Frames, Forms and "Formation"

This morning's message was on 'unity" and how important unity was/is. The commendation to corforming one's opinion to the tradition of the text of scripture and the 'form of Christ", was a unified way of understanding, which is based on "tradition", instead of "agreeing to disagree" (reason). Christ and who he has been undestood to be as the Chruch (tradition) has interpreted his life (doctrine) is to be the "form". But, is this necessarily true?

The "pastor" suggested a "faith," that was mindless and not based on reason. Reason subverts faith, in this scenario, because "ideas" were viewed as "endless speculation" and "not after Christ" (text). I disagree. Will the pastor "tolerate" (live in unity) with my disagreement? Or do I have to conform to this pastor's understanding because she is after all the "leader"? I think not.

I find that unity is not about beliefs (text and tradition), as beliefs will always be formulated differently, depending on one's frames and the forms, which represent the highest value of a certain individual. Even in using "Jesus, as the Christ" as the "form" universally, is invalidated, because there are so many ways that his life has been understood. So, unity cannot be in beliefs, because otherwise, we would have to agree about things that it is impossible to agree about. We have different ways of understanding, formulating and thinking about "reality". These ways of understanding are not absolute, as they represent certain contexts of personal, and cultural "conviction".

So, what is unity about? Unity is about attitude toward another's right to exist. The other has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Prejuidice is a pre-judging according to some "group" standardization and understanding. There is nothing wrong, in fact, it is informative in some settings to understand another groups "convictions", ideas, and opinions, as this helps the sociologist, and anthropoligist to "diagnose" how a certain culture "functions".

Functioning cultures are those that are based on an "ordered government". The differences of government depend on the ideas that "form" that government. Government is about equality and law. Therefore, government should be a way to protect individual rights under law. Other forms of government are based on absolute power, domination, and even anarchy.

Therefore, unity has to allow diversity, otherwise, unity commends conformity, which is domination of another's view and how they have come to understand and formulate their reality. And domination is not "good government'.