Like Dreher I have a strong distaste for anything called "Communal", and as I've stated before an "intentional community " can have equally bad connotations. Still some interesting commentary at the Crunchy Con blog
The New York Times artical he references questions why so many communal arrangements fail. My own, decidedly amatuer, opinion is most of these arrangements are strictly along the lines of "lifestyles". The most successful "intentional community", the Amish (and those who live similarly, such as the Mennonites and Hutterited) are tied together by a strong religious bond. While some would argue that the neo-pagan eco-worship of many of the more left-leaning intentional communities constitute a religion, most expressions of paganism these dys have all the depth of a mud puddle (of course I'll not deny that much Christianity these days is similarly shallow, but the difference is there is a depth of tradition to be found in Christianity that is wholly absent from neo-paganism.). In any case, it would be interesting to see how an Orthodox intentional community would stack up.
Monday, June 12, 2006
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If we were all born into Orthdoxy and pretty much held to the same "t"raditions and understandings of the faith I think it would be very successful much like the Amish. BUT being that we all come from very different places and carry varying degrees of very heavy baggage from our nontraditional faiths I feel that it COULD be a disaster. We would all have to lay aside our baggage and lay aside what James calls "schizophrenic" interpretations of Orthodoxy to make it work. We converts tend to take things either way too far or not far enough.
What I see in the Amish is unity in beliefs and unity in goals. If we could find that within an Orthtodox community...How cool that would be!!
Sorry I rambled so much.
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