THE GREEK ORTHODOX THEOLOGICAL REVIEW Vol. 45, Nos. 1-4, 2000

Toward a Person-Centered Society: TheGreat Challenge of the 21st Century

DR. STAVROS S. FOTIOU

THE INDIVIDUAL-CENTERED WORLD AT AN IMPASSE

We live in a world that is tragically irrational and irrationally tragic:a world of hunger in the midst of mass consumption and of lonelinessin the midst of mass culture; a world of violence and alienation; aworld where some lack bread, others freedom, and others a meaningfulway of life.

The entire world is undergoing a crisis today, a crisis in the modernway of life, that is to say, in the worldview that developed during theenlightenment, based upon the epistemological foundations ofclassical or Newtonian physics. The two principal features of thisworldview are dualism and individualism. E)ualism understands thethree elements of the ontological triad God-man-world as havingadversarial relationships with each other. It thus confines life to aseries of Manichean oppositions: man versus God, man versus hisfellow man, and man versus nature. Individualism sees man first andforemost as an individual, a self-contained entity turned in upon itself,separate units to be quantified statistically and mobilized en masse.

Dualism and individualism see individuals as being in discord andconflict with each other: the living space of one threatens the livingspace of another, and the freedom of one limits the freedom of another.This individual-centered conception of man gave rise to analogoussociological conceptions, which attempted to justify its egocentrismand inhumanity. Biological Darwinism developed into socialDarwinism, and Friedrich Nietzsche took evolution one-step further:

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since man evolved from apes, why not start with man and reachsuperman?

The entire world was thus transformed into a battlefield where thevarious parts, by definition opposed and hostile to each other, contend.The nature of man and human life is seen as being in continuousconflict, both internally and externally: internally, the body vies withthe soul, logic with feeling, and the conscious mind with theunconscious mind; externally we find male pitted against female,German against Frenchman, white against black, bourgeois againstworker, and European against African.

Society attempts to limit this conflict and struggle betweenindividuals by enacting laws and establishing barriers that restrainunbridled egocentrism. The goal is for individuals to coexistpeacefully, to survive in tandem. As a result, society is nothing morethan a "social contract" whose role consists merely in balancing rightsand obligations.

With the rise of this modern worldview, knowledge becameidentified with power; having knowledge meant conquering,subjugating the known object to one's will. For this reason modernman narrowed his concept of existence to what was quantitative andmeasurable, tangible and rationalistic, relegating metaphysical,internal, and qualitative matters -futile questions, in his opinion- tobe left to the so-called theoretical sciences. Science, thus demoted,became a utilitarian tool, valuable only insofar as it could be used asan instrument for supremacy and domination.

Nature was regarded through this same lens. In his arrogance,modem man saw the natural environment as nothing more than anenormous mine he could exploit indefinitely. Nature wascounterpoised to humanity; it was viewed as an inanimate thing to beused and abused, possessed and dominated. In England, Bacondescribed nature as a slave that man must subjugate; in France,Descartes sought to conquer it; and in Germany, Kant likened natureto the object of an interrogation whose interrogator must resort totorture in order to extract hidden secrets.

This dualistic juxtaposition of man and nature, this view of man asthe only subject and of nature as the object, led to the belief that manis the only first principle and to all the negative consequences thatthis had on nature. All things were considered subordinate to manand ceased to have their own meaning and value in creation. Not by

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chance did humanity arrive at the height of arrogance, believing inthe notion that each living being could be viewed as nothing morethan a well-built machine.

This individual-centered world view led to the belief that it wasreasonable to pursue continuous economic expansion, more and moreacquisitions and possessions, and ever-greater production andconsumption. Blind faith in progress and the subordination of theend to the means ultimately created a world in the image and likenessof the egocentric individual. Just as a human being is always in dangerof sudden death, so the world too is now in danger of sudden deathby thermonuclear war. Just as man must face the decay of old age, sotoo, the world now faces ecological deterioration. Modern man setout to create paradise on earth, but he ended up being incinerated atAuschwitz and Hiroshima.

CONFRONTING THE IMPASSE

It has been shown that the perfect life advertised by consumersociety all around the world could not be universal. It is not possiblefor everyone to live that way, since this would mean total ecologicaldestruction. We are therefore at a critical turning point, which is whythere exists today such a multiplicity of viewpoints. FrancisFoukouyama assures us of "the end of history," Samuel Huntingtonpredicts the "conflict of cultures," and Alvin Toffler invites us to takea journey on the "third wave."

