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Laurenti
Magesa Practically, the Spirit of Christ is an extension of the activities of the Jesus of history. For we know best the spirit, intentions and goals of a person by observing his actions. What Christ’s Spirit does today to empower the Church has its basis in the actual life and message of Jesus. To have some understanding, therefore, of this process of Christ’s current empowerment of the Church, one needs to look at Jesus’ process of empowerment of his contemporaries. The central question of our discussion is whether we can trace the model or image of the family in the empowering activities of the historical Jesus. That would, of course, render firm theological grounding to our own use of that model for the Church today. It would also show how Christ and the Church are interlinked and interrelated, not merely in theory (as theology or doctrine), but especially in practice (as a way of life and pastoral practice). Was the Historical Jesus Unique? Through historical and textual criticism, it is now possible to reconstruct to a certain plausible degree the cultural, social and political environment into which Jesus was born. It is also possible to appreciate much better than before the nature of the message and ministry of Jesus during his life on earth. This is an important achievement. It is now well known that the Gospels and the New Testament in general, paint a picture of a Jesus of faith. The New Testament «justifies» the activities of Jesus by appealing to Jewish religious expectations and the Hebrew Scriptures. It is a look into the past to explain the present, several decades after the crucial event of Jesus’ execution. The result is what scholars have characterized as "the Christ of faith". Of course, that exercise presents Jesus as being unique in every way; in fact, to be from his birth the expected "Christ" with all that the notion of Christ, the anointed of God, implied at the time in people’s religious understanding was uniqueness itself. For our purposes, however, we cannot avoid the question whether the historical Jesus was unique among his contemporaries, and if so in what way. The answer to that question is at the same time positive and negative, if we are to be faithful to available evidence. In many ways Jesus was not unique neither as a person nor as a teacher. Born into a peasant/artisan family in a strictly stratified society, Jesus grew up working and behaving like any other member of that class. But there is no doubt that he was a gifted speaker, an inspiring orator. It was towards the end of his life that he became an itinerant preacher and began to use this talent. However, even in his preaching Jesus was not exceptionally unique, if by uniqueness is meant that he broke new philosophical ground. Other religious leaders before him in different parts of the world had said, many years before his birth, what he himself was to express in his own way. The stress on love, justice, peace, reconciliation, piety and so on, is not peculiar to Jesus. The Hebrew Scriptures with which Jesus was familiar and from which he constantly drew inspiration for his own preaching, is alone ample illustration of this assertion. Around his own time, as the New Testament itself indicates, there were most probably other itinerant teachers who went around the country preaching and teaching just as Jesus did. Some of them, again like Jesus, met their fate at the hands of the Roman colonial authorities and their Jewish collaborators.1 But on the other hand, Jesus was unique, and it is this "peculiarity" in his public preaching, character and life, that led to his execution on being accused of sedition. This uniqueness of the historical Jesus is what constitutes his Spirit, and has fundamental consequences for the Church-as-family. What was the Uniqueness of Jesus? To appreciate the revolutionary and, to many of his contemporaries, even "sacrilegious" character of the activities of Jesus that constitutes his uniqueness, it is necessary to understand the socio-economic structure of his day. This structure was the foundation on which the religious convictions and religiosity of the people were based. Disturb this structure and you destroy not only the economic and social system of the first century Jews (and Romans), but also their system of religious beliefs. Jesus’ public life was a complete and unequivocal rejection of the basic foundations of this system. As such he was in trouble from the very beginning, and he knew it. Under the circumstances, it was not difficult for him, or anybody else, for that matter, to predict his death, and even the manner of it. What then was the socio-economic structure of the society in which Jesus lived? 