The Uniqueness Of Christ in a Pluralistic Society
How can pastors and other Christian leaders encourage those entrusted to their care to handle pluralistic challenges?
How do believers respond to the attacks from a pluralistic society? What are some of the common errors by those who espouse pluralism? If Christianity is the exclusive source of salvation, how do we respond to the question concerning those who have never heard the gospel? Paul Copan deals with these issues in his article on pluralism.
The gospel is no stranger to religiously pluralistic environments.1 The disciples first proclaimed the good news throughout the religiously mixed Mediterranean world with its many gods and temples, Greek philosophies, and emperor worship. Today's religious pluralism, however, offers an appealing approach to liberal democratic Western societies by claiming that all religions are equally capable of salvation or liberation, none being superior to another.2 This agrees with educator Allan Bloom's analysis of our culture: "Conflict is the evil we most want to avoid."3
Isn't it arrogant to proclaim Jesus as God's unique revelation in the face of other religions? As feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether declared, "The idea that Christianity, or even the biblical faiths, have a monopoly on religious truth is an outrageous and absurd religious chauvinism."4 At the popular level, Oprah Winfrey once said on her show: "There are millions of ways to be a human being and many paths to what you call 'God'; ... there couldn't possibly be just one way."5
Now, we can readily agree with the benign, descriptive fact of pluralism — that many religious beliefs exist. The more dangerous, evangelism-threatening pluralism, however, takes on a prescriptive tone: "It is true — and therefore you need to believe — that all religions are capable of saving or liberating." In such a view, the claim that Jesus is unique is narrow-minded and imperialistic — a relic of the colonial age. Pluralism is much more suited to our individualistic, consumer-oriented, buffet-style approach to religion that says, "I'll take some of that; no, I don't like that."
Describing Religious Pluralism
According to some pluralists, the different religions are simply different manifestations of the Ultimate Reality or the Transcendent — God, Brahman, the Tao, Nothingness. Like a three-dimensional hologram, the film or picture underneath projects a different image depending on the angle and distance from which one observes it. So, one person might view the same underlying Ultimate Reality different from another person. Or religions could be compared to gold or silver (representing the underlying Ultimate Reality). These metals can be (1) solid, shaped, and polished; (2) a molten liquid; or (3) a rough, unrefined ore (representing the various world religions).
We are told, "All roads lead to the top of the mountain." Another analogy speaks of six blind men from India (think: Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Confucian, and Taoist) who touch an elephant. Each touches a different part of the elephant and draws a dogmatic conclusion about what an elephant is based on his limited experience (a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan, and rope). An observer of their debate thinks their rigid beliefs are comical. (For a fuller explanation of this analogy, see the sidebar "Tolerant or Intolerant?") Applying this picture to "theologic wars," poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816–87) wrote of religious disputants with their exclusivistic claims: they "[r]ail on in utter ignorance" and "prate about an elephant not one of them has seen."
John Hick, perhaps the most notable religious pluralist today, calls for a Copernican revolution of religions. Cosmology has shifted from a Ptolemaic geocentric (earth-centered) view of the universe to a Copernican heliocentric (sun-centered) one. Similarly, we must replace a Christocentric view — the triune God's revelation in Christ as central with all other religions revolving or orienting themselves around it — with a God/Reality-centered view, in which all religions, including Christianity, revolve around it.
Beginning with philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), thinkers have distinguished between three stages of religious development: First, ancient preaxial religions are characterized by being tribalistic, mythical, nature-bound, and primal.
Second, axial-age religions arose in two stages: (1) significant saving or liberating ethical-religious ideas emerged in India (ritual-to-philosophical— or Vedic-to-Upanishadic— Hinduism, and then Buddhism); China (Confucianism, Taoism); and the West (Zoroastrianism, prophetic Judaism, Greek philosophy) around 800 to 200 B.C. (2) Then, springing from Judaism, two offshoot Abrahamic religions — Christianity and Islam — arose.
Third, the more pluralistic postaxial religious thinking around 1600 to 1800 (rooted in a departure from established religious authority during the Enlightenment) affirms that there are "different ways of experiencing, conceiving, and living in relation to the ultimate divine Reality that transcends all our varied versions of it," as Hick affirms. 6
Hick does not naively insist that "all religions are basically the same." They cannot all be true in what they affirm because of their massive fundamental differences. Buddhism's Dalai Lama puts it plainly: "Among spiritual faiths, there are many different philosophies, some just opposite to each other on certain points. Buddhists do not accept a creator; Christians base their philosophy on that theory." 7
By definition, truth excludes something — error or falsehood. Christians and Buddhists cannot both be right on this matter because either God exists or He doesn't. Muslims and Christians cannot both be right about Jesus' death. Muslims reject His death on a cross (Sura 4:157,158). If Muslims are correct, then the Christian faith crumbles (1 Corinthians 15:13–19).
All the world's religions differ significantly concerning the nature of Ultimate Reality (a personal God; an impersonal, undifferentiated consciousness; or Nothingness); the human condition (sin, ignorance, or craving/desire); its solution (salvation, enlightenment, or the elimination of desire); or the afterlife (personal enjoyment of/separation from God, reincarnations or rebirths followed by personal extinction). All religions are not "basically the same." Sophisticated pluralists will recognize these genuine, irreconcilable differences.
For Hick, religious belief is the result of culturally conditioned attempts to arrive at the Ultimate Reality. The nomadic Muslim Tuareg or the Krishna devotee will be oriented to the Real through the filter or baggage of his particular religious and cultural background. Religious beliefs are true in the sense that they are oriented toward the Ultimate Reality, but false in another, because of cultural conditioning.
