The catch 22 of conventional christianity

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church Abstract At its core, orthodox Christianity is a contemplative tradition, deeply rooted in and sustained by the living religion of Jesus Christ. For this reason attempts to reinvent it at a conventional level tend to be ultimately unhelpful and unsatisfying. The credibility crisis of the 21st Century Church is tied to a Catch-22 that becomes inevitable within conventional Christianity, namely that the social psychology of conventional traditions is incapable of creating the conversational conditions which are necessary for persons to actually discover important life questions and their solutions. This crisis requires us to better and more fully understand what Christian faith actually is, what is necessary for a proper initiation into the faith, and how to facilitate the formation of those engaged in the ministry of initiation. As Hill (1991) rightly predicts, “only a radically renewed vision of the Church, and of the role of the community of faith in incorporating others into its own distinctive way of life can resolve this crisis.” The necessary direction of that renewal, I argue, must be clearly and steadfastly away from conventional and toward contemplative tradition.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Catch-22 as “a difficult situation from which there is no escape because it involves conditions which conflict with each other.” The term comes from the title of a 1961 novel of the same name by Joseph Heller. Such a Catch-22 lies at the core of the credibility crisis faced by the Church of the 21st century. I will argue that to the extent which the Church understands itself and lives out its mission in conventional terms, it therein becomes the victim in a situation from which there is no escape. At its core, orthodox Christianity is a contemplative tradition, deeply rooted in and sustained by the living faithfulness of Jesus Christ. For this reason, attempts to reinvent it as a conventional tradition are ultimately unhelpful and unsatisfying.

By a contemplative tradition I mean the tradition of a community which assumes that there is more to reality than can be grasped with the five senses. A contemplative tradition assumes that there is an unseen world, which permeates but also extends beyond the sensible world to an ultimate reality, or world, which no one created. Important life questions and their solutions – such as, how to find meaning and purpose; how to live well; how to reduce one's own and others' suffering – are discovered in our relation to this ultimate, unseen and uncreated world, and in its relation to us. Recognizing this interdependent nature of life, the substance of a contemplative tradition thus becomes its way of training persons to become wise, which is to say, its way of creating the conversational conditions necessary for persons to become capable of perceiving and exploring this unseen world and its web of interrelationships, both within and beyond their own lives, so that they may discover truly important life questions and their solutions.

A contemplative tradition as such – its body of teachings – become like an inner temple, a sacred space within which and out of which a contemplative practitioner lives his or her life in community.

The quality of a given person's contemplative life thus depends greatly on how well this inner temple is formed, maintained, and developed, for it comes to define and regulate his or her subjective world and way of life, just as it does for the contemplative community as a whole. The word “contemplative” thus does not mean “inactive.” On the contrary, how we choose to act and to not act matters immensely in contemplative life. But within such a way of life the realm of action is internally regulated in light of the particular tradition in which the contemplative person's mind has been trained. This is what it March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 1/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church means to live contemplatively. Those wishing to live a contemplative life must thus engage in an initial and ongoing dialogical process in which they are formed within the particular contemplative tradition and in which that tradition is formed within them.

By a “conventional” tradition, I mean a tradition which is less concerned, if not unconcerned, about being in dialogue with the subtle foundations of being human – such as a person's subjectivity, point of view, framework of meaning, or “inner temple.” Instead, conventional traditions primarily focus on how persons speak, look, and otherwise behave. They operate by overriding the dialogical structure of human subjectivity with a view to controlling the agency of the other. In effect the other becomes a living tool for the masters of convention. Thus, much like Aristotle described the life of the slave, the conventionally formed person is denied a share in truly human life. He or she may, at best, simulate virtue by imitating the actions of a truly virtuous person.1 Thus, the training programs of conventional traditions do not require conditions of dialogue, in which there is genuine mutual influence, but rather of monologue, in which the speaker's intent is to bend the listener's will to comply with the convention in question.

