Community That Crosses Communities

If the liberal voting practices of your neighbors is an irritation to you, or you no longer want to feel as though you are supporting the lifestyles of those with whom you disagreee then there may be a solution for you in West Texas. Just outside Dell City, Texas, community organizers have begun plans for a housing development that will contain nothing but supporters of former presidential hopeful Ron Paul. This housing development, named "Paulville", is intended to be the first of a many communities inspired by the networking organization "Paulville.org". The organization's stated purpose is to "establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty." The apparent beauty of living in such a community would be the fact that you would no longer have to fear coming into contact with someone whose political views differed from your own. For most this kind of insularity and retreat from engagement with distasteful elements of our culture may seem extreme at worst or merely amusing at best, but the temptation to eschew interaction with the world may be more alluring to us than we realize.

A recent article in the June 18th edition of The Economist magazine indicates that many suburban communities in the U.S. are becoming increasingly homogenized as potential homeowners look for homes in areas where the voting and political preferences of the neighbors mirror their own allegiances. People take note of the kinds of bumper stickers that are prevalent in the area and the types of bookstores that are available as they decide where to seek a home. Greater affluence has afforded more people, especially well educated ones, the opportunity to be choosy about not only the physical location of their homes but also the philosophical location of their homes. Over the last thirty years, more and more Americans have taken advantage of this choice and the results can be seen in the voting results over the past few presidential elections. The 1976 election was extremely close nationally with Jimmy Carter winning just 50.1% of the vote, but in a little over ¼ of the counties in the U.S. the results were far more disparate. The Economist describes these as “landslide counties” where “Mr. Carter either won or lost by 20 percentage points or more.” In 1976, 26.8% of Americans were in “landslide counties”, this meant that people in those counties knew relatively few people who did not vote the same way that they did. In 2000 and 2004, the percentages of Americans in landslide counties were 45.3% and 48.3% respectively; an almost two fold increase. This indicates that, over the last thirty years, people in the U.S. have been sorting themselves into ever more homogenous communities in which the skeptical agnostic rarely encounters a conscientious evangelical who believes in a biblical worldview.

This geographical “self-sorting” coupled with the media selectivity possible through the internet and cable news networks has had a profound effect on the ideological landscape of our country. The Economist article observes, “Because Americans are so mobile, even a mild preference for living with like-minded neighbours leads over time to severe segregation. An accountant in Texas, for example, can live anywhere she wants, so the liberal ones move to the funky bits of Austin while the more conservative ones prefer the exurbs of Dallas.” We should pay special attention to the observation that “even a mild preference for living with like-minded neighbors leads over time to severe segregation”, because it contains a potent warning to the Church. The “Balkanizing” of the country has not left the Church untouched. Many Church growth strategies consider it axiomatic that a Church will only effectively reach people outside the Church who resemble the membership inside the Church. As a result, many Churches have had more than “a mild preference” for seeking after people who basically look and think like they do. What is more they have done this consciously, believing it to be the best way to be effective in reaching the world for Jesus. Consequently, there are palpable pressures on the Church to reflect our culture’s tendency toward fragmentation into various socio-politico-economic factions that seek to gather more likeminded adherents to their banner while exerting little effort to interact with their opponents. There have always been sharp differences of opinion concerning matters of faith and philosophy in America, but we are living in a time in which fewer and fewer believers are actually interacting with those whose view of the world differs from their own.

This poses a serious question for the Church: how can people be confronted with the gospel if they never interact with someone who knows the gospel? The fact is that there are “foreign mission fields” right here in the U.S. in which people have a functional illiteracy of the Bible and the basic truths that are derived from it. As salt and light, the Church has been called to proclaim God’s truth to people from every possible background; philosophical as well as ethnic. Paul gives us a glimpse into this as he writes to the Corinthian Church, “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor. 6.9-11 [NIV]) These verses indicate the various backgrounds out of which the Corinthian believers had come. Paul had obviously not confined his ministry to trying to reach those who thought essentially the same way he did. The essential truth is that everyone apart from Jesus is lost, desperately lost, and that Jesus has come to seek and save what was lost. This should motivate us to view our interactions with those whose philosophical, political, or religious commitments differ from our own as opportunities to reach into another community for Christ. The organizers of "Paulville.org" are seeking to reach those who already agree with them. Jesus wants us to reach those who do not yet agree with us but may one day sing with us this new song, "You are worthy … because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth." (Rev. 5.9-10 [NIV]) May it be so.