There is a word commonly used in English - to reimagine. It can also mean to imagine in a new way. We can reimagine about anything. Especially so about the Church. It is doubtful whether there is any other reality on earth that can be reimagined as likely as the Christian Church. The reason for this potential is that the Christians believe in no one other than Christ.
Even when people say that Christ is the Son of God, most people in the Church imagine him as a man who lived on earth, died, and have gone to heaven. When we imagine in this way, the problem is that Christ can be reduced to belonging to a specific group. However, the Church confesses faith in Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is one with Him in essence. Then, as the Gospel of John makes clear, "without himnothing came to be." When we look at it this way, without our generosity it becomes very natural that all people on this planet earth are children of God. Then all people on planet earth ought to be part of the Church. Those who are baptized and those that are not. We can reimagine the Church as a family of God, or the body of Christ. In a family of ten children, one is very kind, another is generous, a third is stingy, a fourth is selfish, a fifth is callous, a sixth is sensual, and another an atheist, another a homosexual, and yet another a father-hater. And yet we can reimagine the Church as brothers and sisters, children of the same father and mother, members of the same family, and as equal heirs to the patrimony. Such a reimagination, I believe, is what would be necessary for the days to come.
Even when the parents try to hold all their children in their hearts, whether one has love and commitment for parents or not, becomes a matter of one's personal freedom and choice. Then the thought that 'he must perish' because he doesn't conduct himself well, becomes unimportant, irrelevant, and unacceptable!
