catapult magazine

Jean Luc Nancy’s “The Inoperative Community” asks why Christians sense a loss of community? It’s not like the early church had an ideal community; they didn’t even know who their brothers and sisters were—circumcised, uncircumcised, law-keepers, clean or unclean meat-eaters? In fact, there has never been a time in the Church’s history when this ideal community has been maintained. After following Nancy’s arguments, I’m beginning to wonder too why Christians believe we’ve lost the true community God intended for His people?

Nancy says the feeling that community has been lost arose when the concept of the individual was invented (that’s when social contracts, consensus of individuals, our form of democracy arose). Talking about the loss of community only makes sense, he says, because community has been dwarfed by the idea of the autonomous individual, making it seem like community is disappearing.

The simple plain fact of the matter, Nancy says, is that it’s impossible to avoid community. We are caught up in community just by being with others in a world. Even though we are thrown into inescapable community, it seems to me that we still try to avoid the implications of living in one (U.S. foreign policy seems to hinge on the idea of independence even though this is ultimately impossible; dis-satisfied church-goers think they’ve removed themselves from the problem(s) if they only move to another church or denomination; fundamentalist Christians think they can escape culture by being non-cultural).

Of all people, Christians should be the ones who have never lost the community, have never lost sight of the fact that we are in a community. God’s command to love our neighbor is a constant reminder that we live in a community and, therefore, it is no surprise that our actions as a Church will be those of an Agape community as well. It is a surprise, however, that our community is not always one of love, charity, sharing etc. What kind of loss is this, then, if it is not a loss of community?

This is, of course, a huge question. Do you think that part of the answer could be that we have lost a sense of commitment to community as we have become a world of choices? I don’t have to stay committed to my church community, my neighborhood, my school community, or even my friends. If any of this annoys me enough, I can switch churches, move, find a new school, or get new friends. It isn’t like we are an early american immagrant community or a persecuted church where we have no choice.

I think commitment is definitely a big part of this. I wouldn’t want to say, however, that we’ve lost a commitment to community. Rather, our society does not value the kind of community that requires commitments of this sort.

We are often offended when other people try to tell us what to do or where we have gone astray. We have focussed so much on our own individual rights to be individuals, that we forget our responsibilities as singular people to the broader community of which we are part. What I found so sad about “A Mother”‘s article this issue was the mother’s feeling of separation from the daughter who, by the age of 23, was “a big girl” and would not listen to the advice of her own family. The daughter’s commitment, then, it would seem, is to herself as an individual rather than to her family or to the Christian community as a whole.

It amazes me how in our country we can be so disconnected from eachother. I wonder if it has to do with the way we are brought up by forcing independence on us before we adequately learn interdependence. It’s easier to misdirect an individual, than it is a unified group

Growing up overseas, I found that community is invaluable, and the direction of those who have lived through and/or experienced similar events that I am passing through now is a surefire way of beating the “odds” and learning the most out of life. .

I hear what you’re saying, but I think the first thing we actually learn is dependence. Beginning in our mother’s womb should be a good lesson of depending on others. But it is amazing that we seem to forget this lesson later.

To add to this understanding of valuing the individual, I was just thinking about the clemency for death row inmates issue here in Illinois in connection with this topic. The people against clemency (not including the victims’ families) seem to put a stress on the value of society as a whole, while those who sympathize with the side of the inmates value the individual life which is squandered on death row. I wonder if this would be such a complicated issue if our society didn’t value the individual so much.

I wonder too whether it has to do with how we value the individual. My sense of it is that society values the individual not for any contribution he or she might make to the whole, but more on the level of rights and entitlements. Each person is valuable because they have the right to live. Or maybe more accuarately, each person is valuable because I have the right to live. I have been reading Dante’s Inferno with my students. And he reserves the first, and I would argue nastiest, place in Hell for those who are neither good nor bad, but did nothing with their lives. They sat on their hind ends and refused to take a stand for good and ill.

I am not suggesting that people’s lives should be vlaued for what they have done, I believe there is a sanctity of life, but isn’t it at the very least a santicty arising from potential? And i guess it seems to me that potential represents the power to make something, to help somebody, to make a difference in the world, not just to sit on one’s hind end and consume stuff.

Yeah, this right to life for those on death row is a problem. It’s a very Modern idea that we are born with certain rights no matter what we do. It’s a much different focus than Christianity, which focuses on responsibility, on being obedient with what God has given us. A person who murders has disobeyed God by destroying the gifts God has given and shirking her/his responsibility to the community as a whole. This is why I think we should stay away from talking about individual rights. The focus should be on responsibility to others.