Jonathan Brink just wrote an excellent blog entitled “The circle of inclusion” in which he discusses the inclusive nature of emergent Christianity in light of a conversation he recently had with a friend. These are his closing words, which I found particularly helpful and inspiring:
“My friend was looking for our differences. And in doing so was participating in a means that would eventually exclude. At some point our differences would emerge and a barrier to relationship would be created. When we begin with defining people by what they believe, as opposed to who they are, we create natural barriers that instinctively create exclusion even when we don’t want to. And those barriers end up excluding US at some point. What we end up with is 27,000 different version of church. Our desire for unity becomes impossible because we are beginning with a method that is broken to begin with.
“When we begin with love we create, what I think Jesus was really trying to get to, which is a circle of inclusion. Love begins with our similarities, not our differences. It draws people in as opposed to pushing people out. It looks past our brokenness to discover the best of who we are. It destroys barriers as opposed to creating them.
“But when we begin with love, we step into a very different way of operating. We begin with the idea that we are each created in His image. Differences don’t define us. They express the subtle facets of a different part of God’s image working its way out. We can’t control it. We can only participate in it. And when we do, we engage what Jesus said was the only true way to live. We create an unshakable foundation that fulfills what it means to be human: to love.”
I can’t begin with love, but I can begin with forgiveness. I can’t begin with love, because I can’t bring myself to call good evil and evil good; that’s a step beyond where I can live with myself.
But I can begin with forgiveness, because I know that I am as deeply flawed as the rest of humanity, and in so doing, I have something in common with every other sinner in this miserable vale of tears that encompasses the Church Militant and the Church Suffering.
2nd response- I don’t see emergence as being very inclusionary at all, you’ve just chosen to include a different set of people. In fact, I’ve seen stuff from both you and Tony that I would consider highly prejudicial, if not downright bigoted, against 2000 years of faith experience.
That doesn’t bother me at all though. We’re all bigoted in our own way, we all have biases. What is important is to recognize those biases in ourselves and others so that we can get by them.
Love begins with similarities does NOTHING for getting by the differences, it’s merely ignoring the differences.
Forgiving the differences teaches something new.
Protestantism, by definition, is bigoted against 1500 years of faith experience. What’s the big deal if emergence decides the 500 years built on top of that bigotry wasn’t such a good idea after all? I don’t call that more bigotry, I call that finally getting around to realizing you threw the baby out with the bathwater and being willing to fix it.
Love is learning that differences don’t require forgiveness. Because we are not called to be identical. We are called to love.
If they’re willing to fix it, the fix is as close as an RCIA class at their closest Roman Catholic Parish.
And the “differences” that matter, do require forgiveness. Sin harms man as well as God; that’s what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is all about.
Yay, Jonathan! And yay, Theresa! I am so happy when I see this love stuff winning. Which, of course, it must do.
Ted, forgiving differences implies something is wrong with our differences. Should I forgive my friend for being black? I don’t think so. Nor do I think we should ignore our differences. Rather we should celebrate them, for they represent different facets of the image of God we are all created in. Also, love is not in any way the same as calling good evil and vice versa. That is not love. I think we have a difference in the usage of some of our terms.
Angela, yes, love is the winner!
Theresa that’s exactly what I meant. Not all differences are good. I would forgive a deadbeat dad, then try to show him what a real father does. I’ve seen many things where the emergence does in fact call good evil, and evil good, and fails to call people to actually live better lives.
Jonathan- it’s not about everybody being the same, it never was. The Catholic Church is a meta culture, not a cult. It’s about asking people to be better than they have been- and then giving them the chance to do it. The way to fix the 500 years of bigotry is simple- rejoin the Church.
I’m actually replying to your reply, Ted, but it won’t let me thread that deep up there, so I’m putting it down there.
And yes, I agree, returning to the RCC is a big part of the solution, one that most Protestants refuse to even consider. It is what I did 12 years ago and every time I re-evaluate the decision I feel better about it.
I guess I’m just not comfortable calling our differences “sin”, which is why I hesitate to talk about forgiveness and would rather focus on unity through Love.
That’s ok, I messed up on my first reply and called you Jonathan anyway. Nice to know I have a countryman in this movement. I do have to wonder, sometimes, if the American experiment of ending monarchial government isn’t intertwined in all this.
The Reformation had people running away from tyrannical, corrupt Bishops and Priests. The American Revolution was running away from tyrannical, corrupt Kings and Queens. But both eventually failed, and just ended up creating new tyrannies.
I think I’d say limited success rather than failure. The RCC learned a lot from Luther’s objections – eventually.
I’d say the failure for the USofA has more to do with our fanatical devotion to the liberal, autonomous individual over and above the community. I think this leads to tyranny, ironically, both in the church and in the state, and in society in general. We each think we’re more important than anyone else, and so do they. Whomever gets a little bit of power ends up using it to impose their individual ideas on everyone else. We’ve forgotten to rally behind the collective (the congress, the parish, the municipal community) to keep individuals from being tyrants. We find comfort, ironically, in The Strong Man.
Part of re-joining the RCC, for me, was being willing to accept that I didn’t like 100% of the Church’s positions on topics and that had to be OK. I had to learn to live in that tension and accept that the collective was more important than I am.
To be clear, I’m not advocating socialism over capitalism, just a touch of Confucianism over our Rational Enlightenment.
I’d agree with that- you should check out the works of Blessed Father McGivney, Blessed Dorthy Day, and GK Chesterton for another way of looking at things. Distributionism is the name of the economic system, and can be (some would say is best) practiced on a bottom up scale from the standpoint of small, self-sufficient communities.
Blessed Father McGivney’s version is a group that I encourage all Practical Catholic Gentlemen (his words) to join: http://www.kofc.org , the Knights of Columbus, which started out (and still has some elements of) as a mutual aid society, and has turned into an insurance company and a service organization.
Blessed Dorthy Day’s version was the Catholic Workers of America union, which runs Birthright Houses for unwed mothers and Dorthy Day houses for the homeless nationwide.
GK Chesterton’s version was largely imaginary, in his works of fiction, but basically brought the right to own the means of production back to the individual worker, rather than the corporation.
All are within Pope Leo’s Reum Novarum- his answer to Marxism.
I still struggle with some aspects of church teaching- as a distributionist, for instance, I’m not at all sure that supporting the human right to migrate for work doesn’t do more harm than good. But I’m willing to accept, and be humble, that greater men than I are wrestling and have wrestled with the topic.