Village Life in the United States

I'm really not sure whether anyone is even interested in any of this, but since at least one person asked, here's a thread for it. I think I may have answered all his questions, but if Holmes or anyone else has more, I'll do my best to answer them here.This comes from this thread, where you can read what's already been said. I'll post my last message from that thread here. Holmes asked whether our village was religious based or a cultural (read "hippy") movement.My response was:************************************Religious based. Originally we were just good Bible-believing Christians trying to see the "unity of the Spirit." It seemed silly to us that Christ prayed "...that they may be one, even as you and I are one," but there's 22,000 denominations in the United States.We talked to all the churches, but they just ended up not liking us very much. In the process, we had to take care of some families having problems, so we moved them into our houses or bought them used mobile homes, and ended up living together.So uniting Christians was given up as an utter waste of time, and we just tried to ask God what he wanted us to do. We couldn't figure anything out for a while. It seemed like the only thing God had for us was to learn to be together.We think we figured out why. As Christians we knew nothing at all about loving one another or living in unity, which is why it was such a waste of time trying to unite our "brothers and sisters in Christ." Christianity, as practiced in the United States, is a prescription for division, disagreement, closed-mindedness and close-mindedness' brother, bigotry.So we had to CHANGE. We had to change a lot. It was a gradual, but pretty quick and rather painful process. We learned along the way that what had to matter to us was the love and unity we spoke of, not issues. We love truth. Truth matters to us. We like to know the answers to our issues, but we believe God is the giver of answers, and he gives answers to those who can put themselves aside and care more about what happens to the other person than about issues.Here's our conclusions after about 12 years. We don't know much of anything. If the Bible's literal, what's it matter, because we sure can't be trusted to understand it, apply it well, or do anything with it except hurt other people with our opninions. Above all, though, if we look to God, realize how little our opinions can be trusted, then he'll get us through every situation we're in, and in those situations we'll learn things that are reliable, instead of those awful opinions that we had that failed us and everyone else. See above Thank you. I think it's interesting. I know it's unusual. We've looked all over for something resembling what we're doing. We'd love to find others like us. Think what fun that would be! In order to do that, we've driven to New England, California, Florida, Indiana, and Missouri, as well as several places in Tennessee. What disappointments we've had. Admittedly, we haven't followed through real well on the non-religious groups like Twin Oaks in NC or one we know about in Arkansas. We'd like to find someone who shares our belief in Christ.The early days of the Farm in Tennessee may have been similar to us, even though they were hippies, not Christians. They've gotten old and uninterested now, though, or so it seems from the visits I've made there.

Mostly the members brought them. Back in Florida, where we started, Noah had a construction business. That business was brought to Tennessee, but run by Nathanael. A new member brought a home maintenance business that evolved a bit, was run by several people, and eventually became our painting business. I brought the warehouse distribution business by talking my only major customer into letting me move the warehouse across the state of Tennessee. Our window film business came from a guy who tinted and detailed cars in Florida, but we switched that to flat glass on buildings, because that's a better business.These kind of businesses are sort of universal.

I've never seen the questions from earlier in this thread. Old as they are, in case someone is reading, let me take a shot at them: Yes, and my comment is no, no, no. There is a world of difference between personal interaction and virtual interaction across the internet. One man who visited us once commented, "You guys don't wear masks, and I don't know how to take mine off. I was terrified."Across the internet you can be as fake as you want to be. You can only know a person so much without seeing their face and hearing their voice. I don't know if anyone will see this and care about my answer to this question, but...Our reasons for not staying in mainline Christianity are the same as many who have departed. The early Quakers, the Anabaptists of the 16th century, Watchman Nee's Local Churches, and probably the Brethren movement in England in the 1800's are all groups we would have joined.Our standards are pretty simple. Jesus wasn't joking when he said you couldn't be his disciple unless you denied yourself, took up your cross daily, and followed him. Those who are doing this ought all to be doing it together, because divisiviness, factions, and schisms are all said to be sins, and unity and love are the defining factors he gave to measure the success of his leadership.We wholeheartedly embrace all who agree with that, and we figure that God will help us work out all the other details. That's worked great so far. Everyone who doesn't agree with that belongs to some other religion than the one Christ taught. We'll be their friends, but we won't acknowledge them as Christians, nor their buildings as churches. We make no apologies for that.

