A Conversation around the Table

One of our guests sitting at our table reflected on the fact that we were on the eve of Independence Day. "I am reading a book that was given to me on Father's Day," he said, "and I was struck about how the efforts of the founders of our country were to make everyone equal -- like Christianity." "Christianity," he added, "is about everyone being equal."

I was struck by this observation. Does Christianity really focus on the equality of man? This is an interesting idea but one which I don't think is quite true. The notion of the equality of man is a political idea, which in many cases was derived from Christianity. But is the equality of human beings the aim of Christianity? Christ does teach that to care for the poor and the weak amongst us is an essential part of what it means to be a Christian. In another instance, however, he also tells people around him, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." His ministry was not directly to alter the society around Him. Christ's message, instead, is one of love and grace and an invitation to us to participate in our salvation and the salvation of the world.

Christianity, certainly as it is understood by the Orthodox Church, does indeed concern itself with what it means to be a human being, but its response to that question is not political but relational: Christianity is concerned with personhood. The focus here is not on equality, as such, but rather on the unique and unrepeatable quality of each person in communion with God, fellow beings, and creation.

In Orthodox Christianity, this notion of personhood has two very important characteristics: First, it is relational-- without the Other, I as a person do not exist. Second, personhood is inconceivable without freedom--mainly the freedom to be yourself. Freedom understood in this way is freedom not from but for someone. This understanding of personhood is very different from our current notions of individuality and freedom, which emphasizes freedom from rather than for.

Because it is morally right to believe in equality for all the obvious reasons that the term implies--equal freedom, respect, and treatment for all people --it feels as if it should be a primary tenant of Christianity. But as Orthodox Christianity points out, there is an even deeper recognition of human dignity and freedom in the Christian understanding of the communion of love. While equality -- the equality of all people-- is a notion that is honored and valued in Christianity (after all, we believe that we are all equal in the sight of God), in the end, Christianity is grounded in the notion of communion-- a communion that involves a recognition and response to the 'other.' In this view, human life cannot exist apart from the Other--the Other being God as well as our fellow human beings and the rest of creation. In fact, Orthodox theology suggests that the ecological problems that are threatening our planet are a result of the crisis between human beings and the natural world viewed as an extension of ourselves. When we do not respect the otherness of what is not human, we tend to absorb it into ourselves and destroy its separate and inherent value as the Other. Respect for otherness in Christianity is not a matter of ethics, but of ontology--when we lose our ability to affirm the goodness of the other in persons and in nature, we simply cease to be fully human.

Human beings viewed as persons rather than individuals defy classification or identification with a category or a stereotype or a group of any kind. As persons in relation to and made in the image of God, we are unique and unrepeatable. What makes us unique is our ability to respond fully to our calling. And this calling is dependent on the existence of an Other to issue the call. Our relationship with an Other, however, is not symmetrical; the call that summons us to respond to and affirm an Other comes from outside ourselves and automatically makes our relationship to the Other a-symmetrical -- not equal. In other words, this call from the Other comes as an invitation. We cannot manufacture it or force it to happen. We cannot control it. It is a gift and it is grace. It visits us and calls us to respond and it is through our response that we are unique and particular. Our identity is formed through the way in which we respond to this call of the Other. Our freedom is in our response and acceptance to create a relationship with the Other. It is this "yes' or "no" that defines us and makes us participants in human history. And what is the nature of this call? We are, in short, invited to be active participants in the ongoing creation and salvation of our world through the living Church in communion with the Other .