Friday, January 06, 2012

Community

Black, White, and Gray has post about living in community. Here's the finale, but do read the whole thing—it's very thought-provoking.

There’s a tension here with the tenets of Christianity. Today’s ethos is do what you want with the people that you like. In contrast, the Bible has ideas of loving others, even when you don’t like them. Putting others first. Attending to the stranger.

Living in a strong community becomes more of a moral choice than a practical necessity. A commitment to relationships is inherent in Christianity, but we’re finding less and less support/ need for it.

<idle musing>
Ouch. He stopped preaching and done gone to meddling...
</idle musing>

2 comments:

Kirk Lowery said...

"Bah! Humbug!" here again. :-)

I agree with him that increasing wealth allows us to weaken relationships: it accounts for the increase in single households since WWII.

But "community" isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Ever lived in a small town? Always being spied on, gossiped about, heavy expectations on both economic and social behavior. It usually (I argue) is a stifling experience -- mankind is fallen after all.

Not to say that relationships are not important. But I note that most if not all moral obligations commanded by Scripture deal with how one individual treats another individual -- not about my theoretical obligations to a "group".

The elevation of a commitment to community that the poster makes is a matter of "over-promise, under-deliver" in my experience.

Kirk

jps said...

Kirk,

I grew up in a small community and have lived in them off and on throughout my life. There is definitely a "dark" side to living in a small town. But, there is also a richness that we have lost. Perhaps he is over-romanticizing community, but it sure would be nice to see more community at many churches, which is his point.

James