The Politics of the Pure Heart
After recounting a horrible story in which a woman abused pledges to teach hatred and vengeance to her child, Volf dives directly into the heart of reconciliation. In order for such work to advance, it needs to be undertaken not just by the perpetrators of violence and hatred, but most especially by the victims and the oppressed.
This might ring strangely in our ears, but Volf's point is a good and solid one. He goes straight to Jesus' teachings and the fact that those who listened most closely were the oppressed of the day. Usually poor, usually uneducated or poorly educated, members of an occupied country, and living in the lower echelons of society, they heard Jesus call them to hearts that were humble and lives that reflected love of God and neighbor. Twined throughout this message was the underlying message of repentance.
Volf reminds us of the true meaning of repentance: "To repent means to make a turnabout of a profound moral and religious import. Repentance implies not merely a recognition that one has made a bad mistake, but that one has sinned." It is not enough to say "I'm sorry" and walk away. Instead, repentance means fully understanding the action that one took and the harm that came from that action, and then resolving fully to engage in that action no more.
But how can we apply the need for repentance to those who are victims? This has long been the sticking point, where the hatred and anger of the victim or oppressed becomes justified as a correct response to the wrongs experienced. This is the problem, says Volf, that has allowed the cycle to return and create more oppressors out of those who were oppressed, and more victimizers out of those who were victims.
The victim cannot and should not repent for the violence done to her, but she can and she must repent of the anger and hatred that violence almost inevitable engenders. The oppressed cannot and should not repent for the policies that make each and every day a hell to bear, but he can and he must repent of the plans of violence that spin in his head to make things even. If the victim or the oppressed can repent of the destructive emotions and responses and instead seek ways to pray for the enemy, then the cycle of violence and oppression can be broken and true reconciliation has a chance to break through.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Chapter Three, pages 105-110
Adieu to the Grand Narratives
Volf boldly states in this section, "every one of the grand narratives has failed." He cites two examples, but it is not hard to find examples in our own society. The reality is that, because we are flawed human beings, we will never be able to arrive at justice for all simply by doing it on our own. Part of the problem is the fact that, not only are we flawed human beings, we are also very different human beings, coming from different cultures and experiences, from different value-sets and beliefs. Trying to cram all those differences under one over-arching umbrella, even an umbrella with as enticing a name as "freedom" or "justice" will never work. At least, not when it's attempted by human hands.
Because of these pluralities, a truly established peace will always be just beyond our fingertips. "What stands in the way of reconciliation is not some inherent incommensurability, but a more profoundly disturbing fact that along with new understandings and peace agreements new conflicts and disagreements are permanently generated." We will never be done with the work of reconciliation.
Which is why Volf points to a final reconciliation that will only be accomplished by the Divine. It is not, in the end, our job to bring about a complete reconciliation across the world. Any such reconciliation would be forced, would quiet gentler voices and disregard minorities, all in the search for a grand narrative of peace. Only God can hold the reigns of peace in hands that span the whole world, holding all the differences and similarities gently together in the beauty of the good creation. Therefore, "a nonfinal reconciliation in the midst of the struggle against oppression is what a responsible theology must be designed to facilitate."
In order to advance along these lines, towards a day when God's final reconciliation is enacted and God's perfect love is in all and through all, we must be at work in our own lives. To this end, Volf intends to argue "that reconciliation with the other will succeed only if the self, guided by the narrative of the triune God, is ready to receive the other into itself and undertake a re-adjustment of its identity in light of the other's alterity." How can we do this when our differences can be greater than what we can take into ourselves? This is what Volf intends to address.
Volf boldly states in this section, "every one of the grand narratives has failed." He cites two examples, but it is not hard to find examples in our own society. The reality is that, because we are flawed human beings, we will never be able to arrive at justice for all simply by doing it on our own. Part of the problem is the fact that, not only are we flawed human beings, we are also very different human beings, coming from different cultures and experiences, from different value-sets and beliefs. Trying to cram all those differences under one over-arching umbrella, even an umbrella with as enticing a name as "freedom" or "justice" will never work. At least, not when it's attempted by human hands.
Because of these pluralities, a truly established peace will always be just beyond our fingertips. "What stands in the way of reconciliation is not some inherent incommensurability, but a more profoundly disturbing fact that along with new understandings and peace agreements new conflicts and disagreements are permanently generated." We will never be done with the work of reconciliation.
Which is why Volf points to a final reconciliation that will only be accomplished by the Divine. It is not, in the end, our job to bring about a complete reconciliation across the world. Any such reconciliation would be forced, would quiet gentler voices and disregard minorities, all in the search for a grand narrative of peace. Only God can hold the reigns of peace in hands that span the whole world, holding all the differences and similarities gently together in the beauty of the good creation. Therefore, "a nonfinal reconciliation in the midst of the struggle against oppression is what a responsible theology must be designed to facilitate."
In order to advance along these lines, towards a day when God's final reconciliation is enacted and God's perfect love is in all and through all, we must be at work in our own lives. To this end, Volf intends to argue "that reconciliation with the other will succeed only if the self, guided by the narrative of the triune God, is ready to receive the other into itself and undertake a re-adjustment of its identity in light of the other's alterity." How can we do this when our differences can be greater than what we can take into ourselves? This is what Volf intends to address.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Chapter Three, pages 99-105
Embrace
Having spent some time examining the basics of Exclusion, Volf is now going to shift focus to exclusion's corrective, Embrace. "The central thesis of the chapter is that God's reception of hostile humanity into divine communion is a model for how human beings should relate to the other." As God has done with us, so we are to do with one another. Sound familiar?
Volf opens this section with the important reminder that we always have a choice. "We should not forget that to destroy the other rather than to be destroyed oneself is itself a choice... If there is will, courage, and imagination the stark polarity can be overcome." I believe this is key to being able to move forward and seeking ways to turn exclusion into embrace. As long as we hide behind the words "I had no choice, it was me or them," then we will continue to choose methods of exclusion over options of embrace. Recognizing that there is always a choice, even when the choices all seem to be bad, is the first necessary step for us.
The Ambiguities of Liberation
Liberation theology has made important contributions to the discussion of who God is and how God would have us live as faithful people in the world. This focus on liberation from economic, governmental, and religious oppression has shifted instead to equating liberation with freedom.
"Freedom is the most sacred good," Volf says, and for us in America, he has nailed it. We hold onto our freedoms no matter what, and often quote "freedom" as the end that justifies the means. As long as freedom is intact, almost anything else can be ignored.
The difficulty in equating liberation with freedom begins almost immediately. A business owner is free to charge a set price for goods and to pay a set price for the work of employees. An employee is free to stay with a particular business owner, or seek another job if the working conditions are not satisfactory. But it's never that easy. The business owner may feel that laws governing living wages and safe working conditions are oppressive, while the employee may feel that the same laws don't offer enough protection, leading to oppression. Neither one is liberated, regardless of the assumption that both are free.
So how can we move forward with a discussion of liberation? Volf first says that we have to recognize that "more often than not, conflicts are messy." Just as exclusion is never a clean-cut issue, conflicts around what it means to live free of oppression are just as unclear. An important piece of this messy situation is the fact that there is almost never a blameless victim. When it comes to systems of oppression, each person bears a portion of blame for being a part of that system. No one is completely innocent.
The second challenge rears its ugly head when one side wins. If the oppressed are now liberated, what will they do with their newfound freedom and power? The course of history suggests that those who were once oppressed very quickly turn into oppressors when the tables are turned. There are a few exceptions, but only because of hard work, intentional effort, and constant retuning.
This raises the question as to whether freedom can be an ultimate goal. Instead, Volf agrees with liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, who said that love needs to be first and foremost. "To make love tower over freedom does not mean abandoning the project of liberation... But to insist on the primacy of love over freedom means to transform the project of liberation, to liberate it from the tendency to idealogize relations of social actors and perpetuate their antagonisms. We need to insert the project of liberation into a larger framework of what I have called elsewhere 'a theology of embrace.'"
Having spent some time examining the basics of Exclusion, Volf is now going to shift focus to exclusion's corrective, Embrace. "The central thesis of the chapter is that God's reception of hostile humanity into divine communion is a model for how human beings should relate to the other." As God has done with us, so we are to do with one another. Sound familiar?
Volf opens this section with the important reminder that we always have a choice. "We should not forget that to destroy the other rather than to be destroyed oneself is itself a choice... If there is will, courage, and imagination the stark polarity can be overcome." I believe this is key to being able to move forward and seeking ways to turn exclusion into embrace. As long as we hide behind the words "I had no choice, it was me or them," then we will continue to choose methods of exclusion over options of embrace. Recognizing that there is always a choice, even when the choices all seem to be bad, is the first necessary step for us.
The Ambiguities of Liberation
Liberation theology has made important contributions to the discussion of who God is and how God would have us live as faithful people in the world. This focus on liberation from economic, governmental, and religious oppression has shifted instead to equating liberation with freedom.