In the face of this impasse, two solutions have been offered. Thefirst calls on us to renew our faith in the individual, that is, to developa better understanding of the individual's broader and long-terminterests, so that by applying the necessary self-restraint we can avoiddisturbing the balance of nature. This solution amounts to takingrefuge in the future, where science and technology will supposedlyplay a messianic role.

The second solution urges us to return to pre-modem forms ofsocial organization and collectivist notions of man and life. Thissolution turns to the past for refuge, which explains whyfundamentalism is once again in the spotlight.

Neither of these proposed solutions succeeds in any significantway in overcoming the cause of the problem, which is theindividualistic view of man and life. In the final analysis, therefore.

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we have only two possible options. First, the "fortunate" consumersof the north can barricade themselves behind economic chauvinism,transforming themselves into an elite club of "privileged egotists"and transforming their countries into unassailable fortresses againstanything considered socially unacceptable, underdeveloped, or thirdworld. This is the solution of one-dimensional man, homo economicus,who is fully aware that his own consumerist torpor will mean thepoverty and death of other human beings and peoples.

Humanity's second option is to move forward by adopting a newworldview, a new conception of what is primary and essential in life.We don't need to improve our existing value system but to re-prioritizeour needs. We need to posit an alternative way of life, one that willbe global and accessible to all with no distinctions whatsoever. Whatwe need, in the end, is a new way of seeing human beings, the world,and history, a point of view that will set new goals for our continuedexistence. This means that we must once again pose questionsconcerning the meaning of existence. What is God? What is man?What is love? What do we mean by the words life, eros, and death?

GOD AS COMMUNION OF PERSONS

If what we have been told by Max Weber, Werner Sobart, andother scholars is correct, namely, that behind every theory of manand society there exists a corresponding ontological conception ofreality, then the alternative way of life we need to propose has to setout from a different ontological basis. In fact, the ontology we are insearch of is the person-centered ontology of the Orthodox Church.

In the Orthodox view, the relationships between God, man, andnature are all dialectic and interpersonal. For this reason. Orthodoxyis able to offer man a way of life in which all the different andapparently opposed elements of the cosmos can harmoniously coexist.Nothing lives in isolation; nothing is in opposition to anything else.Within the cosmic process we call life everything mingles andintersects. Dostoyevsky put this experience into words in the followingway: "Everything is like the ocean, everything flows and toucheseverything else; if you touch one part, a ripple will be felt at the otherend of the earth."

This harmonious unity of all the parts of the whole prevails in thecosmos because it is the way that God himself exists, a harmonious

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communion of three persons: the "I," the "you," and the "other;" thelover, the beloved and the co-beloved one; one-in-three and three-in-one; each one with the other, through the other, for the other. Withinthis harmonious communion each person is singular and unique, yetexists at the same time in complete unity with the others. Existencemeans coexistence, human being means fellow human being; theseare the interpretive equations of person-centered ontology

The person and the individual are therefore opposites. Division,distance, and separation characterize the individual. The person ischaracterized by relationship, closeness, and unity. Being a personmeans being transported beyond oneself by transcending thestandpoint of the "I" and moving toward the "you" in order to formthe "we." "Individual" is a numerical category, an impersonal andfor that reason replaceable object; mass organization is therefore notantithetical to the concept of the individual but a consequence of it.In contrast, "person" is a spiritual category, a unique, unprecedentedand forever irreplaceable human being. A person is aware of thetotality of existence, has universal consciousness, and "feelsresponsible for everyone and everything." A single person is arecapitulation of the entire world and is therefore equal in value tothe whole cosmos.

A person is a human being in harmonious relationship with Godand therefore, by extension, with himself, with his fellow man, andwith nature.

A person's inner world is therefore one of harmony andcompanionship. The three parts of the soul -the rational mind, theemotions, and the will- think together, feel together, and express theirwill together in the process of fulfilling the purpose of their existence.Thought is rational, feeling is steadfast, and the will takes action.Furthermore, through the nous, consciousness brings the objects ofsense perception into continuous communion with the objects ofthought, empirically demonstrating the dialectic relationship betweenmind and matter. Man is "physical with respect to his spirit andspiritual with respect to his body," a living organism of psychosomaticinterchange. Active and mutual replenishment and interaction -downto the level of the cell, as today's biologists tell us- is what uniteseverything in the continuous totality of life. All dualism is thuseliminated: biological vs. social, organic vs. inorganic, or theoreticalvs. practical. Similarly, one-sided conceptions of life are surmounted.

