Community, "Place", and Cyberspace

Hey Josiah, you might want to check out this article: Caught in the Web.

http://www.gospelcom.net/hsc/ETC/Volume_Six/Issue_Six/CultureMatters.php

Nick, did you agree with what he had to say?

After reading through Mr. Saenze article, I've come to the conclusion that's its a fairly reactionary article. Now, this in and of itself doesn't invalidate its argument, but it definately sets a tone for reading the article. His first premise, that everybody is concerned about the loss of community, to me is rather indicative of this reactionary nature of the article.
Its as if I wrote an article getting mad at the overuse of the word "love" is modern evangelical circles, or something like that.
Unfortunately though, Mr. Saenze premise that everobody is concerned over the loss of community simply is true. The Reformed world is just now, for the very first time, starting to come to grips with the fact that community isn't just important, its an essential element to being the Covenant people of God. And while some might be so inclined, a quick reference that the Reformed Church has always had community in its lingo, we just call it the Covenant is a bit naive both to the traditional uses of the word Covenant and the nuances of the concept of community.
The rest of his arguments seemed to be touting the same neo-luddite mantra, not necessarily off completely, just a bit naive concerning the multifaceted nature of social theory (geez, now I sound like a arrogant academic).

"Sound like"? You're way beyond "sound like." On an unrelated note, someone might think that "community" is not something we ought to pursue, but something that is ontologically true of us in Christ. Further, someone might think that what you espouse as "community" is nothing more than a certain form or expression of community. Some churches have had genuine community for centuries. It may not look like what you would have it look like, but I would argue that our ontological commmunity in Christ has multitunious valid expressions.

In short: get over it, dude.

Well, it may not look like what I'd "have" it look like, but I still think there ought to be certain elements inherent to our community. I don't think its wrong to talk about what being the Christians and the Covenant people of God should mean for us. Sure, it has different expressions, i.e. me being loving in Kenya, for certain cultural reasons, is gonna look different than me being loving in South Central L.A.

But the issue of "community," and really understanding what it means to be in loving relationships I definately feel hasnt' been dealt with beyond a surface, even abstract theological level, in our Reformed slice of the Christian pie.

The problem I think is, is that talking about love and community cuts right to the core of what it means to be believers. I dont' think you would assert that our particular Reformed and Presbyterian tradition has in the last 50 years been a bastion of love, caring, and charity. We're far too modern for that. We're (as in, the more conservative Reformed Churches, not say the PCA) still more concerned with dotting our i's and crossing our t's theologically. Not a bad thing, just far short of what I see as the Biblical paradigms for living as Christians.

I see far more time spent in the Scriptures dealing with love, faith, grace, repentence, and forgiveness than I do on nailing down the nuances of Calvin's sensus divinitatus. Remember, I'm not saying the latter is a bad thing, its just that the former should take preeminance.

Its also our vice to "murder to dissect" if you will. We say "ok, we're supposed to love," and then spend ivory-tower like energy trying to figure that out, all the while ignoring the poor (not economically) person next door who's wife just left him, lost his job, and is an alchoholic.

Unless you can give me a sufficient argument that our (as in your's and mine) particular Reformed tradition has really nailed it on the central love and community aspect of our faith, there's nothing to get over. And because this is my particular expression of the faith I've been given, I have a responsibility to embrace it, interact with it, and try to build it up. I'd hate to use a postmodern multitude of contexts as an excuse not to be loving.

I have a blog entry that's somewhat related to this. Hope ya like it.

Josiah - Gary North wrote an excellent essay entitled 'the price of community' that gets at some of the economic changes that occured over the last two centuries that you might also want to consider. Essentially, the lower costs of transportation, as well as a change in private property from land to invested capital helped loosen the socially binding effects of property. In other words, some of the reasons these social networks were so durable in the first place were accidental, and technological development as well as economic evolutions have helped create the current social instability. I don't really like North, but I think this article is brilliant.

Scott, that sounds just like what the author of "Bowling Alone" argued. I'll totally have to check it out. Heck, it'd be great to site Gary North just for humor reasons in my SIP.