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In tribal religions there is no salvation apart from the
Continuance of the tribe itself because the existence
Of the individual presupposes the existence of
The community…. Life does not exist without the tribe
Which gives animation to its members.
―Jamake Highwater, The Primal Mind
When the eternal Word incarnated in Jesus, community met community. The Word, being eternal and transcending time and space, while giving it and filling it through Himself by the Holy Spirit, particularized in the specifics of human community. A face was given to God. Divine community met human community. Christ met specific family, friends, country, and hometown. Christ becomes specifically Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth. The Word is worded in the syntax of brotherhood and sisterhood. There was no incarnation, nor could be but within community, for God is Community, the Trinity is a Communion.
Therefore, in the Image of the Triune Deity, we are communal in essence. If we are not communal in act, then we suffer the loss of the beatitude of Life, for we deny our being and destiny.
However, in Christ Jesus, the Cosmic Word and Specific Word, we grow to include a larger sense of tribe, until we have no tribe other than Creation, or the Universe, even the potential Universes. In this antinomy of the Divine, reflective of the dialectics and paradoxes of mystical theology, we are gifted by the Holy Spirit to live honoring both individuality and communality, both specificity and universality, both specific brothers and sisters of our faith and loving all peoples and creatures as brother and sister.
Most persons live in the extremes of one side of the antinomy, and heresy is always found in a denial of the mystery of the unified apparent contradictions. But in God contradictions become Truth, for in the Triune One there are no inconsistencies, though there are paradoxes, at least as they appear to human reason.
Therefore, being in Communion with our tribe, so to speak, whatever the tribe is, must open us to the larger Communion. Our tribe cannot contain or own Truth. I can say to my Christian friend “brother” or “sister.” I can say to the man or woman who claims no faith “brother” or “sister.” I can say to any creature, not just human, “brother” or “sister.” But I can only do this in God. For such Communion, encompassing in unity “above” what is divided “below” into separation, is found only in what the Church Fathers called the “simplicity” of God. This means that all opposites, all contradictions, all inconsistencies here “below” are derived from God, in Whom all the energies of duality find a single Source.
Therefore, today, I rejoice that the larger human community and all creatures, seen and unseen animate me. I can enjoy solitude, but I do not become entrapped in privacy. Life does not exists without the other, life does not exists without me, for we each are in God, Who is Life, and the life we share, whether we are aware of it or not―for life does not require consciousness of life, for life is prior to such awareness of life, life not being dependent of my awareness of it―…comes from Life, from the Triune God.
Some of my Christian brothers and sisters wish we who are more inclusive to judge to damnation our brothers and sisters in other faiths; thereby, they wish to delimit Christ to the particularity of one faith, rather than recognizing Christianity as the faith arising from Christ Jesus but which cannot contain Christ Jesus, anymore than my cup can contain the ocean or the cusps of my hands hold the sky.
The Infinite is judge and decider of all, not Christianity, not my Christian brothers or sisters, and I would never judge any human not my brother, not my sister, for Love would not allow me to do that. Indeed, to deny the Word in a creature is to deny Christ, and for a Christian to do so is a denial of Christ as much as an atheist doing so. And such denial, even thought to honor Christ, is a sin against Christ. Let us cease using the name Christ to deny Christ and dishonor the creatures who exist in the One alone who subsists in no other, the Triune God.
If to love all creatures as my brother or sister meant I could not be a Christian, I would choose not to be a Christian. Why? For following Christ precedes my being Christian, otherwise Christianity is idolatry; and the Christ I serves opens to, is the source of, and is through-and-through within all. Does not even Scripture teach the following? That is, “… for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring’” (Acts 17.24). And as follows:
15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities―all things were created through him and for him. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1; ESV)
We need Christians who can honor the specificity of Christian faith and the incarnation of Christ Jesus, while seeing how the Word is manifesting, as taught by our Church Fathers, in all creatures. And to the extent that the Word is the life of every creature and that creature the dwelling of the Word, Christ Jesus is present, and the Holy Spirit is manifesting life. Amen
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