Chapter III. Mission and Postmodernism — An Attempt at Synthesis

Postmodernism and Mission. An Attempt at Synthesis — Chapter III. Quotations from the documents of the Church are given in their official English translations; quotations from Polish-language scholarship in the translator's rendering; bibliographical references retain their original form.

Introduction

The present chapter will carry out an analysis of the key elements of the missionary mandate of the Church, as defined in the contemporary documents of the Magisterium Ecclesiae, in relation to the principal postulates of postmodern thought presented in the first chapter — postulates which have found their points of reference in certain elements of contemporary Western culture, assimilated by it on the wave of the cultural-social changes of the second half of the twentieth century. This analysis wishes to give an answer to the question concerning the perception of the missionary activity of the Church (its sources and content, its aims, and its modes of realisation) in the postmodern world and in an emerging theological thought marked by the spirit of this epoch, which "declares itself quite openly for relativism, since relativism has a certain explanatory capacity, while at the same time it is the enemy of the idea of a unique, exclusive, objective, external and transcendent truth"¹⁴⁰.

The last part of the present chapter will undertake an attempt to characterise the person of the missionary in postmodern society. This reflection will be an analysis of the effects which the postmodern postulates have borne in the social reception of religion, as well as in the system of values, the perception of the world, and the shaping of attitudes.

1. The Dogmatic Foundations of Mission Concerning the Role of Christ and the Church

The several decades since the close of the Second Vatican Council have shown that theological reflection in the Church has in certain cases proceeded not without the influence of postmodern currents of thought¹⁴¹. This has led to significant abuses and unwarranted conclusions in theological reflection, in the understanding both of the nature of the Church and of her task in the contemporary world. These abuses have concerned also the understanding of the person of Jesus Christ: the salvation which is accomplished in Him, the understanding of revealed truth in the context of other religious systems, and so on. The situation became serious and disquieting enough¹⁴² to bear fruit in documents of the Magisterium Ecclesiae which were the Church's answer to the currents developing in theology. They concern the question of the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as Saviour against the background of the soteriological conceptions of other religions, as well as the universality of the Church's missionary mandate in the face of the phenomenon of religious pluralism.

1.1. The Universality of Salvation in Jesus Christ

In the light of the Tradition of the Church, the fundamental content which dynamises her activity is the person of Jesus Christ and His work of the Redemption of the human being: "The Church's mission is born of faith in Jesus Christ, which every believer proclaims in the Trinitarian profession of faith: 'I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, eternally begotten of the Father (…). For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.' (…) It is only in faith that the Church's mission can be understood and sustained"¹⁴³. Yet such transmission and understanding of this unchanging content of the faith is shaken and blurred in postmodern theological conceptions. Here one must name in particular the views presented by such theologians as Roger Haight, Paul Knitter and Peter Phan¹⁴⁴.

The post-conciliar discussions which developed on the basis of the statements contained in the documents of the Second Vatican Council concerned the problematic of the salvation of people not belonging to the visible Church¹⁴⁵. Since it touches the fundamental Christian truths, this problematic has direct consequences for the understanding of the missionary mandate of the Church. Attempts at reflection appeared which relativised the salvation made present by Christ¹⁴⁶. This was attempted also in the context of religious pluralism and of postmodern trends¹⁴⁷. The following stages may be distinguished: "First the traditional ecclesiocentrism was rejected, and Christ — and Christ alone, excluding the Church — was made the foundation and aim of mission. In order to meet the non-Christian religions, 'Christocentrism' was then bidden farewell, and one spoke of 'theocentrism', which in the end still makes some sense. Taking into account Buddhism and the non-monotheistic religions, one thus arrived at 'soteriocentrism' — and here no possibility of a theological ordering of the same can really be seen"¹⁴⁸.

In answer to the growing danger of the blurring of the Church's teaching on this question, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the Declaration Dominus Iesus, addressed these tendencies, classifying them and recalling the unchanging dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church: "The thesis is also put forward which denies the unicity and salvific universality of the mystery of Jesus Christ. Such a position has no biblical foundation. In fact, the truth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord and only Saviour, who through the event of his incarnation, death and resurrection has brought the history of salvation to fulfilment, and which has in him its fullness and centre, must be firmly believed as a constant element of the Church's faith. (…) It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God"¹⁴⁹. In addressing in this document the question of other religious experiences, the Congregation neither cancels nor forbids the further investigations undertaken by contemporary theology concerning the role which the positive elements of other religions may be discovered to play in God's salvific plan¹⁵⁰. It clearly states, however, that every attempt to solve this question on the ground of a theology which admits the possibility of a salvific action of God excluding the mediation of Christ is contrary to the Catholic faith¹⁵¹.

