The Christian communio and the question of identity

 

By Dr. Guillermo Hansen, Argentina

 

This paper addresses the issue of the possible impact of the Christian idea of communio (koinonia)⁽¹⁾ and its communal realization (Christian community) in and for the postmodern social, political and cultural landscape. This landscape, increasingly common to all regions of the planet, shows the protagonism of new social movements or agents, articulating their claims based upon a "politics of difference" which celebrates the incommensurable. The common denominator of these groupings consists of the reconfiguration of the nodal points through which individuals and groups imagine themselves and determine that which gives their lives a consistency, an identity. In light of this, what difference does belonging to a Christian community make to the panoply of these different identities?

I shall approach this concern presupposing that an appraisal of the phenomena of the multiple and/or different --as thinkers such as Cornel West, Ernesto Laclau, Frederic Jameson, Xabier Gorostiaga and David Harvey among others have shown-- must go beyond a "liberal" understanding underscoring the socio-economic factors which are critical in their formation. With this in mind I shall stress the ecclesiological theme not so much by developing an ecclesiology but, more modestly, seeking to place the ecclesiological question within the map formed by multiple and different identities. Finally the contribution of this paper would be better stressed by deliberatedly not treating the church as one more institution within civil society, as one more actor in the cultural consensus striving hopefully for a more just and egalitarian society. While this, of course, is much to be desired and promoted, it is not where the main contribution of the church in society lies. Hence the sacramental emphasis that underlines my implicit ecclesiology.
 
 

1. Collapse and constructing
 

Social scientists have time and again pointed out that our times have witnessed the collapse of most of the places from which "universal" subjects spoke⁽²⁾ --one of the watermarks of the post-modern condition. People, both in the North as in the South, assume a new protagonistic role and agency through new micro-social and cultural formations structured around ethnicity, race, gender, age and religion, or any combination of these. Identifications such as these constitute the basis for group and individual identities which far from conforming an idilic "multicultural" panacea in fact embody disparate and competing claims against the backdrop of a labor market and states transformed by the new dynamics of transnational capitalism.⁽³⁾ No discussion of the problem of identity is complete without considering the crisis into which important identity-markers such as jobs or citizenship have fallen in the last two decades.⁽⁴⁾

In the midst of the uncertainties produced by new international labor distribution and the "downsizing" of the state, the referent for "identity" acquires new profiles. The reality of identity no longer points to a single factor but is actually constituted by an ensemble of social relationships. By the same token, the concept no longer assumes that there are eternal, hypostatic referents to our universal representations (like nationality or race, always tied to a certain notion of a global or even cosmic manifest destiny). Identities, rather, are conceived as goals forged in a process of identifications against competing desires which, in the long run, are seen as menacing to one´s symbolic representations or actual physical existence.⁽⁵⁾ Therefore the new identity-formations can be viewed as different strategies attempting to grapple with a world collapsing under the weight of its unrealized promises, or threatened by forces beyond the control of hitherto existing institutions. Le différend signified by the incommensurability of identities --as pointed out by the hegemonic post-modern voice-- may signal the demise of the monolithic, homogeneous, abstract and totalizing worldviews. Yet we must not overlook that the identities emerging from their ashes are intertwined with new dynamics of discrimination, displacement and struggle against the real threat of disenfranchisement and the alleged menace represented by other forces and groupings in their strategic life-reproducing positioning in the world.
 
 

2. Identities and koinonia
 

In order to understand the significance of our ecumenical, and especially Lutheran discourse on koinonia and community, it is important to remind ourselves of the global context in which it is formulated, namely, that of a dense net of identities whose manifestation cast a new question on the form of communion that we proclaim and seek. It is not coincidence that in the ecumencial world the concept of "costly" or "costliness" has become so central.⁽⁶⁾ Yet the "costly" nature of the communion sought is not a quality exclusive to the ecumenical process towards unity of different confessions and denominations. In fact, it is also a lively reality within each confession or church as such. It is no secret that our religious-confessional boundary actually envelops increasingly heterogeneous categories and identities that oblige us to take a new look at the nature of diversity within an alleged confessional unity.