"Freedom is the most sacred good," Volf says, and for us in America, he has nailed it. We hold onto our freedoms no matter what, and often quote "freedom" as the end that justifies the means. As long as freedom is intact, almost anything else can be ignored.
The difficulty in equating liberation with freedom begins almost immediately. A business owner is free to charge a set price for goods and to pay a set price for the work of employees. An employee is free to stay with a particular business owner, or seek another job if the working conditions are not satisfactory. But it's never that easy. The business owner may feel that laws governing living wages and safe working conditions are oppressive, while the employee may feel that the same laws don't offer enough protection, leading to oppression. Neither one is liberated, regardless of the assumption that both are free.
So how can we move forward with a discussion of liberation? Volf first says that we have to recognize that "more often than not, conflicts are messy." Just as exclusion is never a clean-cut issue, conflicts around what it means to live free of oppression are just as unclear. An important piece of this messy situation is the fact that there is almost never a blameless victim. When it comes to systems of oppression, each person bears a portion of blame for being a part of that system. No one is completely innocent.
The second challenge rears its ugly head when one side wins. If the oppressed are now liberated, what will they do with their newfound freedom and power? The course of history suggests that those who were once oppressed very quickly turn into oppressors when the tables are turned. There are a few exceptions, but only because of hard work, intentional effort, and constant retuning.
This raises the question as to whether freedom can be an ultimate goal. Instead, Volf agrees with liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, who said that love needs to be first and foremost. "To make love tower over freedom does not mean abandoning the project of liberation... But to insist on the primacy of love over freedom means to transform the project of liberation, to liberate it from the tendency to idealogize relations of social actors and perpetuate their antagonisms. We need to insert the project of liberation into a larger framework of what I have called elsewhere 'a theology of embrace.'"
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Chapter Two, pages 92-98
Cain's Assault
This section asks us to take a fresh look at the story of Cain and Abel. It is always tempting to put ourselves into the role of the virtuous one, but the truth is that we play both roles at different times in our life. "Cain's envy and murder do not prefigure how 'they'... behave in distinction to 'us'... but, how all human beings tend to behave toward others."
Fortunately for us, the story of Cain is also a story of God's protection. Cain is not just exiled from his home, he is also marked and given holy protection through his wanderings. This is fortunate, for when we live into the role of Cain in our own lives, we know we will not be completely forsaken and cast off.
This is a story of inequalities and the choices we make when confronted with them. Volf opens up this story, helping us see that Cain was the favored son, with the most successful life, while Abel was the second son, who barely scratched a living out of the earth. Cain came to God expecting that his favored status would translate to an outpouring of divine blessing, regardless of the state of his heart or his offerings. When Abel was honored above him, the reversal was more than Cain could take. Abel was unworthy, and if God chose the unworthy son over the worthy one, then God must also be unworthy.
Do you see the dangerous logic that Cain employed? It is often this kind of logic we use to justify our exclusion of others. They are not worth our time, energy, resources, etc. That level of worth can be measured in many different, trivial ways, disregarding the most fundamental truth that we are all human, all created from the dust of the earth. "Cain was confronted with God's measure of what truly matters and what is truly great." God turns the tables on us whenever we try to put ourselves above another human being.
Because Cain, because we, cannot bear to live with this reversal, we fall prey to the pervasive logic of sin. "The logic of sin was originally designed for the very purpose of overcoming the obligation to do good." We begin to come up with reasons and rationale for why we must act the way we choose to act.
Volf says that first we set up a geography of sin, determining where we can carry out our desires. This takes us out of the public sphere, because deep down we know that what we are contemplating is not appropriate. "The preferred geography of sin is 'the outside,' where the wrongdoing can happen unnoticed and unhindered." Cain knew that his response of violence towards Abel was not appropriate, even though he also felt like he had no other choice. An empty field was chosen, where no one would see and no one would know. No one except for God, that is.
Then there is the ideology of sin. "The ideology of sin functions to deny both the act and the responsibility for it, preferably with a touch of humor." Once the sin has been committed, we find ways to defer suspicion and investigation. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain asked, blithely sidestepping the Divine's questions. In order for our sin to remain undetected, we construct whole stories to cover our whereabouts and deeds.
But all of our maneuvering cannot change the simple facts: we have been created by one God, and so we are all brothers and sisters. We are our brother's keeper, and our sister's friend, to use the words of a song I know. This is God's intention for our life together. When we act in a way to exclude another, then we end up excluding ourselves, from all relationships and from God.
Still, there is good news. We may exclude ourselves by our own actions, or inactions, but God does not abandon us. God chooses to remain in relationship with Cain even though his sin was egregious. "The same God who did not regard Cain's scanty offering, bestowed kindness upon the murderer whose life was in danger. God did not abandon Cain to the cycle of exclusions he himself has set in motion." This provides us assurance for when we are acting out Cain's role, and guidance when we have been wronged like Abel.
This section asks us to take a fresh look at the story of Cain and Abel. It is always tempting to put ourselves into the role of the virtuous one, but the truth is that we play both roles at different times in our life. "Cain's envy and murder do not prefigure how 'they'... behave in distinction to 'us'... but, how all human beings tend to behave toward others."
Fortunately for us, the story of Cain is also a story of God's protection. Cain is not just exiled from his home, he is also marked and given holy protection through his wanderings. This is fortunate, for when we live into the role of Cain in our own lives, we know we will not be completely forsaken and cast off.
This is a story of inequalities and the choices we make when confronted with them. Volf opens up this story, helping us see that Cain was the favored son, with the most successful life, while Abel was the second son, who barely scratched a living out of the earth. Cain came to God expecting that his favored status would translate to an outpouring of divine blessing, regardless of the state of his heart or his offerings. When Abel was honored above him, the reversal was more than Cain could take. Abel was unworthy, and if God chose the unworthy son over the worthy one, then God must also be unworthy.
Do you see the dangerous logic that Cain employed? It is often this kind of logic we use to justify our exclusion of others. They are not worth our time, energy, resources, etc. That level of worth can be measured in many different, trivial ways, disregarding the most fundamental truth that we are all human, all created from the dust of the earth. "Cain was confronted with God's measure of what truly matters and what is truly great." God turns the tables on us whenever we try to put ourselves above another human being.
Because Cain, because we, cannot bear to live with this reversal, we fall prey to the pervasive logic of sin. "The logic of sin was originally designed for the very purpose of overcoming the obligation to do good." We begin to come up with reasons and rationale for why we must act the way we choose to act.
Volf says that first we set up a geography of sin, determining where we can carry out our desires. This takes us out of the public sphere, because deep down we know that what we are contemplating is not appropriate. "The preferred geography of sin is 'the outside,' where the wrongdoing can happen unnoticed and unhindered." Cain knew that his response of violence towards Abel was not appropriate, even though he also felt like he had no other choice. An empty field was chosen, where no one would see and no one would know. No one except for God, that is.
Then there is the ideology of sin. "The ideology of sin functions to deny both the act and the responsibility for it, preferably with a touch of humor." Once the sin has been committed, we find ways to defer suspicion and investigation. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain asked, blithely sidestepping the Divine's questions. In order for our sin to remain undetected, we construct whole stories to cover our whereabouts and deeds.
But all of our maneuvering cannot change the simple facts: we have been created by one God, and so we are all brothers and sisters. We are our brother's keeper, and our sister's friend, to use the words of a song I know. This is God's intention for our life together. When we act in a way to exclude another, then we end up excluding ourselves, from all relationships and from God.
Still, there is good news. We may exclude ourselves by our own actions, or inactions, but God does not abandon us. God chooses to remain in relationship with Cain even though his sin was egregious. "The same God who did not regard Cain's scanty offering, bestowed kindness upon the murderer whose life was in danger. God did not abandon Cain to the cycle of exclusions he himself has set in motion." This provides us assurance for when we are acting out Cain's role, and guidance when we have been wronged like Abel.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Chapter Two, pages 86-92
The Power of Exclusion
If the last section was weak, this section was downright scary. The title doesn't quite do it justice; this section maps how a reasonable people, nation, or community can become purveyors of violence and exclusion through simple, seemingly reasonable steps and circumstances. It strikes very close to home in this day and age.
Volf begins with the firm statement that there is always a choice. There may never be any innocents, but there is always a choice as to how to respond in any given situation. The choices may be awful and the repercussions unimaginable, but there is always a choice. "Within the vast expanse of noninnocence whose frontiers recede with the horizon, there are choices to be made, important choices about justice and oppression, truth and deception, violence and non-violence, about the will to embrace or to exclude, ultimately choices about life and death." I think one of the ways evil masquerades in our midst is by whispering that we have no other choice, and so, feeling justified, we choose an easier, and more harmful, way.
Evil here is given shape and form, power and personality. "We choose evil; but evil also 'chooses' us and exerts its terrible power over us." This is not some red Satan-doll with a tail and pitchfork, but a dark spirit that thrives in our unexamined thoughts and actions and lives in our deepest selves. There is a "complex transpersonal and systemic reality of evil which dominates, ensnares, and lures persons to dominate others." In the language of this book, that domination becomes exclusion, and permeates all facets of our lives.