1.2. The Distortion of the Truth of the Universality of the Church's Mandate

The Catechism of the Catholic Church presents the concept of catholicity in the following manner: "The word 'catholic' means 'universal,' in the sense of 'according to the totality' or 'in keeping with the whole.' The Church is catholic in a double sense: First, the Church is catholic because Christ is present in her. 'Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church.' In her subsists the fullness of Christ's body united with its head; this implies that she receives from him 'the fullness of the means of salvation' which he has willed: correct and complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained ministry in apostolic succession. The Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the day of Pentecost and will always be so until the day of the Parousia. Secondly, the Church is catholic because she has been sent out by Christ on a mission to the whole of the human race"¹⁵². Such an understanding of the catholicity of the Church leaves its mark on her missionary mandate, which is not characterised by the propagation of the Gospel in various geographical areas after the manner of some human ideology, but is the expression of her interior dynamism and vitality, coming at its source from the Triune God Himself¹⁵³, who "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"¹⁵⁴. This has not only an individual but also a communal dimension, as the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium grasps it when it speaks of the Church's mission to the whole human race, pointing to the task of the growth and development of the Church amid humanity as the expression of the salvific will of God: "This People, while remaining one and only one, is to be spread throughout the whole world and to all ages, so that the design of God's will may be fulfilled: he made human nature one in the beginning and has decreed that all his children who were scattered should be finally gathered together as one. (…) This character of universality which adorns the People of God is a gift from the Lord himself. By reason of it, the Catholic Church strives constantly and effectively to bring all humanity and all its possessions back to its source in Christ, with him as its head and united in his Spirit"¹⁵⁵. The essence of this mandate is the reconciliation with God, and among themselves, of human beings torn by sin. The realisation of the universal mission of the Church thus contributes to the fulfilment of the salvific intention of God, who desires that humanity be a unity after the pattern of the unity of the Holy Trinity¹⁵⁶.

Often, however¹⁵⁷, contemporary theological thought, viewing the Church in the perspective of other religions, has gone very far beyond the framework traced by the Magisterium Ecclesiae in the understanding of the role of the Church's mandate and of its universality. Theologians guided by the unconditional principle of religious pluralism see in other religions alternative ways of salvation, equally entitled to exist alongside the Church of Christ; what is more, they maintain that these are the intended work of Divine Providence¹⁵⁸: "Religious pluralism (…) is not merely an observable fact but also a principle. This means that the non-Christian religions may be seen as part of the plan of divine providence and as possessing a particular role in the history of salvation. They are not merely a 'preparation for', 'steps towards' or 'seeds' of Christianity destined to find their fulfilment in it. Rather, they possess their own autonomy and their own proper ways of salvation, at least for their own adherents"¹⁵⁹.

The Magisterium did not remain indifferent to the formulations presented above as they arose. In his missionary encyclical Redemptoris missio, Pope John Paul II referred to the one-sided conceptions arising in theological thought and to the depreciation of the significance of the Church in God's plan of salvation. He pointed to the marginalisation and trivialisation of the Church, born of an over-accentuated fear of ecclesiocentrism. This leads to a concentration on the mystery of creation, common to various cultures and beliefs, while depreciating the mystery of redemption which the Church proclaims¹⁶⁰.

To the theological attempts which exaggerate the salvific significance of other religions while omitting the mediation of the Church in access to Christ's salvation, the declaration Dominus Iesus answers very precisely and firmly: "Above all else, it must be firmly believed that 'the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door.' This doctrine must not be set against the universal salvific will of God; 'it is necessary to keep these two truths together, namely, the real possibility of salvation in Christ for all mankind and the necessity of the Church for this salvation.' The Church (…) has, in God's plan, an indispensable relationship with the salvation of every human being"¹⁶¹.

From the above presentation it follows that in the postmodern perspective there is no place for such a missionary activity of the Church as the Magisterium Ecclesiae understands and presents. For to the essence of the missionary activity of the Church belongs the proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ and of the work of salvation accomplished in Him. Likewise the Church, in the understanding of Catholic doctrine, possesses a particular and irreplaceable role in making Christ present on earth. What is more, the missionary activity of the Church itself is to lead to her development throughout the whole world, into which new members are incorporated by baptism. In the postmodern perspective neither Christ nor the Church possesses an exceptional role in the panorama of various religious beliefs, each having its own ways to salvation. Both the person of Jesus Christ and the existence of the Church are reduced merely to a level equal to that of every other religious belief.

2. The Paths of Realisation of the Church's Missionary Task

As indicated above, the contemporary understanding of the realisation of the Church's missionary mandate is marked out by three principal paths, connected with the following realities: the inculturation of the Gospel in the process of building the local Church, activity for the development and promotion of the human being, and dialogue with other religions. The context of the postmodern paradigms of thought, marked by pluralism and relativism, has touched also certain theological conceptions, which have not remained without the reaction of the Magisterium Ecclesiae. They concern the understanding of, and over-interpretations connected with, the reality of the Kingdom of God and its relation to the Church; the question of the role of the evangelisation of cultures in a pluralistic and relativistic perspective; and the aim and manner of conducting interreligious dialogue.