Noting the costly dimension of church communion, namely, pointing out some of the forces and factors that underlie its costliness, a central, ecclesiological question forms the center of our present concern: what does the praxis signified by the Christian, and more especifically, Lutheran communion mean in and for the world? To set the issue in such a fashion entails focusing first on the ecclesiological practice of communio, namely, upon its theological density insofar as something must be happening to the world --as this is constituted by different identity configurations and processses-- if the Holy Spirit is more than a linguistic convention for backing up arcane insights. Only then the understanding of the church´s contribution to society´s identity configurations can acquire any theological weight worth considering, in distinction of a merely ethical positioning vis-a-vis the great issues of the times. In a shifting world signaled by secularization, globalization and fragmentation we Lutherans are understandably eager to find common features that bind us together and thus strengthen our role, position and contribution to the world. Sociologically we are not exempt from the mathematics of power which any institution that wants to have a role in the amelioration of social and cultural ailments must entertain. Yet the question always lingers as to whether some of us are not caught up in a functional obsession after the social relevance of the church which sidestracks the central, theological matter, namely, that which happens to the world in the communion that is the church.⁽⁷⁾ While this by no means signifies a solution to the social quandaries underlining the proliferance of "identity groups," it is nonetheless here where the church´s real and lasting contribution in a increasingly fragmented and convulsed world may be found.⁽⁸⁾

An example may clarify this concern. Questions such as "how can our understanding of communio help overcome social problems?" have become a new rallying points for those socially and ecumenically concerned, in distinction from those who seem only enveloped in the narrow boundaries of one´s own church and/or "spiritual" life. For those with a more integral understanding of God´s workings, the latter may just seem incomprehensible. Yet the type of question illustrated above may also betray a rush to an active and frantic engagement with the shaping social forces of the day relegating critical theological matters for a more convenient time (oblivious to the fact that, in the long run, this can only result in the erosion of the qualitative dimension of our social commitment and contribution). Furthermore, the question also assumes that the church has an intrinsic capacity to solve or overcome social problems, presumably because these have been already solved within. However, is this an accurate depiction of what actually occurs in the church, especially in its dealings with the actual divisiones and claims of disparate macro- and micro-identities?

As we reflect on a sort of programmatic outline for the church´s "contribution" the above might give the impression that the Christian community has found some magical recipe for itself and for the welfare of the world. However sociologically we know that the Christian community, as any social organization, already carries within the identities, conflicts and wedges of the age in which it lives.⁽⁹⁾ It is as though before the church can get to society and contribute to its discernment, society has already gotten into the social structure that we call church! The poignant question, therefore, is placed at the point where the Gospel, as Word and Sacrament, meets the world: what does the Gospel do with the identities and divisions that it encounters within the very community that is gathered in this (universal) event? Furthermore, what does it do with this fragile compromise that we call society, a compromise often forged between competing ways of dealing with life and death, that is, social ensembles which sustain identities forged in the too human quest for survival, recognition and meaning?

We are not proposing that the church must solve within itself all of society´s conflicts. This is a matter left for society to resolve with its own political, social, and economic mechanisms --where the church as a social institution may also decisively contribute. But is imperative for the church to be that "something else" corresponding to its very sacramental nature, namely, to be that space, a sort of living experiment, where divisions, claims and grievances can be dealt with symbolically⁽¹⁰⁾ within a larger, unifying horizon --that of the universe´s recapitulation in Christ. Only then can the fragmentary and partial claims enacted by identity groups find this kind of healthy relativization that supersedes a mere pragmatic compromise of otherwise totalitarian drives. That not all the claims can find an equal place under the eschatological vision is a matter that I shall briefly underscore below.
 
 

3. The power of the sacramental dimension
 

Since the realities that conform the world criss-cross the koinonia that we proclaim and want to see realized, we must ponder, then, how the identity conferred by belonging to the Christian (Lutheran) communion interacts with the several identities which have been given to, adopted by, or imposed on us at different levels of our social existence. In other words, how does the religious way of conferring identity condition and challenge other ways of determining identity? Here we must plunge into the innermost theological nature of the Christian koinonia as such, exploring particularly its sacramental dimension, namely, the proleptic anticipation of the unity of all humankind and the whole cosmos within the unity entailed by the triune life.

