Called into the freedom of Christ in a postmodern age

Abstract

Within Postmodernity we are facing tremendous ethical challenges while upholding a strong sense of freedom. In this essay I argue that this freedom is often still interpreted within a modern paradigm as an essential freedom of presence which has its roots in Neo-Platonic thinking. In Paul's letter to the Galatians there are insights to a different interpretation of the freedom we have in Christ as an eschatological freedom of calling and promise. This freedom can only be grasped in faith and is never the possession of any one individual or community, but rather a continuous challenge. It is a freedom that creates space for the other (for that, that seemed impossible) to become present (possible) and therefore it finds itself between justice (dike) and mercy - justice, as that which creates space for those who do not have space (presence), the unheard voices and the marginalised voices; and mercy which brings these unheard voices (the non-present) into being. This is the freedom to which the Cross beckons and the Resurrection inspires.