It seems that there is a new emphasis on "Community" going around in Christian circles.
I've gone along with this without any fuss, because, well, community is important, but the emphasis has always made me a bit wary, and I've only recently gotten around to asking myself why I'm wary.
As I think about it, I believe the answer is that I am wary for the same reason that other emphases make me wary. I get wary when I think an emphasis is gaining such prominence that it might upset the bedrock emphasis that Jesus gave us in Matthew 22:37-40, that the most important command is to love God, and the second most important command (into which developing community would fall) is to love one's neighbors as one's self. When command number two starts to nudge out command number one, I start to get fidgety.
Also, I am a bit concerned that focusing on community can mean focusing on ourselves, as the church, and maybe forgetting those outside the church.
Another thing that kind of bothers me about "Community" (with a capital C), is that there is nothing inherently noble about communities. There are communities that do good works and there are communities of robbers and murderers. There are communities where the members are kept in misery and ignorance by abusive leaders. There are communities that don't want to be communities, such as prisoners in jail. You can't get away from communities. You probably belong to dozens of them. Your neighborhood, your city, your state or province, your country, your race, your religion, your hobbies, your work, your Facebook friends. Nazi Germany was a community, Soviet Russia was a community, Communist North Korea is a community. Communities are often sources of conflict as people identify themselves with their community as opposed to other communities.
Good and bad, they are all over the place and I don't think you can get away from community unless you are a self-sufficient hermit living in the outback of Australia or Alaska.
So I really don't think there is any particular need to emphasize the importance of community any more than there is a need to emphasize the importance of air. It is important; we all know it is important; and for the most part, it is just there.
And as for the church, the church IS a community, whether it wants to be or not, so I'm not sure I see much value in telling people, "We need to be a community" when that is what they already are. Instead, I think the church should emphasize being a good community, a godly community, worshiping God together and helping each other out and reaching out in love beyond our church community.
Happily, for the most part, even if I'm not entirely comfortable with their choice of words, I think that is what most people mean when they emphasize community, and so for the most part I applaud, but I just think we should be careful not to promote command number two to replace command number one.
3 comments:
Hello friend,
I am one of those that fervently preach the importance of the church as a community. But now that I read your blog I realize that the word "community" does not really capture clearly what I am so passionate about and believe that the church is missing. In my mind I gave a new meaning to the word community to mean togetherness. I love when Paul talks about believers being knitted together. Does the church meet every so ofter? Yes. But are we knitted together. That word to me naturally makes me think of closeness.
Many times people at church tell me that they love me, and sometime I think to myself, how can you love me when you barely know me, and if you knew me would you say it so easily?
I discuss some issues on why I think togetherness is important in one of my blogs called "Clarity, Certainty and Faith" if you are interested.
Anyways, one more thing that I wanted to point out is about your concern about the first commandment vs the second commandment. In Matthew, Jesus speaks about a man having odds with another man. This man brings a gift to the temple because he feel that he has acted against God. Then Jesus said that the man should leave the gift there, go and ask forgiveness to the man first and then offer the gift. Have you ever wonder why? If we are supposed to love God first, why should we ask forgiveness to a man first? Maybe the order of the commandments have nothing to do with importance, maybe they are all equally important. Just my two cents.
Thanks for your very thoughtful comments! I appreciate it.
Oh, by the way, while I think loving God is top priority and shouldn't be usurped by any other priority, I think I'd say that loving one another is equal in that it is required just as much as the top priority of loving God. Perhaps - haven't studied it deeply - the reason it is top priority is because everything else flows from it. In other words, when you love God (#1) you will want to do what he wants you to do, which is to love other people (#2).
Post a Comment