Catholic inculturation in Cameroon must stop. This is the firm advice given to the Bishop of Kumbo in Cameroon.
The Nso Cultural and Development Association (NSODA) has written a strongly worded letter warning the Catholic Church against adulterating their culture “in the guise of inculturation”.
The Nso is one of the largest clans in Cameroon’s north west region.
The NSODA says social media is inundated with videos of “some of the Nso people’s most dreaded and sacred masquerades”.
NSODA President Tadze Adamu Mbiydzela told Bishop George Nkuo that churches and church premises in Kumbo diocese have been showing these videos “all in the name of inculturation”.
It is time to denounce the Church’s actions! The Nso people are angry!
The Church must stop its “provocative moot displays of our culture… under the guise of inculturation”.
NSODA is threatening court action if the valueless displays continue.
Catholic inculturation abusive
NSODA is dedicated to its socio-cultural development. But the Church is eroding the Nso culture, Mbiydzela wrote.
Thanking Nkuo for the benefits the Church offers Nso people, Mbiydzela said “We remain indebted and sincerely grateful to your Lordship”.
Bur Mbiydzela said he is most upset with the Church’s use of Nso’s sacred masquerades.
The idea of inculturation has been “wantonly and severely abused” by Catholics he wrote. It is “a shocking desecration of our culture and tradition”.
Cultural erosion
To appropriate the Nso culture for inculturating Catholics might work for the Church but it will completely destroy the Nso culture, Mbiydzela told Nkuo.
“If … care is not taken to protect our cultural heritage, which is our identity, then with the passage of time our culture will be completely eroded in the guise of inculturation.”
The “body” of the Nso “is built from her cultural heritage. If it is not seriously protected it shall be lost, and Nso as a kingdom be eroded into an abyss”.
Inculturation a complex process
Cameroon Bishops’ Conference spokesman Father Humphrey Tatah Mbuy says Cameroon “has not even started inculturation.
“We are at the stage of accommodation and adaptation” to what exists, he says.
Decisions about whether to bring masquerades to church need to answer various critical questions, he explains.
Two questions would be: What do those masquerades mean in the Nso culture? How would they help Christians become better Christians?
Inculturation doesn’t mean bringing anything to Church, or singing any songs, he says – though some songs being sung in Church have nothing to do with praising God.
Successful inculturation
Successful inculturation needs anthropologists’ expertise so the selected cultural approaches align to fundamental Gospel principles.
Professor Nathan Chase from the Aquinas Institute of Theology says inculturation was fundamental to the early Church but always provoked disagreements.
“In every case, those in favour of inculturation … won the argument” he says.
Religion and culture are inherently connected: Jesus was a Jew, many early Christians were Greek, he says.
“The fingerprints of Jewish and Greek culture are all over the Church. The issue is not whether they are connected, but how they should relate to one another.
“They must always be mutually informing one another, learning from one another.”
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