FEBRUARY 2005 - ISSUE 4 - ISSN 1448 - 632

ABSTRACT

In the past I have reflected on and written about local mission in the East Kimberley region of the Particular Church known as Broome Diocese. Interpretation is a continuing and always challenging task, in some ways not unlike a modern triathlon: we often have to peddle through tough ideological stretches, there is relative relief in running with the published, more or less disposable wisdom of others to sustain us, and, perhaps the most difficult, we accept - if only for a time - that plunge for meaning which evokes the lines of T.S. Eliot:

Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward

And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.

The terms (with related phenomena) I will deal with in this interpretative exercise are praxis, faith, ideology, inculturation, and the ‘new' evangelisation.

PRAXIS AND FAITH

In life nothing is more basic than the cycle of begetting and protecting, of being begotten and protected. From this vital round have emerged what we call values, enshrined, for example, in the Hebraic Ten Commandments or in the Australian Indigenous Ngarrangkani, known otherwise as (the) Dreaming. History records that these two constructs have been integral to the context of local Catholic mission in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. Individuals with Catholic background have sought to engage with those of Indigenous background so that values might be enhanced co-operatively and ‘with respect' - as is said locally; while this continues they are said to be engaged in what is called praxis.

Praxis is our first sustaining thought-container. It is not exactly the same as that practice which is customarily coupled with theory. Praxis here stands for that engagement with reality out of which values emerge to be regarded as true to human destiny. Such values as the serving of fellow humans and fidelity in relationships have, in the course of praxis over time, been carried forward with a kind of faith which is sometimes said to be a wager on the worthwhile in life. Almost unmindful of any cultural differentiation values like the worth of Christian service and Indigenous solidarity have attached themselves to that common humanity which exists because people first gave themselves to a begetting and protecting cycle of life. Further, because faith as introduced here is so basic and universal in human experience it is sometimes called anthropological faith – and that, it may be said, is a double thought-container from which we can draw sustenance on our way without fuss.

From a Christian faith point of view Jesus of Nazareth inherited a tradition of service and solidarity which he opened to transcendence in a unique way. This he did by means of what would later be called his ‘kingdom praxis'. Faith in human values of loving service and solidarity was lifted by him to a level of virtue which we believe reaches to our God. The theory of our theological virtues - with first faith not out of place among them, but not limited to them - and the practice of these virtues endeavour to serve this new appreciation of transcendence in Christian life. The propagation of such an appreciation is the task of Christian mission.

As was noted earlier, however, from time to time there is cause to acknowledge that praxis and some practices of faith which readily flow from theory are not exactly the same. Praxis is more grounded in immediate experience than practice; in fact a practice emerging from developed theory can give rise to a suspicion that the said practice is not serving the value/truth as embraced and promoted by faith in the first place. Halting theories and aberrant practices can erode a good faith generated in praxis. Therefore their investigation and interpretation are never out of place. In further consequence local mission seeking to prolong the kingdom praxis of Jesus can never presume to be beyond all that is unquiet in the waters of human endeavour; and it will also have to expect that the light available to it for interpretation is not beyond being fractured. Nonetheless, the attempt to interpret has to proceed.

Examples:

1. In the spirit of Jesus a mission-conscious non-Indigenous person works and shares with Indigenous brothers and sisters and in many instances all come to share a faith in one called Father, or its equivalent in Indigenous language.

The theory of the modern welfare state and its practices, not in essence alien to a provident God-Father, has as we know been introduced to our Australian ethos. We also know that welfare has brought with it a temptation to co-dependency; the kind of solidarity generated by ‘Father-faith' is spoilt by manipulation based on relationship: “I have squandered my welfare cheque, but you are my brother/sister, or father/priest, and you should now help me practically”. Practice can desert the value (solidarity based on faith in God as Father) generated earlier in (kingdom) praxis.

A successful tracking of our interpretative light in this instance might further lead us to conclude that praxis characteristically involves learning by trial and error and admits conversion over again. Local mission is therefore gradually on-going.

2. Education of the young, so naturally included in the cycle of begetting and protecting, belongs to the praxis available to most of local mission. Universally education is a value believed in as worthwhile, and in principle it is locally delivered and fostered in this particular diocese by the Catholic Education Office of Western Australia. Not surprisingly, there is more than one theory of how best to do this and hence there is a corresponding variety in practice.