This dichotomy between conventional and contemplative traditions, and between the persons formed within such traditions, I believe has far more significance for the credibility problems facing the 21st century Church than do the dichotomies of liberal versus conservative, exclusivist versus pluralist, or social justice-oriented versus individual conversion-oriented. Indeed, the dichotomy of conventional and contemplative pinpoints a much deeper configuration of identity within both individuals and groups, so that a conventional individual or group may well be either conventionally liberal or conservative, conventionally exclusivist or pluralist, conventionally social-justice-oriented or individual conversion-oriented. Likewise, a conventional individual or group may just as easily subscribe to a more middle-of-the-road position with respect to any of these dichotomies. The same diversity applies to the contemplative individual or group.

The key, then, to differentiating a conventional from a contemplative structure lies not so much in the specific contents of its doctrinal interpretations as it does in the presence or absence of the conversational conditions necessary for genuine dialogue – conditions such as safety, mutual respect, politeness, listening with a desire to understand the truth, speaking with non-reifying, non-prescriptive, non-violent intentions, openness to the possibilities of difference, gift, play, open-endedness, irony2, and mutual change within the dialogue. When conditions such as these are not present, it is possible to interact on a conventional level, but the actual meeting and interacting of hearts and minds which characterizes genuine dialogue is prevented. When such conditions are present, however, and genuine dialogue is up and running, something quite amazing and mysterious can happen. A contemplative process initiates in which important life questions, heretofore unintelligible, may emerge. Within the same contemplative process, solutions to these important life questions may be explored. In contrast, within conventional interactions, neither new questions nor potential solutions seem to emerge.

Contemplative traditions consciously generate and tend to the ongoing care of dialogical structures of interaction. In this way contemplative traditions foster the formation of contemplative persons.

Conventional traditions, on the other hand, generate monological structures of action-and-reaction and so foster the formation of conventionally obedient and/or disobedient persons.

March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 2/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church In the canonical gospels, we continually see the juxtaposition of Jesus' contemplative-dialogical approach with the conventional-monological approach of other religious leaders, often in relation to those persons who are not in compliance with required conventions (see, for example, the visit to the house of Simon in Luke 7:36-50; the calling of Levi in Mark 2:13-17; the rescue of the woman threatened with stoning in John 8:1-11; the healing of the blind man in John 9:1-41; receiving the hospitality of Zacchaeus in Luke 19;1-10.) A beautiful example of Jesus' awareness and loathing of the harm caused by conventional tradition is seen in the story of the dialogue with the Syrophoenician woman (Matthew 15:21-28). By convention, any exchange whatsoever with this Gentile woman, was forbidden. But both partners in the dialogue, aware of this convention, choose to violate it in a beautifully ironic exchange which makes Jesus appear harshly conventional and the Gentile woman gently contemplative. The result, it appears, was mutually beneficial. A more direct handling by Jesus of a conventionally forbidden dialogue with a (possibly shunned) Gentile woman is seen in John 4:142, in which the woman clearly points out Jesus' failure to comply with conventions (v. 9), to which he lavishly responds by inviting her into dialogue, providing spiritual teaching, and exhorting her to expect treatment of even greater value from him, thus taking his existing violation of the convention up a notch. Another very quick demonstration of Jesus responding contemplatively to a conventional problem is found in Matthew 9:20-22, where a woman suffering from chronic hemorrhages purposely touches his clothing with the intention of engaging his help in her suffering. The conventional consequence of this act would inevitably have been that Jesus became ritually impure through contact with a woman (and perhaps also her blood). In contrast, he understands the unconventional act as an initiation of dialogue, to which he responds in kind, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well” (v. 22). And so, again, the tables of convention are contemplatively overturned. Rather than Jesus becoming impure, his esteemed dialogue partner, the suffering woman, becomes pure.

