Part 5 in a series. Read Part 1.

Metaphorical and physical turf

Earlier, I said that voluntary associations offer space in which human freedom can thrive. Adams tells us that such spaces are both metaphorical and quite real:

In a modern pluralistic civilization, society is constituted by a variety of associations and organized structures. The constituent organizations cannot function if they do not have turf. Even in order to hold meetings an organization must have a place of meeting and also office space. Anyone who has experience in these matters knows that the recurrent and acute problem for many a voluntary association is the payment of the rent and the telephone bill. A ‘warrior’ friend of mine used to say that any organization worth its salt will have to face this crisis repeatedly, the crisis of being obliged to pay the rent or ‘vacate’.”

If we expand the term space metaphorically, we can say that a pluralistic society is one that is made up of a variety of relatively independent and interdependent ‘spaces.’ An effective organization… must be able, standing on its turf, to get a hearing if effective social criticism, or innovation and new consensus with respect to social policy, are to ensue. Adams, ed. Stackhouse, On Being Human Religiously, p. 57.

From this we can see a number of practical implications for our churches. At the most basic level, our churches, as voluntary associations, need a place to meet — physical “turf” — and they need to be able to pay the phone bill and have office space. At a more complex level, our churches are metaphorical spaces where we may “stand on our turf” and have our social criticisms be heard effectively; as individuals in a mass democracy, we have no such “turf” on which we can stand to be heard (that is, not unless we are extraordinarily wealthy). When you look at the budget of one of our typical churches (one which owns its own building), approximately 55% of the budget will be for staff salaries and benefits; 40% will be for building maintenance; and perhaps 5% will be for programming and (if we’re lucky) 5% will go towards social justice.

Many church members will be very critical of this breakdown, claiming that far more than 5% of a church budget should go towards social justice; this on the theory that one of the primary purposes of a liberal church is to promote social justice. However, Continue reading →

Part 4 in a series. Read Part 1.

Different kinds of liberal churches for different kinds of people

If you think about it, there are several different kinds of liberal church. Let me try to enumerate some of them: (1) churches which offer programs — a music program, a children’s program, a support group, opportunities for leadership development, etc. — these are churches whose participants tend to be like consumers; (2) churches which are centered around a person — as in the 19th C., the 28th Congregational Society in Boston was so focused on the person of Theodore Parker that when he died the congregation did too; (3) churches which convey social status — “That’s the church where all the best people in town go”; (4) churches which offer spiritual activities, typically Sunday morning worship services, where such spiritual activities are limited in time to Sunday mornings and in space to the church building; (5) churches which are well-intentioned social clubs, not much different from Rotary Club or the Masons. Each of these is a perfectly valid kind of church.

However, there is at least one more kind of liberal church. These are the liberal churches which function as a kind of non-residential intentional community. In the Emerging Church movement, the parallel to this kind of liberal church would be the missional church; that is, a church in which the people lives out God’s mission for them. The Emerging Church conversations thus describe this kind of church in theological terms, where I have been approaching my description from an organizational perspective. (Of course the theological perspective is inherent in my organizational perspective, for I am describing an organization which incarnates religious visions.)

I prefer to take the organizational perspective, at least to start with, because I think that perspective helps us to understand that I am trying to describe a continuum that stretches from an intentional residential community at one extreme, to an intentional community that functions non-residentially. In the middle are those intentional church communities which sometimes gather together (or at least significant portions of the church gather together) in a residential setting, perhaps an overnight retreat. And in between the two extremes, we can find a wide range of temporary residencies: from churches where the entire core membership of the church lives together in a residential setting for a period of time; and from there we get ever closer to completely non-residential communities, as the various subgroups living together in residential settings decrease in size, decrease in time spent together, and increase in homogeneity. “More residential” does not imply “better”; in fact, a completely non-residential intentional community may be better than an intentional community which tends to exclude persons because of the residential requirements.

And this leads us to consider that intentional church communities do not always incarnate religion in useful ways. Continue reading →

Part 3 in a series. Read Part 1.

Intentional communities

In 1955, James Luther Adams published an article titled “Notes on the Study of Gould Farm,” a short piece on an intentional community in western Massachusetts (Gould Farm is no longer an intentional community and now houses a rehabilitation program for mentally ill adults). In his laudatory description of the community at Gould Farm, Adams could be talking about one of the “new monasteries” that are cropping up today:

For over forty years Gould Farm has been that unique thing which today is called an “intentional community”; it is a deliberately formed community in which people live together sharing, receiving, and incarnating religious visions. Adams, ed. Engels (1986), 254

As Adams describes Gould Farm, we can imagine how his words could possibly apply (although in a less intense manner) to certain liberal churches:

Gould Farm is a fellowship not only for the inner “family” of members who maintain the community. It is open to “outsiders,” to people who in distress of mind or spirit wish for a time to participate in a community of affection that gives renewed meaning and depth to life. Gould Farm, in short, is a therapeutic community. It does not live merely for itself, as many intentional communities have done. It is a “self-transcending” community. To all sorts of people it offers healing, the healing that can only emerge, as William Gould believed and showed, in the atmosphere of harmony and mutual aid which characterizes the true family. The Farm has been a haven not only for those who in sickness of spirit desperately needed the fellowship that is new life but also for those who, like the many refugees from Europe of the past two decades, needed a place in which to get new bearings and a new start in a strange land. Adams, ed. Engels (1986), 255

Adams may well be excessively laudatory in his article on Gould Farm; elsewhere he is quite clear about the pathologies of voluntary associations, and intentional residential communities seem to be prone to more than their share of pathologies. Nevertheless, he description identifies several characteristics we should look for in intentional religious communities:

• the community is deliberately formed and maintained
• in the community, people share and receive
• the community incarnates religious visions
• the community does not live merely for itself; it is self-transcending
• there is an inner circle or “family” and…
• others who need to be part of a community of affection for a time are also welcome
• healing takes place in the community
• the community can serve as a refuge

While Adams is specifically talking about a residential community in this article, in practice these characteristics may also apply to certain kinds of non-residential intentional communities. There may be some liberal churches which can boast of all these characteristics; these would be true intentional communities, albeit non-residential communities. Indeed, I would argue that these characteristics should be part of the ideal for a certain kind of liberal church.

Next: Kinds of liberal churches