2 It was a highly and strictly stratified, hierarchical society composed of two main socio-economic classes. At the top of the hierarchy was the small patron class composed of monied people wielding power and influence. They were the makers and shakers of society, the equivalent of today’s rulers, millionaires, multi-national company executives, and perhaps Bishops and other dignitaries of the Church. Only unlike the latter, their position was mostly hereditary. The vast majority of the population formed the lower class whose very survival depended on the patron class. Crossan explains this social stratification. On one side of that great divide were the Rulers and the Governors, who together made up one per cent of the population but owned at least half of the land. Also on that same side were three other classes: the Priests who could own as much as 15 per cent of the land; the Retainers ranging from military generals to expert bureaucrats; and the Merchants, who probably evolved upward from the lower classes but who could end up with considerable wealth and even some political power as well. The peasant population lived at subsistence level, barely able to support their family, animals, and social obligations and still have enough for the following year’s seed supply. If they were not lucky, drought, debt, disease or death forced them off their own land and into share-cropping, tenant farming, or worse. Next came the Artisans, about five per cent of the population, below the peasants in the social hierarchy. Beneath them were the Degraded and the Expendable classes — the former with origins, occupations or conditions rendering them outcasts; the latter may have constituted 10 per cent of the population and ranged from beggars and outlaws, to day labourers and slaves. 3 Let me emphasize once again, that in Jewish-Roman times of the first century these structures were more than just social and economic class divisions. They were religious divisions implying both divine and moral judgment. The implication of this was quite simple and straight-forward to the societies under consideration. The classes at the top of the hierarchy were the blessed of God. From among them came gods and children of gods. Several among them, for example Roman Emperors, were deified. Their actions were not only legal (they were the legislators), but also moral (they were the righteous). Those at the bottom, the peasants, artisans and expendables, were by that very fact alone, the accursed of God. They were morally impure. They were considered sinners. Their sin was believed to be manifested physically in the form of disease, such as leprosy; or psychologically as demonic possession. So the peasants and those in this general lower class were, according to the day’s accepted social structure, sinners and lepers with whom there should have been no contact at all. In short, the social structure mandated that every class should keep strictly to itself as far as any significant human intercourse was concerned. This separation applied also to gender and familial relations. Both women and children were the property either of their fathers, male guardians or husbands. When that environment is well understood it is possible to appreciate the utterly "revolutionary" character of Jesus’ teaching and behaviour and why his death by crucifixion could be easily predictable from the outset. What did he do? Jesus’ life and preaching were to his contemporaries, totally dedicated to breaking down these sacrosanct barriers. Instead of respecting them as divine institutions, he ridiculed them as positively obstructive to God’s will. He did more than simply ignore them; he actively campaigned against them. It is therefore not surprising that given the socio-political and economic atmosphere of the day, he could not last. How could he when he went about the country arguing that, before God, there was really no difference between patron and client, and behaving accordingly? For Jesus, God required a radically new social order where people would relate and socialise not only within, but also across class, gender and descent barriers — with equal dignity. He verbally advocated, and physically lived in an unrestricted social confluence. No one was expendable, he proclaimed. All human beings of any and all classes are valuable. Perhaps those of the lower classes have the advantage of being more open to, and more receptive of, the will of God. "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is God’s house". This is what, in the preaching and life of Jesus, surprised the masses and irked the religious and civil authorities so much: his preferential option for what Franz Fanon called "the wretched of the earth". Examples of both of those reactions can be found throughout the Gospels. Indeed, it is more accurate to say that the Gospels are a composition of reminiscences of these reactions to Jesus’ option by four different communities. In the first place, they are recollections of the words and behaviour of Jesus. Second, they are compositions of the reactions of the masses — from pleasant surprise to convictions about the divinity of Jesus. Third, they are a recollection of the reaction of the authorities — from ridicule to bewilderment and anger. Let me illustrate briefly instances of these three levels of the process which the Evangelists, on behalf of their communities, tried to put into coherent stories. Jesus’ preference for an unrestricted social confluence is best illustrated in the Gospel parables. As an accomplished orator, Jesus must have been extremely deft at using the story art form for so many parables to have survived. The "lack of comprehension" by the listeners noted at the end of certain parables,4 goes only to underline the fantastic and preposterous character, under the prevailing circumstances, of the point Jesus was trying to put across. The easiest and most striking ones we can use to illustrate our point are recorded in Luke (some with parallels in the other Synoptic Gospels). The