Re-imaging Conversion in the Lowland Philippine Setting: The Perspective of Gospel Re-rooting

JAM 3/1 (2001), pp. 43-77.

RE-IMAGING CONVERSION IN THE LOWLAND PHILIPPINE SETTING:

THE PERSPECTIVE OF GOSPEL RE-ROOTING

Timoteo D. Gener∗ As an integral dimension of a theology of Philippine (or Filipino)

culture, this essay is an attempt at gospel re-rooting. Theology of culture assesses the continuing interaction between the gospel of God’s reign in Christ and the communal practices of a people (culture) (cf. Dyrness 1997). This evaluation of culture, which also avails of culturally sensitive re-readings of the scripture, has the goal of evangelizing culture from within and thus, contribute to the building up of the whole body of Christ (de Mesa 1979:54-57; Dyrness 1992; 1997). In this vein, I view theological re-rooting (and re-routing) as viable research agenda in the flourishing of Filipino theology.1

My aim in this study is to re-view the theme of conversion (albeit, in a preliminary way) from a Philippine perspective. As we will see, this theology of conversion also illumines a theology of Filipino culture. First, I will present an initial framework for engaging culture (gospel re-rooting). Second, I will examine how lowland Filipinos view the concept of conversion. I will focus also on vernacular renderings of conversion in Filipino Bible translations. Third, I will engage in a dialogue between the cultural perception and a biblical understanding of conversion. I would also like to offer some suggestions for re-envisioning conversion in Philippine context.

∗ Timoteo D. GENER (Ph.D. studies, [email protected]), a Filipino minister, has a pastoral experience for six years in the Philippines prior to his current study at Fuller Theological Seminary, CA, U.S.A.

1 On this point, see the Epilogue below.

Journal of Asian Mission 3/1 (2001)

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1. Mission as Gospel Re-rooting In this study, we make use of “theological or gospel re-rooting” as a

(beginning) missional perspective (cf. de Mesa 1979; 1987; 1992). “Theological re-rooting,” according to de Mesa, is,

[A] thoughtful attempt to translate the inner meaning of the message of Jesus Christ from one historical and cultural milieu and root it into another (Koyama). The re-rooting is “for the purpose of transforming humanity from within and making it new” (Evangelii Nuantiandi). Since the Gospel is a living testimony, it must seek its roots in the lives of those who profess it both in their social structure and in their ideals and hopes (1979:34, emphases are mine). Here the key ideas are “transformation,” “translation,” “the inner

meaning of Christ’s message,” “re-rooting,” and “historical milieu.” Transformation means the permeation of the gospel in personal and

social life. It is presupposed that the gospel is an instrument for renewal and revitalization of cultural life (even the whole creation). Note that the vision is a transformation from within. This means, first of all, that the gospel is not an alien substance to be injected in the lives of people but rather fulfills their needs, anxieties, and longings. Evangelization from within entails a respectful and critical interaction between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the culture of the world’s peoples (1987:3-22). For another, transformation as gospel re-rooting directly relates to the cultivation of a truly local (indigenous) church. In the words of de Mesa, theological re-rooting is also “the appropriation of the Judaeo-Christian Tradition by the local church into its indigenous culture” (1987: Introduction).

The inner meaning is the core of the gospel message, “the living Person of Christ.... He himself is the summary and content of the message of God’s Kingdom; he is himself the Christian message” (1979:35). This “inner meaning,” however, is not culture-free. While transcendent, this living core is “never without a historically conditioned and culturally situated expression” (1979:37). This is the witness of the incarnation. Lesslie Newbigin, respected missiologist and theologian, also notes this fact and gives a handy example.

[T]here is no such thing as a pure gospel if by that is meant something which is not embodied in a culture. The simplest verbal statement of the gospel, “Jesus is Lord,” depends for its meaning on the content which that culture gives to the word, “Lord” (Newbigin 1989:44).

Gener, “Re-imaging Conversion”

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For de Mesa, the historical milieu refers to culturethe human situation together with its needs, concerns and questions (1979:42). It has life-giving and death-dealing aspects, its share of “wheat” and “weeds” (Matt 13:30). Discernment is thus important in finding the “seeds of the word” in culture. Translation--“the transposition of the inner meaning of the Gospel message into the language a particular people understands” (1979:46)--is at the heart of gospel re-rooting. Here Lamin Sanneh has a parallel thought to de Mesa’s: the biblical story highlights the fact that “enough valid knowledge of God is already present in the cultures that words expressive of the gospel are already present” (Sanneh in Stackhouse 1988; also Sanneh 1989). Thus, we “can tell our faith to our own culture and in our language to our own people” (de Mesa 1979:55).

Theological or Gospel re-rooting as a theological vision implies the “need to rethink, reformulate, and to live anew within each culture the events and words revealed by God” (46). De Mesa outlines contextualization, inculturation, and dialogue as important elements in the project of theological re-rooting.2 We lack the space here to discuss these elements and interrogate de Mesa’s other ideas on theological methodology.3 But for purposes of inculturation, such as the goal of this study, de Mesa’s notion of re-rooting provides an excellent missional perspective for cultural evangelization.

Before proceeding to engage in a cultural-theological dialogue on conversion, let me just elaborate on our choice of the topic. First, we wish to situate this study on conversion within the movement of indigenization or better, inculturation. God’s word, if it is to make sense to the common Filipino, has to connect with their lived-experiences utilizing established cultural idioms (cf. de Mesa and Wostyn 1990). In another vein, inculturation is not just a matter of developing national identity. It also involves national, cultural survival, particularly for Filipinos whose contact with the outside world has been, and continues to be, less than agreeable (Miranda 1988:6-7).

Second, the topic is important because it remains an undeveloped theological theme in Philippine church life. Conversion to the lordship of Christ (in all of life) is still a marginal, undeveloped theme in church life (cf. Nacpil 1975). But there are signposts alerting us to give it renewed

2 In the Epilogue, we reconfigure re-rooting and its elements, as part of a

beginning framework of a theology of Philippine culture. 3 On this, see Gener 1998; also the extended online version of this essay in the

articles section of www.penuel.ph.


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consideration (de Mesa 1987; Miranda 1992; Maggay 1993). I align my present work within this theological ferment.

2. Conversion as a Cultural Theme In this section, we will probe the theme of conversion in lowland

Filipino life and culture. The goal is to seek a viable theological correlation, by which the gospel could be communicated and embodied by God’s people in and for the Philippine setting.

2.1 Historical Precedents

The Philippines was colonized by Spain for three hundred and fifty

years, by the United States of America for forty years and by Japan for three years (World War II). Conversion came to Philippines through the colonial enterprise, especially the Spanish and American conquests. First, in our encounter with Spain, the cross came together with the sword. Thus, Christianization came with the Hispanization of the Philippines. Peter Gowing advances this in his book on Philippine church history, Islands Under the Cross.

[The early Spanish friars] saw their work as a “spiritual conquest” of the minds, hearts, and way of life of the indiosa conquest which was supplementary to, and the basic justification for, the military conquest. The Christian faith was presented to the Filipinos as something entirely new, not an addition to their pagan beliefs. Thus, the missionaries sought to destroy paganism, root and branch…. They taught the Filipinos that many features of their native civilization were contrary to the “true religion” of Christ, and so, as part of the process of conversion, the friars obliged the Filipinos to accept features of European civilization (Gowing 1967:16, 44). Philippine historian Vicente Rafael, in his important book Contracting

Colonialism examines the role of language in the religious conversion of the Tagalogs (people of the Central and Southern plains of Luzon Philippines’ largest island) to Catholicism in the first century and a half of Spanish conquest (1568-1705). His analysis, however, yields an intriguing, supplemental find to Gowing’s account. He highlights a scene from a novel by the Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal (Noli Me Tangere) as typical of the native’s response to clerical authority. The scene concerns a friar preaching in Spanish and the natives “fish(ing) out discrete words from the stream of the sermon, arbitrarily attaching them to their imaginings (Rafael 1989:2).


