|
Chrys
McVey, OP In a paper presented at ‘Theologies in the Context of Pakistan’, 25-28 November 1999, at the Theological Institute for Laity, in Sadhoke, the author addresses factors at work in the culture and shares his vision of tasks for mission.
Introduction When asked to talk on Mission in Context, I said yes because I had no excuse not to. Then I began to realise what I had let myself in for because I did not know where to begin. The literature on the subject is vast, and while I have tried to keep up-to-date, I would have to read nothing else to do that. I have benefited from the recent colloquium in Multan on the Asian Church, and the report of the Columban seminar on mission. So, from these and my own experience, I offer these reflections, hoping they might resonate with your own experience and thinking. Some Definitions When unsure where to begin, true to my Dominican training, I searched for a definition of terms because the dictionary often suggests avenues to follow. Thus Mission is defined as ‘the sending of someone to do something on behalf of another’. The Pakistani mission to the UN, e.g., is sent by the government to represent Pakistan’s interests. In Christian terminology it has a threefold meaning: ‘Mission’ refers first of all to the redemptive task of Jesus and the Church in the World; secondly, ‘missionary’ refers to individuals or congregations who carry the Good News beyond the boundaries of present membership; and finally, ‘mission’ can refer to an intensified period of preaching and pastoral activity among those already Church members.1 Context, (from con and texo: to weave ), refers to the surrounding environment, circumstances, or facts which help give a total picture of something. Context can also mean the parts of a written or spoken communication which precede or follow a word, sentence, or passage, and affect its meaning: as distortion by quoting out of context. A new word that has appeared in the social sciences is contextuality, which argues for supplementing a compositional approach (the relationships between structural categories like person, class, economy, politics and State) with a contextual approach, ‘sensitive to the essentially contingent relationships binding together diverse structural categories in specific times and specific places’ (Geography is the best example of a discipline concerned with the ways in which all manner of natural and human phenomena interact to produce the unique character of a place).2 Allied with context is culture, normally understood as the total human behaviour patterns communicated from generation to generation, but whose root meaning, from the word itself [colere], means the action or practice of cultivating the soil. In this paper we concentrate on this particular cultural aspect of the Pakistani context, and that, for several reasons. The first is that other areas, like the economic and the socio-political, have already been addressed in this conference, and there have been and are people in the Church who have a long history of involvement, experience and analysis. These areas are part of the context — but the most important element in context because it is so strong here — is culture, and whereas other aspects have been analysed, this, from my experience, is a neglected area. General Remarks I would like, first, to make some general remarks about ‘Mission’, about ‘Theology’, and about ‘Context’. St Paul is a useful model of someone with a ‘mission’, who ‘carried the good news beyond the boundaries’, and who is quite conscious of the ‘context’. ‘There are doubtless many different languages in the world’, Paul writes, ‘and none is without meaning; but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me’ (1 Cor 14:10-11). In general, mission is ‘beyond the boundaries’ and is an attempt to find ‘meaning’ in difference, in order to establish or maintain a relationship so we do not remain ‘foreigners’ one to the other. We can see this, initially, in Paul’s approach to the Athenians in the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-34). Theology in Context To reflect, as we are doing, on ‘Mission in Context’ is to do a theology in context. This involves four elements — Gospel, tradition, culture and social change. Stephen Bevans writes of contextual theology as a theological imperative, and indicates two sets of factors that point to why ‘theology today must take into more serious account the context in which it is articulated’. External and Internal Factors The first set might be called external: historical events, intellectual currents, cultural shifts, and political forces. The external factors bring to light certain internal factors within Christian faith itself that point not only to the possibility but also to the necessity of doing theology in context. The internal factors are ultimately much more important than the external ones, since they point to a contextual imperative within Christianity itself. They are factors that have not always been recognised as important, but in our day, due in large part to the historical circumstances expressed in the external factors, they have emerged as essential to Christian faith and Christian theologizing’..3 Incarnational Nature He identifies some of these ‘internal factors’. The first is the incarnational nature of Christianity itself. God became flesh, not generally, but particularly. God became a human being in the person of Jesus, a Jew, son of Mary, a male. God became flesh in a human person of such and such a height, with particular colour hair, with particular personality traits. Incarnation is a process of becoming particular, and in and through that particularity the divinity could become visible and in some way graspable and intelligible. Consequence It follows that if the message is to continue to touch people through our agency, we have to continue the incarnation process. Christianity, if it is to be faithful to its deepest roots, must continue God’s incarnation in Jesus by becoming contextual. Because of the very nature of the Gospel, we know this Gospel only as a message contextualised in culture.4 Sacramental Nature and