What Makes the Church a Community of Light

The season of Epiphany celebrates the realization that through the incarnation and revelation of God in Christ, God's light has entered the world.  The Church is called to be the community that evidences and reflects God's light.

The Church's own internal polity; the way it structures itself, goes about its practices, and in particular, the way it deals with conflict, is the primary mechanism through which it reflects God's light to the world.  That is, the Church's theological perspectives, however important, are less important than the way that the Church effects these perspectives.  What makes the Church a place that reflects God's light into the darkness of human culture is thereby not necessarily its right perspectives, but the way that it lives out these perspectives and how it treats both those within the community and outside of it

Human culture sees itself as a place of light.  But it is grounded in the notion of identifying the light, distinguishing it from the darkness, and then driving out the darkness.  This is evident in the way that conflict is addressed.  Those with differing perspectives war with each other, and those with the perspective that emerges as right then drives out those who hold the differing perspective, identifying it as darkness.

The Church is called to practice a completely different methodology, and in doing so, to reveal human culture's methodology itself as darkness.  The very act of driving out the darkness, no matter how much those who drive it out are in the light, is itself a manifestation of darkness.  The community of light, rather than driving out those whose perspectives are deemed erroneous, is called to maintain the bonds of covenant with those deemed erroneous, so that they can be brought into the light.  By mirroring human culture's methodology, irregardless of the correctness of its perspectives, Christian communities are simply mirroring the world's darkness.

The Earthly City and the City of God

One of Augustine's greatest works, the City of God, was a reaction to criticism against the Church due to the sack of Rome in 410 by the Visigoths.  Some attributed this to Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome a century earlier.

Augustine text is based in a juxtaposition of the earthly city and the City of God, arguing that human history is characterized by a conflict between the two; the earthly city representative of the sin evident in the world, and the City of God as representative of God's will for humanity.  According to Augustine, the task of the Church is to manifest the City of God and seek its realization

A similar juxtaposition is found in Matthew's account of the visit of the three wise men, where Herod evidences the kingdoms of this world, in contrast to Christ, who represents the Kingdom of God.  The wise men, as foreigners, become the unlikely heroes of the story, saving Christ from Herod's intended genocide.  Herod is driven by the engine of fear; the loss of power and status.  The Kingdom of God, as evident in the life of Christ, is driven by sacrificial love; revealed in God's activity as creator and redeemer of all things.  The Church is called to reveal the nature of this kingdom, even as we remain present in the kingdoms of this world that continue to reflect Herod's fear