By Father John Murray
VATICAN CITY : One of the biggest challenges for Pakistani Christians is to be seen as Pakistanis and not as an offshoot of Western culture, Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, director of Caritas in the country, believes.

Christianity, along with democracy, tends to be seen as a purely Western force, with all the colonial overtones that entails. This, of course, is wrong but the perception in Pakistan and many other parts of Asia that it is so can be corrosive.

It poses a basic challenge before Catholicism, and Christianity in general: How to be seen as a world faith and not as some tool of Western colonial power?

Christianity was never meant to be purely a religion of certain cultures or continents, although history has sometimes made it seem this way.

The need for inculturation -- taking Christianity into the heart of other cultures -- was first identified by the bishops of Asia. But, in many respects, we have failed to pick up that gauntlet, leaving the likes of Bishop Coutts to deal with the consequences.

He knows the tensions and conflicts within contemporary Pakistan only too well as he deals with local rivalries and their tragic consequences as well as with the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

It is not all the fault of perceptions of the Church, of course. Bishop Coutts sees that there has also been a loss -- or at least an erosion -- of the country's founding vision.

The vision of the founding father of modern Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was for a liberal, democratic and progressive nation, a principle Bishop Coutts still adheres to.

He proudly quotes Jinnah: "What you believe has nothing to do with the state. You are equal citizens in a free country. We must now all learn to be Pakistanis."Bishop Coutts, however, sees an ongoing retreat from this founding principle. While tensions have always existed, they have become more pronounced through pressures from both inside and outside the country.

Bishop Coutts warns that there is a shift from the view that "we are Pakistanis" to "we are Muslims."

This has real repercussions for non-Muslims caught in a tide of rising Islamic fundamentalism as seen in the anti-blasphemy laws discussed by Jesuit Father Frank Brennan in a recent UCA News article.

But it is also seen in other ways including the mounting pressure from fundamentalist Muslims from outside the country joining forces with a growing domestic movement within Pakistan for an Islamic fundamentalist state.

And if Christianity has a problem finding a place in such a climate, what hope then for democracy?

The bishop does not blame everything that is going wrong in his country on this one issue and acknowledges there are many forces at play.

Local and tribal rivalries brook large, as Bishop Coutts, who has presided over many Christian funerals caused by such tensions, knows only too well.

In the face of all this, he remains calm and hopeful and ready to face the ongoing challenge, even if difficult, as must we all.

The struggle of a post-Vatican II Church has been one of inculturation of Christianity into Asian, African and many other cultures -- and that goes on.

It is up to us to demonstrate how to be truly Christian and truly Asian.

Courtesy : UCAN