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There was native submission all right but it was the kind that “marginaliz(es) the meaning and intent behind the discourse of (Spanish clerical) authority” (Rafael 1989:7).

Translation, by making conceivable the transfer of meaning and intention between colonizer and colonized, laid the basis for articulating the general outlines of subjugation prescribed by conversion.... Premised on a different sense of what it meant to submit to and negotiate with authority, Tagalog conversion alternately supported and deflected the exercise of Spanish power to the extent that that power was formulated in a language other than that of its original agents (Rafael 1989:21). Later on, as we seek a cultural idiom for biblical conversion, Rafael’s

deconstructive critiquethat involved in the early translation of conversion was a totalizing attempt of a colonizing power to subjugate Filipinoscomes as an important caution for efforts at theological inculturation. Linguistic or verbal (theological) translation could also be a tool for oppression.

With regard to the link between conversion and American colonial enterprise, Peter Gowing is not as explicit in his historical account. However, another historian, Anne Kwantes, accounting for the beginnings of Presbyterian missions in the Philippines, notes the impinging horizon of the ideology of the “White Man’s Burden” in the American missionary enterprise (Kwantes 1989:14-15; for an in-depth look, see Clymer 1986).

With the American conquest, the gospel and the Bible came along with a package of imported goods (material and immaterial). What is presented as most precious is American education, of which Filipinos were told, they were most lucky recipients. Naturally, Filipinos learned more of American history than their own life history as a people. Even until now, there is a continuing fascination with things imported from America.

Turning to the present, Leni Strobel (1993), a Filipino-American writing from a post-colonial standpoint gives us a window into the important features of contemporary lowland Filipino life and culture.4 Although she did not mention “conversion” directly, one could read her essay as a call to conversion of a particular kind. Strobel’s essay is set against “undoing the colonial gaze.”5 Her telling of the story marks the formation of the “split self” brought about by the colonial legacy. What

4 Enriquez argues for the inclusion of the struggle of Filipino immigrants

overseas - and Strobel has a lot to say about this - in the project of re-writing Philippine history. See Enriquez, 1992.

5 The 1995 title of her essay reprinted in The Other Side.


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follows is a summary of Strobel’s account of cultural features of the lowland culture:

• The Philippines is a “lahar of colonizations” (Strobel 1993:8, 18,

21). The American eagle, the presence of the “white man” overshadowed her hometown, even her homeland. She grew up in a rural town close to Clark Air Base, the largest military base in Asia (8). People in her town were awed by the presence and power of the Base (9). With the (forceful) ejection of the Base (by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption) come the challenge of rethinking identity anew (21).

• There was also religious alienation. Catholics and Protestants vie for the faith of the people who are animists. “There is a split in religious consciousness,” she says (19). Thus, “I was raised... in an animistic context by a Catholic mother and a Methodist father both of whom had Chinese and Spanish ancestors” (8). “My father drove this animist world underground...” (9).

• As a family, they were poor but the values they were taught were of the middle class... “although we were poor, we had “class and good taste” and lived as genteel a lifestyle as possibleaccording to what we were taught by our colonizers as genteel and civilized” (8). Traditions and values are adjusted to honor the white man (9, 10). Her “young adult life became a series of attempts to approximate whiteness... yellow isn’t good enough. Only white will do” (10). She herself married a white man and came to live in his house.

• As an Asian-American, her struggle to belong was heightened because of the reality of racial/cultural prejudice. The pressure to assimilateact and talk and walk like a white personwas so strong. This only led her deeper into abyss: feelings of inferiority and intimidation (11).

In Strobel’s terms, colonization has given rise to the split subject. The

“split” lies in the Filipinos’ colonial consciousness. Reclaiming the ethnic self6 is pivotal for healing the alienated, colonized self. According to her, it is only now that “I” (ethnic self of Filipinos) could speak and listen to its own truth (Strobel 1993:10). Ethnic self is the Filipino’s unconscious, primordial sense of self now being recovered through a return to Filipino language(s). This ethnicity is very important, especially in light of global configurations of power and the vision of multi-cultural community. Thus, one the one hand, affirming my color and my culture means owning my racial and cultural heritage. It is affirming my self. On the other hand, ethnic identity is the foundation of multi-culturality in the global village.

6 I regard this to be her language for conversion.


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2.2 Conversion as a Cultural Value Melba Maggay (1993) has written a monograph on conversion and

Filipino values which parallels Strobel’s thrusts. In the introduction, co-written with Filipino psychologist Virgilio Enriquez, the experience of colonization is likened to the experience of the Gerasene demoniac in the Gospels - a night of madness, the loss of one’s self. Indeed, it is fitting that in the vernacular, madness (pagkabaliw, pagkabuang) is the same as the “loss of (one’s) self” (nawawala sa sarili). There is the indigenous perception that the state of madness arises from self-alienation. Colonization has given birth to a “colonized self” or “colonized consciousness”Filipinos who are foreigners in their own land. Conversion for Filipinos meant pagbabalik-loob: returning to and reclaiming their ethnic self,

It is imperative that Filipinos examine what is indigenous to their culture and to shed off what is really not part of the Filipino self. Hence, the need for pagbabalik-loob--a journey into the bosom of the indigenous culture while at the same time a struggling against the reigning colonial culture.... The journey back is important--somewhat like the return of the native--and one needs to be with others to deepen the encounter with the true well of culture of (Philippine) society, a creation whose source is the ordinary Filipino (Maggay 1993, my translation). A song by a famous Filipino folk group, the Apo Hiking Society, best

depicts the link between the Filipino struggle against (neo-)colonialism (or westernization) and reclaiming the ethnic self, even the re-building of Philippine society as a whole. Written in the early 1980s, the song is entitled American Junk. It is put on the lips of Pedro--representing the common Filipino. (I have translated parts of the dialogue into English.) The song runs:

Leave me alone to my Third World devices I don’t need your technology You just want my natural resources And then you leave me poor and in misery Third World blues is what I got Trouble, yes I’ve got a lot. Chorus: (American junk) Get it out of my bloodstream (American junk) Get it out of my system (American junk) I can only take so much (American junk) Got to get back to who I am.


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Dialogue: “Oh, hi there, fella” (the American) “Uy!” (Pedro, the Filipino) “Hey, what’s your name?” (asks the American) “Pid-ru” “Oh, Peydrow” (cf. the difference in accent) “No, no, Pid-ru” “Yes. Peydrow” “No, Pi-dru.” Pangalan ko na nga yan, babaguhin mo pa! (You even want to change my name!) . Dialogue: “OK, Pey-drow, listen to me. Repeat after me... say apple” “E-pol” (native pronunciation) “Ap-ple” (the American insists) “No, e-pol” “No, no Pey-drow, it’s ap-ple” “E-pol, mansanas pareho lang yan. Kinakain yan eh. Intiendes?” (E-pol, apple, there’s no difference. It’s something you eat. Got it? Bridge: It’s been so long since I’ve had a glance Of what I think I really am. Miranda (1992), a moral philosopher/theologian is another theoretician

who also articulates a notion of conversion within culture. In a lengthy study on Filipino values, he proposes that Filipinos have an indigenous understanding of ethics (Miranda 1992). It is pagpapakatao (humanization, be(com)ing truly human) and pakikipagkapwa (accepting and dealing with others as equals, treating them as fellow human beings, and having regard for the dignity and being of others) (Miranda 1992:272; Church 1986:34). The two indigenous concepts embody the Filipinos’ vision of personal and societal renewal. Responsible action means not only a transformed set of cultural values but also becoming transformed agents of cultural values. This involves a journey towards new life (pagbabagong-buhay) which begins with pagbabagong-loob (renewal of heart, mind, and will through denial of the inauthentic self; reorienting the self) and pagbabalik-loob (a return to one’s innermost self, a process of self-critique) (Miranda 1992)

2.3 Linguistic Cues, Conversion Language in Bible Translations

Language and culture are closely intertwined. This is an important

presupposition in this study. Again from de Mesa: “A most important aspect in comprehending the indigenous culture is the understanding which


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arises from a grasp of the language.... When we listen to the culture, then, we should listen to it in its own terms, that is, in the language with which the culture expresses itself (de Mesa 1987:38).