Then, when life begins to be difficult or tragedies occur, this background cacophony of evil gets begins to crescendo, and its different themes begin to be trumpeted by the leaders of the day. Volf's rendering of this movement is masterful, and I cannot being to recapture it as well as he wrote it. Suffice it to say, we don't have to look very far today to see this being played out in our society.
All of these things rest on the foundational thought that "we" are the ones who are right, "we" are the ones for whom glory is destined, "we" are the ones who are unable to fall short in any way. With this blind faith in ourselves and our virtues, we are easily led down paths where evil is "necessary" in order for the "greater good."
It begins with a "background cacophony of evil" that permeates everything; "this is the low-intensity evil of the way 'things work' or the way 'things simply are.'" It is the background cacophony that helps us adopt attitudes of resignation when we know that we are literally buying into harmful cycles. "Faith in oneself is generated by the tales of historical glory and plausible explanations of past failures; hope in the future is born, a future in which we will no longer suffer injustice and discrimination, a future underwritten by the unfailing promises of our god." With such an end in sight, the means are clearly interpreted to justify the ends.
This underlying melody and music serves to show us who is "in" and part of the grand symphony "our god" has orchestrated for us, and who is out. If someone else is different, then that difference is not allowed, because all must be sacrificed for the harmony we are seeking. Instead of being able to embrace difference and make space for each to be himself or herself, difference is seen as errors and willful disobedience.
This system of exclusion plays perfectly into our own tendencies towards exclusion on a personal level, leading us down a path that can quickly suffocate any difference that might seek to thrive in our general area. It is only through the gift of the Spirit that Volf sees our hope of being freed from these twin bonds. "The Spirit enters the citadel of the self, de-centers the self by fashioning it in the image of the self-giving Christ, and frees its will so it can resist the power of exclusion in the power of the Spirit of embrace." And so God, the true Creator, is at work to dismantle our own exclusionary creations.
If the last section was weak, this section was downright scary. The title doesn't quite do it justice; this section maps how a reasonable people, nation, or community can become purveyors of violence and exclusion through simple, seemingly reasonable steps and circumstances. It strikes very close to home in this day and age.
Volf begins with the firm statement that there is always a choice. There may never be any innocents, but there is always a choice as to how to respond in any given situation. The choices may be awful and the repercussions unimaginable, but there is always a choice. "Within the vast expanse of noninnocence whose frontiers recede with the horizon, there are choices to be made, important choices about justice and oppression, truth and deception, violence and non-violence, about the will to embrace or to exclude, ultimately choices about life and death." I think one of the ways evil masquerades in our midst is by whispering that we have no other choice, and so, feeling justified, we choose an easier, and more harmful, way.
Evil here is given shape and form, power and personality. "We choose evil; but evil also 'chooses' us and exerts its terrible power over us." This is not some red Satan-doll with a tail and pitchfork, but a dark spirit that thrives in our unexamined thoughts and actions and lives in our deepest selves. There is a "complex transpersonal and systemic reality of evil which dominates, ensnares, and lures persons to dominate others." In the language of this book, that domination becomes exclusion, and permeates all facets of our lives.
Then, when life begins to be difficult or tragedies occur, this background cacophony of evil gets begins to crescendo, and its different themes begin to be trumpeted by the leaders of the day. Volf's rendering of this movement is masterful, and I cannot being to recapture it as well as he wrote it. Suffice it to say, we don't have to look very far today to see this being played out in our society.
All of these things rest on the foundational thought that "we" are the ones who are right, "we" are the ones for whom glory is destined, "we" are the ones who are unable to fall short in any way. With this blind faith in ourselves and our virtues, we are easily led down paths where evil is "necessary" in order for the "greater good."
It begins with a "background cacophony of evil" that permeates everything; "this is the low-intensity evil of the way 'things work' or the way 'things simply are.'" It is the background cacophony that helps us adopt attitudes of resignation when we know that we are literally buying into harmful cycles. "Faith in oneself is generated by the tales of historical glory and plausible explanations of past failures; hope in the future is born, a future in which we will no longer suffer injustice and discrimination, a future underwritten by the unfailing promises of our god." With such an end in sight, the means are clearly interpreted to justify the ends.
This underlying melody and music serves to show us who is "in" and part of the grand symphony "our god" has orchestrated for us, and who is out. If someone else is different, then that difference is not allowed, because all must be sacrificed for the harmony we are seeking. Instead of being able to embrace difference and make space for each to be himself or herself, difference is seen as errors and willful disobedience.
This system of exclusion plays perfectly into our own tendencies towards exclusion on a personal level, leading us down a path that can quickly suffocate any difference that might seek to thrive in our general area. It is only through the gift of the Spirit that Volf sees our hope of being freed from these twin bonds. "The Spirit enters the citadel of the self, de-centers the self by fashioning it in the image of the self-giving Christ, and frees its will so it can resist the power of exclusion in the power of the Spirit of embrace." And so God, the true Creator, is at work to dismantle our own exclusionary creations.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Chapter Two, pages 79-85
Contrived Innocence
I'll admit right at the beginning that I found this section to be a little weak. Maybe it's because Volf is "preaching to the choir," or because I didn't hear anything new or newly explained. Still, the understanding of sin as a universal experience is central to the struggle with embracing the other, so it is an important section to work through.
The underlying point here is that there is no such thing as "innocence." We are all stained with sin, either wrong thoughts, wrong actions, or wrong lack of action. Volf spends quite a bit of time showing how both the "perpetrator" and the "victim" are caught in this cycle of sin, with neither completely blameless. Even if a victim does nothing to warrant being abused at that precise moment in time, that person may well be the abuser at another point, and can never claim to be without sin.
The greater problem, I believe, is what Volf touches on at the beginning of this section. It's not that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but the claim that it's "not my fault." The inability to honestly assess our actions and call them sinful or harmful is a growing epidemic in this world. On the other side of the coin is the inability to honestly admit to ourselves and to others those sins, and sincerely ask for forgiveness. The more we pass off our problems as "someone else's fault," the further we get from being able to enter into life-giving relationships.
As with any difficult subject, the immediate tendency is to say, "I know exactly what you're talking about! In fact, this person I know never takes responsibility for..." This will never bring about any kind of change, because we can never change another person or how that person chooses to act. Instead, we have to look to ourselves, to our own shortcomings, our own failures, our own contrived innocence, and admit that we have tried to pass ourselves off as blameless. If each one of us can begin by seeing this tendency within ourselves, then we will be one step closer to stopping the cycle of sin and blame in our own lives.
Why does this matter? Assigning blame is an easy way to erect barriers between ourselves and those who are different in some way. Claiming innocence means that we don't have any moral obligation to improve or establish a relationship that is strained by difference. Seeing sin in everyone else and not yourself offers a handy reason to be removed and remote, in order to remain pure. By accepting the words of Scripture, "if you say you are without sin you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you," barriers begin to fall, pointing fingers can become open hands, and sinful people can begin to work together for the benefit of the world.
I'll admit right at the beginning that I found this section to be a little weak. Maybe it's because Volf is "preaching to the choir," or because I didn't hear anything new or newly explained. Still, the understanding of sin as a universal experience is central to the struggle with embracing the other, so it is an important section to work through.
The underlying point here is that there is no such thing as "innocence." We are all stained with sin, either wrong thoughts, wrong actions, or wrong lack of action. Volf spends quite a bit of time showing how both the "perpetrator" and the "victim" are caught in this cycle of sin, with neither completely blameless. Even if a victim does nothing to warrant being abused at that precise moment in time, that person may well be the abuser at another point, and can never claim to be without sin.
The greater problem, I believe, is what Volf touches on at the beginning of this section. It's not that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but the claim that it's "not my fault." The inability to honestly assess our actions and call them sinful or harmful is a growing epidemic in this world. On the other side of the coin is the inability to honestly admit to ourselves and to others those sins, and sincerely ask for forgiveness. The more we pass off our problems as "someone else's fault," the further we get from being able to enter into life-giving relationships.
As with any difficult subject, the immediate tendency is to say, "I know exactly what you're talking about! In fact, this person I know never takes responsibility for..." This will never bring about any kind of change, because we can never change another person or how that person chooses to act. Instead, we have to look to ourselves, to our own shortcomings, our own failures, our own contrived innocence, and admit that we have tried to pass ourselves off as blameless. If each one of us can begin by seeing this tendency within ourselves, then we will be one step closer to stopping the cycle of sin and blame in our own lives.
Why does this matter? Assigning blame is an easy way to erect barriers between ourselves and those who are different in some way. Claiming innocence means that we don't have any moral obligation to improve or establish a relationship that is strained by difference. Seeing sin in everyone else and not yourself offers a handy reason to be removed and remote, in order to remain pure. By accepting the words of Scripture, "if you say you are without sin you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you," barriers begin to fall, pointing fingers can become open hands, and sinful people can begin to work together for the benefit of the world.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Chapter Two, pages 72-79
The Anatomy and Dynamics of Exclusion
In order to more fully recognize when exclusion is sin as opposed to when it is proper judgment of those things which should not be included, we must have a better understanding of exclusion itself. That is Volf's aim in this section; setting out the qualities of sinful exclusion so we can begin to discern those qualities in our own communities.