There are different ways of conceiving, experiencing, and responding to this Ultimate Reality. Its reality is different from the experience of It. This resembles what philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) asserted: We cannot have direct access to the noumenal realm (the thing in itself), but only to the phenomenal realm (as it appears to us). Yet this view raises questions about how Kant or Hick could know that this thing-in-itself or the Real is unknowable.
Another aspect of religious pluralism is that all the world's religions are equally capable of bringing salvation or liberation. Salvation is the transformation from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness, and no particular religion has a monopoly on such a transformation.
Religious pluralists often claim that producing morally upright saints is evidence of the realization of liberation in different religions. Major world religions produce moral fruits in their devotees, such as treating others how they would want to be treated. Christians have Jesus or Mother Teresa; Hindus, Mahatma Gandhi; and Buddhists, the Dalai Lama. No religion has the moral high ground over another.
Responses to Religious Pluralism
Christians maintain that the Christian faith is true and that the sacrificial death of Jesus is the basis of genuine salvation. Thus, other religions cannot deliver genuine salvation. Where other religions disagree with Christian revelation, at that point they are in error. This view is particularlistic or exclusivistic, but all religious truth-claims are exclusionary. Before addressing problems with religious pluralism, we need to consider four things.
First, all truth is God's truth — whether within the Christian faith or outside it. In Acts 17:22–28, Paul cited pagan (Stoic) thinkers who spoke of God as the Creator and Sustainer who is not contained by human temples. We also need to pay attention to commonalities and bridges with other religionists by affirming God-originated truth when we come across it. Buddhists or Confucians believe in honoring parents or in religious freedom; Muslims maintain that an eternally existent God created the universe. Christians can work together with Muslims and Buddhists in opposing tyranny and oppression throughout the world. Because all people are God's image-bearers, Christians can affirm that the poor or illiterate need to be helped without making basic aid or education contingent on receiving the gospel.
Second, non-Christians who believe Christians are narrow-minded for believing in Jesus' uniqueness need to remember that Christ spoke of it first. Non-Christians who are offended by claims that Jesus is the only Savior need to know that this claim originated with Jesus; Christians did not make this up (for example, John 14:6; compare Acts 4:10; 2 Corinthians 5:19). The critic must ultimately contend with Jesus' own authoritative and staggering identity claims.
Third, religious dialogue requires equal respect, not equality of belief. Here is a common interfaith scenario: Christians are invited to prayer breakfasts, dialogues, and panel discussions. They are told, however, that they cannot pray in Jesus' name or mention Jesus' uniqueness because this might offend Jews or Muslims. But isn't that restriction offensive to Christians? Why is it permissible to offend Christians but not Jews and Muslims? Christians do not know how to pray except in the name of Jesus. So a Christian invited to such events needs to be allowed to pray as a Christian, not as a Deist to some generic deity. In dialogue, he needs to graciously speak as a Christian rather than accept a lowest-common-denominator approach in discussion.
While Christians, Jews, and Muslims share an Abrahamic faith, this does not mean they are equal. So if discussants approach the religious roundtable assuming religions are equally legitimate and true, they are not doing so as Christians, Muslims, or Hindus.
Religious dialogue must begin with the equality of persons, not belief. Participants can discuss their individual views and experiences openly, and all sides can benefit from empathetically listening to clarify views and to prevent the creation of caricatures and stereotypes (James 1:19).
Fourth, religion, including idolatrous conceptions of God within Christendom, may prevent people from knowing the living God. As with many religious leaders in Jesus' day, religiosity may hinder people from salvation and encountering God. In India, I have witnessed Hindu festivals in which people cut and gouge their bodies. Rather than being happy as they are, many live in bondage to evil spirits, oppressed by karma, bound by superstition, and paralyzed by fear of death. One Muslim convert to Christ declared, "The more I see of the world's religions, the more beautiful Jesus appears to me."
Religious Pluralism's Problems
With these preliminaries in mind, let's consider religious pluralism's problems.
First, religious pluralism eliminates the possibility of specific, historical divine revelation. Religious pluralism seeks to begin from the ground up by observing what goes on in mosques, churches, synagogues, temples, and Sikh gurdwaras. Many pluralists believe Jesus was just a God-conscious person who did not rise from the dead. His later followers ascribed divinity to Him, as some of Buddha's followers did to Buddha. The pluralist, if correct, ultimately undermines the historic Christian faith. Jesus is one of many legitimate ways of finding salvation or liberation.
According to orthodox Christianity, God begins with particular persons and events— Abraham or the Incarnation, He does have the universal in mind, seeking to bless all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1–3). Like ripples from a stone tossed into a pond, the Christian mission to the world flows from the Incarnation; it offers salvation to all through God's enabling Spirit. Pluralism, however, leaves us with a property-less, content-less Ultimate Reality. How do we need to respond to It? Do we need to love It, or pray to It, or just live ethically? Can we know It even exists?
Second, religious pluralism is logically just as exclusivistic as the Christian — or any other faith. The pluralistic-sounding Dalai Lama has declared that Tibetan Buddhism is "the highest and complete form of Buddhism." 8 "Only Buddhists can accomplish" 9 what is necessary for liberation. It seems, however, that religious pluralism is just as non-neutral and exclusivistic regarding the status of religious truth-claims. The religious pluralist believes that his view is true and that the exclusivist — whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist — is wrong in rejecting pluralism . The pluralist believes he has a virtue the Christian or Muslim does not. Pluralism implies that Christians need to abandon belief in Jesus' deity, atoning death, and resurrection — beliefs pluralists take to be literally false and simply inspiring metaphors or symbols. Though the Christian faith is a particular exclusivism, religious pluralism is a generic exclusivism: if the pluralist is correct, then the central doctrines of the world's great religions are false.
