Unitybeyondduality

What attracts,
intrigues, or
enchants us in
the previous
photographs?

There is a unity before duality.

There is duality.

There is a unity beyond duality.

There is a unity before duality:
It’s all about me/us!

There is duality.
Me/you.
Us/them.
Same/different.
Safe/Dangerous.

Better/worse
Good/evil
Save/kill

There is a unity beyond duality.
What does it look like?

What do Gilligan’s Island,
Survivor, and the bridge of The
Enterprise have in common?

What do Gilligan’s Island,
Survivor, and the bridge of The
Enterprise have in common?

“Temporary autonomous zones” -
places where normal patterns of
hegemony and homogeneity are
overcome or suspended.

Fall of Berlin wall, apartheid

Woodstock

Post-hurricane, Post-911

Post-election

Post-game victory

Consider the early church:
Matthew and Simon
Rich and poor
Jew and Gentile
Slave and free
Male and female
Civilized and Barbarian
Heterosexual, Celibate, Eunuch
Vision of Revelation
Easy - or hard?

Corinth:
Divided (1:10)
Personality cults (1:12)
Claiming superior knowledge
(2:4-5; 3:18-20)
Spiritually stunted (3:1, 4)
One ﬁeld (3:6), one building
(3:10) -
But straining gnats, swallowing
camels (5:1, 9-11; 6:16-18)
Suing each other (6:1-7)

Corinth:
Controversies about sex and
marriage (7:1-39)
Taboo foods (8:1-13)
Leadership and politics (9:3-14)
Wealth and poverty (11:2-33)
Spiritual gifts (12-14)
Future beyond history/death
(15:12 ff)

(8:1-11) We know that all of us
possess knowledge. Anyone who
claims to know something does
not yet have the necessary
knowledge, but anyone who
loves God is known by God.
Hence, as to the eating of food
offered to idols, we know that no
idol in the world really exists,
and that there is no God but one.

It is not everyone, however, who
has this knowledge ... But take care
that this liberty of yours does not
somehow become a stumbling
block to the weak (fragile). For if
others see you, who possess
knowledge, eating in the temple of
an idol, might they not, since their
conscience is weak (fragile), be
encouraged to the point of eating
meat sacriﬁced to idols?

So by your knowledge those weak
(fragile) believers for whom Christ
died are destroyed. (8:1-11)

1 Cor 12
Wisdom and knowledge are gifts of
the Spirit (12:7-8) given for the
common good
One body/Many members
(12:12-13)
Diverse members (12:14)
Each belongs to the others
(12:15-20)
Each needs the others (12:21-24)
Each has equal concern for the
others (12:25-26)

1 Cor 12
One ecclesia (1:2)
One temple (3:16, 6:19)

One embodiment of Christ (12:27)

One new humanity in Christ (Eph.
2:31 ff)

Ephesians 2:11 ff
Gentile/Jew
Uncircumcised/Circumcised
Excluded/Included
Alien/Citizen
Far/Near
Christ ... himself is our peace, who
has made the two one and has
destroyed the dividing wall of
hostility...

by abolishing in his ﬂesh the law
with its commandments and
regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself
one new humanity out of the two,
thus making peace, and in this one
body to reconcile both of them to
God through the cross, by which he
put to death the hostility.
(Eph. 2:11 ff)

You have taken off your old identity
(self) with its practices and put on
the new identity (self), which is
being renewed in knowledge in the
image of its Creator.
Here there is no Greek or Jew,
circumcised or uncircumcised,
Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free,
but Christ is all, and is in all.
(Col 3:10-11)

From tree of knowledge of good/
evil
to

Tree of life

From empty vessels
to

Water/wine

Sounds beautiful...
but how?

I will show you the most excellent
way.
Follow the way of love.

If I speak in the tongues of men and
of angels,

but have not love, I am a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers,

and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge,

and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains,

but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have,

And if I deliver my body to be
burned,

but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind;

Love is not jealous or boastful;

Love is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way;

Love is not irritable or resentful;

Love does not rejoice at wrong, but
rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.

