Christian life is something more than just individual commitment. The church today has little conception of what it means to be a community, although it is communal life and not individual life which is the focus of Scripture. We will be looking at Christian living, the communal task of God’s people in God’s world, from the perspective of the community and not of the individual. We are not a collection of unrelated individuals, but a people moulded into one by the Holy Spirit, joined to Christ to be members of his body.

Human beings are created in relationship to each other, to God and to the world around them. They were called to care for the earth as stewards in the service of God. They are to have children and to raise them to share this task with all humankind in a community of loving relationships, encompassing other people, God and the animal world. In carrying out the diversity of tasks for which God has gifted people in various ways, human life would show the richness and splendour of the Lord throughout his creation. The community of God’s people will demonstrate the renewal of all of human life in its diversity.

Community, understood in the light of Scripture, means that people are bonded together. Only out of this bonding can we engender and sustain activities which demonstrate the renewal of our society through Christ. Without this communal action, arising from the insight, wisdom and experience of many people, all our activity will come to nought. Christian involvement which seeks to manifest the redemption of Christ in every area of life can only be developed with full Biblical integrity if it arises from the commitment of a community of Christians. It can only be consistently pursued when there is a supporting community which shares a common vision and a resolute commitment. Without that commitment we can only make culturally insignificant contributions which will be swallowed up in the face of the rebellion against God which dominates our society.

Neither will we be able to develop a Christian cultural contribution which has staying power; the ability to stick it out for generations, for years and centuries, not just weeks and months. The length of time a particular development in culture stays around is among other things an indication of the depth of its spiritual roots and its ability to make sense of life in a particular period in history. Christian cultural activity at the moment is not producing any such sustained contribution, because such a sustained involvement in society depends on communal activity. Such communal activity can only arise on the basis of an integrally Christian perspective on all of life - not on only a small part of life.

The Christian community has thus far failed to grasp the all-encompassing perspective on life which is given to us in the Scriptures. This has meant that the development of the skills and abilities of individual Christians results not in diversification but in fragmentation. Christians who are called to work in artistic, political or scholarly tasks must virtually wrench themselves away from their fellow believers in order to do so. There is little understanding of the nature of these tasks, and we lack the supportive Christian community needed to carry out such work with Christian integrity. The kiwi attitude of "going it alone" is inappropriate here, since the tasks are so great that any one person will crumble under the load.

Only as we come to appreciate the nature of Christian community as rooted in bonded relationships with each other which come to expression in every area of life, will we see the richness and diversity of the gifts God has given us being shared with each other, being strengthened and enjoyed by all, and from being incorporated into the life of the believing community. Many Christians do not recognise the integral communal nature of Christian life, and hence can have only a peripheral commitment to the Christian community.

For many people this is because the Christian community functions in only limited ways. There is no place for many Christians to exercise their gifts, since they have been called to tasks which do not fit within the limited vision and structures of the church. The predominant Christian vision is one of a narrowly-conceived religious life, which does not incorporate all of human existence. What we do outside church is unimportant; it is irrelevant to the Christian community.

This prevents the development of the individual members of the community, as well as of the community as a whole. Those in the community are hindered from discovering the way they are to use their various skills and abilities to contribute to the task of caring for and developing the earth as stewards together of the creation. The community then tends to become introverted and self-serving, rather than acting as a servant to all.

True Christian community is found only where the various tasks and abilities given to each person are encouraged and nurtured with suitable training and support. Thus Christian community is based on common faith and obedience to Christ in fulfilling together that calling to care for and develop all of creation. Christian community cannot exist where the church has an introverted spirituality or world-denying worship.

Christian community is the corporate life of all believers, sharing together both personal and other kinds of resources, so that together we may build up the body of Christ to fulfil its calling in developing the skills and abilities of its members, and thereby renew us for our task of caring for the earth as God’s stewards.

Christian discipleship in every area of life can only be developed with full Biblical integrity if it arises from the commitment of a community of Christians to work together in obedience to God. Our activities in different fields can only be pursued in a way which is consistent with our Christian faith when there is a supporting community which shares a common vision, and a commitment which is sustained through thick and thin. If our activities in life are seen to fall outside the community, then we are on our own in the world - the hostile system of this age which is seeking to devour the people of God.

That we have little to show in the way of Christian cultural endeavour is the consequence of failure to recognise and develop our life as a community. We need each other if we are to make any significant contributions in life. If we ask what Christians think about art, or science, or medicine, or politics, or whatever, then the answer will depend on which Christian we are talking about. We have been so seduced by the spirits of this world that we have not struggled to come to a common mind on the real issues of life. We have abandoned all these areas to the world - those who hate God - and simply believe what they tell us, even though it is rooted in unbelief and rebellion.