When Volf says, "An advantage of conceiving sin as the practice of exclusion is that it names as sin what often passes as virtue, especially in religious circles," we should take this as a warning. If we read the following pages with an open heart and mind, we will be convicted of how we commit the sin of exclusion, in our neighborhoods, in our school systems, in our faith gatherings, in almost every facet of life we can consider. Just as Jesus came to "afflict the comfortable," as a common saying goes, Volf is about to get down and dirty with us.
The life of Jesus is full of illustrations of the sin of exclusion being turned on its head. "By embracing the 'outcast,' Jesus underscored the 'sinfulness' of the persons and systems that cast them out." But Jesus was not interested in merely opening the doors to anyone who would walk through them. He was interested in redeeming those who came through those open doors. Volf calls this dual activity "re-naming and re-making."
By re-naming, Jesus broke down societal boundaries that separated clean from unclean. "The mission of re-naming what was falsely labeled 'unclean' aimed at abolishing the warped system of exclusion." There are some potential problems with this, because not everything can immediately be re-named as clean. For example, it should always be unclean for a person with power and authority to exercise that power to begin an intimate relationship with one who is powerless. Still, Volf looks to Jesus for examples, and examples of the woman with the issue of blood and a cup shared with a Samaritan back his point.
Re-naming alone is not enough; "Jesus made clean things out of truly unclean things." Jesus re-made the people he came across, each and every one of them broken in one way or another, as we all are. "The mission of re-making impure people into pure people aimed at tearing down the barriers created by wrongdoing in the name of God, the redeemer and restorer of life, whose love knows no boundaries."
Which brings us back to the need to more deeply understand the sin of exclusion. We need to be re-made, and the societal structures we created need to be re-named, because "the source of evil does not lie outside of a person, in impure things, but inside a person, in the impure heart." As we are re-made and re-centered in Christ, so the sin of exclusion becomes identified and eradicated in our lives.
The forms of exclusion that Volf identifies are all too recognizable in our time and age. It is too easy to come up with examples for each one, as he demonstrates in the following pages. Therefore, I will just list them here, with only brief descriptions.
1. Exclusion by assimilation-"You can survive, even thrive, among us, if you become like us; you can keep your life, if you give up your identity."
2. Exclusion by domination-You must understand that you are less than us; you must take the dirtiest jobs that pay the least and live in the most run-down areas of the city; you are not like us.
3. Exclusion as abandonment-We don't go into the inner city, or to the markets where the "poor" people shop; we have our places and they have theirs and they should never intersect.
These sins of exclusion are very good at sneaking into our lives, into our assumptions, into our language. We want to live in a good neighborhood for our children; we need a good school system for our children; we want to go to church where we are comfortable with other people who look like us. Of course, all of those "we's" assume that "we" are different from "they," whoever "they" are. "They" don't want to live in good neighborhoods, or maybe we're truly saying "they" don't deserve to. "They" don't need a good school system for "their" children, "they" should go to "their" own church, "they" should just leave us alone and then everything will be fine.
It is an unfortunate fact of our humanity that we have learned to be frightened and wary of anything, and anyone, who is different, and in that fear, we make assumptions and decisions, and we exclude. Volf very bluntly calls this "evil as ignorance," and catches us red-handed. "Symbolic exclusion is often a distortion of the other, not simply ignorance about the other; it is a willful misconstruction, not mere failure of knowledge. We demonize and bestialize not because we do not know better, but because we refuse to know what is manifest and choose to know what serves our interests." All we can say in response is "guilty as charged."
Why are we "guilty as charged?" Why are we caught so deeply in the sin of exclusion? Volf believes, "The 'practice of exclusion' and the 'language of exclusion' go hand in hand with a whole array of emotional responses to the other." We may have learned to hate what is different, or, with even worse results, learned to be indifferent towards the happenings of the world that do not directly effect ourselves. It is this indifference that allowed the horrors of the Holocaust to run unchecked for so many years; it just didn't effect us in North America.
We also exclude because we need a scapegoat, someone to blame for whatever ills have befallen us. It's "their" fault, not ours, and so we don't have to change anything. "We exclude also because we are uncomfortable with anything that blurs accepted boundaries, disturbs our identities, and disarranges our symbolic cultural maps... We exclude not simply because we like the way things are... or because we hate the way we are... but because we desire what others have."
To put it most simply, Volf says "we exclude because we want to be at the center and be there alone, single-handedly controlling 'the land.'" We want to be King of the Mountain, and that means there's no room for anyone else at the top. This is exclusion in a nutshell.
These descriptions of the sin of exclusion lead me to make one observation: this sin is a luxury of those who are white, middle-class or higher, and especially male. We, because I am part of this more privileged group, have the luxury of deciding where we will live, what education we will receive, what jobs we will take, and where we will spend our money. Those who are not as fortunate suffer from an enforcing of the sin of exclusion, which leads to this sin being recontextualized for their system. Thus the barriers first erected by the privileged are reinforced by those who have been outcast, piling sin upon sin.
In order to more fully recognize when exclusion is sin as opposed to when it is proper judgment of those things which should not be included, we must have a better understanding of exclusion itself. That is Volf's aim in this section; setting out the qualities of sinful exclusion so we can begin to discern those qualities in our own communities.
When Volf says, "An advantage of conceiving sin as the practice of exclusion is that it names as sin what often passes as virtue, especially in religious circles," we should take this as a warning. If we read the following pages with an open heart and mind, we will be convicted of how we commit the sin of exclusion, in our neighborhoods, in our school systems, in our faith gatherings, in almost every facet of life we can consider. Just as Jesus came to "afflict the comfortable," as a common saying goes, Volf is about to get down and dirty with us.
The life of Jesus is full of illustrations of the sin of exclusion being turned on its head. "By embracing the 'outcast,' Jesus underscored the 'sinfulness' of the persons and systems that cast them out." But Jesus was not interested in merely opening the doors to anyone who would walk through them. He was interested in redeeming those who came through those open doors. Volf calls this dual activity "re-naming and re-making."
By re-naming, Jesus broke down societal boundaries that separated clean from unclean. "The mission of re-naming what was falsely labeled 'unclean' aimed at abolishing the warped system of exclusion." There are some potential problems with this, because not everything can immediately be re-named as clean. For example, it should always be unclean for a person with power and authority to exercise that power to begin an intimate relationship with one who is powerless. Still, Volf looks to Jesus for examples, and examples of the woman with the issue of blood and a cup shared with a Samaritan back his point.
Re-naming alone is not enough; "Jesus made clean things out of truly unclean things." Jesus re-made the people he came across, each and every one of them broken in one way or another, as we all are. "The mission of re-making impure people into pure people aimed at tearing down the barriers created by wrongdoing in the name of God, the redeemer and restorer of life, whose love knows no boundaries."
Which brings us back to the need to more deeply understand the sin of exclusion. We need to be re-made, and the societal structures we created need to be re-named, because "the source of evil does not lie outside of a person, in impure things, but inside a person, in the impure heart." As we are re-made and re-centered in Christ, so the sin of exclusion becomes identified and eradicated in our lives.
The forms of exclusion that Volf identifies are all too recognizable in our time and age. It is too easy to come up with examples for each one, as he demonstrates in the following pages. Therefore, I will just list them here, with only brief descriptions.
1. Exclusion by assimilation-"You can survive, even thrive, among us, if you become like us; you can keep your life, if you give up your identity."
2. Exclusion by domination-You must understand that you are less than us; you must take the dirtiest jobs that pay the least and live in the most run-down areas of the city; you are not like us.
3. Exclusion as abandonment-We don't go into the inner city, or to the markets where the "poor" people shop; we have our places and they have theirs and they should never intersect.
These sins of exclusion are very good at sneaking into our lives, into our assumptions, into our language. We want to live in a good neighborhood for our children; we need a good school system for our children; we want to go to church where we are comfortable with other people who look like us. Of course, all of those "we's" assume that "we" are different from "they," whoever "they" are. "They" don't want to live in good neighborhoods, or maybe we're truly saying "they" don't deserve to. "They" don't need a good school system for "their" children, "they" should go to "their" own church, "they" should just leave us alone and then everything will be fine.
It is an unfortunate fact of our humanity that we have learned to be frightened and wary of anything, and anyone, who is different, and in that fear, we make assumptions and decisions, and we exclude. Volf very bluntly calls this "evil as ignorance," and catches us red-handed. "Symbolic exclusion is often a distortion of the other, not simply ignorance about the other; it is a willful misconstruction, not mere failure of knowledge. We demonize and bestialize not because we do not know better, but because we refuse to know what is manifest and choose to know what serves our interests." All we can say in response is "guilty as charged."