While pluralists may appeal to analogies such as roads that lead to the tops of mountains or blind men touching an elephant, we could ask how they know that each religion's road leads to the top and why those who disagree are wrong. How is it that they have the correct vantage point? Besides, these analogies do not prove a point; they only illustrate it. If Jesus is the only way, we could then change the analogy to one that is more appropriate. For example, religions are like a labyrinth or a maze with only one way out. Here Jesus proves to be an advantageous starting point. Jesus claims to reveal God to us and to direct our destiny, which is bound up with our response to Him personally. Jesus himself steps into the maze of our miserable human condition and guides us to salvation and grants us hope.
Third, even if religious belief is largely shaped by geographical and historical circumstances, this fact in itself does not guarantee religious pluralism's truth. Pluralists raise the geography objection: "If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would likely be a Muslim — or if in India, a Hindu." Though statistically true, this reasoning hardly proves the pluralist's point.
The geography of a belief neither establishes nor neutralizes its truth. While a Marxist, monarchist, or conservative Republican would likely have joined the Hitler Youth had he grown up in Nazi Germany, we do not conclude that all political systems are equally legitimate ( perhaps, say, because they move persons from self-centeredness to political-centeredness! ) Independent reasons exist for preferring certain forms of government over others. 10 We could say the same about morality: just because some groups of people grow up holding that cannibalism or terrorism or racism are morally justifiable, we are right to stick to our guns by rejecting their problematic moral perspective. Our belief in objective moral values and human rights isn't threatened by the fact that others grow up thinking differently.
The same applies to beliefs about ultimate reality and the human condition: We rightly reject profoundly-incoherent beliefs. We correctly question claims that depend heavily on phony documents or the character of a charismatic, womanizing charlatan who founds a religion — even if his followers are morally decent people. If the Christian faith more readily explains many features of the universe and of the human condition than various Eastern religions or other secular alternatives, then its greater plausibility should not be trumped by the geographic objection.
Hardly neutral observers of the religious landscape, pluralists who reject Jesus' bodily resurrection or His remarkable authority claims as historically reliable are taking a gamble. Not only would Jesus' radical uniqueness completely undermine pluralism, but orthodox Christian tradition is also buttressed by strong historical support. Indeed, the Christian faith is virtually unique among the world religions in that it is rooted in history and thus makes crucial claims are historically verifiable (e.g., Jesus' death and resurrection).
In addition, we can turn the tables on the pluralist: If he had been born in Madagascar or medieval France, he probably would not have become a pluralist! 10 If all religions are culturally conditioned attempts to get at the Ultimate Reality, then pluralism is just as culturally conditioned as Christian or Hindu beliefs.
How then has the pluralist risen above his cultural conditioning to see things more clearly than the rest of us? Does the religious pluralist think he is just another blind man touching his part of the elephant? No. He takes the view of the onlooker who sees the entire elephant and thinks the blind men are foolish because of their narrow-minded dogmatism.
Fourth, a religion's moral fruitfulness is not necessarily the ultimate test of its legitimacy. How do we explain moral atheists who help their neighbors but reject the transcendent and even strongly oppose traditional religion as delusional and full of false promises? Should pluralists carry on religious dialogue with them — and to what end? What about religions that include ritual human sacrifice or racist beliefs? Are these legitimate, culturally conditioned attempts to arrive at Ultimate Reality? 12 Ironically, pluralists like John Hick and Paul Knitter affirm an impersonal Ultimate Reality (which is also affirmed in many Eastern religions), but how can It be the basis of personal virtues such as kindness and compassion? A personal God—especially the intrinsically-relational triune God—makes better sense of such virtues.
If no observable moral difference exists between adherents of these different religions, then the common pluralistic conclusion — that all the great religions are equally capable of saving — isn't more obvious than the conclusion that it is not the case that all these religions are equally capable of saving. In fact, it is reasonable to conclude that we have no idea whether all religions are or are not equally capable of saving. 13 Being an agnostic, not a pluralist, is the more reasonable position.
Fifth, the Christian's motivation to live humbly, gratefully, graciously, and self-sacrificially is connected to Jesus' authority as God's Son. Such motivation will lose much of its force if, as the pluralist contends, Jesus was a mere man. If Jesus is not God incarnate, this denies historic Christianity's claims and seriously undermines our devotion to Christ. This is a pragmatic consideration, but the Christian faith is bound up with historical events such as Jesus' death and resurrection. If these never occurred, then Paul urges us to consider hedonism since a mere earthly hope in Christ is delusional (1 Corinthians 15:32).
Sixth, if Jesus is God's Son, this effectively undermines religious pluralism. Despite the points listed above, pluralism could logically still be true. However, if Jesus is God incarnate, then pluralism is false. Jesus was not just another great religious teacher. Consider:
(a) He was different from the founders of other great religions. Jesus made unique claims that no other world religious leader made — to forgive sins, hear prayers, be the Judge of all, be always present with His followers, give rest to one's soul, have authority over angelic/demonic beings, and receive worship. By contrast, Muhammad would have thought Jesus' personal claims blasphemous; Buddha was a metaphysical agnostic as was Confucius.
(b) The earliest Christians — fiercely monotheistic Jews — bore witness to an exalted Jesus who shared in the divine identity. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) declares that there is one Lord [Yahweh], but Paul affirmed that the one Lord is Jesus Christ who is Creator of all and the Source of our existence (1 Corinthians 8:6). The first Christians even prayed to Him (Acts 7:59; 1 Corinthians 16:22).
Jesus' first followers believed He shared the divine identity and attributed the honors, titles, actions, and prerogatives of Yahweh to Jesus. The New Testament writers affirmed this without dispute. Such a conviction, buttressed by Jesus' own resurrection from the dead and post-mortem appearances, vindicated those authoritative claims — that in Him the kingdom of God, the new exodus, and the new creation had come. If there is salvation outside of Christ, then Jesus' redemptive mission as Israel's and humanity's representative was ultimately a misguided failure. And contrary to Jesus' Gethsemane impressions, the bitter cup could have been removed from Him.