An important concept that will come up in the discussion of indigenous understandings of conversion is loob. At this outset, it seems wise to be familiar with it. What is involved in loob is an indigenous concept of personhood.7

Loob is human’s interior truth since it is the ultimate, organizing center of human reality. It is the very zone of creaturehood which is the substratum of ideas, feeling and behaviors. Thus, loob, the inner self, is the core of one’s personhood and where the true worth of the person lies...” (de Mesa quoted by Miranda 1989). Loob is the core of one’s personhood as perceived by the Filipino. The loob is what makes the lowland Filipino what he or she is as a person (de Mesa 1988).

Going straight to the matter before us, there are three Filipino words that directly relate to conversion. The first two are closely related. They have a common rootedness in loob - a well-known Filipino concept we have just described. The first word is pagbabalik-loob, which could be literally translated: “a return to the within.” The prefix pag- connotes “the act of doing something.” Two root words constitute the word: balik which means “return” and loob which denotes the “inner part,” “inside,” “interior,” “the inner self.” Thus, Miranda defines pagbabalik-loob as “a return to one’s innermost self” (Miranda 1992:271).

Pagbabalik-loob is the word used for “conversion” (in the sense of returning to God) in the 1954 Bible translation (Matt 13:15; Mark 4:12; John 12:40; Acts 28:27; James 5:19-20; Luke 22:32; Acts 3:19, 15:3). The one instance it is not translated this way (Matt 18:30) has the word manumbalik which simply means “to return.” It is also used in the 1980 Bible version, in the sense of “a return to faith” (Luke 22:32).

The recent ecumenical Bible translation (Tagalog Popular Version) makes a different move from the older 1954 version. It qualifies pagbabalik-loob (“return to one’s innermost self”) with the addition of sa Diyos (“to God”). This rendering (pagbabalik-loob sa Diyos) is in fact, an entry for conversion in one of the standard Filipino dictionaries (English 1986). Pagbabalik-loob becomes synonymous with panunumbalik (“returning to”). The “within” aspect (the innermost self) which is present in pagbabalik-loob gives way to the larger reality to which one owes ultimate surrender, God.

7 For equivalent terms in other Philippine languages, see Mercado (1974), ch.

3.


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Pagbabagong-loob is another word, which also has loob as its root. While the previous one has “to return” as the other root word alongside loob, this second word has “to change” (magbago) as its loob-counterpart. Leo English renders pagbabagong-loob as “changing one’s own heart or disposition” (English 1977; 1986). It means “changing for the better,” “becoming different” (English 1986). The ecumenical Tagalog Popular Version of the Bible (1980) makes use of magbago (“to change,” “to become different,” “to reform”) to render the English phrase “to be converted” (Matt 18:30). This rendering is very close to the cultural value of pagbabagong-loob (“changing one’s own heart or disposition,” or “shedding off the false self,” English 1977; 1986; Chua 1992; Maggay 1993).

Pagbabagong-buhay also has “change” as part of its meaning. But instead of loob, it has the word buhay (“life”) - another comprehensive term for Filipinos, encompassing their aspiration for human well-being, or fullness of life (Ramirez 1991). Thus, it is “a bringing to a new life,” “regeneration” (English 1986); “turning over a new leaf” (Panganiban 1972). Miranda suggests that with reference to conversion this latter term is more comprehensive than the (two) previous ones (Miranda 1992). It could also mean a “revival; a bringing to a new life (morally); regeneration” or “a rehabilitation; restoring to former standing” (English 1986).

Conversion is rendered pagbabagong-buhay in Acts 11:20. Several New Testament images of conversion also convey this idea of new life: “entering” or “receiving” the kingdom (Mark 1:14-15), “being in Christ” (Rom 12:4-5) “being born again (and/or from above)” (John 3:1-8), “clothing oneself with Christ” (Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24), moving “from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18, 2 Cor 4:6; etc.) (Knowles 1995; also Gaventa 1986).

Another closely related word is pagkahikayat (lit. “a state of being under persuasion”). The sense of being persuaded, convinced and being won over (to the fold) is what pagkahikayat is about. There are good and bad ways of persuading one to become a convert (ang nahikayat, ang nagbalik-loob). Leo English, in his dictionary, lists some of these ways. One could be talked into, pressed, urged, cajoled, flattered, seduced, bribed into “conversion” (English 1986). An instance of conversion as pagkahikayat in the Tagalog Bible (TPV) is to be found in Acts 15:3. The passage talks about “the conversion of the gentiles.”


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3. On Re-envisioning Conversion, Pastoral Implications

In this final section, I will outline aspects of a contextual theology of conversion. I will open up the discussion by sharing my own experience. Next, I will strengthen and develop key aspects of my story for affirmation and critique.8 Particularly, I will maintain an emphasis on the essential elements of conversion as well as develop a biblical model of a new perspective. I will also affirm current efforts to engage the cultural idea of conversion with the good news of Christ. 3.1 A Personal Journey 3.1.2 Growing up Evangelical

I grew up in an evangelical Christian family. My home province in the Philippines (Bulacan) is an agricultural area where Tagalog (a major Filipino language) is the mother tongue and Roman Catholicism prevails as the dominant religion. My parents, however, were non-Catholics. They were originally nominal Methodists but they were converted into evangelical faith by pioneering Baptist missionaries from the United States. At twelve, I made my own personal commitment, and surrender of my life to Christ through my older brother’s “witnessing.” One could say that my Christian upbringing paved the way for this personal commitment.

I finished my pastoral training from a Bible college also established by American missionaries. It was a conservative evangelical Bible school established just immediately after World War II. In 1986, just after graduating from Bible school, I had my first full-time pastorate in the city of Makati, the richest city in Metro Manila. I worked as an associate pastor together with a team of church workers led by American missionaries. I was assigned to pioneer an outreach in what is known as “old Makati”-- that part of the city which was populated by low-income families, even slum-dwellers. I found several families who were interested in Bible studies, and I met regularly with them. I struggled with most of them in their fight for survival against poverty. While I had ready-made theological answers to some of their spiritual problems, I immediately recognized that my pastoral training lacked a social dimension which was so crucial to their need and condition. I was at a lost at times since my church theology gives primacy to evangelism (“winning lost souls”) over against helping the poor (“social concern”). At the same time that I was engaging in this specialized ministry, I was beginning to question the narrow focus of my

8 Here I am inspired by Costas (1980).


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faith. My eyes were being opened to the ecumenical nature of Christian faith to the various perspectives of theology and ministry available to the Christian believer.

3.1.2 Turning Points

Thus, my years at my first pastorate marked a turning point in my life as a Christian. I came to see the cultural blindness of my own church tradition and eventually challenged this weakness. I spoke against our uncritical importation of evangelistic tools and methods from the United States. While I continued to appreciate the emphasis on making personal decisions for Christ, I was not happy with its culturally blind, and oftentimes, privatistic and world-denying mission-orientation. I became convinced of one thing: there is more to the gospel than simply promise of eternal life in heaven. In many ways, the world (of the poor) thought me that. I have become aware of neglected dimensions of the gospel (its materiality, social relevance, holistic thrust). I have also seen how the gospel has dignified the poor and gradually lifted them from their dire situation as they are given a new identity in Christ. Eventually, I resigned as a pastor to look for more directions toward a culturally-sensitive approach to ministry.

