I'm currently reading 'Exclusion and Embrace' by Miroslav Volf. I suspect I will base a few posts around it sometime but this is a passage that caught my eye.
We are who we are not because we are separate from the others who are next to us, but because we are both separate and connected, both distinct and related; the boundaries that mark our identities are both boundaries and bridges. ... boundaries are part of the creative process of differentiation. For without boundaries there would be no discrete identities, and without discrete identities there would be no relation to the other. (Pages 66 - 67, author's emphases)
If this is right, then the churches in Britain are not far from being in the right place. They are distinct and connected. What is unity like when the united are both distinct and related? Is it possible the push for visible unity, is distracting the churches from what they have achieved? Perhaps churches outside of Europe can see our achievements better than we can.
Comments