Monday, 8 March, 2004

We will continue to base the devotions on “God for a Secular Culture” by Jurgen Moltmann.



This week we will be looking at how knowledge of the ‘other’ leads to community in diversity.

“Other is only known by other.’

…Aristotle quotes Euripides as saying: ‘The parched earth yearns for rain, and the high heavens, great with rain, desire to fall to earth.’

…Anaxagoras holds that sense perception comes to pass by means of opposites, for the like is unaffected by the like…We come to know the cold by the hot…the sweet by the sour, the light by the dark…All sense perception, he holds is fraught with pain, for the unlike when brought into contact [with our organs] always brings distress.



When I first read that it was the Greeks who came up with both the epistemological principle of ‘likeness’ and that of ‘other,’ I thought: “They had too much time on their hands.” But then I recall how much time is spent in the area of evangelism in the church. There are the many people who have done so much to try and tell us how a church will grow and how it will function best. Homogeneous churches can thrive…because…well they are suited and focused on one group of people - be it race, economics or community. Add that to a well thought out and well tested programmatic approach to ministry and, you’re off! In the Church, we know that like is known by like and we “like” that. It’s comfortable and, we can add, it is safe – at least it appears to be. Then again, even though Euripides image of rain and the earth sounds good, how often is the ‘other’ actually attractive to us? If we arrive at any church within a metropolitan community, one need only visit around to see that ‘likeness’ rules. In fact, once a congregation begins to be diverse in its membership, it takes only a small percentage of the ‘other’ in the congregation to make people on the outside refer to this well diversified group as now being…the ‘other.’ Is it that we fear the ‘other’ so much we would defy the will of Jesus that we all are ‘one’?



Connection: Next time you visit around to a place of worship…or even a social group, look around. What do you see? In regard to ‘like’ and other’, what attracts you and what makes you understand that you may not want to return?



Creating Lord, it is by your hand that there is this great diversity within humanity. We trust that you will give us the wisdom to understand the gifts present among us when we see in those around something that is not like us at all. Open up our hearts to your love that knows no bounds and seeks to unite all humankind. Amen