Evangelization and Inculturation in the Medellín Document

Abstract

The subject developed by the author is centered around two including themes of the Conference held in Medellín: Evangelization and Culture. This has been one of the guiding themes fromMedellín to the Aparecida Conference and it is through their reflection that we are able to understand the teaching of the Latin American Church. The second Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellín set off the Church in the Continent on a search for new forms and models to be a Church and to carry out her evangelical tasks following the spirit of Vatican II.  Its final document gave off innovative elements which cleared out the path for the Latin American pastoral care and are still relevant today. Among others, still relevant for being successful in linking human promotion and evangelization; for recognizing the signs of times within the reality of the Continent as a call from God to get out of a disembodied vision of Christianity of a Church uninterested on historic events; a call to get involved in tasks of human promotion, in liberation as a whole and in enculturation at the very core of the concept of evangelization; recognizing the irruption of the poor as leaders in the history of the Continent.  Given the fact that human promotion and enculturation are two realities which are substantially embedded in the heart of the concept of evangelization, they are not merely related on a sociological level but have in them a unique theological dimension. For this reason, one can afford to say that human promotion is the privileged dimension of the
evangelization; and one may say also about enculturation that it is the center, the mean and the objective of the New Evangelization.