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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