0 members (),
451
guests, and
118
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
Forums26
Topics35,531
Posts417,684
Members6,183
|
Most Online4,112 Mar 25th, 2025
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 282
Greco-Kat Member
|
Greco-Kat Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 282 |
I would welcome Eastern Christian views (Catholic and Orthodox) on the following:
1. What are the views in your Church on "inculturation"? 2. Has anything been done in your Church, at parish or at eparchial level, that you would consider to be "inculturation"? 3. From the standpoint of your Church, are there "No Go" areas where it is thought, within your Church, that "inculturation" (as you define it) would not be possible?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 7,309 Likes: 3
Member
|
Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 7,309 Likes: 3 |
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 282
Greco-Kat Member
|
Greco-Kat Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 282 |
I would have thought the term was well enough understood, but for the sake of any whom I may have confused: I am trying to explore the current thinking of our Churches on their response to the reality of the culture in which they are living and in which their children are being educated. My impression is that Churches of the East, while treasuring their Greek elements of their heritage, for example, nevertheless found it possible to absorb and adapt the cultures in which they found themselves. Music, art, and other cultural elements do differ among our several Churches. The question is whether that process has ended or whether it continues, and if so, how.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 7,309 Likes: 3
Member
|
Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 7,309 Likes: 3 |
Well, a close comparison of what is done here, and what is done in the ancestral homelands, would provide an affirmative answer. The danger seems to be rather the opposite--that the Churches of the East will assimilate to the extent they no longer stand out from the cultures in which they exist--and thus lose one of the discriminators that makes them attractive to people seeking an alternative to vanilla Western Christianity. When you look, e.g., at the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, you see the influx of converts since the 1970s resulting in a restoration of authentic Orthodox practices, and a halt, or at least a diminution of Westernizing inclinations, even while encouraging liturgy in the vernacular (without eliminating either Arabic or Greek) and bringing some much needed Evangelical organizational skill and missionary zeal to the table.
|
|
|
|
|