In part it is this contemplative approach of Jesus' teachings which makes the gospels so very problematic. Contemplative teachings require significant work on the part of the spiritual learner – work of an intellectual, moral, emotional and behavioral nature – to understand and live out. For the spiritual learner to “connect the dots” between Jesus' doctrine and their own lived human experience they are obliged to inwardly drop every other concern, turn, and give full attention to the living Word who is dialogically facing them.3 Without such a whole-person response on the part of the learner, he or she will not “get it,” not be graced with understanding. This is simply the integral and enveloping nature of contemplative teachings. In contrast, “conventional” teachings do not require, indeed they prevent, a whole-person response. The learner need not desire, nor make any effort, to understand. The locus of effort in the conventional mode is at the level of observable performance – doing what the teacher says to do. The conventional learner is thus not required to develop the inner dispositions that enable understanding and desiring to do what is good. Indeed she is discouraged from doing so. And thus, neither the nature of the good nor the need for receptivity to divine grace are necessarily understood.

A contemplative teacher will of course also give performative assignments to spiritual learners, but in these assignments the required performances are not ends in themselves, but rather serve as stepping stones which will lead the learner into developing contemplative dispositions. We see an example of this in the rich man's conventional questioning of Jesus about how to get eternal life for himself. Jesus instructs him to sell all he owns, give it to the poor, and then... to come back.4 Unaware of his spiritual March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 3/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church poverty, this rich man was not prepared to begin contemplative training – i.e., to become a disciple – and so Jesus gives him a preparatory practice to complete first, which will dispose him for further training. For the wise scribe – who asked a very different kind of question, understood and benefited from Jesus' answer5 – such preparation for contemplative life was clearly not necessary. He was already there.

Perhaps the best example of Jesus' contemplative approach is that compilation which we call the Sermon on the Mount. When it comes to the spiritual teachings contained in this discourse, one simply cannot “Just do it!” 6 (or “Just buy it!” as our consumer cultures claim is always an option). The nature of the teaching itself requires the learner to fully engage in genuine moral reflection, experimentation, and ultimately in surrender of oneself as a whole person to divine grace, in order to understand what it means to “practice” what Jesus is preaching. The teachings will not yield their truth to casual inquirers, only to those who are motivated enough to knock on their teacher's door long enough and hard enough until it opens from within.7 Such motivation entails a desire to go, figuratively speaking, “to Hell and back” for that most precious knowledge which makes one truly right-related and therein whole.8 For these reasons contemplative teachings such as these are simply not translatable in conventional terms, and when attempts are made to do so, the results are not orthodox. Such spiritualities naturally tend to be founded upon unexamined conventional views of human nature and action in which the good is achievable by the strength of a person's will (liberum arbitrium) alone, as long as he or she has good moral examples, such as Christ, to follow.9 There is thus no need to mature contemplatively and so become dispositionally like Christ.

Because, by definition, conventional traditions tend to censor all religious voices but those that speak in favor of convention, they tend to evoke many just grievances. But such traditions operate in ways that, as Lonergan10 (1968) described, neglect and eventually “truncate” the subjectivities of their adherents, which serves to preclude the airing of these grievances. With this unusual metaphor of truncation, Lonergan is suggesting that the social psychological pressure of such pre-dialogical and pre-reflective traditions, in effect, trains adherents to be ashamed of, to “push down,” and eventually to become altogether unconscious of, those aspects of their subjectivity which do not comply with the tradition's conventions. Such neglect and truncation may serve the conventional tradition not only in the sense that it squelches grievances, but also in the sense that it reinforces the presumed validity of the particular conventions which these adherents are violating, even in the minds of the convention violators themselves. The cost of such conventional validation, however, is the truncation of the adherents' subjectivity. The problem with being what Lonergan calls a truncated subject is that one “not only does not know himself but also is unaware of his ignorance and so, in one way or another, concludes that what he does not know does not exist” (ibid., p. 8). He becomes “indeed aware of his sensations and his speech, but aware of little more than that” (ibid., p. 14.) Truncated subjects are thus human beings who have “only partial apprehension of their own reality” (ibid., p. 16.) This means that they are not in a position to genuinely participate in religious life, or any community life, as human agents. The implicit contract in conventionality is thus actually a non-contract, based on compliance under duress. This class of obedience is certainly very far removed from the covenantal bond of affection which binds the community together in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed it is within such a conventional milieu that persons who lack traditional power are inevitably “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” as Jesus described the crowds of his day. This context was in fact the great mission field of his contemplative gospel. The great challenge, however, lied in the formation of disciples who were March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 4/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church capable of feeling, understanding, and carrying out the same mission.11 And so, the question becomes, how much of this New Covenant involves enabling the kinds of dialogical conditions that allow new life questions and solutions to arise?12 I would say that such humanization is foundational to the ministry of reconciliation to which the Church is called. Indeed the contemplative religion of Jesus might well be understood as that vital “new wine” which simply cannot be contained within the “old wineskins” of conventional tradition.13 The historical implications of this view are significant. Indeed, in our ongoing consideration of the violent, hegemonic activities which have taken place throughout history and which continue down to the present day in the name of Christianity, we must recognize the signature of, as Oscar Wilde said, “the leaden fingers of convention.” Holding up certain carefully selected outward forms of Christ, but altogether lacking in his inner dispositions, conventional Christianity has earned its reputation as untrustworthy. It may sound extreme to suggest that unless the foundations of the Church's self-understanding and mission are authentically dialogical, the Church is morally in the wrong. It is my conviction, however, that in these non-dialogical and procrustean modes, the Church is indeed operating outside of and contrary to the mission of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly sensitive to the need for dialogue. Several nonreligious traditions, which would easily qualify as contemplative traditions according to the general definition given above, are making immense contributions to the welfare of all persons in society.

