People's Edit
Our Culture and the Gospel Encounter
Opinion | People's Edit | Joseph M Thohrii | 15-Nov-2020
Introduction
Since early human civilisations, there has always been feeling of awe towards the supernatural being, and human beings had always been curious and interested to understand this phenomenon and wanted to relate life to this reality or being. In some way or the other, human beings were also drawn towards this powerful and unquenchable force. The quest and search to understand the phenomenon continues even to this day, and in order to unravel this mystery of the mysteries, we can peep into our culture and our Gospel encounter, paving the way for the Christianization of our societies.
Our Culture and Religion
Culture is a way of life, and both culture and religious beliefs are inseparable from one another, therefore form intrinsic part of any human civilisation. Two thousand years ago, God send his only begotten son into this world in human form, giving Him birth in a particular culture so that His life could be viewed from a human context. Since then, God took human culture seriously. He revealed himself through human words and events and finally became human being like us. For this reason there is a renewed vigour and interest among human being to study the culture and its encounter with the Gospel. We must remember that it is not through freedom of choice that we were born into a particular tribe, culture or place, nor are we held responsible for it. But in any given context, culture or situation, we have the freedom to try and understand how our culture and the Gospel have entwined and complemented each other so inexplicably. However, despite this indisputable reality, people at times mistook embracing Christianity as a step towards abandoning one’s own culture and ways of life, which indeed is a needless fear, driven by ignorance. Therefore, our responsibilities as individual and also as members of a particular culture is to learn to appreciate these cultural ethos, practices, customs and conventions in the light of Christ, whom God sent 2000 years ago, rather than considering them as impractical for Christian faith, therefore abandon them, as some people would like us to believe. It wouldn’t be wrong to state that God’s self-revelation and human response to it can only take place within the context of a culture. In other words, human beings can understand revelation better if the Gospel is approached through the prism of own culture, and respond in a manner a culture would approach other aspects of life. In fact, it is because of this realisation that people have now began to discount the old mind-set about accepting Christianity being equated to giving up one’s own culture and beliefs. Instead, there is increasing effort to inculturate not only externally - music, worship, art, architecture of place of worship etc., but internally too. There is serious attempt to route the Gospel via peoples’ culture and beliefs without diluting or distorting the latter, which indeed is a welcome trend. This implies two aspects- Identification (enhancing life giving elements) and Contestation (transforming the life denying elements). It is a process through which the Gospel enters through culture and transform from within, because the idea of God in our culture is symmetrically aligned to what it is in Christianity.
Inculturation in Society
Another area of inquiry would be to examine how far inculturation has impacted on our society. In doing so, we find that the effort to infuse Gospel through our cultures have also led to our culture undergoing a great deal of transformation, but more in the form of adjustments to be able to receive Christian faith. This transformation however, is different from the old mind-set where one was expected to shun own culture and tradition and transformed oneself into a western culture mould while accepting Christianity. The change that we see is more in the form of harmonising the passage of the Gospel through own system so that the word of God is understood by all people, young and old, men and women, rich and poor without the need to westernise, but accepting the faith through own culture and understanding the Gospel in one’s own language. It would however be only fair to say that the effort to inculturate is far for achieving its fulfilment. The effort would be said to have achieved the objective only when it is able to take account of the cries of the poor, marginalized, exploited, the weak, discriminated and end Tribalism, Communalism, unrest and violence. In other words, it would mean eradicating the social, cultural, religious, economic and political inconsistencies to weed out injustice, enslavement, exploitation and discrimination in societies, which may take many more years.
Conclusion
The life of our people should be based on the Gospel values such as love, peace, justice, dignity and equality. These truths must enter into the system of every human person with the awareness that we are all God’s children. This understanding must be the guiding principle of our lives. Culture touches the very core of our existence and it is here as Christians we got to give Christ absolute primacy, so that we can encounter Christ through our own culture, our own context and situation and most importantly in our own unique ways. As a quote from an Anonymous goes, “The greatest Romance is falling in love with Jesus, the greatest Adventure is seeking Jesus, and the greatest Achievement is finding Jesus”
(The Author is a Priest in the Archdiocese of Imphal, and can be reached on mtjo89@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal)
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