My search led me to look deeper into my cultural and religious roots. It became clearer to me that the deeper issue that should concern the church was pastoral engagement, informed by love/knowledge of the Filipino culture--what is known as “inculturation” in Roman Catholic (RC) circles or “contextualization” in evangelical seminaries. Hence, I opted to pursue graduate studies at a RC theological school to amend my Evangelical training. It was while I was there I became convinced that, along with the recognition of the social dimensions of the gospel, vernacularizing the Christian faith is likewise an imperative for doing ministry in post-colonial Philippines. Moreover, I enjoyed the lasting friendships that I had there and this confirmed to me the fact that Roman Catholics are really not my enemies. They are, indeed, my fellow Christians (as they themselves claim to be). I also reckoned that, for good or ill, the RC church is part of my Christian roots--both as a Filipino and as a Christian. While not everything that I found there (school) was good, I greatly enjoyed and benefited a lot in this part of my Christian journey.

Thus, I came to see that service in Christ’s name means, seeing, and working with Christ in and through my culture. Missionaries cannot tell us what we must do. Theology and ministry, if they are to be meaningful in the local context, have to draw upon and connect with the life-world of


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Filipinos. Only then could the church challenge and confront existing state of affairs in both church and society. 3.1.3 Theological Evaluation.

As I reflect on my experience, I discern three interrelated elements of conversion: the experiential, ecclesial, and ethical.9 “Experiential” refers to the religious experience of conversion, its personal dimension. “Ecclesial” denotes the role of the Christian community in conversion. Finally, genuine conversion leads to renewed “ethical” conduct. The three are interrelated so that one could be said to disclose aspects of the other. The potentials of my experience of Christ are largely bounded by the possibilities offered by my Christian environment. Its depth or shallowness are directly linked with the health of the larger Christian community to which I am part. Affirmation, development, and critique of my praxis reflect the contours of my Christian experience and church commitments in dialogue with the scripture.

Two other points are worth noting in my account: the manifest role of missionaries in my Christian growth, and also the parochial nature of the faith upon which I was nurtured. The two are actually linked, as I explain below. I am not happy with the privatistic missional orientation of the Evangelical faith I have been reared. (It is very close to a fundamentalist kind of Evangelicalism.) While I like its emphasis on commitment and discipleship, it is introverted, “self-conscious,” lacking socio-political engagement. While poverty is a fact of Filipino life, my faith seems shielded against social, even structural, analysis of this problem. How my faith bears on problems of colonialism, graft and corruption and the environment is unexplored.

Much as I wanted to widen my social horizons, I felt limited by the possibilities of my own community. Upon reflection, I realize that this problem of embodiment is a result of inter-culturation. The privatization of the gospel is a cultural problem in North America (Newbigin 1987a; 1989) and the churches planted by Evangelical missionaries in the Philippines reflect this religio-cultural dilemma (Nacpil 1975). Thus, it happens that the “world” judges my way of being churchmy way of being a Christianwhen the poor awakens me to the social dimensions of the gospel, or when the “world” does a better job than the church in helping the poor and the needy. (Isn’t this part of the thrust of Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan?)

9 These elements correspond with Newbigin’s phenomenological analysis, see

Newbigin (1969).


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3.2 Conversion and the Churches: Prevailing Views

We are pursuing conversion as “a particular event shaped by the

experience of the convert and by the life of the church as it is at that place and time”(Newbigin 1969:91). This leads us to ponder not just the personal dimension of conversion (our subject in the previous section), but also how churches in the Philippines view and embody conversion.

A figure from the Protestant and Evangelical churches, Emerito Nacpil, reports,

Most Protestant churches in the Philippines are the products of American missionary activity, and they bear the characteristic features of the traditions and cultures of the mother churches.... Churches tend to be preoccupied with internal institutional matters (evangelism, church growth, pastoral care). It is too church-centered. A pietistic understanding of salvation (Jesus as merely a personal Savior) reinforces this ecclesiocentrism. The lordship of Christ over all of life remains a marginal, undeveloped theme (Nacpil 1975:117, my emphasis).

The gospel which the people received from the Americans was individualistic, other-worldly oriented, and tainted with American nationalism. The church withdraws itself from active engagement with Philippine social realities. Underlying this is a specific notion of conversion.

The churches...differentiate themselves from the rest of the human community. The Christian life and the forms of church life have been built upon the presupposition of conversion. The Protestant is essentially a convert; his life is structured negatively by his separation from the world and positively by the ethical resources of his newly found faith. His face is turned toward God and his back toward the world. The measure of his unworldliness is the measure of his godliness. He cultivates inner piety, personal peace, and family devotions, undisturbed by the storms and stresses of sociopolitical realities, enduring the sufferings of temporal existence until his soul is released from his body in death and returns home to heaven where it will enjoy the good things it was deprived of during its pilgrimage on earth (Nacpil 1975:119). What is longed for by Evangelicals seems to be either an escape from

this sinful world unto heaven or a pietistic vision of spiritual revival which seems to be an individualistic version of the Roman Catholic ideal (Constantino 1974).


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Professor Nemenzo, a political scientist from the University of the Philippines, says of the Roman Catholic Church, “…despite its institutional strengths, (it) is organizationally clumsy and slow moving. Traditionally, the church has not been an innovator; rather it has been embedded in the status quo, resistant to change” (May and Nemenzo 1985). While large numbers attend mass regularly and in many places the church is regarded as the center of community life, this has not been maximized by the clergy for active Christian cultural involvement in transforming mission.

A contribution of the Spanish colonization, the Christendom mentality of being church, was transported to the Philippines. The hierarchical church claimed a great part of the people’s social life. The religious vision was a theocratic society in which the church (as a dispenser of grace) reigns at the center of life. Differentiation was suppressed in favor of centralized hierarchical power. While admittedly the forces of change are slowly gaining ground in the church as a whole, Roman Catholic Christians still look up to and are heavily dependent on the institutional church for Christian socio-political witness.

Summing up, conversion, as generally understood by churches in the Philippines, tends to be dualistic and other-worldly in orientation. This is supported by an ecclesiocentric, hierarchical (clergy-dominated) approach to Christian mission. Hence, the “leavening” influence of God’s people in the totality of the culture is stifled. One could say, however, that part of the solution may be that we need a truly united and reformed church to “organize” genuinely effective social efforts. 3.3 Biblical Directions for a New Paradigm.

In our ongoing reformulation, we must not lose sight of the

fundamental elements of conversion. We have noted these already: personal, ecclesial, ethical. Aside from Newbigin, we find David Bosch affirming this same direction. In his discussion of salvation in Luke-Acts, Bosch sums up the elements of conversion in this fashion.

Conversion does not pertain merely to an individual’s act of conviction and commitment; it moves the individual believer into the community of believers and involves a real - even a radical - change in the life of the believer, which carries with it moral responsibilities that distinguish Christians from “outsiders” while at the same time stressing their obligation to those “outsiders” (Bosch, 1991: 117).

3.3.1 The Kingdom of God as Goal


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It is important to situate the practice of theological re-rooting within the larger biblical drama of the coming of God’s reign. This vision is also able to re-orient the church away from ecclesiocentrism toward mission to the world. Christian mission in light of God’s kingdom is not limited to the building up of the inner or ecclesiastical life alone. God wants the whole of creation mended, restored, and regained.

Filipino theologian Melba Maggay, in her book Transforming Society (1994), argues for the importance of the socio-theological vision of God’s reign for renewed Christian praxis in Philippine setting. The gospel is the good news of the kingdom (Mark 1:14: Matt 10:7-8). “The news is that the long-awaited kingdom, its reign of peace, justice and righteousness has finally come. The Messiah, he who is to come, dwells among us (Maggay 1994:18).

Not only that the “kingdom” itself is a political term, “Jesus announced his messianic career...in unmistakably social terms: it would bring ‘good news’ to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind and liberty to those who were captives (Luke 4:16-21).... There is an obvious political and social element in Jesus’ personality and work” (Maggay 1994: 18-19). Maggay thus deplores the spiritualizing notion of conversion.

