Michael Amaladoss

The world is fast becoming a global village. Internationality has a new face and poses new challenges. The globalization of communications and consumerism seem to be leading to a homogenization of culture. At the same time, inter-ethnic, inter-religious conflicts are also on the increase. Subaltern groups like indigenous peoples, socially oppressed groups and minorities are aggressively asserting their identity. The phenomenon of multiculturalism is becoming a subject of serious discussion in cultural and political circles. In which direction should we be moving? What should we be doing? How do we face this situation? What is the impact of this situation on mission, on the Church and on the religious congregations? We can look at these questions from two different points of view. We can start analysing the challenges of multiculturalism and internationality and then ask how we are going to approach them as people on mission. We can also start with a clarification of what our mission is and then ask ourselves what we are going to do in this context. As our immediate purpose here is not to solve the world’s problems but to celebrate our lives in mission as an international and multicultural group and creatively imagine our future, I shall rather start with our vision of mission.

A New Vision of Mission
In the last thirty five years after the Second Vatican Council there has been a paradigm change in the way we look at mission. I shall spare you the history and just indicate the change. The old paradigm went somewhat like this. The Church is the body of the people who are saved in Jesus Christ with a mission to go out into the world to save more of them. For this purpose the missionaries go out to different peoples and cultures proclaiming Jesus and implanting the Church. The hope is that some day the whole world would become Church so that there will be one shepherd and one sheepfold.

This paradigm has been challenged by a number of developments during and after the Council. The Gospel as good news focuses not only on the salvation of individual souls, but on the change of sinful social structures so that there could be new communities of freedom, fellowship and justice in the world as realizations of the Kingdom. The universal Church is not simply the extension of the Latin Church everywhere in the world, but a communion of local Churches. The local communities respond to the good news in terms of their own cultures giving rise to a new spirituality, theology, liturgy and way of Christian life, inculturating the Gospel in the process. All people have God as their common origin and goal and God offers to all of them the possibility of participating in the paschal mystery in ways unknown to us. Besides the Spirit of God is present and active in peoples, shaping also their cultures and religions. Proclamation of the good news of Jesus to these peoples can only be dialogical, accepting and respecting their own God-experience. The mission of the Church and our own mission have their origin in the mission of God, of the Word and the Spirit, through which God seeks to communicate God’s life to all peoples leading them to a unity till “God is all in all.” This mission of God starts with creation and embraces the whole of human history.

If we take these developments into account then we can see emerging a new paradigm of mission. God’s plan is all embracing and is leading the whole universe to its fulfilment – the Kingdom. This goal is really the gathering of all things into a unity. God’s plan is being realized through a variety of ways in peoples, their cultures and religions. Jesus launches the final stage of God’s plan and leads it to fulfilment. The Church continues the mission of Jesus and also invites new disciples of Jesus to join its work. Its role is to be a symbol and servant of God’s mission in the world. It has to embody in itself the vision of the Kingdom as a prophetic community. It also witnesses to the particular way of Jesus in working for the full realization of the Kingdom in history, namely his option for the poor and his humble and loving service unto death. In doing this through an ongoing struggle for justice, love and peace, it sees in other peoples collaborators and allies, not enemies nor competitors. The mission of the Church therefore is set in the wider context of God’s mission. The goal of mission is the Kingdom and the Church as its symbol and servant.

What is relevant to our multicultural, international situation in this new paradigm of mission are three elements: the vision of the Kingdom as the gathering together into a communion of the rich variety of peoples, their cultures and religions and not as the universalization of a particular community, namely the Church; secondly, the need for the Church itself to become a symbol of such a communion, integrating in itself the rich variety of cultures and peoples and in dialogue with the various religions; thirdly, faithfulness to the way of Jesus, struggling with and loving service of the poor, giving oneself even unto death. Both the Kingdom and the Church are called to be international, multicultural communities. This is true also of international religious congregations who are called to be models of communion in pluralism.

We should not think that this vision is new. St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians about the mystery, which God has revealed in Jesus Christ: “as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph 1:10) He tells the Corinthians that at the end “God will be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:28) The Romans are told that creation itself will take part in this movement towards freedom and fellowship with God. (Rom 8: 19-23)

The Phenomenon to Multiculturalism
A culture is the way a people live, find meaning in their lives and in their world and celebrate community. Language is often a basic element in culture because it is not merely a medium of expression, but a way of looking at the world. Culture has a world view expressed in myths and symbols. Myths generally evokes origins and ends. The world view determines how people look at nature, at others and at the Transcendent. Together with the world view goes a certain ethos that determines the quality of life. It supposes a system of values that guides behaviour. Religion is the deepest element in culture and it deals with the Ultimate questions: the deeper meaning of life and the problem of suffering and death. People give expression to their culture in cultural products like literature and the arts. People are born and socialized into a culture, so that we can say that a culture makes the people. At the same time, people, especially creative individuals, can change culture by proposing new visions and values.

