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.