In the end, religious pluralism will not let Jesus be Jesus. If it did, it would undermine itself.
The Question of the Unevangelized
If Jesus is the unique Savior, what about those who have never heard of Him? A simple answer is that our good and wise God has the question of the unevangelized figured out and will not act unjustly. If Jesus is truly God's incarnate Son, the "question of the heathen" is secondary. We need to begin with what is clear and then work out the implications from there. If Jesus has reliably revealed God to us, we can even take an agnostic position: "I don't know the answer to this challenging question of the unevangelized, but I do know a trustworthy God who has acted dramatically and remarkably in Christ, and this true, life-changing message must be proclaimed. Presumably this God is not caught off guard on such matters." In considering the plight of the unevangelized, it is appropriate to ask: "How do the unevangelized respond to pervasive Spirit-promptings and the divine clues already available to them?" God will not judge unjustly (Genesis 18:25).
Besides the agnostic and commonly known exclusivist or particularist views, 14 consider the following variants. 15
Inclusivism (wider hope view)
While God's grace in Christ is the actual (ontological) basis for every person's forgiveness, inclusivists insist that knowing about Jesus of Nazareth (epistemological) is not necessary for salvation. Christ's death is ontologically (actually) necessary for salvation, not epistemologically necessary. Those dying as infants and the mentally handicapped have not done anything to incur God's judgment and thus — many Christians agree — will still be saved. And Old Testament saints such as Abraham and David who cast themselves on God's mercy were saved by what Christ would one day accomplish even though they did not know Jesus (Hebrews 10:4, compare 9:13,14).
Despite its merits, however, inclusivism has been criticized: (1) Its over-optimism about untold multitudes who cast themselves on God's mercy seems to go against Paul's negative assessment of the human condition in Romans 1 through 3. (2) Inclusivism does not address the problem that many people do not respond to general revelation, yet respond to the preaching of the gospel — which is not surprising since the gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). (3) Inclusivism still has its own question of injustice to deal with. Many could complain that they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, having only natural revelation, while others who, no more worthy, were born in a time and place where they were able to hear the gospel and be saved. That is the problem inclusivism has been trying to solve in the first place.
Post-mortem evangelism
Some Christians believe the unevangelized — even the mentally handicapped and those who died as infants — will have a post-mortem opportunity to personally encounter Jesus, hear the gospel, and either embrace it — and enjoy God's presence — or reject it, and be removed from God's presence. The offer of salvation is not limited to an earthly existence. While this is an intriguing possibility, however, this view is sometimes based on highly disputed biblical passages (for example, 1 Peter 3:18–22).
Accessibilism16
I am taking for granted that our good, wise God has a universal loving intent toward everyone and that He is not willing that any perish but find salvation (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9; compare John 3:16–17); Jesus is the potential Savior for all people, and the actual Savior for believers (1 Timothy 4:10; 1 John 2:2, compare 2 Peter 2:1). The fact God commands all people to repent — not simply a selected subset of them (Acts 17:30) — shows that God makes available to everyone His initiating (prevenient) grace. Salvation is accessible to all people.
Also, no person is born at the wrong place or time. Salvation is accessible through God's pervasive initiating grace to whoever accepts it. Though most resist the light of God's general revelation (Romans 1 through 3), this graciously given knowledge is adequate for people to turn to God and be saved — based ultimately on Christ's redemptive work (as with Old Testament saints). God's "righteous judgment" will render to each person according to his deeds — "to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life" (Romans 2:5–7, NASB). 17
Perhaps God, knowing what free creatures would do in every possible world He could create, created a world in which the maximal number of persons would be saved and the minimal number of persons would be condemned. Despite the workings and wooings of God's gracious Spirit, many would freely resist God in any world in which God placed them — whether or not they heard the gospel. Those who are lost in actuality are those who would be lost in any world in which God placed them. Despite God's grace toward them, their freely self-created condition of transworld depravity would prevent them from embracing God.
But why should God refrain from bringing as many as possible into His family simply because others, such as the prodigal's older brother, refuse to enjoy the festivities? God is not unjust or unkind if the people He created freely refuse His grace. So why should He be blamed? What if, in the end, we learn that no person who, having rejected the light of revelation that he did have, would have believed had he received more? No unevangelized person is (justly) condemned simply because he would have freely rejected God's salvation no matter what possible world he might have been placed in, but because he rejected God's saving grace in his actual circumstances.
While this view may not be the resolution to our problem and another view on the unevangelized may well be true, its logical possibility suggests the defensibility of God's just, merciful character toward everyone. Yet, this issue ultimately goes beyond making inferences from scattered biblical verses and themes to the basic matter of trusting in a good God to do no wrong. Can the covenant-making, salvation-desiring God, whose self-expression — Jesus of Nazareth — died for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2, compare 5:19) be trusted with such perplexing questions? Can't we trust God, who loves all without exception and desires their salvation, to do His utmost so no person who truly desires salvation is prevented from experiencing it? We should not think about the unevangelized apart from God's character, motives, and good purposes. 18
Furthermore, God has ways of revealing himself to Cornelius-like figures (Acts 10) who have not yet heard the gospel. In a remarkable affirmation of Yahweh's working among the nations, Yahweh asks Israel, "Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me, O sons of Israel?" and "Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?" (Amos 9:7, NASB). Angelic messengers might appear or, as is being reported with increasing frequency, Muslims (or adherents to other religions) in remote areas may have visions of Jesus and find salvation. 19 God is able to do far more than we can ask or imagine — even when it concerns the unevangelized. They are in good hands with Him.
