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January 26, 2007

My obsession with equality

"The demand for equality has two sources, one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest, of human emotions. the noble source is the desire for fair play. But the other source is the hatred of superiority."- C.S. Lewis

One of the most attractive things to me about the gospel of Jesus is the way his message leveled the highest religious authorities with the lowest of sinners. The place of prestige was at the point where one realized one's own frailty. The man who beat his breast asking God for mercy went away justified rather than the man who gave thanks for his righteous state.

Made in the image of God, justified by one's admission of need, humanity kneels together in its own glory and lack. There is a definite sense in which every human being is, by nature equal.

This sense of equality, however, is where I get stuck, having trouble affirming higherarchies of any sort and recoiling in the presence of admirable leadership. Admitting that an individual is superior in any way seems to threaten this equality of nature guaranteed by a biblical understanding of creation and salvation.

Perhaps the distinction I need to get my head around is the difference between equality in nature and equality in function. Every human being may be equally, wonderfully human and yet have quite different-unequal roles in this life.

This is where the dilemmas begin for me, how can you affirm differences- even hierarchy- within roles without undermining the equality of nature. I don't think I am alone here as certain assumptions within the feminist movement reveal. The different roles women have taken on (leaving open the question of whether this is a correct allocation or not) seem to many to question the equality of nature between the sexes.

I wonder if we really embraced our basic equality in nature that only God can bestow- if we could freely allow one another to surpass us in role and embrace an inequality that will never demean our basic equal nature.

Posted by Jamaica at 5:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack