Imitating Christ again

Imitation of others is inescapable; though it puts a question mark against our human ability to self-describe our own individuality. The tendency in public discourse to simultaneously construct and deconstruct exemplars ('I want to be like Mike') is evidence of the way in which imitation has become a problematic mode of the ethical discourse - I mean the cult of celebrity! (Do we like Paris Hilton or not?) The casting of social outsiders as human ideals seems likewise evidence of a deep confusion about human virtue.

As we have seen, the Pauline imitatio Christi (mediated via an imitatio Pauli) offers a very different account of how imitation might work. Of course, the object of imitation (Jesus Christ) is, for Paul, unsurpassable, even un-imitatable. But he becomes the empowering source for those who are ‘in him’ by means of his death. The cross becomes the symbolic and actual centre of Paul’s call to imitate Christ – it provides both the means and the form for such a human life. Imitation of Christ is not then about finding an identity, but rather about enacting it. However, as evidenced by what I have identified as the need for phronesis – which Paul himself displays in his mediation of Christ’s example - the imitation of Christ does not reduce all identities to the one same identity, but rather liberates the individual to be herself.

The content of this imitative practice consists, not in acts of self-assertion (as in the secular account), nor in a retreat into contemplation (as in the mystical tradition), but rather in a willingness to bear with a variety of negative possibilities for the sake of the other and the edification of the church community in an attitude of patient endurance. The imitation of Christ (as Paul reads it) turns the believer toward the other believer, for his or her sake, whatever the cost. It is, in the true sense, the passionate life.