Conclusion
How can pastors and other Christian leaders encourage those entrusted to their care to handle pluralistic challenges? By exposing those whom they are guiding to pluralism's doctrines and spiritual dangers through sermons, ongoing training, seminars, and reading groups. This is an urgent task because those in America who profess to be Christians are increasingly becoming less biblically literate. In fact, those who view Christian beliefs as preference-based rather than truth-based are growing in number.
Many people have a buffet-style spirituality, picking and choosing what they like rather than what is truth. This view is called syncretism. 20 As the Barna Group notes, "Our continuing research among teenagers and adolescents shows that the trend away from adopting biblical theology in favor of syncretic, culture-based theology is advancing at full gallop." 21 When people buy into religious pluralism, this negatively affects the church's evangelistic task.
Furthermore, pastors must remind Christians that their faith is not only unique because of its emphasis on God's initiating grace in the person of the incarnate Son of God or in the identity claims Jesus made for himself, but also because its many claims can be verified in history/archaeology and science. As we train Christians to communicate their faith, we must tell them why the Christian faith is true — why they need to be Christians rather than Buddhists, Hindus, or Muslims.
While the Spirit ultimately gives us assurance that we belong to God, we must give our churches the available public reasons for belief in Christ. Those under our care need to have the conviction that if certain events, such as the Resurrection, did not take place, then the Christian faith is finished (1 Corinthians 15:13–19). We are not Christians because our faith gives us a sense of joy and purpose, or because we enjoy good fellowship and potluck dinners. We are Christians because the Christian faith is true. Paul says if the Christian faith is not true, then we are preaching a lie and are to be pitied. In saying this, Paul utterly rejected the buffet-style spirituality of today.
Pastors must train Christians to love God with all their minds, to build listening and loving relationships with non-Christians, to ask questions and engage ideas, and to defend the Christian faith with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15). Ironically, we are living in a remarkable time with a wealth of resources with which we can make a ready defense for the Christian faith. But we are also living in a time when professing Christians seem to be abandoning development of their minds and the objective truth of the gospel.
To challgenge the Christian's mind, we must make our people aware of resources such as the Apologetics Study Bible, 22 along with many others. 23 These are basic places to start. As pastors, we must address these pressing concerns — all with a reliance on God's help.

INCULTURATION

Cormac Burke

“The Split between the gospel and culture,” said Pope John Paul VI, “is without a doubt the drama of our time”. The drama is still being played out today in two main theaters, each with very distinctive features.
There is the drama of the “developed” countries - Western or Eastern succumbing rapidly to an irreligious materialism that threatens to close minds and hearts to the gospel message of hope and love, and shut people up in a tired and aged selfishness. And there is the drama of the “new” countries of the so-called Third World filled with joyful vitality which, as always with youth, can fulfill its immense promise or easily be channelled into aimlessness, sterility or anarchy.
There is of course also the drama of the interplay between both theaters with, up to now, the almost one-sided impact of the negative Western values on the life style and cultures of the young countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Can this one-way impact not be changed? Have the younger countries of the Third World not as many values - perhaps of far greater worth - to give as to receive? How can one alert these young countries so that they not only defend themselves from dehumanizing influences from outside, not only see how it is on true gospel values that their authentic human and social development must be based, but also realize that, if they so let themselves be reinvigorated by the gospel, they will be the protagonists of a new stage in world history where gospel and culture are in dynamic harmony and people enjoy a way of life that, being evangelical, is thoroughly human.
The Drama
This is the drama. Will the materially powerful countries of the developed world, in their human decline, pull the rest of the world with them? Or will the developing countries defend their own wholesome traditions from the powerful undermining influences by which they are being threatened from abroad (TV, videos, films, magazines; a whole life style of drugs, ‘safe’ sex, contraception, generation gaps, euthanasia, abortion...)? But not only that; will they purify whatever is still unchristian and less human in their own traditional life style and, by responding to the demands of the gospel, let themselves and their way of life be drawn up to a new ideal of generous and vigorous personal and social existence.
The winning back of the older civilizations is no easy task, and one that, humanly speaking, can take centuries. A more immediate priority would seem to be to intensify and perfect the evangelizing of the newer societies of the Third World. This can conceivably be a far quicker task - because the people concerned are much more open to the gospel. But it remains a delicate task too. Apart from the obvious secular unbelief being thrust on the newer countries by the old, there is the more subtle but even greater danger of the “secularized Christianity” - not rooted in the thought or tradition of the Church - still being exposed from the West to the newer countries. And of course there is the danger of the misunderstanding, or the misuse, of the necessary process of “inculturation”.
Inculturation
Inculturation - as a term designating the process by which the Gospel takes root in local values, discovering and using their richness, as well as purifying their deficiencies - has its clear warrant in Vatican II. “There are many links between the message of salvation and culture... The Church has existed throughout the centuries in varying circumstances and has utilized the resources of different cultures in its preaching to spread and explain the message of Christ... Faithfulness to its own tradition and at the same time conscious of its universal mission, (it) can enter into communion with different forms of culture, thereby enriching both itself and the cultures themselves”.
Inculturation, therefore, enriches the Church; for she uses “in her preaching the discoveries of different cultures to spread and explain the message of Christ to all nations, to probe it and more deeply understand it, and to give it better expression in liturgical celebrations and in the life of the diversified community of the faithful” (ibid.).
And, in turn, the gospel message acts as an enriching the purifying force on human cultures: “The good news of Christ constantly renews the life and culture of fallen humanity. It combats and removes the errors and evils resulting from sinful allurements which are a perpetual threat. It never ceases to purify and elevate the morality of people. By riches coming from above, it makes fruitful, as were from within, the spiritual qualities and gifts of every people and of every age. It strengthens, perfects, and restores them in Christ ...” (ibid.).
