Ch 3 The Nexus of Past and Future

The chaotic violence on January 6, 2021, which engulfed the U.S. Capitol and Congress, may trigger dystopian fears about the near future. The historic reality of current days serves as a cautionary tale that we need to examine, and which political theology needs to help us understand. The cautionary tale of this current crisis does not foreshadow the U.S. devolving into a banana republic, though it doesn’t rule out a coup d’état of some kind. Understandably, people here and abroad are speculating: Is this the end of what can’t get worse, or is it the beginning of what will get worse? Yet, and this is crucial for such thinking, predicting the movement from past to future requires an understanding of the difference between nature and nurture, which mirrors the difference between genetics and environment. Thus, probability is an inadequate predictor of how the future will be without accounting for intervening determinants.

Speculations notwithstanding, what becomes the central theme of this cautionary tale is not merely the vulnerable state of democracy but the very notion of democracy itself. Two underlying realities are becoming evident: (1) the exposure of the illusion of democracy, which claims governing by the people, with majority rule under the principle of equality of rights, opportunity, and treatment—the reality of which is nonexistent in democracy’s history and is more virtual than real in the U.S.; and (2) the exposure in the dynamics of the underlying human condition that is intrinsic to all participants in a democracy. Based on these two realities, the recent chaos in the U.S. should not be surprising, but in fact be expected as a logical conclusion from evolving antecedents.

The nexus of the past in the second reality unfolds the future of the first reality. The future of democracy depends little on its formative past, as the variable function of the U.S. Constitution has demonstrated consistently to bring us to where we are today. Critically then, the nexus of past and future needs further examination and deeper understanding, not just for democracy but for the totality of the human order and all its ways of life. And Christians need to be at the forefront of this pursuit, because our theology is essential for the nexus of the past to be understood in order for our practice to unfold in the future according to this nexus without the shaping of intervening determinants. This nexus of past and future is crucial for our public witness to be able to clarify and correct other nexuses that can only attach degrees of uncertainty to past and future, which render the future uncertain inseparably from the past’s uncertainty.

Certainly as well as obviously, the past only gets to the future through the present. Less obvious, however, the nexus between past and future is often not recognized, understood or simply ignored by the present. This lack makes their connection even more crucial for determining whether the future moves forward from the past or recycles it. This certainly has direct implications for our way of life, which we must address urgently to prevent the inevitable repercussions on our identity and function, and their composition in our daily life present and future.

For the most part, democracies have operated with the knowledge of “good and evil” that have evolved from the beginning in the primordial garden. Keep in mind that the pursuit of this knowledge was cleverly designed for human progress, the design and function of which democracy presumes to exemplify. The U.S. in particular has based its conventional wisdom on this “good and evil”—the knowledge to “make one wise” (Gen 3:5-6)—operating under its subtle assumption of working for the common good. This all points to the historical fragments used as vignettes of the past to illuminate the big picture needed to advance in the future. Whatever the historic value in nexuses of past and future are in operation, these nexuses should not be assumed to have certainty, nor presumed to be the truth to give us the big picture that is vital for the present to advance forward into the future and not recycle the past.

All Christians and churches are currently challenged more than before to know the nexus of past and future that they use explicitly or inadvertently, in order to understand the basis for their everyday identity and function as well as how their public way of life is shaped. Observers both locally and globally are viewing the picture drawn from all these parts, which for them will illuminate if we are distinguished with significance amidst current events today. That is to say, does the Christian faith provide the big picture unique for humanity that others should seriously consider as vital for their ways of life?

From the beginning, God’s people have had difficulty staying focused on God’s big picture. Historically, Christians have been susceptible consistently to fragmenting the Word communicated from God, using a narrowed-down perceptual lens and reduced interpretive framework just as the persons in the primordial garden did.[1] As an evolving consequence, those believing in the truth of God’s Word (notably evangelicals) frequently have been selective in using only parts of the Word—namely from God’s Rule of Law through the gospel to the Word’s new way of life—to piece together variants of the big picture for our faith. The problem with this piecemeal process, however, is the indispensable fact that the reality of the Word’s whole big picture is always greater than the sum of no matter what parts are pieced together—the synergism of the Word.

Therefore, the Word not only challenges this so-called big picture composed from only fragments of the Word, but he also confronts how it is pieced together and those who composed it. This involves exposing the genius of Satan’s counter-relational work not to explicitly decimate the Christian faith but to subtly minimalize its significance essential for humanity. Minimalism renders Christian theology and practice insignificant to heal and make whole the human condition, which includes the human condition of Christians and churches.

With the biblical composition of the Word incorporating the OT and NT, it is not surprising that Christians become selective in their focus and in what to include for God’s big picture. The issue, however, is less about the partial content included, but more so about how or why those fragments were selected. This exposes the underlying purpose that serves those being selective, which is not only an issue challenged by the Word but a critical problem confronted by the Word—the ongoing tension minimalists will have with the Word. They may not be aware of this tension with the Word composed in relational language, because they are focused on the Bible composed in referential language—presuming the Bible’s referential terms are their cornerstone (Isa 28:16) but, in reality, the Word is their stumbling stone (Isa 8:14; Rom 9:32).

The tension and related conflict of minimalists with the Word is illuminated throughout God’s big picture that the Gospel of John summarizes to help his readers. John’s purpose is that they not accept anything less and any substitutes for the Word, but rather that they embrace the whole of who and what the Word constituted in the beginning and how the Word embodied since. Thus, John’s Gospel is the key text for the integral composition of political theology and unavoidable for any and all who follow the Word—and not the Bible as their reference book.

The Gospel of John isn’t structured by the historic narrative of Jesus’ life, as highlighted in the other Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. More significantly but not less historically, the composition of John’s Gospel illuminates the theological nexus of the past and the future that the Word constituted, embodied and enacted. Therefore, what unfolds in this Gospel helps readers understand the whole big picture of the Word’s theological trajectory and relational path, of which the Synoptic Gospels provide only various vignettes. John’s whole big picture of the Word integrally illuminates the whole of God and God’s whole way of life that are both essential for our identity and function, and vital for our way of life to be in likeness of nothing less and no substitutes—and thus not to be misled or misguided with anything less and any substitutes.

