La fractura

Having looked at the subject matter of inculturation, namely precepts of the Christian faith, we will now turn to the method through which inculturation unfolds into a culture. Inculturation takes the existential contexts seriously as it tries to talk to the African in his or her situation. The first way in which inculturation operates is through the transferring of the Christian faith into a given culture through an incarnational model aimed at Africanising Christianity (Bediako1995:177). Secondly it evangelises the culture integrating it into the eternal Christian heritage (Bediako 1995:177). This second mode is expanded in this thesis to project the theology of transformation. It will be discussed separately below under rubric 3.5.

We will now turn to Catholic theologians’ use of the term incarnation and to Pobee’s thought of tabernacling the Gospel contained in his Skenosis to discuss the translation of the Gospel into culture. The entrance of the Gospel into culture should be understood as being incarnational, following the example of Christ’s self emptying model popularly known in theological terms as kenosis, (Philippians 2:7). It thus becomes the mode of entrance of the Word of God or the Christian faith into different cultural systems in such a way that it becomes part of those cultures. Teresa Okure (1990:57) notes that inculturation should not be wrongly misconstrued for a theology that primarily seeks to find “suitable

symbols or rituals from a given culture to express the Christian faith especially in worship and catechesis.” Cultural expression is obviously desirable but it is not the sole goal of all inculturation theology. She stresses that “genuine inculturation should be based upon the mystery of the Incarnation, seen not only as a mystery and as an event in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but as a process to be carried out in history till the end time” (Okure 1990:57).

With this understanding it can be noted that incarnation presupposes the merging of two entities which are different from each other; the divine reality and the human reality (1990:57). In this union none of the two realities obliterates the other but they form one organic unity. This is what has been hinted at in the definitions, especially the one espoused by Ukpong (cited in Martey 1993) in which he highlighted that inculturation is the process in which there is inter- penetration of both the Christian life and the cultural setting. Rather than merely finding suitable cultural expressions, “inculturation has to do with the incarnational union between Christ and the peoples of a given culture.” The question is not whether we have right forms of expression but:

Whether or not any of us wants Christ to assume his or her own culture, so as to become substantially part of it, to enrich and be enriched by it, and transform it from within, so that it can become the Yoruba, the Kikuyu,, the Zulu or any other Christianised culture. Put this way, the answer is yes, since our culture cannot be saved, if it is not assumed by Christ (Okure 1990:59).

The theology of incarnation helps to bring out vividly the idea of the translatability of the Christian faith into any culture. So we are saying that in inculturation, the first step is to get the Gospel right into the culture so as to become part of it. It is not the missionary’s culture which is translated rather, the Gospel, like a seed, is planted into the culture and germinates within the culture and as it grows people within that culture define it as they see it through their own thought categories and cultural expressions. The end result is much more than just contextual expression of the Gospel. The cultural expression becomes, as Okure puts it, “only a fruit of inculturation” (1990:59).

If we look at the implications of the term kenosis it will be realised that the term does not refer to the taking up of a body or a dwelling but it refers strictly to an emptying of something. Taking up another form of existence is entirely another matter. In other words it was not enough for Jesus to give up heavenly majesty, he instead had to proceed to put on a human form. If the incarnation mode is going to work effectively in inculturation then, it has to go beyond the idea of emptying to the idea of encamping within the culture.

With this kenosis thought in mind Shorter (1988:81-88) warns seriously of the three major inadequacies associated with the analogy of incarnation if it is not expanded by other modifications. He points out that if the term is limited to the enculturation of Jesus on earth then when applied to evangelism it will give the impression that “this is equated only with the first insertion of the Gospel into a culture. The understanding of inculturation as an ongoing dialogue between Gospel and culture is more or less overlooked” (1988:81). Shorter cites that the only way to remove this weakness is by enlarging the term’s notion to include the whole Christian mystery. This is because some theologians have taken the term incarnation to represent the whole mystery of Christ which the incarnation inaugurated.

The second inadequacy has to do with the manner in which the analogy, being a Christology from above, encourages a one way view of inculturation. Since it is impossible to comprehend the pre-existent form of the Logos it follows that the human mind may be tempted to picture the Logos “in terms of a disembodied essence being injected into a concrete human culture” (1988:82). This understanding will be counter productive as it takes us back to the idea of a non culturally tinged core of the Gospel or ‘world of essences’ as Shorter puts it (1988:82). If the Christian faith – Christ himself is transmitted from one culture to another it follows that this transmission of the Gospel requires a cultural conveyor belt. As such, incarnation, in an inculturation sense, needs to be viewed, not only from above but as a continuing part of culture. “Once inaugurated, the

incarnation continues upon earth to recruit culture from culture through the ordinary processes of history and human communication” (Shorter 1988:82).

The third inadequacy arises from much emphasis being put on the enculturation of Jesus and how he assumed a specific culture. Shorter warns that this “may encourage people to succumb to the temptation of culturalism” (1988:82). When this happens religion is radically transformed by culture, in which case culture triumphs over religion (1988:42). This temptation arises as people put much focus on reforming the Christian message to suit the culture and in the process miss to reflect on the transformative element of the Gospel in the culture. This is why an expanded view of the operative mode of incarnation is needed if it will work as an effective ingredient of inculturation. In order for this expanded view to work, two elements need to be included namely; the concept of permanency and the transformative implication of realised inculturation. The first element will be discussed here while the second, transformation, will be treated separately as a topic on its own.