Non-religious contemplatives are actively creating the kinds of conversational conditions that are necessary for persons to be able to discern important life questions and work toward their solutions.

Here in Toronto, some good examples that come to mind are practical political philosophers like Mark Kingwell14; educative psychoanalysts such as David Leibow15; the countless addiction rehabilitation workers using neo-12-step traditions day and night throughout the city; the numerous professional counselors, social workers, therapists, teachers, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists working within practical contemplative frameworks, such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction; the many police, probation, and parole officers, mediators and attorneys, who are continually training their clients in the practical philosophies of civility, non-violent communication, conflict resolution, and problem solving; and, most importantly, the many unsung, untitled sages of ordinary life who work at fostering genuine, constructive dialogue in their homes, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. Their significant contributions illustrate one of the great and unprecedented challenges posed by modernity for the Church. Unlike in medieval times, there are now bona fide alternative communities with significant expertise, working effectively toward the end of forming competent and confident adults by compassionately, dialogically guiding them into a more contemplative way of life. Ordinary people are thus discovering the conditions in which much of the wisdom that they need for living emerges. As was so strongly affirmed in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), to the extent that the Church is also fundamentally concerned with forming whole, spiritually mature human beings, it finds itself providentially positioned in the midst of a number of potential allies.

But to the extent that the Church understands and lives out its mission in a conventional mode, it does not know quite what to make of these non-religious contemplatives in the world that surround it. As professor John Caputo comments: “A lot of supposedly secular people love something madly, while a lot of supposedly religious people love nothing more than getting their own way and bending others to March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 5/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church their own will ('in the name of God'). Some people can be deeply and abidingly 'religious', with or without theology, with or without the religions” (in Barrow, 2003, 14-15). In addition to this tragic loss, when the Church operates in a conventional mode, it faces formidable competition from the world's leading non-religious conventional tradition – transnational consumer capitalism, whose disciples are working night and day to fill the “inner temples” of ever human subject on the planet with their brand names, slogans, and human growth stunting monologues. According to the rules of the conventional game, these secular disciples are in the lead. Walmart and McDonalds are far more effective at building conventional communities of allegiance than Christianity has been.