John rightly starts “In the beginning” that constituted the Word in the ontology of the whole of God, later illuminated as the Trinity (Jn 1:1-2,18,33). From this ontological whole, the Word functions in wholeness to create all life—not just fragments of life but the whole of life (1:3-4). From this incomparable beginning, the unimaginable emerges in this irreducible whole picture. The Word was vulnerably illuminated in the world (1:4,9) and relationally revealed his whole person to others he created in likeness (1:14). The Word wanted to make direct relational connection, but his person was not recognized, received and embraced for relationship together (1:10-11). What emerges from the relational dynamics of the incarnation is typically interpreted as the beginning of the gospel. Yet, that’s not the whole picture of the gospel, which now unfolds the good news of the Word’s theological trajectory and relational path for covenant relationship together initiated with Abraham.

It is at this juncture in John’s Gospel that the convergence between the development of covenant relationship together and the misinformed or misguided minimalists is ongoingly highlighted by John to illuminate the Word’s whole picture. John weaves together the Word’s relational connections and his dissonant encounters, in order to integrate the Word’s theological trajectory and relational path to consummate the whole gospel’s relational outcome in new covenant relationship together in wholeness—with nothing less and no substitutes able to account for the Word’s vulnerable presence and relational involvement, even though the misinformation and disinformation by the minimalists have prominently been misleading and misguiding others in their faith. To emphasize John's purpose, the Word’s relational connections and dissonant encounters are not necessarily in historical sequence but are presented to integrate the whole big picture needed to integrally know the Word’s whole identity and understand the Word’s whole function.

Since this study is on political theology and not a commentary on John’s Gospel, I will only highlight the following:

1. The Word is the Light for the darkness of humanity that illuminates God’s whole picture of covenant relationship together (1:4-5,12). John the Baptist, as unique as he was, gave witness to the incomparable identity of the Light (1:6-9,15,27), whose unparalled uniqueness illuminated the whole of God (1:32); his witness introduced the Messiah, and any future witnesses of this good news who minimalize the whole of God in any way thereby diminish the Light for humanity. John’s unique witness was uncommon to his surrounding context, which distinctly reflected the uncommon identity and function of the Word without reducing the Light by deflecting attention onto himself to highlight his own ministry. This unequivocal reality of John’s witness was uncommon because he reflected the Word’s whole picture, wherein he didn’t engage implicitly in self-interests as minimalists do (3:23-37). Essentially, any witness of the Word does not reflect the Light unless that witness integrates the Word’s whole picture; anything less and any substitutes render all witnesses to minimalists. John’s Gospel highlights their tension with the Word, in order for his readers to understand that they could also be minimalists by default.

2. The Word’s first disciples straddled the line of convergence between being involved in covenant relationship together with the Word and being minimalists. This ordinary group (neither extraordinary nor exceptional) included the writer John, who was no mere observer to all unfolding with the Word; any kind of observers of the Word by default become minimalists because they lack direct involvement with the Word in covenant relationship together. Minimalists, however, are circumscribed by far more active behavior, the function of which outlined in John’s Gospel can be described as minimalist disorder. This Gospel helps us understand that a minimalist disorder is not always obvious in one’s theology, and could be less apparent in one’s practice (cf. 7:1-5). For example, the early disciples objected explicitly to Mary’s intimate relational response and involvement with Jesus that affirmed her covenant relationship with the Word; their objection in contrast reinforced their implicit minimalism that countered the primacy of covenant relationship with secondary matters (Jn 12:1-8, cf. Mk 14:3-9). Under ordinary conditions this minimalist disorder is obscured until brought to light by the Word, who later exposed the disciples’ minimal involvement with him that had the relational consequence of not truly knowing his person (14:9)

This illuminates that minimalism is most apparent in the context of direct relationship with the Word; this relational condition is when the tension of minimalist disorder is at its highest to precipitate its overt function—which Peter demonstrated in refusing to let the Messiah was his feet (13:1-8). John’s Gospel confronts us at the core of

our theology and practice to understand unequivocally: The workings of minimalism critically affect the nexus of past and future that Jesus’ followers use to shape the Word with only vignettes of the past. Political theology must be able to recognize this in followers of the Word, in order to clarify and correct their way of life to be compatible with the theological trajectory and congruent with the relational path of the Word’s whole picture. John’s Gospel is indispensable for clearly illuminating this integral relational context, process and outcome.

3. When Jesus called persons to “Follow me” (1:43), this wasn’t a mere invitation without cost. The Word’s call to discipleship directly challenges the surrounding culture that shapes our identity and function; and “Follow me” confronts the cultural bias that reduces his person from wholeness and minimalizes the primacy of relationship intrinsic to “follow my whole person in reciprocal relationship together” by substituting the secondary deeds of serving (12:26). When Nathanael was encouraged to follow Jesus of Nazareth, he clearly expressed his cultural bias: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (culturally labelled a second-class town). Revealingly, he relinquished his cultural bias when he came face to face with Jesus’ whole person (1:43-50).

Minimalists diminish the priority of covenant relationship together with secondary priorities, which form their underlying self-interests shaped by their cultural bias—as the disciples demonstrated above. Three culturally interrelated interactions recorded by John define how the Word addressed this formative culture, which teaches us to follow in likeness according to his three-fold approach to culture:

(1^st) At a traditional wedding—typically lasting about seven days, with wine central to the festivities—Jesus’ mother expected him to culturally defer to the problem of depleted wine (2:1-10). Jesus responded to the cultural situation, however, within certain limits that were not defined by that culture. Rather he responded according to his primary identity and function, which turned that culturally acceptable situation for him into an opportunity to vulnerably share his whole person in order for his followers to experience deeper covenant relationship together (2:11). Since that cultural situation didn’t prevent him from being his whole person, the Word demonstrated how to address and deal with culture in this qualified cooperative approach.