2.1. Abuses Concerning the Understanding of the Kingdom of God

The development of the theology of mission in the twentieth century was characterised by a deepening of reflection on the reality of the Kingdom of God as the principal message which Jesus Christ brought to the world and proclaimed in His teaching¹⁶². Gradually this led to the building of an ecclesiology which placed the Kingdom of God at the centre of Christian life, thereby marginalising the significance of the Church. In the development of this conception a great opportunity was perceived for building a theology of the Kingdom which would not exclude others standing outside the visible Church¹⁶³. The boundary began gradually to blur between the Missio Dei — understood as the action of God in the world, without any necessary connection with the visible Church — and missions as special undertakings carried out in the name of the Church. Such a presentation of the theology of mission led to a secularisation of the Church's missionary activity, flattening it merely to the horizontal dimension concerning earthly realities, while omitting the vertical dimension referring to their religious significance¹⁶⁴: "It is asserted that the universal plan of God's salvation consists in the spreading of the Kingdom, to which more attention is given than to the Church. The Kingdom thus becomes 'a new focal point' of evangelization. But what is this 'Kingdom,' often lacking even the adjective 'of God'? It is held to embrace all religions, which are called to build it in mutual dialogue; it is identified with a 'new humanity' which is to unite all people in a community of love, justice and peace; it means 'the well-being of humanity' and 'the liberation of man.' There is thus a tendency to conceive the Kingdom as a certain 'utopia,' as a 'thing.' In this way a 'kingdom-centrism' arises, set against the 'ecclesiocentric' vision of the plantatio Ecclesiae, commonly rejected as outdated and false. Some write, for example, that 'the most important mission of the Church is the building of the Kingdom, and dialogue with other religions is a means leading to this aim. The Church is not called to build herself up, but to serve (…) and even to die, so that the world may live'"¹⁶⁵.

To the relation which the Church bears towards the reality of the Kingdom of God, John Paul II devoted considerable space in the encyclical Redemptoris missio¹⁶⁶. He explains and makes precise the misunderstandings which arose on this theme, indicating that the fundamental service to the Kingdom of God is the calling of all people to conversion — individuals as well as whole communities — which contributes to the inauguration of eschatological salvation as newness of life in Christ. The transcendent and spiritual realities always have primacy, which in no way excludes engagement in earthly matters through the spreading of evangelical values and service to every human being, especially the most needy. Such service on behalf of the Kingdom of God likewise in no way excludes the task of building the local Churches; on the contrary, leading them to maturity of faith bears fruit in their giving witness of engagement in the service of the human being, crossing also the boundaries of visible ecclesial belonging¹⁶⁷.

To the aforementioned over-interpretations and exaggerations in the understanding of the relation between the reality of the Kingdom of God and the visible Church, the Declaration Dominus Iesus also refers; without negating the development of the theology of the Kingdom of God, it clearly brings out the simplifications employed in its formulation: "In considering the relationship between the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, and the Church, however, it is necessary to avoid one-sided accentuations, as is the case with those conceptions 'which deliberately emphasize the kingdom and which present themselves as kingdom-centred. They stress the image of a Church which is not concerned about herself, but which is totally concerned with bearing witness to and serving the kingdom. It is a Church for others, just as Christ is the man for others'"¹⁶⁸.

The understanding of the reality of the Kingdom of God presented above, in which unwarranted interpretations are made, brings as its result a flattening of the motives of missionary activity. They are limited to a merely temporal significance. The effect of such a kingdom-centric understanding of missionary activity is the conception of the Church merely as an organisation of human society serving temporal assistance, without reference to her supernatural vocation and mandate.

2.2. The Evangelisation of Cultures in the Perspective of Pluralism and Relativism

As shown earlier, contemporary reflection on the missionary mandate of the Church conducts a reflection on the question of the evangelisation of culture, which, though not identical with the mission ad gentes, is nevertheless deeply bound up with it. It is one of the marks of the process of inculturation, which John Paul II in the encyclical Redemptoris missio attempts to define in the following manner: "inculturation means the intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in the various human cultures. The process is thus a profound and all-embracing one, which involves the Christian message and also the Church's reflection and practice. But at the same time it is a difficult process, for it must in no way compromise the distinctiveness and integrity of the Christian faith"¹⁶⁹. With the question of the evangelisation of culture is inseparably bound the manner in which the Magisterium Ecclesiae understands culture, and its right to a critical evaluation of it. This stands in contradiction to cultural relativism, which is deeply bound up with postmodernism¹⁷⁰.

Postmodern cultural relativism follows from the dominant pluralistic socio-cultural conception. It emphasises the diversity of worldviews in this area, which demands a flexible and tolerant attitude in intercultural interaction. The postmodern conception inclines towards the micro-analysis of culture, not occupying itself with macro-analysis. In such an attitude the wider context is therefore not important, since it might be connected with a striving towards central or supra-cultural conceptions in which some pattern of values might be found to which a particular culture ought to refer. Postmodern cultural relativism has several basic assumptions, holding that: particular societies have different moral codes; there exists no objective way of judging these cultural codes; moral codes have no special status; there are no universal truths; it is society that determines what is good and evil within a given community, and every attempt at outside interference in this determination is an arrogant interference in the culture. Instead of evaluating these attitudes and values, they should be tolerated¹⁷¹.

The approach characterising the Catholic understanding of culture — and thereby entailing the proper interaction with culture in the process of evangelisation — is far different from that presented by the postmodern conceptions. In its profound analysis of the concept of culture, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes presents human culture as a dynamic phenomenon subject to unceasing changes. Favouring none among the cultures, it nevertheless emphasises that culture, as created by the human being who is tainted by original sin, is not free from errors and evil, which are the fruit of human sin¹⁷².

