Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Beyond the uni-directional notion of inculturation moored on an older, Eurocentric missiology, I turn the prism at a new angle to reveal "serendipity," that epiphany of surprise and sagacity, as the nexus of the divine-human encounter; this allowed for the flourishing of Indigenous culture’s creative genius notwithstanding the cruel sentence of Spanish colonization and its aftermath. Serendipitously, Manila's renowned Black Nazarene devotion offers creative-liberative space for cultural memory and validation in the form of communitas and hidden transcripts that dance alongside the more structured, doctrinally based practices of “official religion," decentering ecclesiology in the inclusive, prophetic-liberating spirit of Lumen Gentium's "People of God."