(2^nd) In strong contrast, the Word is very confronting of the cultural bias of minimalists, whose self-interests diminished the whole significance of covenant relationship together; the range of these interests reinforced and sustained the underlying workings of self-ism. This unfolds when Jesus forcefully cleared out the religious workings of reductionism prevailing in the temple culture, in order to restore this relational context to the wholeness of covenant relationship together (2:12-20). Historically, this was unlikely an initial temple cleansing that Jesus repeated after his triumphal entry (Mt 21:12-15). Yet, John juxtaposes this next to the wedding to position it early in his Gospel, in order to emphasize the vital importance of confronting the cultural bias of minimalists and countering its cultural workings no matter how embedded in tradition. Thus, John establishes further the Word’s conflict approach to culture (even as religious culture) in order to indelibly inscribe the precedent early for Jesus’ followers to practice without option: both to incur the cultural costs for affirming the Word’s whole picture (e.g. 7:28-32; 8:48-59), and to pay the personal costs for direct involvement in the primacy of covenant relationship together (e.g. 6:60-66; 14:1-9). Obviously, these costs heighten the tension of minimalists with the Word; and the costs precipitate minimalist disorder because they are unavoidable to “Follow my whole person in reciprocal relationship together by being where I am.”

(3^rd) John further illuminates the Word’s approach to culture in a pivotal interaction that highlights the nexus of the past and future in the Word’s whole picture. The Word initiated direct interaction with a Samaritan woman, which simply went against the cultural norms both for race and gender. The Word countered that prevailing culture in order to neutralize its consequences, so that he could reveal to her face to face the whole of God and the primacy of covenant relationship, which had precedent and thus primacy over any and all revered traditions from the past (4:4-42). The minimalism of his disciples once again appeared in this interaction, contrary to the Word’s direct involvement with those measured as less in the minority population. This direct relational involvement is essential to embody the Word’s neutralizing approach to culture.

Therefore, John’s Gospel unequivocally records the Word’s integrally integrated three-fold approach to culture: the qualified cooperative approach and the conflict approach, balanced ongoingly with the neutralizing approach—all for the essential purpose of countering the workings of reductionism. Since culture is inseparable from existing ways of life, political theology is responsible to detail each of these approaches to culture in our everyday way of life, and including their costs to our identity and function. John doesn’t record vignettes of the past but the Word’s whole picture for this future to be the experiential truth and relational reality for the new the Word embodies and enacts.

4. Next, John’s Gospel illuminates the subtlety of minimalism practiced in the present that distorts the nexus of past and future constituted by the Word. When nexuses composed presumably in terms similar to the Word’s become incompatible and/or incongruent with the Word’s, they cause an impasse that disrupts the designed development and growth of covenant relationship from past to future. This impasse involves the interaction of culture with the political process of the rule of law. The culture

of minimalists is subtly practiced by either politically enabling or being complicit with those enacting a variant rule of law explicitly or implicitly different from to God’s Rule of Law. Such enablers and complicitors are exposed by the Word in order for God’s Rule of Law to fulfill its purpose of growing covenant relationship together—not the mere purpose of a moral-ethical code that minimalists reinforce. Further examples are recorded throughout this Gospel to highlight this opaque minimalist dynamic, represented by three notable variations.

The difference between an enabler and a complicitor is not always apparent, and at times a minimalist engages in both. This is reflected in variation (1), which may seem like an addendum to the key text of John 3:16, but in reality this account is an essential part of the nexus in the Word’s whole picture (3:1-15). As a Pharisee and member of the ruling Sanhedrin, Nicodemus was an enabler of a political culture that diminished God’s Rule of Law to a variable moral-ethical code of behavior, which was observed with the bias of self-interests. Nicodemus must have questioned his complicity because he initiates a clandestine interaction with the Word, who then clarifies and corrects Nicodemus’ party’s prevailing political views that reflected a weak view of sin. The Word perplexes this biblical scholar, who had yet to recognize his minimalism and thus to understand his enabling and complicit function contrary to the Word—all of which pointed to Nicodemus’ reduced theological anthropology. Yet, Nicodemus’ self-doubt about his role in all this left him open to change—the transformation of his person from inner out that constitutes being “born again” (as John notes later, 7:50-51; 19:39).

Variation (2) involves more explicit enablers who appeared to give assent to the Word (8:31-47). But the Word exposed their minimalism composed by a weak view of sin without reductionism, which distorted God’s Rule of Law and misled them in illusions of their status in covenant relationship. Their biased lens prevented them from understanding the Word’s relational language that would free them to be transformed for the experiential truth and relational reality of covenant relationship together in wholeness. As long as they embraced minimalism, however, they would remain enablers in conflict with the Word’s Rule of Law and thus always contrary to the Word’s whole picture involving “the truth will make you free.” Nothing less and no substitutes will enable this relational outcome, and anything less and any substitutes will at the very least always be complicit in minimalizing its relational reality. This leads us to a third variation of minimalism in its unexpected opaqueness.

Variation (3) should concern Christians most urgently about minimalism in their way of life; this is likely John’s purpose to close his Gospel in order to support the essential nexus unfolding in the Word’s whole picture (21:15-23). The cultural shaping of Peter’s identity and function demonstrated at his footwashing wasn’t merely situational. Just as the road to Jesus’ crucifixion precipitated Peter’s minimalist disorder, his condition revealed not a transitory condition but the relational condition of his person from inner out. The relational condition of his person is how Peter engaged in following Jesus to shape his discipleship. The opaqueness of his minimalism also pervades discipleship today, which renders Christians to the same relational condition demonstrated by Peter. At this stage for Peter, nothing John records indicates a change in Peter—notwithstanding his remorse after his denials (Lk 22:62), which John doesn’t record likely because of its limited significance for change in Peter’s person. Peter’s relational condition rooted in reductionism, as is our relational condition, didn’t just end with the resurrection now a reality—contrary to the assumption of many Christians about salvation. The reality of this relational condition is prolonged by any and all existing variations of minimalism in Christian practice that sustain a weak view of sin; and Peter epitomized this reality for the Word to illuminate.