Culture gives a person his/her group identity in the wider community. A person is shaped by culture quite early in life, by the time s/he is three or four years old. This community identity is clarified and strengthened in opposition to another group, which is experienced not merely as the “other”, but also as different. Experience of this identity is often semi-conscious till it is brought into consciousness in opposition to the other in conflict or crisis situations.

Every people has its culture. Cultures – that is, people – do encounter each other in non-threatening ways through trade or travel. Such encounters may lead to a process of mutual learning and transformation.

Cultures can encounter each other in an antagonistic mode through invasion and conquest. Here a political unity is imposed on the people who belong to different cultures. Some people may opt for the new, dominant culture, as a means of socio-political advancement. Other people may resist it, internally if not externally, in various ways. Culture helps them, precisely, to protect and defend their identity as different, even if dominated at the moment.

A group of people can become multicultural through invasion or migration of peoples belonging to different cultures. If people of different cultures live in different geographical areas and the contact between them is minimal then the different groups can coexist more or less peacefully. In some countries, an overarching national culture develops and the different cultures are seen as sub-cultures. Sometimes anthropologists speak of little traditions and a great tradition. For example, in China there is a common written Mandarin tradition that spans over a variety of oral local cultures. The same is true of India. It is in modern urban conglomerations that we have people of different cultures living together in one geographical area. Multiculturalism becomes a problem when one cultural group is experienced as economically and/or politically dominant. Then the tendency is for the dominated groups to struggle for some kind of autonomy or even independence so that they can manage their own affairs. We can see many examples of this in the world today. Multiculturalism itself therefore is not a problem, but the power relations between the different cultural groups are.

The search for autonomy or domination is affirmed in terms of cultural identity and this identity may be further deepened and strengthened in terms of religious identity. This gives rise to fundamentalism and communalism. Fundamentalism seeks to hold on to certain fundamentals of religion as divinely sanctioned. For examples, the Christians may follow the Bible literally as a revealed book and the Moslems may claim that the Qur’an is an adequate guide to all problems in all situations. Fundamentalists are exclusivist. They see themselves as right and feel that they have divine sanction behind them. So they would not hesitate to impose it on others when possible.

Communalism asserts that a particular group of people who share the same religious beliefs also share the same economic and political interests. The religious other is then seen, not merely as different, but as a competitor for the same scarce resources or even as an enemy. The group may be a majority or a minority. But it forces the relationship between groups to become one of power. Competition or domination is their only vocabulary. They do not understand collaboration.

Multiculturalism as a Problem
One traditional way of solving the problems of multiculturalism is to seek unity in uniformity. There are stronger and weaker versions of this policy. In the weaker version, the power is controlled by the majority, dominant group, while the minorities are tolerated. We have many confessional States across the world in which the State is officially linked to the religion of the majority. In the stronger version, uniformity is imposed in the name of unity. The Roman emperors promoted a State religion to hold the empire together and persecuted those, like the Christians, who did not conform. This policy continued even after the emperor became Christian. This is one of the reasons why Christianity spread with the empire. The emperor burnt the heretics. The Portugese and Spanish kings followed this policy in their colonial domains. That is why Latin America is “Christian” today.

The Latin Church followed the same policy in the ecclesiastical sphere: unity was sought in terms of uniformity. The missionaries not only proclaimed the good news, but built up local communities which were clones of the Latin Church in their liturgy, theology, spirituality, church order, etc. Even today the Church thinks that inculturation means a translation in the local languages and cultures of the one content that the Latin Church has inherited from tradition. In the world today, only the Church can get away with this, because it imposes this in the name of God and, in addition, keeps a tight control over the organization. Suggestions by Asian Bishops about autonomy for the local Churches during the special synod for Asia were quietly ignored and were not picked for discussion.

I think that many Religious Congregations, grown up in the tradition of the Latin Church, followed and even now follow a similar policy. Pluralism is permitted in the apostolates or in the externals of the way of life, food, etc. But at the level of ideology, spirituality, religious structures, etc. a uniformity is sought to be imposed in the name of unity. The term “charism” comes in handy for such a purpose. And the Congregations are very much helped in this by Canon Law. Internationality consists mostly in mixing up people of different national origins in local communities.

