Cultures, religions, and power: Proclaiming Christ in the United States today

Theological Studies

Volumn 65, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 714-740

  Phan, Peter C ^a  

^a GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949816357     PISSN: 00405639     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004056390406500402     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. For the English text of the encyclical, see Redemption and Dialogue: Reading Redemptoris missio and Dialogue and Proclamation, ed. William Burrows (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993) 5-55.
2. Vatican II's decree Ad gentes no. 2. English translations of ecclesiastical documents are taken from The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 7th rev. ed., Josef Neuner and Jacques Dupuis, ed. (New York: Alba House, 2001).
3. Allan Figueroa Deck, The Second Wave: Hispanic Ministry and the Evangelization of Cultures (New York: Paulist, 1989).
4. See also his recent reflection on practical theology from the Hispanic perspective, "A Latino Practical Theology: Mapping the Road Ahead," Theological Studies 65 (2004) 275-97.
5. Anti-Asian immigration legislation culminated in the Tydings-McDuffe Act of 1934 which can be traced back as far as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1908, and the 1917 and 1924 Immigration Acts. For an exposition of the U.S. anxiety about the "Yellow Peril," see David Palumbo-Liu, Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University, 1999) 31-42.
6. James H. Johnson Jr., Walter C. Farrell, and Chandra Guinn, "Immigration Reform and the Browning of America: Tensions, Conflicts, and Community Instability in Metropolitan Los Angeles," in The Handbook of International Migration, ed. Charles Hirschman, Philip Kasinitz, and Josh DeWind (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999) 391.
7. See Richard Alba and Victor Nee, "Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration," in The Handbook of International Migration 137-60;
8. See Allan Figueroa Deck, The Second Wave 12-15.
9. For a discussion of multiculturalism, particularly in education, see Peter C. Phan, "Multiculturalism, Church, and the University," Religious Education 90 (1995) 8-29.
10. See Michael Novak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies (New York: Macmillan, 1973).
11. Diana L. Eck, A New Religions America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation (New York: Harper San Francisco, 2001).
12. D. Eck, A New Religious America 11. Philip Jenkins has found fault with Eck's findings which he says are motivated by a political agenda in debates concerning the separation of church and state. Even if the number of new immigrants who practice non-Christian religions is far less than is often supposed (for example, Jenkins puts the number of Muslims in the United States at four million rather than at eight), still the important point is that these new immigrants strongly and loudly insist that they will continue to practice their religious faiths publicly and refuse to be subsumed into some kind of civic religion or Christianity.
13. See P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University, 2002) 104-5.
14. It is symptomatic that Samuel P. Huntington, who popularizes - though not to be credited with coining - the expression "the clash of civilizations," is viewing with alarm what he considers the erosion of national identity by people who he thinks are less than wholehearted in national pride, patriotism, religious faith, and work ethic. The people included are heads of transnational corporations, members of the liberal elite, holders of dual citizenship, Mexican Americans, and "deconstructionists." Huntington believes that the United States should remain a Christian and Anglocentric country. See his Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).
15. For helpful surveys of American Catholicism, see Chester Gillis, Roman Catholicism in America (New York: Columbia University, 1999);
16. Charles Morris, American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church (New York: Vintage Books, 1997);
17. David J. O'Brien, Public Catholicism (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1996);
18. Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985);
19. idem, In Search of American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension (New York: Oxford University, 2002).
20. For a collection of documents dealing with the American immigrant Catholic Church, see Keeping Faith: European and Asian Catholic Immigrants, ed. Jeffrey M. Burns, Ellen Skerrett and Joseph M. White (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2000).
21. David O'Brien, Public Catholicism 232.
22. For a history of Black American Catholics, see Cyprian Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States (New York: Crossroad, 1992)
23. and his "African American Catholics," in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History, ed. Michael Glazier and Thomas Shelley (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1997) 6-13.
24. For the Hispanic presence in the U.S.A., see Moisés Sandoval, On the Move: A History of the Hispanic Church in the United States (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1990)
25. and Jaime Vidal, "Hispanics Catholics in America," in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History 635-42.
26. From a theological point of view, the contributions of Black and Hispanic theologies have recently been studied by two important issues of Theological Studies: vol. 61, no. 4 (2000)
