**Inkulturasi** adalah sebuah istilah yang digunakan di dalam paham Kristiani, terutama dalam Gereja Katolik Roma, yang merujuk pada adaptasi dari ajaran-ajaran Gereja pada saat diajukan pada kebudayaan-kebudayaan non-Kristiani, dan untuk memengaruhi kebudayaan-kebudayaan tersebut pada evolusi ajaran-ajaran gereja.

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Kehidupan bersama antara paham Kristiani dan kebudayaan lain dimulai semenjak masa kerasulan. Yesus memerintahkan murid-muridnya untuk menyebarkan ajaran-Nya hingga ke ujung bumi (Injil Markus 28:28; 16; 15) sebelum kenaikan-Nya ke surga namun tidak memberi tahu bagaimana caranya. Khotbah Rasul Paulus kepada orang-orang Yunani di hadapan majelis Areopagus di Athena (Kitab Kisah Para Rasul 17:22-33) bisa dianggap sebagai usaha inkulturasi yang pertama. Pidato itu tidak diterima dengan baik, menurut ayat 32: "Ketika mereka mendengar tentang kebangkitan orang mati, maka ada yang mengejek." Pada atau sekitar tahun 50, para rasul bertemu dalam Konsili Gereja pertama, Konsili Yerusalem, untuk menentukan apakah akan menyertakan orang-orang non-Yahudi dan memadukan kebudayaan orang-orang tersebut. Di Konsili Yerusalem ini diresmikan bahwa orang-orang Yahudi dan non-Yahudi bisa diterima sebagai umat Kristiani.

Konflik-konflik kebudayaan antara umat Kristiani Yahudi dan umat Kristiani non-Yahudi terus berlangsung hingga agama Kristen masuk ke dalam kebudayaan Yunani-Romawi. Inkulturasi yang sama terjadi ketika Kekaisaran Romawi berakhir dan kebudayaan-kebudayaan Jermanik dan Abad Pertengahan menjadi dominan - sebuah proses yang memakan waktu berabad-abad. Para pelaksana pertama dari inkulturasi ini dalam sejarah penyebaran Injil diantaranya adalah Santo Patrick di Irlandia dan Santo Siril dan Metodius bagi orang-orang Slavia di Eropa Timur. Setelah terjadinya skisma tahun 1054, pengaruh Gereja Katolik Roma sebagian besar hanya terbatas pada bagian barat Benua Eropa. Telah terjadi berbagai usaha yang gagal untuk memperluas ruang lingkup pengaruhnya terhadap kebudayaan-kebudayaan Timur Tengah melalui Perang Salib) dan terhadap Kekaisaran Latin di Konstantinopel (1204-1261). Reformasi Protestan menyebabkan perpecahan di dalam Gereja Barat. Namun, di saat yang sama, penemuan-penemuan penjelajah Spanyol dan Portugis akan Benua Amerika, Asia dan Afrika memperluas hubungan dengan berbagai kebudayaan dan peradaban yang lain.

Inkulturasi setelah penemuan-penemuan
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After the discoveries of new territories and the Council of Trent (1545-1563) the movement became more systematic, when the Roman Church had to ponder how and to evaluate elements of ancient non-Christian cultures. Notable figures were, among others, Yosef dari Ankieta for the indigenous people of Brazil, Roberto de Nobili in Southern India, Alexandre de Rhodes in Vietnam.

### China

 Matteo Ricci (left) and Xu Guangqi (right) in the Chinese edition of *Euclid's Elements*, published in 1607.
Artikel utama: Chinese Rites controversy
Matteo Ricci adalah seorang Yesuit, Adam Schall von Bell and others had successfully introduced Christianity to China. Ricci and Schall were appointed by the Chinese Emperor in Peking to be court mathematicians court astronomer and even Mandarin. The first Catholic Church was built in Peking in 1650. The emperor granted freedom of religion to Catholics. Ricci had adapted the Catholic faith to Chinese thinking, permitting among others the cultic veneration of ancestors, which he described as a mere cultural practice. The Holy See disagreed, deeming the veneration an act of worship and hence idolatry, and forbade any adaptation in the so-called Chinese Rites controversy in 1692 and 1742. The Chinese emperor felt duped and refused to permit any alteration of the existing Christian practices. The Church experienced missionary setbacks in 1721 when the Kangxi Emperor to outlaw Christian missions. According to Franzen, "The Vatican policy was the death of the missions in China."

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### Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIII fostered inter-cultural diversity, leading to the reintegration of the Armenian Church into the Catholic Church in 1879. He opposed efforts to latinize the Eastern Rite Churches, stating that they constitute a most valuable ancient tradition and symbol of the divine unity of the Catholic Church. His 1894 encyclical *Praeclara Gratulationis* praised the cultural and liturgical diversity of expressions of faith within the Church. In *Orientalum Dignitatis* he repeated the need to preserve and cultivate diversity and declared different cultures to be a treasure. He opposed the latinization policies of his own Vatican and decreed a number of measures which preserved the integrity and distinciveness of other cultural expressions.

