Faith and Culture

Faith, in whatever religion it is associated, is a religious term that refers to something internal and personal. It is intimately related with one’s personal relationship with the Divine who is the focus of worship, prayer, and meditation.

Culture is the varied ways by which a person thinks, feels, behaves, expresses oneself, and relates to others. Culture then refers to the externalization of who we are. There are many cultures as there are many races.

Culture therefore gives expression to faith, manifests and externalizes faith. We would never know faith without culture. In other words, faith is always culturalized. Cultural elements like language, signs, symbols, gestures, etc. are instruments through which faith is known, understood, communicated and lived.
Faith is also the soul of culture. It gives meaning to culture, animates culture, helps culture makes sense of itself, enlivens culture and enriches it.. While faith refers to something divine and supernatural, it has so enriched culture that it has been mistakenly and wrongly presented as synonymous and equal to culture and vice-versa.

Hence we have these unfortunate dualisms: Hinduism as Indian, Buddhism as either Chinese, Japanese or Korean, Judaism as Hebrew and Jewish, Christianity as Greek, Roman and Latin, Islam as Arabic. Religious faith and racial culture are therefore not identical. It is like soul-body or body-soul tandem, different but inseparable.

The following are very important and deep concepts in Church and NGO language and expressions which have the underpinings of faith and culture. “Inculturation”, “peace process”, “culture of peace”, “interreligious dialogue/collaboration”, “ecumenical dialogue/exchange”, “multifaith/multicultural dialogues”, “holistic/total human development”, etc.

Because the terms of these dualism are not understood and properly explained, the projects and programs that carry their nomenclature do not essentially succeed. The main reason is cultural confusion. (To be continued next week).