JESUS YOUTH | KAIROS GLOBAL | JULY 2021

Author: Dr Edward Edezhath

Intro: Dr. Edward Edezhath, is a retired professor from St. Albert's College, Ernakulam. He lives with his wife Audrey in Kochi, India.

Cultural mixing is exciting!

A multicultural approach is the heart of Jesus Youth missionary fervour 

‘Your youth groups are a nice blend, from cities and villages, English and vernacular speaking, college youth and uneducated, fashionable and ordinary. You use western songs and local tunes, and all feel part of it.’ Manuel from Madras, visiting us in the early days of Jesus Youth, was surprised at the cultural variety here. In his place, city youth and rural youth gathered separately, used different songs and prayer styles. Surprisingly, those culturally divided groups disappeared, but Jesus Youth drew strength from its multicultural approaches and grew. 

Being inclusive is a long and complex journey that the Father of diversities is challenging us to take. And more than ever now and everywhere this approach is becoming more and more important.

What is being culturally inclusive?

In the Bible, the spirit and style of God’s kingdom is visualised as most diverse cultures coming together in harmony, the wolf and the lamb will live together, the leopard will lie with the baby goat, the calf will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all (Isaiah 11:6). This diversity was also our dream in our early youth group. Young and not-so-young, students and workers, English and vernacular speaking, from city and rural areas, all gathered there. One day, one of our leaders, Marykutty, asked me, ‘Eddy, is our group Latin or Syro-Malabar?’ Holding different Catholic rites together was yet another challenge. But we were clear that unity that goes beyond all diversity was the Lord’s beautiful plan for us and the leaders consciously worked with that vision.  

Look at the world around you! Intermingling of ethnic backgrounds, cultures and even nationalities is real. It was not so in the past, but today migration and cultural mixing are the global trends. Yet for some, this is distressing and hence they run away from it to take refuge in their cultural cages. But not so for the missionary Church and for spirit-filled Jesus Youth.

So, multiculturalism is the Church’s missionary response to today’s social reality. Jesus challenged his disciples to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’. On this someone remarked, ‘but today we have a never before opportunity. Peoples and cultures come to our neighbourhood and we can invite them to our community to meet and grow in Christ’. That openness is multiculturalism. In Joy of the Gospel Pope Francis highlights this, ‘What is called for is an evangelisation capable of shedding light on these new ways . . . Cities are multicultural. . . The Church is called to be at the service of a difficult dialogue.’ (# 74)

What prevents us from bringing in the others?

Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of culturally different people. In small doses this could invade our spirituality. Then we become like the Pharisees who blamed Jesus for mixing with others (Matthew 9:11). We could come up with all kinds of real and imagined reasons to prevent building bridges. What are certain blocks to building culturally inclusive fellowships?

Obsession with depth and focus: ‘Don’t bring new ones! They lack our spiritual depth,’ thus citing moral and spiritual reasons we reject people of other styles.

Narrow understanding of Christian life: Our groups go about with programme styles, prayer modes, activities relevant for a few of us.  And we find no space to include the larger world and other people.

Prejudices: ‘They are playful … money minded … too pushy and ambitious.’ We have deep set ideas about each social section. And we are not challenged by anyone to have a spirituality that will accept everyone as a son or daughter of my loving Father.

Spirit of competition. Even in our spiritual journey, we could be trying to prove that we are superior to others. Are we building ministries and groups as part of this unspoken competition? 

Thus, so many push factors can keep all ‘others’ away from us, restricting us to our own cultural circles. But the opposite of fear and apathy is a culture of dialogue. As Pope Francis puts it, ‘Approaching, speaking, listening, looking at, coming to know and understand one another, and to find common ground: all these things are summed up in the one word “dialogue”’ (Fratelli Tutti, 198).

Way of speaking that unites

Recently, JY leaders in Canada gathered to discuss how JY fellowships could become more multicultural. ‘While I was in India, a delicate problem cropped up in our online group.’ Timson shared his experience. ‘Most of us knew Malayalam, but there were people of other languages too. Many JYs would post funny stories or comments in their language. Most would enjoy, but a few would go blank. Those with a heart for the whole group found how painful this could be for a minority. Finally, the regional team came down strongly and said all communications must be either in the national language, Hindi or the common language, English. This changed communication style in all groups. Soon, the unbelievable happened! In a surprising way local leadership emerged and then, we had a coordinator from the local ethnic community.’

Being inclusive is shown in the way you communicate. Taking extra trouble to use the language of the other is a big step, but there has to be more. It is also the way in which you listen, make the person of the other culture feel accepted and well-integrated. This I have witnessed very much in Taizé, in their prayer and also in the lifestyle. They are evangelistic, yet not preachy or intolerant. In a group of 15 or 20 there would be youth from most continents speaking all different languages. Whatever someone speaks is translated to all languages for everyone to grasp it. Won’t it be easier to separate language groups? No! Maybe talking becomes slow and too simple, you can’t cover a lot of content, but then the focus becomes all about building communion. This is an inclusive approach, and it becomes a deep experience of love of God in action. 

(This reflection will be continued in the next issue.)