In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

169 The Conciliar Ideal 4 The unity that is the opposite of ecclesial division has been variously construed . Among its most common contemporary tropes of explication is that of “communion,” drawn from the New Testament Greek term koinonia.1 But what constitutes such unity ranges over several forms of commonality that draw lines of connection with divine realities that are often difficult to define clearly. So, for instance, the idea of “agreement” surfaces frequently in this nexus of meanings: agreement in God’s “word,” as in Jesus’ discussion in John 17 (e.g., vv. 14 and 17); agreement among apparently arguing Christians, as in Paul’s exhortation to Eudoia and Synteche (Phil 4:2), which he extends to the whole of his ecclesial communities (e.g., Phil 2:2; Rom 15:5), using phrases and terms that literally mean things like “think the same thing” or think “one thing.” In the classic case of ecclesial division addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians, he will speak of being of the “same mind” (noi) and “judgment” (gnome). And this represents the very character of the body of Christ in its fullness, as seen with different images in Acts 1:14, Acts 2:46 (homothumadon), and 1 Peter 3:13 (homophronein). It is even something that is bound to the oneness that Jesus shares with his Father, as he puts it in John 17:21 and through which his own “glory” is shared with the disciples (17:22). 1 See the comprehensive overview in Loralei F. Fuchs, Koinonia and the Quest for an Ecumenical Ecclesiology: From Foundations through Dialogue to Symbolic Competence for Communionality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). 170 A Brutal UNity But what does it mean to “agree”? This is not an obviously answered question. When people go to a meeting and deal with a difficult issue and finally come to an “agreement,” does this mean that everyone around the table is “thinking the same thing,” believing for instance that the course of action decided upon is the “best” course? Or thinking this for the same reasons ? Or with the same enthusiasm? Do those who “agree” in fact have the same object in mind—cognitively apprehended—and how would one know? Many of us “agree” to things that, in other circumstances, we might not. Anyone who has sat on a jury knows well that one can get a “unanimous” decision but with all kinds of different rationales.2 If one were to ask different people, “Why do you wish to get baptized?” the answers will astonish in their variety. Priests, when they are ordained, are asked to make a variety of vows; among Anglicans, for instance, they are often asked if they “believe” that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the “word of God.” Though all who answer this question positively are properly described as being in “agreement ” with respect to this belief, the belief itself is understood in a variety of ways, something that has been the cause of much confusion. On a religious level, the notion of “communion” has frequently functioned with a similar range of concrete meanings. And being of “one mind,” with its various meanings, is only one element that only some consider an important part of this. Some will say, for instance, that “unity is in Christ,” that is, it is a gift that is not ours to measure beyond some fundamental touchstone, for instance, “baptism”: thus, if we are baptized in Christ, that is all the unity that counts. Anything more we press for goes beyond our brief, as it were. In fact, to seek some definition of the unity baptism brings, as if such unity itself defines baptism “from above” (and might therefore be achieved through other means to which baptism is therefore accountable) undercuts that baptismal unity whose reality is actually highlighted when it stands above diverse and even conflicting variations of Christian belief and witness within the world. Let us, then, take up where we left off in the last chapter: the figural Church, whose form is given by or assumed by God in Christ and which thus is granted, in time, the form of the one who assumes. Hence, the oneness of the Church will, at least figurally, be founded upon the “oneness” of God. If Jesus prays that we might be one as he and the Father are one, so too the “communion” we share will be disclosed by the “oneness” that we too share in conformance with...

Share