But because we have neglected to build community, we have no alternatives to offer. Where then is the promise of abundant life which Jesus promised? Where is the light that cannot be hidden, the city on a hill that is visible from a distance? There is no city where there are only individuals. There is no light where the word of God for all of life is ignored. There are no answers for the problems of life when we are constantly turning away from the crucial issues of life.

The human task is to care for and develop the earth. The work which we do here and now is significant and meaningful. Apart from Christ, to whom all things are subject, and to whom all things belong as the appointed head of creation, there is no meaning in our work. But seen in the light of Christ, all our activities are meaningful and significant to God: our employment, our family life, our hobbies, our sport and our music, all these things and everything else that we are involved in. And because they are significant to God he will hold us to account for what we make of the gifts he has given us.

Failure to bring all of life into subjection to God is intrinsically denying the purpose for which we were created and is a rejection of Christ. It is a denial of his lordship over all of life, as it gives pre-eminence to only part of the life we are called to lead. It is to be seduced by the secular spirit of the world-system which denies that Christ has any authority over us in every area of life. We have been persuaded that while obedience to Christ is important for a narrowly-conceived spiritual life and church activities, it is irrelevant to the "real" issues of life. So there is no heritage of Christian political reflection, artistic endeavour, educational insight or economic alternatives in this country. Former generations of New Zealanders have failed to grasp the all-encompassing claims of Christ, and so we find ourselves struggling to come to terms with the wider issues of life from a Christian perspective. However if we do not come to terms with these issues, then the Christian community will continue to be seduced by secularism and will fail to see the full Lordship of Christ expressed in its midst. What will become of the next generation, if we neglect our task and leave them in the same vacuum of ideas and insight in which we find ourselves?

What is wrong with individualism anyway?

Individualism is a rejection of the communal character of our human life before God. Instead of the community as the basis of human life, it emphasises the abstract person outside of relationships, considered apart from the real context of human life. It is devoid of any conception of a wider reality which sustains and enables each person to do what they do.

As a consequence of seeing society primarily as individuals, individualism considers community to be only an artificial construct of real individuals. Community is something added as an afterthought, it is merely a decorative veneer laid over the individualistic foundation. As a result, communal life is frequently absent, and we are all the poorer for it.

Individualism fails to recognise the creation as context for community. It cuts us off from our roots as a community not only of human beings but as creatures, linked together and bonded to one another before God the creator. Thus by isolating us first from one another and thus from the whole of creation, the world that God has made becomes merely something apart from us that can be abused and spoiled: it does not matter what we do to the world and to each other; it is outside of us, we are independent of it, it is ultimately irrelevant to us. The consequences can be seen in the pollution of the environment, the contamination of our food supplies, the violence and crime which pervades society. All this is one consequence of being cut off from our rootedness in creation. It is a denial of the creation as the context of human life and a rejection of others as outside of us and therefore not important or significant to us. Individualism is the curse of contemporary Western culture, which centres our attention on ourselves.

Individualism takes its motivation from an idolatrous absolutisation of the human person, divorced from the communal context in which alone that personhood has meaning. It results in the attempt to understand society as a series of relationships between individuals, rather than as a communal structure in which different persons play their part. For an individualistic view of society, communal relationships must inevitably be only artificial and ultimately unnecessary.

Those who view the origin of the state as founded in a social contract between individuals (e.g. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) have fallen into this error. For them, the individual is always primary; a communal relationship, where it is considered to exist, is only a convenience and not essential. Thus the body of Christ, a family, and every other communal structure in human life, is reduced to a conglomerate of individuals, lacking any true structural reality as a community of inter-related people of different callings and gifts. The freedom of the individual has been absolutised and made into an idolatrous spiritual force which distorts and deceives. We need to recapture the Biblical teaching concerning the "people of God" and to break out of the unbiblical notion that we are independent individuals.

On the other hand we need to resist also the idea that individual relationships fall within the all-embracing structure of one particular institution. Political systems, both left and right wing, which absolutise the State are typical of this direction. Such universalistic views of society arise from direct reaction against the fragmenting and divisive forces of individualism. Because both individualism and communalism are spiritual forces, they cannot be resisted with military might, as both the East and the West seek to do. There is no escape from the dialectical tension between individualism and communalism as long as we deny that human beings are created beings standing already in community from the beginning. That community relationship can be shattered by individualism, and it can be distorted and absolutised as communalism. Nevertheless, the freedom of the individual and the inescapable structure of communal relationships form the context of human life. Individualism and communalism are two manifestations of the disharmony in society which comes about because of human sin, and a turning away from the creator and what he has revealed to us of the nature of human life. Only a Biblical understanding of the communal nature of human life as a created reality can avoid both individualism and communalism, both of which idolatrously absolutise opposing views of what it means to be a human person in God’s creation.

