JESUS AND THE GREEKS: REFLECTIONS ON A THEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITY

Abstract

One of the characteristic trends in our times is the 'discovery of identity' practised at all levels: political, social, cultural as well as religious. Even as there are visible expressions of humanity growing into a big human family transcending the barriers and limitations of caste, colour and creed, there are also concrete manifestations of speci- fic groups within this human family trying to assert and establish their identity at the expense of the community on which they depend and of which they are a part. The movement towards=-decolonization characteristic of the latter half of the twentieth century, the self-aware- ness created in the developing countries of their right -to be and to become and, above all, the phenomenon of human consciousness becoming more and more independent, all these have helped build up a yearning short identity at all levels,