CHRISTIAN IDENTITY: AN INTRODUCTION

Eduardus Van der Borght

When we discuss issues such as ethnicity or violence, does it really mat- ter that we are Christians? If we say that we are against violence, secu- lar humanists and Buddhists will say the same. So do Christians have a specific identity? And what is its nature? Is it ethical or is it something else? These questions took central stage during the discussions held at the members meeting at the end of the biannual conference of the Inter- national Reformed Theological Institute, with the theme of Faith and Violence, in Kinasih, Java, Indonesia in July 2003. The members decided to make Christian Identity the central theme of the next biannual conference that was to be held in Seoul from 5 to 10 July 2005. This volume contains a part of the keynote lectures and the work- shop presentations of the 2005 IRTI conference. Not all were submitted for publication, and they all went through a double, blind, refereeing process that led to the withdrawal of some papers and the thorough redrafting of many others. At the conference, the keynote lectures were organized according to the three themes of Christian identity and the socio-political contexts, Christian identity in the context of religions, and Christian identity in cultural contexts. Bram van de Beek, the then director, opened the conference with a lecture, Christian Identity as Identity in Christ, in which he did not not only introduce the theme, but in which he also placed his cards on the table in a provocative style. With a reference to the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism, Van de Beek defined Christian identity as one who belongs to Christ and no longer to oneself, and jux- taposes this position against the tendency in church history to reduce Christian identity to applied ethics. When Kant reduced God to the field of practical reason at the dawn of modernity, he did not invent something new. Eusebius of Caesarea had already theologically justi- fied the merger of the mission of the Roman Empire and the mission of the church. He recognizes the same tendency of the merger of pol- itics and Christian faith, and of empire and the kingdom of God, in the documents of WARC and WCC. The consequence of the rediscov- ery of righteousness as a central biblical concept in the 20th century 2 eduardus van der borght should not lead to Christian strife for justice in the world, and also not to the hope that human beings will change the world for the bet- ter; but rather, to a focus on death (Irenaeus)—The death of Christ for our sins, and our own death, since we no longer live our own identity. Dying with Christ in baptism, we have been transferred to his eschato- logical community in which we are called to sanctification—not in the sense of moral improvement, but of growing in our true identity as cit- izens of heaven. Free in Christ, Christians lose their fear of confronta- tions, and expect God to save and renew this created world through death. The volume opens with this challenging lecture. We have arranged the contributions according to five themes: theological basics of Chris- tian identity, Christian identity and the identity of the church, Christian identity on the public square, Christian identity in religious dialogue, and Christian identity in context.

Theological Principles

Flip Theron points to the central Christian doctrine of justification as the correct entrance to the theme of Christian identity in Devastat- ing Grace: Justificatio impii and I-dentity. He describes the tragedy of the Western world in which the search for the self—since the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and modernity—ended in uncertainty, isolation, and void in the post-modern era, and compares that to the uncertainty of Afrikaners after the breakdown of apartheid as a political system that was invented to safeguard the identity of the Afrikaners in South Africa. The fear of being nobody can only be taken away if one realizes that our identity is a mystery that needs to be revealed to us. Encountering God involves facing judgement about our constructed identities. Our true identity is located outside ourselves in Christ crucified and raised from the dead, and that will be revealed as part of an eschatological new creation. Chris Mostert refers to the recent commotion in his home country, Australia, when a minister refused permisson to drape the coffinof a ‘returned serviceman’ at the funeral service. At the heart of the debate is the question whether the primary purpose of such a service is thanksgiving for a particular person’s life, or for worshipping God and celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that witnesses to the faithfulness of God in life and death. It is precisely this aspect that