Julio Xavier Labayen, O.C.D., Bishop of Jnfanta

1. Clarifying terms

Ecumenical

Etymologically, this word comes from Greek: oikos, to mean house, and rnene, to mean pertaining to the management of the house. Ecumenical, therefore, means household keeping.

By usage, the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council (1962-65) associated the word ecumenical with the household of Christians. It refers to those who are of the household of believers of Jesus Christ. These are catholic Christians and non-catholic Christians, popularly known as Protestants. The ecumenical movement intends to settle the relationship of those who make up the household.

In the course of time, the word ecumenical was extended to include the household of the human race, namely all peoples. This perspective aims at relating all peoples in unity despite, better beyond, their differences. Its objective is unity in plurality (E pluribus unum).

Today, with the present consciousness of the vital part the ecological system plays the word ecumenical is stretched out even farther. The whole creation is considered part of the universal household. We can talk, therefore, of cosmic ecumenism. It is this understanding of ecumenism that I would like to speak from in this paper. The reason is simple. This is the whole of God’s creation: the Creator’s household. God embraces all of it and wishes to bring together all of its component parts in unity and harmony (“to bring together all things, in heaven and on earth in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:10), who is the Word-Creator and the Word-Savior.

Vision of...

Etymologically, vision comes from Latin verb: videre (to see) . The image that comes out of seeing is called vision. We are talking here of ecumenical vision of church. I want to be clear what we mean here: Is it our vision of what the church may be, or what the church should be in the 21st century? I shall talk here of what the ecumenical vision of the church should be in the 21st century in the light of the mystery of the Incarnate Word.
In Asia...

What do we mean by in Asia? Is Asia just a place, a location? Or is Asia also a source of our growing understanding of Church and Mission in the light of the Incarnate Word? I refer here especially to the rich source for our vision that the rich religio-cultural heritage of Asia is! I would like to address here especially the missionary imperative of inculturation in order to arrive at our ecumenical vision of the church in Asia in the 21st century.

Pope John Paul II in his apostolic letter Orientale Lumen, (L ‘Osservatore Romano, 3 May 1995) clearly states: “we must be deeply rooted in what is distinctive to each culture and open to convergence in a universality which involves an exchange for the sake of mutual enrichment.”

The memory of our ancient Christian roots does not imply a return to the past to canonize
it. It simply means that our missionary endeavor must connect the past with the present in an enriching dialogue. It is hot the conservation, at all cost, of the past but the revitalization, the creative renewal of human communities. Then hopefully we shall discover the path to convergence of the different ways of living and expressing our human traits which are universal. They are found in practically all the varied cultures of peoples.

Church

The word ‘church’ comes from the Latin word ecclesia, which, in turn, comes from the Greek verb ekleo: to call. The church, therefore, is the assembly or community of those whom God has called together. By usage, the word church can refer to either a building which is the place of worship or to a community of those whom God has called together. Further, the church’s structural organization is called church institution. Church, therefore, may refer to either a place of worship (a building or a temple), to a community of those whom God called together, or to an institution.

In this paper, I use the word church to mean the community of those whom God called together in faith. These believers may either be Christian or non-Christian. They subscribe to a religion which points them to, and relates them with, the ultimate transcendent One (God). The bond that holds them all together is their faith in God or in a transcendent Being. Moreover, I include also all those who seek the truth, the noble, the beautiful and the good and those who follow their conscience. The bond that binds them together is their human spirit and their conscience. The Second Ecumenical Vatican Council places them all - believers, seekers of the transcendent, and conscience followers under the umbrella of the People of God (Lumen Gentium, 16). In this sense, church is a community or assembly of a people whom God called together, and who, in turn, relate to God, either in faith, in conscience, or in their love and search for the true, the noble, the good and the beautiful.

21st Century

The whole process of modernization has deeply affected Asia. Now that this process globalizes an economic system which is called liberal capitalism all the more it has become transformative of Asia. It intends to accomplish this transformation by replacing the rich religio-cultural heritage of Asia with a monoculture called consumerism. The social communications revolution has enabled the system to promote effectively this monoculture of consumerism. Its ultimate objective is to create economic “tigers” of Asian countries: Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and others.

