Alive in Ethiopia

Warning: I just caught up on some information gaps, so there are two long posts below. i am alive and safe in ethiopia. here is my new cell# +251912127651


Today I attended my first amheric masss. This was done in the ethopian rite. As a daily mass it lasted for 1 hour.

As the chants rolled high and in a semi-arabic fashion trilled and flipped my soul elated. Having been attending only meagerly Africanized masses over the past 6 months, it was somewhat spectacular to be surrounded by a completely different and historical authentic “African” mass. Granted, the “African” mass of here is completely different than the “African” mass of the countries I have visited. All the same, for me it was tremendous. I felt as if I had stepped into a whole other world.

Is Ethiopia a success of inculturation. I am not sure. While it has its own freedom from the western tradtion, by the same force that makes it unique it is also chained. If there is one thing that I have learned, culture is dynamic and changing. One cannot conceive of inculturation as merely a hanging on to the past. Nor is it an adoption of merely local trends. It is a reflection by people concerning their faith in their context, culturally, socially, economically. This is best confirmed, as Joe Healey’s discussion with me reminded me, in the life of youth in urban culture. The world of IT has broadened this coming generations conception of what is and what should be. Where is the Catholic church in this process. Already defined by its own limitations, does our catholic church impose these boundaries on its practicants. The somewhat vauge ecclesiology of Vatican II leaves certainly a lasting impression that the church is the people of God. How is it that people can be conscientisized into realizing that this indeed is their role. They are the Christian church and they have the ability of self direction.

Talking with a seminarian here, he relayed to me that this desire of the youth is present here in Ethiopia. Unlike so many other African countries, the imposing force of orthopraxy origionates origionally from inside the country and culture itself.
This is happening particularly in the southern part of Ethiopia. He explained to me that the church has directed this desire for dynamic church services into charismatic churches. He also expressed that often these youth still end up leaving the church for protestant sects deeming that the priest and the eucharist are not necessary.

Should these examples lead us to say that a contexualization of the faith for the youth should not happen???

Contextualization is a term that was introduced to me by Joe Healey. While I feel it might be weaker theologically, it doesn’t fall into the same trap of traditional ideas of culture as inculturation does.

Attending this first Ethiopian mass was exciting for me. It was like a breath of fresh air. I can recognize in some sense though, that this renewal from the service is in part due to my position as a foreigner. This service was almost exotic. Would Ethiopians, who themselves are from over 30 different cultural groups, feel the same way? Ultimately, the same questions must continue to be asked here. Inculturation is never a finished project as one interviewee reminded me, but it is always a dynamic process. This is a process necessary for the US, for Europe, for Asia, for every congregation of the world.

So what is my role? Perhaps my own broad experience of this topic can help illuminate the question and the necessity of asking it. It can help provide the theological and social impetus for the discussion. It can help provide a sense for what inculturation is and what it is not.


Obesrvations from the day:

ethiopia is a much different country than any other i've already visited. the gov has a strong grip here. they own the cell phone network and after some strifes in 2005 they banned text messaging.

At the restraunt we went to, they had two different options on the Menu. The fasting food and the non-fasting food. I have entered chritiandom.

To disengage from beggars, you say zarestaing, which is used to say thank you, but literally means, God will give you.

White people here are called Ferenji (almost Ferengi, which would have set historical precedent to the seperation of species in startrek). Ferenji is a derivative of the word French, which of course was used to lable the French people. They couldn’t tell the difference however between French people and anyone else. This is a similar incident to the origins of the Swahili word Mzungu, which is derived from a word that means English speaker.

Écarta means I am sorry.

I also learned there is no way I can really learn Amheric here, since it has a complteley different alphabet.

Weeuhyet- the word for taxi is the same as the word for conversation. It certainly means there is a historical precedent for “matatu theology”

Ethiopians use Explosive k’s and T’s. nothing too important about this linguistic fact, I just think the word explosive T is pretty cool.