The social element, quite strangely, has been lost in present-day preaching. Jesus’ lordship has been subjectivized, confined to the narrow boundaries of one’s personal life. It is rarely understood that because he is king over all of life, we may have confidence to make every human institution subject to his will and purposes. The powers that be have been defeated. When we say “Jesus is Lord” it is not just a confession, it is a cosmic and social fact. The process of conversion has likewise been unduly spiritualized. Repentance is described as merely a turning from one’s personal sins, and occurring mostly in the individual’s subjective consciousness (Maggay 1994:19)

3.3.2 A Non-colonial Model for Mission

What do we mean by “non-colonial”? A colonialist viewpoint insists on uniformity of understanding. There is no dialogue, or questing together after truth - a monologic, one-way rule of truth, reigns. This perspective does not empower the weak. It does not entertain “difference(s),” rather it tends toward domination, a swallowing up, of the “other” (see Walsh & Middleton 1995). It is in this vein that Hollenweger criticizes “colonial evangelism as a truncated and distorted form of evangelism because the colonial evangelist takes his or her culturally-conditioned interpretation of the gospel to be the gospel for everybody else” (Hollenweger 1995:107).

Though not using the precise term and yet embodying its meaning, many of the Filipino scholars we have studied insist on the importance of a


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“non-colonial” standpoint in approaching “conversion.” Hence, among students of Philippine culture, conversion takes on the shape of reclaiming the Filipino’s ethnic self. The process of theological re-rooting, however, assumes the gospel having the power, not just to affirm culture but also to renew it (Standaert 1992; de Mesa 1987). Is there a biblical model of conversion that addresses these twin concerns? I believe that Acts 10-11 offers a good model for us.

Acts 10 talks about the conversion of Cornelius which, as Hollenweger notes, “could equally be called the conversion of the evangelist Peter” (Hollenweger 1995). The whole story ends with 11:18--quite a long narrative--revealing the degree of importance Luke attaches to the account (Willimon 1988). From the point of view of the history of the church, this text marks the transition of Christianity from the Jewish to the Hellenistic world.

In what way then does this story of Cornelius and Peter in Acts 10-11 offer a non-colonial model for “proclaiming conversion” (cf. Luke 24:47)? Lucien Legrand advances the idea that Luke is “the pioneer of the theologies of inculturation” (Legrand 1989:106). Luke the theologian ascribes a positive value to a culture’s past. Dialogue with cultures is inherent in Luke’s vision of a witnessing community.

3.3.2.1 Legrand notes that in this episode (Acts 10), and also in Paul’s encounter with the Greeks (Acts 17), Luke shows his openness to dialogue. Indeed, in Luke’s theological appraisal,

Israel is not the Law and the slavery of the Law, but the prophets, the Temple, and the righteous. Luke is also interested in the gentile past; he finds religion there and the fear of God (10:2). He finds authentic piety even among the Athenians and endorses the dicta of their poets (Acts 17:22-29). Luke underscores a historical continuity with the past more than an eschatological breach. Luke is open to dialogue (Legrand 1989: 106).

3.3.2.2 In this pluralistic age, it is also refreshing to be reminded that Luke (and the early church) was not content that Cornelius was God-fearing, devout, generous to people, and prayerful (Acts 10:2). God wills that Cornelius be led to Christ, not as something super-added to his goodness, but as fulfillment for his yearning for true humanity. He is led beyond his own resources toward an experience and realization of Christ’s lordship.

Conversion for Luke means “turning to God” (Acts 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 15:19). One turns to God from rejection of Jesus as the Messiah (in the case of the Jews) or from the worship of idols (the sin of the gentiles)


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(Dupont 1979). The imagery often used by Luke is turning “from blindness to sight” (Luke 2:30, 4:11; 24:16, 31; Acts 9:8, 18, 40; 13:11; 28:27). Thus, conversion and repentance are juxtaposed together by Luke, both seem to be regarded as an interchangeable reality (Acts 20:21).

As the story goes, however, it is not only Cornelius who was converted, it was Peter as well. As the narrative unfolds (10:23b-33) note that it shuttles back and forth from Peter to Cornelius. Both men have visions, and both make speeches. Thus Luke highlights the dual nature of what is happening. Is this a story about the conversion of a gentile or the conversion of an apostle? Both Cornelius and Peter need changing if God’s mission is to go forward (Willimon 1988:96).

Thus, for his part, Peter comes to Cornelius stripped of a condescending, judgmental, and imperious attitude. He comes to Cornelius’ house convinced of his own “mortality” (Acts 10:26), so eager to share a yet unexplored dimension of the gospel that only now he discoveredGod shows no partiality (10:34)! Looking closely into the text, the impetus for Peter’s “turning” seems to come, not from some new idea, or a good thought backed by Old Testament texts. Rather,

[H]e is penetrating the meaning of the affirmation that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because Jesus has ascended to reign with the Creator of all people, in the resurrection-ascension both redemption and creation are linked in Jesus Christ. A vision of the Lordship of Christ, ruling with the Creator of heaven and earth, is the basis for Christian efforts at inclusiveness. One cannot have a Lord who is Lord of only part of creation. So in any nation any one who fears him and does what is right “is acceptable to him” (Willimon 1988:98). In the process of proclaiming conversion, “Peter learns something

decisive about the gospel: namely, that it is not confined to Jews and that those cultic laws, which he had hitherto accepted as a matter of course, do not bind the heathen” (Hollenweger 1995:118).

4. Deepening the Theological Correlation Maintaining our focus on critical engagement between the gospel and

Philippine culture and taking the Book of Acts as theological starting point, we now attempt at a critical correlation between a biblical understanding of


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conversion and the cultural idioms of conversion we have encountered. In this process, we will open up the normative dimensions of conversion.10

4.1 Pagbabagong-buhay: New Life as Ultimate Criterion.

Two root words comprise this indigenous concept: newness and life.

We begin by noting several observations. Pagbabagong-buhay is associated with repentance in Acts 11:18. The pattern of dying and rising to new life calls to mind the Christ-event (2:28-32). The kind of life that is promised is “eternal” (Acts 13:46,48). It is zoe not bios. The latter denotes mere physical existence. The former means life in its fullness. It is not just being able to breathe (huminga) but to experience wholeness (kaginhawahan) (de Mesa 1987). It is life in the kingdom of God. In Acts, this means that the fundamental issue is Christ’s lordship (9:34, 35; 11:20, 29). That is why it is linked with repentance. Bagong-buhay (new life, life under God’s reign) functions as the major criterion for genuine conversion. Framing it this way puts the lordship of Christ in the central place it deserves in Philippine culture. Concerns for justice and liberation cardinal marks of God’s reignwould replace totalizing attempts to colonize and dominate, features of the old order of missionary engagement. Fullness of life (kaginhawan) in which Christ is honored as Lord presents a non-dualistic vision of life under God’s reign.

Taking the reign of God as the objective goal and basis for genuine conversion could also redirect cultural understandings of conversion toward the biblical ideal for society and culture. It could thus become a catalyst for discernment for social transformation. For instance, Christian discernment would lead us to critique conversion as pagbabalik-loob (reclaiming the core self) when it is pursued without reference to the kingdom of God. For this could be (mis)taken simply as an anthropocentric, self-help program, whether for individuals or cultures. While we are not against self-recovery programs per se, following Christ does not mean just that. The healing and mending and healing of the whole creation is the goal of the Christian life. Also, pagbabagong-loob (personal renewal) without the goal of the kingdom could simply become an exercise of glorying in one’s religious experience. It is the reign of God that could best provide the religio-ethical direction for the quest for full humanity (pagpapakatao).11

10 For equivalent idioms in other Philippine languages (e.g., loob), see Mercado (1974, 1975).

11 For ethics as pagpapakatao, see Miranda (1988).


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A parallel to this theological reflection on conversionlinking humanization with divine transcendencecomes from Pauline thought. While Paul develops an understanding of the “God within” (the Holy Spirit in us) in Romans 8, he also stresses the need to engage this with the reality of the “God above.” This is C. H. Dodd’s conclusion in his important study of the book of Romans. Paul seems to fault Stoicism for its “inability to rise above (its) fears.” Its doctrine offers only a “god within” and no “God without” to provide divine assurancethe transcendent God being “the ultimate bases of all our hopes and salvation (Dodd 1932:136, 137). Applying Paul’s insight to our study (following Dodd’s lead), we could then say that the quest for full humanity (pagpapakatao through pagbabalik/bagong-loob) disengaged from the reality of “God above” would only lead to existential despair. This means forfeiting the offer of “grace against temptation” (Dodd 1932:136).