Unfortunately the church is not free from the sin of individualism. For example, Christian faith is seen first of all as my personal relationship with God. Seeking God’s will for "my life" and concentrating on our own walk with God, are ultimately the fruit of individualism infecting our spirituality, and not the fruit of God’s Spirit. Any expression of Christian faith which is not rooted in a commitment at the same time both to God and to God’s people is self-centred and an inadequate conception of Christian faith.

What is a community of believers?

There are no isolated autonomous individuals: there is only the community of all God’s creatures, related to him and to each other. But all these relationships have been distorted and misused as a result of our rebellion against God, and it is only through renewal by Christ’s redemption through the power of the Holy Spirit that our relationships are restored.

What does it mean then to be a people of God? We are communal creatures; the Bible never deals with individuals alone. Every person is inescapably integrated into the life of the community. Scripture always calls us to renewed obedience as a community. We do not stand alone, but are created as members of one another. Denial of the communal heart of our existence leads to fragmentation of our lives, and isolation and ultimately alienation from God, who sees us in terms of our relationships in community and not as independent individuals.

The principal relationship we stand in as Christians is as members of the body of Christ. The imagery used of the body (for instance in 1 Corinthians 12) makes it abundantly clear that God sees us first of all as members of Christ. It is as we acknowledge our union with the covenant community of God’s people that we find true spiritual life. God does not save individuals in isolation but calls those in the community of rebellion to repent and identify themselves with the community of obedience.

The Gospel restores not only our relationship to God, but also our relationships to each other, and to the world around us and all its creatures. It was said by one evangelist that he knows if a man has been saved if he stops kicking his dog. That is true not simply because it is morally wrong to mistreat a dog, but because the gospel restores our relationships with not only the animals, but with all of God’s creatures, as much as with God himself. We cannot love God and hate our brother, because if we have truly responded to the Gospel, all our relationships will be restored, since all these relationships are part of who we are, and the gospel restores us as persons, to live a full, earthly human life in this world.

So then, the ordering word of God by which all creation is brought into being and sustained in existence also established the relationships between the variety and diversity of creatures. Human beings are created by God with a whole range of possible relationships. Marriage, friendship, trade, political structures, education, sports teams and the like are all rooted in the way God has created us and ordered our life. These structures we have shaped are the result of human responses to the Word of the Lord by which he has called us to fulfil our lives by developing the endless range of possibilities he has created.

When God created everything that exists, he did so by calling them into being by his ordering word. That word which created us is still active, it orders and sustains the creation still. That word is made known to us in everything that exists. In order to understand the relationships in which creatures live, what we need to do is to examine these creatures and discover the ways they live. The creative word of God which orders them can be seen in the order they display. How do we know this? Because the Scriptures have opened our eyes again to this. It is not something which can be known simply by going out and examining the world, because we are ensnared in sin and rebellion against God. Only through the Scriptures can we be given new eyes to see what God has brought into being, and how all these things come about.

Therefore to respond in obedience to God and his creative ordering word, means that not only is our relationship with God restored, but our other relationships within which we find ourselves, our political, economic, artistic, sporting and work relationships are also being restored. To respond to the Gospel is to be restored to what God intended us to be. In order to be able to restore our communal relationships with each other and with all the creatures of the world we live in, we need to understand the way in which God has created all these things. God’s creative word continually provides the order for our lives and sustains us in all that we do. In order to understand the relationships in which we stand to God’s creatures, we need to examine the creation and discern the way God has put it together.

The task of the Christian community

The task of the Christian community in a secular society is to work together in every area of life, to show how the redemption of Christ renews all that we are and do. If we are to stimulate intrinsically Christian involvement in every area of life, two factors are necessary: a concept of an integral Christian discipleship, which encompasses every area of life, and a commitment to work together towards this goal. The achievements of many Christians in the past have often failed to continue to exercise an influence because there was no concept of all of life discipleship which took on corporate shape through the efforts of the Christian community.

Corporate Christian activity has been limited largely to the institutional church, Christian mission work, such as the various missionary societies, the Bible Societies, and evangelistic organisations. Corporate Christian discipleship in other areas has not been developed, because we lack a vision of life which is rooted in an appreciation of God’s creation, and because of the individualism which has infected the church.

Human beings were created in community, and were intended to live in community with other human beings, and in harmonious relationship with the world around them. The call to care for and develop this world involved the community of mankind working together, not isolated individuals "doing their bit." The traditional emphasis on individual discipleship, personal piety, morality and evangelism, is still dominant in the church today. This often means that corporate Christian activity in areas such as politics, industry, the arts and scholarship, for instance, is still not considered true discipleship, but involvement in "the world."

