Toward a distinctive lay-oriented

Christianity in our world of today.

Jean-Marie Hyacinthe Quenum, S.J.

In our restless and complex world, the finest asset of

today’s Catholic Church is a well-trained laity capable of

exercising their God-given mission in the temporal order as

well as the spiritual. According to Lumen Gentium 31, 36, lay

people, as servants of Christ’s mission, have the specific

task to bring the spirit of the Gospel to the world and its

affairs. In dealing with the world of politics, economics

and sexuality, in virtue of their baptismal priesthood they

are the best ambassadors of Christ’s mission, helping others

by promoting peace, social justice and reverence for life.

The question is how do lay people live as disciples of Jesus

Christ in our increasingly pluralistic world and today’s

crisis of non-religious societies? How can we hear God

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speaking to the Church through the various commitments of

lay people as disciples of Jesus Christ in our need-oriented

societies dominated by economic and political power? How do

we evaluate a distinctive lay-oriented Christianity as an

experience of God?

Here a holistic reflection on Catholic ministry will lead us

to appreciate the social and structural questions of

democracy and partnership in our Church of today. We will

advocate a lay-oriented Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa

participating in building up corruption free societies and

laity dealing with two of the major challenges; mass poverty

and ethnicity.

1- The lay persons confronted with our increasingly

pluralistic world and need oriented societies are

called to explore a new way of being Christians

The lay professing Christians of today’s world are

confronted with the ideology of religious pluralism.

Religious pluralism explains all major religious traditions

as authentic and saving paths to God. For religious

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pluralists, God’s grace is at work equally in the great

religions. “Though religions do not appear to say the same thing, many

pluralists insist that religions lead to the same end and touch the same Divine

Reality, but they use different symbols and language systems. It is argued that

differences are peripheral, because religions at their core share a common

essence. The common essence is found in the search for the presence of God, for

the Ultimate Mystery, for the Absolute Reality, or for the Ground of Being,

beneath the different manifestations. Since the Holy is beyond individual

embodiments, differences should not obscure the unity of vision. Transcendent

Being is considered greater than anyone’s understanding because our

conceptual maps are finite pictures of the infinite. The same God is worshiped,

but the local coloring is different. The light is the same, but the lamps vary”.1

In placing all religions on an equal footing, pluralists

hope to build bridges of mutual dialogue between them and

stimulate more interaction and more tolerance. Religious

pluralism takes into account the different historical and

cultural contexts of people’s perceptions of God and

emphasizes the need for cross-cultural theology preserving

1 Calvin E. Shenk. Who Do You Say That I am? Christians Encounter Other Religions. Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania Waterloo, Ontario, 1997.

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the core insights of the various paths to the ultimate and

final reality.

The leading proponents of religious pluralism are Arnold

Toynbee, William Ernest Hocking, Ernst Troeltsh, Wilfred

Cantwell Smith, John Hick2, Paul Knitter3 and Raimundo

Panikkar. All have in common their centered God approach to

religion. They assume that every major religion is a path of

salvation leading to enlightenment and liberation. Religious

pluralists focus on the common core of religious experience

identifiable across different geographical and cultural

contexts.

As they see it, the laity, confronted with the religious

pluralism of our time, are called to share the humanitarian

concerns of other religions and strengthen the religious

experiences of those they meet whatever their cultural

backgrounds.

In my opinion, the lay ministry within the Catholic Church

must go beyond the reductionism of the ideology of religious

2 Hick, John, and Paul Knitter, eds. The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1987. 3 Knitter, Paul F. No Other Name? A critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward the World’s Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985.

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pluralism of our time and not be afraid to be rooted in a

New Testament approach to God’s self-revelation in Jesus

Christ, the incarnate Son of God who died for us and rose

again. In his work of redemption, believers are justified in

faith. He came to share our human existence as God with us

(Matt. 1.21, 23). As the last Adam, Jesus Christ has

defeated sin and death through his mighty and saving love on

Calvary. As the ultimate revelation of God, he inaugurates

God’s Kingdom by setting free the lost, the helpless and

everyone overburdened with guilt and fear. As the light of

the world, Jesus Christ absorbs the darkness of the present

world affected and infected by evil. Jesus Christ is the

good leader who came to seek and find lost humankind

withdrawn from the true and living God. By confessing the

lordship of Jesus Christ over all nations and cultures, the

early Church recognized in him the savior of the world (1Jn

4:14; Acts 4:12). Baptized Christians are commissioned to

bring the good news of the revealed Word of God to the ends

of the earth by stressing the character of God shown in the

person of Jesus Christ, the human face of God. They are to

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make the Christian Gospel relevant to the harsh realities of