The opaqueness of Peter’s cultural complicity with reduced human identity and function composed by outer-in distinctions was now transparent before the Word. Peter now came face to face with his reckoning of the depth (not extent) of his involvement in covenant relationship together as the Word pursued his person with “Do you love me?” From his reduced theological anthropology, Peter’s minimalist reply focused on the extent of his involvement measured in quantitative terms like his service and length of discipleship. His answers of extent could not account for the depth (i.e. the qualitative level) of relational involvement from inner out that constituted the love essential for covenant relationship together rooted in the qualitative-relational basis of the covenant of love (Dt 7:7-9), which the Word vulnerably enacted for Peter to enact in likeness (Jn 13:34; 15:12). The qualitative level of involvement in relationships can never be measured in quantitative terms, yet minimalists substitute such terms to measure love contrary to the Word—the reckoning of which the Word continues to enact face to face with Christians today (cf. Rev 2:23).

According to the Word, love is the qualitative relational involvement constituting the Word’s Rule of Law, the fulfillment of which makes unmistakable the only love distinguishing the Word’s followers in his likeness (13:35; 15:9-12; 17:26). Without this love’s relational depth of involvement, the counter-relational workings of reductionism will continue to dominate a weak view of sin; and its most infectious symptom is the relational distance maintained with each other, even among the sacred gatherings of Jesus’ followers. Such relational distance has serious consequences for the public way of life, and these consequences reverberate in its human order. Given the future of the early church awaiting him, Peter stood facing the most significant crossroads of discipleship that any of us could and thus must also face unavoidably: “Do you love me?”

It is at this “Do you love me?” juncture that political theology gets to the heart of the rule of law most significant for our way of life and its human order.

Without the primacy of relationships in the qualitative level, the nexus of past and future in the Word’s whole picture is lost—even if Christian theology includes love as an important characteristic of faith. Christian minimalists, for example, co-opt the Word in a subtle way that substitutes the quantitative Bible in referential language for the qualitative Word in relational language—and using the co-opted Word, for example, to justify views and sanction actions as ordained by God. The repercussions from co-opting the Word evolve opaquely in Christian theology. Notably, any theology composed with a reduced theological anthropology and a weak view of sin without reductionism invariably substitutes nexuses under the assumption of having God’s big picture. From the beginning, the Word has been well aware of human tendencies and predispositions, so the Word constituted covenant relationship to be whole on the irreducible and nonnegotiable basis of the Word’s Rule of Law. Therefore, in the Word’s whole picture, nothing less and no substitutes for this ruling nexus can grow covenant relationship together in wholeness.

The problem, however, from the beginning continues to be the subtle turn to a reduced theological anthropology and a weak view of sin that is typically made by minimalists, even unintentionally by default. The essential responsibility of political theology is to ongoingly examine theological anthropologies and views of sin, in order that our way of life integrally unfolds from the past to the future as indelibly imprinted in the Word’s whole picture. As John’s Gospel does, political theology needs to provide the blueprint for the Word’s whole picture to ensure that nothing less and no substitutes unfold. Yet, political theology must also insure that exposing anything less and any substitutes in Christian practice is not just a theological challenge, but by necessity this critiquing process also involves both a cultural challenge and a political challenge; why, so that the full scope of public life is scrutinized. And make no mistake, minimalists come from all positions on the theological, cultural and political spectrum.

The Word’s gospel is rooted in the relational covenant of love that emerged in the Book of Love (Dt 7:7-9). The depth of this covenant relationship unfolds in the engendering nexus legitimized just in God’s Rule of Law. Thus, the relational growth of the covenant of love is contingent on the partners in this covenant carefully following God’s Rule of Law (Dt 7:11). Therefore, for the engendering nexus to truly grow this covenant relationship from the past to the future, this nexus must be integrated with the ruling nexus inscribed in the Word’s irreducible and nonnegotiable Rule of Law. As unequivocal as the Word is about this, however, language issues have raised various questions theologically, culturally and politically, which have led to variable reading of God’s Law that render it no longer irreducible and nonnegotiable. In other words contrary to the Word, what has evolved is that the defining nexus indelibly imprinted in the Word’s whole picture has been replaced by substitute nexuses composed from a weak view of sin without reductionism, which is reinforced and sustained by a reduced theological anthropology.

The relational consequences from reworking the ruling nexus with reduced nexuses from variant rules of law are immeasurable. The human order of life is at stake here, from which our way of life is inescapable. The relational consequences that reverberate from past to future inevitably resound in the present. Urgently and critically then, we need to understand the language issues raised theologically, culturally, and politically, and thereby address them decisively. This process will extend throughout this study.

The prime theological issue with the Word centers on the language of God’s revelation. Does the Word use language to inform or to communicate, to discourse or to make connection? How would you answer this regarding the Word’s Rule of Law? The Word adds, “why is my language not clear to you?” (Jn 8:43, NIV), to amplify the issue facing minimalists.

The text of the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, yet this literary fact does not necessarily define the composition of Scripture and the language distinguished by the Word. An abundance of exegesis and word studies of the biblical languages, not to mention critical studies, have accumulated a wealth of data (cf. Eccl 12:12) that have not progressed biblical studies with the significance to answer Jesus’ above question. The biblical text is expressed in various genres, which is helpful to know for discerning what is being expressed. This knowledge, however, neither accesses the original composition of the Word nor insures an understanding of the composition in its original language—that is, beyond and deeper than its Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek wording. This deeper composition of the Word doesn’t clearly emerge and fully unfold from its commonly used expression unless that composition is perceived (read and listened to) in what is truly its original language. Stated briefly: The original language antecedes the biblical languages and gets us to the nature of the Word’s language, which is essential for understanding the Word.

In the beginning the Creator constituted the persons (no matter the gender) in the primordial garden with an irreducible ontology, an irreplaceable epistemology and a nonnegotiable relationship, the function of which distinguished the image and likeness of the whole of God (integrally incorporating the Word and the Spirit). Those defining words from the Creator (Gen 1:28-30; 2:16-17), expressed in an historical or allegorical context, were either given to human persons to inform them of the parameters of their human function; or they were shared with those persons to communicate distinctly the terms for the relationship between them and the Creator. If the words communicated the terms for relationship together, then these relational terms could only be distinguished when composed in relational language. Anything less than relational language would be ambiguous, elusive, and simply open to variable interpretation of those relational terms; the consequence would be to substitute the Word’s relational terms with other (notably human) terms to define the relationship.

