Commentary: Community as a Way of Life … by Don Kirkland

In Nazi Germany, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught in an underground seminary. He wrote a book of that experience entitled “Life Together.”

Kirkland

The book detailed the necessity of the church functioning as a living and vibrant organism that he called a “community of love.”

“What life do you have if you do not have life together?” is a paraphrase of the words of T.S. Eliot from his 1934 play, “The Rock.” To quote the poet and playwright, “There is no life that is not in community and no community not lived in praise to God.”

At the same time, Richard Lamb in his book, “The Pursuit of God in the Company of Friends,” laments that “a deep sense of community is elusive” today. “We have more and faster ways to communicate with one another, but insight, depth and intimacy grow ever more scarce.”

In the church as a “community of love” lies the solution to this societal blight.

In an article written for “the Christian Century,” pastor Peter Marty said, “When people become aware of the limitations of individualistic thinking and the drawbacks of disengagement from their neighbors, they hunger for alternatives. They yearn for something beyond themselves.”

“Those with Christian leanings,” he continued, “commonly turn to the church, and more specifically, the local congregation. Week by week, individuals gather together voluntarily in congregations, often with the high expectation of experiencing what they cannot find in their solitary lives.”

And yet, according to this Lutheran minister from Iowa, such a “richly textured communal spirit” is missing in many churches.

“There may be experiences aplenty of social togetherness,” he declared, “and friendliness may be an abundant part of all these experiences, but this is not the same as participating in and being deeply entwined with a spiritually grounded community. The two should not be confused. Inhabiting the same space for an hour on Sunday morning is not the same as belonging to a community where your presence truly matters to others and their presence truly matters to you.”

He continued, “A communal spirit blooms where people are deeply in touch with one another, thriving because of the faithful interaction with one another. Broad friendship, mutuality of purpose and an abiding care for one another are all by-products of a spiritually grounded community that is working together. The way in which members of a congregation reproduce the love of God through genuine hospitality and a love for one another will indicate whether they are indeed the body of Christ or simply a religious club.”

Marty had a cautionary word for believers “who would love nothing more than to cultivate their own private spirituality by taking home that beloved hymn refrain or sermon quip to benefit their personal life.”

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a “private eagerness for spiritual nurture? until a time when ?personal edification becomes the primary focus for attending church.” At that point, he said, “individualism begins to infect the health of the congregation and the possibility of a grander sense of true community.”

“Holiness,” he emphasized, “is born out of communities, not solitary lives.”

Establishing such togetherness is not, he asserted, “a small or quick task. It is a continuous and sometimes strenuous one.”

There is empowering motivation for achieving this togetherness. “It is the belief that the love generated by a spiritually coherent community is greater than the sum total of the love emanating from its individual members’ lives.”

Within such a congregation, community among believers becomes, according to the title of Marty’s article, “A Way of Life.”