SEEKING FOR THE ESSENCE OF THE PARADIGM OF DE-SECULARIZATION: INCULTURATION – THE SELF-MANIFESTATION STRATEGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT OF SECULARIZATION (original) (raw)
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The aim of this paper is to explore a few factors that contribute to the tendency towards secularization in the evangelical churches in Central and Eastern Europe. It further suggests theological remedies to address the causes of secularization. The thesis of this paper is that there are three causes for the tendency towards secularization. First is the secularization of theological education, second is the crisis of ecclesial identity, and third is the secularization of leadership. The first proposal of this paper is that the remedy for the secularization of theological education is redefining theology as communion, theological education as transformation, and theological formation as discipleship. Second, the remedy for the crisis of ecclesial identity that leads to negative identity markers is the replacement of the external conformation model of Christian life (which leads to social isolation, subculturality, and spiritual abuse) with the internal transformation model, which leads to a healthy spirituality and a meaningful theology of mission. Third and finally, the remedy for the secularization of leadership is the rediscovery of the kenotic model of Christian life and ministry.
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This paper has an ambitious aim: to predict the future of the Church. How can anyone undertake such an enterprise since the one thing we know for certain about history is omnia aliter, that is, everything will be different than we once imagined. However, such a project is not as unfeasible as it seems. In the footsteps of literary critics, economists, historians, political scientists, philosophers, and theologians, we sketch some of the most likely shifts in the light of already-observable trends using the finest hermeneutics available. First, we interpret the most significant global trend today: secularization (sections 1). Second, we present and evaluate current models for the future of the Church, paying particular attention to the Magisterium of Pope Francis (sections 2). Finally, we predict likely developments in the area of spirituality (sections 3). In setting out to write academically about futuristic topics, we are aware that one looks to the future not so much to predict i...
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In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that were presented by the great Catholic intellectual Antonio Rosmini in 1848 in a text entitled Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa. The text was very influential for Italian Catholicism in the 20th century. According to Rosmini, the five plagues are: the separation of the people from the clergy in the public cult, the insufficient education of the clergy, the discord amongst the bishops, the handover of the appointment of bishops to the power of laymen, and the serving of economic power and ecclesiastical goods. The author argues that the plagues formulated by Rosmini are not simply a diagnosis of the unsatisfying state of Catholicism but also refer to the question of the sacred and the holy. Holiness is to be linked to the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton YHWH, designating something inaccessible to human power. Rosmini, conscious of the power mechanisms of society and their totalitarian grasp, imagined a lovingly devoted Church to have the task of renouncing earthly regimes of power, thereby remembering its evangelical origins. The author shows that each of the plagues designates a critique of Church's claim to worldly power. In the second part, he examines a conception of holiness in which the holy designates the individual as oscillating between two subjects, its own and that of Jesus, the latter marking a radical opening of the subject and the abundance of the name of God. It is betrayed when the Church becomes an institutional space of sacralised power detached from the profane world. In the third part, the author introduces four new plagues of the Church: 1. the exclusion of laymen from responsibility for the Church, 2. the claim to moral superiority as a legitimisation of sacralised power, 3. sexual abuse and 4. clericalism as patriarchal power and the exclusion of women from responsibility in the Church. While these contemporary plagues indicate a self-centred and power-conscious understanding of sacrality inadequate to the biblical concept of holiness, Pope Francis's notion is rooted in the latter. The Pope thereby shares Rosmini's notion of holiness, a notion that is decisive for the future of the Catholic Church.
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The concept of self-secularisation has been identified by Wolfgang Huber, bishop of the German Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), when he reflected on the context of the church in Germany. Self-secularisation however, is a worldwide phenomenon with effects in South Africa as well. After discussing the origin of the concept and its interpretations, the author tries to identify instances of self-secularisation within especially the Afrikaansspeaking churches, although not limited to them, in South Africa. The theological jargon comes under scrutiny, civil religion, the pluralistic society within which the church exists, the effect of emotionalism, the commercialisation of the church, the role of mass media and the phenomenon of infotainment, rationalisation and a lack of ethics are some of the elements identified and discussed. Finally the author attempts a correction by indicating what the church ought to do in order to counter the effects of self-secularisation.