During the past few weeks I have had the privilege of time to read some wonderful new books – and – some time to re-read some of my best friends from the past. This post is drawn from one of those volumes: The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by M. Scott Peck, M.D*.
“The Church likes to refer to itself as the ‘Body of Christ.’ But it behaves as if it thought it could be the Body of Christ painlessly, as if it could be the Body without having to be stretched, almost torn apart, as if it could be the Body of Christ without having to carry its own cross, without having to hang up on that cross in the agony of conflict. In thinking that it could be thus painlessly the Church has made a lie out of the expression the ‘Body of Christ.’
One of the characteristics of a true community is that it is a body that can fight gracefully. The Church will not be able to fight out the issue of the arms race [or any other issue] until it becomes a community. Currently the Church is not only not the Body of Christ, it is not even a body, a community. It must become a community before it can serve as the Body of Christ.
The process of community-building begins with a commitment – a commitment of the members not to drop out, a commitment to hang in there thorugh thick and thin, through the pain of chaos and emptiness. Such commitment has not generally been required by the Church. Now the time has come to require it. For without that commitment community is impossible.” (382)
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