The contemporary teaching of the Magisterium Ecclesiae pronounces negatively on the question of the emerging cultural relativism which makes culture the ultimate criterion of judgement. It indicates that it is the Gospel which is the criterion of the evaluation of values in a given culture, and that it is also the force purifying culture from the errors which human sin has begotten in it: "a particular culture can never become the criterion of judgment, much less the ultimate criterion of truth with regard to God's revelation. The Gospel is not opposed to any culture, as if in engaging a culture the Gospel would seek to strip it of its native riches and force it to adopt forms which are alien to it. On the contrary, the message which believers bring to the world and to cultures is a genuine liberation from all the disorders caused by sin and is, at the same time, a call to the fullness of truth. Cultures are not only not diminished by this encounter; rather, they are prompted to open themselves to the newness of the Gospel's truth and to be stirred by this truth to develop in new ways"¹⁷³.

Such a view of culture inclines the Church to present the truth of the necessity of the evangelisation of cultures, proclaiming also to the particular persons immersed in a concrete culture the necessity of a change of mentality, behaviour and customs wherever this proves necessary. Missionaries are called to bring into the very heart of every culture the newness of life in Christ; and being aware of the limitedness of every human cultural form, they should also be watchful not to be led astray by purely horizontal visions in the perception of the world¹⁷⁴.

The diametrical difference presented above in the understanding of the phenomenon of human culture — that presented by Catholic doctrine as against the postmodern understanding of culture — has demonstrated the impossibility of reconciling these two ways of conceiving it. In the postmodern conception every particular culture and the values it presents are in a certain sense dogmatised: they are not subject to evaluation or valuation. The Church, by contrast, proclaims the necessity of the unceasing reference of every culture to the Gospel, which has the power to transform it, making it more human and more in accordance with the design of God.

2.3. Postmodern Dialogue and Interreligious Dialogue

An important aspect of the contemporary understanding of the realisation of the Church's mission is the question of dialogue, which manifests itself on various planes of the Church's life, touching also her missionary mandate¹⁷⁵. It converges with the concept of dialogue in the postmodern conception, commonly employed by contemporary thought. The presentation of the sources and assumptions of these two conceptions will show the impossibility of fusing them into one common idea of dialogue. The attempts to connect these entirely different ways of understanding dialogue will also be signalled — attempts which bear fruit in the blurring of the Christian message and distort the attitude of dialogue, rightly understood and presented by the Magisterium Ecclesiae, which should characterise the missionary activity of the Church.

In the Church, the conception of dialogue with the followers of other religions is the fruit of the last several decades of the development of theological reflection, which, as indicated above, found its expression in official documents. The attitude of dialogue flows from the nature of the Church and finds its place within her salvific mandate. Its theological sources follow from the truth about the human being created in the image and likeness of God, called to the fullness of life with God in eternity. It is likewise bound up with the process of inculturation, which, if it wishes to root the Christian faith in a given culture, cannot disregard the religion it encounters, since that religion constitutes the heart of the culture being evangelised¹⁷⁶.

Postmodern thought, by contrast, in the conception of some of its representatives, lays emphasis on the universality of the attitude of dialogue, whose conception is born of the understanding of truth as a category constantly changing and not belonging in its entirety to any opinion, way of perceiving, or system of beliefs. Through dialogue one may draw closer to it — with the reservation that this is possible only in a polyphony of agreed positions, and even then this approach to truth has a momentary character, following from the constant change of the contexts in which the dialogue is conducted¹⁷⁷. All those engaged in dialogue so understood, however, must present so-called weak convictions¹⁷⁸, which claim for themselves no right to general normativity or unchangeability. Such dialogue emphasises openness in the name of diversity. There is, however, no place in it for views and attitudes identified with so-called strong convictions, classified as fundamentalist attitudes contrary to the dialogical stance. These should not be externalised in publicly conducted dialogue. Even if someone is convinced of the exclusivity of his truth, in publicly conducted dialogue he should behave in a manner which will show his convictions as one alternative among others¹⁷⁹.

The adoption of such an attitude as the point of departure in pluralistic theology leads, in the interreligious dialogue conducted, to a reductionist and false vision of religious beliefs, out of which — in the name of pluralism and of the unification of the followers of various religions — an alleged unity is to be created¹⁸⁰. This provokes an inevitable conflict with the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, including the negation of the missionary character of the Church, as one of the documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith signalled in its note on certain aspects of evangelisation: "today the Church's missionary proclamation 'is endangered by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle).' For some time now, a situation has existed in which, for many of the faithful, it is unclear what the essential reason for evangelization is. It is even stated that the claim to have received the gift of the fullness of God's revelation masks an attitude of intolerance and a danger to peace"¹⁸¹.

The comparisons presented above — concerning the understanding of the reality of the Kingdom of God and its relation to the Church, the question of the role of the evangelisation of cultures in a pluralistic and relativistic perspective, and the aim and manner of conducting interreligious dialogue — have demonstrated how considerable are the differences, and the lack of agreement, between the Catholic and the postmodern understanding. The postmodern conceptions, characterised by disagreement with any unassailable and objective truth, are irreconcilable with the Catholic understanding of the realities mentioned. For in the Catholic conception these have their reference to Divine Revelation, which constitutes for the Church an objective, unchanging and unassailable truth.

