This quoted by Gorman, (page 97), from one of the most profound and important theological works of the last 20 years.
From Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace. A Theological Exploration of
Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996),
71, 92.
Miroslav Volf lived with his family through the violence, ethnic cleansing and orchestrated hatred of the Balkan conflicts in the 1990's. He is one of the Christian church's most authoritative and persuasive voices on the subject of living humanely in a pluralistic world, fragmented by fear, hatred, guilt, religious demonisation of the other, and the deep memories that can embed such toxic responses in nationalist and ethnic conflict.
His book Exclusion and Embrace is hard reading - (1) Volf doesn't have an easy style and can be like a mountain guide, sometimes impatient with those who don't keep up; (2) he is dealing with areas of human experience not many of us are ready to examine, such as the origins of hate and enmity, the relations between fear and prejudice, our capacity to turn on our neighbour, the terror of community validated violence against some of its own members who happen to be different; (3) he isn't content with social and psychological analyses of the problem of ethnic conflict and religiously driven hatreds. He insists on a Christian theological exploration of the root causes in sin, communal and individual, banal and radical, and the even more radical cure of new creation in Christ; and he does so by constructing a theology that centres on what God has done, is doing and will do in Christ by the power of the Spirit.
The book is a theologically determined, philosophically sophisticated and biblically insistent study of the existential collision between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our all too human addictions to the preservation of the self, the will to power and personal security, and thus the elimination of any "other" perceived as threat. Volf is a frequent conversation partner in chapter 4 of Gorman's book entitled 'While we were enemies. Paul, the Resurrection and the End of Violence'. I'll do a separate post on that chapter where Gorman makes an explicit link between non-violence and kenosis. That's a connection I hadn't before made, but now seems so obvious - turning the other cheek as a kenotic act?
Of course. And forgiveness.
Posted by: Rosemary Hannah | July 27, 2009 at 09:06 AM
Hello again Rosemary. Volf has written extensively on forgiveness as both gift of grace and ethical imperative for followers of the Crucified. In addition to Exclusion and Embrace, his other titles include, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, and to be published in December Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities. You are right about forgiveness - and the connections between love as self-giving, fogiveness as other acceptance, and welcome as hospitality and vulnerability, give kenosis a rich nexus of divine and human activity for reconciliation in abroken world.
Posted by: Jim Gordon | July 27, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Kenosis - not just emptying (which implies the vessel remains intact) but also a total stripping. I was used to the concept of "allowing God in" - opening the door in my walls to let God inside. Maybe even letting God control the entrance. But the challenge is to have no walls, to let God himself be the defence. Which means (1) I have no defences from God and (2) I have no control over what defences are present between me and others, I have to trust God to be whatever is necessary.
Difficult and scary...
Posted by: helen | July 27, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Hi Helen. Not sure about the idea of "total stripping". Kenosis is not the negation of the self, but its finding of a new centre. There is still a self that has moral and relational capacity, both of which are esential dimensions of love. Kenosis as self-giving love requires the kind of emtpying that negates selfishness, not the self. There is utter and eternal continuity between the one who was in the form of God and the one who did not count equality with God a thing to be clung to. Obedience is the surrender of the self to the other as a disposition of love - and yes this is gracious gift, but it is also obedient response.
Posted by: Jim Gordon | July 27, 2009 at 11:41 AM
sorry, I wasn't very clear. I was talking about it from a human point of view, rather than about Jesus, which I guess is a bad use of terms....
When talking about stripping, I didn't mean losing everything that makes me unique, but losing all the rubbish that accumulates and causes separation (between me and God, and between me and others).
Because I tend to use the metaphor of walls, emptying doesn't work very well as a concept within that - it leaves the walls intact. Hence stripping means losing all the walls.
Re the difference between selfishness and the self - to what extent is 'myself' the 'me' made in the image of God and to what extent is it the human, fallen, sinful 'me' ?
Posted by: helen | July 27, 2009 at 10:53 PM