Abstract:
This article attends to the relationship between our ethnic, social and cultural identities, and
the creation of the new communal identity embodied in the Christian community. Drawing
upon six New Testament texts – Ephesians 2:11–22; Galatians 3:27–28, 1 Corinthians 7:17–24
and 10:17, 1 Peter 2:9–11 and Revelation 21:24–26 – it is argued that the creation of a new and
prime identity in Christ does not abrogate other creaturely identities, even as it calls for the
removal of such as boundary markers. Catholicity, in other words, is intrinsically related to the
most radical particularity, and demands an ongoing work of discernment and of judgement
vis-à-vis the gospel itself. Those baptised into Christ are now to live in the reality of Christ who
is both the boundary and centre of their existence, a boundary which includes all humanity in
its cultural, ethnic, gendered, social and historical particularities.
Description:
Rev. Dr Jason Goroncy is
participating as research
fellow with Prof. Dr Yolanda
Dreyer, Faculty of Theology,
University of Pretoria,
South Africa.
