‘Why do they make good neighbors? ...
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense,
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.

("Mending Wall" from North of Boston (1914))

In my work with churches and ecumenical groups, I try to offer theological insights that can be of use to Christians who now (at last) understand that they live in a world that is full of people of many different cultures and religions. As I do this, I can’t help noticing that some "walls" or theological definitions are being shored up, while other affirmations about the nature of God and humanity are ignored, even though they could provide foundation stones for the kind of renewal that is needed. I find myself most concerned about constructions of Christian thinking that seem to wall out otherness and hardly admit a sense of readiness to be broken open by the Holy Spirit. I worry about formulations that deny the idea of an always "emerging" religious tradition, and erode community responsibility for revelation and interpretation.

What follows are some points of departure toward formulating a response to these concerns.

1. A fundamental question is that of how theology itself is to be critically evaluated. A feminist principle articulated by Elizabeth Johnson and Rosemary Radford Reuther, among others, insists that one of the essential criteria for

   "testing the truth and falsity, the adequacy and inadequacy .. of theological statements and religious structures .. is the emancipation of women toward human flourishing …‘Theologically speaking, whatever diminishes or denies the full humanity of women must be presumed not to reflect the divine or an authentic relation to the divine, or reflect the authentic nature of things, or to be the message or work of an authentic redeemer or a community of redemption.’… The goal toward which this theological effort passionately journeys is transformation into new community." (She Who Is, pp. 30-31).

   Is it not possible, and even necessary, to apply a parallel criteria regarding the flourishing and welfare of people of other religious traditions to our theological statements and religious structures?

   Closely related to the issue is that of credibility: "As an Asian, I cannot accept as divine and true any teaching which begins with the presumption that all my ancestors are eternally doomed. Theology must respect these millions upon millions of my ancestors and future human beings, before I can accept theology as a true interpretation of revelation from a loving God." (Thissa Balasuria, S.J.)

2. It seems necessary to again remind ourselves in the Christian household of God as Sovereign -- the limitless God in whose image we are made. The sovereignty of God means that God is God, the Ultimate Other, and we are not. No human being is God, nor capable of perceiving the totality of the Holy One. God’s activity is not limited by human conceptions or limits, and thus will always be escaping our theological categories.

   Also, there is from the Christian perspective no other Reality. God is the only source of all being. Therefore, again, the revelation of God is in some sense not limitable. However, we also affirm from our experience of God and from revelation, that the nature of this Ultimate Reality is relational -- as reflected in understandings of the Trinity. Does this not mean that being made in God’s image we are made for relationship? Does our current theologizing reflect this?

3. Another essential insight of the Reformed tradition within Christianity has to do with the interrelated roles of the individual and the Spirit, and of the community in interpreting revelation. Each person has the ability to receive a new aspect of the truth. The individual conscience is free, precisely because the Holy Spirit can bring new illumination of human situations and of scriptural mandates through individual hearts and minds.

   Such insights traditionally are to be brought to the community, which has the authority and ability to discern the validity of such insights. The community in this understanding embodies and exercises a function much like the magisterium in the Catholic tradition. Community is thus not simply the gathering of those who have been saved; rather, it is those who are engaged in discerning and incarnating God’s word and activity in this time and place. It is not those who ask "What would Jesus do?", as if all the answers were already given in the red letters of the biblical text; but "What will Christ’s body (we) do?" as the living, in the world, interpreting embodiment of God’s love for the world here and now.

   As we were developing the NCCC Policy Statement on Interfaith Relations and the Churches, one very significant point of resistance had to do with using "family language" (e.g., "sister" and "brother") about people of other religious traditions. The issue of those who are in and those who are outside the circle of people bound together by Christ’s love is a live one. Our conclusion was that, in spite of differences of interpretation, there is no way to separate love of God and love of neighbor, and thus no way to distinguish circles of love. Developing a much clearer, theologically rooted, understanding of community is critical for these days.

4. Jesus is a revelation of God, and as a people who understand ourselves to be related to God in and through Jesus, we come into the Jesus way of life, which means that we are called to take part in God’s project of reconciliation -- to be agents of reconciliation among peoples, to live in a spirituality and offer the hospitality and strength that allow reconciliation to take place. To watch, to wait, to empty ourselves so that this new creation of God can come into being, and the reign of God, the beloved community can begin to be seen, lived, realized among us. It seems to me that there is much to explore here that could help us develop theological understandings, and especially spiritual practices, with openness to the building of wider, and not triumphalistic, human communities.

5. What has become of our understanding of the Power of the Holy Spirit? And how do we understand this in relation to all the people of the world? Many years ago (1971), Georges Khodr said,

   God says, "This will happen in the last days. I will pour out upon everyone a portion of my spirit" (Acts 2:17) ... The Spirit is present everywhere and fills everything by virtue of an economy distinct from that of the Son. The Spirit operates and applies his energy in accordance with his own economy, and we could from this angle regard the non-Christian religions as points where the Spirit’s inspiration is at work. And all who are visited by the spirit are the people of God."

   Again, in regard to the Spirit, how can we revive the understanding that our tradition and our living of it is always being renewed? At every moment, our living depends on God’s presence. God’s word is constantly emerging, existing itself is constantly arising and brought as an expression of God self. We live as religious people in dependence on his mercy; therefore our theology and life needs to be -- can authentically only be -- open to the inspiration, the fresh breath of the Spirit. How do we reshape our theologizing to root it, and to root our communities also, in an affirmation of a constantly emerging and changing tradition for a constantly changing and emerging world?