A Basis For Community
In my last post I discussed the human need for relationship. I argued that we are relational beings because God has always been relation as a Trinitarian God (meaning God is one being with three persons). I also proposed that the New Testament shows how the early church was a picture of solid community, but that the church in North America is not. This discussion has lead to another important question: Upon what is community based?
Community cannot be based purely on our mutual need for each other. This reduces community to a symbiotic relationship instead of seeing it as a beautiful living out of the way we are designed. Community based on need could then be likened to a commercial exchange. “I need help in this area, you need help in that area, so I guess we can help each other.” But community is far more involved than this. There is not only a willing component, but a desirous one. “I want to help you, you want to help me.” Community must be based on more than the fact that we need community.
C. S. Lewis argues in The Four Loves that friendship is based on commonality. He says friendship is standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the world and agreeing in what they see. However, Lewis takes this to an extreme and argues that two people from totally different worlds cannot truly be friends. Although there is some merit to the idea that community is based on commonality, I must reject this part of Lewis’ belief that friendship is simply based on common experience and beliefs.
Brian Chapman in his book, The Five Love Languages argues against establishing relationships on pure emotion. These feelings are very powerful, but do not last. Community must be based on something more than emotions, although emotions are involved.
So if community is not based solely on commonality, or solely on emotion, what is it founded on? I quoted Acts 2 last week, but I left out a very important part. This passage comes right after Peter has proclaimed who Jesus is and what He has done for all people. As a result, many became Christians.
“And they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe cam upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and has all tings in common” (Acts 2:42-44)
It was the devotion to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship that the community was based upon.
True community is found in God. Jesus’ death and resurrection was for sinners, so that a relationship with God could be restored for sinners such as myself. But Jesus’ death and resurrection was also so that we might have community with one another. By Jesus’ death, guilt is removed, and all the crap that is in the way between two Christians is removed. Thus we can exist in community.
The possibility for community became a reality in the early church. They broke bread and prayed together. “Breaking of bread” refers to Christians practicing communion together. The act of eating some bread and drinking a little wine is far greater than a tradition. By breaking bread together the early Christians were celebrating what Christ had done for them by celebrating in community. There is a reason that Christians do not practice communion alone at home- it doesn’t mean anything outside community. Also, Prayer cannot be overemphasized here. One of the greatest spiritual encouragements is prayer with other Christians. Yes, prayer can happen independent from the group, but it is far greater with friends around you. By praising God through prayer together, the early Christians were brought closer to each other. There is spiritual encouragement through the practice of prayer as a community, and prayer binds each person to the next.
Community is based on truth. Specifically, the truth of the Gospel. Ideally this is found in the local church, but as I mentioned last week, this is seldom the case. People try to find community in other places. Some look for it in the pursuit of a certain discipline, others in a career. I have seen some attempt to form community around similar ideologies. This may land somewhere close to the New Testament idea of community, but it is still a long way from it. As Christians, we should look to these early believers and try to spiritually encourage each other in community as they did.
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Josh,
I 90% agree with you. I do however, want to further define a couple things you stated:
“I also proposed that the New Testament shows how the early church was a picture of solid community, but that the church in North America is not. ”
It is important to not divide this into an “either/or” issue. In many ways, the early church was a solid community. In other ways, they were not (Acts 5:1-10 is case in point). The same can go of the North American Church. Because the Church is a body of believers still struggling with sin, we cannot expect it to be on par with, or anywhere close to, the kind of community modeled by the Trinity. Even more so, we cannot see the early church so pristinely. Paul tackled issues in the Corinthian church that many in our culture would not even think of today (i.e. marrying our step-mother and being proud of it).
We cannot expect to be without suffering, strife, or sin until our fallen world is completely redeemed. Indeed, John Piper talks about how suffering is a mark of effective ministry (”Our Affliction Is for Their Comfort: Suffering as a Sign of Gospel-Faithful Ministry”)!
Paul’s discussion of the “strong” sacrificing for the “weak” in Romans 14 and 15 is even stronger evidence of this.
“By Jesus’ death, guilt is removed, and all the crap that is in the way between two Christians is removed.”
Ontologically, I agree. We are forgiven and cleansed of our sins. But sins effects still remain. Do we, as forgiven children of God, go on sinning? Sadly, yes!
Romans 7: 14-19
“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
We must recognize that we are justified, but far from being sanctified as of yet. Even Paul recognized that he cannot love to the degree that Christ did. Jesus says in Matthew 10:25 that “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master…”
Community must be based on God. Our relationships must model the love he shows us. Our understanding must acknowledge the “already but not yet” tension of our less-than-fully-sanctified redemption now, and the full redemption yet to come. Thus, we will never be able to model this perfectly (or even effectively sometimes) until that day. This understanding must be followed by the same forgiving love of Christ that is the foundation of our relationships with all people.
Mr. Josh
Sir,
I want to play around with this symbiotic relationship of which you speak. I think you’re headed in the right direction; but, in the pursuit of truth, we should put better symantics to it.