From a local point of view the Catholic school known as Warlawurru came into being in response to a request from an Indigenous (Jaru speaking) community at Lundja. In the prevailing theory of delivering education the participation and co-responsibility of the Lundja Indigenous people in the education of their children were readily recognised, and a so-called practice of 2-Way (cross-cultural) education was meant to encapsulate the value of what was made available through the Catholic school.

Over time, however, the local Lundja community has all but lost its Catholic character and the remaining 2-Way cultural practice in the school is all but exhausted. Nevertheless the school continues, with the present school community theoretically still given the right of participation in and co-responsibility for decisions which affect members. It is notable, though, that this in practice is no longer realised. With Catholic character suspect and commitment to 2-Way eroded, the school continues by virtue of a controlling administration represented by distant Catholic Education Office personnel and their local counterparts. The school community of the day does not participate in shaping or changing policies, such as staffing and enrolment, which in turn affect Catholic character and the erstwhile 2-Way commitment. Nor has the school community enjoyed co-responsibility in addressing matters such as the need for any kind of comprehensive school review.

It has to be said that the practices of the school today have long since drifted away from the original values brought to birth in praxis by the founding elders and other members of the Lundja community in collaboration with other parish personnel. Local mission has thus faltered because it has not been attentive to this drift. Once again mission is invited to learn from mistakes and accept that patience is at a premium in a progress which is slow.

FAITH AND IDEOLOGY

Just as praxis generates faith, faith in its turn requires ideology, that is, the means of expressing and realising the values which faith chooses as worthwhile. Implicitly this has been recognised in the foregoing development of my theme. But to be more explicit now, ideology as a thought-container belongs to the world of instruments available to human projects of faith. For example, we have in our Catholic tradition a sacramental ideology to express and to realise Catholic faith. (As with faith expressed through theory and practice in the last section, particular theories and practices can attend sacramental ideology; as elsewhere we have known locally a physical approach to the sacraments with measured effects of grace, and we have known as well a symbolic orientation which highlights a sacramental ‘dwelling in' experience and an ‘overplus' of corporate meaning, as with the family and community dimension of baptism.)

Since the interpretation of local mission so far has indicated that there is a right pace of proceeding, of interest here is a kind of ecology of instruments at the service of ideology. Nature we know cannot be forced in a Lamarckian way: the giraffe did not acquire its long neck by energetic and persistent stretching. In an evolutionary understanding of nature the giraffe is the way it is today by virtue of long periods of time and an energy consumption interacting with the stochastic features of environmental change and genetic mutation.

Analogously we can say that the purposes and ends of local mission cannot be forced either. It is, though, quite easy to detect instances where ideology has acquired meaning in a pejorative sense at the hands of agents of mission who are in a hurry and/or inclined to missuse available instruments; again it is convenient to give a couple of examples.

Examples:

1. In some of the local churches there has been a quite rapid move from first adult baptisms to the idea of Indigenous church leaders whose tasks can include a sacramental ministry. There is also at hand a local pastoral institution aspiring to deliver, inter alia, formation in ministry which for its part can contribute to a sound sacramental ideology: the expression and realisation of that transcendent value open to faith at baptism.

It is arguable that without due screening individuals have been introduced to workshops in eucharistic theology and ministry. It is also plausible that this has happened because the pastoral institution needs clients and as a result individuals are included in its courses out of time. The practice suggests the Lamarckian short-cut, that with energy and persistence desired outcomes are possible in abbreviated time.

What happens in our unquiet waters of local mission confirms that in some cases sacramental ideology promoted by the pastoral institution has taken a negative turn. The course participants, without parish endorsement in the first place, do not actualise the sacramental ministry intended by the institution. Intention and purpose are not enough to fashion adequate ideology. In fact, a risk taken by the institution, wittingly or not, is that people may be instrumentalised for its own ends of adequate usage and client turnover. From another angle, perhaps less embarrassing to the institution, it is possible that the providers of the workshop have themselves been instrumentalised, in this case by the unsuitable participants. Some visiting participants have been known to bring their own extra-curricular purposes with them, not least because they do not appreciate sufficiently the planned workshops and their ideological outcomes.

We can thus see that ideology cannot afford to be too purposive, too impatient for a desired outcome. Nature's general law of gradual returns, even in human projects, and the inclination for human agents to force results can clash to leave us with ideologies which on occasion defeat the original value and faith which (kingdom) praxis had released and opened to a favourable sacramental ideology. We glimpse again that local mission requires a measured pace.

