I want to add that this relative character of Christianity is determined today by its departure from Western civilization. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the historical image of Christianity as a typically western one prevailed. If you look at the twenty-century history of Christianity, we can distinguish the first — a relatively short, period of Judeo-Christianity;
the second is a very long and culturally homogeneous period of civilization that arose in the Mediterranean basin. After the Second Vatican Council, the third period begins, characterized by cultural polycentricism within the Church.
This is an “epochal” moment in the history of the Church, Kairos (Greek “favorable time” — approx., Ed.) Even from a demographic point of view, the future of the Church is less dependent on the West (Europe and North America) than on Latin America, Asia and Africa. It is impossible not to notice that for forty years the political, economic, military and cultural domination of the West has been greatly shaken. And it would be an illusion to believe that the United States has replaced Europe as the center of creation of a dominant civilization. This would indicate a misunderstanding of the dual relationship of the peoples of the Third World to many of the values of Western humanism.
3. The challenge of neopaganism
The theology of non-Christian religions is all the more necessary because in the West Christianity is forced to accept the challenge of not only atheism and secularization, but also neopaganism. In this sense, our cultural situation has changed significantly compared to that time, forty years ago, when Bonhoffer came to the conclusion that the modern person is irreligious. Among the various manifestations of the sacred, a significant place is occupied by the whole movement, which in France was called the “New Right” and which is fighting simultaneously on two fronts: against Marxism and against Christianity, in the hope of returning to some ancient paganism or polytheism that can best ensure the sacredness of our peace and life.
It should not be forgotten that the dilemma of “theism or atheism” is a typically Western legacy. When Heidegger nostalgically recalled the “flight of the gods” from the modern world, he clearly saw in the biblical doctrine of creation the beginning of desacralization and dehydration of the ancient world. The appearance of atheism became possible when the divine, dissolved in the world, concentrated in the image of the personal God of the Creator. Ethnologists, like Mark Auger, for example, tried to restore what they call the “spirit of paganism,” as opposed to the caricature of some forms of famous Christian apologetics.
This new pagan temptation is closely connected with the influence of Nietzsche on modern culture. Although historicism is a typical Judeo-Christian heritage and pervades the entire Western civilization, many authors are nevertheless seduced by the myth of eternal return. They want to block the Judeo-Christian tradition in order to return to the idea of the cyclical nature of time, so dear to the ancient Greeks. Linear time, according to their concepts, is a disease of the spirit that generates dictatorial systems, such as Marxism, while paganism sanctifies life in its diversity, the maternal secret of the earth, the variability of the world and the eternal return of beauty.
In the face of the challenge of neopaganism, we well understand our theological task of once again realizing the true meaning of biblical monotheism and monotheism of the Trinity.
4. A more optimistic view of the possibility of salvation outside the Church
After the Second Vatican Council, it became the rule to say that we outgrew the harsh interpretation of the famous saying: “There is no salvation outside the Church.” In Lumen gentium, 16, II, the Vatican Council unambiguously declares the possibility of salvation outside the Church, although even so, thinking dialectically, he argues that the Church is necessary for salvation (14). In other words, we have moved away from exclusive absolutism, which found extreme expression in Boniface VIII, to inclusive absolutism, which is expressed in the formula: “Sine ecclesia nulla salus” (lat. Without the Church there is no salvation — ed.). Indeed, if it is true that many can be saved outside the visible Church, then they will be saved by the grace of Christ, for which there is at least a continuity of church ordination as a sacrament that provides salvation.
So, we are very optimistic about the possibility of salvation outside the Church, and someone is ready to see a means of salvation in non-Christian great religions. Even if the Vatican Council's Nostra aetate II Declaration does not state that non-Christian religions are a “means of salvation,” it reflects a completely new position of the Church and recognizes certain elements of truth and goodness in other religions.
The theology of mission is always directly dependent on the theology of salvation. One should think about what idea of salvation was the basis of missionary activity in the 19th century, and consisted mainly in the “liberation of souls from the eternal damnation”, i.e. in “joining the maximum number of converts to the Catholic Church”.
But if we have not yet made all the necessary theological conclusions, the current missionary practice confirms that we have moved away from the ecclesiocentric, individualistic, concept of salvation. Contrary to the hasty conclusions that someone could make in connection with the expansion of the possibilities of salvation, missionary work has not lost its necessity. But we were able to better understand that personal respect is one of the main requirements of gospel love. In this regard, the Decree on Religious Freedom is crucial. According to the text of Dignitatis humanae, “a person is obligated and entitled to seek truth in religious matters in order to wisely make himself a true and true judgment for his conscience.”
This means that the mission will be aimed not so much at converting the other as at the testimony of the gospel with respect to the special path of those who belong to other religions or are non-religious. More will be said about the inevitable contradictions between the requirements of the mission and the requirements of dialogue. And since the word “mission” preserves a certain shade of triumphalism and proselytism, they will prefer it, even in official documents of the Church, the term “evangelization”. The Church as a “sacrament of salvation” cannot be identified with the Kingdom of God, and its main mission is to serve the Kingdom of God wherever it originates.
In conclusion, a brief analysis of our historical experience allows us to say — perhaps for the first time in the history of the Church — about an equal dialogue between Christianity and non-Christian religions. This requires us to revise certain sections of our theology.