parables of the Good Samaritan (10:25-37), the Rich Fool (12:16-21), and the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31), for example, are, to begin with, clearly unimaginable in the Palestinian and Roman times of the first century. By definition, at that time, a Samaritan could not be "good" or act the way the parable says he did to a Jew. A rich man was, by definition, wise and could not be considered by anyone, least of all God, as a fool. The strong belief was that wealth signified divine wisdom and wisdom was manifested in wealth. But most preposterous of all would have been the claim in 16:19-31 that a poor person, an expendable, would receive God’s favour in preference to a rich person. Yet the parables’ point is simple: it is by living in solidarity without discrimination of any kind that one becomes a truly religious person, pleasing to God. 5 To Jesus such behaviour was alone the measure of authentic religion. As I have noted, the first reaction of the people listening to Jesus was a lack of understanding. Few could believe their ears hearing this itinerant preacher, impressive in so many other ways, publicly advocate the equality of humanity including the peasant class! It was too good to be true. It bordered, in fact, on being mad, precisely what many, particularly close relatives, believed Jesus to be (as in Mark 3:30). But gradually disbelief gave way to wonder and admiration. Expressions such as, "Nothing like this was ever seen in Israel" must have been remembered for a long time by the Matthean community. 6 In such passages as Matthew 13:53-58, Mark 6:1-6 and Luke 4:16-30, this development from disbelief, through scepticism, to admiration by the people has been maintained. The debate might still have been (until the very end of his life) whether or not Jesus was a good man, as John 7:12 records. From early on there was no question but that as a teacher he was head and shoulders above others: And he taught the people in their synagogue in such a way that they were astonished, and said, "Where did he get this wisdom, and the power to perform these wonders? Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother’s name Mary, and are not his brothers named James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? And do not all his sisters live here among us? Then where did he get all this? ".7 After Jesus’ death the only possible answer for the Christian communities to the last question was that Jesus’ wisdom and power were of divine origin. In fact it was a short step from this conviction to the confession that Jesus was indeed God incarnate. The divinity of the Christ of faith is thus a recognition of the Spirit or "spirituality" of the Jesus of history. The implication of this Spirit or spirituality of Jesus, which manifests him as the Christ of Liberation, is consequential. For the contemporary Church it can be considered from at least three perspectives, that is, Christ’s spirituality in relationship to: 1. the understanding of the inner nature and mission of the Church-as-family; 2. the perception of the visible structure of the Church flowing from the above; 3. pastoral approaches, also in view of the above. Was Jesus Merely a Social Reformer? The three aspects just enumerated will constitute the rest of our paper. However before proceeding, the question needs to be addressed as to whether Jesus was a social reformer, or merely a social reformer. Some would place the uniqueness of Jesus in what they would term the "spiritual" realm: the realm of love of neighbour, of self-giving and self-sacrifice, of loving the enemy and offering "the other cheek". Such concern is understandable given the strong influence of Graeco-Roman thought and spirituality that has influenced the Christian Churches up to the present day. But it was certainly not part of Jewish (and incidentally, it is not part of African) spirituality where the spiritual realm emanates from social realities, and the social sphere forms an integral part of the spiritual realm. In other words, the strong dichotomy we find in Greek thought between the spiritual and the worldly, the sacred and the secular, is foreign to Hebrew thought and religiosity. When, therefore, Jesus protested against distinctions of nation, gender, or social standing, he was without doubt advocating social reform. But it was precisely in social reform that the spiritual message of Jesus resided. Many sayings and passages in the Gospels indicate this orientation, and the "Lord’s Supper", variously described in the New Testament, has solidarity as one of its central, if not indeed the central, theme. It is useful to recall the words of Paul in 1 Cor 11:27-29. He points out the reality, and not just the metaphorical sense, of the Eucharist. It is a warning to the rich, to those who would introduce discrimination into its sign of oneness. The "body" of Christ is everyone who has accepted his message: This means that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord. One should examine oneself first; only then should one eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Paul makes this point even clearer in 1 Cor 10:17: "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf". This must have sounded even more outrageous to Jewish-Roman ears of the time than Jesus putting forth his body and blood as food and drink. The very idea that a member of