Thesis: The church is catholic or universal through inculturation and different interpretations of Christianity in many different cultures. In order for the church to be catholic, it must be able to spread the Gospel with respect of the cultural diversities. Culture is the beliefs, customs, and arts of a particular society. Across the world, there are many different cultures. Throughout many of these different cultures, the Catholic faith has become a central part of them. Yet, through inculturation, the Catholic faith is lived differently in each culture (classroom notes 10-13). In Shusaku Endo’s book, Silence, inculturation is shown through the two cultures of Portugal and Japan. For example, the Portugal culture lived a more transmitting culture. Given the country’s state, they were able to spread the gospel more and evangelize during the late 1500’s. In comparison to the Japanese, they lived a more receiving culture of the Gospel. Because the majority of Japanese believers of Christ were peasants and put through hard labor, they saw the Catholic faith more as an outlet for hope. Endo writes in regard to Christianity …show more content…
Like Rodrigues and the rest of the Portuguese missionaries, the church is often narrow minded when spreading the Good News. Cultures deserve mutual respect and dignity because the faith needs to be developed specifically through the culture. It took Sebastian Rodrigues a long time before he realized his way of Christianity wasn’t the right and only way. Consequently, he made progress in evangelization when he told Japanese villages how the local village of Tomagi practiced Christianity compared to how the church in Europe practiced. Change is one of the hardest challenges for a culture, so Christianity needs to be eased in with flexibility. As a church, we must be considerate of all cultures, and when we try to evangelize, we must put ourselves in other cultures’ shoes
Francis of Assisi is one of the most influential personalities in the entire world. In the book ‘Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life,’ Cunningham recounts the life of this humble monk who lived in the medieval times, and shaped the Christian life, which spread in Western culture throughout the rest of history. I believe Cunningham accurately accounts for the life of Francis of Assisi, and in doing so; he provides a trajectory of the Christian faith from its early and historical proponents through its fusion with western culture, and its subsequent spread throughout the world.
With the hindsight of the 1960s, it is easy for us to view how influencers of the era have reformed and revitalised the Christian tradition to a great extent. Because of this hindsight of the 1960s, an era in which the zeitgeist was full of intellectuals, poets, musicians and authors, we can see the traditions of Christianity were considered to be backward to a world that was changing in terms of beliefs and ethics as society embraced these social reforms. The statement then clearly reflects Pope John XXIII and his impacts on Catholicism. Pope John XXIII recognized these changes and through his leadership, the impacts he had on Christianity had a substantially large influence over the Catholic Church as he ultimately altered the Christian tradition by creating the Vatican II. By doing so, he adjusted traditional Church Scriptures (ressourcement), involved himself with promoting ecumenicalism and also interfaith-dialogue as well as becoming engaged in the modern world (aggiornamento), therefore meeting the needs of the evolving society by revitalising the old traditions.
The Story of Christianity is a very informative summation; a continuation of Volume 1 which covered the beginning of the church up to the Protestant Reformation, while Vol. 2 dealt with the Protestant Reformation up to more modern time period. This author delivers a more comprehensive and deeper look into the development of Christianity, which includes particular events which had transpired throughout the world; particularly how Christianity has expanded into Central and South America. Gonzalez opens up this book with the “Call for Reformation,” where he shares with his readers the need for reform; the papacy had started to decline and was corrupt, in addition to the Great Schism, which had further weakened the papacy (p.8). The author explains how the church was not the only issue but that the church’s teachings were off track as well, seeing that the people had deviated from...
This is not a paper on the Catholic doctrine or reformation theology of visible versus invisible church, but an essay on the tangible (visible) and non-tangible (invisible) of Christianity. Christianity is a belief grounded in history, in where God revealed himself neither in doctrinal statements nor in theoretical studies, but in actions through men an...
Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-
The Study of Christian history and Christian practices, from my perspective, is imperative in the journey of any seminarian. Every major event of today has its roots in the history of our society and the history of the world. In the same way, Christian practices have their roots in the both the history and the historical practices of the Christian church. Our readings the Context Matters portal course and specifically the practices of the Christian church, are important for this same reason If we are to understand the “why” of why we do things we must look at how they have been done before and how they have been practiced in the past.
