Date of Award
4-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2019.
Degree Name
Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL)
Director
Kathryn R. Barush
Abstract
Taiwanese Catholicism shows the signs of regression from previous efforts on inculturation of Christian arts. The images of Jesus and saints displayed in public still retain their Western features. However, Taiwanese-indigenized Christian arts have made progress in the last few decades. The Yanshui Holy Spirit Church is a very important example. The Catholic Church has also highlighted the importance of making an authentic local Church, especially after the Second Vatican Council. The Federation of Asian Bishop's Conferences (F ABC) has made concrete guidelines for building an Asian local Church, which is in dialogue with the life reality of the Asian people ( especially the poor), cultures, and religions. Through a genuine triple dialogue, the local Church is able to engage in the reality of her own context in imitation of her Lord Jesus Christ who incarnated into the world as the Emmanuel, God is with us.
Indigenized Christian arts directly communicate the salvific story of God's love to local people from a local perspective, which make the message of the gospel more accessible to God's people. In a similar way, the murals of the Yanshui Holy Spirit Church integrate Christian traditional themes with Taiwanese cultural arts to present the good news of God's salvation to Taiwanese people. Through the murals in the sanctuary area, the Yanshui Holy Spirit Church truly engages triple dialogue with the reality of Taiwanese society and becomes an excellent example of Taiwanese theology of inculturation through Christian arts.
The introduction of this research explores the issue and context of Taiwanese Catholicism as well as the methods, procedures, and scope of the research. The first chapter analyzes the historical development of the Taiwanese Church and focuses on the progress of Christian arts. The second chapter introduces the murals of the Yanshui Holy Spirit Church and analyzes their artistic expressions. The third chapter demonstrates the development of the concept of inculturation in the Church and how the Yanshui murals serve as a model of theology of inculturation.
Recommended Citation
Hsu, Aloysius Ming-Te, "The Inculturation of Taiwanese Catholicism: The Yanshui Holy Spirit Church" (2019). Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations. 42.
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/jst_dissertations/42