In my reading over Christmas I came across the following '... the natural world, in which the whole is entirely present in any of its parts -'. This reminded me of a recent post where I discussed the integrity of Christian traditions. In that post I did not say much about the relationship between the traditions other than to reject the (allegedly) Protestant view of them needing each other in order to understand the whole of Christianity.
Many people will be aware of holography, where any part of an image contains the whole image. Holography offers us an analogy which might be more helpful than that of the jigsaw (see the aforementioned post).
Christianity in the last analysis cannot be fully known by any individual, there is mystery, something beyond human comprehension. Each tradition may well be complete in itself, in the sense that it embodies all that is needed for salvation. But they are also parts of a whole, which can be glimpsed through each tradition. It is not that all the traditions together make up the whole because they are parts of it, rather each affords us a glimpse of the whole of which they are a part. They can do this because they are whole and part together. (Note Sacks' understanding of Unity and Diversity.)
It seems to me there is a dual error at play here. One is to see the part as the whole. This is the fundamentalist view that 'our' particular interpretation of Christianity is the only genuine one, that the whole of God's plan for the universe is present in one person's (it is often one person) particular insights. The other is to fail to see the whole in the parts. This manifests itself in the desire for full visible unity, at least as it is currently understood.
Over the next few days I will examine this holographic model in more detail. To reject full visible unity in favour of a vague vision of Christianity seen through its parts is not good enough. This can only work as a model for ecumenism where Christians are prepared to make it work. They need the tools to do this and this means the rediscovery of the power of ecumenical conversations.
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