the 21st century. In order to make the message of the Gospel

right up to date, they must be rooted in the Church, the

distinctive community Jesus Christ left to continue the work

of salvation he began through his birth and ministry (Jn

20:21). In union with the body of Christ, they are to be the

channels of God’s gifts for all. Their baptism has called

them to discipleship and should bind them to Jesus Christ as

their personal friend, brother and companion for the mission

of finding God in all human activities. Within the Church as

communion of the faithful united to one another across the

world, the laity have excellent opportunities to be involved

to a greater degree, in the process of making decision for

programmes of social welfare and political issues of the

day. They can do lasting good by using their gifts in order

to face the challenges of mass poverty, declining economies,

civil wars and internal conflicts, famines, male attitudes

to women and vulnerable children, aging and lonely people,

corruption, ethnic clashes, bio-engineering, ethical birth

control, abortion, the abuse of male power, high rural-urban

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immigration, unemployment, 70% of the world’s AIDS sufferers

and abuse of women. Lay people should not seal up the words

of Jesus spoken in creation and in the Scriptures (Jn 1: 1-

18). They are to become more and more the prophets of our

time, chosen by God to call all nations to the obedience of

faith. They are to take into consideration the modern

context of the faith. With the strength of the indwelling of

the Spirit of God, lay people are to stand firm against the

ideologies that diminish the humanness of the children of

God.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, full of social injustice, fraud,

corruption and violence, a lay-oriented Christianity will

call upon Christians to use the earth’s resources to provide

stewardship and equitable distribution of goods and services

for the less fortunate. It will develop new church

structures and organizations to take over the missionary

work of an over- clerical Christianity. Clerical

Christianity has promoted Christian education and Church

leadership, the time has come for the lay Christians to

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emerge in order to take up its social role and

responsibilities.

A lay-oriented Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa will have

to address poverty-related issues and the phenomena of

ethnicity, tribalism, regionalism and sectarianism. Bad

governance and cultural factors have generated in most

African nations low income levels and multiple deprivation.

Infant malnutrition, illiteracy, lack of food or clean

water, absence of decent standard of living occur even

though strategies and programmes for poverty reduction

exist.

A lay-oriented Christianity will have a better chance to

minister to the poor by working for changes in socio-

economic structures that deny opportunities for human

development. It will incarnate good stewardship of

possessions in the Church by inviting everyone of good will

to pool their resources and share workable strategies to

care for the poor by empowering them through social action

and advocacy.

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Lay Christians may well be able to ease the tensions of

ethnocentrism by teaching their fellow Christians to coexist

without creating boundaries based on origin consciousness.

2- The relevance of lay ministry after Vatican II which

defined the Church as the people to whom God

communicates Himself out of love.

Very often, the laity is contrasted with the office bearers

of the Church. The ordained ministers of the Church are the

servants of the authoritative Word of God. They defend the

Word of God against false doctrines and premature or partial

formulations of Christian beliefs and values. Through their

pastoral guidance, ordained ministers help the people of God

to be faithful to God’s will. The responsibility of the

office bearers in the Church is to care for unity,

reconciliation and communion. They tell God’s people “what

is good and what God requires of them” (Micah 6:8). The role

of the ordained ministers of the Church is to create better

conditions and structures that enhance obedience to God’s

Word and the imitation of Jesus Christ in the daily lives of

the faithful.

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The view that ordained ministers are teaching authorities

possessing jurisdiction over the lay people has been

challenged by recent claims of the faithful to have direct

access to God’s Word read holistically and normatively.

Vatican II has recognized the right of all the faithful to

study God’s Word in the light of their contexts of life and

be given sound principles of interpretation. The Church as

intercommunion of baptized persons is now the space where

all the faithful together seek the will of God with their

ordained community leaders. The ordained ministers preside

over the Eucharistic community and they proclaim God’s Word

so that it may be shared by all. Like all baptized persons,

the ordained ministers are disciples, called by the Master

Jesus. They are sent to serve the members of their

communities and they are responsible for the pastoral care

of the churches. For the Vatican Council II there is only

one Church made up of all the baptized Christians. Ordained

ministers and laity are all servants of Christ’s mission,

witnessing together in order to spread Christian beliefs and

values. In fellowship with the ordained ministers, lay

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people are responsible for transforming the world into the

Kingdom of justice, peace and love. By evangelizing our

cultures through their expertise in secular matters, they

have the God-given task to continue the mission and ministry

of Jesus Christ within the world.