What evolved from the beginning clarifies the language issues of today. First of all, the nature of the language expressing God’s words was changed from the relational language originally used to communicate to an alternate language used merely to inform (Gen 3:4-5). The shift to the now primary focus on transmitting information over communicating relationship then opened the door to two major linguistic shifts of the words from God:

These major shifts transposed ‘the words from God in relational language’ to ‘the words of God in referential language’, and thereby altered the nature of the Word’s original language. The consequence for this beginning that still prevails today is this reality:

The prevailing use of referential language that is unable to compose relational terms in order to communicate but instead is limited only to inform—the narrow transmission of information—therefore a language that cannot understand the composition of the words from the Word no matter the wealth of information (even about “good and evil”) processing the words of God it can transmit to speak for God (as if “like God”).

Substituting referential language for relational language has changed the nature of language, which then also alters the purpose of language. This is the linguistic condition from the beginning that composes the narrative of the human condition; and this language has also impacted the way we think and see the world. Sadly, yet not surprising, we seem to be unaware of or appear to not understand the nature of the language that God uses and that we use instead—the purpose and goal of reductionism subtly working since the beginning. The language issues related to this linguistic condition have also evolved culturally and politically.

When the language composing God’s laws merely transmit information, the terms of those laws assume a different “integrity.” In referential language, God’s laws are transposed from their intrinsic qualitative-relational terms for the primacy of relationship together to mere quantitative terms that may or may not have any significance beyond notions of human relations. The information of quantitative terms has variable value, the characteristics of which are shaped by culture that render the terms of God’s laws to variable interpretation. Ever since God communicated the relational terms of the Rule of Law, the prevailing culture of God’s people has been instrumental in shaping the variable value and the variable interpretation of the Law’s relational terms, thereby compromising the integrity of God’s Law by redefining its primary relational purpose for covenant relationship. The variants from these counter-relational workings of culture continue to evolve among us today, much like the variants of the coronavirus today that make this infection a resistant condition to overcome.

From the primordial garden to the Law to the teachings of the Word, if the language you use is referential language, then what is the purpose you get from your interpretations; and what significance does that purpose have to God?

In the nature of the Word’s relational language, the only purpose that Word has, embodies, enacts, and fulfills is to communicate with persons for relationship together. The Word is not for our information to conform to, and therefore is distinguished just for our inner-out involvement in the primacy of vulnerable relationship together—reciprocal relationship together face to face, person to person. Moreover, this primacy of relationship is constituted by persons not subtly defined and determined from outer in as those in reduced identity and function, but only the reciprocal relationship involved vulnerably with persons from inner out constituted in whole identity and function. When the nature of the language in use has lost its relational integrity, then that language has compromised its purpose for the persons engaged. The unavoidable consequence is that that language either has no significant purpose or is simply used as an end in itself. Referential language fulfills either consequence in its designed purpose; but then, that is the nature of referential language as conjointly composed by reductionism and propagated by its counter-relational workings (as Jesus clarified and corrected, Jn 8:44-45).

What Jesus illuminated in the above interaction is that there are unavoidable language barriers preventing understanding; and that until these language barriers are removed there will be interpretive conflicts and impasses in understanding, namely in our relationships and their human order. This problem is analogous to marriage conflicts, which may require the spouses to have marriage counseling to get past the language barriers that they either don’t understand or are reluctant to face. In such situations counseling is not merely a suggestion but a need.

The Word provided this vital feedback for God’s Rule of Law in order to correct the variable interpretation and reduced purpose shaped by the prevailing culture of God’s people (Mt 5:17-48). God’s laws had been transposed from their primary relational terms to secondary outer-in behavioral terms, which served as an end in itself to observe as self-conscious identity markers. Consequently, the language the Word used originally to communicate the Law for relationship together had now become a barrier to relationships—contrary to and in conflict with the relationships God’s Law is designed to grow together.

Language barriers by nature and on purpose subtly pervade the Christian community, distinctly shaping both relationship with God and relationships with each other either without relational significance or in non-relational terms. On the one hand, this is not surprising because this existing (and still evolving) condition is the ingenious workings of reductionism. On the other hand, for example, Christians can and should experience more reconciliation since this is the stated outcome for the whole gospel composed by the Word (as in Col 1:21-23; Eph 2:14-18). Even though this prominently referenced composition of the Bible has been used to formulate doctrines of salvation, which most Christians subscribe to, has this doctrinal language (no matter how dogmatic) significantly reduced the language barriers still existing in relationships both with God and each other? If not, why this disparity between our theology and practice?

Consider that subtle language barriers also emerge in the common use of technology today and the level of involvement it generates that diminishes relationships, as noted above. Users have not understood the nature of such language barriers and have been reluctant to face them because of an underlying addiction to this technology. This addiction has evolved similarly to the current opioid addiction crisis in the U.S. Opioid addicts may have initially used painkillers for legitimate needs, but soon found themselves entrenched in its use as an end in itself. Compounding this addiction is the pharmaceutical industry, which has promoted opioid use despite knowing its consequences for users. This condition is accelerated by doctors’ prescription abuses. Yet, both for users and developers, these current conditions help point out the nature of language barriers also in theological education that is not understood or is resisted to face up to, and thus may even willfully impose, sustain and promote language barriers on purpose.

This points to how Western culture has propagated Christianity in a language of a virtual reality simulating God’s big picture. Moreover, the Western cultural bias has effectively enveloped the Word’s whole picture in a theological fog, which is evidenced in the nexus that the West substitutes with variable interpretation and application of God’s laws. And these issues raised culturally become more evident politically, notably in the skewed rules of law used that govern with inequity and recycle inequality—the substitute nexus of past and future contrary to and in conflict with the ruling nexus of the Word’s whole picture. This certainly reveals the uncertainty of democratic policy, as well as brings out the tenuous basis for democratic ideology.

