Is there a relationship between the Trinity as community and church as community? If so, what is the basis of that relationship?
Here’s my current thinking in bullet form:
- Perichoresis (co-indwelling or interpenetration) is an essential feature of the Triune God (John 15:1-16:4).
- The Economic Trinity is the image of the Immanent Trinity (Fred Sanders’ take on Rahner’s Rule; see here for a bit on economic vs immanent (aka ontological)).
- Humanity is created in the image of the Triune God (Genesis 1:26-27).
- Jesus Christ is the image of God (Colossians 1:14-16)
- The eschatological people of God are the new humanity in Christ (Romans 5; Ephesians 4:11-16).
- The church is the earthly gathering of the eschatological people of God.
- The church reflects the image of God, therefore the church ought to behave according to its essential communal nature.
The paper is due Nov 8 (yikes!), so I’ll have more after that. For now, questions, critiques, and ponderings are quite welcome.
UPDATE: 110106 additional points added; 110206 edits and still more.
Recently came across an interesting quote on ‘community’:
“Community is not a commodity; it emerges from common struggle for integrity, shared commitment to justice, joint covenants to work for wholeness and mutual respect. It is created when we step forward to serve, to right wrongs, to heal hurts.
“Community is a collision of egos, a furnace for welding steel-hard opinions, a crucible for melting the hard ores of self-interest into common goals. It offers the pain of not getting our own way, the promise of finding a third way together.
“In true community we do not choose our companions, we recieve them as gift; we cannot sort, select and assemble our kind of people, they come to us by grace. Likeness eliminates challenge; uniformity reduces growth; sameness frustrates creativity.
“Community is not a supra-familial network that fulfills our dreams of familial perfection of solidarity or supportive parental permissiveness; it is a network of fallible individuals and flawed families seeking together to learn how to work through the various issues they carry with them.
“We might define true community as that place where the person you least want to live with always lives.”
Parker Palmer “A Place Called Community” 1977
I have Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach in my “to be read” pile. Looks like another needs to be added. I skimmed Courage to Teach and was struck by Palmer’s wisdom. I am struck once again.
Thank you for the quote!