2. As with the earlier section on praxis and faith, the second example here also pertains to education, and the point to be made is that aberrant ideology easily approaches pretence. The Catholic school itself functions ideologically; it is meant to express and realise that character which belongs to lived values of Catholic faith. But because leadership often enough does not stop to consider changing circumstances within a school over time, questionable ideological outcomes occur. (I have addressed some of these changes in an earlier volume of Mission: vol IX [2002], pp.213-225.)

With this instance it is not a case of the giraffe stretching its neck; it would seem to be more like the ostrich with its head in the sand. I have in mind a particular change in the Catholic character of the Warlawurru school where the percentage of Catholics in the total school population is now in the vicinity of 25% and participation in eucharistic celebration is around 5%. It could not be expected that the visiting diocesan bishop would find it appropriate to celebrate a Catholic eucharist with such a school population.

Nevertheless the word comes through from regional education headquarters that the diocesan bishop is visiting all schools and intends to celebrate Mass with the school community. The logical response locally would surely be to point out to the organisers of the visits that in this instance it would be inappropriate to celebrate the Mass. But because over time ideology has contrived to cover the whole school population with a kind of Catholic blanket, and therefore arguably envelop it in pretence, a suspicion cannot be avoided that such a proposed Mass is more likely to be considered awkward rather than inappropriate.

Meaning as served by suspicion here allows that educational ideology has moved into an ineffective mode, both on the level of administration and on the vital level of sacramental practice, and the more so with the latter if one subscribes to that theory of sacramental ideology which promotes a sense of ‘dwelling in' a Catholic communion with a family identity. Again it can be seen that time will be needed to build an ideology adequately serving the faith character of a Catholic school with such a diminished Catholic population. This will be referred to again in the later consideration of the ‘new' evangelisation.

INCULTURATION

Our progress so far has been, within common humanity, from praxis generating faith to ideology structured from theories and practices. The local focus verifies that the more we distance ourselves from the remote first known praxis of common humanity, whether by moving around the globe or through history, the more we move into cultural development and diversity. Thus it is that in more recent times and in individual places we have become used to matching particular phenomena with the new word, inculturation. Locally this invites us to consider faith further, and in its somewhat lower profiles at the interface of Christian world-view and the Indigenous Ngarrangkani, or (the) Dreaming.

In local mission much time has been spent in the tree-tops of ideology while the root systems of the two world-views (faiths) have been somewhat taken for granted. In other words, while there has been an awareness of the need to inculturate faith, this has been sought not so much at faith's roots in praxis, but in the ideological branches of myth/story and the foliage of ritual. A so-called dynamic equivalence has been given much attention so that with and through it, when arguably it is detected - as with some Catholic sacramental rites and Indigenous ritual - it is said that faith can be inculturated. It is not my purpose here, however, to develop further this aspect of local inculturation at this time.

My purpose is rather to stay with the root systems of local cultural diversity and by implication closer to the unquiet waters of our local mission. This means we are proximate to those initial values of service and solidarity in action and to the question of what inculturation might mean in this domain of practical, lived faith. Not only is this domain prior to myth/story and ritual, but for believers in Jesus' kingdom praxis it is taken to be the source of a new openness to transcendence. It is the values of service and solidarity in action which alone can give authenticity to claims of transcendence for particular rites that might flower from them in dynamic equivalence.

Service and solidarity have varied provenance, as we have seen from previous examples. With its quite positive aspects there is the modern welfare state to which the two cultures being considered here have access. Arising from a community's desire to educate its young there are the values of member participation and co-responsibility. Service and solidarity, too, can be negated by dependency and co-dependency, and by the overreaching of institutions and administrations when they pursue their goals with excessive purposiveness.