Obviously, cultural and political issues, along with related language issues, are a “natural” occurrence in human relations, thus as such they should be expected as simply our human condition—perhaps as the evolving new normal. On the other hand, the strong view of sin encompassing reductionism does not renegotiate the Word’s Rule of Law to adapt to our evolving relational condition. Yet, this renegotiation has evolved subtly in our practice if not our theology also. The current political divisiveness dominating the U.S. is simply a demonstration of this human condition, and the language barriers of identity politics can be summed in a single word: toxic. Toxic is the single “word of the year” chosen for 2018 by the editors at the Oxford English Dictionary; Dictionary.com chose “misinformation,” which is certainly a primary medium of toxic language and the driver of conspiracy theories. This word describes the language dominating throughout 2020 and into 2021, and the obvious purpose it has fulfilled in its use. Sadly, but not surprising, Christian leaders have also used toxic language to emphasize their partisan political views, as well as engaged in the spread of misinformation to support these views.

In the human relational condition, culture and politics interact to synthesize what become systemic language barriers (explicit and implicit), which shape human life with inequality and govern the human order with inequity. We need to understand how critical language is in this synthesis, because the barriers created go beyond the use of such language to exist in our thinking and our view of the world. As science has discovered, the language we speak also shapes both the way we see the world and even the way we think (not necessarily producing thought).[2] This points to the function of language not merely as a means of expression but also as a template imposing a constraint limiting what we see and the way we think. Therefore, the fact is that the cultural and political languages we speak inevitably shape, on the one hand, the way we see human life and, on the other hand, the way we think about humanity. This reality of our minds helps illuminate the nature of our human condition and the language barriers evolving from it to determine human relations, even in relation to God. And the reality evolving today demonstrates how biased thinking has skewed the view of sin that defines our way of life and determines its human order.

At this pivotal juncture, we are both challenged and confronted by our roots and the nexus that brings the past into the future in the Word’s whole picture. Because covenant relationship together is rooted in the Word’s covenant of love, the Word’s Rule of Law must by its nature be understood first and foremost as the relational terms of love. Accordingly, the ruling nexus of love in the Word’s whole picture is irreducible and nonnegotiable to any reduced terms, whether from a reduced theological anthropology or a weak view of sin. Culture and politics, however, have fostered language barriers for love that have reduced both the meaning of love in the Word’s Rule of Law and its qualitative significance in relationships together.

From the viewpoint of your actual practice and not your theology, how do you define love (both God’s and yours)? In your everyday way of life, what priority does love have that is evident in your relationships? Given your honest findings, what do you think your language of love is, and how do you think its composition has been shaped or formed? And what influence would you give to this language on how you see your way of life, as well as how you think about others?

Love is a universal theme in most languages of the world. The nature and purpose of love language, however, are not universal. What the word means and how it is used varies between languages, including among those with the same language. These differences also exist among Christians. While such differences would be compatible with a postmodern perceptual-interpretive framework, they are incompatible with the Word’s language of love. In referential language, love is a word, concept, ideal and thought, the expressions of which do not distinguish the nature and purpose of love in the Word’s relational language. And the thinking formed by referential language about love subconsciously erects a language barrier with the qualitative and relational love words from the Word, even while the thoughts could be focused on the quantity of love words of God. This language disparity is the result of a perceptual lens in what we see and an interpretive mindset in how we think, which referential language forms by the subtle workings of reductionism in their counter-relational nature and purpose.

Christians engaged directly or indirectly in partisan politics, as well as participating by default in fragmenting the global church, are expressing a language of love that resounds in the barriers erected around relational distance, fragmented or broken relationships. It is this language of love co-opted from the Word that composes their rule of law determining their everyday way of life; and its consequential language barriers determine the human order to which they conform and impose on others to conform. The Word, however, exposes the insignificance of this language of love used as the standard in their rule of law: “If you love those who love you, or who are likeminded, what reward do you have? Does not even the opposition do the same? And if you are engaged only with those considered your cohorts, what more are you doing than others? Do not even those considered less than you do the same?” (Mt 5:46-47). This transposed language of

the law creates barriers to love that limit loving to “you shall love your friends” and construct it to “hate, put down or dismiss your perceived enemy” (5:43)—thereby deconstructing the Word’s Rule of Law for the covenant of love. The resulting rules of law from this deconstruction have enforced covenants in the name of God, but their presumptuous reality has been incompatible with the Word’s Rule of Law and thus incongruent with the covenant of love in the Word’s whole picture. Because culture and politics interact to create this synthesis, the Word deals with the political realm like the integral approaches to culture to extend integrally into the integrated three-fold approach to politics:

(1) the qualified cooperative approach that does not compromise the Word’s Rule of Law (as in Mt 22:21; Lk 5:33-6:11).

(2) the conflict approach that opposes the contradiction of the Word’s Rule of Law and the fragmentation of wholeness in persons, relationships and their human order (as in Mt 10:34; Mk 11:15-17).

(3) the neutralizing approach that openly heals human inequities and reconciles human inequalities (as in Lk 7:36-50; 10:38-42; 11:14-23).

Whenever the ruling nexus of the Word’s whole picture is restored, there will be a reckoning of past and future for our theology, culture and politics. The significance of political theology makes this restoration imperative and thus unavoidable, which then makes this reckoning imperative and thus inescapable. Political theology makes these imperative notably for Christians engaged in identity politics by adhering to partisan politics at the expense of the Word’s ruling nexus. Christians and churches who don’t explicitly work for restoring the Word’s irreducible and nonnegotiable ruling nexus, thereby intentionally or inadvertently serve as enablers of variant rules of law or serve by default as complicitors reinforcing and sustaining them—either of which cannot escape the Word’s reckoning of the sins of reductionism (Mt 5:17-20).

The nexus of past and future remains in operation one way or the other. The path we are on in the present will inform us of what to expect in the future. Our present path also reveals where we came from in the past and thereby where we are going to for the future. Presently, we are focused more on where we’re going in the future, with little if any awareness of where we came from. This indicates the assumptions made about our roots, while widely presuming that our branches in life have the right roots to keep growing in the future. Branches flourish, however, only from whole unfragmented roots that are presently nurtured and nourished with the qualitative-relational substance of life in God’s likeness, which cultivates the future of their well-being in wholeness. Therefore, knowing the roots of our past is essential for understanding where we are going and what we can expect in the future; and this knowledge and understanding are irreplaceable to guide us in the present on this nexus and none other—that is, nothing less and no substitutes.

