What communities should we join or form?

At various times, I've written about how creating or joining communities that pursue the good life in common is the best way to bring others to our ideas--or, ultimately, to Christ, because that should be our goal. People tend to convert people, not arguments. I've argued for this from a metaphysical perspective and in a more miscellaneous fashion. I like the metaphysical argument, think it is one of the better things I have written, and I advise you to read it.

The thing is, I don't know of anyone in the Orthosphere who has written about the various kinds of communities / institutions that we can form or join. So I thought I'd provide a little list of the types of such communities, with examples. The list is not scientific; it is not exhaustive; inclusion of a community / institution in the list does not indicate approval of all or even most of the activities of the community, for I am somewhat ignorant of some of them. If I've left any important category out, please let me know.

The following are meant to be for laymen. Obviously there are many religious communities that one can join.

1. Geographically-based, non-parish based communities. Many Christians get together and decide to live together; they might all go to one parish, but the parish does not seem to form the pre-existing nucleus around which they have formed. I've heard of more than one of these, but few seem to last. The Alleluia community in Georgia has lasted, and I've known at least one person who came from it who did not seem nuts; I would like to find out more about them and how they work.

Of course, such things generally tend to be called cults by the outside world. I think that if you want a community you'll have to live with that.

2. Parish-based communities. It is obvious what this is. Protestants might, perhaps, be better at these than Catholics, but Catholics are working on it.

3. Spirituality-based, non-geographic communities. By this I mean a particular organization or group of people who have local groups; these groups meet regularly to pray, discuss life and its trials, and praise God. Some members of the community might live together, rather than merely meeting regularly. Communion and Liberation is such a group, as is Opus Dei, assuming I understand the second correctly. The network that charismatic Catholics seem to form around the country might also form such a community in an informal fashion. There are more, I'm almost certain, but I do not know them well.

These groups can have a surprising amount of trust between their members. Note that these also can be, and are, called cults by those outside of them.

4. Spirituality-based communities that have spun-off from a religious order. Dominican tertiaries, Franciscan tertiaries, etc. One could say that this is the same as 2, but what I have in mind for 2 usually started off as meant for laymen, whereas these usually started off for religious but then expanded to include laymen.

5. Work-based communities. That is, communities meant to help those in a particular line of work reach holiness. The ancient guilds were, if I understand them correctly, such communities. I know of none that exist now.

6. Confessional states don't really exist outside of Malta and Vatican City and maybe a few other countries, at least in the form in which the readers of this blog are apt to be interested. They do not seem likely to be formed any time soon.

I think that unless we are in, trying to join, or trying to form such communities, we are not really serious about what we say.

I exist

Just so you know. Posts will randomly resume soon; don't expect them save on Sundays, as I do work that I enjoy doing on my day of leisure.

Dicta, no. 9

Before choosing sides at an argument, look at what the sides have in common. This is often what divides them.

PS. Grad-student life is catching up with me, and posts are going to be very scarce (i.e., non-existent) for two or three weeks. I will return to your regularly scheduled programing shortly thereafter, rather than continue to try to post updates consisting simply of quotations.

Though it's been said, many times, many ways . . .

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

"Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data."--CNBC

Acedia in America: Tocqueville's View

"A native of the United States clings to this world's goods as if he were certain never to die; and he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach that one would suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications.

Any Successful Historical Decentralization of Government?

Many traditionalist Americans desire a decentralized American government, perhaps similar to that advocated by the anti-Federalists, wherein the central government would be stripped of most of its current powers and act principally for purposes of defense, and wherein local governments would be the most important governmental unit. Such local governments could work for moral goals without becoming horribly oppressive in so doing, as the federal government seems to be; the federal government's task would principally be to protect the autonomy of such local units.

This picture is very attractive to me. But I fear that working for it politically might be a fool's errand. Why is that?

Dicta, no. 8

There are disciples who advance from the premises of their masters and multiply conclusions. And there are those who dig beneath the premises of their masters and unify them.