Thursday, 2 April 2015

Exclusion and Embrace: Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation,
Miroslav Volf, Abingdon Press, 1996, page 145

Volf's first notable feature is fluidity of identities. He argues that as individuals, as differentiated people, no one person ever belongs entirely to one group and no others. He explains:

There are always strangers within our personal and communal gates and we ourselves never belong completely to a given group but only in part. As individuals and communities, we live is overlapping social territories. Our selves and our communities are like our domiciles in which we feel at home and yet keep remodeling and rearranging, taking old things out and bringing new things in.

Volf suggests we need to remain flexible about both our own and the other's identity, recognising that they are neither static or ours to change.