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"LINKING INCULTURATION AND THE CHURCH'S SOCIAL TEACHING"

“But why don’t they show respect when I’m reading the Gospel?

That was the question I put to some elders in an outstation where I was celebrating one of my first Masses with the Tonga people near Monze many years ago.  Freshly arrived from the USA, I was surprised and puzzled to note that people sat when I was proclaiming the Gospel and didn’t look at me.  That didn’t seem to me to be very respectful!  At least back in the USA we all stood up very straight and looked very directly when the priest read the Gospel

Then one of the elders informed me, gently but firmly, that we weren’t back in the USA (!) and the way the Tonga people here showed respect when someone important was speaking to them was to sit on the ground with diverted eyes.  It would be highly disrespectful to stand up in front of someone important who was addressing the people with something important and stare straight at them!

So I learned very quickly that the value was respect, but how it was shown differed in different cultures.  My first of many lessons in “inculturation.”

Since that Sunday, I’ve often reflected on that lesson, and it has helped me move, slowly and cautiously but with delight, into the challenging world of inculturation.  Recently I have been reflecting on how inculturation relates to the other world I move in, the world of the church’s social teaching (CST).  Let me share with you a few ideas that seem to me to show a link between inculturation and the lessons of the CST.

First, good inculturation – enabling Zambians to have a faith that is genuinely Christian and also authentically African -- certainly means respect for human dignity, the foundation stone of all the CST.  All people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and God was certainly active in the lives of the Africans before the missionaries came.  It would be highly disrespectful of human dignity to overlook this fact and to presume that Christianity could only be received and practiced in a “European way.”  Good inculturation means respect for human dignity.

Second, CST emphasises, building on the foundation of human dignity mentioned above, the set of human rights, both political-legal and economic-social-cultural.  It isn’t simply United Nations or African Union declarations that present us with a list of human rights.  No, it is primarily the scriptural Word of God and the reflection on that Word that is the CST.  On important right people have is the right to preserve their culture – language, customs, rituals, thought patterns, etc. – as they continually purify it with their basic human values.  Inculturation – especially, for example, in theologies  -- surely needs the purification also of prayer, scripture and the insights of the wider Christian community.  But the starting point is always to recognise the right to culture.

Third, culture in Africa (one should properly say, “cultures,” since there are many, many diverse parts of Africa and hence diverse cultures!) is especially the rich possession of the poor.  I mean the economically poor, who frequently have no greater possessions than the traditions, proverbs, stories, song, dance, art, and language passed on to them by ancestors both alive and dead.  So the CST theme of a preferential option for the poor should make us particularly sensitive to the culture of the people with whom we share the Good News.  To damage that culture by ignorance, submersion, ridicule or distortion is surely an offense against the poor, those for whom God has special love.

Fourth, a strong lesson of the CST around the world is subsidiarity, the requirement that what can be decided and done at the local level should be decided and done there and not at a higher level.  This principle has not only political and economic consequences but also religious demands in the area of inculturation.  For example, unless there is a particularly strong reason to refer an African inculturation practice to higher authorities outside the African context, then the necessary decisions should be made closer to home.  An example of where this principle was ignored was the necessity to submit for approval a local language translation of the Bible – worked on for many years by the very best local experts in scriptural studies, language analysis and cultural sensitivities – to a Vatican office where no one spoke that language or knew anything about the place where it was spoken!

Fifth, I believe that good inculturation is a way of strengthening the important CST value of solidarity, or the recognition of the strong interdependence – ethical as well as empirical – of people around the world.   At first glance, this might appear contradictory.  Doesn’t a respect for local cultures fracture rather than build solidarity? Certainly not, not when we understand true solidarity not as a blending or amalgamation of peoples into one global whole but an interconnectedness of authentic and respected individuals and communities.  Surely, this task of inculturation is important these days when globalisation of culture comes increasingly to mean “westernization” or, worse, “Americanisation”!  Solidarity is more “solid” when unique cultures are respected and promoted.

What do you, from your experience and prayer, think of this framework of linking inculturation with the social teaching of the church, especially here in Zambia these days?

[Pete Henriot, S.J., works with the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, Lusaka, and serves in a local language outstation outside Lusaka.  E-mail:  phenriot@zamnet.zm]

14-11-04