Image of the Institution

I have been thinking a lot lately about something I have entitled, "The Image of the Institution", which is not a title that I developed but is something which Scripture has developed through the biological process by which God made humans. I believe that God designed humans to be social beings, but our social standing is only determined through our relationship with other humans, institutions, culture, etc. Whatever I follow, I mirror it, which was the original design for creation to follow its Creator and mirror God, i.e reflecting his sustaining presence. Jeremiah 2 was God's call for Israel to return to the covenant faithfulness of Yhwh, but Yhwh had a specific claim against Israel by stating in Jer. 2:5 "...they followed after worthless idols and became worthless themselves."

As I follow a certain structure, that structure shapes and forms my thinking, until it moulds me into its own image. Miroslav Volf, a theologian at Yale has written in Exclusion and Embrace that "violence robs humans of their innocence and will re-make us into the image of violence, creating in us a propensity towards violence". Volf's thoughts are not developed in a laboratory per se, but have culminated in the fighting which he was involved in the Balkan's. My own thoughts concerning violence have also been shaped and formed by attempting to fight violence with force, and thereby being overpowered by the sheer magnitude of that violence, and becoming violent myself.

Consider the concept of race in the U.S. Whenever we say the term, "White", it must always be in relation to "black", since whiteness was a concept constructed in the U.S. to determine for political and social reasons who would be accepted into the elite society which had been developed over against the Africans who had been kidnapped into the U.S. Once this concept developed, there no longer was any thought whatsoever about using these terms, "White or Black". Society developed a term which in turn has created us to think in categories which were constructed because of prejudice. Are we then to simply accept the categories as normal? I believe the answer is yes and no. Yes, we affirm human beings as being those designations, because that is what we now are. But we also say no, because when it perpetuates the racial inequalities, we must stand against that. The problem will be that when we stand, others who have benefited, i.e. white dominant society may stand against those who decry racism. After all, this is what got Jesus killed.

We are created as beings who are transformed into whatever it is that we follow. Christianity should therefore engage the way we think about life, sociology, politics, and our relationships with one another. I think that if reconciliation is not at the core of our theology, something is inherently wrong. If we are not desparately concerned with facilitating opportunities for human beings to participate in the beauty of God's creation, then we may have a theology in a laboratory, not as a missionary. The apostle Paul's theology for the Greek world was developed in the Greek world, therefore, our theology needs to be developed as we engage God's creation. The Platonic thought of the Greek world is alive and well in Western culture, so we as Christians need to develop a theology which engages our hyper-sexualized society, by affirming our dignity as human beings.


Maybe because I moved so much as a child and young adult, I developed an ability to have a fluidity in my understanding the sociological constructs within our culture very well. I understand how environmental factors produce people to think in certain terms and their thinking can definitely be changed, but not unless humans are given the opportunity to connect with those we consider "the other". I have also been wanting to stop forgetting about the power of the Holy Spirit in the conversation of change. God's Spirit empowers humans to stand against oppression, because as I have already found, unless God is moving in our midst, we will be created into oppressive people, even when we are attempting to liberate people from oppression.