content of formation and di­versified in its concrete expressions because Don Bosco’s charism ac­cepts and develops whatever is true, noble and just in the various cultures.³⁰ It also points out the need for young Salesians to interact with the prevailing culture, so as to help them to a progressive integration of faith, cul­ture and life.³¹

While there is this obvious absence of the term inculturation there is a prevailing concern in the Constitutions that formation given to young Salesians be ‘inculturated' especially into the realities faced by young people (la realtà giovanile). This leap from inculturazione giovanile to inculturation referred to in this article is presumed because the Salesian can only help young people in an intelligent and critical manner if he is rooted in the present day realities faced by people living in a particular culture.³² Called to incarnate himself among youth of a particular place and culture, the Salesian stands in need of a formation that reaches him in his very roots and in the frame of reference he bears within himself.³³

In Asia

In the light of Ecclesia in Asia Salesians in Asia are challenged as well to inculturate the values, substance and typical expressions of Don Bosco’s Charism and spirituality in this vast continent and point out the various ways of living the one Salesian vocation. ³⁴

The presentation of Don Bosco needs a pedagogy so that young people and young Salesians are introduced step by step³⁵ to his charism. Initially Don Bosco could be presented using images of Don Bosco that would be intelligible to Asian minds and cultures should be used: a teacher, a spiritual guide, the compassionate friend of the poor youth, one who loved young people and gave his life for them, the Good Shepherd. In this presentation Narrative methods akin to Asian cultural forms could be used.

A subsequent deeper study of the life and times of Don Bosco using the evocative pedagogy using stories, parables and symbols so characteristic of Asian methodology in teaching should follow.

The personal contact with the life and work of a Salesian community touches the heart of the young person and makes him desire to be part of Don Bosco’s work.

It is important that the style, methods and programmes of initial and on-going formation are adapted to the cultural contexts of Asia. Salesian spirituality should be expressed using elements of spirituality and prayer akin to the Asian soul.³⁶

The Salesian community would only become a witnessing community if its style of life is perceived to be genuinely religious characterised by what the followers of other religions consider to be of great value: prayer, asceticism, renunciation, detachment, humility, simplicity and silence.³⁷

An attitude of dialogue as an expression of amorevolezza is an important ingredient in inculturating the Salesian charism in Asia. To a great extent in implies openness to inter-religious dialogue and in many cases also ecumenical dialogue. It is important that these be integral parts of the Salesian formation plan. In most cases the Oratory or the playground of the salesian school becomes the ordinary setting for Dialogue of life and Dialogue of action.³⁸

In Oceania

Similarly in the light of Ecclesia in Oceania Salesians in Solomon Islands, Samoa, PNG, Fiji and Australia are challenged to inculturate the values, substance and typical expressions of Don Bosco’s Charism and spirituality in this part of the Pacific and point out the various ways of living the one Salesian vocation.

In many parts of Oceania life is often seen as a journey that one has to walk through. Christian life is often presented as an invitation to walk the road of discipleship. Salesian life then could be presented as walking together with the formators on a journey on the road to discipleship according to the way of life traced out by St. John Bosco.

Though foreign missionaries reached parts Oceania as early as the sixteenth century³⁹ the Church sees herself with a twofold challenge: Proclaim the Gospel to traditional religions and cultures as in most cases and to secularised societies of Australia and New Zealand⁴⁰. There is an urgent need to express the values, substance and typical expressions of Don Bosco’s Charism and spirituality using cultural forms and expressions found in traditional cultures, and in the case of Australia, of a secularised society.

The history of the Church in Oceania is largely a history of the missionary work of countless religious women and men.⁴¹ Hence the Salesian charism ought to be lived in Oceania outlining its missionary dimension expressed in forms proper of our charism like catechesis, education, first proclamation and the means of social communication.⁴²

Since many churches and ecclesial communities have been present side by in many places ecumenism is a way of life in most parts of Oceania. Unfortunately fundamentalists groups have come in to proselytise. It is important, then that Ecumenism⁴³ as well as New Apologetics⁴⁴ be an integral part of the Salesian formation plan. In most cases, like in Asia, the Oratory or the playground of the Salesian school becomes the ordinary setting for Dialogue of life and Dialogue of action among young people from different churches and ecclesial communities.

The Salesian community could only be a credible witness in Oceania if it becomes an expression of the Church as communion:⁴⁵ It is a community that fosters collaborative ministry among the members of the Educative-Pastoral Community and the members Salesian Family. It is an evangelising community because it is rooted in prayer and interior life⁴⁶ born of constant listening to God’s Word through Lectio Divina either in private or in groups.⁴⁷

Conclusion

Indeed the process of inculturating the values, substance and typical expressions of our spirituality and Salesian Charism into the cultures of our East Asia and Oceania region is a lengthy and difficult one It is a slow journey which accompanies the whole of our salesian life. It is not a matter of purely external adaptation. In fact the process is thus a profound and all-embracing one ⁴⁸

The inculturation of the Salesian Charism needs to be guided and encouraged, but not forced, lest it give rise to negative reactions among local and expatriate Salesians.⁴⁹ In fact it cannot be but an expression of the Salesian community's vocational maturity, and not exclusively the result of erudite research.