Sarx

The Sarabite makes a good point about Christian Culture with the post, Christianity, the Inca, and Culture:

Indeed, it was Fr. Valera’s contention that Inca religion was quite close to Christianity, down to an almost Christian idea of an incarnate God named Viracocha, and an absolute creator god named Illa Tecce. Valera wanted the Spanish clergy to begin to use these names for the Christian God and Jesus Christ, but to no avail. In the end, Fr. Valera was framed on charges of fornication and imprisoned by the Jesuit order for four years. Scholars now believe that he was really imprisoned for syncretic heresy.

Way to go, Fr Valera!

The Sarabite also makes reference to the “Chinese Rites” controversy, which I’d never heard of and so looked up on the wiki. Seems the Catholics had the same problem all over again, with the Pope announcing

The West calls Deus [God] the creator of Heaven, Earth, and everything in the universe. Since the word Deus does not sound right in the Chinese language, the Westerners in China and Chinese converts to Catholicism have used the term “Heavenly Lord” (Shangdi) for many years. From now on such terms as “Heaven” and “Shangdi” should not be used: Deus should be addressed as the Lord of Heaven, Earth, and everything in the universe. The tablet that bears the Chinese words “Reverence for Heaven” should not be allowed to hang inside a Catholic church and should be immediately taken down if already there.

Of course neither Deus, Shanddi nor Illa Tecce have any reference to either YHVH or Abba – which words Jesus would have known. So what’s the point of demanding that Chinese or Incas say “Deus” or “Dios”?

I think that our general Christian problem is not really that we added stuff or that we translated into a given culture. Rarely, however, we refuse to retranslate after that, or return to the original source ever. To go (for example) from Jewish sect to Hellenic cult to Roman religion to the Catholic Church in America seems too indirect a translation: naturally something got screwed up on the way. Each culture needs to return to the roots and retranslate for itself.

The Sarabite ends his post:

I have unfortunately been involved in many milieu where there was only one acceptable idea of how the Gospel could be incarnate in society. With the Society of St. Pius X, the Gospel reached its perfect incarnation either in the High Middle Ages, or in France in the right-wing movements leading up to the suppression of the Action Francaise. With the Orthodox, the Christian imagination will always be stuck before the fall of Constantinople. Even in many mainline Catholic circles, culture can only advance by going backwards, either in music, literature, or the plastic arts. If there is a real crisis of Christian praxis in my opinion, however, it is the crisis of the Christian imagination. Christians must always attempt see the beauty of Christ in the world in which they live, not in a world that has long passed into memory.

Amen…