The Word’s whole picture is ongoingly subjected to competition from vignettes of the past. As noted earlier, Peter’s vignette of the messiah shaped by cultural-political bias came into direct conflict with Messiah’s whole picture (Mt 16:21-23); this conflict quickly emerged even after Peter appeared to know the essential roots of the true Messiah (16:15-16). This makes evident that even when our theology may have the right roots, what we practice in our way of life could easily be determined by selective vignettes of the past that never give us the whole picture. This was the problem Saul also had until he encountered the Word’s reckoning on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-18, cf. Phil 3:4-6). The consequence of this problem is that an incomplete, misleading or incorrect past becomes the nexus to the future. Such a past becomes a misinformed playbook for our way of life, its human order, and all its related branches.

When human history and church history are examined without any of their redactions, then a clear pattern emerges: The range of shortcomings enacted in the past consistently do not educate significantly enough for the present to learn from, and this factual basis has not been sufficient for the present not to repeat the same shortcomings. As the axiomatic saying goes, ‘Those who don’t learn from history repeat it’. The Word adds the axiom: “The measure of the past you use will be the measure of the future you get—no more though likely anything less” (Mk 4:24-25). Thus, this axiomatic truth keeps evolving historically: Theologically, culturally and politically, the prevailing mode has been to repeat or recycle the past, leaving the future with little if any hope for change; and, to reemphasize emphatically, thereby enveloping the Word’s whole picture in fog that obscures it in everyday life. Therefore, it is simply indispensable to know “Where are you?” and to understand “What are you doing here?”

Currently, where we are in 2021 and are going in the future depend on what we’ve been doing in the nexus with the past. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic certainly has spread more widely in 2021 than this past year and the nexus from this past is inseparable from this future. Wearing masks and social distancing or not continue to connect 2020 to 2021 as a determinant for the level of coronavirus infection, with mutating coronaviruses compounding this connection. This scenario highlights what is a historical fact: The wrong nexus from the past makes the future regress; likewise, the nexus with the wrong past makes the future repeat.

The recurring dynamic in human life highlights the need for change. From the beginning, this human dynamic has evolved from the critical juncture at which it shifted from the primacy of its created qualitative-relational constitution to its reduction by a captivating quantitative composition. Historically to the present, the seduction of this quantitative composition for human identity and function has prevailed over and dominated their primary qualitative-relational constitution of creation. The reality of what has evolved in human life and its human order is entrenched in this past. This constrained and strained reality brings to the forefront two strategic issues: (1) the inescapable past that must be addressed, understood and accounted for, and (2) the undeniable fact of the unavoidable need for turn-around change to transform (not mere reform) our human condition. These strategic issues make irreplaceable understanding the past of creation and its evolution, plus make essential the nexus of change for the past of creation to become the future of creation recreating human life and its human order.

The two strategic issues point back to John’s Gospel, which illuminates the strategic unfolding of the Word’s whole picture. The Word is the creator of all life, yet human life either didn’t know him or didn’t accept him (Jn 1:3,10-11). Why? Because humanity turned away from the original qualitative-relational constitution of creation to embrace a reduced quantitative composition that evolved (or mutated) from it. This obviously distorted the past of creation and made ambiguous the future that would flow from it. John’s Gospel illuminates the Word’s whole picture that unfolds strategically in this human condition. Fast-forwarding from creation, the Word embodied the Truth of the Life created in the Word’s whole likeness, whereby he enacted this Life on the qualitative-relational Way that created life constituted for covenant relationship together (Jn 14:6). In spite of the Word’s now vulnerable presence and direct relational involvement, the essential qualitative-relational nuances of the Word’s strategic action elude the human identity and function composed quantitatively from outer in by a reduced theological anthropology. Furthermore, the essential qualitative-relational significance of the Word’s integral action is lost on those with a weak view of sin lacking reductionism, unable to discern the fragmentation of the whole. Nicodemus’ past was exposed in his direct vulnerable encounter with the Word, which made evident his reduced theological anthropology and weak view of sin that the Word illuminated as needing to be recreated from the inner out (i.e. transformed). Unequivocally, the Word strategically unfolds the nexus of change necessary by the nature (dei, Jn 3:7) of covenant relationship, as opposed to the mere obligation (opheilo) associated with covenant as commonly fulfilled.

In this nexus of change, the Word’s strategic action unfolds from the past of creation’s evolvement (or the original made old) to its turnaround, in order for the old to be born anew from above (anothen, inadequately rendered by “again”), so that the new creation is raised up for the new covenant together (Jn 1:12-13)—the embodiment and enactment of the Truth, the Life and the Way nuanced in, with and by the new wine (Lk 5:36-39; 22:20; 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). The nexus of change is no mere notion, nor is it a theological concept promoting a theological ideal. For that reason, the essential qualitative-relational nuances of the Word’s strategic action elude the identity and function of those with a reduced theological anthropology; and the essential qualitative-relational significance of the Word’s integral action is lost for those having a weak view of sin. Thus, all theological anthropologies need to return to the past roots of creation in order for the future of the new creation to be a reality; and any view of sin needs to return to its past roots evolved since creation, so that the future of the new creation will not be diminished by the repetition of sin.

As the Word made unequivocal for Nicodemus, the new creation is the outcome solely from redemptive change: the vulnerable qualitative-relational process in which the old in us is relinquished in order for it to die, so that the new for, about and in us will rise. Without making vulnerable the old in us—which Nicodemus initially did and Peter had difficulty doing—this old will not be released to die (an ongoing death, not a singular death, cf. Lk 9:23-24), and the new does not have the freedom to rise (an ongoing rise, not a singular raise). Certainly then, without redemptive change the past in us can only recycle in the present, keeping the future of creation in the old with only a blind faith for a new creation. Where does that leave our way of life and its human order? And what news can we offer for the evolving ways of life and human orders surrounding us that are in crisis?

