Comuniune sau/și comunicare? Despre o etică a dezacordului în Biserică
Communion or/and Communication? On an Ethics of Disagreement in the Church

Author(s): Andreea PREDA, Radu PREDA
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Theology and Religion
Published by: Editura Doxologia
Keywords: technology; socialization; dogma; freedom; good practices;
Summary/Abstract: It is not a novelty reducible to the emergence of technology, to the so-called and sometimes real social networks, that the Church of Christ did not define its unity through ideological monolithism, but cultivated dogmatic freedom from its very beginning, in the apostolic times. Yes, this is paradoxical, incomprehensible to modern humans, the majority of whom believe that dogma is the same as dogmatism. Or, just as the liturgical celebration is not ritualism, but ritual, just as the religious experience is not the same as fashionable psychologisms, just as preaching is not an example of wooden rhetoric, the Holy Spirit has been breathing wherever and however it wishes, being assimilated according to the spiritual and intellectual age of each one. One fact is certain: from now on, the Church cannot be reduced to the garrison of faith, nor can hierarchy be reduced to oligarchy, or disagreements to heresies. We still need a particular type of ethics, an ethos of constructive dialogue, uncomfortable for those who see in petrification of the Church actually illusory proof of their frequently and inevitably abusive ”righteousness”. This truth is now being verified not only in clerical structures, but also in the various forms of social assistance, philanthropy or public commitment of the laity. Therefore we have enough reasons to raise the issue of a broader ethics of disagreement, of mechanisms to defuse tensions and disagreements not by giving in, in the form of ”obedience” or ”humility”, but by returning to the definition of Christian faith as human nature.

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