imago Dei

In 1955, James H Robinson was the first African American to deliver the Lyman Beecher Lectures, the most prestgious lecturship on preaching in the United States. He spoke about the dangerous complacency of a nation ‘  flushed with a succession of victories and satiated with economic prosperity, at the height of vaunted achievements  and technological ascendancy in the arts and sciences’. And he demanded that those who dare talk of transformative grace must wrestle with such questions as:

What must I do with my life – with the power, the knowledge, the wealth and the leisure which modern adbvancement puts at my disposal? And when life tumbles in how do I keep my equilibrium and reinstate my life without going to pieces.(Page 148)

This from the essay ‘Transformative Grace’, in the edited collection of Essays I am currently reading. (See picture in this post and sidebar). Written by an African American woman theologian, a Reformed view of grace is repristinated to take account of African Presbyterian experience and history over 200 years in the United States. Refusing the role of Reformed theological parrott she embraces the ministry of reformed theological prophet. This is a superbly astringent essay. On the imago Dei she praises the contributors to an anthology, Black Preaching

The preachers keep themselves and their congregations rooted in the message that every person is a reflection of the divinity. Their exposition of the sacredness and inherent worth of every human being  is uncompromising.; the status of imago Dei has no superior. God’s grace comes to humanity touching each of us directly, so that assured of our intrinsic dignity, we can each live into our highest and most noble self.(Page 149)

A quotation like that has disruptive and constructive consequences if such a view of each human being were to inform political and social goals. I am deeply interested in the critical edge the doctrine of the imago Dei provides for a Christian theology and practice of justice, and as a doctrine with diagnostic properties for probing the economic values and human costs of social policies. Imago dei and asylum seeking people; imago Dei and homeless people; imago Dei, globalisation and company restructuring; imago Dei and inter-faith dialogue.

Of course imago Dei is a doctrine decisively shaped by the attributes of the God in whose image it is believed we are made. ‘God is love…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself….God commends his love towards us in that while we were still enemies, Christ died for us.’ Imago Dei – transformative grace.