Lessons for the Global Church from the Asian bishops

John N. Sheveland, Ph.D.Joe Mudd, Ph.D., respondent

Peter Phan

There is the danger that the [dominant Euro-American theology] and the academic and ecclesiastical powers that support it will regard ethnic or minority theologies at best as an interesting but harmless exercise, to be tolerated within a pluralistic context but without posing any challenge to itself, and at worst a theological aberration to be suppressed.

“The Experience of Migration as a Source for Intercultural Theology,” in Elaine Padilla and Peter C. Phan, eds., Contemporary Issues of Migration and Theology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 197.

FABC Reception ofGaudium et spes

Dialogical intentionsExperimental character

Law of Evangelization as normEcclesiological norm: the church is polycentric

Gaudium et Spes § 44translated in the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences Office of Theological Concerns, Paper #96, “Methodology: Asian Christian

Theology, Doing Theology in Asia Today (2000), “Introduction.”

The Church is not unaware how much it has profited from the history and development of humankind. It profits from the experiences of past ages, from the progress of the sciences, and from the riches hidden in various cultures, through which greater light is thrown on the nature of man [sic] and new avenues to truth are opened up. The Church learned early in its history to express the Christian message in the concepts and languages of different peoples and tried to clarify it in the light of the wisdom of their philosophers: it was an attempt to adapt the Gospel to the understanding of all people and the requirements of the learned, insofar as this could be done. Indeed this kind of adaptation and preaching of revealed Word must ever be the law of all Evangelization. In this way it is possible to create in every country the possibility of expressing the message of Christ in suitable terms and to foster vital contact and exchange between the Church and different cultures.

Pastoral Cycle

Faith as missionAnalysis of signs of the times

Non-theological sources and concrete praxis

∞

Theology ≠ binary oppositions or zero-sum games

Zenon Cardinal Grocholewskiin Bangalore, 2013

Possible applications for North American context

Identity & OthernessOrthodoxy & HeterodoxyOrthodoxy & Orthopraxis

Counterpoints Adapted from Edmund Chia, “Of forks and Spoons or Fingers and Chopsticks,” Horizons 28/2 (2001).

Topic #1: the “New Evangelization”

• Rome: in Ecclesia in Asia, John Paul II characterized evangelization as a need to convert more Asians to Christ. How odd that Christ was himself an Asian and that the majority of Asians today are not Christians.

• Asia: Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja responding directly to

the Pope’s address indicated that the new evangelization in Asia is about the Church taking on the face of Asia, so that it specifically characterizes Asian societies and is therefore more meaningful to them.

Topic #2: Inculturation

• Rome: Inculturation is the task of understanding the various aspects of local cultures so that church can then begin the “dialogue of salvation” where she offers respectfully, but with clarity and conviction, the good news of redemption to all who freely wish to listen and respond.

• Asia: Inculturation allows the church to grow more Asian in appearance; it is the church becoming deeper and deeper rooted in Asian culture and in our deepest aspirations as peoples of Asia. The church is to be with and for the peoples of Asia in concrete ways, to help them achieve their integral human development.

Topic #3: other religions in Asia

• Rome: these are a great challenge to evangelization in Asia. These religions await their fulfillment in Jesus Christ [i.e., the fulfillment model of Inclusivism!].

• Asia: the same Cardinal responds by saying it is more important that Asian Christians see the value and the culture that these other religions embody. These should be considered specifically as partners in dialogue. The church should adapt itself to them, so that they can understand Christianity better but also so that Christians can be enriched by the other religions.

Topic #4: Proclamation

• Rome: the church’s contribution to the people of Asia is the proclamation of Jesus Christ.

• Asia: Of course we are called to proclaim Christ. And yet Gaudium et spes specified that we can and should learn from the world because we are faithful to Jesus; he is present in the world. Our task is to learn how Jesus was already present in Asia rather than to proclaim him as if he had not been there before.