The Communities We Belong To

Pascal argued that the possibility for belief rested with the community or communities that we join. His discussion related especially to the possibility for one to believe in God and the community he referenced was the Christian community. However, his argument for belief can apply to any potential belief that we might want to consider and the ‘community’ that supports and promotes that belief. The community can be explicit or implicit; vague, ill-defined and loosely organized; or controlled, highly-delineated, and tightly organized; or any of a number of different ways of existing. It could be an economic class, say the bourgeoisie, middle-class, or capitalist, a philosophical community, say modern, post-modern, or existential, or a political movement, say liberal, conservative, or socialist, and so on.

The important thing about ‘community’ is that it helps you define yourself by displaying how the people within this community live, what they believe in, and how they relate to the world outside the community. In this world of uncertainty where we operate with only incomplete information, we grow up in communities and this helps us to grow and to develop our problem solving skills because the community has models of the world that we can use to solve problems and make decisions. The community exists because the models used by the community have apparently been relatively successful, at least up until this time. That is, the community is still there because it has been able to survive using the models of the world that the community is based upon.

Not all communities, however, are improving their chances of survival. All communities exist because, at one time or another, their models did provide a means for those within the community to survive and perform satisfactorily relative to other communities. But, communities are in competition with one another and the more successful communities seem to thrive and grow at the expense of those whose models do not seem to work as well. So, we have some communities that are ‘advancing’ and others that are ‘in decline’. Those that are in decline are either attempting to modify their models so as to create more successful models of the same tradition, or, the declining community becomes very defensive and sticks with its existing models and turns inward, thereby exacerbating the decline.

Regardless, one chooses the communities one belongs to and in so choosing commits, on various levels, to the things that the community stands for. Some of these commitments become what Paul Tillich has defined as “Ultimate Concerns.” An Ultimate Concern is something a person gives especial allegiance to, something that dominates and influences all a person does. For example, God can be the Ultimate Concern. But, a political party may also be a person’s Ultimate Concern. A book, like the Bible, may become a person’s Ultimate Concern. Wealth or social standing may become the Ultimate Concern of a person. Or, a way of thinking may become an Ultimate Concern.

In this sense, the choice of community is a spiritual decision and this is something we are very interested in. The obvious concern, therefore, becomes whether or not the Ultimate Concern that a person chooses is really “Ultimate”. If the commitment is to something that is really Ultimate, then the person making the commitment can achieve some kind of peace of mind by seeking the Ultimate. Problems occur, however, if the commitment is made to something that is not really Ultimate. In these instances, the one committing does not achieve peace of mind because he or she is giving their allegiance to something that cannot fully satisfy them. That is, a commitment to something that is not truly Ultimate leaves one incomplete in a number of different possible ways. A commitment to something that is not truly Ultimate does not provide “the peace which passes all understanding.” In biblical terms the commitment is to an idol and the pursuit of this idol is idolatry.

How can one distinguish between a commitment to something that is Ultimate and the commitment to something that is not? I would like to argue that one major difference is that when one commits to something that is not Ultimate, one is committing to an outcome or to a series of outcomes. That is, one is basing ones commitments on the possibility of receiving something. The problem with putting the emphasis upon receiving something is that one can fall short of what one wants to receive; or, a person, not being satisfied, continually revises their expectations of what they want to receive, setting the standard higher and higher. In focusing on outcomes, a person is never satisfied; that person is always discontented and restless. This is not the way to peace of mind.

It seems to me that if a person is to focus on something that is truly Ultimate then that person will focus on a process and not on a specific outcome or outcomes. That is, if God is the Ultimate Concern, then one wants to focus on God and on what God does. And how can this be done? One definition of truly being with God is to be in unity with God. Jesus speaks of the fact that he and the Father (God) are one. Expanding this definition somewhat to be consistent with the teaching of the Christian Church, one can argue that one wants to be “in unity with God, with self, with others, and with creation.” That is, one would like to be ‘with’ all components of life and move together with them. Thus, for something to be truly an Ultimate Concern, it must bring people into a relationship with all of these elements so that the individual can claim that they are one with God and God’s creation.

There is no specific ‘outcome’ here for all these elements are always changing. Being in unity with each of them, therefore, requires a process for gaining and, hopefully, maintaining unity over time. The important thing to note is that what gains unity and then maintains unity will not always be the same. That is why ‘process’ is important because ‘outcome’ will necessarily vary!
This means, that when one makes a commitment to a community of belief one is making a commitment to learn and grow so as to maintain a unity with the community and with all the things that the community stands for. If the choice of community is too narrow, then things are left out of the commitment and one can never become complete or whole. But, most importantly, the commitment must be one to change with the community and keep in unity with the community over time and not just at one time in history.

This is where the concept of love comes into the picture. To me, love is not something that exists, but a process of commitment between the one that loves and that which is loved. Love is something that allows for change and growth and is not something that is fixed and limited. It is a relationship and not a constant. Love allows for the one who loves to change and for that which is loved to change. Love is related to knowing and understanding, to learning and adjusting. Only by accepting this does one have any possibility of unity or wholeness when considering someone or something else that one loves.

Returning to the relationship between belief and community one can now understand that the relationship is a dynamic one and not static, something that is forever new. One does not come to ‘believe’ in something; one comes to a ‘belief in’ someone or something and that belief is continually renewed over and over again by actively working to understand the loved one and one’s self and living through the process of commitment and love. This, I believe, it is the model that Jesus displayed to us in his life and is the model that the Christian community lives by. It is the model that Christians, everywhere, attempt to exemplify in their own lives.

The apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians 13: 4-8: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Lover never ends.” What does this specifically mean? I don’t know…it is a process and not an outcome.