Contemplating Culture: A Missionary Walk Through A Secular Age

27. Being Missionaries Within the Culture (w/ Bishop Mark Edwards OMI)

Contemplating Culture: A Missionary Walk Through A Secular Age

Show Notes

In our second episode with Bishop Mark Edwards OMI, we explore the role of a missionary within a culture.

Matteo Ricci SJ provides the example of taking Christianity into China, where he offers us three key guides for this kind of mission: i) befriend the people, ii) disentangle faith from your own culture so that you can inculturate into the new culture, and iii) seek to be authentic to your faith and to the culture you are living in.

Plenty of thought-provoking questions in this one.

Reflection:

-How do I feel about living in the culture and times that I do?

-What do I understand the missionary task to be in today's world?

References:

-'A Catholic Modernity', Charles Taylor (https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=uscc_marianist_award)

-'A Catholic Modernity: 25 Years On', Charles Taylor (https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/NTT2021.3/4.009.TAYL)

-'Matteo Ricci, Missionary of Inculturation', Jesuits Communication Office (https://www.jesuits.global/2022/12/19/matteo-ricci-missionary-of-inculturation/) -'Matteo Ricci: Shaped by the Chinese', Nicolas Standaert (https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20100521_1.htm)

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