Community or Communitas?

In "The Forgotten Ways" Alan Hirsch calls for a move from thinking about being Missional Community to being Missional Communitas...  He says that...

the related ideas of liminality and communitas describe the dynamics of the Christian community inspired to overcome their instincts to "huddle and cuddle" and to instead form themselves around a common mission that calls them on a dangerous journey to unknown places - a mission that calls the church to shake off it's collective securities and to plunge into the world of action, where its members will experience disorientation and marginalization but also where they encounter God and each other in a new way.

Wikipedia lists communitas in the following way...

Communitas is an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness. Communitas is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together. This term is used to distinguish the modality of social relationship from an area of common living. There is more than one distinction between structure and communitas. The most familiar being the difference of secular and sacred. Every social position has something sacred about it. This sacred component is acquired during rites of passages, through the changing of positions. Part of this sacredness is achieved through the transient humility learned in these phases, this allows people to reach a higher position. Communitas is an acute point of community. It takes community to the next level and allows the whole of the community to share a common experience.

There has been so much written about community and mission recently, with claims that with the death throws of Christendom still fresh in the memory the church is having to re-evaluate who it is and who it is called to be... to rediscover the sense of being Missional... to find the answer to being community... but I'm feeling stirred to ask some questions... what is our sense of communitas? where is our sense of shared liminality and spirit? how can we abandon the need for "huddle and cuddle" and truly embrace the dangerous journey?  For me this means that we shouldn't be expending our energy creating gatherings to which the needy will be drawn, this isn't about creating safe spaces in our places but is about creating safe space between me and another... safe not because it is risk free, but safe because it is open and honest, safe because ALL are vulnerable not because none are.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote...

the renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism which only has in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the sermon on the mount.

A Communitas has a calling, a vision if you like... it doesn't exist for it's own sake but because it has a passion which it cannot disregard.  I guess it may not be rational, nor may it be able to hold it's own in the face of structural critique, but nevertheless it makes a difference... it acts and it transforms... but just don't ask it to justify itself in the terms of modernity, it won't be able to!
Benedict's 72nd rule says...

Let our members put their zeal for Christ into action by being careful to prefer one another to themselves

and Tom Sine wrote...

We will need to aggressively work for the re-monking of the church to enable followers of Jesus Christ to intentional set the focus and rhythm of their lives out of biblical calling instead of cultural coercion.

I wonder if this "re-monking" means a shift from seeking a community where "I" feel safe, fed and comfortable... to nurturing communitas where "I" join with others called on a dangerous journey... where "I" becomes servant to "them"?

Technorati Tags: Culture: Emerging Church: theology

Comments

[kester]

Good thoughts. I think it's important to remember that the monasteries began when the persecution of Christians ended. They were meant precisely to be places of danger, not of comfort. And perhaps they have lost that in some cases.

At the recent Celtic Soliton (theme - Dangerous Living) I did a session precisely on moving to that space between our selves and 'the other' - it is within that dangerous space that the Trickster exists, that the gift is transferred. It's here that Christ was crucified, and it's here the body should live.