There are several pointers within Philippine experience that could lead to a meaningful understanding of God’s reign (bagong buhay) in the context of conversion. One, the indigenous idea that life is a gift from God (kaloob ng Diyos) should be complimented by the idea of a corresponding call, internalizing and heeding God’s will (pagsasaloob ng kalooban ng Diyos). Life under God’s reign is both a gift and a call. This could help disengage the Filipino’s idea of divine providence away from fatalism.12 Secondly, new life could take the direction of victory over the powers (seen or unseen) of darkness (Maggay 1987; Henry 1986). This is a field that definitely needs further exploration. Not only that this theme is relatively unexplored, a pervasive dualism (an other-worldly understanding of spiritual powers) is well-embedded in Philippine worldview. Thirdly, this new life needs to be reoriented and viewed in terms of “new creation” themes: lives mended, the recovery of human dignity for the marginalized, and cosmic renewal.

4.2 Pagbababalik-loob: Reclaiming the Core Self

The change in translation of conversion, from pagbabalik-loob (return

to one’s innermost self) to pagbabalik-loob sa Diyos (lit. “return to one’s innermost self to God”), is worth a theological reflection in itself. It is an effort toward a dynamic equivalence translation of conversion which struggles with the tension between the self and God, immanence and transcendence. This is a question many Filipinos struggle with (de Mesa 1979).

12 See de Mesa (1979) for his early attempt at a formulation.


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On the one hand, the indigenous term pagbabalik-loob without the qualifier “to God” seems to leave one totally dependent on one’s own (cultural) resources for renewal.13 On the other hand, pagbababalik-loob sa Diyos tends to emphasize the transcendent dimension, the element of “self” becoming passive in the act of (re)turning to God.

The tension is not totally unresolvable. For one, loob (the core of personhood), for the Filipino is a relational concept. Loob is not knowable apart from relationships (de Mesa 1987). The Filipino “I” is not autonomous. Alegre, in a revealing description of this “I”, says that it is “always oneself, but a self that is always inter-related.... Not the self alone then, but a self in its relation(s)--that is basically Pinoy (colloq. for Filipino)” (Alegre 1993:10-11). For another, there is the indigenous understanding that loob is ultimately rooted in creation--kaloob, a gift from God. The reality of God is not a problem for Filipinos. “There is no need (for the Filipino) to prove (God’s) existence and to show that he relates with us. These are taken for granted in the Filipino situation (de Mesa 1988:1). Pagbabalik-loob would, therefore, mean affirming the self-as-related to other selves--God, the neighbor--and to the world as God’s creation (God’s kaloob).

Pagbabalik-loob could also take the form of adopting the indigenous viewpoint, affirming the ethnic self in the face of cultural reconstruction. Ethnicity concerns my racial origin and my culture’s uniqueness. This is important for several reasons. In personality and culture studies in the Philippines, the bias for the western viewpoint, methods, and judgments blurs the representation of Filipino’s indigenous identity. For a long time,

Filipinos (are) primarily characterized from the judgmental and impressionistic point of view of the colonizers. In addition, the native Filipino invariably suffers from the comparison in not too subtle attempts to put forward western behavior patterns as models for the Filipino....

The massive influence of the United States of America on education, religion, commerce, politics, and the mass media predisposes the Filipino to adopt the colonial viewpoint in studying and explaining the Filipino psyche.... Most of the American-trained social scientist did not only appraise the data that came in but also stood in judgment of their worth and importance, using American categories and standards. The supposedly Filipino values or concepts were lifted, as it were, from the cultural milieu and examined according to inappropriate alien categories, resulting in a distorted and erroneous appraisal of indigenous psychology (Enriquez 1992:59-60).

13 As was noted before, however, we do not wish to discard this cultural

dimension of conversion.


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Maggay concurs with Enriquez and calls this stance “buying the view

from the outside”: In this framework, Filipino traits are evaluated from the standpoint of borrowed values and presuppositions (Maggay 1993:10).

As a moral strategy, pagbabalik-loob calls us to support the movement of indigenization being a movement that aims to reclaim the integrity and dignity of the native culture. Indigenization becomes a way of understanding the ethnic self. It is intimately related to being at home. Home, being the room where you could grow toward wholeness of self. Indigenization opens the way for Filipinos to be at home with their own cultural identity and life history. Since our way of being ourselves was rejected, even violated, by colonizers, home means looking at ourselves from the inside - as insiders - and owning our uniqueness as a people in God’s world.

Finally, pagbabalik-loob could signify the process (not simply a singular crisis experience) of a turning to God from sin. The latter could be reconfigured in its relation to God’s reign. Positively, it would mean thinking “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable” in culture (cf. Philippians 4:8) and not despising or destroying those beautiful elements of Filipino culture which accord with the gospel of the Kingdom. Accent on the positive is important for Filipinos who continue to suffer from the deleterious effects of colonization. This should be coupled with the affirmation and building up of personal self-esteem (pagpapalakas-loob) (de Mesa 1990)a practice of which Christian churches are proven to have such a low rating (Stackhouse 1994:35). Negatively, however, turning to God could mean confronting and challenging the three I’s--idolatry, immorality, and injustice--the enemies of the gospel within culture (Davis 1993:26). This calls for a process of value reorientation informed by the gospel but built around “a deep core of Philippine history and language” (Maggay 1993:16). Maggay herself calls for the development of a “culture of protest,

[A] culture that insists on good government, protests shoddy services and does not put up with continual floods, brownouts and uncertain water supply. It means the refusal to make do with makeshift solutions and helter-skelter ways of doing things. It means people taking destiny in their own hands and not overloading the state with expectations it can not fulfill.... In short, it means testing the system, stretching its limits while at the same time relying on one’s own resource and inventiveness (Maggay 1993:17).

4.3 Pagbabagong-loob: The Experience of Renewal


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One should not minimize the joy, the burst of Spirit, the element of

surprise in the Cornelius story. This way of telling stories of conversion is well-spread in the Book of Acts (cf. the conversion accounts of the Ethiopian eunuch, Paul, the Philippian, jailer, etc.). There is, indeed, a change of heart that happens. One accepts, and is renewed by the redeeming judgment and grace of Christ. This is the renewing power of the Gospel. There is forgiveness from sin through the work of Christ (Luke 22:20). The Holy Spirit empowers people for new life (Acts 1:8; 2:39).

The Holy Spirit is the arrabon (“the foretaste,” “the pledge”) of the kingdom. It is not just a verbal promise. It is a real gift now, a real foretaste of the joy, the freedom, the righteousness, the holiness, of God’s kingdom. It is real now. But its special character is that it carries the promise of something much greater to come and makes us look forward and press forward with eager hope towards that greater reality that lies ahead. And it is this that makes the church a witness to the kingdom (Newbigin 1987b: 17).

Renewal happens when there is repentance, a change of mind, metanoia (Mark 1:14) in response to the presence of the kingdom announced and embodied by Christ. Repentance is validated by its fruit (Matt 7:21): doing the will of God. There is no separation between confession and discipleship. This supports seeing conversion as a process, and not as a finished product. This could be undergirded by an understanding of the Christian life as a journey toward the realization of God’s promises. Our use of Christian life instead of “spiritual life” is deliberate. The former seems consistent with our effort to avoid dualistic thinking and a better category to use in Philippine setting (Hardy 1984).14

In posing the experience of renewal (pagbabagong-loob), discernment is a key factor. This is so because the personal experience of conversion is not an end in itself. It should lead to social transformation (pagbabagong-buhay). An instance and a point of contact for Christian reflection is the reality of cultural inadequacy and disintegration. According to Schreiter, there is an instance, and certain aspects of the Philippine situation seems to fall into this, “when a culture faces strong challenges and does not seem to have the inner resources to meet those challenges, either because of the challenge from without or because of disintegration from within” (Schreiter 1994:21). This calls for prophetic engagement - the call for a new heart - involving cultural discontinuity. This would mean, for the

14 For the prominence of the journey theme in Luke-Acts, see Moloney

(1986).


