Another of those constructive posts I was talking about. If Marshall thought I was being overly intellectual and obscurantist before, he'll really like this one.
Most statements of faith begin, "I believe". I would like to make some points about the "I" in this phrase. First, and foremost, "I" as a description and/or shorthand for an individual is somewhat dubious. Despite Descartes's famous declaration, "Cogito, ergo sum", it is in fact questionable whether or not such a thing as "I" exists at all. After all, how do I tell others who I am? I tell them I am a husband, a father, perhaps I also tell them I am a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, a worker, a citizen, a Christian. All these terms are relational; who I am is always understood as who I am relative to others. None of them sums up "I", and yet putting them all together does not sum up "I", either. This is the mystery of identity - it is a movement between the self and others, a constant negotiation that leaves the status of the self always in flux. Time and tide, as it were, leave their mark.
For the purposes of a statment concerning what I believe, I think it necessary to place myself within a certain context, the Church. Even saying that, however, is an abstraction, because there really is no such entity as "The Church". There are various churches, which in turn are parts (some of them) of larger bodies known as denominations. It might be more accurate to say that I am a United Methodist, placing my claim to the Christian faith within that historic tradition.
Yet, the United Methodist Church has roots that stretch beyond just John Wesley and Francis Asbury. There are the EUB roots, as well, in the non-episcopal Arminian tradition of the Evangelical and Church of the Brethren. Wesley himself was a priest in the Church of England, whose governing doctrine continues to be the 39 Articles. Wesley himself read widely, and drew from, the Church Fathers, especially the Greek Fathers, who in turn owe a debt not just to their predecessors, but to Plato and Plotinus as well. In other words, by saying I am a United Methodist, there is this whole stream of life and thought that has shaped me and the community of which I am a part. At the same time, I have myself read widely, and draw inspiration from, Reformed and Catholic traditions, as well as the Anabaptist tradition. For me, then, to say "The Church" is in some way an echo of the author of Hebrews' "Great Cloud of Witnesses" - that communion of saints which is the strange ever-presence of those both living and dead who inform and shape us through relationship. We do not exist of, for, or by ourselves. "I" is a very limited construct, indeed.
The debt I owe so many up to this very moment for shaping the person I am now can never be repaid. It would certainly be wrong of me to deny this debt by saying, "I am me without any need of others for my identity". It is both factually inaccurate and spiritually void. When I say, "I believe" at the beginning of the creed, the "I" is really shorthand for "this particular individual who is part of a community of believers, living and dead, who continue to live in their witness through him".
The heroic self, either of myth or American frontier ideology, is a dangerous abstraction. We need to discard it, and remember that we are not apart, but a part.