Why are we "guilty as charged?" Why are we caught so deeply in the sin of exclusion? Volf believes, "The 'practice of exclusion' and the 'language of exclusion' go hand in hand with a whole array of emotional responses to the other." We may have learned to hate what is different, or, with even worse results, learned to be indifferent towards the happenings of the world that do not directly effect ourselves. It is this indifference that allowed the horrors of the Holocaust to run unchecked for so many years; it just didn't effect us in North America.
We also exclude because we need a scapegoat, someone to blame for whatever ills have befallen us. It's "their" fault, not ours, and so we don't have to change anything. "We exclude also because we are uncomfortable with anything that blurs accepted boundaries, disturbs our identities, and disarranges our symbolic cultural maps... We exclude not simply because we like the way things are... or because we hate the way we are... but because we desire what others have."
To put it most simply, Volf says "we exclude because we want to be at the center and be there alone, single-handedly controlling 'the land.'" We want to be King of the Mountain, and that means there's no room for anyone else at the top. This is exclusion in a nutshell.
These descriptions of the sin of exclusion lead me to make one observation: this sin is a luxury of those who are white, middle-class or higher, and especially male. We, because I am part of this more privileged group, have the luxury of deciding where we will live, what education we will receive, what jobs we will take, and where we will spend our money. Those who are not as fortunate suffer from an enforcing of the sin of exclusion, which leads to this sin being recontextualized for their system. Thus the barriers first erected by the privileged are reinforced by those who have been outcast, piling sin upon sin.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Chapter Two, pages 64-72
Differentiation, Exclusion, Judgment
So we've agreed that exclusion is harmful and any kind of distinction drawn between people and cultures leads to exclusion. So everything goes, right? Wrong.
Volf immediately deals with this concern saying, "Vilify all boundaries, pronounce every discrete identity oppressive, put the tag 'exclusion' on every stable difference--and you will have aimless drifting instead of clear-sighted agency, haphazard activity instead of moral engagement and accountability and, in the long run, a torpor of death instead of a dance of freedom." His answer to this undesirable outcome are the practices of differentiation and judgment.
Differentiation is a term that helps us understand the lines that separate us naturally. Volf wants to take it one step further, though, so that differentiation focuses on both what separates us and what binds us together. He uses an illustration from Cornelius Plantinga in which God playfully creates us as separate beings, human, animal, and vegetable, while binding us together in systems of interdependence and relationship. Thus we are separate and bound, with both movements critical to our lives.
In answering criticism from some feminist theologians, Volf takes on the idea that separation equals exclusion and binding equals oppression. Volf argues that we cannot know who we are as individuals without knowing also the context in which we live. It is the relationships and realities that bind us, as well as the lines that separate us from others, that allow us to know our thoughts clearly, our feelings deeply, and interact fully with the world around us. In other words, without the other, there is no self.
Volf moves from defining differentiation to more fully defining exclusion. For him, exclusion is sin, and in the context of "binding-and-separating," sin is something that distorts the God-given interdependence of our existence. With this understanding, "exclusion can entail cutting of the bonds that connect, taking oneself out of the pattern of interdependence and placing oneself in a position of sovereign independence... Second, exclusion can entail erasure of separation, not recognizing the other as someone who in his or her otherness belongs to a pattern of interdependence."
Two illustrations of these movements of exclusion:
I believe that the "desert fathers" who removed themselves from humanity in order to live without any outside distractions committed the sin of exclusion by "cutting the bonds that connect." I do not believe that God intends us to be removed in such a way from God's good creation.
The second sin of exclusion can be seen when we travel to a culture that is strange to us. Instead of embracing the strangeness and seeking to learn and understand the differences, the sin of exclusion leads us to minimize those differences and instead to see all the similarities with our own culture, even when those similarities are almost non-existent.
The third movement of this section is judgment. If differentiation is God-given "separation-and-binding" and exclusion is the sin of breaking the ties that bind or binding together what should be separate, then judgment is the process of discerning what should be excluded because the inclusion would be entering into wrong binding and separating. This is the focus of the next section.
The Self and Its Center
Volf doesn't spend any time trying to defend the idea that the self has a center; it is something you will just have to accept. It's not hard for us to see his point, though, because without a center the self becomes a whirling dervish or a formless amoeba. So I think it's fair to move forward with this understanding.
This brings us to his question: what kind of center should we have? "Paul presumes a centered self, more precisely a wrongly centered self that needs to be de-centered by being nailed to the cross." The image we have for this as Christians is the death and resurrection of Christ, something we claim in our baptisms. In death, we are de-centered and in resurrection, we are re-centered in Christ. "The center of the self--a center that is both inside and outside--is the story of Jesus Christ, which has become the story of the self."
Since God is our creator, and God has created us in God's own image, we understand that our selves are meant to be reflections of that divine image. So when we are de-centered and re-centered, it is not a loss of self, but a re-alignment of our deepest self with God's deepest desires. "The new center opens the self up, makes it capable and willing to give itself for others and to receive others in itself."
It is from this "de-centered center" that we can begin to make judgments regarding exclusion and battle sinful exclusion where it occurs.
So we've agreed that exclusion is harmful and any kind of distinction drawn between people and cultures leads to exclusion. So everything goes, right? Wrong.
Volf immediately deals with this concern saying, "Vilify all boundaries, pronounce every discrete identity oppressive, put the tag 'exclusion' on every stable difference--and you will have aimless drifting instead of clear-sighted agency, haphazard activity instead of moral engagement and accountability and, in the long run, a torpor of death instead of a dance of freedom." His answer to this undesirable outcome are the practices of differentiation and judgment.
Differentiation is a term that helps us understand the lines that separate us naturally. Volf wants to take it one step further, though, so that differentiation focuses on both what separates us and what binds us together. He uses an illustration from Cornelius Plantinga in which God playfully creates us as separate beings, human, animal, and vegetable, while binding us together in systems of interdependence and relationship. Thus we are separate and bound, with both movements critical to our lives.
In answering criticism from some feminist theologians, Volf takes on the idea that separation equals exclusion and binding equals oppression. Volf argues that we cannot know who we are as individuals without knowing also the context in which we live. It is the relationships and realities that bind us, as well as the lines that separate us from others, that allow us to know our thoughts clearly, our feelings deeply, and interact fully with the world around us. In other words, without the other, there is no self.
Volf moves from defining differentiation to more fully defining exclusion. For him, exclusion is sin, and in the context of "binding-and-separating," sin is something that distorts the God-given interdependence of our existence. With this understanding, "exclusion can entail cutting of the bonds that connect, taking oneself out of the pattern of interdependence and placing oneself in a position of sovereign independence... Second, exclusion can entail erasure of separation, not recognizing the other as someone who in his or her otherness belongs to a pattern of interdependence."
Two illustrations of these movements of exclusion:
I believe that the "desert fathers" who removed themselves from humanity in order to live without any outside distractions committed the sin of exclusion by "cutting the bonds that connect." I do not believe that God intends us to be removed in such a way from God's good creation.
The second sin of exclusion can be seen when we travel to a culture that is strange to us. Instead of embracing the strangeness and seeking to learn and understand the differences, the sin of exclusion leads us to minimize those differences and instead to see all the similarities with our own culture, even when those similarities are almost non-existent.
The third movement of this section is judgment. If differentiation is God-given "separation-and-binding" and exclusion is the sin of breaking the ties that bind or binding together what should be separate, then judgment is the process of discerning what should be excluded because the inclusion would be entering into wrong binding and separating. This is the focus of the next section.
The Self and Its Center
Volf doesn't spend any time trying to defend the idea that the self has a center; it is something you will just have to accept. It's not hard for us to see his point, though, because without a center the self becomes a whirling dervish or a formless amoeba. So I think it's fair to move forward with this understanding.
This brings us to his question: what kind of center should we have? "Paul presumes a centered self, more precisely a wrongly centered self that needs to be de-centered by being nailed to the cross." The image we have for this as Christians is the death and resurrection of Christ, something we claim in our baptisms. In death, we are de-centered and in resurrection, we are re-centered in Christ. "The center of the self--a center that is both inside and outside--is the story of Jesus Christ, which has become the story of the self."
Since God is our creator, and God has created us in God's own image, we understand that our selves are meant to be reflections of that divine image. So when we are de-centered and re-centered, it is not a loss of self, but a re-alignment of our deepest self with God's deepest desires. "The new center opens the self up, makes it capable and willing to give itself for others and to receive others in itself."
It is from this "de-centered center" that we can begin to make judgments regarding exclusion and battle sinful exclusion where it occurs.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Chapter Two, pages 57-64
Exclusion
Volf now begins to explain the second half of his thesis, exclusion. As he rightly points out, "the chapter, however, is not so much about 'them out there' as about 'us right here' wherever we may be, not so much about the other as about the self."
Of course, this is easier said than done, and Volf acknowledges that there is significant inner tension in the "typically modern narrative of inclusion, a narrative which serves as a backdrop for much of the contemporary critique of exclusion."
The Dubious Triumph of Inclusion
What has been your reaction to the countries and peoples who have been caught up in the horrors of ethnic cleansing? One reaction, which we may not even be aware of consciously, is the thought that such a thing couldn't happen here, because we're civilized. It could only happen over "there" with "those people."