The immediate and obvious effect of the system is the erosion of the rich religio-cultural heritage of Asia. Morality and spirituality progressively finds no place in the whole process. Materialism usurps the traditional place of the spiritual. Secularism alienates Asian people from the transcendent One which the religions of our Asian forefathers recognized and worshiped. The sense of family and community gradually yields to individualism. The rapid deterioration and widespread pollution of the ecological system - forest, land, air and water - point to the ravaging and rapacious appetite of the free market which is central to liberal capitalism. Such a rugged, arid, determined, profit-driven market has made us frightfully aware of the exhaustibility of our resources. In fact, there is the prognosis of an impending food and water shortage in the near future, based on the way our resources are indiscriminately exploited and wantonly wasted.

The Asia-Pacific is the world focus for the twenty-first century! The globalization process will concentrate on the plunder of Asia. The challenge to Asia is loud and clear! The mission of the church among Asian peoples impinges on her. She has to face this challenge and to espouse solidarity with Asian peoples who concretely manifest the vitality of their culture in the face of globalization.

The spiritual strength that the centuries-old great world religions of Asia have raised and sustained still offers resistance and rejects the worldly wares the West presents. Asian cultures are behind the meaningful mobilizations to question globalization and to seek alternatives to it. This fact is especially true in non-urbanized places in Asia. Here lies the hope to preserve and spread the precious treasures of the Asian cultures. Here lies the hope for the care of the ecological system upon which peoples’ lives and health depend.

The future in the twenty-first century of Asia and of the world hangs on the balance. On which side the balance will tip depends on the politico-cultural choice and will of Asian and other peoples. The Asian peoples can either fall for the consumerist monoculture of the market economy, or they can cherish, defend and uphold their rich religio-cultural heritage which has sustained their sense of the human and the sacred all these centuries.

2. The Church and Mission Today

Jesus-Christ thought of the church as His own extension (in sign or sacrament) into time and space. He will continue to be present to the human race and to flow with the earth’s story. In His Spirit as the risen Lord He still continues to unite Himself to humanity and be part of the earth’s story. As in His incarnation, so will it be so for all time till the end.

The church is the trustee and carrier of this incarnational message of salvation. Vatican II asserts, in the name of the church: “By his incarnation the Son of God has in some way united himself with each and every human being.” (GS II. 22). In Jesus, God unites himself with all human beings, with all peoples. Here we find the basis for what Pope John XXIII meant when he admonished the Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council to consider the church as the Church of all Peoples.

Moreover, the church has been keen on setting right all relationships, both human and ecological. Wherefore, the church must be mindful and concerned for justice in the world. In fact, this was the theme of the Bishops’ Synod in 1971. The church is well aware that the injustice in the world has impoverished the masses of peoples. They have been deprived of the basic means of livelihood which God created in abundance for all. Such a phenomenon is systemic. It is the fruit of an economic system that is centered on profit as its principal and key motive.

For this reason, Pope John XXIII also exhorted the Vatican II Council Fathers to look at the church as, above all, the Church of the Poor, that is, a church with a compassionate heart of a mother for the victims of injustice in the world, in other words, a church that is zealous for justice in the world.

Here are the words of admonition Pope John XXIII addressed to the Council Fathers: “The Council must help disseminate the social and community dimensions which are inherent to authentic Christianity in its entirety: only in this manner will the church be able to present herself as the Church of All Peoples and, above all, as the Church of the Poor” (17 September 1962).

It is clear, therefore, that the raison d’être of the church is as one who is sent to be responsible for living to the full God’s image in human beings and for setting right all relationships in the world: human and ecological. The purpose is unity in harmony for the sake of life. When the hidden plan of God was finally revealed it is “to bring together all things in heaven and on earth in Christ Jesus (the cosmic Savior)” (Eph 1: 3:10). St. Peter longed for this prospect when he stated: “We await new heavens and new earth where, according to God’s promise, justice reigns” (2 Pt 3:13).

Has it always been like this before now?

3. Historical Model of Church

The church has its concrete and discernible features. We refer to this image of church as a model of church. A church model is always conditioned by the situation obtaining in every time and clime. Hence, we speak of a historical model of church. The early persecutions of Christians drove them in hiding to the underground catacombs. They suffered and died under the yoke of the mighty. However, in the fourth century, under Constantine the Great, the church experienced a respite from persecutions. The emperor took the church under his patronage. As a result, the church situation shifted from a persecuted church to a triumphalistic church. From a politically timid church it became a politically aggressive, imperialist church.

We are talking here about a model of church that has been conditioned and shaped by past historical processes under the Roman empire. The historical model of church that emerged under the Roman emperor Constantine, the Great, is called the Christendom Model. It is a triumphalistic and imperialist church.

