Pim Valkenberg

Jacques Dupuis as a Theologian with a Reversed Mission Some remarks on his controversial theology of religious pluralism

The contribution by Pim Valkenberg investigates the contested case of Jacques Dupuis’Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. Why are certain statements in this book deemed to be so controversial as to lead to an investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? The answer given by the author is that Dupuis is a theologian with a reversed mission: because he is heavily influenced by his experiences in , Dupuis advocates a new theological approach that, coming from the churches in Asia, influences the Eurocentric way of theologising that is still predominant in . It is this fear of relativism imported from India that explains the lumping together of inclusivistic and pluralistic approaches in the document Dominus Iesus by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and, more recently, in the Notification on the book by Dupuis published in January 2001. 1

In modern missiology, it has become customary to speak about “mission in six continents” or “inverted mission ”. These terms indicate that, next to the usual missionary movement from the European countries to the continents of the ‘Third World’, there is a new missionary movement that goes from the South to the North2. In fact, this reversed mission is a sign that the centre of gravity in world Christianity is now rapidly shifting towards the Southern hemisphere, and to Africa and Asia in particular. In one of the best surveys of the history of Christianity, Andrew Walls describes the most recent phase of this religion as a ‘southern phase’3: “Not long ago Christianity was the religion of nearly all the peoples of Europe and their New World descendants, and of few others. Today it is a faith distributed throughout the world, is specially characteristic of the southern continents and appears to be receding only among the peoples of European origin”.4 Small wonder that Europeans in general and the central authorities in the

1 This contribution has been written before the publication of the Notification on the book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism by Father Jacques Dupuis, s.j. by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in January 2001 (see: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ congregations /cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_en.html). This notification, however, confirms the hypothesis expressed in the title of this contribution. 2 In 1996, the Dutch-Belgian missionary periodical Wereld en Zending issued a number on “Omgekeerde missie ” (reversed mission) with regard to the missionary thrust of the migrants that came to these countries. 3 See A. Walls, “Christianity ”, in A Handbook of Living Religions, ed. John R. Hinnells, Harmondsworth 1984, pp. 56-122. 4 Ibid., pp. 69-70. Cp. K. Bediako, Christianity in Africa: the Renewal of a Non-Western Religion, Edinburgh 1995, p. 126. 148 Mission is a Must

Roman in particular are fearful of this increasing influence of Southern continents, especially from Asia. In this respect, Asia is the bone of contention because it is the cradle of all modern heresies, as the head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples stated with reference to the encyclical Redemptoris Missio .5 Moreover, since it is a continent in which Christianity is but a tiny minority, Asia can be seen as the challenge of a new evangelization. 6 However, this new missionary effort seems to be hindered by certain theories that consider religious pluralism not only as a fact, but also as an expression of God ’s will and as an opportunity for interreligious dialogue. 7 In this article, I would like to show that the Belgian missiologist Jacques Dupuis is an exponent of this reversed mission from India to Rome, of which the Roman authorities are so afraid. Despite his rather orthodox , Dupuis has become a defender of an Indian type of approach to religious pluralism, and that is why his theology is now being investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is a strange coincidence that this congregation published its document Dominus Iesus on the eve of the opening of the Nijmegen Graduate School of Theology. While Dominus Iesus expresses the fearful reaction of an endangered Christian identity by considering orthodox inclusivistic theories together with heterodox relativistic theories as threats to a European Christian mission, the Graduate School expresses another reaction. In its program me of intercultural theology, it tries to combine an idea of mutual mission from various continents with the requirements of the scientific study of religions. When I saw Rogier van Rossum shaping religious life as ‘father superior ’ of the Graduate School ’s Nijmegen College, I could not help thinking that he was an example of this reversed mission as well, as he uses his African and Latin-American missionary experiences for a new task with predominantly Asian students in Nijmegen.

Jacques Dupuis and his christocentrical approach to interreligious dialogue

It is not so difficult to show how his experiences in India between 1948 and 1984 influenced the theology of Jacques Dupuis after his return to Europe. In his book on the place of Christ in the dialogue with the world ’s religions, Dupuis begins with a chapter on the ‘unbound’ Christ acknowledged in Hinduism, inspired by a

5 Cp. R. van Rossum, “Over Jezus en zijn boodschap ‘beschikken’: synodes en missie ”, Wereld en Zending 28 (1999) no.1, pp. 69-82, here 80. 6 See the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia, presented by Pope John Paul II in New Delhi in November 1999. 7 See the declaration Dominus Iesus: on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Christ and the Church by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican City 2000, no. 4.