"On the eve of his arrest, Jesus prayed for the unity of all believers with God and each other for the sake of the world. In so doing, he pointed toward the ontological reality of koinonia - a multidimensional union and communion of the greatest possible intimacy and integrity. This koinonia constitutes the being of God, the church, all humanity, even the cosmos. It defines the identity of the church and orders all its practices." (Latini, The Church and the Crisis of Community: A Practical Theology of Small Group Ministry, 75)
Latini goes on to describe the breadth of this indwelling:
"Koinonia is multidimensional: it is comprised of five interlocking relationships: 1) the koinonia of the Trinity; 2) the koinonia of the incarnate Son Jesus Christ; 3) the koinonia between Christ and the church; 4) the koinonia among church members; and 5) the koinonia between the church and the world. In all these koinonia relationships, the Holy Spirit is the mediator of communion...Jesus indwells the Father; the church indwells Jesus; the members of the church indwell one another and the world. This multi-stranded union cannot be severed." (Latini, 77)
'Indwelling' is language normally reserved for places and locations. Yet here, our lives are the places where God takes residence through Christ and the Spirit. And Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are 'places' where we take residence. Furthermore - and this is where Latini draws her observations for biblical community - we indwell one another. Our lives are places where others take up residence.
Well, unfortunately this is where the word 'crisis' comes into play in Latini's book. Guided by sociologist Robert Putnam's research in his classic book Bowling Alone, Latini describes a steady withdrawal from community:
"In the past 35 years, Americans have become 10-15 percent
less likely to voice their views publicly by running for office or by writing
Congress or the local newspaper; 15-20 percent less interested in politics and
public affairs; 25 percent less likely to vote; 35 percent less likely to
attend public meetings; 40 percent less involved in political and civic
organizations in general." (Latini)
Latini ascribes a great deal of this to the erosion of personal skills, leading to a lack of trust in those around us, which then leads to a lack of obligation:
"The community's role in our moral formation also has been undermined by the dynamics of modernity. Illness, death, insanity, and deviance are technical matters handled by experts rather than moral issues handled by communities. Institutions hide these moral issues by "sequestering" the persons who suffer from them. Hidden from our daily view, the kinds of existential issues that call for ethical action do not confront us directly. More generally, relationships of trust are disembedded from community. We trust expert systems - transportation systems, banking systems, utility companies, medical establishments, and so forth - to help us function with ease on a daily basis. We depend not on people we know and love but on abstract systems. These systems "deskill." Few of us have friends or neighbors who can help us with our plumbing, electricity, computers, or cars; fewer of us can sustain these basic systems ourselves. So we depend on and trust representatives of organizations who market their skills to us. Outside of the context of trust that is personal, their sense of obligation to us may be weak, and we may have little incentive to become loyal customers. Our commitment to each other is not based on concern for our mutual well-being; instead, it is based on efficiency and ease." (Latini, 19-20)
In this paragraph, Latini capably does two things. She shows how it might not feel like we have a crisis of community thanks to our expert systems. They seem to keep things going pretty well. But by trusting 'experts', we are forgetting what it means to trust one another. "Relationships of trust are disembedded from community." We are in community, but we don't invest as much trust in it. We hold it at arms length. "Our commitment to each other is not based on concern for our mutual well-being; instead, it is based on efficiency and ease." In other words, our commitment to one another is measured not in terms of what we do for others, but what we get out of it.
And, of course, if this is true, we've come quite far from the biblical sense of koinonia.
What can be done? This breakdown of community provides the historical background for small group programs at churches:
"Sociologist Robert Putnam identifies small groups as one of four countertrends to the depletion of social capital in the United States. Two small-group ministries are described as "exceptional cases in which creative social entrepreneurs (are) moving against the nationwide tide and creating vibrant new forms of social connectedness." (Latini, 33)
Perhaps members of small groups will recognize themselves in what people reported about the power of small groups:
"The proliferation of small groups, whether inside or outside the church, is fueled by acute psychosocial and spiritual yearnings of people living in the United States in late modernity. People gather in small groups to experience or enhance a connection to God, a connection to others, and often a connection to their truest selves. The vast majority of participants report significant positive changes in their experience of God, of themselves, and of others." (Latini, 32)
So small groups can help us re-invest in community and get outside of ourselves. Yet, small groups can sometimes perpetuate our focus on ourselves:
"Yet Wuthnow, Putnam, and Minnick do not praise small groups without reserve. Putnam notes that many groups foster bonding social capital to the neglect of bridging social capital. Minnick warns that self-help groups cannot cure our cultural fragmentation. And Wuthnow vividly illustrates that small groups simultaneously mitigate and accommodate individualism: "Small groups are colored by the same shades of individualism that pervade the rest of our society," he says. "Just because people are joining support groups, we should not conclude that they have made the needs of others a priority in their lives. They may be seeking community but only finding themselves." (Latini, 34)
I think there are several take-aways from all this. First, there is some comfort in knowing that our resistance to being part of any sort of community outside of our own family is not just our own unique selfishness, but is really a societal trend. Our society itself bends and moves us in such a way that we find this a plausible and good way to live. A biblical understanding of sin, as Fleming Rutledge described it in her recent book The Crucifixion, is never just a matter of personal behavior, but the Bible describes sin as a power that acts upon us. So as Christians we learn to pay attention not only to behavioral sins, but also to the way sin acts upon us through the well-traveled grooves by which we make our way in the world. Second, as we find out about ways we are implicated in sinful ways of living, we are always free to begin to yearn, pray, and take steps to live a different way. An awareness of these trends can give us a lens to see when we are viewing small groups only as opportunities to find ourselves, but we aren't very interested in actually loving others. And when we become aware of it, we can begin to engage with God in a new way, knowing that God is the one who removes our hearts of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that longs to run the way of God's commands. Finally, I'm reminded of Jesus' command to be hospitable to those who can't repay us. (Luke 14:12-14) Becoming attentive to the ways that we enter into community for our own sake can then liberate us for entering into community for substantial and sacrificial friendship. Maybe we would not only find ourselves obeying the command of our Savior, but maybe we would also find ourselves living into a new day of mutual trust and of mutual obligation toward one another in our country.
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