3. The Person of the Missionary in the Postmodern Context

The teaching of the Magisterium Ecclesiae in the documents concerning the missionary mandate of the Church very strongly emphasises the task standing before the missionary who wishes to carry out his ministry in a concrete socio-cultural milieu. It consists in a thorough knowledge of the culture in which he is to carry out the task of proclaiming Christ and building the Church: its principal values by which it is guided, the understanding of the world it presents, the religious references occurring within it, and so forth. This will permit him to fulfil his task more fully and more fruitfully¹⁸². The present point will carry out a characterisation of the postmodern milieu with reference to precisely these elements in relation to the person of the missionary. The first aspect will concern references to the person of the missionary as one sent in the name of the Church, whose ministry should lead to the incorporation of those who have accepted the gift of faith into the visible community of the Church. The second aspect will present the missionary whose life, work and witness concern the transmission of the truth of the Gospel.

3.1. The Ecclesial Identity of the Missionary

The conciliar Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church, Ad gentes divinitus, in characterising the specificity of the missionary vocation, inscribes it within the task of the Church, from whose mandate and sending it is carried out: "For there are certain priests, religious and lay people who are prepared to undertake mission work, being endowed with the appropriate natural dispositions, qualities of heart and mind, and who are ready to take up missionary work, whether they be natives of the place or foreigners. Sent by legitimate authority, they go out, in faith and obedience, to those who are far from Christ, set aside for the work for which they have been called as ministers of the Gospel"¹⁸³. In accordance with these words, the person engaged in the missionary work does not act within the framework of his own desires, realising his private evangelising aims and intentions; behind his ministry stands the Church, whom he also represents before the world. What is more, missionary activity leads also to the acceptance of the faith within the community, into which one is incorporated by baptism, which seals the work of conversion to faith in Christ¹⁸⁴.

Authors investigating religious references in postmodern society unanimously emphasise that what one observes is not so much a departure from the religious sphere (though that too takes place) as rather the abandonment of any forms of institutionalised religion¹⁸⁵ — sometimes defined as the phenomenon of de-churching. In the spirit of individualism and of pluralism of views, those forms of religion are depreciated which express themselves in established forms, with clearly determined and unchanging truths of faith and morality. The human being recognises himself as the ultimate authority, evaluating and selecting in a selective manner moral values, contents of faith, and the concrete practices connected with religion¹⁸⁶. Paradoxically, however, this individualism goes hand in hand with the desire to experience a human community which shares the same convictions and values, spiritual ones included. Hence arises the phenomenon of so-called alternative groups, in which individualism goes hand in hand with the experience of community¹⁸⁷.

The socio-cultural context presented above of the understanding of institution in religion — consistently depreciating also the value of the institutional presence of the Church, yet in which there exists a strong need for personal bonds realised in community — places a challenge before the missionary. On the one hand he must show the Church, whom he represents and into which his ministry is to lead, as a living community. On the other hand he may not blur the unassailable foundations of the deposit of faith which constitute the Church in her identity. The joining of both dimensions will permit the avoidance of the attempt to build yet another alternative group gathered around religious content understood as a subjective spiritual experience, separated from any institutional dimension. Meeting this task is not accomplished by human efforts alone, but, like the whole missionary work, is the fruit of God's intervention and of the grace He grants¹⁸⁸. Missionary activities undertaken today in postmodern society which are penetrated by precisely this dimension demonstrate their great fruitfulness¹⁸⁹.

3.2. The Missionary in the Space of the New Spirituality

Contemporary postmodern culture is characterised by a lively relation to the spiritual sphere of the human being¹⁹⁰. It is understood, however, as mentioned above, in its own way: in detachment from the institutional forms of religion, especially from the faith of the Church. The source of this phenomenon is, paradoxically, a reaction to de-Christianising and secularising tendencies: "The 'death of God' proclaimed in past decades by so many intellectuals gives way to a sterile cult of the individual. In this cultural context there is a danger of spiritual atrophy and emptiness of heart, which are sometimes manifested in surrogate forms of religious belonging and vague spiritualism"¹⁹¹. This manner of relating to supernatural reality is defined in various ways: new spirituality, postmodern spirituality, New Age¹⁹². Yet at bottom all these concepts describe the same phenomenon, which is the reaction to, and fruit of, the cultural changes of the last epoch. That epoch has led to the cult of humanity, to the emphasis on its autonomy and freedom from all traditions or authorities. Religion has not remained without influence from these transformations: it has taken on an interiorised character to such a degree that the object of its worship has become the human self, which acquires a sacralised character¹⁹³: "The divinity of the human being is identified with the inner Self (variously understood), which is an innate feature of human nature — forgotten, deformed in modern culture, and thus requiring a 'transformation of consciousness' in order to return to spiritual perfection. It may better render the experience of the sacred in postmodern culture (…). Spirituality is a more capacious concept: beyond the traditional areas of religion it embraces also art and nature (or rather contact with, the experience of, art and nature), as well as popular beliefs in crop circles, extraterrestrial beings, experiences of life after life. (…) Spirituality may embrace both secular thought (e.g. science) and care for the environment"¹⁹⁴.