The Asian theologian and missiologist, Aloysius Pieris, rightly observed that the inculturation of life at the base level of service and solidarity precedes the inculturation of rite. For all of us in mission the challenge of inculturation at this root - rather than ritual - level is to expose our lives to the kingdom praxis of Jesus. Indeed, because this kingdom praxis, summed up in Mtt. 25, is so universally applicable to the modern, global experience of war, hunger, grief in tragedy, imprisonment etc., it is questionable whether inculturation of faith at this level is the right word for what we seek. In Christian faith, the witness of Jesus seems ready-made for what is needed by common humanity. And because we speak of common humanity, and believe that Jesus belonged therein during his time as we all do today, it is imperative to culture his values at this level first and only then attend to the spreading branches and the diverse foliage of myth/story and ritual as these are found across cultures. What Jesus brings to cultures directly, in the faith of those acting out of his kingdom praxis in their time, is a unique openness to transcendence; so unique as to give that human action an absolute value. In the same faith it is an absolute for which there is no equivalent.

Examples.

1. Since human begetting and protecting, and being begotten and protected, have been introduced as basic to human life and values, it is worth dwelling on some additional local phenomena associated with this cycle in which faith is cultured. As was noted earlier this cycle has produced both the Hebraic Ten Commandments and the Australian Indigenous Ngarrangkani. It was at their base levels that these traditions first generated values which promoted service and solidarity for community and family. But it must be said that neither the one nor the other is as influential locally as it once was.

The waters of local mission these days are not only unquiet, but there is a murkiness as well. Easy begetting is not without its problems, but it is the protecting of new life which is such a conundrum. The challenge for both the ten commandments (as assumed by the two-fold Christian love commandment) and for Ngarrangkani is to make sense to our younger generations. Phenomena like single parent allowances and child support payments are established practices of the welfare state. They are practices which deliver goods of value to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, and frequently now from the youngest age. What kind of faith is being cultured here? How can a faith calculus be introduced to allow young people to appreciate that there may be ways and horizons to mutual service and solidarity within common humanity other than through the limits of a welfare state?

Too often agents of Christian mission acquiesce in the status-quo of welfare. Young single mothers are congratulated on having babies; cultural rites and baptism may follow, although for local Indigenes the latter is in decline. The local Catholic school will enrol with or without baptism, and then remind whoever wants to hear that because it is a Catholic school (with Catholics in a minority), ‘good behaviour' is expected. The path of culturing a faith with a deep respect for local Indigenous traditions of service and solidarity while at the same time being open to that transcendence posited by the Christian message becomes harder to track in such unquiet waters. This is a second issue which can be resumed in the last section on the ‘new' evangelisation.

2. As well as welfare, a given now in a predominantly secular scene of bringing meaning to life, there have been and are other local phenomena which represent more ‘in house' items in the history of culturing faith within local mission praxis. These have been undertakings such as reaching out to the marginal by establishing ‘a meals on wheels' program for the elderly and disabled, adult education for those interested in such skills as sewing, the opening of a second-hand clothes facility (op shop) for the disadvantaged, and latterly a government funded emergency relief outlet mainly for welfare recipients. Then along the way the already mentioned Catholic school at Lundja was established and for better or for worse it enjoys pride of place in local gospel projects. There have also been other more ritual undertakings such as bringing Indigenous language and symbols into liturgy, but, as said earlier, to explore or assess this is not the present purpose.

Frances Stefano offered a mundane, yet quite useful, measure of meaning which can be applied to these attempts at culturing faith within our local mission; it is, put simply, does an outcome ‘ring true' in the milieu of those we have joined in praxis across cultures in the hope of touching the really worthwhile. For anyone who has read thus far it will be clear that works which flow from and maintain Jesus' kingdom praxis can be expected to have the ring of truth about them. Theoretically none of the local projects can be excluded.

However, because the Warlawurru school project represents the major church investment in local mission its function in culturing faith stands out. There are issues attaching to it especially which have something of the submarine about them in as much as they appear mostly in light which fractures. These issues, exemplified in part earlier, pose serious questions to us: how to keep our projects free from in the first place, or if necessary now release them from, negative characteristics. That such negativities can contribute to the unquiet of our waters, or even muddy them with a suspicion of spreading pretence as commitments drift, has been a central feature of this interpretation. The same issues, of course, admit interpretations by individuals who may differ in good faith; but the burden of this section is that the culturing of faith in the spirit of Jesus' kingdom praxis will always retain an openness to continuing reassessment (calculus), and to conversion, as Jesus put it to his listeners in launching his mission.