our Changed Understanding of Revelation Another internal factor is the sacramental nature of reality. Encounters with God in Jesus continue to take place in our world through concrete things and moments. A final internal factor is the change in our understanding of Revelation. This is no longer conceived as ‘propositional truth’, organised and finalised as ‘the Catholic Faith’, but rather as the offer of God’s very self to men and women by concrete actions and symbols in history and in individuals’ daily lives. Consequence Mission is always in context, but theological reflection on mission must also be con-textual. ‘What matters’, wrote Paul VI, ‘is to evangelize man’s culture and cultures ... always taking the person as one’s starting-point and always coming back to the relationships of people among themselves and with God’..5 Relationship is Key It is these ‘relationships of people among themselves and with God’ that are key to understanding Mission: it is what the kingdom is all about. It is what Jesus taught and it is why so many of his actions and miracles were wrought: in order to bring people back into relationship (lepers, the woman with the issue of blood, the man with the withered hand — all were ritually impure, and cut off from normal association). It is also why he is so angry with those leaders who put their own traditions before people, and ensnared people’s lives with endless prohibitions. Other-centredness The Church has always been mission-minded but this has not led to ‘other-centredness’, and it is this that is at the core of mission. It is here where mission and culture intersect, for other-centredness implies a culture of otherness, of relatedness. And culture in this sense means something created, cultivated, worked at. It is the ‘weaving’ of many different strands that creates a culture, one of whose tasks is to give meaning, to make sense, to ‘give a total picture of something’. One aspect of mission as other-centred is found in Jesus’ parables about the kingdom and how God works in the world. We have to take seriously these images of a mustard seed, of yeast (Mt 13:31-33). Seed dies, yeast is absorbed and works mysteriously — even the NT image of light is that of something useful to others. These are all images of littleness, of minority. Lest we miss the point, Jesus gives us the example of his own life: compassionate, powerless and vulnerable.6 This emptying of himself can be seen in the way Jesus affirms various elements in culture and religion. He visited a wedding party and a mourning family; he prayed the psalms and quoted the commandment of love from the Scriptures. His awareness developed in the context of Jewish culture. But his specific relation to God also inspired criticism and confrontation against the existing culture and religious practices. Thus, Mt 5:21-24, in all those ‘You have heard it said ... but I say to you ...’ pronouncements, Jesus confronts religio-cultural practices which supported revenge. Our approach to the culture has to be similar: both affirmation and confrontation.7 Culture is always ambivalent; it both liberates and oppresses. Our approach is to affirm what is liberative and confront the oppressive. Affirmation Last February, in Thailand, at a meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Culture and FABC, Cardinal Poupard spoke of the relation between the Gospel and the Asian mosaic of cultures, using an intriguing image: ‘In any mosaic, every piece, howsoever small, is important to complete the whole picture. If one piece is missing we have an ugly gap. In Asia the mosaic is already there; what we need to do is illumine it with the light of the Gospel, so that its beauty shines forth with greater splendour’. He then employs the example of the restoration of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. ‘This masterpiece now stands out in all its radiant beauty. The restoration work that took years did not add to the genius of Michelangelo. It only took away what prevented and obstructed his genius from being seen more clearly ...’. He compares the exposure of diverse cultures to the Gospel as a kind of ‘restoration,’ and ends by quoting Pope John Paul II, who deals with the encounter between the Gospel and culture, clearly stating that ‘the proclamation of the Gospel in different cultures allows people to preserve their own cultural identity. This in no way creates division, because the community of the baptized is marked by a universality which can embrace every culture and help to foster whatever is implicit in them to the point where it will be fully explicit in the light of the truth’.8 Confrontation Implicit in the above statement is also the element of confrontation. Today, as Bevans notes, a broader understanding of the cultural conditionedness of all theology has emerged more clearly, so that cultural identity seems to be a prime locus for the construction of truly contextual theologies. But he adds a caution. The importance of culture as a theological source is a valid way of doing theology but it has its drawbacks. One such drawback, he writes, is falling into a kind of cultural romanticism — basing theology not on culture as it is today but on what African theologian John Pobee calls a fossil culture, a culture that did exist before colonialisation, but does not exist today except in some people’s romantic fantasies. Cultures are not static but always in flux, always adapting, always changing. The mere fact that a traditional culture has come into contact with the West means that culture has been changed irrevocably. The culture is their own but it has been changed through contact with the wider world.9 Culture is Possibilities The same point was made by Jennifer Jag Jivan at the recent colloquium in Multan. ‘If culture is dynamic and not static, but described as life, expression, heritage, [then] culture may also be described as possibilities possibilities ... of change, of transformation’. 