Western Trends Research Articles

Modern Asians and Western Churches

As a missionary in his first year, eager to apply the “indigenous principle,” I have been hearing but one thing lately: “The trend is to become Western.” It is my impression that this is far too much a rationalization on the part of missionaries. Of course, I realize that “if the natives want to ‘go Western,’ the indigenous thing to do is to let them make that choice.” But long before they make such a choice, it seems that the missionaries mold that choice in their minds. People advise me to take a look around in this area of Hong Kong to see the Western, modern buildings, etc., and label other efforts “reactionary” and “antiquarian.” Yet I cannot help but believe that “the Western trend” in an area like Hong Kong, is only a short-lived fad which will never make a dent in Chinese ways. Is it not likewise true, in the history of Africa for example, that a trend to go “enthusiastically Western” is followed by a stronger trend to assert and exalt that which is native? Now I am coming to my point: Is it not the role of the missionary at times to encourage natives to develop their own ways further and to discourage Western mimicry? For example, even if Africans or Chinese liked Western music, is it not the wiser thing to encourage them to compose their praises of God in their own idiom of music? (And, without becoming autocratic at all, to discourage Bach and Wesley?) Even in Hong Kong, our churches smell so Western that if I were a mainlander they would hardly appeal to me; in either case, the perfume of “non-Chinese” is all over it.— Manfred Berndt.

The Esthetics of the Unconscious

A critique of the Western trend of relying on psychoanalytical techniques as the basis for criticism in literature and the arts. Voprosy Literatury, 1961, No. 5.

Western Trends Are Shifting

Western Trends Are Shifting

St. Leo the Great on Christmas

[Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461) is generally recognised as the principal Doctor of the mystery of the Incarnation in the Western Church. All know the part he played, through his legates and writings, in the Council of Chalcedon (451). Ho is also the most ancient of the great Latin Preachers, whose sermons on Church festivals are still extant. To this day, in the lessons of the second nocturn at Matins, the Roman breviary makes use of Leo’s eloquence to interpret the meaning and spirit of the various liturgical solemnities, for example, at Christmas and on the feast of the Epiphany.St. Leo is certainly at his best when commenting on the dogmatic fact of the twofold nature, divine and human, in the one Person of Christ, which sums up the mystery of the Incarnation. True to the Western trend of theological exposition, he does not stop to weave subtle theories into the fabric of dogmatic beliof : he simply enumerates truths, but these he follows up with a wonderful wealth of practical conclusions for the everyday life of the faithful. Besides his classic work—the Tomos on the Incarnation which he sent to the Fathers of Chalcedon—St. Leo has left ten sermons which he preached in Rome on the feast of Christmas (see Migne, P. L., t. 54, col. 190-254). Each ranks as both a theological and an oratorical masterpiece.