ABSTRACT
We turn now to the translation of the Nazarenes’ relationships – and of relationships such as theirs – into the institutions and practices of political and bureaucratic life. This translation was shaped by attitudes towards our relationships that I have characterised as ‘personal’ and ‘absolute’. With the personal came manipulation, instability, fission, an obsession with monitoring and image, and a need for authoritarianism. With the absolute came simplicity, stability, direction and quiet authority. These two attitudes do not exist one without the other. They are at the core of what we are, creating within us and among us all both tensions and complementarities, and finding expression in the world around us.
