Inculturation

The inculturation is a term used in Missiologie Christian to indicate the manner of adapting the advertisement of the Gospel in a given culture. This concept is close, but appreciably different, of the Acculturation in sociology. Indeed, acculturation relates to the contact and the relation between two cultures, while the inculturation relates to the meeting of the Gospel with the various cultures. Acculturation is an anthropological concept and the inculturation, a theological concept .

Historical references

The term of inculturation was popularized by the Encyclique Redemptoris Missio of the pope Jean-Paul II (1990), but the concept precedes this encyclical. One can make it go back indeed to the speech of Saint Paul to the Greeks, with the Learned assembly of Athens (ac 17,22-33), which can be regarded as the first test of inculturation - which of will hardly be crowned success, if one judges some by the reaction of the listeners: when the Apostle mentions the resurrection of deaths, they burst of laughing. Throughout its long story, when it was necessary, the message of the Gospel was inculturé.

Among the first experts of the inculturation in the history of the missions, appear Saint Patrick in Ireland, Saints Cyrille and Méthode for the Slavic people of Eastern Europe. After the Council of Thirty, the movement became more systematic: Jose de Anchieta for the indigenous populations of the Brazil; Roberto de Nobili in the South of the India; Matteo Ricci in China, Alexandre of Rhodos to the Vietnam, and so much of others still

Definition

The inculturation was defined several manners, the pope Jean-Paul II in particular having tackled the subject in several encyclicals and at the time of many speeches:

  • "The incarnation of the Gospel in the cultures autochtones, and at the same time the introduction of these cultures into the life of Eglise."

  • the inculturation “means close friend transformation of the authentic cultural values by their integration in Christianity, and the rooting of Christianity in the various human cultures”

According to the Father Brendan Cogavin C.S.Sp., " it is now recognized that the inculturation is a theological term which was defined in Redemptoris Missio 52 like the continual dialog between the faith and the culture."

Notes and references of the article

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