10 The reality is that most people follow cultural norms without ever questioning the implications of cultural practices. These she describes as ‘negative cultural practices’, and cites ‘honour killings’, as one example. While acknowledging the value of stories and symbols to transfer values of brotherhood, these can at the same time be used exploitatively. One example given is the great stress placed on dress, e.g., the dopatta, or veil, as a symbol of respect. Women who do not observe the custom are suspect. There is, she concludes, ‘a certain hypocrisy and double standard prevalent in society today’, and symbols are used to perpetuate the status quo and enable a ruling élite to remain rulers. ‘Our culture’, she writes, ‘is marked by a lack of the art of asking questions’. Functionalities and Dysfunctionalities of Culture Earlier, John O’Brien, in a very important article in Focus, devoted one section to the ‘functionalities and dysfunctionalities’ of culture. He appreciates the strong kinship patterns in Pakistan which afford a great sense of identity and security as well as a support system, but notes that these same values ‘make personal choice and a sense of personal responsibility somewhat problematic’. Like Jennifer, he is aware of the temptation of Church leadership to go along unquestioningly with some cultural presuppositions ‘for they fit neatly into an authoritarian or paternalistic concept of authority and leadership. This is especially clear in relation to women and younger people’. A Dialectical Process One of the tasks of mission is just this dialogue between culture and faith, but, as O’Brien writes, this ‘is not always a straightforward business. It is neither a case of submitting the indigenous culture to some supposedly classic faith-based culture rooted in a different experience, nor is it a matter of allowing the local cultural imperatives to be the judge of what aspects of the faith may be considered to be acceptable and life-giving. The relationship is much more dialectical and must include, in the light of Gospel values, an analysis of the power structure in the local culture and an openness to critique of the cultural values which legitimate it. This process’, he writes, ‘has scarcely begun. Not to begin it risks simply replicating this power structure in the organisation of the Church itself’. 11 Tasks for Mission in Context I would like to return to the threefold understanding of Mission because this might well define our task . Mission as referring to the redemptive task of Jesus and the Church in the World: In general, this has to be fundamentally counter-cultural, especially where so many of the dominant values are restrictive and where so many are obsessed with power. For followers of the One who came to serve, who washed the feet of his disciples and kept the questionable company of tax-collectors and prostitutes, who died because he was seen as a threat to the powerful, it should be obvious what we are called to do. When Jesus calls us to the service of the Gospel, he provides us with two tools: a basin and a towel. But we are not alone: part of this task would be to search out elements in the culture that support this counter-cultural force, e.g., the anti-establishment, God-beyond-religion themes of the Punjabi Sufi poets. I read of one dramatic model of just such a community in a restored monastery in Syria, which sees its mission, not in confronting or even competing with their Muslim neighbours, but in serving them, learning from them, and taking on sacrifices for them. They seek, as one visitor wrote, ‘to realise both their spiritual and historical kinship with Muslims and to exemplify the Christian vocation of voluntary sacrifice, so as to find meaning and identity in the Islamic context’. 12 Mission as referring to those who carry the Good News beyond the boundaries: We have the vision but we need to acquire the tools necessary for a critical cultural analysis in order to affirm what needs affirming and confront what needs confronting. I think this is something we are rather reluctant to do, and I am not aware of any such critical analysis being done, except perhaps by foreign anthropologists and, in a general way, by columnists in the Urdu and English dailies and monthlies. Over 20 years ago, during pastoral evaluations in the Karachi seminary, students did survey people’s attitudes toward things like health, childbirth, marriage, death, etc, but we had to give it up after a few weeks because the underlying paranoia in people’s reactions was too depressing. Mission referring to an intensified period of preaching and pastoral activity: This is really mission ad intra, focusing on our own conversion and that of the community. The task is to learn and teach the art of questioning. One noble attempt by Bishop Patras Yusaf and Fr Gondulf Hoeberichts, OFM, was commissioned by the Spirituality Commission of the Major Superiors over 15 years ago. It was a survey of how men and women looked at the Psalms, and the role these had in the lives of people. At the end of it they drew their own theological conclusions and suggested ways of proceeding further. Rereading it now, I realise it is dated. Perhaps one of our tasks is to review these past attempts (also two studies done on Punjabi marriage customs by Piet de Vreede and Gerry D’Souza in the late 60s and early 70s), revise the methodology and build on them. As always, at the end of a paper, I start thinking of so many other things that need saying. Or rather, that need questioning. But, like many of you, I have not developed the art of asking questions — perhaps because I am acutely aware that this might be something you, and only you, as Pakistani, can do. But without this questioning, this affirming and confronting of the culture, our mission theology will remain defective. O God, thou art peace. From thee is peace and unto thee is peace. Let us live, our Lord, in peace and receive us in thy paradise, the abode of peace. Thine is the majesty and the praise. We hear and we obey. Grant us thy forgiveness. Lord, and unto thee be our becoming. Prayer at the close of Salat (from Common Prayer) Notes: 1
Monika K. Hellwig, ‘Mission,’ in The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia,
Collegeville MN: 1994, p. 576 Ref.: Focus, Vol. 19, Nos 1-2, New Realities
|