safety in numbers
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In a recent post, I referred to the Christian story as being a metanarrative that has safeguards that act to ‘curb injustice and value those who are different, marginalised and oppressed’. This is a big theme of ‘Truth is Stranger than it used to be’ by Middleton and Walsh. Before I get on to their ideas lets try one that they don’t major on as much — the significance of the Trinity for this context.
Francis Schaeffer often talked about the significance of the Trinity to the philosophical question of unity and diversity: If the universe has a unity as origin, where does diversity come from? If it has a diverse origin, how come it all fits together? Maybe in a post-modern context, we can turn this on its head: because diversity is integral in the origin of the universe then diversity should be a highly valued attribute. (And because the origin is an all-powerful personal being, then we might expect diversity to be guarded.)
[I should say that, if I remember correctly, Kevin Vanhoozer and Brian McLaren have touched on this sort of thing in First Theology and A Generous Orthodoxy.]
Of course, the church has not always held diversity in high regard, by any means. But we have to admit that a value of diversity lies at the heart of its belief structure. And should be something that the church exhibits. I wonder if the times when unity (or even uniformity) is held above diversity are the times when the church loses a clear grasp on Trinity?
At this point we can bring in some comments from Jeremy Begbie (taken from the article Music in God’s World)
In polyphony, more than one melody is played or sung simultaneously, each moving to some extent independently of the others. A central cantus firmus gives coherence and enables the other parts to flourish in relation to one another. …Christ lives in the polyphony of the Trinity, and by the Spirit we are granted, through him, a share in this trinitarian “enchantment.”
Christians are thus polyphonic people. At Pentecost, in opening the disciples and crowds to Jesus Christ and his Father, the Spirit opens people out to one another. Those otherwise closed in on themselves—because of language, culture, race, religion—now find themselves resonating with one another, communicating, and living together in radically new ways. … People become responsive to one another, tuned in to one another (the reversal of Babel, where confusion and dissonance reigned). But uniqueness is not erased; the crowds in Jerusalem were not given one language. They heard each other in their “own tongues” … More than this, as the New Testament makes abundantly clear, the Spirit not only allows difference but also promotes it…
In the church’s founding moment diversity-in-unity was a key component. And it should continue to be. In acting faithfully to that moment, and coherently with our belief in Trinity, we begin to show the wisdom — and trustworthiness — of God and his story.
Tags: apologetics, postmodernism
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