This is an act of exclusion, of separating our human nature from the human nature of others around the world. Instead of recognizing the fear and hate we hold towards those who are different from ourselves, we pride ourselves and our society on its inclusive nature. No matter that our inclusiveness is still functionally small exclusive communities living in the same areas (Chinatown, the ghetto, etc.). At least all have a place to call their own and we're not going around wiping other ethnicities and cultures out.
We tell ourselves this myth of inclusion in order to keep ourselves safe from confronting the realities of a world-wide economy and society. The truth is our inclusion is a brutal from of exclusion, because those who are outside our "sacred grounds" or who we feel don't belong within our boundaries, are lesser than us, and not worth our attention or care.
Only by facing this dichotomy honestly can we begin to break down the walls that keep our inclusion safe, and maintain a constant practice of exclusion. By understanding that we have adopted an "us vs. them" ideology, we can begin to trade that ideology for one that embraces the other as part of us.
The witness of the cross bears this reality out. The exclusion, through crucifixion, of Christ was done by those who were inside, who had the power, who had the voice of the people. Their sense of what it meant to be included led to the most dramatic moments of exclusion in our faith history.
Volf ends this first section of his examination of exclusion by setting out the tension he is going to address. "A consistent pursuit of inclusion places one before the impossible choice between a chaos without boundaries and oppression with them." The question of how to include without allowing those things which should truly be excluded, like robbery being a virtue, is the object of the next section.
Volf now begins to explain the second half of his thesis, exclusion. As he rightly points out, "the chapter, however, is not so much about 'them out there' as about 'us right here' wherever we may be, not so much about the other as about the self."
Of course, this is easier said than done, and Volf acknowledges that there is significant inner tension in the "typically modern narrative of inclusion, a narrative which serves as a backdrop for much of the contemporary critique of exclusion."
The Dubious Triumph of Inclusion
What has been your reaction to the countries and peoples who have been caught up in the horrors of ethnic cleansing? One reaction, which we may not even be aware of consciously, is the thought that such a thing couldn't happen here, because we're civilized. It could only happen over "there" with "those people."
This is an act of exclusion, of separating our human nature from the human nature of others around the world. Instead of recognizing the fear and hate we hold towards those who are different from ourselves, we pride ourselves and our society on its inclusive nature. No matter that our inclusiveness is still functionally small exclusive communities living in the same areas (Chinatown, the ghetto, etc.). At least all have a place to call their own and we're not going around wiping other ethnicities and cultures out.
We tell ourselves this myth of inclusion in order to keep ourselves safe from confronting the realities of a world-wide economy and society. The truth is our inclusion is a brutal from of exclusion, because those who are outside our "sacred grounds" or who we feel don't belong within our boundaries, are lesser than us, and not worth our attention or care.
Only by facing this dichotomy honestly can we begin to break down the walls that keep our inclusion safe, and maintain a constant practice of exclusion. By understanding that we have adopted an "us vs. them" ideology, we can begin to trade that ideology for one that embraces the other as part of us.
The witness of the cross bears this reality out. The exclusion, through crucifixion, of Christ was done by those who were inside, who had the power, who had the voice of the people. Their sense of what it meant to be included led to the most dramatic moments of exclusion in our faith history.
Volf ends this first section of his examination of exclusion by setting out the tension he is going to address. "A consistent pursuit of inclusion places one before the impossible choice between a chaos without boundaries and oppression with them." The question of how to include without allowing those things which should truly be excluded, like robbery being a virtue, is the object of the next section.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Chapter One, pages 50-55
Culture, Catholicity, and Ecumenicity
Volf continues building on his thoughts in the last section, asking what can be gained from departing one's culture without leaving. To begin answering this question, he returns to the stories of Abraham and Christ. These stories show us that there is "a reality that is more important than the culture to which we belong. It is God and the new world that God is creating, a world in which people from every nation and every tribe, with their cultural goods, will gather around the triune God..." Only by creating distance from our own culture and making God's culture our center can we begin to enter into this new and exciting world.
By setting our sights on God's world, we begin to create space within ourselves to receive those who are other. "A catholic personality is a personality enriched by otherness, a personality which is what it is only because multiple others have been reflected in it in a particular way." This universal personality has room for other traditions, other viewpoints, other experiences, other people.
Volf then declares, "A catholic personality requires a catholic community." If, as an individual, there is space for those who are different from myself, I will also want to be part of a community with space for those who are different. In other words, a universal personality is going to hunger for a community that reflects that universality. As Christians, we are part of the universal church both locally, in those who make up our particular congregation, and globally, with the churches that make up the complete body of Christ. Of course, for too many of us, our local congregations do not reflect the global reality of our faith, which is a challenge that the church has faced for decades, and will continue to face for years to come.
Within this catholic community, there is still the need to be able to judge what is good and right, and what is evil and wrong. This helps ensure that the things that are life-giving from other cultures and peoples are honored, while the things that are harmful are left behind. In order to enter into this discrimination honestly, though, we must begin by examining our own culture and our own personality for the things which are harmful. Before we can presume to judge another culture or person, we must follow Jesus' direction to first "remove the log from our own eye." Then, repentant and transformed, we can seek to call for repentance from others, which Volf calls an "evangelical personality."
So a catholic personality leads to a catholic community, a catholic community leads to the discernment of the need for repentance, which leads to an evangelical personality, which in turn must lead back to the community, which Volf names "ecumenical."
The truth is that we cannot carry on this work, or rise to meet this challenge, on our own. We have to operate within a community of people who are also striving to live inclusive lives, who can help us when we begin to falter, and who will celebrate with us when we are faithful. The need for an "ecumenical community" is clear, and points to the new world that God is bringing to completion in our midst. Together, we are able to discern more completely what is God's good and perfect will, we are able to strive for true justice for all people, and we are able to extend God's mercy and love further than we can on our own.
At the end of this section, Volf identifies two possible objections against creating distance from your own culture, which he intends to address in the second chapter. That will be our focus in the next set of readings.
Volf continues building on his thoughts in the last section, asking what can be gained from departing one's culture without leaving. To begin answering this question, he returns to the stories of Abraham and Christ. These stories show us that there is "a reality that is more important than the culture to which we belong. It is God and the new world that God is creating, a world in which people from every nation and every tribe, with their cultural goods, will gather around the triune God..." Only by creating distance from our own culture and making God's culture our center can we begin to enter into this new and exciting world.
By setting our sights on God's world, we begin to create space within ourselves to receive those who are other. "A catholic personality is a personality enriched by otherness, a personality which is what it is only because multiple others have been reflected in it in a particular way." This universal personality has room for other traditions, other viewpoints, other experiences, other people.
Volf then declares, "A catholic personality requires a catholic community." If, as an individual, there is space for those who are different from myself, I will also want to be part of a community with space for those who are different. In other words, a universal personality is going to hunger for a community that reflects that universality. As Christians, we are part of the universal church both locally, in those who make up our particular congregation, and globally, with the churches that make up the complete body of Christ. Of course, for too many of us, our local congregations do not reflect the global reality of our faith, which is a challenge that the church has faced for decades, and will continue to face for years to come.
Within this catholic community, there is still the need to be able to judge what is good and right, and what is evil and wrong. This helps ensure that the things that are life-giving from other cultures and peoples are honored, while the things that are harmful are left behind. In order to enter into this discrimination honestly, though, we must begin by examining our own culture and our own personality for the things which are harmful. Before we can presume to judge another culture or person, we must follow Jesus' direction to first "remove the log from our own eye." Then, repentant and transformed, we can seek to call for repentance from others, which Volf calls an "evangelical personality."
So a catholic personality leads to a catholic community, a catholic community leads to the discernment of the need for repentance, which leads to an evangelical personality, which in turn must lead back to the community, which Volf names "ecumenical."
The truth is that we cannot carry on this work, or rise to meet this challenge, on our own. We have to operate within a community of people who are also striving to live inclusive lives, who can help us when we begin to falter, and who will celebrate with us when we are faithful. The need for an "ecumenical community" is clear, and points to the new world that God is bringing to completion in our midst. Together, we are able to discern more completely what is God's good and perfect will, we are able to strive for true justice for all people, and we are able to extend God's mercy and love further than we can on our own.
At the end of this section, Volf identifies two possible objections against creating distance from your own culture, which he intends to address in the second chapter. That will be our focus in the next set of readings.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Chapter One, pages 43-50
...Without Leaving
This section continues Volf's train of thought, which began with "Departing..." Here he contrasts the Apostle Paul to Abraham. Abraham was called to leave his home, leave his land, leave his livelihood, leave his people, leave everything, all in order to follow God. Paul, on the other hand, was called to open up the promise of salvation to all people, by interpreting Jesus' life, death, and resurrection from within his culture, but applying it to all those outside of his culture.