Jewish aristocracy could be "one body" with a peasant or an expendable was loathsome. This message was strong in the Church until the Constantinian Dispensation in the fourth century. Then it began to wane, and was almost completely forgotten until modern times with the rise of Communism. It was then that Pope Leo XIII articulated it tentatively in his 1891 Encyclical Rerum Novarum. The Encyclical unleashed a profound renewal of the spirituality of Jesus that came to be known generically as the Social Teaching of the Church, a teaching that has been emphasized ever since as integral. This awareness has also given rise to a new way of doing theology known as the theology of liberation. Under what might seem at first sight as being merely social reform, the central intent of the theology of liberation is to build up the human family, of which the family called Church is symbol, witness and conscience. The work of God combines two fundamental trusts, as Wilbert R. Shenk has so well explained it, "the universal and the particular in one action. The universal moves to bring all under the sovereignty of God, thereby relativising all other loyalties and claims. The trust of particularly moves toward every people and each person, for each bears the imago Dei; none is excluded from the reach of God’s love, each is invited to be reconciled to God". 7b Nature of Church-as-Family The predominant images or models of the Church in the documents of Vatican II are those of the People of God and Body of Christ. Although in the documents these images are circumscribed with historical concerns of authority and government, they clearly retain the meaning of the spirituality of Jesus. Lumen Gentium, for example, asserts that "All people are called to belong to this Catholic unity of the People of God (that is, the Church) which anticipates and fosters universal peace"(cf.n.13). The same document continues to explain this assertion by saying that "in different ways, there belong to or are oriented towards this unity both the Catholic faithful and all believers in Christ as well as all people in general since they are called by the grace of God to salvation"(ibid). 8 Taking the above description as the broader and more comprehensive meaning of Church, the Council in Number 7 of Lumen Gentium likens it to a Body whose head is Christ. In this Body, the Christ of faith shares the Spirit manifested by the historical Jesus. The spirit "being identically the same in Head and member, vivifies, unites, and moves the entire Body ....". This sharing of the Spirit is now mystical, but the end to which it is directed remains the same as Jesus demonstrated during his life: to unite all peoples and foster universal peace. The Church is a Body of Christ as long as it continues this mission. The image of "family" applied to the Church acquires Christian theological relevance and validity only when it is seen and used within the context of that mission today. As Jesus became Christ because of his liberating activity, so does the Church become Christian. Fundamentally, Christ’s Church is not static; it is a dynamic movement for the integral liberation or salvation of people, a liberation constituted by love and unity overriding all differences. Christ’s Church is an activity of love. What then is meant by Christ’s Spirit empowering the Church-as-family? It means Christ’s followers acting as Jesus did and continuing to do so. This is the Jesus who actually calls individuals and peoples to freedom by his word and action. He does this through God’s continual self revelation in history.... In the process he gives a voice to the voiceless so that farmers, for example, can demand fair prices for their produce. He instills courage so that industrial workers, domestic servants and casual labourers can say ‘no’ to the arbitrary exploitation of their person and labour. He provides hope to prostitutes, parking boys and (the) sick and the lame so that they may realise that in spite of their degradation, suffering and handicaps, they are equal members of society and children of God with dignity in his sight. 9 In very simple and straightforward terms, the movement directed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ is one towards integration and unity. To put it plainly, it is against discrimination and segregation. But if unity is not the nature, the essence, of family, of Church-as-family, then nothing is. Since the Church is constituted from the beginning by God’s action towards oneness, it may be said always to bear the seeds of being truly a family of God. But it is a serious mistake to imagine that the seed is already the fruit. Seeds must be fleshed out in concrete action for the unity of humanity. We may speak of the importance of the recurrence of the thought of "caring for others, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust". The closer the Church moves towards universal solidarity, the more it becomes genuinely a family. The further away it moves from solidarity, the less it can claim the right to be called a family of God. The aspects of solidarity, unity and communion form the difference between family as a merely human institution and the Church as a Church-as-family. When the African Synod used the latter image, it sought to eliminate any elements that circumscribe, and therefore limit, the extent, depth and quality of unity and communion