In February, 1981, in an important message to the peoples of Asia broadcast from the Philippines, the Pope said: “Wherever she is, the Church must sink her roots deeply into the spiritual and cultural soil of the country, assimilate all genuine values, enriching them also with the insights that she has received from Jesus Christ”.
Given the mission entrusted to it by our Lord, the Church’s priority is always the evangelization of all peoples and therefore of all cultures. Inculturation is a means of evangelization, being at the same time its consequence. Clearly, therefore, the key reference for inculturation is not “culture”, but the Gospel itself. This is why the Council teaches that the acceptance of the Gospel implies an elevation of traditional values or local customs, and where necessary their purification. “The good news of Christ continually renews the life and culture of fallen humanity; it combats and removes the error and evil which flow from the ever-present attraction of sin. It never ceases to purify and elevate the morality of people”.
In the whole process of inculturation, therefore, with the Gospel as the standard, one has to discern the local human and cultural values that are in harmony with Gospel values, as well as those that contain positive elements but stand in need of purification. But moreover, one has to be on guard not only against native traditions that may be irreconcilable to the proper living of the message of Christ, but also to foreign elements that stand in clear opposition both to positive native values as well as to Christian living.
Africanization
During his visit to Latin America, Asia, and especially Africa, this subject has been dealt with extensively. The extraordinary rich variety of native traditions characterizing the African Continent naturally made the question of inculturation one of particular importance in the African context. At the very start of his first trip to Africa he said to the bishops of Zaire:
“One of the aspects of ... evangelization is the inculturation of the gospel, the Africanization of the Church. Several people have told me that you set great store by it, and rightly so. That is part of the indispensable effort to incarnate the message of Christ. The gospel, certainly, is not identified with cultures, and transcends them all. But the Kingdom that the gospel proclaims is lived by people deeply tied to a culture; the construction of the Kingdom cannot dispense with borrowing elements of human cultures. Indeed, evangelization must help the latter to bring forth out of their own living tradition original expressions of Christian life, celebration and thought. You wish to be at once fully Christians and fully Africans. The Holy Spirit asks us to believe, in fact, that the leaven of the gospel, in its authenticity, has the power to bring forth Christians in the different cultures, with all the riches of their heritage, purified and transfigured.”
On his 1982 African journey, he explicitated this further to the Bishops of Nigeria: “The Church truly respects the culture of each people. In offering the gospel message, the Church does not intend to destroy or to abolish what is good and beautiful. In fact she recognizes many cultural values and through the power of the gospel purifies and takes into Christian worship certain elements of a people’s custom. The Church comes to bring Christ; she does not come to bring the culture of another race. Evangelization aims at penetrating and elevating cultures by the power of the gospel. On the other hand, we know that God’s revelation exceeds the insights of any culture, and of the cultures of the world put together ... Therefore it is clear, as I have stated before, that the power of the gospel everywhere transforms and regenerates. When that power enters into a culture, it is no surprise that it rectifies many of its elements”.
As can be seen, the Pope constantly brings together two aspects to the subject:
a) the value of so many native and local traditions, which therefore must not be lost (and, as he frequently points out, they are being attacked by alien influences);
b) the purifying and enriching effect of the gospel on these values.
In other words, his approach - fully in line with Vatican II - is that these good human traditions or cultural values, must be upheld, on the one hand; and must be uplifted, on the other.
Traditional Native Value
The first aspect was particularly expressed in what was no doubt intended to be a main address on “Africa”. It was given to the Diplomatic Corps in Nairobi in 1980, he devoted it largely to a consideration of “the true identity of the African.” He pinpointed salient and “refreshing” features of the distinctive African character:
1) his accepting, “with his whole being, the fact that there is a fundamental relationship between himself and God” (In Accra, he expressed this as: “a vision of the world where the sacred is central; a deep awareness of the link between Creator and nature”);
2) along with this, a distinctive “set of moral values”:
- a “strong sense of community ... especially in the family”
- an “innate propensity for dialogue: "a sense of celebration expressed in spontaneous joy"
- a “reverence for life and the generous acceptance of new life”.

In Zaire, he commented at greater length on these values as related to the family. And he clearly gave to understand that, in so many aspects of this sense of family, it is not Africa that has to learn from more “advanced” countries, but vice-versa: “All the positive values of the family feeling, so deeply rooted in the African soul and which takes on multiple aspects, which can certainly give so-called advanced civilizations food for thought: the seriousness of the matrimonial commitment at the end of a long process, priority given to the transmission of life and therefore the importance attached to the mother and children, the law of solidarity among families related by marriage which is exercised especially in favor of old persons, widows and orphans, a kind of co-responsibility in taking charge and bringing up children, which is capable of relieving many psychological tensions, the cult of ancestors and of the dead which promotes faithfulness to traditions”.
Salvation and Transformation
The second point -- the enriching and uplifting effect of the gospel -- appears just as constantly and clearly. In Brazil, he insisted that the effect of evangelization is always “to perfect the basic elements of native culture, without distorting it or falsifying it”. In his farewell speech, at the end of his first visit to Africa, he said: “Jesus Christ came for Africans, to raise and save the African soul, which is also waiting for salvation, to show it its beauty but also to enrich it from within”.
To show Africa the beauty of its soul ... Africa, just as other native cultures elsewhere, is in danger of being dazzled by the standards or life style of technologically developed countries. Christianity can serve as a mirror held up to the African soul, in which she can see again the human beauty of so many of her traditions. Otherwise she may turn her back on these traditional values and succumb to the temptation of thinking they are less attractive or admirable than ‘values’ of so-called advanced civilizations: e.g., to think that children are a burden, not a blessing; or that motherhood is a limitation of woman, and not a noble mission that fulfills her.