This sacramental approach must challenge a mere instrumental vision of the church --an image too often found in ecclesiastical documents. For in effect, if when framed by a trinitarian understanding the church is that fragment of the world that emerges when the Spirit blows in the direction to the Father, and if what emerges is, to be more precise, creation with a special form, that of Christ, how accurate is it to speak of the church in relation to society mostly as an instrument of God?⁽¹¹⁾ While certainly mobilizing and inspiring, this type of representation is missing one important flank as to the nature and purpose of the church. For in effect, the church as a community is not merely an instrument that is set up to "operate" in society, but more properly it signifies the locus where society is "operated on" by the Holy Spirit.⁽¹²⁾ Granted, this operation is of a sacramental nature, a symbol that stands for a larger unifying representation, the kingdom of God. But precisely because its nature is sacramental, its form and content must be transparent to this new identity that God has in store for creation.⁽¹³⁾

Since the church is the locus where the unity underlining the disparate identities are proclaimed as intrinsic to a future that God envisions for the whole, we must therefore point not merely to what the church can "contribute" to the world, but what happens to the world when some part of it identifies itself as "church", a communio. Certainly the praxis of communio that is the church can and must have an impact in the social and political configuration of the world; yet the impact of this praxis is, initially, indirect, because of its "non-worldly" transparency. Its transparency installs within society a sort of window to what God can and will do with the world. In a manner of speaking, the church as a communion is the place where God´s unifying love and humanity´s diverse identities meet. Judgement and afirmation are intrinsic to this encounter.

The identity-transparency that the church embodies is thus forged not in spite of, but in the midst of the boundry markers that conform us as different subjects also claimed by different ideas of nation, ethnicity, gender, roles and class. It is in this road, in the midst of the multiple and diverse, that the Christian identity is tested. For that reason Christians embody, indeed, the tension that is produced by being claimed by eternity and time, transcendence and history, God and creatures. But no easy synthesis is here allowed, for the issue of the identity conferred by this divine claim in time is a recurrent event in all contexts and times. Therefore, the Christian community is constantly prompted to ask how the identity that it celebrates through the symbol of koinonia relates to the present social asymmetries in the world. The claims of those who are trampled in their humanity must be seen as vital epiphanic ocurrences in and through which the Chirstian community recreates its own identity as followers of the crucified.
 
 
 
 

4. The catholic dimension
 

Indeed the church´s communion entails something beyond a liberal tolerance of the other, a multicultural parade of our exagerated idiosincracies; it entails a commitment towards a convergence, a new manner of conceiving and living that which we presently are in view of the wholeness promised.⁽¹⁴⁾ For that reason, seeing ourselves within the encompassing boundaries signified by Christ, a new identity-marker emerges: that of our "catholic personality."⁽¹⁵⁾ This personality arises not mainly from the cultivation of our several and diverse particularities, but from a practice of communio that unlocks our identity (both Christian and social) to the needs and tribulations of others. Christian identity, therefore, is a dynamic process constantly recreated by the promise of a unified humanity as well as by the demands of those whose humanity is severely threatened.

The freedom that allows us to establish a distance, a diastasis regarding the social and group identities that we carry in the world does not mean that these are simply dismissed --or that Christians do not challenge the social dynamics where identities are forged. So if we first mentioned the church´s "indirect" contribution to society this was not done with the aim of dismissing its direct impact on the way in which society is constructed through the positive and negative achievements of different group's identities. Further, the different social groups to which we belong must indeed become "instruments" for the practical goals that stem from our Christian identity. At this point our question is this: how does this sacramental identity affect a social reality which is guided by a different set of rules and goals, by a different grammar constructed by competing forces, groups and social formations?

If our Lutheran tradition is aware of anything it is that the sacramental nature of the church, its transparency which collapses the distances signified by boundaries, cannot be either imposed or simply replace a still sinful and finite world. In the present condition life can only flourish contained within the so-called "orders" or "mandates" (family, state, church, where gender, sex, work, friendship and ethnicity occur), which constitute indispensable places where recognition, solidarity and protection are exercised to varying degrees and after different goals. They create a sort of ecosystem where an (incipiently) meaningful existence and identity are given and constructed. As such a temporary yet divinely mandated command to conform a social existence is recognized, for the sake of life, neighbor and world.

Yet, the fact that the Christian community does not replace society and its identity configurations does not mean that the Christian identity interacts positivistically with all types of identity-configurations. For Christians, because of the catholicity that they embody, a critical "depositivization" of these identities occur. While recognizing their relative claims, these identities are set in a larger frame where the different social places that constitutes their characters are now seen as a realm of ethical decisions, of parabolic and temporal conformation in view of the future that God promises in Christ. In this vein the belonging to a Christian communion means to live under a grammar which locates us anew in the world...with a disturbed identity! Disturbed because we cannot bear our former identifications with the same self-righteousness as before; further, that many of the social settings that structured different aspects of our identity may be in open conflict with the identity that we embody as part of the Christian communion. Metanoia and identity are, in the Christian grammar, inextricably bound together.

