*

What influence does the history and culture of the East and West have on faith? We can learn from the dialogue between an atheist from the West (WA) and a Buddhist from Asia (AB).

WA: Although I call myself an atheist, I was born and raised in a very devout European Catholic family. I love and respect my parents especially my mother. She puts forth her efforts to take care of the family so everyone can feel her tender love. She joyfully gives thanks when things go well. She prays fervently in times of trouble. The most interesting thing is that whenever there is a thunder or a lightning, she crosses herself. She is well educated, understands astronomical phenomena, but somehow, this is her way. Modern science can clearly explain natural phenomena, and there are vaccines and medicines to combat stubborn diseases but whenever tragic disasters happen, Catholics would fast and pray and have processions with the statues of Mary and the saints. These people are still so traditionalists, and that is why I slowly drifted away from the Church.

AB: My family background is very different. I grew up in a traditional Chinese family. My father was deeply influenced by Chinese culture: respect for the elders, values of the family and great emphasis on the four cardinal principles (propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame) and eight virtues (loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, honesty, justice, harmony and peace). Mother is pious to various deities and prays to them regularly. However, I was educated in a Catholic school. We are a harmonious family and did not talk about religion. My wife’s family are all devout Catholics who live a very disciplined and loving life. I wish that our children will live a similar faithful life, therefore they were baptized after their birth. For their well-being, I go to church to attend Mass with them. Seeing my wife praying with the children makes me feel peaceful and full of joy. For the sake of communion of family, I joined the catechism class and I realized that faith is about building a father-son relationship with God the Father and a brother-sister relationship with others, equality and love, forgiveness and tolerance, how wonderful!

*
WA: In this way, it is as if there were two gods in the world. The god of my family’s tradition is the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth and all things are in his control. Anyone who trusts in him must rely on him and seek him. He is man’s refuge and man must fall under his wings when faced with trouble. However, after the birth of science, this god lost his practical value. Then one can cry out, “god is dead!”

AB: I could not accept the myth that God creates the heavens and earth and everything. Thus, I did not accept the Catholic faith even though I had been in a Catholic school for many years. I followed my father’s teachings, lived by the traditional morality, and my mother’s thoughts on respecting all living creatures and strived to be away from sufferings.

WA: I think you had not had the chance to learn about the traditional European Catholic faith. What you believed is God the Father revealed by Jesus. This reminded me of the parable of putting new wine into old wineskins. ( Mark 2:22) At the time of Jesus, people used skins to carry wine. If new wine was poured into old wineskins, as the new wine would continue to ferment, the old wineskin would burst. Jesus used this metaphor to express how the new spirit of the Gospel would impact on the old Jewish cultural tradition. I would also like to use this metaphor to express that the Church is more than 2,000 years old and she should be integrated into modern culture.

AB: Oh! I see, you’re not rejecting God, you’re just dissatisfied with Church tradition.

WA: I read the Old Testament and learnt that the Jews were firm on preserving their faith and traditions. In fact, at that time there were many outstanding ancient civilizations, such as Egypt, Babylon, Persia, etc. The Jews were exiled to Babylon and were persecuted. Instead of raising up a great warrior from among their people, God sent Cyrus, the Persian king, on His mission to release them to their homeland. By the time of Jesus, the Jews were generally speaking Aramaic and only the scribes knew traditional Hebrew. It was therefore the prerogative of the scribes to recite and explain the scriptures, and thus to have power over the people.

AB: This is why translation is so important.

*
WA: Translation is not easy at all. You cannot simply translate literally. Translators have to know the two languages well, as well as the cultural background. At the time of Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures were available to the people in the Aramaic translation of Targums. Jesus preached in Aramaic according to local culture. His disciples, including the apostles, were Jews who spoke Aramaic. As the Church developed further, Greeks and Romans joined in, and there were conflicts of cultures. The dispute on circumcision is an obvious example.

AB: However, these cultural conflicts were resolved by the Apostles and the faith continued to spread to Europe. According to the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul was welcomed by the local Christian community when he arrived in Rome. Lay people had already begun evangelization in Rome. Sadly, both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome.

WA: Indeed, the early Church was persecuted by the regime for almost three hundred years until Constantine the Great. His mother, Helen was a devoted Catholic. From this point onwards, the history of the Church turned a new page. As the emperor believed in Christianity, so did the people, and the Church began to enjoy many privileges and even controlled the affairs of the state. Religion had become the heart of the state and the priests were a privileged class. This trend extended to many emerging countries, where faith formation was extremely superficial, and religion influenced culture and customs, as well as education. In medieval times, only the nobility and the clergy enjoyed the right to education, and only they knew how to read and use Latin.

AB: It’s like the world is going round! Jesus is really going to appear again.

WA: What emerged was not Jesus, but science. This new culture was truly unacceptable for the Church, it was considered even heretical. After the Renaissance, Europe underwent a major reformation and society as a whole seemed to awaken to the fact that it no longer accepted the intervention of the Church and demanded a separation of church and state, without the priests interfering in politics, and the Church was gradually marginalised, a phenomenon that continued to this day.

*
AB: No wonder, when my wife and I travelled to Europe, the churches there were deserted.

WA: In fact, many people, like me, would like to get rid of the so-called glorious image of the medieval church. Now that science has advanced beyond human expectations, I think the only way for the Church to emerge from this decline and become part of the community again is through lay people. The lay people are the people of the Church, but they are also citizens of society. In fact, the cultural and religious conflicts in society today are caused mainly by lay people.

AB: From what you have said, I have the impression that you are keen to abandon the old culture for the new one. For us Asians, we still appreciate the old culture very much, especially in terms of morality and ethics, and we are more receptive to the Western culture, which is the standard for many things, such as respect for human rights and equality between men and women, which you regard as universal values. I believe that these values are influenced by the Christian religion. However, the Westerners have a spirit of scientific inquiry, and they have to seek justification for everything, but this is really lacking in the East. For example, Chinese medicine is mostly based on experience and has been used for thousands of years without any justification. The pursuit of the virtues of truth, goodness and beauty, which I think are also enlightening, is difficult to explore in a scientific spirit. The East is constantly learning from the West, but very few, and I say very few, not none, Westerners study Eastern culture and beliefs. It is as if man has replaced ‘God’ with science and science has become a modern ‘religion’. Religion has become an island. But I don’t think you need to be so discouraged. More than 50 years ago the Second Vatican Council was aware of the problem and responded positively. The Church no longer resists science, history and philosophy, and believes that research and discoveries in this area have stimulated new theological inquiry. The Church also invites theologians to discover more appropriate ways of proclaiming the truth to modern people. Furthermore, theologians are being asked, within the methods and limits of theological science, to develop more efficient ways of communicating the Gospel to the people of today, for the deposit and the truths of faith are one thing, the manner of expressing them is quite another. ( Gaudium et Spes 62) I couldn’t agree more with you that the only way forward for the Church are “lay people”. The world today has fallen into another kind of idolatry of the things of this world and has become a slave to the things of this world. It is the task of the Church as a whole to make people capable of establishing the proper scale of values in the temporal order and to direct it towards God through Christ. The laity must take up the renewal of the temporal order as their own special obligation. ( Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People 7)

WA: Yes, it is very true. Culture is not formed in a day. We need to cherish our culture and not to discard it. Likewise, we need to treasure the faith that was passed down by the Church for the past two thousand years. I hope the Church can proclaim the Gospel in a manner suitable to modern culture and language. Culture is used to serve people, not people to serve culture.