Perspectief 2017-36

2017-36 JT Chapter 3: Comparative analysis 35 Reageer also play out in this newer theological field. Catholic theologians commenting on migration and the refugee crisis predominantly take the image of God, as reflected in every human being and as incarnated in Jesus Christ, as a starting point, while Lutheran theologians writing on the same topic tend to emphasise Christ’s redemptive work on the cross as an example of grace freely given. Looking more closely into the Catholic position, in particular as it was developed by theologians such as Romano Guardini – who is of major influence on the thought world of Pope Francis – and the contemporary U.S. theologian Daniel Groody, this divergence is striking. Different from their Lutheran peers they both insist primordially that each human being has been created in God’s image and has therefore been endowed with an inviolable dignity. Refugees, fleeing situations where their God-given dignity is violated, have every right to migrate. Groody furthermore points out that out of all possible ways God could have incarnated, he chose to become human in the form of a seemingly insignificant refugee fleeing political persecution. The gospels teach us that the mission of Christ, himself an outcast, was to meet and include the marginalised of the society he lived in. It is through these actions that he attempted to bring about God’s Kingdom on Earth. Indeed, as Groody writes, the “true aliens” 115 are not the people moving across borders, whether legally or illegally, but the people who are emotionally disconnected from these migrants’ plights. This incarnational stress is not shared by Lutheran theologians such as David Balch and Wayne Miller. In their approach they note how Christ’s death made the curtain of the temple tear, forever obliterating any separation between groups of people. The apostle Paul then continued to profess an inclusive Gospel, allowing non-Jews to be admitted into the Christian community. Clearly, the doctrinal approaches of Catholicism and Lutheranism rely on their own theological frameworks, also when it comes to the topic of refugees. The traditional divergences on the level of ecclesiology (a universal church versus local churches), the sources of faith (Bible and tradition versus sola scriptura), and the soteriological (emphasis 115 Groody (2009) Crossing the Divide, p. 666.