A Discussion about Terms and the Issue of Correctly Understanding the Church’s Mission

The article deals with the correlation of two missiological terms: inculturation and adaptation. Today, ‘inculturation’ refers to such a wide range of interactions between Christian evangelism and indigenous culture that it is often called something that is not inculturation in essence, or reflects only its external signs, accidents, but is not understood ontologically and meaningfully. This problem faces both Western and Eastern Christianity today. And if in the West there is a sufficiently developed theology of inculturation and a clear understanding of it as a process that is Christ-centered in nature, in Orthodox local churches, inculturation often remains at the level of cultural adaptation, which is only the tip of a huge iceberg: that of the Christian reception of culture as a holistic phenomenon, accommodating three levels: mental, representative and material. Often such processes reduce culture to its lowest level, namely material culture. In this case, Christian reception is more an adaptation than an inculturation in the true sense of the word. In this article, the author focuses on three main issues. What is the difference between adaptation and inculturation, and on what grounds is the latter to be theologically comprehended? Is the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition an inculturation in the true, theological, understanding of its meaning? Finally, what is Orthodox mission today, not so much from the point of view of external activity, but from the point of view of missiological reflection? What are the possibilities and, at the same time, the risks of an inculturation prone to syncretic tendencies that threaten the very understanding of the Christian mission?

Download article