This model preceded the Christianization of Europe. After the Christianization of Europe a mind-set arose that considered Europe Christian and the rest of the world as non-Christian. Given the belief at that time that the Christian religion was the only saving religion, Europe thought of itself as saved by the God who dwelt with the peoples of Europe. On the other hand, Europe looked at the rest of the world as pagan, that is, without God.

The missionary zeal of the Europeans drove them to bring God to the pagans, to convert them to the God of salvation and thus be saved. Worse, the Europeans considered European ways and culture as the channel of salvation. Therefore, the salvation of the rest of the world depended on the adoption of European culture and ways. This was the cultural imperialism of the European missionaries who came to Asia.

Matteo Ricci stood out as the exception. He wanted to incorporate into the Christian liturgy the Chinese rites. The Vatican said no! Speculation today raises the question: “What would China be today had the Vatican given a positive answer to Ricci’s request?”

Today the Christendom model of Church still prevails and is questioned more and more, in the light of Vatican II and the social teaching of the church. Many local churches all over the world, especially those in the so-called third world, strive to shift away from this model towards a new historical model of church: the Church of the Poor.. This shift from a Christendom model of church to a Church of the Poor model is simply a shift from a sociologically pyramidal church to a church of communion, from a triumphalistic and imperialist church to a servant-prophet church.

4. The Church and the Social Teaching

Through all these the church had not really integrated seriously the social and community dimensions into her concept of salvation and spirituality. The tendency was more towards an individualistic salvation: self-sanctification.

At the time of St. Paul the Christians believed that the eschatological end was imminent. They busied themselves more in preparing for the end to come than in being mindful of the relationship of the church’s mission in the world.

The encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Rentm Novarum (1891), marks the commonly considered official beginning of the social teaching of the church. But despite the more than hundred years that have transpired since then, the social teaching of the church still, to a great extent, remains today the “best kept secret of entire church”.

I may add that it remains so, despite the words of Pope John XXIII when he convened the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council in 1962: “This Council,” the Pope stated, “must help disseminate the social and community dimensions which are inherent to authentic Christianity in its entirety: only in this manner will the Church be able to present herself as the Church of all Peoples and, above all, as the Church of the Poor.” (17 September 1962).

5. The Church and the Incarnation

Vatican II had emphasized the meaningful message of the Incarnation of the Son of God. It underlined the dynamic, organic and integrated (inseparable) relationship between time and eternity, between the story of the earth and the story of God, between individual salvation and personal responsibility for society and community, for all peoples and the earth. In Jesus Christ the two stories - God’s and the earth’s - are one, not two.

Pope John Paul II took up this same orientation regarding the historical fact of the Incarnation in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979). Recently, he develops further this mystery of the Incarnation in his Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (1994). The Incarnation sets the orientation for the church to become the Church of all peoples and, above all, the Church of the Poor.

6. To Whom Does God Belong?

In the light of the exclusive European mind-set of the Christendom model of church, I ask to whom does God belong? In the Prologue of the Gospel according to St. John we read the following:

From this passage it is clear that since the beginning all creation came to be because of their relationship with the Creator. Vice versa, since the beginning the Creator related to all creatures. The Creator is the God of the universe!

Further on in the same chapter of the Gospel according to St. John we read: “And the Word was made flesh.” (Jn 1:10). I repeat the church’s belief stated in Gaudium et spes, n. 22: “By his incarnation the Son of God has, in a certain manner united himself with each and every human being.” God belongs to all peoples. All peoples belong to God. By reason, therefore, of the universal creation by the Word-Creator and of the Incarnation, God belongs to the Whole of creation and to all peoples, and vice versa, the whole of creation and all peoples belong to the Creator and to the Incarnate God. How far indeed from the exclusive and triumphalistic mind-set of the Christendom model of church!

7. The Church and Inculturation

Inculturation is the way of the Incarnation. When the Son of God was born of the tribe of David, he became a Jew. He lived by the Jewish culture and religion. He worshiped together with the other Jews in the temple. In short, he assumed humanity not in the abstract but in the concreteness of that humanity: race, culture, religion, belonging to a people and their history.

By being part of a given culture, Jesus’ goal was not to canonize indiscriminately the whole culture, much less to pitch one culture against another. In every culture there are flaws and weaknesses which set back the human growth of life. These flaws and weaknesses stem from the innate inadequacy and limitations of human nature. They are, in turn, reinforced by the social conditioning of a culture that is adversely human.

For which reason the ulterior motive of the incarnation is to purify and to humanize culture, which is basically people’s way of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence (Centesimus annus, 24).