Some seek the solution for the problem of pluralism of religions and cultures in finding a common ground in reason on which all can agree. We have a universal declaration of human rights. They seek a similar agreement on a global ethics for a global peace. They think that they can develop this on the basis of a rational humanism. The primacy of reason and humanism is a product of western civilization, rather secular in orientation. Many Asian countries and societies do not feel at home with it. Besides looking for such a common ground may lead us to the lowest common denominator and will not really solve the problem of pluralism. In trying to focus on what is common to all, the rich diversity of the various groups may not be integrated. It may not also address the power relations between the groups.

Many today would think that the phenomenon of globalization is leading the world to a uniform culture. Cultural differences are going to disappear. Local cultures are destined to extinction. To speak of multiculturalism is to think of the fast disappearing past. We must rather think of the one world of the future. I really think that this enthusiasm for globalization is misplaced. The consumer goods are becoming global. The global market is supported by the media that propagates a consumer culture. Behind this is a mind set that believes in science and technology and their absolute autonomy. The majority of the poor today cannot afford these consumer goods and they are affected by this culture. The media while exciting their desire may also build up resentment and even anger against the rich. Consumerism limits itself to the lowest level of culture which has to do with the relationship of the humans to material things and to the body. It does not bother about other dimensions of humanity. Culture has also to do with social relationships and the Transcendent. These areas are not touched. Therefore globalization touches only a limited dimension of culture. Even while using consumer goods people tend to search for other cultural dimensions elsewhere. People may go to the same supermarket for their consumer needs. But then they will also belong to many other voluntary associations that cater to other needs of their personality. Since globalization means domination by a small rich minority over the majority, at some stage there is a revolt, a search for identity, an affirmation of difference, a quest for a counter-culture. Therefore globalization is not leading to cultural homogenization. It is leading rather to a stronger reaffirmation of difference, at the level both of culture and of religion. Some of the fundamentalist movements in various parts of the world may be seen as a reaction to the phenomenon of globalization. They are not against consumer goods. But they are against a total materialization and secularization of life. On the contrary global communications could lead to a greater exchange between cultures and religions and greater solidarity, if they are not controlled by groups in power.

Mission and Multiculturalism
How does our mission respond to this situation? We focus here only on the issue of the pluralism of cultures (and not of religions). I think that mission must start with recognizing and accepting cultural pluralism as something positive. It represents the freedom and creativity of God as well as of the humans. Cultures are after all peoples. They are peoples’ collective self expression. Just as individuals have their rights, groups also have their rights as groups to be recognized and respected and to survive and flourish. Cultures are more than outward behaviour and the use of consumer goods and services. It is a complex of values and attitudes and ways of relating to nature and to the others. Cultures are considered as more or less developed. An evaluation depends on the criterion. Modern culture may be very developed in its use of science and technology. But it may far behind many traditional tribal cultures in the way it relates to creation, in its sensitivity to the human and the social, in its resonance with the Transcendent. Technical development does not lead automatically to human and social development. As a human creation, every culture has its limits and defects and even oppressive features. These need to be challenged.

Our mission also urges us to work for bringing cultures together in a communion. It is but one element of the task of bringing peoples together into a wider community. When cultures encounter each other there will be mutual interaction, learning, influence and even transformation. What we should try to avoid is the attempt by any one culture to dominate over the others for whatever reason. In respecting cultures and their autonomy we are really respecting groups of humans. Projects of unity tend to build themselves around one dominant culture. The other cultures may not be suppressed, but are subordinated. In a particular situation this may happen naturally because one group is numerically dominant. But the identity, freedom and creativity of the smaller groups must be protected.

The task of building a community out of a multiplicity of cultural groups is a challenging one. The State must be a neutral institution that is not siding with one or other culture but keeping public order in society. Besides the State, there is a public space, sometimes called ‘civil society’, which offers a forum for different groups to air their views, promotes public debate, helps the formation of consensus, etc. The media – print, air or visual -, voluntary organizations, special interest groups, advocacy groups, the universities, etc. make up this public space. The different cultural groups must be able to express publicly their perspectives on issues at this fora and contribute to the evolution of a consensus and public opinion which can then guide policy making by political parties or the State. Such a process is sometimes called deep democracy. The culture of the local people or of the most numerous group could form a kind of a central pole around which the other cultures coalesce to form a unity in diversity in which any relationship of domination is excluded. In modern society it is also possible that many individuals, without losing their roots in a particular social group, belong to a number of professional and special interest groups. This multiple belongingness makes multicultural integration easier. In such situations cultural groups no longer have a geographical base but a social one. They may be geographically scattered, but form a network, which is made easier today by the media of communications. Such social groups also tend to be more open and less defensive.

