The Method and Process of Inculturation

Cultures are living realities because they are the ways of life of living human persons. They are inherited but never fixed, ever in motion and experiencing new infusions of life. So, too, is the process of inculturation of faith within a given way of life. That is why it is so necessary that appropriate care be given to nourishing the life of faith within one’s culture.[1]
The relation between the Church and Cultures has developed in many ways in many countries along the history of the Church. Gerald A. Arbuckle, SM divided the Church’s interaction with the Culture in two periods:[2]
- Evangelization and Cultures to Vatican II: from flexibility to in flexibility
- Evangelization and Cultures since Vatican II: ‘inculturation’ re-emerges
In the late nineteenth century, there were efforts to replace the European-centred cultural and individual/soul-oriented model of missionary action. People were now encouraged to reflect on human nature and society as a way of discovering key insights about life and culture, even about the divine nature itself. During this period, the terms ‘adaptation’, ‘accommodation’ and ‘indigenization’ became familiar in missionary writings, together with vigorous written support for the rights of people to maintain their own cultures.
Vatican II gave the foundation for inculturation, even though the term itself emerged in 1970s. Vatican II said that the object of evangelization is the whole person, soul and body.[3] Salvation is not a matter of individual but of community. ‘Evangelizers must raise up congregations of the faithful’ who ‘everyday must become increasingly aware and alive as communities of faith, liturgy and love’,[4] and the oneness of the Catholic Church is understood not as a uniformity but as a fraternity of local churches ‘each of which seeks to give life to universal Church, in accordance with the native genius and traditions of its members’[5]; because God has been active in every culture and there must be ‘a living exchange between the Church and the diverse cultures of people’.[6]
So what is inculturation? It is the dynamic relation between the Christian message and culture or cultures; an insertion of Christian life into a culture; an ongoing process of reciprocal and critical interaction and assimilation between them.[7]
How is the process happening? There are three moments that Arij Roest Crollius mentioned in his 1991 working paper: What is new about Inculturation that can be characterized: as translation, assimilation and transformation. “The entire process of inculturation is one of integration, both in the sense of an integration of the Christian faith and life in a given culture and of the integration of a new expression of the Christian experience in the life of the universal Church.[8] In another paper of “Inculturation,” Following Christ in Mission (1996) Arij Roest gave a little difference of the three stages of inculturation process. The first stage is the translation, a period of learning the values of the new culture; the second stage is the stage of transformation, after having gained sufficient ability in understanding the various elements of the local culture and also a degree of competence in expressing the Christian message on various levels of this culture. This second stage is signified by a long process of discernment, purification and creation of new forms to adequately explain and express elements of the Church’s tradition. The third stage begins with the establishment of a new communion, the communion of the local church with the culture of its people and at the same time this communion opens itself to all humanity.[9] Pope John Paul II gives two basic criteria for inculturation. Inculturation must be “compatible with the Gospel and communion with the universal church.”[10]
What happened in a process of inculturation? Arij Roest makes an analogy between Inculturation and Enculturation. They are different but they have also some similitude. Enculturation is a process of an individual becomes inserted into his own culture. The difference is the individual does not yet have a culture. In inculturation, the Church has already linked with elements of another culture(s). But several points of resemblance in both concepts can help us to see the process of inculturation.
The growth into one’s culture. This is the learning process which a person achieves competence in his culture. For the Church, it is a time for seeking to establish with the people and at the same time to live in virtue of their catholicity.
An ongoing process. A more comprehension of every situation in later life and makes adjustments in ways of thinking and acting. The process continues throughout life with exploration and assimilation that never be said to have reached its fulfillment. A culture is a living reality, in a continuous process of change. The changes that take place in the local culture, in its customs and values, represent new choices for the Church.
Cultural stability and change. In this stage, a man has become accustomed to the basic patterns and values of his own culture. He grows to maturity and now he can confront the new norms and forms of culture that present themselves to him with an increased degree of reflection and a greater freedom of choice. Because he has learned how to function within his culture, he can meet these new situations with a more independent mind.[11]
Richard G. Cote, O.M.I.[12] compares metaphorically the process of Inculturation with what happened in a marriage. Quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, he writes “theology ought to be expressed in a manner that is metaphorical, that is, symbolic or parabolic.”[13] Along with a journey of a marriage He gives the three-phase structure of inculturation that happened in the Catholic Church of America:
The phase of courtship and acceptability. This is the romantic phase when the two individuals accept one another with passionate love and joy. In this phase of the inculturation process, the Church must put aside the fear of ambiguity and syncretism, as well as its insistence on excessive purity in both moral and doctrinal matters.
The phase of Ratification. When two individuals publicly make a public statement about their hope in a future together. In the process of inculturation, this coming together of faith and culture in wedded hope in companionship, helpfulness and obligingness. They will come to discover one another as unique subjects, equal in dignity and equally transcendent. The missionary essence of the church is not to liken faith with religious expediency but to be able to read the signs of God’s Kingdom in its local cultural environment, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Church can be more creative in appreciating the “sacramental connection” between its own liturgy and the cultural life of a given society, between its own symbol system and the mobilizing symbols that gave rise to Culture.
The Phase of Establishment. In this phase the nuptial metaphor suggests marriage as the “sacrament of the church” and the church can be called the “sacrament of the world”. The Church shows the world that God’s grace already operative within it.
In his speech in Hong Kong, Cardinal Ratzinger said, “we should no longer speak of inculturation but of the meeting of cultures or ‘interculturality,’ to coin to a new phase.”[14] If cultures are opened to each other in dialogue, they can be mutually enriched. This “can be only the shared truth about man, which necessarily brings into play the truth about God and reality as a whole.”[15] In and through the dialogue, the diversity of cultures reveals itself as a synthesis of inalienable originality and communicable universality.[16] The activity of dialogue is expressed in many ways. The document Dialogue and Proclamation sums up the principal forms of dialogue.[17]
Bibliography