The laity continue the work of the creating God and the

incarnate Son of God. This world is God’s world and they are

to live, work and witness within it. They are the promoters

of cultures and holiness in the world. Sparking the divine

love in human situations through their caring activities,

they bear the sorrows and hardships of the people of God. As

people-oriented persons, the laity experience the cost of

discipleship in the world of politics, economics and

sexuality. They incarnate the following of Christ in the so

called secular world. They use their freedom creatively to

worship the Creator by being in grateful relationship with

him in praise, reverence and service.

Lay ministry is responsible for initiating God’s

stewardship. It is a freedom to rule the earth according to

God’s command in Genesis (Gen 1: 27-28). In the Pauline

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perspective, however they can only rule the earth in Christ.

Christ has liberated self-centered human beings from sin and

death. In Christ they can please God by loving him fully and

freely without being subjected to any creature. Lay ministry

is about praising God for the gifts of creation. By

expressing their gratitude for the gifts of creation, lay

people use them freely to attain the love of God. The love

of God is effective, when human beings redeemed by Christ

submit their free will to the will of God. Jesus Christ, the

liberator of human freedom, is God’s Son incarnate who

empowers his adopted brothers and sisters by the Spirit of

truth that transforms their hearts and minds for the Kingdom

of God. As new creatures in Christ, they respond to the

cultural progress of their societies by bringing the spirit

of the Gospel to the social achievements of their immediate

environment. They defend human dignity by imitating Christ

through contemplation. By doing good, they conform

themselves to Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos incarnate and

free Son of God crucified and glorified. Their holiness is

their participation in the life of the incarnate Son of God.

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Jesus Christ is the model of their commitments and active

service. Lay ministries to the world imply health care,

education, justice and peace services, civil society

organizations, food security service, social services for

the common good, counseling and associations for the

protection of the environment. As the Church in the world,

lay professing Christians linked with their ordained

ministers in spiritual brotherly ties, are the lampstands of

godly lives in Jesus Christ. Out of love for Jesus Christ

and their fellow human beings, they have the deep desire to

work out God’s purpose for his creation.

3- Toward a distinctive lay oriented Christianity as an

experience of God in our challenging world : from

paternalism to partnership

The Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council marked the end

of clerical Christianity. Today there is a need for a

distinctive lay-oriented Christianity following the

significant shift in Christian theological understanding of

the Church as communion. Clerical Christianity, from the

twelfth century to Vatican II, dispensed sacraments and

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objective teaching on salvation. The clergy, set apart by

ordination, offered the Eucharist for the living and the

dead. They reconciled penitents in the name of Christ (Mt

19: 18; Jn 223:23). Public teachers of the faith, they were

the dispensers of God’s Word through their human relations

within their jurisdiction.

In the pre- Second Vatican Council Church, they were

perceived by lay people as sacred persons ordained for the

internal life of the Church. Their cultic and sacral roles

were stressed at the expense of their prophetic commitment

in the world.

“The official representative of the Christian community needs to be united to

God in prayer and faith, well versed in the Scriptures, and ready to sacrifice

himself, as Christ was, in the service of others. As a focal center for the

community the priest must visibly be the sign and sacrament of Christ.”4

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Vatican II widened the

role of the clergy beyond their sacramental actions. They

were to find new ways to preach the Gospel to the world of

4 Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday, 1974) 158-159.

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today without being a body separate from the whole people of

God who are a “royal priesthood”.

The great crisis of our time is the crisis of Christian

ministry. Christian ministry has to develop according to the

needs of succeeding Church’s history. In today’s world,

Christian ministry is likely to become more and more a

question of a team-work conditioned by time, cultures and

spiritualities. A distinctive lay-oriented Christianity will

put the clergy back among the people of God. It will link up

the priesthood of the faithful with their ordained

ministers. The ordained ministers are to proclaim God’s Word

in ways adapted to modern situations. As religious leaders,

they are to co-ordinate the charisms of the individual

members of the Christian communities. They are to share the

struggles of men and women of our time. They are to

celebrate the unity of God’s people and their reconciliation

through the powerful sign of the Eucharist.

Lay persons are to be disciples of Jesus in their

historically conditioned existence. They are to “complete what

is lacking in Christ’s affliction for the sake of his body the Church” (Col

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1:24). Led by God’s providence in tricky human situations,

they are to face courageously the challenges of our world.