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whether it is the pessimistic cause-and-effect approach to life ofbiological determinism or the optimistic refusal to recognizehereditary and biological propensities and inclinations. The a priorifactors can operate in conjunction with the environment to realizehigher and nobler aims of existence. Almost everything is biologicallyprogrammed, yet almost everything is also open-ended, allowing thehuman race the freedom to fulfill its potential value. All the parts ofthe whole function and work together to constitute a dynamic approachto life: this is how the inner world of the person operates.

In his relationships with his fellow human beings, the personconsiders the existence of others to be a basic element of life. A personis alive when he gives of himself to others. He knows that "his ownstruggle for the bread of survival is merely a material issue, but hisneighbor's struggle to survive is a spiritual issue."

His social vision is of a global, fraternal society in which all arewelcome. He takes as his standard or reference point the words: "TheSabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Ahuman person -a specific human being, that is, who is known in thehere and now- is not reducible to anything; everything should be donein the service of people, otherwise we end up lowering our standards.We are speaking of a society based on the solidarity of activelyinvolved citizens; a society whose primary needs are mentalinvolvement, spiritual wholeness, transcendence of self, and self-sacrifice; a society in which people feel dead when they don't die forothers, where school and state are not simply conventional institutionsbut express people's interpersonal relationships and reflect the longjourney from the herd to the city, to politics, and to culture.

Finally, the harmonious unity which personhood entails alsoincludes the environment. In the Church's interactive concept of being,nature is the greater dwelling place of man, which is why man'srelationship with nature is not adversarial but organic and functional.Nature ceases to be seen as an object counter posed to man; it becomesa subject that shares a relationship with him. Man does not existoutside and apart from the world, like an independent observer orneutral spectator; he is part of the world, a participant in the eventsthat take place, influencing and influenced by nature. As aconsequence, respect for matter, the study of the nature of all things,and the proper ordering of things in space are necessary prerequisitesfor the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.

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This means that what we measure and study in our encounter withnature is actually the relationship, which we ourselves are developingwith nature. In other words, the knowledge we acquire is notknowledge about nature in itself; rather, it is knowledge about nature'sanswers to man's particular questions. Consequently, in the finalanalysis, physics studies man's relationship with himself throughnature.

The object of physics is therefore man, not nature in itself. This iswhy modern physicists themselves classify the science of physics inthe same category in which theology and philosophy have traditionallybeen placed, namely, the study of man.

NAVIGATING THE ROCKY STRAITS OF MODERNISM

This, in general terms is the person-centered ontology of theChurch, an all-inclusive totality vis-$-vis God, man, and nature. Onlythis kind of integrative conception of life, only this kind of person-centered society, is capable of safely navigating all the obstacles inthe modern world, as a few examples will serve to illustrate.

In the first place, a person-centered society transcends the obstaclescreated by nationalism and cosmopolitanism, because truth embracesboth the national and the ecumenical. Loving one's country thereforerepresents a particular way to experience the truth in a particular place,the desire for freedom, a fertile encounter with what is real. A patriotis thus a vigilant physician, a politician who tells the truth. A patriotis a citizen who ungrudgingly pays his taxes or a teacher who givesof himself to his students. A patriot is anyone who sharpenssensibilities and critical abilities, urging us to break with and freeourselves from the things that misguide our lives. This is the attitudethat will make our institutions functional, that will bring about trueself-rule, and that will help us improve the quality of life.

Loving one's country does not, therefore, mean provincialism, andbeing ecumenical does not mean renouncing one's identity. Everynation and people can experience truth in its own way withoutbecoming so insular that anything different is assumed by definitionto be alien and hostile. On the contrary, every nation is called upon toparticipate on equal terms in global affairs and to utilize and developanything genuine that it may have. The elimination of all xenophobia

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or bigotry and the open display of solidarity and mutual respect arefundamental features of a person-centered society.

The person with global awareness who fights for the ideal of worldhumanity is, in the end, the true patriot. A world citizen is someonewith ecumenical sensibilities who recognizes what ecologists todayconfirm: "One world or no world."