It seems that here within local mission a point is reached where a common temptation presents itself: to accept that the ‘good news' and related values carried by the church and its evangelising agents are so settled at any one time in the lives of believers that they therefore are beyond the need for continuing interpretation. The habit of listening attentively for the ring of truth has dulled. Against this, a final section will pursue what seems to follow logically from the materials presented so far. Tautological as it may seem, any previously reckoned ‘good news' in the local church mission – however attractive to anyone's first faith – may have to be floated as ‘new' good news in choppy and changing times.

NEW EVANGELISATION

In the course of this interpretation of local mission there has been reference to two issues which were to be resumed later under the heading of a ‘new' evangelisation. In particular there was the conundrum of the culturing of faith among the young rearing their children in an environment of welfare with a minimum of moral and social prescription. Prior to that consideration, but notably linked to it, was the evangelising context of Warlawurru school where youngsters of the new generation attend, but where on the one hand a flawed Catholic ideology flirts with pretence while on the other hand identity-assurance is maintained in the mechanics of ‘good behaviour'.

Both these issues emphatically direct, or redirect, local mission to the foundational task which was identified at the beginning of the present interpretation, that is, to that engagement with reality which yields values for life, and which is called praxis. Here is where those evangelisers committed to Jesus' kingdom praxis have to persevere or re-insert themselves as they recognise the need to begin over and over again. Such is the nature of the culturing of faith they undertake: to be involved in a continuing calculus of values at the root level of life's commitments and not to be diverted prematurely to the more developed flourishes of ritual nor restricted by a reductionist approach to meaning, e.g., the literacy and numeracy needs of Indigenous children bring an adequate raison d'etre to a church school.

One aspect of possible involvement by Catholic evangelisers at the root level of faith has been described in recent times as being open to a developing regnocentric theology. In this vein the transcendent value of human action is located first in the promotion of justice and due dignity for all. “The glory of God is people fully alive.” (St Irenaeus.) Such an evangelising openness recognises that the kingdom praxis of Jesus is more at home, initially at least, in the diversity of immediate, even hand to mouth, needs which modern life presents to many.

Cross-culturally the approach has two important features which can be related to local mission: a group of people brings an identifiable Catholic character to praxis, and with that a willingness to nuance from below their sense of Catholic mission, or evangelising zeal.

With regard to the first feature, a school situation, for example, will require that leadership should be girded with consistency in sacramental practice and Catholic moral conviction as a ‘new' evangelisation is welcomed. Nor should the critical mass of any such leadership be overlooked; that is, numerically it is always possible that committed leadership in mission at large, or in its administration, can so diminish that Catholic character is rendered effete.

The second from below feature looks to the local context as it is often dominated and controlled by the institutional forces of a welfare environment. The local church does well to resist being drawn into a similar ethos; to be so drawn easily lends itself to a degree of patronising behaviour. With a kind of cultural escapism it is easy for would-be evangelisers to slip into the welfare mode and adopt the habit of acting for others – in our case for those of Indigenous background especially. This detrimentally can take the place of promoting with Indigenes a praxis of co-operation in a spirit of Christian service. As a result the hope of kingdom solidarity with its opening to the unique transcendence brought by Jesus of Nazareth readily languishes.

The nuance sought, then, is suggested by the way in which a regnocentric theology has informed more recent and practical approaches to religious pluralism. An evolving, regnocentric approach to religious pluralism works with a range of components. Analogously for our cross-cultural evangelising situation there would be the following components: (1) regnocentric praxis; (2) where possible a telling Christian witness; (3) a first (in)culturation of values in life;

(4) a growing openness to dialogue; and (5) ultimately an inculturated proclamation in word and sacrament. The interpretation of local mission to this point has really tracked such a sequence which allows for growth and dormancy, and even an occasional regression. The latter notwithstanding, however, and by way of conclusion, the advancing features of a nuanced evangelisation can be presented somewhat graphically - according to one of the images employed along the way.

Figure 1: Anticipated growth from good ground.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aloysius Pieris, S.J., Inculturation: Some Critical Reflections, in Vidyajyoti, Vol. LVII, Nov. 1993.

Frances Stefano, The Absolute Value of Human Action in the Theology of Juan Luis Segundo, University Press of America, Lanham; 1992.

Noel McMaster, C.Ss.R. P.O. Box 32, Halls Creek. W.A. 6770. Master of Literary Studies (Religion), University of Qld. Currently parish priest of Halls Creek, W.A., formerly of Kununurra/Wyndham.

Email: mackstar@bigpond.com.au

© Copyright is retained by the author