ABSTRACT
The language of Christianity as used in the sequence of the liturgy sets an agenda, now to be explored in Part II. That agenda includes the following themes: how is it that the realities of society so rapidly annul and reincorporate the vision of peace and unity; are there ways whereby the seeds of the kingdom, seemingly cast on wasteland, silently burgeon within the secular city; in what ways do we belong simultaneously to the old dispensation and the old city of Jerusalem, with its local loyalties, and to the City of God? This group of themes takes off from the address in Part I on ‘From Lakeside to City’ and attempts some kind of resolution in ‘Peace and Unity’ in Part II and in ‘War, Peace and Remembrance’ in Part III. The issue is fundamental because the idiom of love based on fraternal unity confronts the idiom of violence based on the brokenness, division and fracture at the heart of humanity and human society. It also relates to other issues which are the tension between conventional wisdom as embodied in commonsensical duty and the folly of holy charity, and between proper self-love and losing one’s life to find it.