Building Community
Cultures are not natural products. They are constructed by a group of people to regulate their common life and give it meaning. In the same way, communion among cultures will not emerge automatically, but needs to be consciously constructed. This will need programmes for discovery, sharing, mutual learning and enrichment. We need not exclude mutual prophecy and challenge that could lead to internal transformation. We have to create a democratic and participative public space that would facilitate mutual exchange and discussion. Cultures are for life. They do not constitute their own goals. Cultural integration takes place precisely through participation in common projects for the transformation of society. Such a construction of community would also oppose forces of globalization that perpetuate domination and are destructive of all authentic cultures, seeking to substitute in their place a uniform consumer culture at the service of the market economy.

Let me say in passing that, while we should be against wrong kinds of globalization based on unipolar domination and exploitation and on attempted cultural homogenization, we should be in favour of the right kind of globalization, which respects diversity and opposes domination, but makes use of the resources of science and technology and of the global media to bring cultures and peoples together into a vast global network of mutual enrichment and communion. This will certainly be a step towards the Kingdom that is God’s promise to all peoples.

Multiculturalism and the Church
What are the implications of this multi-cultural vision for the Church and its mission?
It should promote this new vision of the Kingdom. One way of doing this is to get actively involved in the public space as a sincere dialogue partner. It must be open to the other cultures and religions. But at the same time it must have a clear and specific voice on all issues that are of interest to humanity. Dialogue then becomes the way of mission. Dialogue is the necessary consequence of respecting the freedom of the other and the freedom of God present and active in the other. This supposes that the Church gives up any pretensions to be sole depository of truth and to have a special revelation on current problems. The Church must be able to argue and defend its positions in the public space. It must be able to give reasons for its orientations and proposals. It is not enough to assert them in the name of the authority of a special revelation or of a special delegation from God. It must not seek to impose its perspectives on the others. It must rather seek to persuade.

The Church will hardly be an effective presence and voice in this field, if it is not seen to be itself a symbol of such a communion of cultures. At the Second Vatican Council the Church became aware of being a communion of local Churches. But there has been no serious effort to translate this vision into reality. Authentic cultural pluralism in the Church will come when local communities have the freedom to respond to the gospel in terms of their cultures. This response would be a creative, contextual one and not a translation of a presumed perfect response in various cultural idioms. The local Churches should have a certain autonomy to do this. A failure to let evolve authentic local Churches has a counter-productive effect on the mission of the Church. In most countries today the Church is seen as culturally foreign. Its own effort has been concentrated on promoting religious conversions rather than having any impact on local cultures and society. The Church neither has, not seeks to have, any voice in the public space in these countries.

There is no public space in the Church itself. No dissent and no real pluralism is tolerated. It is said that the Church is not a democracy; but it is not an autocracy either. Experiences like the “sense of the faithful” and collegiality must emerge out of free exchange of views and discussion, not out of conformity to the voice of authority. In spite of all this local Churches are asserting themselves in some areas like theology and spirituality.

Missionaries and Intercultural Encounter
One concrete way in which the universal Church can be experienced and built up as a communion of local Churches is through the missionaries. They can be effective and personal mediators of intercultural encounter. A missionary to another people goes not only as the bearer of the good news but also of its living expression in his/her own culture. In the place s/he goes to s/he acculturates himself/herself. Responding to the good news that s/he brings the people live and express it in their culture. Sharing in this new cultural expression of the good news the missionary can mediate it to his/her native culture. In this way s/he can promote an intercultural encounter in the context of the Christian faith. It is in this manner that the Church becomes effectively catholic or universal. Intercultural mediators of this type will always be relevant in the Church even when the Third world is having plenty of vocations and the First world is not having enough. We would also suppose that such cross-cultural missionaries would go in all directions: from the South and the East towards the North and the West as in the contrary direction. But it would not be an easy project because the existing power relations in which the North and the West are dominant will adversely affect such an exchange.