that characterise human families. Quite distinct, or really different, from the understanding of the structure and functioning of human families, the Church-as-family embraces everyone irrespective of class, gender, race or ability. This means that the Church-as-family is a universal communion in which humanity, fully common to all human beings, is the basic and most important element or measure. Taking historical-theological precedents, the pronouncements of Vatican II and the conclusions of the African Synod seriously, African theologians have tried to spell out what it all means for the Church in Africa. E.E. Uzukwu, for instance, demonstrates very convincingly that Africa’s culture is a rich resource for understanding and living out what Church-as-family intends to convey in the Christian life. Uzukwu puts forward consultation and listening as the guiding principles for the existence of a Church consistent with what the Council and Synod have taught. The Church, according to Uzukwu, needs to be a "listening" Church. What the model of Church-as-family will most strongly evoke in Africa is the African family’s relational principle. If carefully adhered to, this relational emphasis should help to eliminate the negative elements of the model when used uncritically. Patriarchy emerges as a clearly negative example, and the Synod failed to criticise it forcefully enough, or at least the Ecclesia in Africa does not demonstrate such critique. As a result, as Uzukwu observes only a short time after the Synod, there was already the tendency to link the notion of family with a spiritual "paternity" of priests! But the Christian value and power of the model becomes evident only when it is "stripped of all the characteristics of patriarchal dominance". I0 The relational principle, on which the African family is based, fosters a type of community "of people promoting people’s growth", as Waliggo notes. "Fellowship of brothers and sisters should be for the human growth of all people".11 This is what Christ by his Spirit aims to do in the Church. In the words of Amaladoss: He befriends the poor, the outcasts, the sinners, publicans and the marginalised under physical, psychological and social oppression. By his preaching and miracles, he set himself against the representatives of mammon in his time. He proclaims a new law that privileges poverty and meekness, peace and justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.... He leaves us a memorial banquet that symbolises and experiences in the sharing of food the sharing of life with each other and with God. 12 What kind of Church-as-family emerges as a result of this activity and imperative of the Spirit? What kind of Church community is envisaged? To quote Amaladoss again, it must be one held together by the bonds of love and mutual acceptance. It is not based on geographic, ethnic, cultural and religious unity. It is not bound by national, economic or caste barriers. It is not only comfortable with multi-culturalism, but sees it as the creative variety and riches of the human race. 13 We have stressed the nature of Church-as-family as that of solidarity, unity and communion without barriers. We must now consider how it should shape the visible structure of the Church in the understanding that Church structures can impede or enhance the work of the Spirit of Jesus. Visible Structure of the Church To be Christologically or Pneumatologically valid, any structure or operational aspect of life of the Church needs to adhere to certain basic principles. The following are central: - respect for the inalienable rights of an individual or group within the context of the larger community; - respect for the dignity of the human in every person or group of persons. This presupposes the principle just mentioned; - the preservation of the integrity and life of the community as a vital just and harmonious community. What concrete theological mechanisms, then, need to be promoted to enflesh these principles? One immediately thinks of the mechanisms of subsidiarity, solidarity and participation/socialisation as the ones most pertinent to Jesus’ practice. Let me elaborate on how the structure of subsidiarity, solidarity and participation, if authentic, preserves and promotes the dynamic respect for the rights and dignity of persons and the integrity of the community (all of which are signs of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus Christ). Subsidiary promotes identity, the recognition of who and what is before God. A sense of identity is necessary for one to exercise properly one’s responsibilities and rights. But identity is precisely what the poor and the exploited generally lack. They are conditioned by prevailing structures, which stress centralised power, to live their identity almost vicariously, that is, to see and experience their own identity in their "masters". "Peripheral" local Churches and much of the so-called Third World exist in the same way. The dynamic Spirit of Jesus, however, challenges this, as Jesus challenged the lack of identity in the peasant class of his own time. Authentic subsidiarily, promoting personal, group and social identity keeps the Spirit of Jesus alive and active. Of the qualities that constitute true community, dialogue, trust and concern can never be dispensed with. Many Church documents, as well as the African Synod, l4 have stressed