Catholicism's Theology as explained above is of an inclusive nature. Therefore, as explained in the Gospel of Christ humanity is called to him and hi...
Charles Kraft was a mentor by practice, teacher by trade, and functioned in the classic sense of a professor taught what he practiced. In the 1950s, he served as a Brethren missionary in northern Nigeria and, leaving the field, taught anthropology and African languages. Moving into the faculty at Fuller Seminary, he taught Christian anthropology from a Gospel centered, critical realist approach. Pioneering the field of ethno-theology (Paris, 2015, p. 81), he taught that to navigate effectively across cultural boundaries one needed to, in face of the scripture, deconstruct their own culturally based perspectives, discover the meaning of the original culturally based message, and then - with dynamic equivalence - reconstruct the original meaning into the form of a new language/culture. To illustrate, he gave us a book to read by a Donavan, a catholic missionary’s story of the gospel given to the Masai of Kenya (Donovan, V., 1982).
As a Christian I stand on the belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God and as such the process for its documentation was orchestrated by God for all humankind. Christian’s further believe God has prepared the hearts of humankind to receive the gospel upon hearing if they choose to. Working under this precept we can agree that cultural barriers, specific to hearing the gospel, should not be a factor for other cultures. Since the revelatory Word of God has no barriers the approach used to expose cross-cultural communities to it does. For that reason this essay will identify critical elements to consider when developing a ministry philosophy involving cross-cultural communities.
Dr. Young cites the entrance of Christianity into Japan at 1542 when a ferocious storm found two Portuguese sailors shipwrecked on the southern island of Tanegashima. The Japanese accepted the Romish syncretism of the gospel, but were more interested in the goods and technology that came with later Roman Catholic missionaries who arrived in 1549. The priests¹ attempts at proselytization were not very difficult; the spirit in which their efforts were received is aptly demonstrated : ³The images of Buddha, with slight application of the chisel, served as images for Christ. Each Buddhist saint
Romero states, “It is the poor who tell us what the world is, and what the church’s service to the world should be.” In Silence, Rodrigues’ and Garrpe’s sheer presence in Japan helped the oppressed Japanese Christians. Both Jesuits recognized the need for their missionary work in Japan to proclaim good news to and for them and to defend them. However, Rodrigues battles with his life as a missionary among great suffering, “But Christ did not die for the good and beautiful...the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.” If God is there and exists, then their work and missionaries are saving those whom Christ died for. However, if God remains silent then Christians are suffering in a hard life that will only lead to death.
Yet, the priests still managed to overcome the difficulties of spreading the word of Christ by having visitors discretely come to them during the night or in secrecy to learn about and practice Christian beliefs. It was at these times that baptisms, confessional, and other priest-reliant practices were observed. When apart from the foreign missionaries, the Japanese Christians were responsible for the continuation of their religious practices within their villages and
Archdiocesan Essay Assessment Activity Catholics are often asked questions like, “Why are you catholic,” “Why do you have to be catholic,” Aren’t all religions as good as one another?” and “What makes the catholic religion special and different than the others?’ And members of the Church often find it difficult to answer all these questions. This essay will answer what it means to say that to be a catholic is to be a member of the one true Church of Christ, an explanation of how Christ willed that the Catholic Church be his sacrament of salvation, an explanation of how courts established his Church as both a visible and spiritual reality, I will illustrate how all people are offered the possibility of salvation through the Catholic Church
Cultural anthropology known as the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development. Cultural anthropology is also known as the study of human cultures, their beliefs, practices, values, ideas, technologies, economies and other domains of social and cognitive organization. Cultural anthropology studies how human cultures are shaped or shape the world around them and it focus a lot on the differences between every person. Human societies has been culturally involved throughout generations because of human development and advanced. The goal of a cultural anthropology is to teach us about another culture by collecting data about how the world economy and political practices effect the new culture that is being studied. However, cultural anthropology has gave us a understanding of world affairs and world problems, the way to interpret the meaning of social actions by putting them in as much context as possible, and a deeper insight of humankind-at all times, in all places and of yourself as part of a culture.
The desire to know more about this religion led me directly to Catholic Church to attend a Sunday service. As a result, this assignment will explore various aspect of Catholic Church as a