Contrast and Companionship: The Way of the Church with the World

Learning to be a “contrast community” and living in “companionship with the world” belong together. The church walks among others in the world as a community that inhabits a contrasting vision formed by the biblical narrative, something others can therefore see and taste and grasp. But far from living in a withdrawn or oppositional way among others, the church also walks with a spirit of companionship because of what it knows the good news of God to be. It knows that it shares common life and language and culture with others, and shares common aspirations for wholeness of life. The church thus finds in contrast and companionship the twin qualities that together constitute the way of the church with the world.