Hence, the need, on the other hand, to evangelize culture/cultures. Evangelization involves a challenge to those cultures, a call to conversion, a need to purify what may be dehumanizing and to transcend what may be blocking the fuller vision of God. These two tasks go hand-in-hand: inculturation and evangelization of cultures.

8. The Church and Spirituality

Since our Christian faith is centered on Jesus Christ, I shall address this sub-topic from the perspective of the Incarnate Word. After all, Christians are expected to live by the Spirit of Jesus (spirituality) and the church Jesus founded is to make present the missionary dynamism of Jesus (in sign or sacrament) in time and space.

In our traditional Catholic way of looking at spirituality we associated it with an institutional way of living, either with the religious life or with the ordained priesthood. This attitude is obviously manifested when we advise a young lady who wants to be holy (spiritual) to become a religious sister and in the case of a young man, to be a priest. It had been difficult to consider spirituality otherwise than associated with an institutional way of life. This is spirituality that I would call institutionalized spirituality.

Then we were hard-put to define, at least describe, the spirituality of the lay person who is neither a religious sister/brother nor a priest. Much less could we envision spirituality for people who live in the temporal order.

Today since we pay more attention to the mission of the church in the world (temporal order), we are challenged to consider seriously a spirituality for the laity and for people in general who live immersed in the temporal order.

The sciences have lent their knowledge of human nature to discover the answer to our present challenge. We have psychology that enlightens us on the dynamics of our inner self and its growth to maturity (mature personality). There is anthropology that shares with us the empirical data regarding human behavior, both individual and communitarian, as well as societal. Sociology for its part shows the intricacies of societal structure and their dynamics that condition our way of life, our culture. In fact, this conditioning brings about changes in our cultural values and meanings, including our way of looking at the world around us.

For this reason we have shifted our evaluation of theology as the “queen” of sciences to simply another science that needs the help and support of the other sciences, particularly the behavioral sciences. Hence the need for an interdisciplinary approach to theology in the understanding of our faith.

Incarnational Spirituality

By incarnational spirituality we mean the life of our human spirit that is situated and rooted in human flesh. By this orientation, evidently we are shifting our understanding of spirituality from institutionalized spirituality to incarnational spirituality: from spirituality that is associated with an institutionalized way of living, in other words, a spirituality that is rooted in an institution, to a spirituality that is rooted in our common humanity.

From the perspective of our Christian faith we draw our basic premise from the story of creation in Sacred Scripture (Gen 1-2). We hold that the Creator of heaven and earth created us, human beings, male and female, in the Creator’s image and likeness. By this, the Creator singled us out of the whole of creation and placed us at the center of creation. I say, at the center, not above creation. By placing us at the center, the Creator held us responsible for the whole creation. He expects us to properly set in order the interrelation and interconnectedness of the entire creation and to promote the growth and development of the earth on the basis of this ordering.

The Human Spirit

Image is a static category, like a photo or a painting. When we speak of spirituality we imply dynamism and growth to fullness or perfection. How would we call the image of the creator in all human beings when it becomes dynamic?

Psychotherapy speaks of the psyche, the inner element in human beings, the principle of dynamic growth of our personality towards maturity. Psychotherapy holds that the psyche grows according to certain normative principles which are, in fact, dynamic expressions of the human spirit.

I submit that the dynamic name for the image of the Creator in us is the human spirit. Thus, the dynamic life of the human spirit is what I would call spirituality. It is a spirituality that is rooted in our humanity, in particular in our human spirit. I would be at a loss to define the human spirit. I would rather describe it by pointing to its expression and manifestations.

Three expressions reveal the dynamic life of the human spirit: 1) self-transcendence, 2) drive and search for meaning, and 3) gift of self.

1) Self-Transcendence

It is an observable fact that our human spirit has the capacity to bring us beyond our parameters and limitations. It is enough to consider the lyrics of the song “The Impossible Dream”. The composer expresses this capacity for self-transcendence by singing of a dream that is impossible’ for us to realize simply because its realization goes beyond our unaided powers. The composer, likewise, sings of an unreachable star expressing our human capacity to gaze at a star beyond our human parameters and human limitations, hence, unreachable. Because of this empirical phenomenon we awaken to our capacity for self-transcendence.

