A Parish Manifesto

Two central streams run throughout the Bible in seemingly opposite directions. I do not say these are the only two streams, nor the only important streams. But they are central and unavoidable. The first I’ll call holiness; the second, inclusion. Ultimately, these two opposite-flowing streams run together in Christ and in his church. But it is not immediately clear how this works. Holiness means “set apart.” Inclusion means “bringing in.” The two can easily be pitted against each other. Very often they are. For instance, the modern debates between “liberal” and “conservative” Christians regarding sexual ethics, heaven and hell, how to read the Bible, etc, tend toward a “holiness versus inclusion” paradigm, where conservatives argue for some form of holiness and liberals for some form of inclusion. At the risk of oversimplifying some very complex topics, the basic problem with this paradigm is that if your God is all about inclusion, what are people being included into if not holiness? Likewise, if your God is all about holiness, who then can enter in?