This can be seen as a move from the particular--a particular people called Israel, a particular blood-line, a particular language, a particular set of rituals and laws--to the universal--salvation is for all, grace is for all, mercy is for all, Christ is for all. No longer will God's saving work be understood as applicable only to one selected people and their children, but instead is open and available to all across the whole earth.
In order to accomplish this shift in understanding who God is and who God's people are, Volf says that Paul does three things. First, "in the name of the one God Paul relativizes the Torah." This means that a man must no longer be circumcised in order to follow Christ. The kosher laws are no longer mandated for those who join the Christian community. In other words, the Torah is for Jews, but you don't have to be a Jew to be a Christian, and you don't have to follow the Torah to follow Jesus.
Second, "for the sake of equality Paul discards genealogy." John the Baptist himself did this in the Gospel accounts of his preaching in the wilderness, telling the Pharisees that God could raise up sons of Abraham from the rocks, and that the blood that flowed in their veins was no protection from God's just judgment. No longer do you have to be born of a Jewish woman in order to belong to the Jewish faith or follow the Jewish God. Because God is one, God is one for all people.
And third, "for the sake of all the families of the earth Paul embraces Christ." In Christ, all are made equal and one, all divisions are put aside, and all are effectively brought into the family of Abraham, while the name of Abraham belongs to all people.
How can Paul say that all people are made one in Christ? How can he claim this universality from the life and death of a particular person, a Jewish man born at the turn of the centuries who is arrested and wrongly condemned? Either all become the same under Christ, a boring homogenous mixture of people losing their unique identities, or the work of Christ really does not touch all peoples, everywhere and in every time.
Volf answers this by taking us to the sometimes uncomfortable heart of our faith, the cross. "The 'One' in whom Paul seeks to locate the unity of all humankind is not disincarnate transcendence, but the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ." God, in Christ on the cross, comes into our realm of being as a fully fleshed human being and experiences the most unifying experience that humanity can know: suffering. By experiencing a particular suffering on behalf of all people, Christ is able to bring all the glorious differences of humanity into one meeting point, making us one with God and with each other.
Volf goes on to describe how the act of suffering, the language of "the body of Christ," and our understanding of baptism all lead to a new membership in this community of God where somehow we are bound together without losing our selves or our stories. If taken seriously, this challenges the foundation of how we describe ourselves as Christians, especially in America.
When we apply the notion of "departing without leaving" to our lives in the United States and our membership within the body of Christ, we begin to see the radical nature of Volf's work. In our baptism, we put all other memberships and allegiances behind us. We leave our country and our culture, no longer allowing those facets of our lives to be the foundation for our identity. But we leave without departing. We are still citizens of our country and still living within a particular culture, even as we are now first and foremost Christians and part of the body of Christ.
Volf continues to explore this theme in the following section, but a way of thinking about it is through the lens of a well-known saying of Jesus. The saying admonishes us to remove the log from our own eye before worrying about the speck in a neighbor's eye. Of course, if we have a log in our eye, we really can't see it. We may not even be aware that it's there. Departing our country and culture without leaving is like finding a mirror or a helper to be able to see the log in our own eye, stepping back and beginning to differentiate between what is truly Christ-like and what popular culture has decided is Christ-like. This is a difficult task, to say the least, and one that we must always be beginning again.
This section continues Volf's train of thought, which began with "Departing..." Here he contrasts the Apostle Paul to Abraham. Abraham was called to leave his home, leave his land, leave his livelihood, leave his people, leave everything, all in order to follow God. Paul, on the other hand, was called to open up the promise of salvation to all people, by interpreting Jesus' life, death, and resurrection from within his culture, but applying it to all those outside of his culture.
This can be seen as a move from the particular--a particular people called Israel, a particular blood-line, a particular language, a particular set of rituals and laws--to the universal--salvation is for all, grace is for all, mercy is for all, Christ is for all. No longer will God's saving work be understood as applicable only to one selected people and their children, but instead is open and available to all across the whole earth.
In order to accomplish this shift in understanding who God is and who God's people are, Volf says that Paul does three things. First, "in the name of the one God Paul relativizes the Torah." This means that a man must no longer be circumcised in order to follow Christ. The kosher laws are no longer mandated for those who join the Christian community. In other words, the Torah is for Jews, but you don't have to be a Jew to be a Christian, and you don't have to follow the Torah to follow Jesus.
Second, "for the sake of equality Paul discards genealogy." John the Baptist himself did this in the Gospel accounts of his preaching in the wilderness, telling the Pharisees that God could raise up sons of Abraham from the rocks, and that the blood that flowed in their veins was no protection from God's just judgment. No longer do you have to be born of a Jewish woman in order to belong to the Jewish faith or follow the Jewish God. Because God is one, God is one for all people.
And third, "for the sake of all the families of the earth Paul embraces Christ." In Christ, all are made equal and one, all divisions are put aside, and all are effectively brought into the family of Abraham, while the name of Abraham belongs to all people.
How can Paul say that all people are made one in Christ? How can he claim this universality from the life and death of a particular person, a Jewish man born at the turn of the centuries who is arrested and wrongly condemned? Either all become the same under Christ, a boring homogenous mixture of people losing their unique identities, or the work of Christ really does not touch all peoples, everywhere and in every time.
Volf answers this by taking us to the sometimes uncomfortable heart of our faith, the cross. "The 'One' in whom Paul seeks to locate the unity of all humankind is not disincarnate transcendence, but the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ." God, in Christ on the cross, comes into our realm of being as a fully fleshed human being and experiences the most unifying experience that humanity can know: suffering. By experiencing a particular suffering on behalf of all people, Christ is able to bring all the glorious differences of humanity into one meeting point, making us one with God and with each other.
Volf goes on to describe how the act of suffering, the language of "the body of Christ," and our understanding of baptism all lead to a new membership in this community of God where somehow we are bound together without losing our selves or our stories. If taken seriously, this challenges the foundation of how we describe ourselves as Christians, especially in America.
When we apply the notion of "departing without leaving" to our lives in the United States and our membership within the body of Christ, we begin to see the radical nature of Volf's work. In our baptism, we put all other memberships and allegiances behind us. We leave our country and our culture, no longer allowing those facets of our lives to be the foundation for our identity. But we leave without departing. We are still citizens of our country and still living within a particular culture, even as we are now first and foremost Christians and part of the body of Christ.
Volf continues to explore this theme in the following section, but a way of thinking about it is through the lens of a well-known saying of Jesus. The saying admonishes us to remove the log from our own eye before worrying about the speck in a neighbor's eye. Of course, if we have a log in our eye, we really can't see it. We may not even be aware that it's there. Departing our country and culture without leaving is like finding a mirror or a helper to be able to see the log in our own eye, stepping back and beginning to differentiate between what is truly Christ-like and what popular culture has decided is Christ-like. This is a difficult task, to say the least, and one that we must always be beginning again.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
A Multitude of Names
You may have noticed by now that Volf uses a lot of other names as he writes, quoting from theologians and prominent thinkers in order to set a good foundation for his work. I had a conversation with someone who is reading along with the blog who found this a bit difficult and confusing, so I thought I'd share my response for everyone.
First of all, Volf is establishing that he knows his genre, he knows the works that have been published, and he knows what major theologians have said on his chosen subject. He is writing a scholarly work, and this kind of referencing is essential in order for his work to be highly regarded in the scholarly community.
Second, and most important for our process, don't worry about it. We don't need to know the major theologians, either who they are or what they've said. If they have something important to offer, Volf has brought it into these pages for us. So concentrate on what's between the quotes, not necessarily on who said what. I would recommend skimming the names, or skipping them altogether, unless you are someone who also knows who these major theologians and thinkers are.
I think that some of the quoting will diminish as we move to the meat of Volf's work. That is where he will show his own creativity and his own thinking. In the meantime, read for the content, not for the names.
First of all, Volf is establishing that he knows his genre, he knows the works that have been published, and he knows what major theologians have said on his chosen subject. He is writing a scholarly work, and this kind of referencing is essential in order for his work to be highly regarded in the scholarly community.
Second, and most important for our process, don't worry about it. We don't need to know the major theologians, either who they are or what they've said. If they have something important to offer, Volf has brought it into these pages for us. So concentrate on what's between the quotes, not necessarily on who said what. I would recommend skimming the names, or skipping them altogether, unless you are someone who also knows who these major theologians and thinkers are.
I think that some of the quoting will diminish as we move to the meat of Volf's work. That is where he will show his own creativity and his own thinking. In the meantime, read for the content, not for the names.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Part One: Chapter One, pages 35-43
Chapter 1: Distance and Belonging
Complicity
To begin his foray into the reality of exclusion, Volf looks at the complicity of the Christian church. It is a harsh truth, but a truth none-the-less, that the church has been involved in some of the worst atrocities committed during the past two thousand years. The involvement was at time direct, and at times by allowing violence to occur, but in all cases the church's involvement was incredibly damaging. As Volf says, "We have had our share of complicity in the imperial process."