“Community cannot be based purely on our mutual need for each other. This reduces community to a symbiotic relationship instead of seeing it as a beautiful living out of the way we are designed. Community based on need could then be likened to a commercial exchange. ‘I need help in this area, you need help in that area, so I guess we can help each other.’”
What you are describing are the effects of a Nash Equilibrium. However, we can empirically state that this is not the classic prisoners’ delimma since there are many non-Christians who are friends. One might assert that they are so without sharing many of those common experiences. Furthermore, unlike NAFTA, Christians and non-Christians alike acquire friendships without being forced. They do so naturally out of their own will.
You assert that this ‘forced friendship’ necessarily degrades the idea of the subject since it is not a beautiful living out of the way we are designed. The fact is that we, as humans allegedly created in the likeness of God, are hard wired to abide by these fundamental rules of economics. There is something intrinsically as well as extrinsically good about relationships; Christian and non-Christian alike.
This intrinsic goodness - like music, thinking, art, etc. - is always indicative of something. In this case, I assert that it demonstrates human beings’ relational nature. If we are indeed created, then we must hold that the creator had the platonic ideal relationship in mind as the creating took place.
And so, from this point, I believe that ANY relationship is good, Christian or otherwise, since it is indicative of the ideal relationship for which we are created.
Now, I’m not sure if you are saying that community is, in one sense or another, a collection of friendships, or one large friendship, or something like that; but, if you are, then we must say that communitys are also good things. For example, in light of the beginning of the NFL season, we can all see our society gearing up for the games this week and weekend. I have a lot of friends who are genuinely excited about kickoffs of their favorite teams and have talked about it all week. They will get together with friends and family members this weekend to enjoy each others’ company and watch insanely large human beings run into each other. This is their community.
What we must remember in any community, if it is something like a large friendship (we could play with symantics, but I think you know what I’m talking about), then this community also points to an ideal community. Although some might say that this NFL community is a distortion of the actual community God intended for us, I too would like to invoke a CS Lewis quote: “Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures,
fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer
of a holiday at the sea.” So, my friends of in these NFL communities must long for something more, something deeper, in their communities. This points them in the direction of their true purpose, the one for which they were created, a relationship with God.
Of course, I might not understand what you were really trying to say with the tie between friendship and community. It seems we are on the same page, I just wanted to show that symbiosis is not necessarily evil.
I’m a little riled by the assertion that community must be based on God. Surely you mean for those who believe in God foremost and above all things?
Let me say that I’m not miffed over your statement (“True community is found in God.”) because I’m all “oh, that’s so oppressive of you!” but because …. well, I find it incredibly hard to believe.
From my point of view, God is another commonality. I understand what you are saying about how Jesus’s death and resurrection relieves yours sin (in a way) and allows you to have a freer relationship and sense of community, but how is that any different from how a person may or may not be freed by their sense of safety, independence, politics, ethics, family, love, etc.?
I guess my problem is that Jesus’s death is not, in my opinion, THE basis for community period. And nor is it the greatest commonality there is. At least that’s how it looks from here.
Well, this article seems to have hit a vein for a lot of people. As I read it, all Josh is saying is that everything under the sun has been affected by sin. This means everything we do is tainted, and as a result, community as it was intended cannot occur. But low and behold, God’s intentions cannot be stopped by man’s actions, and He sacrifices His son so that the penalty for our sin is paid. By that sacrifice everything that God intended is possible for those who are covered by that sacrifice. Notice that I said it is possible, I didnt say it automatically happens.
Josh makes the point that while our community has the ability to show the marks of God’s redemption, we do a piss poor job of showing it. This article, as I read it, is merely an appeal to the church to live like God wants us to live, and that that is in right relationship to God and to others.
Kyle is right to be bothered by the general statement that Jesus is THE basis for community. I dont believe that is what Josh is saying. I believe Josh is saying that Jesus is THE basis for Christian community, and that the example of that lived out will make anyone who is not Christian desperately desire the community united in Christ. Once again, Josh is not saying Christian community looks like that in a macro sense (sadly), but on a micro level you can find this. I know of several places anyone can go to see this lived out, but it wont mean as much watching it as actually interacting with it.
Well said, sir. I sometimes forget that this is, like, a Christian blog and stuff………
Mike-
“Notice that I said it is possible, I didnt say it automatically happens.”
Yes, this is what I was trying to get at. You picked up on what this post really was- a call to Christians to have thier basis of community in God.
Joe-
The “forced friendship” I was referring to was not so much the fact that we need other people (see my post Individualism or Community). I believe our need of each other is a beautiful thing rooted in the character of God Himself. However, we should not be consumers in the way we seek to fulfill this need. Indeed if we are consumerist in our approach to relationships I doubt our need for relationship will be meet.
Kyle, let me follow up by saying that our intense desire on this blog it to live out this community in full view and invite others to join in. That being said, I cannot tell you how much you and everyone else who comments here mean to us. The door is always open here, and I would encourage you to continue posting and asking us the hard questions.