One response of the conventional Church to this latter scenario has been to hold firm to its conventionality, but to become better at it, more like its competition. It thus makes a lateral move from conventional religious 'obligation' to conventional religious 'consumption,' sometimes heralding the move as a 'paradigm shift.' As such, the product (profitable church attendance) and its marketing (how to insinuate it into the subjective worlds of potential buyers so that they strongly desire it, whether it is good for them or not) become the ecclesial focus. This may be quite easily rationalized with a bait-andswitch strategy, such as: “Once we actually get them into church and coming back for more, then the real 'evangelization,' 'initiation,' and 'formation' can start.” But the medium is the message. And, indeed, increased expertise at stimulating the pleasure neurons of parishioners may make it much easier to get them to conform to whatever conventions of thought and behavior are advocated, and even to do so with a passion. More “liberal” conventional churches may update their liturgies with sprigs of Neoplatonic mysticism (most likely picked up in a podcast of their local New Age bookstore rather than in reflection on Augustine or Aquinas) or other pop cultural attractions. And onward conventional Christian soldiers may march, in step with their consumer capitalist colleagues, toward a utopia which, they have become persuaded, is what the religion of Jesus is really all about anyway. Such a lateral shift, I would argue, is merely cosmetic and not a real solution to the Church's credibility crisis. It still fosters the truncation of human subjectivity (albeit more pleasantly), rather than its salvation and healing through reconciliation.

My point is that there is no conventional exit from this difficult situation in which the Church finds itself. It is a bona fide Catch-22. The very existence of conventional Christianity is predicated on the absence of genuine dialogue. Indeed that absence is the structural foundation of conventional traditions; it is what keeps them alive16. And, as such, it is a form of being Church which, in Barrow's words, lacks “a fundamental orientation that arises from the gospel for which it exists ” (Barrow, 2003, p. 11.)

The alternative that I am advocating to this approach of continually refining our conventional ethos is that of truly tripping it up, supplanting it by a radical return to the contemplative foundations of the religion of Jesus. In effect, the Church must die to its conventional identity, and be reborn to a genuinely contemplative way of being with God and others. This transformation, I would argue, requires not a retreat from orthodox tradition, but a contemplative return of the whole person to the integral triad of orthodoxy (right beliefs), orthopathy (right affections), and orthopraxy (right actions).

Such a turn would foster not simply cosmetic changes in the conventional Church, but rather its inevitable death and resurrection. The risk of the Church making merely cosmetic changes is particularly high with respect to this proposed alternative, since things contemplative are highly fashionable at the moment. It would be all too easy to dress up conventional Christianity in lovely Franciscan robes (now available in bulk on e-Bay!), add a Taize melody here and there, and so on, all March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 6/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church without making even the slightest genuinely contemplative turn toward God in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

This alternative is not a quick fix. Our parishes need extensive training in orthodox Christianity as a contemplative tradition. A contemplative tradition assumes that there is an unseen world, which permeates but also extends beyond the sensible world to an ultimate reality, or world, which no one created. Important life questions and their solutions – such as: how to find meaning and purpose, how to live well, how to reduce one's own and others' suffering – are discovered in our relation to this ultimate, unseen and uncreated world, and in its relation to us.

Within the Christian contemplative tradition, this involves the training of practitioners' attention to purposely and lovingly fix upon the Descent and Ascent of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, revealed in scripture's narrative of “salvation history,” all with a view to participating in that Trinitarian Life in the here and now location of their human existence. Training for such contemplative competency, and the realization of its end, to worship God in spirit and in truth, is a major undertaking in any person's life. It takes place in a safe and sacred space through an integral liturgical tradition made up of Word, Sacrament, and Pastoral Charity. This common liturgical life, in turn, nourishes a private life of contemplative devotion, which might involve a wide variety of spiritual practices. Most importantly, this training is not simply a matter of information exchange, imitation, or even of skill development. The generally slow moving vehicle in which contemplative training necessarily takes place is genuine dialogue between persons. This is necessarily so, for the structure of the God-world relationship is inherently dialogical17. And with respect to human beings, there is a double agency – human and divine – at work in all genuine dialogue. Access to this unseen world thus depends on genuine dialogue between persons.18 And Christ is the ready, willing, and able mediator of that dialogue.

The substance of the Christian contemplative tradition lies in its way of training persons to become like Christ, which is to say, its way of creating the conversational conditions necessary for persons to become capable of perceiving and participating in the Divine Ministry of God's Descent and Ascent in Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is in this way that we discover the important life questions and their solutions which constitute the Gospel. In fact, it is in this way, through God's love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit19, that we ourselves become the solutions to life's most important questions. And, in this way, following in the footsteps of Christ, the simple living of our lives fulfills God's mission in the world.