27. (The Catholic Reception of Black Theology) and vol. 65, no. 2 (2004) (Encountering Latino and Latina Catholic Theology).
28. For an informative essay on Native American Catholics, see Carl F. Starkloff, "Native Americans and the Catholic Church," in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History 1009-20.
29. See also The Crossing of Two Roads: Being Catholic and Native in the United States, ed. Marie Thérèse Archambault, Mark G. Thiel, and Christopher Vecsey (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2003).
30. Again, I am not saying that standard works do not take into account the recent waves of Catholic immigrants. Indeed, Jay Dolan discusses at length the impact of these newcomers, mainly Hispanic and Asian, for the North American Church. See his In Search of an American Catholicism 211-24; 238-48.
31. For a discussion of inculturation, see "Introduction: The Gospel in Cultures," in Peter C. Phan, In Our Tongues: Perspectives from Asia on Mission and Inculturation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2003) 3-10.
32. In his 1999 postsynodal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Asia Pope John Paul II writes: "Culture is the vital space in which the human person comes face to face with the Gospel. Evangelization and inculturation are naturally and intimately related to each other. The Gospel and evangelization are certainly not identical with culture; they are independent of it. Yet the Kingdom of God comes to people who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building of the Kingdom of God cannot avoid borrowing elements from human cultures." The pope goes on to insist that the process of inculturation "must involve the entire People of God" (no. 21). The English text of the exhortation is available in The Asian Synod: Texts and Commentaries, ed. Peter C. Phan (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2002) 286-340.
33. For a helpful report on the current "state of the union," especially the U.S. economy, society, and governance, see The Atlantic Monthly (January/February, 2004) 110-62.
34. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Dialogue and Proclamation no. 42 (May 19, 1991).
35. The English text of the document is available in Redemption and Dialogue, ed. William Burrows, 93-118;
36. For a lucid exposition of communion ecclesiology from the Asian perspective, see James H. Kroeger, Becoming Local Church (Quezon City: Claretian, 2003).
37. See also for a fuller exposition of the FABC's communion ecclesiology, see Peter C. Phan, Christianity with an Asian Face: Asian American Theology in the Making (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2003) 176-82.
38. On this intercultural theology, see "The Experience of Migration as Source of Intercultural Theology in the United States," in Peter C. Phan, Christianity with an Asian Face 3-25
39. For a different way of doing theology in Asia, see the extensive document of the FABC's Office of Theological Concerns Methodology: Asian Christian Theology in For All Peoples (2002) 329-419.
40. Ecclesia in Asia no. 20.
41. On popular religion and liturgy, see "Popular Religion and Liturgical Inculturation: Perspectives and Challenges from Asia," in Peter C. Phan, In Our Tongues 65-91.
42. English text in The Christian Faith, ed. J. Neuner and J. Dupuis, 423-24.
43. For a balanced evaluation of this document by the Asian bishops, see For All Peoples (2002) 143-44.
44. See For All Peoples (1992) 22-23.
45. For a helpful synthesis of the activities and theology of the FABC on this point, see Edmund Chia, Thirty Years of FABC: History, Foundation, Context and Theology, FABC Papers, no. 106 (16 Caine Road, Hong Kong: FABC, 2003).
46. On multiple religious belonging, see Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity, ed. Catherine Cornille (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2002);
47. and Peter C. Phan, "Multiple Religious Belonging: Opportunities and Challenges for Theology and Church," Theological Studies 64 (2003) 495-519.
48. On this point, see Peter C. Phan, "Multiple Religious Belonging" 499-504.
49. For interreligious dialogue from an Asian perspective, see Peter C. Phan, Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2004).
50. In developing a theology of non-violence and peace, needless to say, the North American Catholic Church can derive many useful insights from the non-violence tradition of Asia (e.g., Mahatma Gandhi, Buddhism, Jainism, and Thich Nhat Hanh) as well as from concrete projects to achieve reconciliation. See R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) esp. 121-43. Concerning the traditional criteria of just war, a case has been made that, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, war against terrorism has made at least some of the criteria obsolete.
51. See George Weigel, "The Just War Case for the War," America 188 (March 31, 2003) 7-10.
52. For thoughtful reflections on the just war in our current context, see Drew Christensen, "Whither the 'Just War'?" America 188 (March 24, 2003) 7-11
53. and Kenneth R. Himes, "Intervention, Just War, and U.S. National Security," Theological Studies 65 (2004) 141-57.
54. Peter Steinfels, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003) 1.
55. David Gibson, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002).
56. Chester Gillis, Roman Catholicism in America 279-80.
57. See Jay Dolan, In Search of American Catholicism 191-256.