Idolatry of God by Peter Rollins

Author:Peter Rollins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

Here we see, via the arrows in the bottom half of the diagram, that the community described by Paul is one in which those beneath the line have more in common with people from different social, religious, and biological positions than with people within their own community.

One could find that she agrees with almost everything that another in the community believes and yet find herself closer to a person who believes virtually none of the same things. The reason is straightforward: the two people from the same tribe hold the same beliefs, but the one above the Paulinian cut holds them differently than the one below that cut. While one grasps on to her beliefs as eternal and true, the other sees them as a provisional shelter that helps her navigate the world without allowing her to cover over a fundamental unknowing and genuine openness to others. In this way the old universalism of conservative and liberal traditions remains in the top half of the diagram while the Paulinian universalism operates beneath the line.

Beliefs are still seen as important beneath the Paulinian cut, but they are now open to question, interrogation, and critique. What is more, they do not act as a way of covering over our anxiety and the fundamental reality that we dwell in mystery.

This new cut divides those who are willing to hold lightly to their identity from those who wish to retain it at all costs. It is in light of this that we can approach and understand some of the most controversial and difficult ideas that Jesus is recorded as saying in the Gospels. These sayings revolve around Jesus’s talk of bringing a sword into the world. Not a sword that would divide one group from another, but a sword that would make a cut within groups:

This new cut divides those who are willing to hold lightly to their identity from those who wish to retain it at all costs.

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