The continent of Asia already has more than 3.5 billion people and covers half the globe from Tokyo to Jerusalem and Moscow to Jakarta. Now, with China and India's industrial explosion, it is also home to the world's fastest growing economies. By as early as 2020, Asia is likely to account for 40% of the global economic product and will include seven of the world's ten largest economies. It's increasingly obvious that the 21st century will witness a massive increase in Asian influence on the world stage.
But, if a big part of our economic and cultural future includes Asia, so does a big part of the future of Christianity.
That's not the most comforting news. Christian presence in this vast continent is almost negligible: only slightly over 2% of the total Asian population is Christian. Conversely, this also means that more than 85% of the world's non-Christians are Asian.
From a historical point of view, this is a sobering reality. Asia is, after all, the birthplace of Christianity, the continent where, as John Paul II pointed out in Ecclesia in Asia, "in the fullness of time, God sent his only-begotten Son to be our Savior, and where the great events of salvation history took place." In fact, up until the spread of Islam in the 7th century, the Asian Church accounted for at least half of the total number of Christians in the world. Neither was the Church limited only to the Near East. According to tradition, the Apostle Thomas brought Christianity to Malabar, on the southwest coast of India, as early as A.D. 52, and a Syro-Chaldaic bishop "of India and Persia" was present at the great council of Nicea in 325.
Asia has also provided the Church with the greatest number of martyrs in history. It can truly be said that "from the heart of Asia there arises the great song of praise: Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus (the host of white-robed martyrs praises you!)" The heroic martyrs of recent times like St. Paul Miki, St. Lorenzo Ruiz, St. Andrew Dung-Lac and St. Andrew Kim Taegon are joined by thousands of others who gave their life for the faith in Asia. The relatively small peninsula of Korea, for example, has witnessed the martyrdom of more than 10,000 Christians, while 30,000 were sacrificed during China's Boxer Revolution of 1900. Add to these the martyrs who died during Tartar and Muslim persecutions and those killed under Communist regimes in China, Vietnam and especially the former Soviet Union, and the number could easily pass into the millions.
Despite this inspiring history, Christianity has apparently failed to take root in Asia. The explanation is complex, but two reasons stand out. First, ancient religious traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism are so intimately linked with history and civilization in Asia that conversion to Christianity is seen not only as a rejection of one's culture but also as a rejection of one's nation. Buddhism is still, for instance, the official state religion in Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia; Hinduism in several Indian states; and Islam in almost all Muslim-dominated countries like Brunei, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia.
This difficulty is compounded by the fact that Christianity is frequently perceived as a left-over or even a continuation of centuries of often brutal European colonial conquest. Asians are painfully aware that beginning with the Portuguese penetration of Asia in the late 15th century and reaching a climax with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Europeans controlled virtually the entire Islamic world, all of the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia, and exercised considerable influence in China. The memory of these years of subjugation are still fresh in Asian minds, and it does not help that evangelization efforts continue to be overtly Western in tone, only bolstering this "us-versus-them" image.
Archbishop Leo Jun Ikenaga of Osaka, Japan, voiced his concern over just how foreign Christianity still appears in Asia when, in the 1998 Synod of Asia, he pointed out that "Western Christianity makes a clear division between God and the universe, Heaven and Hell. It stresses the paternal aspect of God. The peoples of East Asia have a pantheistic mindset, believe in the transmigration of souls, and are drawn to the thought of the embracing mercy of God. The language of our theology, the rhythm and structure of our liturgies, the programs of our catechesis fail to touch the hearts of those who come searching."
Inculturation of the Gospel in Asia has clearly become essential. But as it tries to distance itself from Western-style evangelization, the Church faces the grave danger of going too far in the other direction. Adapting the Gospel to the Asian context could easily degenerate into a syncretist religious conglomeration of Catholicism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam where Christianity effectively ceases to be Christianity.
The real difficulty with inculturation is that many Asians have no problem accepting Jesus as a manifestation of the divine, or as an "enlightened one" alongside other great teachers like Buddha, Confucius or Gandhi. What they object to is the claim that Christ is not just one among many gods, but that He alone is God and Savior. This is something alien to their view of an absolutely transcendent and unknowable God, and which they therefore label as Western arrogance and imperialism once again attempting to dominate Asia through an exclusivist religion. It's the novelty and the "scandal" of Christianity that shocks them: How could an all-holy, all-powerful and all-knowing God assume human nature and endure suffering and death to win salvation for all people?
It's clear, however, that if in the attempt to reach out to Asia the Church were to water down this central belief, it would abandon Christianity. The challenge of Asian evangelization is, therefore, to present the "Asian face of Jesus" in a way that is in perfect harmony with the Church's whole mystical, philosophical and theological tradition.
With this daunting task obviously in mind, Pope Benedict XVI met with university students from across Europe and Asia on March 10, 2007 connected by satellite to groups in Calcutta, Islamabad, Manila, Hong Kong, Bologna, Turin, Krakow, Prague, Manchester and Coimbra. The Pope offered no magic formula for the "how" of evangelization in Asia, but he told the students that genuine dialogue with any culture begins with the silent witness of authentic faith lived in one's ordinary life. This, he said, is what will change the world, both in increasingly secular Europe and in faraway Asia. He called particular attention to the example of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, at whose hometown in Albania and at whose tomb in Calcutta students were gathered. Her unconditional service to the poor was truly missionary activity, the Pope said, because it revealed with actions and not mere words the face of the universal Christ.
Kneeling before an image of Mary to pray the rosary with the university students, Pope Benedict ended the encounter by entrusting the future of Europe and Asia to her hands. Watching the Pope on his knees for over an hour, one couldn't help feeling confident about the future. The path of Asian evangelization that lies ahead is not going to be easy. But history gives us plenty of reason to hope. When the first apostles received Christ's command, "Go make disciples of all nations," they stood before the vast and seemingly impregnable paganism of the Roman Empire. Some 1500 years later, countless missionaries left Christian Europe and set sail for the newly discovered Americas with those same words inscribed in their hearts. In 1995, they were also the words that prompted John Paul II to proclaim in Manila, "Asia: This is the mission we all share for the 3rd millennium!" Given the importance Asia is destined to assume in the 21st century, we may be standing on the threshold of another great era in Christian evangelization.
Br. Sameer Advani, of the Legionaries of Christ, studies for the priesthood in Rome.