A person-centered society also overcomes the obstacles ofsectarianism and syncretism between cultures. When two peoples orcultures come into contact they do not become mingled or confused,but remain distinctive and unique. Their alterity is affirmed by thefact that they have equal rights, thus showing that differences arerespected. Being different is not a cause for hostility and discord, butis rather the spark for sharing and communication. Diversity is thusproclaimed as a basic component of life. This means that in globalsociety no people or nation is higher or lower than any other, onlydifferent. There is no sectarianism or insularity; rather, the goal is toopen ourselves up to others, a global dialogue of accommodationand reconciliation. Within this process dissimilarity, unity, community,and difference all coexist. Unity does not mean leveling; beingdifferent does not lead to isolation.

A person-centered society also overcomes the potential dangers offreedom and equality, since absolutism with regard to the former andrelativism with regard to the latter end up creating insurmountableproblems. A political outlook, which swears allegiance to freedombut overlooks equality, leads to anarchic individualism and its familiardead-end consequences, locally and worldwide. On the other hand, apolitical conception that swears allegiance to equality but ignoresfreedom leads to totalitarian statism, with its entire equally well-known local and global dead-ends.

A person-centered society, however, transforms the triad freedom-equality-brotherhood into freedom-brotherhood-equality, becausefreedom can only result in equality through brotherhood. Freedomwithout brotherhood degenerates into materialistic individualism, justas equality without brotherhood degenerates into the prohibition ofall ownership in the name of the masses.

There is thus no conflict between citizen and polity in a person-centered society. The state is not an impersonal bureaucracy whichbecomes the citizen's adversary, but a collective community consistingof all the inhabitants of a country. The state therefore respects the

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citizen and serves him as best as it can. On the other hand, the citizensees the state as a projection of himself to others and thereforecooperates to ensure that it functions in an orderly manner.

Finally, a person-centered society overcomes the obstacles createdby technocratic or romantic attitudes. The development and progressof technology, as the Church sees it, is not a sin or something to feelguilty about, but a gift that God has offered to man to help him survivein his natural environment. For this reason it is not at all coincidentalthat the name Noah, the first technologist, means "alleviation."Technology eases man's efforts by helping him to extend his physicalabilities. While all other living creatures can only act within thephysical limitations of their bodies, man has the ability to extend hisphysical abilities through technology. The telescope, for example, isan extension of the eye, and the computer is an extension of humanmemory.

All of this means that the Church does not seek the abolition oftechnology, as many unfortunately believe, but wants us to usetechnology for other purposes. The Church offers us a different option:let's ensure that man controls the system and not allow the system tocontrol man; let's have need determine production and not letproduction determine need; let's make quality the thing that guidesour lives, not quantity. Quality of life means cultivating the mind,not amassing knowledge; it means communication, not information;it means having more meaningful experiences, not more cerebraltheories.

For this reason, the Church rejects every denial or underestimationof technology, as well as every unrealistic attempt to return to aromanticized, pre-technological era. On the other hand, however, theChurch stresses the importance of not confusing technologicalknowledge with knowledge about our existence as human beings. Inother words, we would be wrong to think that the problems of ourexistence can be solved by technology. As an extension of our physicalabilities, technology must be in step with theology, i.e., with thedevelopment of our intellectual and spiritual abilities.

BEYOND THE PROPHETS OF MODERNISM

A person-centered society will not only overcome the familiarobstacles described above, but will also surpass the ideas of the greatprophets of modernism.

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First, it will exceed Nietzsche in the full liberation of man, becauseit will reveal the God of total freedom. The image of God which aperson-centered society projects to people is diametrically opposedto the two dominant conceptions of God which deplore modernism,i.e., the God of natural religion and the God of scholastic philosophy.Unlike the God of natural religion, the God of the Church is not apatrolman of heaven and earth, stern and forbidding, who observesevery deed of man, waiting with pleasure to punish any transgression.In contrast to this distorted image of God, the Orthodox God loveshuman beings and brings them a message of love. In addition to justice,which judges man according to his actions, i.e., according to the thingshe has done in the past, the Church introduces love, laying wager onthe future by offering man the opportunity to change. A person-centered society also rejects that other erroneous image, the icy Godof philosophy and rationalism, self-sufficient in his bliss andindifferent to man and history. In contrast to this passive and solitaryGod, the Church shows us a God who sacrifices himself for man andenters history in order to transform it. A person-centered societyexperiences God-Love and Love-God as a constituent act of life, ahidden axis of the world.