this point and it hardly calls for further emphasis here. Dialogue, trust and concern express solidarity, and solidarity is what the Church should be: one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. Dialogue is a pivotal element of accountability: of the whole Church to God, and of each and every member of the Church to one another in the Church’s daily life. In addition participation as a means of socialisation and growth into, and within, the Church as family of God ought to be promoted. In this age of democratic institutions in all spheres of life, the necessity for this is self-evident. But I wish to indicate here how the significance of participation as socialisation has been recognised in the Church from early times. This is particularly demonstrated in the rite of Baptism in the history of the Church. The fact of Baptism of adults in stages as a process of gradual socialisation and growth into the Christian community is indicated as early as the second and third centuries by Justin (in his First Apology),Tertulian (On Baptism) and Hippolytus of Rome (Apostolic Tradition). With time, however, this was lost sight of and the rite was compressed into a shorter and shorter time with most emphasis placed only on Baptism. But in Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II reformed the rite of Baptism and decreed a return to the ancient process. Thus the rite of Christian Initiation of Adults now consists of the candidates’ acceptance into the catechumenate and the catechumenate itself as the first step, and the enrolment of names as the second. The period of Purification and Enlightenment consists of the celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist), and post-baptismal catechesis (or mystagogy) as the fourth step through which the newly baptised participate fully as members of the community or Church-as-family.15 The entire process deliberately takes time so that the growth into the faith may mature, especially through the help and example of the adult members of the family. Pastoral Approaches Our "imitation" of Jesus must be evident in the Church’s pastoral work. This is to say that pastoral ministry, while excluding none of God’s people, needs to pay more attention to today’s expendables who, to be sure, are not so different from those of yesterday. Aguilar lists them as prostitutes, alcoholics, AIDS victims, women, refugees, exiles, the displaced and migrants.16 Perhaps these are the contemporary equivalent of the tax collectors and sinners who enjoyed Jesus’ special favour and treatment. They move, as Aguilar notes: Within boundaries of institutional, social and ritual circles of this world feeling, more than others, the presence or the absence of the Church and its pastoral agents. Nevertheless, every pastoral agent has encountered people who are convinced that the Church does not care about them, and who is familiar with situations of helplessness that are a great challenge to ministry. 17 Effective pastoral ministry to the outcasts, aiming to include them into the Church-as-family, cannot but revolve around the principles of subsidiarity, solidarity and, particularly, socialisation. Large Church communities such as the traditional parish or outstation are not practical structures for ministering to outcasts because of their size, which makes them rather impersonal. This means that there is not enough personal contact among members of the community at this level, and if there is, it is superficial. But what the imitation of Jesus, or Jesus-in-us, demands is the inclusion of the rejected as "part of us" in the sense of solidarity. This can only happen meaningfully and effectively when it takes place at the most local level of the local Church. In AMECEA ecclesiastical structures, this means at the level of the Small Christian Community. Jesus’ preaching and ministry — which we may describe as his pastoral strategy — was based on presence. He was present to his subjects, to those who were rejected by "respectable" society, and hence the accusations against him as the Evangelists must have recalled them. It is obvious, again in the Gospels, that presence must be practiced by anyone who would truly be Jesus’ disciple. For Jesus the gist of this was to go into the villages, enter people’s houses and eat with them — such was the beginning of God’s reign. The practice of subsidiarity facilitates the Church’s presence in a given place. It promotes solidarity, the sign of the empowering Spirit of Christ. The dynamics of subsidiarity, presence and solidarity, therefore, constitute the work of the Spirit in the Church-as-family. But practical subsidiarity, presence and solidarity are not given realities; they are elements to be constantly struggled for and achieved, even if ever so partially. But every step in that direction is significant, and such steps are only possible through socialisation. "The individual Christian’s personal responsibility towards justice, community solidarity and the social outcasts has to be awakened and then channelled through the common solidarity of a larger community by the pastoral agents". 