The credibility crisis of the 21st century Church requires us to more fully understand and embody the contemplative nature and foundations of Christian faith. What is necessary for a proper dialogical initiation into the faith, and how to facilitate the formation of those engaged in this dialogical ministry become the crucial questions. As Hill (1991) suggests, “only a radically renewed vision of the Church, and of the role of the community of faith in incorporating others into its own distinctive way of life can resolve this crisis” (v.) Having thus presented the problem of conventional Christianity's lack of dialogical competence, and proposed a solution in terms of a radical return to contemplative tradition, my next step, in a subsequent article, will be to suggest an outline for the formation of a contemplative Catechumenate in European and post-colonial contexts.

March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 7/9

The Catch-22 of Conventional Christianity: Christianity Getting to the Bottom of the Credibility Crisis of the 21st Century Church

References Barrow, Simon, 2003. “From Management to Vision: Issues For British Churches Negotiating Decline and Change,� International Review of Mission, 2002, VOL. XCII No. 364 , 7-17 Hill, John W.B., 1991. Making Disciples: Serving Those Who Are Entering The Christian Life, Toronto: Hoskins Group Kingwell, Mark. 2000. The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age, Toronto: Rowman & Littlefield.

Leibow, David. 1995. Love, Pain, And The Whole Damn Thing: How to Reap the Rewards of Adulthood and Find Happiness, Toronto: Penguin Books, 1995.

Lonergan, Bernard. 1968. The Subject, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.

March 31, 2011

Rishi Sativihari, 8/9

1 Ethics, VI.12; VIII.11; X.6 2 “Irony” in the non-detached, non-melancholy sense of the word. I am indebted to Mark Kingwell for a recent conversation that embodied and clarified this list of conditions.

3 Note the important difference between this obligatory move and the nature of conventional obligations. The former is a sacrificial act of the whole person, while the latter requires the sacrifice of the person's wholeness.

4 Mark 10:17-31 5 Mark 12:28-34 6 © Nike 7 Matthew 7:7-8, Luke 13:22-30; 18:1-8 8 Matthew 13:45-46; Luke 1:77; 2 Corinthians 2:14; 4:6; Ephesians 1:17-18 Colossians 1:6, 9-10; 2:2-3; 3:10; 1Timothy 2:3-6; 2 Peter 1:2-8; 3:18. The lack of desire for such knowledge, or the desire to not understand, may also be connected with acedia, that disordered state in which there is a lack of ongoing concern for one's own wholeness (e.g.

Matthew 13:18-22; Luke 11:39-52; John 9:40-41; Romans 1:18-25; Galatians 5:19-21.) The possible links between acedia and life within conventional traditions needs to be explored.

9 The error of Pelagius is the classic historical reference for this kind of “lost in translation” problem.

10 The late Bernard Lonergan, S.J., one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, was a Toronto based theologian, on faculty at Regis College, University of Toronto.

11 Matthew 9:36-38.

12 Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; John 6:56; 1Cor. 11:25; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 12:24 Regarding the integral relation between genuine dialogue and God's mission in the New Covenant, see the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) and the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, (Nostra Aetate) of Vatican II. In the former document it is important to note that coercion, proselytism, and propaganda – patterns which I would suggest are the integral modus operandi of conventional tradition – are clearly identified as being contrary to the spirit of Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells bodily.

13 Mark 2:21-22 14 local author of The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.)

15 local author of Love, Pain, And The Whole Damn Thing, (Penguin Books, 1995).

16 cf. Matthew 7:24-29. The authority (εξουσιαν) of Jesus in this passage so astounded the crowds, precisely because it did not fit the conventional mode of other teachers. It was rooted in living dialogue with the Father and offered as living dialogue to each hearer.

17 cf. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) of Vatican II for elaboration of this theme.

18 In this context, dialogue between persons “means a positive effort to attain a deeper understanding of the truth through mutual awareness of one another's convictions and witness”, and this “implies readiness to be changed as well as to influence others” (from the Kandy, Sri Lanka consultation of the World Council of Churches, Study Encounter, Vol. Ill, No. 2, 1967.)

19 Romans 5:5