Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf
I read the guts of this book while on a bus from Maynooth to Galway. After that there were various interruptions and I’ve since been working my way through the remaining 60 pages or so in fits. I’ll talk a little more about the books in toto when I’m done.
Yesterday I read only a few pages but the discussion was an interesting one about the notion of Pentecost as a reversal of Babel. This is a spin on the story in Acts of the sending of the Spirit that I’ve always loved. Volf nuances it a little by insisting that while the events in Acts 2 do in a way reverse those of Genesis 11 the coming of the Spirit does not re-institute the impirialistic “unity” of Babel. A single language is not restored. The Spirit embraces the cultural diversity among those present, including the diversity of languages. Moreover
“The miracle of Pentecost consists in universal intelligibility and unhindered agency in the midst of social and cultural heterogeneity.”