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culture, to listen “from the outside” and receiving the grace and power of God’s word to challenge the cultural imbalance(s).

As an instance, one observer notes the Filipinos’ fatalistic tolerance of bribery in government as a question for the churches (Langston 1993). Indeed, in the last twenty years a culture of corruption has developed. A recent headline has revealed that the Philippines has lost US$48 billion (P1.2 trillion) to graft over the last 20 years (Filipiniana October 1995). According to the article,

The amount is more than the country’s foreign debt, estimated last June at $40.6 billion. [Ombudsman] Desierto said that corruption has been draining the national coffers of P1 billion every year since 1990 (Filipiniana October 1995). Langston’s observations, in particular, are worth pondering. As a

religious observer well-read in cultural studies, he poses the issue this way, During the eight years I lived in the Philippines I never heard a sermon or message that addressed the subject [of bribery]. Only a few of the Filipinos I interviewed concerning bribery could recall having ever heard a priest, a pastor, or missionary speak on the subject. Yet, all expressed that bribery was a significant problem in the Philippines. It seems strange to me that a 222-page book entitled Philippine Social Issues for a Christian Perspective, written by six authors from the Philippine context, says nothing about bribery. Although the book addresses many important social issue, only one page is devoted to “the Public Servant” with only a few sentences related to providing impartial treatment to the people (Langston 1993:254).

4.4 Pagkahikayat: The (Im)morality of Persuasion

Panghihikayat (the act of converting, convincing others) comes as an

unavoidable part of the conversion process. The Filipino Bible renders “conversion” as pagkahikayat (lit., “the state of being under persuasion,” cf. Acts 15:3, Magandang Balita Biblia). We mentioned before that Filipinos are aware of the propagandistic nature of persuasion. Indeed, panghihikayat generally evokes the various senses of influencing people. Thus, in panghihikayat one could be “talked into, pressed, urged, cajoled, flattered, seduced, bribed” (English 1986) into “conversion.” We can only give minimal reflections on this important theme. One, it becomes mandatory that Filipino Christians examine what means of persuasion accord with Gospel values. The early Christians never resorted to cajoling, flattery, seduction, or bribery in their effort to convert people to Christ.


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Paul reasoned with people in giving account of his faith (Acts 17). He also advocated “identification” with the “Jews and the Greeks” as a way of giving witness to Christ (1 Cor 9:20). The matter of “motives” (hangarin, cf. Phil 1:15-18) is also a notion worth considering in Christian proclamation. These provide us with hints toward biblical criteria for Christian proclamation of conversion in Philippine setting.

The larger topic at issue here is the matter of proselytism. In fact, in an important study by the World Council of Churches, proselytism (as distinguished from Christian witness) is described in terms familiar to us. It happens,

… when cajolery, bribery, undue pressure, or intimidation are used-- subtly or openly--to bring about seeming conversion; when we put the success of our church before the honor of Christ; when we commit the dishonesty of comparing the ideal of our own church with the actual achievement of another; when we seek to advance our own cause by bearing false witness against another church; when personal or corporate self-seeking replaces love for every individual with whom we are a concerned (“Christian Witness, Proselytism, and Religious Liberty,” a study by the WCC cited by Brown 1967:260). This all the more strengthens the point that talk about conversion

cannot be divorced from the role of ecclesiology. In the Philippine scene, this calls us to the (thorny) field of Protestant-Catholic relations. This ecumenical agenda, however, needs to be put alongside, if not part and parcel of, the work of conversion in Philippine setting. Taking Gregory Baum’s point, “conversion work” (in the Philippine context) cannot bypass the problem of Christian disunity, and “transformation of the Church herself toward greater catholicity” (cited by Brown 1967:83).

5. New Ways of Being Church Taking our cue from the previous sections, we propose the following

missional agendas for the churches. These reflect a two-way turning in both the local church and culture.

5.1 In Communicating Conversion

The Church (an ecumenical hearing is assumed here) needs to shed off

its colonial outlook. Failing to do this, the church will betray its indigenous mission, its cultural responsibility. Moreover, if the church holds on to its


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colonial image, he(!) will perpetuate a long-standing cultural alienation running deep in Philippine culture. It is the culture of the rich and the educated elite that becomes the real culture, the standard by which to judge what is true and false culture. From another angle, if the church fails to listen to and deal with the “popular” culture, eclecticism, and not a real synthesis of the gospel with the culture, will continue to haunt Philippine Christianity. This is the breeding ground for what Bulatao calls “split-level Christianity” (Bulatao 1992) or what others refer to as “New Emerging Religious Movements (NERMS)”--an uncritical syncretism of Christianity and native religion (Davis 1993:19). Finally, the current yearning of the churches to become a “church of the poor” is not just a matter of effectiveness in ministry. Rather, it is an issue of Christian integrity. The church has to be born anew in the midst of poverty, to identify with it and be catalysts for social change.

Inculturation should be a primary agenda of the churches. Institutionally, this may take the form of a preference for indigenous forms and approaches to church leadership. Having a plurality of leaders (e.g., council of elders) united under a single head (chief elder) seems a better option supported not only by biblical sources (Schweizer 1961), but also affirmed by cultural ideals for leadership. With regard to the content of faith, and important for discipling converts, a dynamic equivalence translation of the Apostles’ Creed should be a primary consideration. The translation of the Creed in Filipino is a formal-correspondence translation. There is no incorporation of Filipino thinking in the existing translations of the Creed. There are, however, recent efforts toward indigenous approaches to evangelism and catechetics which could be helpful as critical starting points for this thrust (de Mesa 1988; Maggay 1987).

Also important is the inculturation of liturgy in the Philippine churches. From the Roman Catholic side, Chupungco has already laid the groundwork for this project (Chupungco 1976). The now popular Filipino Catholic hymns and choruses composed and written by Filipino priests (especially by E. Hontiveros, SJ) are an outstanding achievement in liturgical inculturation. The same cannot be said of the Evangelical side. Very little has been done on this needful area (see, however, ABCCOP, 1994.)

An important Filipino social system relevant for gospel reflection and proclamation is the Filipino family. As A. T. Church sums it up, scholars of Philippine studies have this to say,

The Filipino family and kinship ties have been variously described as the “highest value in Filipino culture” (Quisumbing), “the most important element in the personality development of the Filipino and his day-to-day


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behavior as an adult” (Guthrie and Azores) and as “the core of all social, cultural, and economic activity” (Quisumbing) (Church 1986:55). The paramount importance of the nuclear and bilaterally extended

family as the principal focus of social, economic, religious, andto a large extent political activitymakes kinship relations the most significant and influential set of relations in the life of the Filipino (de Mesa 1987:192-207).

5.2 For the Conversion of Culture

The larger vision for which the church is sent is the mission of Jesus, to present the reality of the reign of God (John 20:21; Luke 4:16-21). The church exists, therefore, as an agent of social transformation (Maggay 1994). Social action and evangelism (or evangelization) are not separate realities in the church’s mission, one being a priority over the other. While the two are distinct, “both are essential parts of (Christian) witness to the fact that the kingdom has come. The proclamation of the kingdom has a verbal as well as a visual aspect” (Maggay 1994:22).

Important in this regard is evangelization, which takes seriously dialogue and engagement with the prevailing worldview of Filipinos. Several studies have alerted us to the importance of the kinship-orientedness and belief in the spirit-world for the Filipino worldview (Maggay 1989; de Mesa 1987; Ramirez 1991). These could become entry points for renewed discussion on inculturating biblical conversion. On the role of family, sociologist Mina Ramirez ties the value of the family with the issue of cultural security/insecurity.