Such a cultural context requires of the missionary that he show the newness of the Gospel as a reality surpassing religious needs marked out merely by the human horizons of desires, expressed in a loosely understood postmodern spirituality, which very often assumes a post-Christian form in which salvation in Christ is exchanged for a form of gnosis exalting the human mind¹⁹⁵. The newness of the Gospel resides in the truth about the person of Jesus Christ and about the salvation accomplished by Him: "in him is accomplished the full and authentic liberation from evil, sin and death; in him God gives 'new life,' divine and eternal. This is the 'Good News' which changes man and the history of mankind"¹⁹⁶. This transmission must be deeply penetrated by the theology of the cross, which in the most profound way points to the manner in which the Christian message surpasses merely human religious strivings: "The theology of the cross remains the most radical challenge to the postmodern New Age atmosphere, which overrates the beauty of nature, the harmonious order of the world, of human meaning and wisdom. Nature can be cruel. The cross, on which Jesus was abandoned by His friends and felt Himself abandoned by God, is a deeply disharmonious drama. On the cross, human capacities, wisdom, expectations and achievements are negated, obscured and denied rather than affirmed. The cross of Jesus can never be enclosed within the conceptions of grand narratives or ontologies"¹⁹⁷. The transmission of the Christian message, as in every epoch and culture, may meet with rejection or trivialisation on the part of recipients who evaluate in the manner postmodernism presents. Yet the faithful fulfilment of the missionary vocation by the missionary must rest upon the conviction of faith flowing from the fact that it is the work of the Holy Trinity itself and has a timeless character: "The witness of the Gospel has survived the announcement of the death of God, of the death of man, and it will survive also the death of history, of reason, of morality and of reality. Believers will survive also the death of postmodernism, when it comes"¹⁹⁸.

The situation presented above concerning the understanding of religion in postmodern society demonstrates that the missionary fulfilling his mandate in such a situation must preserve fidelity to doctrine and must not permit a selective, pragmatic reception either of his own person or of the Gospel he proclaims. He must be prepared for the marginalisation of his person and his message in postmodern society. Both the demands of the Gospel and the proclamation of salvation in Christ, as truths surpassing the various subjective ways of spirituality, may meet with rejection or even a lack of interest on the part of the hearers. A strong faith in Christ crucified and risen must be for him — as in every epoch of the realisation of the missionary work — the fundamental and unshaken foundation of his apostolic work.

Summary

In the chapter above, the key elements of the missionary mandate of the Church were analysed with reference to postmodern tendencies and assumptions. As has been demonstrated, there exists a profound incompatibility between the Catholic understanding of mission and the postmodern ideas. In the first place these concern the most essential truths on which the missionary activity of the Church rests — namely, the truth of the inalienable, unique salvific role of Jesus Christ, which cannot be replaced by the ways of salvation presented by other religions. Likewise the understanding of the necessity of the Church in mediating the transmission of salvation is marginalised and distorted. Further incompatibilities concern the paths of realisation of the Church's missionary task. They manifest themselves in a horizontal, flattened understanding of mission, which only within such a framework retains any sense of realisation — for the missionary work so fulfilled poses no threat to other religious experiences, which in postmodern conceptions possess the same value as the Christian faith. The reference to culture existing in Catholic missionary activity has a critical orientation, evaluating culture in the light of the Gospel; whereas in the postmodern understanding of culture an unconditional and uncritical value is conferred upon it. The question of interreligious dialogue is understood in postmodern reasoning as a polyphony of equally ranked truths — which is irreconcilable with the Catholic reference to the truths of Revelation, which have an unchanging and unassailable character. The presence and work of the missionary in such a cultural context requires of him, as one sent by the Church, great wisdom and prudence in discerning the erroneous theological currents which could render his ministry fruitless. Above all it requires of him a reliance upon the unchanging truths of Revelation and fidelity to doctrine. This reliance will be the firm foundation which, amid a mentality relativised towards religious experiences, will permit him to remain a faithful witness of Christ before the contemporary world.

The conduct of missionary activity in postmodern society must guard against every kind of simplification and flattening of the Christian message, which, so adapted, might indeed be accepted, but would lose its salvific power, transmitted for centuries on the basis of the teaching of Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church. As the above facts demonstrate, there exists a total incompatibility in the fundamental assumptions of the missionary activity of the Church with respect to the postmodern currents of thought. From this flows the conclusion of the impossibility of accepting, within the postmodern conception, the missionary activity of the Church.