A rebirth of a new lay-oriented Christianity in a rapidly

changing world lies not in the perpetuation or extension of

the historical form of the clerical Christianity irrelevant

to globalized societies. A new type of Christianity faithful

to the convictions and the values of the Gospel is taking

root in our need-oriented societies where people find their

fulfillment in producing and in consuming and social

intercourse is based on buying power and market-oriented

mentalities. In this secularized world, a lay –oriented

Christianity will keep alive the symbols of Christian faith

as the fellowship of free individuals searching together for

the warmth of brotherly love. It will be instrumental in

furthering personal welfare and religious fervor. With the

loss of mass membership, it will be the close fellowship of

the remnant searching to witness to the love of God

manifested in Jesus Christ. In a pluralistic society, a lay-

oriented Christianity can impact government, business and

education through civic education. Concerned with every kind

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of need and suffering, the type of Christianity advocated by

lay professing Christians is a future oriented faith

bringing hope to restless hearts and minds of our globalized

societies.

The whole world should become the lay people’s parish. The

lay person in contrast with an ordained minister is not

restricted to the limits of a parish, diocese or nation. The

ministry of a lay person can reach out to all people of good

will. Like Jesus and his disciples in the Synoptics, the lay

person is free to move from one city to another in order to

spread Christian convictions and values through fruitful

interactions. The future of Church’s Christian ministry is

in the rebirth of a new lay oriented Christianity with

professionally trained baptized people working in

collaborative teams beyond the boundaries of parishes,

dioceses and nations. Well educated laity can learn from

religious men and women how to create a distinctive lay

ministry in our today’s world.

Many convinced lay people are already present in law-making

assemblies. They participate in the elaboration of the

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foreign and domestic policies of their nations. They take

part in conflict resolution of their communities. They are

actively involved in the new technologies of communication.

They have their say in stock exchanges and international

trade. But in a pluralistic society, they will be exposed to

competing ideologies, but their aim is to hope for the

future God has in store for his believers. This future

cannot be satisfied with the available worldly experience.

The future God promised is the eradications of all kinds of

sufferings: ignorance, sickness, poverty, exploitation,

oppression, social disasters and death.

In very practical ways, the lay Christians affirm the

dignity of women as full human persons in their own right.

Bearers and preservers of future generations, women can do

much more to be heard in the Church as equal members of

Christian communities. Sexism and marginalization of women

from the decision-making processes of the Church reflect a

patriarchal system which, with time, can be replaced by just

and mutual relationships between women and men.

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A remolding of the Church social structure is needed in

order to redefine the role of the laity in today’s world.

Lay professing Christians can no longer be treated as

ignorant minors who have to be taught and given guidelines

for their life styles in paternalistic patterns of

relationships. The clergy can no longer be the exclusive

representatives of the Church. By recognizing the basic

equality of all baptized persons, Vatican II has renewed the

insight of the Church as a communion of persons gifted by

the Holy Spirit for the common good. Ideally, the service of

each person of the Church is the parameter of authority and

partnership the model of relationship in the Church.

Partners are adult associates sharing the same

responsibilities for a common undertaking. In the Church

this means the active and harmonious cooperation of all the

baptized in the common task of evangelizing based on

equality. Those who have received their authority from above

should co-ordinate the partnership of the faithful by

promoting the diversity of services in the unity of the

mission of the Church. “Like all Christians, the laity have the right to

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receive in abundance the help of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially

that of the Word of God and the sacraments from the pastors. To the latter the

laity should disclose their needs and desires with that liberty and confidence

which befits children of God and brothers of Christ. By reason of the knowledge,

competence or pre-eminence which they have the laity are empowered – indeed

sometimes obliged to manifest their opinion on those things which pertain to the

good of the Church.” 5

A distinctive lay-oriented Christianity is the one that

recognizes the personal responsibility of the laity in human

activities where they have an active voice corresponding to

their expertise and social status. This Christianity type is

open to our globalized societies of scientific and

technogical structures. In globalized societies, with no

religiously social goals, Christian faith has acquired a new

function. This function is to be understood as the

humanization of people who find themselves depersonalized in

their human relationships by so many objective interactions

around their material and social needs. In a world deprived

of warmth and transcendence, Christian faith is to provide

5 Lumen Gentium. N. 37.

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meaning, direction and wisdom for personal life. The laity

are more suitable to help people to cope with the strains of

globalized societies by campaigning for better structures

that humanize relationships. They are to promote the Kingdom

of God and Christian freedom by taking up actions to change

social structures.

The experience of God in our challenging world is that of

the God of hope. The God of Jesus Christ is the God of hope.

Christian hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

the conqueror of poverty, illness, suffering and death. By

working for the eradication of human suffering and death a

lay-oriented Christianity is the only real future for the

world.

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