The Filipino [extended] family, since the pre-Spanish era, has always been a source of security for members of Philippine society. In times of need, the members of the family depend on each other for mutual support.... In the historical perspective of Philippine social reality lies a tale of insecurity. It becomes understandable why, in their consciousness, Filipinos have never experienced a larger society treating them with kindness. If the larger society did not offer security, the Filipinos had no source of security except from the members of their family or their kinship group. It is within this context that we may explain why the Philippines has been described by sociologist as family dominated, small-group oriented, where the tayo-tayo lamang (just us) and kanya-kanya (to each his own) attitudes prevail (Ramirez 1984:43).


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Ramirez, a Roman Catholic believer, envisions a way out of this culture of insecurity, a conversion within culture. She dreams of a new social structure fueled by social movements that would spell “liberating action from unbalanced social structures, from western impositions, and from narrow perspectives of small group orientations” (1984:60; see also de Mesa 1987:192-200). The realization of this dream is dependent on “a profound respect for the person and authentic relationships inspired by Christian or profoundly human values” (1984:61).

On engaging the spirit-world, communications specialist and theologian Melba Maggay advances the importance of “power encounter” for communicating conversion in Filipino culture. This connects with the indigenous understanding of salvation understood as victory over the powers of darkness, healing, and the casting out of demons. In Maggay’s assessment,

Filipino religion remains primarily a transaction with the powers, even if expressed in Catholic form, as with the spirit cults around Sto Niño, the Virgin Mary or God the Father. Reports of a dancing Sto Niño, images of May imprinted on petals, miraculous healings through mediums said to be possessed by trinitarian spirits are continuous with the indigenous mind’s sensitivity to paranormal powers (Maggay 1990:14). Thus conversion means being claimed by the gospel of Jesus Christ

who is Lord of the spirits (Maggay 1987:4). The vision of the victorious Jesus (Colossians 2:15) should be a central motif in the formulation of the Gospel for Filipinos (Maggay 1987:4). This confrontation against principalities and powers, however, is directly connected with “the prayer that God’s will and rule be done on earth as well as in heaven” (Maggay 1993:15). It as much an earthly work because it is heavenly. Thus, speaking to an evangelical hearing, she asks for an accounting of the consequences…of spiritual warfare” in concrete social terms. She puts this in terms of evaluative questions,

Are we seeing more justice and righteousness in this society, for instance? Has the growth in “born again” believers contributed in any way to the strengthening of the moral fiber of this nation? Is there less corruption in public life, less of the “split-level Christianity” our sociologists have talked about? Is there increased understanding of who Jesus is apart from the images that litter our religious consciousness? Who or what powers are actually at work in this culture? Is there more and more a greater allegiance to the ways of Christ? (Maggay 1993:14-15).


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6. Epilogue: Conversion and Filipino Theology

By way of conclusion, I wish to offer some implications of this study

for a theology of Philippine culture, and consequently, revisit the question of theological method. Essentially, I wish to view the cultural inheritance in light of the theology of conversion.

Conversion as metanoia (pagbabalik-loob, pagbabagong-buhay) is a summons for a transformation of mind and heart in light of the “news flash” that God’s reign has arrived in Jesus Christ (Mark 1:14-15) (cf. Newbigin 1987b:3). The gospel is first of all the good news (neither a formula nor a moral principle) that God’s reign has arrived in Christ. Integral to the gospel, however, is the church as a sign and embodiment of God’s reign. Metanoia is a call for everyone to be “transformed by the renewing of [the] mind” (cf. Romans 12:1-2). It is a transformation that allows us to see the full implications of God’s kingdom present to us in the person of Jesus (cf. Mark 1:10-12). Transformation through conversion, however, does not mean substituting something new for something old as the word in Greek suggests (“turning”). Rather, conversion to Christ involves turning what is already there in culture toward a new direction (Walls 1997:146). In the words of African theologian Kwame Bediako,

[C]onversion is not the overlay upon our old habits and attitudes and fears, of some regulations and traditions and solutions which do not answer to our needs. That is proselytization, not evangelization.... Rather, true evangelization and conversion is turning to Christ all that He finds when he meets us, and asking that He cleanse, purify and sanctify us and all that we are, eliminating what He considers incompatible with Him. That is what the Great Commission is about, the discipling of the nations (Bediako 1997:3).

The image of “turning” functions for us as the continuity

discontinuity dynamic of the gospel and culture encounter. It implies acceptance, confrontation, and re-formation. Transformation through conversion (turning), in turn, forms the basis for a theology of Philippine culture. Thus, refining de Mesa’s framework, we view theological re-rooting and rerouting (which assume the elements of inculturation, contextualization, and dialogue) as distinct yet related movements in our culture-theology (70). Theology as cultural evaluation grounds itself in a vision of the image of God that is being renewed in and through Christ (cf. Gen 1:26-27; Col 1:15-21). Indeed, it is in the humanity of Jesus that we find the revelation of what is the true form of humanity. Hence, to live, die,


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and rise with Christ to new life meant that God in Christ “accepts us as we are” (the gospel’s indigenizing principle) but also the fact that God “takes us as we are in order to transform us into what He wants us to be” (the corollary pilgrim principle) (Walls 1996:7-8).

The aspects of continuity, affirmation and solidarity with the local culture--aspects that we find to be integral to the conversion of cultures--we will associate functionally with the category of re-rooting. This perspective honors the insistence that mission in Philippine culture demands a methodological stance of “cultural appreciation” as a response to the experience of cultural uprooting (cf. Schreiter 1994). In the Philippine context, the Gospel cannot be at home (as opposed to being foreign) in the local culture if one ignores this methodological stance of appreciation. But this act of social solidarity is grounded in a far deeper reality: Christ is “a stranger to no nation, culture or community” (Bediako 1997:3). Through God’s work of creation, Christ has already been there, at the origin of every culture. His abiding presence in every culture is the basis of God’s yes to every nation. This significance of Christ’s abiding presence is not unrelated to the imperative of gospel re-rooting. For re-rooting may be seen as “the act of sowing, deep within every culture the essential instrument [the gospel] by which every culture will be opened, from within it, to the larger purposes of God for all the nations” (Bediako 1997:3).

In the vernacular, re-rooting could be rendered as pag-uugat (literally, rooting into) which could mean being rooted in the local culture. Or it could be viewed simply as pagbabalik-loob (journey back to one’s inner self) signifying an effort to reconnect with our (disfigured) history, as well as the adoption of the indigenous viewpoint as a means to ward off western prejudice. Both the vernacular concepts (pag-uugat or pagbabalik-loob) could be valued as moral strategies for moving forward as a people. Moving forward has meant, in part, the act of looking back. Interestingly, this remark has rootedness in common wisdom as in this popular proverb: Ang di lumingon sa pinanggalingan, ay di makakarating sa paroroonan (“He who does not give due regard to his past cannot reach his destination”).

The dimension of cultural criticism, judgment, and more positively, re-orientation is intended by the term “re-routing.” This element highlights Christian authenticity in the gracious (maganda) power (makapangyarihan) of the gospel to renew cultures from within. This is to say, not simply that Christ judges cultures or that Christ is the source of new life (bagong buhay). It is also to claim that Christ’s fullness means the creation of a “multi-ethnic New Humanity,” (Walls 1996:27, cf. Gen 11:1-


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11//Acts 2:1-11) or the presence of “the glory and honor of the nations” in the now, yet still coming New Jerusalem (Rev 21-22). In the vernacular, one could think of “rerouting” in terms of pagtutuwid (the act of putting things right). Better yet, if re-rooting is about pagbabalik-loob, re-routing could be seen as pagbabagong-loob (literally, “changing one’s own heart or disposition,” or “changing for the better”). Both terms revolve around the significant cultural value namely, loob. One connotes a journey back (pagbabalik loob), the other encourages more of a journey forward (pagbabagong-loob) in newness of life.

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Re-imaging Conversion in the Lowland Philippine Setting: The Perspective of Gospel Re-rooting

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