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Notes

¹⁴⁰ E. Gellner, *Postmodernizm...*, op. cit., p. 37. ↩

¹⁴¹ Cf. J. Holland, *The Postmodern Paradigm and Contemporary Catholicism*, [in:] *Varieties of Postmodern Theology*, D. Griffin et al. (ed.), New York 1989, p. 9-28. ↩

¹⁴² It is worth recalling here the important words describing the contemporary situation in the Church spoken by the then Cardinal J. Ratzinger during the Conclave, on 18 April 2005: *"How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves — flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. (…) Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be 'tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine,' seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires. We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An 'adult' faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Chrisvol. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth."* J. Ratzinger, *Ku «dojrzałości» wiary w Chrystusa*, "L'Osservatore Romano" Polish ed. 2005 no. 6, p. 30. ↩

¹⁴³ RMis 4. ↩

¹⁴⁴ See np. P. Knitter, *Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian,* Oxford 2009; R. Haight, *Jesus Symbol of God,* New York 1999; P.C. Phan, *Being Religious Interreligiously,* New York 2004. ↩

¹⁴⁵ Cf. np. KK 16, DM 7, KDK 22. ↩

¹⁴⁶ See np. P.F. Knitter, *No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward World Religion*s, New York 1985. ↩

¹⁴⁷ As an example of the change in the understanding of the person of Jesus Christ in the postmodern context, it is worth naming the work of the American Jesuit Roger Haight, who in his publication *Jesus Symbol of God* undertook an attempt to redefine the Christological dogmas in the light of postmodern concepts — negating, among other things, the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and the necessity of salvation being accomplished through Christ, and making the non-Christian religions ways offering salvation with equal rights to Christianity. These claims were judged negatively by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which in a special pronouncement addressed the assertions contained in Haight's publication, ruling that he had committed *serious doctrinal errors against the divine and Catholic faith of the Church.* See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, *Notification on the book "Jesus Symbol of God" by Father Roger Haight S.J.* [online], accessed: 2010-11-19. ↩

¹⁴⁸ K. Müller, *Nowe tendencje ...*, op. cit., p. 195-196. ↩

¹⁴⁹ DI 13. ↩

¹⁵⁰ It is worth noting in this context that the Declaration met with very loud opposition among many Catholic theologians (including also representatives of the hierarchy), who expressed disapproval both of the tone of the Declaration and of its contents. See R. McBrien, *Dominus Iesus: An Ecclesiological Critique*, SEDOS Rome [online], accessed: 2010-11-23. One theologian described the declaration in the following words: *"An ahistorical, exclusivist position attempting to defend orthodoxy without a shadow of love or a mention of the poor. The Creed is reduced to doctrinal statements leading to tendentious conclusions. (…) Hearing these arrogant, abstract propositions devoid of any historicity, I say: the louder Rome beats its tin drum, the emptier the sound that comes from ivol. This is the monologue of the deaf."* J. Prior, *Mission for the Twenty-First Century in Asia*, [in:] *Mission for the 21st Century*, S. Bevans (ed.), Chicago 2001, p. 88. ↩

¹⁵¹ Cf. DI 14. ↩

¹⁵² KKK 830. ↩

¹⁵³ Cf. DM 2. ↩

¹⁵⁴ 1 Tm 2, 4. ↩

¹⁵⁵ KK 13. ↩

¹⁵⁶ Cf. Y. Congar, *Zasady doktrynalne*, [in:] *Misje po Soborze Watykańskim II*, W. Kowalak i  in. (ed.), Płock 1981, p. 108-110. ↩

¹⁵⁷ See np. P. Phan, *Being Religious Interreligiously,* New York 2004. ↩

¹⁵⁸ Cf. Committee on Doctrine United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, *Clarifications Required by the Book Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue by Reverend PeterC.Phan*, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops \[online\], accessed: 2010-11-21 \. ↩

¹⁵⁹ P. Phan, *Being Religious Interreligiously,* New York 2004, p. 144. ↩

¹⁶⁰ Cf. RMis 17. ↩

¹⁶¹ DI 20. ↩

¹⁶² Cf. Łk 4,18. ↩

¹⁶³ Cf. T. Rausch, *The Vatican's Quarrel with Roger Haight,* Religion Online \[online\], accessed: ↩

¹⁶⁴ Cf. L. Fąs, T*endencje sekularystyczne w misjologii,* [in:] «*Kontrchrześcijaństwo» jako kontekst działalności misyjnej w XXI wieku*, P. Sokołowski (ed.), Pieniężno 2009, p. 196-198. ↩

¹⁶⁵ J. Tomko, *Głoszenie Chrystusa jako jedynego Zbawiciela wobec wyzwania sekt,* „L\'Osservatore Romano" wyd. polskie 1991 nr 7, p. 11. ↩

¹⁶⁶ See RMis 12-20. ↩

¹⁶⁷ Cf. RMis 20. ↩

¹⁶⁸ DI 19. ↩

¹⁶⁹ RMis 52. ↩

¹⁷⁰ Cf. A. Schmidt, *The Menace of Multiculturalism: Trojan Horse in America,* London 1997, p. 4. ↩

¹⁷¹ Cf. F. Wokabi i S. Owindo, *Ethnicity and Globalization,* [in:] *The Dialog of Cultural Traditions: A Global Perspectives*, W. Sweet (ed.), Washington 2008, p. 157-167. ↩

¹⁷² Cf. KDK 53-59. ↩

¹⁷³ FR 71. ↩

¹⁷⁴ Papieska Rada ds. Kultury, *Towards a Pastoral Approach To Culture,* 4, Pontifical Council for Culture \[online\], accessed: 2010-11-30 \. ↩

