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Toward a Theology of Inculturation
By Aylward Shorter
Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books, 1988. 291 pp. $16.95.

This book concerns the complex and delicate relation of faith and culture as it has been practiced and perceived in Roman Catholicism. In some ways, the book will seem outside the scope of interest of non-Roman Catholics. A closer reading, however, suggests that the Roman Catholic Church has understood that "faith and culture" is more complex than the overly simple typology of H. Richard Niebuhr that is so powerful among us. Thus, non-Roman Catholics may profitably "over-hear" the long, disputatious discussion in the Roman Catholic Church and may discover that there is a thoughtful, in-depth conversation going on that matters enormously to all of us.

The problem of "inculturation," one not likely to be noticed by Protestants, is how to maintain a unified Catholic vision of faith while taking serious account of profound cultural diversity. The book takes up, in turn, the diversity of culture as an enduring and powerful social reality, theology as it is related to the problem of cultural density, and finally a longer section on the church's response to this difficult interface.

The Roman Catholic discussion has included, on the one hand, the fixed position of a "universal ideal of civilization," in effect, the civilization of Europe and of Rome, which has become normative for all else. This idea of "classical" culture was easily transposed into the political domination of Christendom. This position, regularly championed by the papacy, has regarded missionary work as essentially the imposition of Roman norms on various cultures. Moreover, the carrier of this imposition has been enforced conformity in liturgy, and language has been a tool of imposed centralized authority. It makes one equally aware that the relaxation of this imperialism in Vatican II has been an enormous and daring political decision concerning the redistribution of power in the Church.

On the other hand, the counter-position in the Church conversation, fostered especially by courageous and discerning missionaries, has insisted upon respect for and engagement with cultural specificity,

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which is itself a gift of God. The aim of this position is the evocation and nurture of "indigenous Christianity." With that determined valuing of cultural specificity has come a requirement that Roman Catholicism should be significantly recast to meet cultural realities that are not easily congruent with Western cultural commitments. The problem with such recasting, of course, is that it entails relinquishment of centralized control and relinquishment of the internalized conviction of cultural superiority. Cultural realism brings with it an important cost in terms of relinquishing political authority and control.

Shorter, a distinguished author and scholar in missiology, traces the way in which the Church has struggled with the issue, sometimes with more vigor than sensitivity. Shorter's suggested conclusion (and powerful passion) is that the practice of "indigenous Christianity," which values local culture, is in fact gaining ground against the centralized authority of a unified Church. The book is cast in categories unfamiliar to many of us; it is, however, worth the attention it requires. Among the things I learned are these:

1. I now understand more fully what it at issue in Roman Catholic talk of "pluralism." The word means something different in Protestantism where we have not suffered with or benefitted from such intense centralized authority.

2. The Protestant issue of "Western imperial missionaries" is now framed in much larger and more important categories. Out of the Catholic discussion, one can see what is at stake theologically when missionaries sponsor certain socio-political claims as a part of their theological witness.

3. The book suggests a rethinking of what "indigenous Christianity" might mean in the United States, when U.S. Christianity is no longer classical, normative, or universal. Such a question will permit the Western church to retreat from its bloated self-importance and return to its "natural size" (in the words of Paul Kennedy).

4.I suspect that for Protestants, the idea of a single, classical culture has not been carried by the church (given Protestant atornization), but by United States foreign policy. This policy, which has been characteristically intertwined with Christendom has been very much under the aegis of WASPs, most spectacularly John Foster Dulles; passionate engineers of policy certainly proceeded with missionary zeal in imposing our way (political and cultural) on others. There has been something righteous and crusading about U.S. foreign policy that has tried to impose our way on others, a posture of imposition not unlike the hardest lines of the Vatican. Perhaps we Protestants needed the instrument of U.S. foreign policy to make the imposition, since we lacked any church body capable of such enforcement. One can still see the power of such determined policies of imposition in many places where our governmental policy intervenes in other peoples' business.

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5. I am impressed that Roman Catholicism has modes for "talking through" to newness. Shorter shows how recent discussion in the Church, including the various pronouncements of John Paul II, proceeds by fits, starts, and contradictions. The Church can be very patient and can wait while its leadership moves grudgingly to newness. At least the Catholic Church has a forum for such sustained discussion, a forum absent in much of Protestantism where ideological positions are often held too early.

This book is deceptively important. The implications of its argument are very large, given the collapse of the Western hegemony, in politics and economics as in religion. Even good liberals cannot, after such an exposition, simply echo Niebuhr's "Christ transforming culture." The tricky issues touch commitments that are not only theological, but social, economic, and political as well. The book will set one thinking in new directions.

Walter Brueggemann
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, Georgia