18 Socialisation means involvement, but right and purposeful involvement implies and demands training. This is where catechetical instruction and ongoing catechesis, the training and formation of pastoral agents, and the orientation of Christian higher educational institutions in our region come in. Do we train for exclusion or inclusion? Do we break down boundaries and castes or do we erect them? Do we promote involvement and solidarity regardless of existing classes, or do we view such with suspicion as a threat against our own status? Emphasis is correctly placed when, in socialisation, leadership is underlined. The influence of correct leadership cannot be over emphasised in this regard. We have Jesus himself and his activity as an example. In our own day, it is not possible to under-estimate the influence of the papacy in shaping the outlook of the universal Church. We know what tremendous impact a charismatic Bishop or parish priest can make in a Diocese or parish. Eastern Africa is fortunate to have had some good leaders, both civil and religious, who have been genuinely committed to the cause of the marginalised. At one time in the ’60s and ’70s it seemed that the Church would make "the preferential option for the poor" its main pastoral orientation. But then came factors that began to undercut this orientation. There was, first, the strong centralising effort in the Church since the late ’70s which went against the spirit of subsidiarity, so that even the competence of national or regional Episcopal Conferences to decide on local pastoral approaches was put into question by highly-placed Roman authorities. Then there was the collapse of the Eastern ideological bloc at around the same time, leaving the world with only one powerful social-economic ideology. This facilitated the phenomenon we know as globalisation, the collapsing of the entire world into one economic and cultural system with its centre in the few Northern most powerful industrialised nations. The consequence of centralisation, both in the Church and in the wider world, is to leave the poor more marginalised than ever. Whether as nations, groups or individuals, the poor are now truly expendable, truly excluded. It will take extraordinary dedication and skill on the part of leaders to make solidarity a reality, even if not a respectable one, to any degree. Yet, it is possible. If leadership training in the Church emphasises once again service, respect for the humanity of all people, simplicity in lifestyle, cooperation and sharing of resources, we might yet again be surprised by the power of Christ’s Spirit to transform the Church and the world. Jesus Christ continues to inspire and empower the Church through the activity of his Spirit. As John 14:26 says; "But the Paradete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will instruct you in everything and remind you of all I have told you". The Paraclete is the advocate in the practical sense of the word, the defender of the accused. So, what the Paraclete does or means to do today in the Church is the very same thing that Jesus did in his life-time, to defend the lowly of the earth and bring all human beings into one communion. Notes: 1 Acts 5:36 gives the example of Theudas, a historical figure testified to by the historian Josephus. See J.L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, NewYork: The Macmillan Company, 1965, p. 886. 2 For details about this I am indebted to J.D. Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Harper, San Francisco, 1995; E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, London: Allen Lane, 1993; M.I. Aguilar, Ministry to Social and Religious Outcasts in Africa, Eldoret: Gaba Publications, 1995, pp. 29 - 41. 3 Crossan, Jesus, op. cit., p. 25. 4 For example, see Mk 4:11-12; Mt 13:10-17; Lk 8:9-l0; Jn 12:40. 5 See Mt 13:47-48; Lk19:12-27; Mt 21:33-44; Lk15:11-32. 6 See Mt 9:33. 7 See Mt 13:54-56. 7b See W. Saayman and K. Krtzinger, eds., Mission in Bold Humility: David Bosch’s Work Considered, NewYork: Orbis Books, 1996, p. 91. 8 Sexist language has been removed by the author from these quotations. 9 Laurenti Magesa, "Christ the Liberator and African Today", in J.N.K. Mugambi and L. Magesa, eds, Jesus in African Christianity: Experimentation and Diversity in African Christology, Nairobi: Initiatives, pp.85-86. 10 E.E. Uzukwu, A listening Church: Autonomy and Communion in the African Churches, New York: Orbis, 1996, p. 66. 11 J.M. Waliggo, "The African Clan as the True Model of the African Church", in J.N.K. Mugambi and L. Magesa, eds, The Church in African Christianity: Innovative Essays in Ecclesiology, Nairobi: Initiatives, l990, p. 117. 12 M. Amaladoss, "Mission in a Post-Modern World: A Call to be Counter-cultural", in SEDOS Bulletin, vol. 28, nn. 8, 9, p. 238. 13 Ibid., pp. 238-39. The reader may note that Amaladoss’s hesitancy about the image of Body to describe the reality of the Church community is in slight opposition to Lumen Gentium, e.g. no. 7. 14 See Ecclesia in Africa, nn. 65-66. 15 See Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults; Study Edition, Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1988. Also B.M. Brazauskas, "Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults", in R.P. McBrien, ed, The Harpercollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, San Francisco: Harper, 1995, pp. 1119-1123. 16 See Aguilar, Ministry, op. cit., pp. 4-15. 17 Ibid., p. 3. 18 Aguilar, Ministry, op. cit., p. 75.
Ref.: Text from the Author. In The Model of "Church-as-Family": Meeting the African Challenge, CUEA Publications, 1999.
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