¹⁷⁵ Cf. RMis 56. ↩

¹⁷⁶ Cf. Międzynarodowa Komisja Teologiczna, C*hristianity and The World Religions,* [in:]  *International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents: 1986-2007*, M. Sharkey (ed.), ↩

¹⁷⁷ Cf. A. Sidorkin, *Beyond Discourse: Education, the Self, and Dialogue*, New York 1999, p. 41. ↩

¹⁷⁸ Cf. A. Bronk, *Zrozumieć...*, op. cit., p. 158. ↩

¹⁷⁹ Cf. W. Lamb, *Living Truth-Truthful Living: Christian Faith and the Scalpel of Suspicion,  *Adelaide 2004, p. 154. ↩

¹⁸⁰ Cf. Międzynarodowa Komisja Teologiczna, *Christianity...*, dz.cyt, p. 177. ↩

¹⁸¹ Kongregacja Nauki Wiary, *Nota doktrynalna na temat pewnych aspektów ewangelizacji,* 10, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith \[online\], accessed: 2010-12-02 \. ↩

¹⁸² Cf. DM 26 oraz RMis 53. ↩

¹⁸³ DM 23. ↩

¹⁸⁴ RMis 48. ↩

¹⁸⁵ From among the many different definitions grasping the concept of the institutionalisation of religion, the analysis is carried out on the basis of an understanding of this phenomenon as *"the ecclesial model of religious life, embracing the values, norms and patterns of behaviour, and the roles which the members of the Church are to fulfil."* J. Mariański, *Religia i Kościół…*, op. cit., p. 193. ↩

¹⁸⁶ Cf. J. Mariański, *Religia w społeczeństwie ponowoczesnym,* Warszawa 2010, p. 104-112. ↩

¹⁸⁷ Cf. D. Jaura, *Young People in Postmodern Society,* Bratislava 1997*,* s. 32-35*.* ↩

¹⁸⁸ Cf. S. Grentz, *Ecclesiology*, [in:] *Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology,  *K. Vanhoozer (ed.), Cambridge 2003, p. 260. ↩

¹⁸⁹ It is worth recalling here the experience of the missionary method worked out by the Neocatechumenal Way, which bases its evangelisation on the contents of baptismal catechesis, proclaiming the fundamental truths of the Christian faith and introducing the person who makes the decision of faith and conversion into a concrete community, in which he can advance on the way of faith and of experiencing the reality of the Church. See I. Álvarez, *Carrying Forward the New Evangelization (Part 1) — Interview With Neocatechumenate Initiator*, ZENIT [online], accessed: 2010-12-07. ↩

¹⁹⁰ This relation, understood as *spirituality*, is nevertheless something different from religiosity. Spirituality is an experiencing of the sacred accomplished in subjective, immanent, individual cognition, which is to contribute to interior happiness in everyday life. It is not subject to, nor does it refer to, the traditional forms of religion. Religiosity, by contrast, means a relation of obedience towards the person of God, the truth about whom is shown by a given tradition of faith. It comes from beyond the human being and is transmitted by religious authority, which lays down norms and principles of conduct whose fulfilment will permit him to experience happiness in the future life — while, however, taking from him the possibility of affirming his present existence. Cf. P. Heelas, *The Spiritual Revolution: from 'religion' to 'spirituality'*, [in:] *Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations*, L. Woodhead (ed.), London 2002, p. 358. ↩

¹⁹¹ Benedykt XVI, *Sekularyzacja jest trudną próbą dla Kościoła,* „L\'Osservatore Romano"  wyd. polskie 2008 no. 4, p. 35-36. ↩

¹⁹² Cf. J. Mariański, *Religia w społeczeństwie...*, op. cit., p. 211. ↩

¹⁹³ Cf. Papieska Rada ds. Kultury, *Jezus Chrystus dawcą wody żywej*, Kraków 2003, p. 13. ↩

¹⁹⁴ A. Kubiak, *Niewidzialna religia,* [in:] *Religia. Encyklopedia PWN,* T.VII, T. Gadacz i  B. Milerski (ed.), Warszawa 2003*,* s. 313-314. ↩

¹⁹⁵ A very apt analysis of this phenomenon was expressed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in one of his book-length interviews: *"Man would like to have some religion — esoteric or any other. But he does not want a personal God who speaks to me, who knows me, who has said something concrete, who places concrete demands upon me and who will also judge me. We are observing the phenomenon of the separation of religion from God. Man does not want to rid himself entirely of the sense that he is dealing with something wholly other than everything else — that specific sphere which is religion — and he desires its various forms. But all this becomes non-binding when the will of God is missing, when God is missing. In this sense we may speak not so much of a crisis of religion — religions are positively proliferating — as of a crisis of God."* P. Seewald, *Bóg i świavol. Wiara i życie w dzisiejszych czasach*, trans. G. Sowinski, Kraków 2001, p. 62. ↩

¹⁹⁶ RMis 44. ↩

¹⁹⁷ G. Criveller, *The Postmodern Condition and the Enduring Good News of the Gospel,* Institute of Sino-Christian Studies \[online\], accessed: 2010-10-04 \< http://bit.ly/hyOnKL\>. ↩

¹⁹⁸ Ibid.. ↩