Incidentally, self-transcendence is the very heart of any and every spirituality worth its salt. It may be Christian or non-Christian, as long as it is human, it does not make any difference. For us Christians, this fact of self-transcendence throws light on the mystery of our redemption: the death and resurrection of Jesus-Christ. Jesus let go of any attachment to self: his will, his desire, his understanding and his temporal plan. In fact, “he emptied himself becoming a finite and mortal human being without clinging to his being God. Moreover, he humbled himself becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.” (Phil 2). His self-emptying and obedience to the will of the Father was the key to the accomplishment of the task the Father sent him to do: the redemption of humankind and the rest of creation, the bringing together of all things, in heaven and on earth, the realization in harmonious relationship of the fullness of the whole universe. God took over, and, jointly with and in the humanity of Christ, accomplished what was beyond unaided human capacity and power. For transcending himself in his humanity, God exalted the name of Jesus above every other Name. For this reason, Jesus of Nazareth in his resurrection is considered the cosmic Savior. God gifted us with his own Spirit as the risen Lord that in our humanity the incarnational redemption might be extended in time and space.

2) The Drive and Search for Meaning

All human beings are in constant search for meaning. This search is what drives us to look for the answers to why we are here on earth knowing that one day we shall pass away. The paradoxical relationship of life and death has baffled all generations. And every generation looks for the answer to the query: I was born to live, why must I die? Likewise, it seeks the reason of our transitory existence on this planet. “I was born into this world. God knows how long I shall live here. But one thing is certain. One day I shall pass away. Why was I born into this world?” And the troubling question today is: After the giant leaps and bounds of modern technology and science (think of the pathfinder landing on Mars). Why is there so much human brokenness, frustration, and alienation?

Incidentally, the elusiveness today of finding the meaning of our human existence and life is most threatening. The modern world has shifted its focus of development from human to material development. Profit, to make and amass wealth, is the order of the day. The human person turns into a mere cog in the wheel of progress whose obsessive goal is profit. Particularly women have become sex objects for commercialized sex. The whole moral order has been turned upside down Money is more important than the human person. The material enjoys priority over the spiritual. Individual amassing of wealth takes precedence over the common good. The result? Human beings begin to despair of finding the meaning their human spirit seeks relentlessly. No wonder the rate of suicide is increasing. What is the wisdom of pursuing a meaningless life and existence? Suicide becomes the rational and logical exit out of such a situation.

3) Gift of Self

The highest aspiration of the human spirit is to love and be loved. Because of such aspiration the human spirit expresses itself in unconditional gift of self. “No greater love than this than that a man lay down his life for his friends (he loves).” This was what drove Jesus to the cross. He loved us so much that, instead of compromising our dignity as individual human beings together with the common good of humankind, he braved the snarl of angry men who preferred their ego-centered way to the self-giving nobility of their humanity.

This phenomenon of giving one’s life for others can only be comprehended in terms of the human spirit. The universal phenomenon among peoples tells us that nobody wants to die. But we witness continually ‘the challenging deeds of people who lay down their lives for others. They are the unsung heroes of a world that does not, worse, refuses, to acknowledge their human nobility by being men and women for others. In fact, these men and women indict a world that has turned its back on itself. This fact explains the widespread alienation among peoples of today.

Lest we be tempted to associate this phenomenon only with heroes and saints and conclude to its extraordinary and unusual character, let us think for a while of our mothers. They carried us lovingly in their womb for nine months and nourished us with the life-giving substance of their own life-blood. Before they delivered us into this world their blood flowed first before we came out. Fondly they nurtured us at their breast with milk transformed from their life-giving blood. When we got sick they burned midnight oil in sleepless nights to look after us. The times that we did not show up at the appointed time in coming home they patiently waited until they were assured that we were safely home. They forgot themselves and gave themselves unreservedly to those whom they considered flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone. Are they not the unsung heroes of all of us?

Self-Integration

We ask: Where is the human spirit, with its dynamic expressions, taking us? The plain answer is to our self-integration. The total meaning that we find of ourselves and of the world around us leads to our personal integrity: my personal wholeness and my integration with the universe.

Let us clarify what we mean by our integrity. Our self-integration is not self-isolation nor self-absorption. It is not to alienate myself by hiding my head, like the turtle, into the protective shell of my ego. Neither is it to isolate myself and have nothing to do with the rest of the world of peoples and nature, of which I am a part.

In which case, what is self-integration? It is the realization that I am part and parcel of this whole universe (cosmos). And I am placed at the center of it to be responsible for its proper ordering and development. I cannot, therefore, be indifferent to it. My own self-integration is woven right into the fabric that holds the whole cosmos together. It depends, therefore, on the harmonious and integrating relationship of all the make up this universe. Self-integration, therefore, can only take place within the patterns and network of my relationships: both human and ecological.