But, further, Christianity can enrich the African soul. First of all on the natural level: by insisting, for instance, on the equality of the sexes, as expressed in a monogamous concept of marriage. The process of enrichment does not of course stop at the natural level. The supernatural power of Christianity goes on to effect an uplifting and, even more, a transformation. This is the truly important aspect of inculturation, and it is bound to be a delicate task and a long process with its peculiar difficulties. At Kinshasa, after his detailed praise of African family-centered traditions, the Pope immediately went on to say: “Certainly, the delicate problem is to assume all this family dynamism, inherited from ancestral customs, while transforming it and purifying it in the perspectives of the society which is springing up in Africa ...”.
It is interesting to note that when he touched on the same point in Benin almost two years later, he seemed more emphatic on the need for sacrifice, in the process of accepting the demands of the Gospel: “Evangelization should enlighten, purify and enrich all those customs and traditions which so deeply permeate the soul of your compatriots, in order to draw from them everything that could foster a way of life more in keeping with the Christian faith and more truly human. People must be helped to make a conscientious discernment in this; and so, having overcome their hesitations, the faithful will be able to make progress in peace, in developing the best in themselves, with the cultural riches they can and should preserve, while accepting the demands of the Gospel and making the sacrifices it imposes. In this way, Christians will be truly worthy of Christ; the salt will not lose its savor nor the leaven in the mass its power. Their faith will not be weakened by the ambiguities of a dangerous syncretism”.
Original but Christian
On his first visit to Kenya, John Paul II repeated to the Bishops there almost literally what he said to their confreres of Zaire: “The ‘acculturation’ or ‘inculturation’ which you rightly promote will truly be a reflection of the incarnation of the Word, when a culture, transformed and regenerated by the Gospel, brings forth from its own living tradition original expression of Christian life, celebration and thought”.
So, inculturation, by a delicate process of preservation and purification, brings forth from a living (i.e., genuine) tradition forms of social or family life, modes of liturgical celebration, etc., that are original but at the same time Christian. In this process it is clear that originality comes from the uplifting of a native tradition and not from any downgrading of Christianity. To the Kenyan Bishops he went on: “by respecting, preserving and fostering the particular values and riches of your people’s cultural heritage, you will be in the position to lead them to a better understanding of the mystery of Christ, which is to be lived in the noble, concrete and daily experiences of African life. There is no question of adulterating the word of God, or emptying the cross of its power, but rather of bringing Christ into the very center of African life and of lifting up all African life to Christ.”
Integration into the Universal Church
He said much the same again to the bishops of Ghana. In the process of inculturation: “Cultures themselves must be uplifted, transformed and permeated by Christ’s original message of divine truth, without harming what is noble in them. Hence worthy African traditions are to be preserved”.
But on this occasion, he also drew attention to a major point which must be cared for if inculturation is not to follow a mistaken path: “A reflection on the essential and constitutional patrimony of the Catholic faith, which is identical for all peoples of all places and times, is a great help to the pastors of the Church as they ponder the requirements of the ‘inculturation’ of the Gospel in the life of the people.”
One notes the insistence that the essential Catholic patrimony is identical for all people, places and times. Africanization, therefore, or Orientalization, cannot mean “de-Catholicization.” He emphasized this point in a homily in Brazzaville: that the local church can only bear fruit for Christ if it is integrated into the universal Church; grafted onto the tree, it bears its own proper fruit - but only because it draws its sap from the tree: “I am thinking of your integration in the universal Church. It is a great and beautiful mystery. The tree of the Church, planted by Jesus in the Holy Land, has not ceased to develop. All the countries of the old Roman Empire has been grafted on to it.” ... (his own country, Poland; and now the countries of the new worlds) ... “The graft lives on the sap that circulates in the tree; it cannot survive unless closely united with the tree. But as soon as it is grafted, it brings to the tree its heritage and produces its own fruit. It is only a metaphor. The Church causes the new peoples that have come to her to live by her life. No new community grafted onto the tree of the Church can live its life independently. It lives only by participation in the great vital current that makes the whole tree live”.
In the Philippines, he insisted: “We are a local church only to the extent that we are part of the universal Church established by Christ our Lord. We are a legitimate part only because we belong to the whole.” And, emphasizing that because the Church is universal, it must “preach the same doctrine, practise the same worship, observe the same law of love and be shepherded by one holder of the keys," he went on: “This same Church is the fountain of truth and source of spiritual power that assimilates all cultures of all places and times. The assimilation does not result in the destruction of the human and local cultures but in their sublimation. Christian truth, in turn, is made incarnate in each local culture, purifying, elevating and solidifying its values”.
In Familiaris Consortio, he very succinctly expressed the “two principles” of inculturation: “compatibility with the Gospel of the various cultures to be taken up, and communion with the universal Church”.
Dangers from Without and from Within
The work of inculturation is necessary and beautiful. But it is also challenging and anything but easy. Nor is it free from dangers and the possibility of mistakes. We mentioned earlier the need to protect true native values from foreign elements that are clearly opposed to them, as well as to Christian living. In this context, one notes that, on one of his early trips to Africa, when listing the problems facing true inculturation, the Pope included “the baneful influence of some aspects of the European mentality, which, far from being a progression are in fact a degradation of faith and morals”.
But the Pope is also clear about the need to critically evaluate, and where necessary regenerate, native values. As he started in Cameroon in 1985: “the Gospel message does not come simply to consolidate human things, just as they are; it takes on a prophetic and critical role. Everywhere, in Europe as in Africa, it comes to overturn criteria of judgment and modes of life (cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi, 19): it is a call to conversion. It comes to regenerate. It passes through the crucible all that is ambiguous, mixed with weaknesses and sin. It carries out this function with regard to certain practices that have been brought by foreigners along with faith, but also with regard to certain customs or instructions which it has found among you”.
