Babel to Pentecost: Theological language in cultural and political context, healing the divided Body of Christ
Babel to Pentecost: Theological language in cultural and political context, healing the divided Body of Christ

Author(s): Mark OXBROW
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Theology and Religion
Published by: Editura Doxologia
Keywords: christology; language; epistomology; healing; unity;
Summary/Abstract: This paper, from an Anglican attending a majority Orthodox symposium will examine the issue of language in addressing the challenge of Christ’s prayer in John 17 that “they may be one”. By looking at historical and contemporary inter-tradition doctrinal debates the paper questions to what degree these tensions and divisions in the Church owe their origin to real theological disagreement and to what degree linguistic, cultural, and even pollical, differences have played their part in schism and the scandal of disunity in the Body of Christ. At a more superficial level the use of words such as evangelism and renewal can be as uncomfortable for Orthodox believers as deification and veneration (of icons and saints) are for many non-Orthodox Christians. At a deeper theological level this paper suggests that there were cultural-linguistic factors at play in the drifting apart and eventual Great Schism between Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, and at the Reformation, a process mirrored in contemporary attempts to reach doctrinal agreement between Churches that have been richly shaped by different languages, cultures and political regimes. In conclusion the paper offers a few insights from a Church, the Anglican Church, which has inherited a dual heritage both from the Latin Catholic Church and from the Celtic expression of the historic undivided Church, and today struggles to maintain its own unity as its members (in 202 countries) express their faith through more that 250 different languages and cultures.

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