The Ultimate End

Where will this process of self-integration finally lead us? Inherent in the drive of the human spirit is our reaching out to our ultimate end, our final destination. In fact, the drive towards full humanity and full life includes our desire for complete happiness that will last forever. This search and drive for a meaning that will integrate our whole being with our race and with the whole of creation definitely points to an ultimate and final end. And this aspiration of the human spirit suggests already ai~i inkling into what our self-integration should be. This glimpse of our ultimate end sets a direction and helps us program accordingly the process to move towards it.

But we must bear in mind that while all of us who bear a common human spirit direct ourselves to the ultimate end, we have different names by which we call the ultimate end. The difference comes from our different religions and traditions which are the product of our perception of God in the history of our people and the way we relate to God according to this perception.

As Christians we have our own story to tell and our perception of God as part of that story. In fact, this story of ours is recorded in written form in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The story dates back to creation of the whole universe by our Creator. It moves forward until it comes to Abraham, the father of our faith. It continues to move through the different epochs: the formation of a people over which God constituted patriarchs and kings. God accompanied them and sent them the prophets to continually remind them of God’s covenant with them and to draw them back to himself each time they strayed. Finally came the realization of the prophecies in the birth of a child whom his mother laid in a manger for there was no room in the inn. The story moves forward until it reaches our own times. This perception of God accompanying us in our story slowly wove a tradition and a religion which we call the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Eventually, Jesus and his gift of his Spirit as the risen Lord transformed the old people of the covenant into a new people of God today. We Christian believers today are part of this new people of God.

If we believe that our God is Emmanuel (God-with-us), the living Lord of history who accompanies his people in the weaving of their story we ask: Would this same God behave in the same way with other peoples? Would this same God walk with these peoples and relate to them? Would the people whom God walks with perceive a presence of the living Lord of their story? If we say yes, do we know how this relationship of God walking with other peoples unfolded? Do we know how the people perceived the presence of God in their story? I do not think we do!
If this is the case, how can we justify our culturally imperialistic approach to other religions in the past? In a triumphalistic, arrogant attitude we proclaimed to them: “If you want to be saved, be baptized into the Roman Catholic Church.” Instead of working for unity we created walls between them and ourselves.

Today we explain this phenomenon by saying that the church simply flowed with the patronizing attitude of the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great in the 4th century, and with the colonial mentality of the European countries that accepted Christianity. These were the same countries who set out to subjugate colonies, and exploited them for the sake of their economies at home. For this reason, the erstwhile colonies in the East look upon Christianity as the religion of the white colonizer from the West.

As we humbly confess our guilt of the past, it is time that we change drastically our attitude to other peoples, their religions, and cultures. The words of an Anglican Bishop who was deeply influenced (evangelized?) by the indigenous people of South Africa spontaneously come to mind:

“When we approach another people, another culture, another religion, our first task is to take off our shoes, for the place we are approaching is holy. Else, we may find ourselves trampling on peoples’ dreams. More seriously still, we may forget that God was there before our arrival!”

9. Perceptions of Peoples of the Ultimate End

Different peoples have different stories. These different stories led peoples to come up with different traditions, cultures and religions, which conditioned them to perceive differently and distinctly the Ultimate End.

The Muslims know the ultimate end as Allah whom they consider Always Greater. The Hindus consider the ultimate end as Vishnu/Krishna. The Buddhists look to the ultimate end as Nirvana. Our fathers in the faith of the Old Testament call the ultimate end Yahweh, El Shaddai, Elohim. In the New Testament Jesus taught us to call God Our Father and to believe that our God is One and Three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Anthropologists find peoples recognizing and relating to the ultimate end as the Supreme Being. And finally, philosophers know the ultimate end as the four Transcendents: the True, the Noble, the Good and the Beautiful.

10. Conclusion

Our past interrelationships bogged down in the politics of capitalizing on our differences on account of our respective identities. For this reason religious wars were fought in the name of the ultimate end. Think, for example, of the Crusades in the Holy Land.

Jncarnational Spirituality hopefully will open for all religions, cultures, traditions and ideologies the way to recognizing in each other a common human spirit. And may this understanding bring all peoples together in a spirit of belonging to the one household of the human race and of the rest of creation under the Creator of us all. And may the same life of the human spirit instill in all the zeal to work for full life and full humanity for all peoples together with the integrity of creation.