The gospel in the Word’s whole picture is neither virtual news nor misleading news, rather integrally composed by both bad and good news. The Word’s whole gospel is incomplete without the bad news (not misinformation or disinformation) that the Word confronts “until he brings justice to victory” (Mt 12:20), because “I have not come to bring mere common peace but a sword” (Mt 10:34). Contrary to common peace, the Word’s sword was necessary to enact in order for the Word’s covenant of peace (Eze 37:26, cf. Isa 54:10) to be extended only in this peace’s uncommon terms to sustain the Word’s covenant of love, so that this nexus brings the good news of the new covenant for the new creation. In the Word’s strategic action, the bad news antecedes the good news, and the whole gospel can only be claimed as news both bad and good.

Yet, make no mistake in thinking that the bad news is composed by misinformation, disinformation or fake news, because these sources are also targeted by the gospel’s bad news as needing to be confronted for change. The nexus of change amplifies the whole composition of the gospel in the Word’s whole picture. And the change required from the past to the future intensifies confronting the injustices of the present and the current lack of wholeness existing in human life—extending the uncommon peace that the Word gives (Jn 14:27)—until the good news is able to complete the change for the new future freed from the old.

As the U.S. undergoes the chaotically historic transition to the Biden administration, more questions may remain than be answered about its future. Peoples, tribes and nations around the world likely will have to adapt to the variable changes ahead in the U.S., whether they agree with the changes or not. Interrelated to this political climate, how Christians adapt in this transition also raises questions, which urgently should not remain unanswered about their future. Predicting the future certainly is an uncertain equation, with faith in probability having no prediction certainties. In this historic time of uncertainty, Christians locally and globally, more than any other branch of humanity and any political branch, need to have a nexus for the future that is unequivocally rooted in certainty, whereby that nexus is unmistakably distinguished in their witness to all persons, peoples, tribes and nations in a fragmented world.

The bad news of the whole gospel is the critical key in this current transition that is essential to unlock the door of certainty for the future. According to the integral nature of the whole gospel, Christians and churches must understand that for the future to unfold in the reality of good news, it first has to explicitly and honestly traverse the nexus of change. God’s people from the beginning have commonly travelled from past to the future on a road charted widely and with the least resistance, thereby composing that nexus in uncertainty. Misinformation, disinformation and fake news, including conspiracy theories, have misled and misguided those who presumably have been following the Word. Historically, this wider, easier road has been consistently guided by such leaders as prophets (Jer 23:16), shepherds (Eze 34:2), key disciples as Peter (Gal 2:11-14), and arguably including Augustine and Calvin—whose influence modern political theology has evolved from and revolved on[3]—and many current Christian leaders scattered throughout the global church.

The whole gospel’s bad news gets submerged and disengaged when skewed (OK, perhaps screwed) by the good news—not just by variations of the prosperity gospel. Not surprisingly, this nexus for the future has relegated the good news to uncertainty, since the relational significance of the new covenant and the relational outcome of the new creation have been rendered to insignificant ideals in theology and to virtual reality in practice. This insignificance and virtual reality have not been lost on current younger generations, who understandably want more than the anything less and any substitutes that their elders have settled for. Unlike the prevailing state of Christians and churches, however, whether these religious or secular younger generations will pursue nothing less and no substitutes is an open question—which the whole gospel will also require them to address first with the bad news before any expectation of good news.

Because of the Word’s synergism—its whole greater than the sum of its parts—the nexus for the future is distinguished unequivocally just in the Word’s whole picture. Here again, there are nuances of the Word’s strategic action that need to be understood. The whole gospel enacted by the Word makes nonnegotiable the gospel’s news, which means that both the bad and the good need to be embraced to claim the Word’s gospel. Moreover, since the Word’s strategic action is not self-evident on a wider-easier road, this nexus for the future immediately without equivocation narrows the road and makes it difficult to navigate to the whole gospel’s relational outcome and conclusion (as in Mt 7:21-23). If the Word doesn’t know those who presumably follow the Word, it’s because they don’t truly know the whole Word even after all that time spent in the same space together (Jn 14:9). Does the Word’s justified frustration with his main disciples also directly speak to the relational condition of Christians and churches today, not so much about what they believe but who they profess to know?

Nevertheless, the Word’s whole gospel, not our partial gospel, is relentless in pursuing us with its bad news about our human relational condition. Therefore, the nexus for the future is brightly illuminated first and foremost by the nexus of change, nothing less and no substitutes for redemptive change. This opens the narrow door for the engendering nexus legitimized just in the Word’s Rule of Law, which leads to the ruling nexus inscribed irreducibly and nonnegotiably in this nothing less and no substitutes Rule of Law that is by necessity essential to navigate the narrow road of the covenant of love with the distinctly unique parameters of the covenant of uncommon peace. Along this narrow and difficult road, the nexus for the future unfolds clearly distinguished in the integrated three-fold approaches to culture and politics: the qualified cooperative approach, the conflict approach, and the neutralizing approach—with nothing less than whole theological anthropology defining our identity and determining our function, and with no substitutes for the strong view of sin encompassing reductionism.

This integral connection is defining for political theology to illuminate along with John’s Gospel, so that our everyday identity and function are congruent and our public way of life is compatible with the whole Word, with the Word’s whole picture, as well as with the theological trajectory and relational path of the Word’s whole gospel. Political theology lacking this qualitative-relational coherence can only define secondary parts of our identity and function, as well as determine only fragments of our way of life, which then makes their congruity and compatibility with the Word ambiguous or simply a virtual reality at best.

Hereby this integral nexus for the future, we can respond to the Word to answer with the whole Truth of “Where are you?”, and with the whole Life and Way of “What are you doing here?”—and therefore no longer in the relational ambiguity of “and you still don’t know me after all this time together?”

Anything less and any substitutes for our way of life and its human order relegate the future to recycling the past, for which we have ongoing evidence in the present. If we don’t dismiss the bad news as fake news, or obscure it with misinformation, then we come face to face with the Word at the crossroads of what we will do with his uncommon whole gospel.

[1] For an expanded study on biblical interpretation, see my study Interpretation Integrated in ‘the Whole-ly Way’: The Integral Education and Learning of Knowing and Understanding God (Bible Hermeneutics Study, 2019). Online at http://www.4X12.org.

[2] Reported by Sharon Begley in “What’s in a Word?” Newsweek, July 20, 2009, 31.

[3] As reflected in other political theologies previously footnoted.