Since caring for the earth and developing the full scope of cultural life was not alien to the way humankind was created, neither should it be seen as alien to a redeemed community of mankind living day to day in this world - God’s world. Every aspect of human activity has the potential to be restored to wholeness and renewed in obedience to God through the redemption won by Jesus Christ. Only as we seek to realise this renewal and redemption in our own lives, laying them open to the work of the Spirit, will we see this redemption begin to take corporate expression amongst us.

Our task as a Christian community in a secular society is not to seek to impose on it our conception of what life should be, but to demonstrate through the nature of our communal life an alternative vision and way of life, a way of life which both attracts those who are seeking God, and repels those who are in revolt against him. This is a secular society, one which does not recognise God nor acknowledge his commands for our lives. That does not mean that unbelieving people "out there" somewhere refuse to recognise God, but that everyone in our society has failed to acknowledge God and live accordingly. The church is not exempt: it is an integral part of our secular society. God’s judgement falls on us all because of our failure to be a witnessing community, demonstrating by our lives together a new way of living, a new way of doing business, a new way of educating and making music, a new way of raising families and bringing reconciliation and all the other activities of life.

Christians need to be able to demonstrate the newness that Christ brings, the new vision and new community, binding us together in a way that presents both an attraction and a challenge to those who do things in accordance with a secular vision of life, one cut off from God.

To do that, we need to recover a sense of community, and to work for renewal not merely as individuals, but as a community. There are many aspects of our human life on this earth which are not individual but corporate, in fact our lives are more tied up with corporate realities than with individual realities. Our corporate lives together are however frequently shaped not by the Gospel but by secular visions of life.

We have restricted our Christian perspective to an individualistic and narrowly conceived view of life which fails to take the whole of Scripture into account, so that there is no consensus which guides Christians in their corporate life together, nor as a result any insight into the ways in which secular visions have shaped corporate life both inside and outside the church. It is only as God grants us repentance and renewal of vision that we will escape from the secularism of the system of this world and find new obedience to God.

But while we must work for, and hope for, the renewal of all of life in our midst here and now, we must also realise that the fullness of that renewal will not be seen until God reigns fully over all humanity; that is, when Christ returns to take up his rightful kingdom in the joyful company of the redeemed. Only then will the promise of renewal, which for now we can but hope and pray for, be seen in its completeness through the unhindered and thorough-going renewing work of the Spirit.

The church is the body of Christ. It is not a collection of otherwise unrelated individuals. It is a community in rightful relationship to their king, a community active together in God’s world. Richness and depth of Christian life can only develop where it arises from the shared faith and experience of the people of God, where together they struggle against the power of sin in their lives and in the society they live in. Only where Christian life is a consequence of the sharing of burdens and weakness, with each one through their abilities strengthening the lack of others, will the people of God be knit together as a significant community. The gathering of the people of God for worship is rooted in being a community. The community is the foundation and basis for our worship. The Church is the Christian community coming together to worship, Christian community is not formed by coming together to worship. Our worship as a Church is possible because we are already a community. It is our life as a community which is foundational to the life of the church.

The community of believers provides the roots for the life we share together in society. In every sphere of activity the people of God are to bear witness to the redeeming grace of God in Christ. They are to do this not simply in words only, but by showing through their life together that the renewal of every area of life, including the structured relationships of society, has begun and will be carried through to completion at the return of Christ.

The task of Christian community is to demonstrate in every area of life the redemption and renewal of all things in Christ. The different callings and abilities given to us by God are all to be given their place in the life of the Christian community. In the Christian community we should find the renewal of all relationships and structures of life, to show forth the light of the gospel of the Kingdom of God in every aspect of human culture. Education, political life, economic life, agriculture, art and music, will all carry the stamp of the vision and goal which inspires and guides the community in carrying out its task of caring for and developing the world with which God has entrusted us.

That task is to communicate the richness and depth of the mercy and grace of God by the renewal of everything that we do through the redemption of Christ. (1 Cor 5:17-20, Col 1:15-20). That this is not always the case can be seen in the fruit of the Christian community today. What is the goal and vision that inspires much of its view of art, music, politics, education? Not the kingdom of God, sad to say, for the vision of the Christian community has been compromised through our failure to take seriously the calling to renew all things in Christ. But because it is impossible to cut out these areas of life, by default the vision which inspires us is not that of the Kingdom of God. And it is only the Biblical message of the Kingdom of God which will bring us to repent of our abdication of responsibility, and a renewed vision for all of life which will allow us to find the obedience to God in every area of life which he desires of us.

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