### Benedict XV and Pius XI

Saat Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius X tended to be slightly more Latin oriented, Benedict XV was especially concerned with the development of missionary activities, which had suffered so much during World War One. Inculturation meant to him first of all the development of domestic clergy. On November 20, 1919, he appealed to the Catholics of the world, to support missions and especially the development of local clergy, favouring a de-Europeanization of the Catholic missions. Pope Pius XI followed suit, by promoting local clergy, the local cultures are better recognized. To this end he held an mission congress in Rome in 1922 and personally consecrated each year bishops from Asia, Africa and Latin America. At his death 240 dioceses and administrations were in the hands of domestic bishops.

### Pius XII

pada tahun 1939 Pope Pius XII, within weeks of his coronation, radically reverted the 250 year old Vatican policy and permitted the veneration of dead family members in China.
The December 8 1939 isuance from the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith issued at the request of Pius XII stated that Chinese customs were no longer considered superstitious but rather an honourable way of esteeming one's relatives, and therefore permitted by Catholics. The Church began to flourish again with twenty new arch-dioceses, seventy-nine dioceses and thirty-eight apostolic prefects, but only until 1949, when the Communist revolution took over the country.

The introduction of the Gospel means inculturation and not the destruction of local cultures. Pius emphasized this because not all seemed to understand this point. He wrote in Summi Pontificatus that a deeper appreciations into the various civilizations and their good qualities are necessary to the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. And in his 1944 speech to the directors of the Pontifical Missionary Society, he said:

* The herald of the Gospel and messenger of Christ is an apostle. His office does not demand that he transplant European civilization and culture, and no other, to foreign soil, there to take root and propagate itself. His task in dealing with these peoples, who sometimes boast of a very old and highly developed culture of their own, is to teach and form them so that they are ready to accept willingly and in a practical manner the principles of Christian life and morality; principles, I might add, that fit into any culture, provided it be good and sound, and which give that culture greater force in safeguarding human dignity and in gaining human happiness.

Inculturation was addressed in his encyclicals. *Evangelii Praecones* and *Fidei Donum*, issued on June 2, 1951 and April 21, 1957, respectively, increased the local decision-making of Catholic missions, many of which became independent dioceses. Pius XII demanded recognition of local cultures as fully equal to European culture. Continuing the line of his predecessors, Pius XII supported the establishment of local administration in Church affairs: in 1950, the hierarchy of Western Africa became independent; in 1951, Southern Africa; and in 1953, British Eastern Africa. Finland, Burma and French Africa became independent dioceses in 1955.

### John Paul II

John Paul II addressed the issue in several encyclicals and public appearances. The term was used again by the encyclical *Redemptoris Missio* of John Paul II in 1990.

* "The incarnation of the Gospel in native cultures and also the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church."
* "The intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in the various human cultures."
* "It is now acknowledged that *inculturation* is a theological term which has been defined in *Redemptoris Missio* 52 as the on-going dialogue between faith and culture."

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Referensi
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1. ↑  Franzen Kirchengeschichte, 18
2. ↑  (ESV)
3. ↑  McManners, *Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity* (2002), p. 37, Chapter 1 The Early Christian Community subsection entitled "Rome", quote: "In Acts 15 scripture recorded the apostles meeting in synod to reach a common policy about the Gentile mission."
4. ↑  McManners, *Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity* (2002), pp. 37–8, Chapter 1 The Early Christian Community subsection entitled "Rome", quote: "The 'synod' or, in Latin, 'council' (the modern distinction making a synod something less than a council was unknown in antiquity) became an indispensable way of keeping a common mind, and helped to keep maverick individuals from centrifugal tendencies. During the third century synodal government became so developed that synods used to meet not merely at times of crisis but on a regular basis every year, normally between Easter and Pentecost."
5. ↑  Franzen,319
6. ↑  Franzen 319
7. ↑  Franzen 321
8. ↑  Franzen 323
9. ↑  McManners, *Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity* (1990), p. 328, Chapter 9 The Expansion of Christianity by John McManners
10. 1 2  Franzen 324
11. 1 2  Duffy 241
12. ↑  Franzen 382
13. ↑  Franzen 385
14. ↑  J Smit,Pope Pius XII, New York 1950 pp. 186-187
15. ↑  Franzen 325
16. ↑  Evangelii 56
17. ↑  Evangelii 60
18. ↑  Audience for the directors of mission activities in 1944 A.A.S. 1944, p. 208.
19. ↑  *Evangelii Praecones*. p. 56.
20. ↑  John Paul II, encyclical Slavorum Apostoli, June 2, 1985, No. 21: AAS 77 (1985), 802-803; Address to the Pontifical Council for Culture plenary assembly, Jan. 17, 1987, No. 5: AAS 79 (1987), 1204-1205.
21. ↑  Redemptoris Missio 52-54.
22. ↑  Ethiopia and Inculturation, Brendan Cogavin C.S.Sp.

### Pranala

* August Franzen Church history, Kirchengeschichte, Herder Freiburg, 1988
* Schineller, Peter. A Handbook on Inculturation. New York, 1990.
* Shorter, Aylward. Toward a Theology of Inculturation. Maryknoll, NY, 1988.

Pranala luar
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* *Jesus Living in Mary: Handbook of the Spirituality of St. Louis de Montfort*. Chapter: "Inculturation"
* Translation and Inculturation in the Catholic Church Diarsipkan 2013-02-07 di Wayback Machine. by Stephen M. Beall