International Congregations
What are the implications of this vision of communion of cultures for international religious congregations? As I had suggested earlier, in the past, the religious Congregations had the same tendency as the Church, namely to impose uniformity in order to protect ‘orthodoxy’ and unity. After the Second Vatican Council they may have changed faster than the Church in some respects. At least with regard to dress, ways of life, food habits and even the apostolate the changes have been rapid. But with regard to the basic structures the changes have been more slow. Sometimes the changes are even blocked by the Vatican. We must not forget that unless we have consciously and explicitly thought about the issue and clarified it to ourselves, we may share the prejudices of our contemporaries with regard to culture, multiculturalism, modernity, globalization, etc. So we may take things for granted. A creative and positive integration of multiculturalism in a structure of unity and diversity, in which the local groups are allowed to develop in their own way, while the centre limits itself to overall coordination and animation, may be more easy in larger congregations in which the different cultures are represented by considerable numbers. (In my own congregation I can see multiculturalism slowly emerging over the last forty years, cultural pluralism affirming itself a little more in every general chapter. This is because the non-Euro-American cultures have been progressively discovering and affirming their separate identity and this has been welcomed, encouraged, accepted and integrated by the wider group.)

Concrete Steps
What can we do concretely? First of all it is necessary to have a clear vision of the goal of mission as universal communion that values and integrates cultural (and religious) diversity. This is true at the global, ecclesial and congregational levels. The Church and the Religious have to be symbols of such multicultural communion in their own lives and structures while working for the realization of the same at the level of the world. A congregation becomes multicultural precisely by promoting multicultural communion in the world.

Secondly, there is a need for conscientization/conversion. All have to become aware of their prejudices and learn to recognize, respect and accept the cultural others as different and at the same time feel called to relate to them in view of communion. This might include some knowledge and experience of other cultures. Where and when possible people could live in another culture for some time. Cross cultural contacts could also promoted. The media often present distorted views of the situation. Therefore a critical handling of the media is necessary. Cultural analysis may help us to understand culture in the context of the other elements that make up society, the dynamics of cultural change, and the phenomena of inter-cultural encounter. People who belong to dominant cultures must become aware of the domination and seek to free themselves of it, so that it does not condition their attitudes, judgements, relationship and behaviour. People who belong to dominated cultures must also free themselves and feel empowered to assert their identity and develop it creatively in dialogue with other cultures. All authentic growth is from the roots. Uprootedness is alienating and eventually destructive. Migrants often start searching for their roots after unsuccessful efforts to integrate into another culture. Some decades ago people used to speak of North America as a melting pot. Today’s favourite image would rather be the salad bowl.
Thirdly, after a period of unequal relationships, the smaller dominated groups must be allowed to be themselves and to find adequate self-expression. In an international setting, affirmation of self-identity will also involve an ongoing dialogue with the religions of the various cultures, which is mandatory for the persons belonging to that culture and necessary for others if they are working with the people of that culture. Thus appreciation of African cultures would also extend to some elements of their popular religiosity, their regard for life and nature, their respect for ancestors and community, their use of symbol and celebration, their preference for corporal expression, etc. Asian cultures have many techniques for self-discovery and contemplation and concentration. Their search for harmony between the person and community, creation and the human and body and spirit are millennial. Their sense of etiquette in relationships also needs to be appreciated and not misunderstood.

Fourthly, multi-cultural communities do not emerge automatically. They have to be constructed. Besides living together, there must be freedom, time and an appropriate forum for sharing, discussion, challenge, and problem-solving. As far as religious are concerned, multi-cultural communities do not simply happen. In constructing such communities, it is good to remember that, while one can acculturate into a different culture, one does not get away from the culture which has shaped one’s childhood.

Fifthly, even if are able to avoid all sorts of power relations, people from different cultures come together in a place that is in a particular cultural region, either geographically or populationwise. This culture will be the centre around which other cultures would coalesce. This may determine the language spoken and the style of life. Another factor that may give a special focus to the community will be the group with and for whom it is working. This will provide the context for acculturation and the general frame work for community life.

Conclusion
Given the phenomena of globalization, especially of communications, constructing multicultural communities is no longer an option, but a necessity. The Church with its claims to be universal and the international religious congregations are challenged to be the symbols and servants of this new communion. That is the only way, not only to peace, but also to the Kingdom to which God’s plan is leading all of us. In this context all of us are called to live a spirituality of inter-being and harmony. In the world today, to be is to be in relationship with the universe and with others. This dependence is not something added on to our being. It is part of our being. To try to live this network of being will lead us to harmony. Harmony is the blending of many voices. It may be a better image of our goal than unity which somehow tends to be monolithic. Inter-being and harmony are the goals of Asian cultures and can counterbalance the forces of homogenization of contemporary globalization dominated by the West and the North. Multiculturalism can then be lived, not as a problem, but as a challenge.

Michael Amaladoss, S.J.