The profile of our catholic personality, the freedom with which we respond to the Spirit´s call, can certainly not be imposed on society. Yet the Christian ethos that is derived from the practice of communio is imprinted on every decision and action carried out in the social places that Christians, as social agents, share with other social groups. In all circumstances, a "nicely calculated less and more of good and evil" (Niebuhr) will always be part of our realism in social and political life. But in this balance the vision of the good against which we reach our compromises is crucial. Our communio practice carries beyond the Christian walls a vision derived from our catholicity, namely, a sense of a common future that is profoundly bound to the "rightness" of the relationships linking different groups and identities. We do not expect the realization of a secular communio, but we do advocate all these instances that may contribute to the consolidation of a "geoculture"⁽¹⁶⁾ able to mediate claims and grievances in the common quest for a just and peaceful "geosociety".
 

Notes

1. Throughout the paper it is used indistinctively the terms communio, koinonia or communion. It is clear that its primary referent is not the sacramental practice in the narrow sense (Holy Supper), but the communion/community between God and human beings that is lived as church.

2. Ernesto Laclau, "Universalism, Particularism and the Question of Identity," in John Rajchman, ed., The Identity in Question (New York and London: Routledge, 1995), 94.

3. See David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge, MA; Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 87. Also Viviane Forrester, El horror económico (Buenos Aires: FCE, 1997); Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).

4. Not to mention the religious referent, deeply questioned and curtailed in the last two centuries in the West and its cultural sphere of influence.

5. See Cornel West, "A Matter of Life and Death," in Rajchman, The Identity, 15ff.

6. See, for example, Toward a Lutheran Understanding of Communion: A Contribution by a Working Group on Ecclesiology (Geneva: LWF, 1996), 8.

7. By no means is the old Christendom soteriological axiom, extra ecclesiam nulla salus hereby implied. Rather we are speaking of the sacramental dimension of the church in relation to the promise of salvation to the world, and which temporally takes form in that which we call church.

8. Eric Hobsbawm, one of the most prominent historians of the century, is not very optimistic in his prognosis for the next century. He argues that the forces generated by the techno-scientific economy are now great enough to destroy the environment and to produce an irreversible erosion of the very foundations of the capitalist economy resulting in a generalized anarchic situation (The Age of Extremes, 584). Paul Kennedy´s warnings are not less dramatic (See Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Random House, 1993).

9. Not to mention that many times --but by no means always-- the very confessional and ecclesial distinctions and divisions reflect class, regional or national identities that see themselves reflected in particular religious expressions.

10. Symbolically does not imply here alegoric, emblematic, figuratively or metaforic. Rather, it points to a to a concrete yet limited action whose significance is explicitly framed within a universal horizon.

11. See Toward a Lutheran Understanding, 12.

12. We have in mind Luther´s conception of the Spirit as creator. As Regin Prenter has shown, Luther conceived of the Holy Spirit as God´s real presence in the creature´s sphere. More specifically, the spirit is God as it bows down to seek the creature in order to take it through Christ to the Father (Regin Prenter, Spiritus Creator. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1953; p. 288ff.). Luther, in his explanation of the Creed´s third article in the Large Catechism characterizes the Holy spirit as the one effecting our santification through the following: the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting (Th. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959; p. 415).

13. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983) 35ss; Paul Tillich, La Era Protestante (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1965), 309; Philip Hefner, "The Church, " in Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, eds., Christian Dogmatics, II (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 245ss.

14. The notion of convergence is borrowed from Gregory Baum. Dealing with the problem of multiculturalism (mostly in North America), he points out that the idea of convergence between different cultures and identities discards a forceful assimilation to the stronger, implying instead a gradual transformation of both the receiving as well as the contributing cultures. Analogically this can also be applied to the Christian community understood as a cultural complex which constantly receives within the contribution of different groups and cultures; it transforms them as well as is transformed by them. See Gregory Baum, "Inculturación y multiculturalismo: Dos temas problemáticos," Concilium 1 (1989), pp. 132-140.

15. On the topic of "catholic personality" see Miroslav Volf, "A Vision of Embrace: Theological Perspectives on Cultural Identity and Conflict," The Ecumenical Review 47:2 (April 1995), 199.

16. See Xabier Gorostiaga, "Entre la crisis neoliberal y la emergencia de la globalización desde abajo," Nuevo Mundo 50 (1995), 107.