We will thus overcome every tension and polarity between theoryand practice, faith and knowledge, or the divine and the human. Faithin this respect is not the private affair of a religious fanatic anticipatingfor his reward; it is the ardor associated with sacrifice, a powerful actof life, which seeks to unify heaven and earth, in an all-embracingrenewal of the entire cosmos. According to Nietzsche, being aChristian means loving heaven and cursing the earth. In Orthodoxy,however, the earth is loved as much as heaven. Until the earth becomesheavenly, sons will kill fathers. Until heaven becomes earthly, fatherswill kill sons. Man's love for the earth must extend as far as the earth'sfarthest shore, which is heaven; his love for heaven must reach to thevery limits of heaven, which is the earth, the point where the mysteryof the earth and the mystery of heaven converge.

Such a convergence, of course, means victory over every divisionand separation. Let us imagine for a moment that humanity hassuccessfully achieved the harmonic coexistence described above. Inaddition to social inequalities, however, there are also other, purelyexistential inequalities, which no philosophical or sociological theorycan erase. By birth one person is beautiful, another ugly; one is born

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intelligent, the next one isn't. There is also the existential inequalityof time: an eighty-year-old is in full health, while a twenty-year-oldis sick and dies at twenty-one. In short, the problem of mankind isdeath, the daily experience of mortality. As a consequence, onlyunification with God, with eternal life, can help us overcome ourgreatest enemy, death and decay. A person-centered society is thereforethe only society that can truly give us a foretaste of resurrection.

Furthermore, a person-centered society will surpass Kein withrespect to the complete emancipation of creativity. Freedom will notsink to the level of indifference toward others and toward creation,but will be brought to completion in an all-embracing solidarity, wherethe products of the earth will unite humanity into a fraternalcommunity that transcends every biological or social distinction. Theworld will no longer be an arena for territorial claims and conflictsbetween selfish individuals; it will be the common body of allhumanity. The emancipation of creativity means working for thecommon good, for whatever promotes closeness between people.When that happens, the economy will be subordinate to life and willbe at the service of family -mankind's "small house"- as well as atthe service of ecology, our "large house," the environment.

A person-centered society will also supersede Marx vis-:j:-vis thetotal emancipation of social forms of behavior. Philosophy, science,art, and politics will all be harmoniously combined in practice. Wewill achieve mankind's radical emancipation from the fetishism ofthe commodity and from the subordination of everything to the logicof transaction. People will be able to distinguish between realnecessities and fictitious ones; they will learn a new priority of needs,the needs of the collective whole, not of selfish conflict. A person-centered society will proceed first to the enrichment and developmentof human beings and only afterward to the production of greaternumbers of material goods. The man-consumer, the man-commodity,and the institution of the vicious cycle of production and consumptionwill surrender its place to the human being. Technology will make itpossible for people to work less hours, to use their free time morefruitfully and more creatively, to understand their own inner world,to open themselves up to love and friendship, and to give of themselveswith tenderness and affection, endowing their whole existence withdeeply existential experiences.

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Finally, a person-centered society will advance beyond Freud bytotally emancipating desire, which is the transcendence of deaththrough love and beauty. In an individual-centered society there is arelentless war between the sexes, the game of the human species.Men see women as pleasure machines to be used for sexual release.Women in turn take revenge on men by becoming objects of theirerotic desire. This mental and physical subjugation of others is thegoal of non-loving individuals. It results in sadomasochism, which isthe alternation of attraction and repulsion, pleasure and pain. Thecoupling of bodies does not express or serves the union of souls.Sexual relations sink to the level of loveless physical stimulation.Fallen man approaches sexual love in need and leaves in even greaterneed, since he does not know how to love or be loved.

A person-centered society, however, will reveal the potential forloving that exists within desire, the union of body and soul, and theintegrity of the person. It will teach people how to experience thebeauty of their souls and of their bodies. By relegating to the past aworld where desire is commercialized and the body is fetishized, itwill teach people how to give of themselves to others, how to be inlove with one another and how to love one another. Two bodies inone soul and two souls in one body: this is how a person-centeredsociety understands eros, a feeling as strong as death and also aforetaste of eternity, a victory over all that is impersonal, abstract,and transitory.

