We are now to conclude the 8th Abdon Ma. Josol Theological Series with the theme Enriching Filipino Theology for the 21st Century: Celebrating the 500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines. The posture this forum has taken is intentionally critical. It seeks to break new grounds in the movement to free us from the clutches of a clerically centered way of doing and thinking about faith that seeks understanding. Likewise, it turns its back from the typical tendency to understand and articulate our experience of God and his actions in our life using concepts and language, not reflective of our culture and native sensibility.
The talk of Dr. Jose de Mesa, Listening Appreciatively to the Voice of Culture: Transcending Linguistic Dominations in Theology, puts at the heart of overcoming the vestiges of colonialization the conscious determination to root our Christian faith in the matrix of our being as Filipinos. We do this so that we may honestly believe and love as Filipinos. Indeed, this presupposes that the Good News of our liberation be presented with the necessary methods, tools, and expressions coming from our cultural heritage and not from somewhere else.
Dr. Estela Padilla’s activity and theologizing demonstrate a dynamically creative process of tapping into the richness of bringing our Filipino world in dialogue with the world of our Christian tradition. She ventures into the path not to reduce the dynamism of our ordinary life experiences, in a bahay at in a kalsada, into a mere novel of semantic play, but rather a rediscovery of the richness of a faith rooted in very simple life realities. Bahay at Kalsada: Theologizing with de Mesa is a rediscovery of our ordinary experience bringing us to the realization that the faith that seeks understanding is never far from home. In other words, our sensitivity to everyday life situations can lead to the craft of theologizing.
Looking at the two talks, the exchange of insights between Dr. de Mesa and Dr. Padilla and the members of the panel, and the open forum that ensued, see that this 8th Abdon Ma. Josol Theological Series poses to us a real challenge as we come near the celebration of the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. We are challenged to reshape our consciousness and dynamize our faith that seeks understanding mindful of the wealth of culture and language. We deter ourselves from being too contained by the domination of sheer clerical dogmatism or too facile surrender to dictates of official church pronouncements. We take the humble but courageous posture not to be reluctant in theologizing, knowing that understanding this faith in the God of history is a joyful venture open to all and not limited to experts.
To the main speaker of this Forum, Dr. Jose de Mesa, to Dr. Estela Padilla his disciple and former student and mentee in her dissertation on behalf of SATMI, we would like to sincerely express our gratitude to you for accepting our invitation. To Fr. Joel Tabora, the President of ADDU, we also thank you not only in providing this beautiful auditorium but also the food that gave us the nourishment for this. ADDU’s support through your kindness and generosity to SATMI enables us to grow in our identity as a theological and mission institute here in Davao. To all the faculty, students, and staff of SATM, we can all thank the Lord for what we have done today, for the joy of working together and journeying in sharing with others our desire to discover God more in our ordinary life. To all of the participants of this forum, we do not end here. Our paths shall cross again in the future as SATMI continues to offer its services to provide relevant theological and missionary formation to the local church of Mindanao.
PC: Bro. Roel Gutierrez, C.Ss.R