Inculturation Depends on Having the Spirit of Christ
Experiments or decisions designed to forward inculturation will avoid mistakes or excesses only insofar as they are carried out by persons who have reflected deeply and thoroughly on the essential patrimony of faith, who have been “formed” in it, and love and revere it. In recent visits to the Third World the Pope has dwelt perhaps even more on this need for a strong faith and interior life. “All attempts in our day to express this ineffable Word in the cultural realities of a people or race must likewise ensure that nothing is lost from or added to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Only those who truly know Christ, and truly know their own cultural inheritance, can discern how the divine Word may be fittingly presented through the medium of that culture. It follows that there can be no authentic inculturation which does not proceed from contemplating the Word of God and from growing in likeness to him through holiness of life”.
Only with holiness of life can one distinguish genuine modes of inculturation (such as are adequate to give an expression, in local idiom, of the riches of the faith) from other unacceptable modes whose effect is to obscure, rather than to clarify, the message of Christ, often pressing liturgical celebrations (in particular) into artificial moulds that do not do justice to local culture, and less still to the reverence required by the true spirit of the liturgy. Mistaken ‘inculturation’ of this type can only have the effect of debasing the faith and impoverishing a people’s awareness of it.
One of the worst mistakes to be most guarded against, would be that of inculturating a community in a way that would make it less aware that its essential riches are possessed in common with all Catholics everywhere: anything that would make it value its “Africanness” of “Orientalness” more highly than its catholicity, or draw it into the temptation of thinking that it could “live its life independently” of the universal Church, or even of other local churches.
In Ghana, touching on this danger, the Pope referred specifically to the history of his own native country. Poland’s strong culture, and its very sense of nationhood, grew out of its Catholic faith. It was a slow process; and the Pope clearly wished to warn against the danger of being in too much of a hurry in this field.
The point was repeated once more to the Bishops of Madagascar in 1989: “In the task of inculturation, dialogue with the Universal Church and other Churches in Africa is important so that the originality of the Christian message may be safeguarded, with its theological and ethical framework”.
Gifts that the World Needs
Another point to be stressed is that inculturation must have an outward-looking, not an inward-looking effect. The countries of the Third World must preserve and develop their soul, enriched by the Gospel, so as then to give. The Pope’s conviction that the world badly needs this gift was specially apparent in Africa.
In Ghana, he emphasized: “Africa has something distinctive to offer to the world.” And “Africa is called to bring fresh ideals and insights to a world that shows signs of fatigue and selfishness. I am convinced that you Africans can do this”.
The developing peoples need material aid. The Pope often refers to this need. But he seems anxious to help raise their eyes above their own needs, so as to realize that others too have needs - needs perhaps of a different type - that they can answer, and indeed may have a providential mission to answer. On his very first day in Africa, he said: African peoples need aid; but “they also need to give; their heart, their wisdom, their culture, their sense of man, their sense of God, which are keener than in many others. Before the world, I would like to make a solemn appeal on this occasion, not only for aid, but for international mutual aid, that is, this exchange in which each of the partners makes its constructive contribution to the progress of mankind”.
As he said to the Diplomatic Corps in Nairobi: “Africa constitutes a real treasure house of so many authentic human values. It is called upon to share these values with other peoples and nations, and so to enrich the whole human family and all other cultures. But in order to be able to do so, Africa must remain deeply faithful to itself”.
Finding the True Way of Development
Each of the new countries must remain “faithful to itself.” There is where the Popes sees a special danger today. The task before their rulers, in this moment of development, is not easy. As he said in the Ivory Coast: “It is a question of creating an orderly whole, in which none of the best products of the past are denied, while drawing at the same time from the modern world what can help to elevate man, his dignity, his honor. There is no real development or real human progress outside that”.
Time and again the Pope insists that not everything that comes to the Third World from the “developed” and “advance” world helps real development. In many of their human values, the “developing” countries are more advanced than the “developed.” What Pope John Paul said at the end of his first African visit, he would undoubtedly wish to apply to all the Third World countries: “How I would like to contribute to defend Africa from invasions of every kind, views of man and of society that are one-sided or materialistic, and which threaten Africa’s way towards a really human and African development!”.
Almost ten years, he was repeating the same point: “I put before you today a challenge - a challenge to reject a way of living which does not correspond to the best of your local traditions and your Christian faith. Many people in Africa look beyond Africa for the so-called “freedom of the modern way of life”. Today I urge you to look inside yourselves. Look to the riches of your own traditions, look to the faith which we are celebrating in this assembly. Here you will find genuine freedom - here you will find Christ who will lead you to the truth.”
“Africa is still in search of herself”: in search, that is, of her real identity, where she has combined the best of her traditional values with the uplifting power of Christianity. The Pope senses how important it is that Africa discovers this true identity of hers; how important this is not only to Africa herself, but to the whole world.
The African countries - and the Asian and the Latin American, - with their young populations, their natural vitality and their traditional values, need to be reminded that, in terms of truest human values, they are not backward. Their values, sustained and uplifted by the gospel, are desperately needed by a world that is in danger of a radical dehumanization. Missionaries who have thought for too long only of the needs of their mission fields, and native clergy who too perhaps are still inclined to accept the idea of being simple recipients vis-a-vis the ‘advance’ world, are being urgently called by the present Pope - a universal man, if ever there was one, and a man aware of the deep problems facing modern civilization to realize that the Third World Christianities - in full fidelity to the gospel and the universal Church - have to spearhead the new missionary age that is dawning.
The West is lapsing into aged materialism. The Third World countries, filled with youth and vitality, are faced with a tremendous alternative: either succumb to the attractions of materialism, and quickly age and decline; or accept the demands of the Gospel and be uplifted: and with purified and intensified vitality, accept the God-given role of being, at the dawn of the Third Millenium, the new heralds of the Gospel for the whole world.