EDUCATING PERSONS

Making all this reality requires education, the kind of education,which transcends utilitarianism, economics, and technocracy. Thismeans that we must leave behind us the school of the industrial agein order to progress toward a kind of education, which not only takesplace within society, but also is diffused throughout society, thusbecoming society's organ of critical self-awareness. This is the kindof education where knowledge becomes perfected through experience,professionalism entails compassion, and reason is located in the heart.In this form of education facts are continually transcended in anunending procession towards perfection.

This form of person-centered education constitutes the best wayto serve two basic objects of life: science, on the one hand, and on the

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Other philokalia, which is love for God, man and nature. Sciencemeans total respect for the alterity of every being and total affirmationof its sacredness and dignity. It also means discovering its place andpurpose within creation. Philokalia means responding to andparticipating in the beauty and grace of life; it is a life-givingexperience, which informs man's soul with beauty, the only thing,according to Dostoevsky, which is capable of saving the world fromsuicide. This presupposes, of course, a great deal of spiritual effort inorder to overcome self-love: vainglory, voluptuousness and avarice.

In short, we need a form of education that will teach man how tolive and introduce him to the life of the miracle and to the miracle oflife; teach him how to take joy in the innocence of his childhood, thecreativity of his mature years, and the wisdom of old age; teach himhow to practice internal peace, how to learn creatively, and how toenhance his life with grace and charm.

This form of education is of course nothing other than an exactingsearch for truth that tests our mettle and leads us to freedom. Aseducation, it molds the innermost structure of our being; as guidance,it prepares us for life in society. Education shapes persons, humanbeings who give freely of themselves to others. The architect whobeautifies our living space, the politician who promotes unity, andthe physician who empathizes with his patient are all educated in thisway. Each one, by making his own contribution, reveals the unityand the interdependence of life, which is why there are really nointellectual distances between people and no social differencesbetween professions. Education does not begin in school and evenless does it reach completion there. This means that a society, whichprovides such education, has also made this way of life the goal of itsexistence.

Education is said to be a vocation. In a person-centered societyeducation is truly a vocation because it transforms everything elseinto a vocation: it elevates economics to the level of philanthropy,work to the level of creativity, politics to public service, and eros tothe communion of body and soul. This is so because in the kind ofeducation described here there are no major or minor subjects of study.The goal of everything is human coexistence in brotherly love, andevery subject contributes absolutely equally in its own way towardthis common goal: language communicates experiences, mathematicsreveals the rationality of the universe, history shows humanity's

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spirituality, geography encourages greater proximity, physics testifiesto universal interaction, music uplifts the soul, and religion announcesthe victory over decay and death.

THE GREAT CHALLENGE OF THE NEW CENTURY

In roughly the middle of our century, on August 6, 1945, the firstatomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. On this day of the year the Churchcelebrates the Transfiguration of Christ. Hidden behind this eventlays the eternal problem of mankind: division or connection, distortionor transformation.

At the end of the twentieth century, humanity welcomed our entryinto the year 2000 with celebrations. Hidden behind this event andall its extravagance lays man's deep yearning to conquer time andlive eternally.

The vision of a person-centered society offered by the Churchconstitutes a challenge to man's freedom. In these rather unimaginativetimes, this vision may perhaps seem Utopian. But it has always beenthe Utopias that have been responsible for creating spiritualrevolutions, since only they are capable of transforming life. Let usnot forget that twelve fishermen were able to disrupt Rome, thegreatest power in the world, because their moral code and their actionsundermined the foundations of Rome's ideology.

It is necessary for us, therefore, to make a transition: from beingnumbers to true existence; from individualism to person-centeredness;and from being merely informed to becoming civilized. In the end,this all means a transition from necessity to freedom. This is the greatchallenge of the third millennium.

As long as the Church does not degenerate into moralistic fatalism,or become the mere remains of a folk tradition from the past, or sinkto the level of ethnic or racial ideology, it will be able to help us makethis transition. Otherwise, it will betray its mission, and in an era oftremendous division and antagonism, instead of putting forward avision of life that is for all human beings, the Church will becomejust another conventional institution full of meaningless squabblingbetween unrelated enemies and unrelated friends.