One of the challenges that we, as the church, face, is that we are people of the cultures we live in. We are formed by where we live and how we live, and it is very difficult to step out of that mindset and see it as something other than absolute. For instance, missionaries from Europe and the United States often taught western culture along with the Christian story, even though Jesus was a Jew raised in a Middle Eastern culture. The missionaries were unwilling, or unable, to separate the norms of their western European culture from the message of salvation for all.
The struggle for the church to be aware of the prevailing culture but not enslaved by it is not new, but it is a struggle we often ignore and turn our backs on. It is easier to be uncritical of the culture we live in, and instead enmesh the positives of our faith and our lifestyle to suit our needs. This enmeshing leads to new lines being drawn between groups, and being reinforced with the strength of our beliefs behind them. Volf says, "The answer lies... in cultivating the proper relation between distance from the culture and belonging to it."
Departing...
Our model and mentor for the work of departing our surrounding culture is Abraham. Just remind yourself of the beginning of Abraham's story: he left family, friends, home, land, people, and everything he knew to travel to a new place, to make a new home, to start a new people, to begin without any preconditions coloring his relationship with God. "If he is to be a blessing he cannot stay; he must depart, cutting the ties that so profoundly defined him."
As our role model, Abraham teaches us that "to be a child of Abraham and Sarah and to respond to the call of their God means to make an exodus, to start a voyage, become a stranger." This is an important challenge for us today, who as American Christians tend to identify first with our country and second with our faith. This is not what God calls us to, and has never been what God calls us to. "At the very core of Christian identity lies an all-encompassing change of loyalty, from a given culture with its gods to the God of all cultures... Departure is part and parcel of Christian identity."
Complicity
To begin his foray into the reality of exclusion, Volf looks at the complicity of the Christian church. It is a harsh truth, but a truth none-the-less, that the church has been involved in some of the worst atrocities committed during the past two thousand years. The involvement was at time direct, and at times by allowing violence to occur, but in all cases the church's involvement was incredibly damaging. As Volf says, "We have had our share of complicity in the imperial process."
One of the challenges that we, as the church, face, is that we are people of the cultures we live in. We are formed by where we live and how we live, and it is very difficult to step out of that mindset and see it as something other than absolute. For instance, missionaries from Europe and the United States often taught western culture along with the Christian story, even though Jesus was a Jew raised in a Middle Eastern culture. The missionaries were unwilling, or unable, to separate the norms of their western European culture from the message of salvation for all.
The struggle for the church to be aware of the prevailing culture but not enslaved by it is not new, but it is a struggle we often ignore and turn our backs on. It is easier to be uncritical of the culture we live in, and instead enmesh the positives of our faith and our lifestyle to suit our needs. This enmeshing leads to new lines being drawn between groups, and being reinforced with the strength of our beliefs behind them. Volf says, "The answer lies... in cultivating the proper relation between distance from the culture and belonging to it."
Departing...
Our model and mentor for the work of departing our surrounding culture is Abraham. Just remind yourself of the beginning of Abraham's story: he left family, friends, home, land, people, and everything he knew to travel to a new place, to make a new home, to start a new people, to begin without any preconditions coloring his relationship with God. "If he is to be a blessing he cannot stay; he must depart, cutting the ties that so profoundly defined him."
As our role model, Abraham teaches us that "to be a child of Abraham and Sarah and to respond to the call of their God means to make an exodus, to start a voyage, become a stranger." This is an important challenge for us today, who as American Christians tend to identify first with our country and second with our faith. This is not what God calls us to, and has never been what God calls us to. "At the very core of Christian identity lies an all-encompassing change of loyalty, from a given culture with its gods to the God of all cultures... Departure is part and parcel of Christian identity."
Revised Schedule
As you may have noticed by now, I'm a bit behind schedule! For some reason, I forgot about Christmas while I was putting together our reading schedule, and there was a death in my extended family in December as well. So instead of trying to hurry up and catch up, I thought it would be best to simply revise.
That said, here is our current schedule:
Week of 1/13 pages 35-43
Week of 1/20 pages 43-50
Week of 1/27 pages 50-55
Week of 2/3 pages 57-64
Week of 2/10 pages 64-72
Week of 2/17 pages 72-79
Week of 2/24 pages 79-86
Week of 3/2 pages 86-92
Week of 3/9 pages 92-98
Also, if you have any questions or comments about the readings, please feel free to add them to the blog. This is meant to be an open space to discuss and learn, so feel free to join in!
That said, here is our current schedule:
Week of 1/13 pages 35-43
Week of 1/20 pages 43-50
Week of 1/27 pages 50-55
Week of 2/3 pages 57-64
Week of 2/10 pages 64-72
Week of 2/17 pages 72-79
Week of 2/24 pages 79-86
Week of 3/2 pages 86-92
Week of 3/9 pages 92-98
Also, if you have any questions or comments about the readings, please feel free to add them to the blog. This is meant to be an open space to discuss and learn, so feel free to join in!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Introduction, pages 22-31
The Cross at the Center
In this section, Volf states clearly that the cross, and the theology of self-donation, will be at the center of his work. It is in the work of the cross and the Crucified One that we can begin to understand how to approach the other, and how to begin true reconciliation.
Volf notes that the theology of the cross has often focused on God's identifying with the victim; with those who are weak, hurt, marginalized, and suffering. While this is, of course, true, Volf wants to redirect our attention to the other audience implied. If there are victims, there are victimizers; if there are those who are powerless and marginalized, then there are those who are powerful and are at the center of all the action. As Christians, we must affirm that God came in the person of Jesus Christ for all people, victim and victimizer alike. "As God does not abandon the godless to their evil but give the divine self for them in order to receive them into divine communion through atonement, so also should we--whoever our enemies and whoever we may be."
This reminder that the promise of atonement is for all people is a needed corrective. We are to practice Christ-like self-donation in order to bring about reconciliation and change.
The Scandal and the Promise
Of course, the theology of the cross and of divine self-donation is scandolous. As Volf points out in this section, this theology has been abused to subjugate women and minorities, calling on them to give of themselves without an equal requirement to give in return. This, though, is intrinsic in the scandal of self-donation. Christ came to give all, and the response of the disciples as well as the religious leaders showed clearly that there was no enforcing the requirement that they give all in return. Because Christ has given all, hoping for all in return but not having that hope granted, we have a true image of what our own self-donation can mean.
It is when we abandon our hopes that "reason" and "control" and "progress" will bring about healing in the world and lead us all into civilized relationships, that we can realize the truer hope that is offered in the cross and our Divine example. Then, "a new hope in self-giving love can be born," and true reconciliation may be found.
Themes and Steps
Here, Volf sets out the structure for the body of the book; what he is going to say and how he is going to say it. He begins with an exploration of welcoming, which he calls "embrace," and how we are to enter into this spirit as Christians in the 21st century. At the same time, he recognizes that blind acceptance of the other can never lead to true reconciliation, so an aspect of embrace must include truth-telling and justice-seeking. This he explores further in his work on exclusion, and what it means to embrace fully without embracing completely.
Now we are ready to begin reading Part One, which I will review shortly.
In this section, Volf states clearly that the cross, and the theology of self-donation, will be at the center of his work. It is in the work of the cross and the Crucified One that we can begin to understand how to approach the other, and how to begin true reconciliation.
Volf notes that the theology of the cross has often focused on God's identifying with the victim; with those who are weak, hurt, marginalized, and suffering. While this is, of course, true, Volf wants to redirect our attention to the other audience implied. If there are victims, there are victimizers; if there are those who are powerless and marginalized, then there are those who are powerful and are at the center of all the action. As Christians, we must affirm that God came in the person of Jesus Christ for all people, victim and victimizer alike. "As God does not abandon the godless to their evil but give the divine self for them in order to receive them into divine communion through atonement, so also should we--whoever our enemies and whoever we may be."
This reminder that the promise of atonement is for all people is a needed corrective. We are to practice Christ-like self-donation in order to bring about reconciliation and change.
The Scandal and the Promise
Of course, the theology of the cross and of divine self-donation is scandolous. As Volf points out in this section, this theology has been abused to subjugate women and minorities, calling on them to give of themselves without an equal requirement to give in return. This, though, is intrinsic in the scandal of self-donation. Christ came to give all, and the response of the disciples as well as the religious leaders showed clearly that there was no enforcing the requirement that they give all in return. Because Christ has given all, hoping for all in return but not having that hope granted, we have a true image of what our own self-donation can mean.
It is when we abandon our hopes that "reason" and "control" and "progress" will bring about healing in the world and lead us all into civilized relationships, that we can realize the truer hope that is offered in the cross and our Divine example. Then, "a new hope in self-giving love can be born," and true reconciliation may be found.
Themes and Steps
Here, Volf sets out the structure for the body of the book; what he is going to say and how he is going to say it. He begins with an exploration of welcoming, which he calls "embrace," and how we are to enter into this spirit as Christians in the 21st century. At the same time, he recognizes that blind acceptance of the other can never lead to true reconciliation, so an aspect of embrace must include truth-telling and justice-seeking. This he explores further in his work on exclusion, and what it means to embrace fully without embracing completely.
Now we are ready to begin reading Part One, which I will review shortly.
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