Love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away;
As for tongues, they will cease;
As for knowledge, it will pass away.

For our knowledge and our prophecy
are incomplete;

But when completion comes, the
incomplete will pass away.

When I was an infant, I spoke and
thought and reasoned like an infant,

But when I became an adult,

I gave up infantile ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly,

But then face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall
understand fully,

Even as I have been fully
understood.

So faith, hope, and love abide, these
three;
But the greatest of these is
love.

I will show you the most excellent
way.
Follow the way of love.
Amen.

Pre-dual unity: Monotony

Duality without unity:
Cacophony

Unity beyond duality: Harmony
(Love)

Consider the early church:
Matthew and Simon
Rich and poor
Jew and Gentile
Slave and free
Male and female
Acts 8
Vision of Revelation
What went wrong?

The struggle for early Christian
identity:
Paul - One new humanity in Christ

Nazarenes - Jews!
Tatian - barbarians!
Justin - fulfillment of Greek civilization!
Tertullian - Jerusalem, not Athens!
Constantine - Romans!

The struggle for Christian identity
today:
Americans
Western Civilization/Religion
Republicans/Democrats
Liberals/Conservative
Race
Education
Social/Economic Class

At the heart of the matter:

The struggle for the
biblical narrative

Eden Heaven

Fall Salvation

History/
The world
Hell

Platonic Ideal Platonic Ideal

Fall Atonement,
puriﬁcation
Into
Aristotelian Aristotelian
Real
Real
Hades

Pax Romana Pax Romana

Civilization,
Rebellion development,
into colonialism
barbarism Barbarian/ assimilation
pagan
world
Destruction,
defeat

Is there an
alternative
understanding?

sdrawkcab gnidaer
Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Charles Finney, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther,
Aquinas, Augustine, Paul, Jesus

reading forwards
Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Jesus

Exodus: Liberation & Formation


Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy


Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

G
e
n
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
e
Mercy
si
s


Three resources:
A 3-D biblical narrative-space
Social trinitarianism
Gospel of the kingdom

The social Trinity
Command-and-control unity

- Trinity in perichoresis
- Interbeing without absorption
- Communion without
conversion
- One-anotherness

The gospel of the kingdom
What would it mean for God’s
will to be done on earth as it is
in heaven?

What does it mean to be
identified as a citizen of God’s
kingdom?

Us not you
Us against you
Us apart from you
Us over you
Us under you
Us absorbing you
Us absorbed by you
Us for you
Us in solidarity with you
Us sharing with you
Us neighbors with you

From 2 to 1: The good kill the
evil

Through genocide or conquest

From 2 to 1: The good kill or
exclude the evil

From 2 to 2: The parable of the
two dogs

From 2 to 1: The good kill the
evil
From 2 to 2: The parable of the
two dogs
Z
From 2 to 3:

X Y

Good Evil
There are many reasons to
compare our churches to an
old male tortoise … -
+

From 2 to 4 ...

Good Evil
There are many reasons to
compare our churches to an
old male tortoise … -
+

- +

From 2 to 4 ...

Unity beyond duality

From 2 to a bigger 1

Fr. Vincent Donovan:

Do not call them back to where they were.
Do not bring them to where you are, as
beautiful as that place might be.

Instead, go with them to a new place
neither you nor they have ever been
before.

The Prayer of the Kingdom of God

1. Our Father above us
and all around us …

2. May Your unspeakable
Name be revered.

3. Here on earth may
Your commonwealth
come.
4. On earth as in
heaven may Your will
be done.

5. Give us today our
bread for today.

4. Forgive us our
wrongs as we forgive.

3. Lead us away from
the perilous trial.

2. Liberate us from the
evil.

1.For the kingdom is yours
and yours alone.
2. The power is yours and
yours alone.
3.The glory is yours and
yours alone.
4.Now and forever, amen.

5. Now, here on earth may your
commonwealth come.
4. Here on earth may your
dreams come true.
3. Here may your sacred
ecosystem thrive.
2. Here may love and justice run
free.
1. Amen.

Unitybeyondduality

Unitybeyondduality

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