The Divine Incarnation into a world of cultural images.

f we look at the way Religious traditions spread in the first millennia and a half of the Common Era, we are conscious that while Christianity followed the fortunes of the Greco-Roman empire, civilizations of the East had also their sense of Mission and spiritual quest. Thus the ancient Mauryan empire, especially under the rule of Ashoka, did much to spread Buddhism and other forms of Indian spirituality right across Asia. Later, Islam spread over central Asia to India and Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
This link between Faith and civilization needs to be better understood, or we may be in danger of viewing the emergence of a Global culture in the light of what Huntington termed a ‘clash of Civilizations’. There is nothing intrinsically Christian about European Civilization, and Asian Cultures are not by their nature at variance with Gospel values. Yet many missionaries, accompanying European adventurers in search of Asian resources for trade, thought they were bringing civilization along with the Christian Faith to ignorant natives given to idolatrous cults. The link between Gospel and Culture represents a ‘counter-culture’. This counter cultural aspect of the Gospel challenges the very notion of colonialism. The hunger for power is fundamentally opposed to the vision of Jesus concerning a ‘Kingdom of God’ here on earth. To impose one form of civilization on another, gives rise to situations of conflict that endanger the future of the whole planet earth. The concept of Gospel in relation to cultures, and especially the cultures of the dispossessed, or marginalized, underlies a new understanding of “Mission” as a dialogue between cultures, that is respectful of the diversity of peoples, in relation to the diversity that we find in nature itself, and which needs to be protected and celebrated if Creation is to be furthered, as Divinely ordained.

f we look at the way Religious traditions spread in the first millennia and a half of the Common Era, we are conscious that while Christianity followed the fortunes of the Greco-Roman empire, civilizations of the East had also their sense of Mission and spiritual quest. Thus the ancient Mauryan empire, especially under the rule of Ashoka, did much to spread Buddhism and other forms of Indian spirituality right across Asia. Later, Islam spread over central Asia to India and Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
This link between Faith and civilization needs to be better understood, or we may be in danger of viewing the emergence of a Global culture in the light of what Huntington termed a ‘clash of Civilizations’. There is nothing intrinsically Christian about European Civilization, and Asian Cultures are not by their nature at variance with Gospel values. Yet many missionaries, accompanying European adventurers in search of Asian resources for trade, thought they were bringing civilization along with the Christian Faith to ignorant natives given to idolatrous cults. The link between Gospel and Culture represents a ‘counter-culture’. This counter cultural aspect of the Gospel challenges the very notion of colonialism. The hunger for power is fundamentally opposed to the vision of Jesus concerning a ‘Kingdom of God’ here on earth. To impose one form of civilization on another, gives rise to situations of conflict that endanger the future of the whole planet earth. The concept of Gospel in relation to cultures, and especially the cultures of the dispossessed, or marginalized, underlies a new understanding of “Mission” as a dialogue between cultures, that is respectful of the diversity of peoples, in relation to the diversity that we find in nature itself, and which needs to be protected and celebrated if Creation is to be furthered, as Divinely ordained.