Do we want community? Really?
Arthur at “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia” raises some great questions about community in Christ in his post “Book Review: Why We Live In Community.”
The post begins as a review of an e-book by Eberhard Arnold called Why We Live In Community. But, reading the book and thinking about the topic leads Arthur to ask some very important questions.
For example, consider this part of his post:
Most importantly, why don’t we live in community? Could it be that we love our autonomy, our freedom, our wealth and possessions more than each other? Is the idea of that sort of closeness and openness in this life scary to people who affirm in theory that sort of relationship in eternity? Perhaps most troubling, could it be that we fear living community in whatever shape it takes because we don’t really believe what we read in the Bible, just as we don’t seem to believe so much of what Jesus taught or how He lived or what He commanded? Is it just easier to live lives of religious observance and to find ways to nitpick and divide from one another so that we can justify our disunity? These are troubling questions but they are hammering me.
I agree with Arthur: these are troubling questions. I’ve wrestled with many of these questions, and continue to do so from time to time.
Why do you do when you find that you really don’t want to live in community in Christ with others?