Arbuckle, Gerald A., Earthing the Gospel, An Inculturation Handbook for Pastoral Worker. Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1990.

Azevedo, Marcello de Carvalho S.J., Inculturation and the Challenges of Modernity. Rome, Pontifical Gregoriana University, 1982.

Costa, Ruy O. (Ed), One Faith, Many Culture. Inculturation, Indigenization, and Contextualization. Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1988.

Cote, Richard G. O.M.I., Re-Visioning Mission, The Catholic Church and Culture in Postmodern America. New York, Paulist Press, 1996.

Flannery, Austin O.P. (Ed), “Liturgy” in Vatican Council II. Collegeville, The Liturgical Press, 1987.

Flannery, Austin O.P. (Ed), “Missionary Activity” in Idem.

Flannery, Austin O.P. (Ed), “The Church in the Modern World” in Idem.

John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, Desember 7, 1990

Karotemprel, S. (Chief Ed.), Following Christ in Mission. Boston, Daughters of St. Paul, 1996.

Ratzinger, Cardinal, “Christ, Faith and the Challenge of Cultures” in Origin, March 30, 1995. p. 679-686.

Roest Crollius, Arij A., (Ed), Building the Church in Pluricultural Asia. Rome, Pontifical Gregoriana University, 1986.

Roest Crollius, Arij A. S.J. and Nkeramihigo, T. S.J., What is so new about Inculturation. Rome, Pontifical Gregoriana University, 1991.

Yuhaus, Cassian, O.P. (Ed), The Catholic Church and American Culture. Mahwah, Paulist Press, 1990.




[1] Donald S. Nesti, C.S.Sp., “Preface” in Cassian Yuhaus, C.P. (Ed), The Catholic Church and American Culture (New York, Paulist Press, 1990) p.viii-ix.
[2] Gerald A. Arbuckle, S.M., Earthing The Gospel (New York, Orbis Books, 1990), p. 9-22.

[3] See “The Church in the Modern World” in Autin Flannery, O.P. (Ed), Vatican Council II (Collegeville, The Liturgical Press, 1992) p. 914.
[4] See “Missionary Activity” ibid, p. 829.
[5] See “Sacred Liturgy” ibid, p. 13-15.
[6] See “The Church in the Modern World” ibid, p. 962-963.
[7] Marcello de Carvalho Azevedo, S.J., Inculturation and the Challenges of Modernity (Roma, Centre “Cultures and Religions” – Pontifical Gregorian University, 1982), p. 11.
[8] Arij Roest Crollius, S.J. “What is so new about Inculturation” (Roma, Centre “Cultures and Religion” – Pontifical Gregorian University, 1991), p. 14.
[9] Arij Roest Crollius, S.J. “Inculturation” in Following Christ in Mission (Boston, Daughters of St. Paul, 1996) p. 152-153.
[10] Redemptoris Missio, 54
[11] Arij Roest Crollius, S.J., “What is so new about Inculturation” – p. 7-13.
[12] Richard G. Cote, Re-Visioning Mission, The Catholic Church and Culture in Postmodern America (New York, Paulist Press, 1996) p. 53-67.
[13] Idem, p. 53. In I Sent. Prol., q.I, a.v.
[14] Cardinal Ratzinger, “Christ, Faith and the Challenge of Cultures” (in Origins, March 30, 1995) p. 681 col. 1.
[15] Idem, p. 681 col. 3.
[16] Arij Roest Crollius, S.J., “Inculturation and the Meaning of Culture” (in What is so new about Inculturation) p. 50.
[17] Marcello Zago, O.M.I., “Interreligious Dialogue” (in Following Christ in Mission), p. 142.