We have a belief that it takes the Spirit of God to live a life of community. But anyone's welcome to prove us wrong by DOING it. Pretty simple, really.That said, let me address a couple things: Before I comment, you might want to look at http://www.eastwind.org/membership.html and Twin Oaks Intentional Community - Twin Oaks Intentional Community Home. Neither are religiously affiliated. I believe a couple of our members visited Eastwind. No one here has visited Twin Oaks, but one, I have had several phone conversations with them over bookkeeping and tax issues, and two, an atheist homosexual who stayed with us for over a year moved from our community to theirs about a year ago and is still there. (I think we shook her atheism pretty badly, but I doubt she would admit that.) The folks at Twin Oaks were helpful and kind for my calls.I have taken note that the word used for "sin" in the New Testament literally means "miss the mark" or "not attached." I wonder sometimes how much the "rules" of the faith of Christ are based on what constitutes a sustainable lifestyle. Adultery, for example, could completely disrupt a community where everyone knows everyone else. The "moral" lifestyle prescribed by our faith often is a necessity to the family environment we live in. By that, I don't mean individual families, but the fact that we live as one big family. Think of our village the way you might think of an old Celtic or American Indian village, with a chieftain and families that have been friends for generations. Certain "freedoms," like adultery, must be curtailed for the sake of the society.Look out for #1 doesn't work in our society. Our society prospers, and its members are happier, with a life of looking out for one another. Denying yourself is not a path to suffering, but a path to happiness, security, comfort, and fulfillment.This all sounds very secular so far. Our experience is that people have deep-seated fears that get in the way of being able to live a village life. We have watched as God has repeatedly worked deep down on those fears, transforming people from the inside so they can relax, trust, and live selfless lives with joy. I have to suppose that atheists would say the transformation is a fruit of the lifestyle. The transformation is often dramatic, and we have a principle around here that when God's hand comes on a person, it is good to do your best to be kind and show mercy, because his hand won't come off them till the work he wants done in them is done. I wish there were some way to describe such a work to you.Admittedly, the children who grow up in this environment have a much easier time of it, and the work that goes on in them at times is much less dramatic and difficult than for those of us who have lived the isolated American life for much of our lives. Almost none of our children leave. They are tempted to want to get a good job, drive a nice (read fast there) car, and try partying a bit, but their interaction with those outside the village (which is a lot, because of the dance troupe and band) makes them want to stay, not vice versa.That was a long way of saying I agree with your statement that "this may reflect the true adaptive value of religion in the evolution of human societies: community coherence and commonality of purpose." However, I obviously really believe in God, so I don't want to call our religion a simple evolutionary adaptation. Why should you believe? Jesus said that the world would know that the Father sent him by the unity of his disciples (Jn 17:20-23). Since that's almost impossible to see anywhere in the United States, I expect people to disbelieve.Paul regularly said that his Gospel came with power and demonstration. Without a demonstration, Christianity is all empty words.

You can interpret what we're doing any way you want. The proof's in the pudding, and if you think the pudding's bad, I can't change that.I will say that the churches who have been asking us to come meet with them to help them reach out to the community and seek unity with one another don't think us hyper-exclusive. They've commended us for integrating ourselves into the community and making efforts to bring churches together. In fact, what we were told is "The reason we're inviting you to this meeting is because you're already doing this, and we'd like your help."

Thanks. I went to 7th through 9th grades in Kansas, by the way. A little town called Haysville, outside of Wichita. Then I went back for a year of college in Winfield. I liked it.I noticed your biking picture, of course. I'm a runner myself (not a very good one or anything), and the streets of Winfield were one of my favorite places to run.

I only saw your post because I was testing my new phone, and I used as my test web page. (I got a Blackberry 7130c. It works pretty well. I needed an electronic planner of some sort that was easy to carry with me, and it does the job well.)Anyway: Well, I believe public education is a benefit for society, too, but it's not doing real well at the moment. Judging from the few children that have been in public school then come to a class I was teaching, they're not doing real well. Admittedly, that sample isn't big enough to draw conclusions from, but with what the public schools report about themselves, they don't seem too hard to improve on.We use home school curriculum mostly, though we do sometimes use Hought-Mifflin (sp?) and other typical public school books, especially for science and history, where home school books are often scared to admit the earth is old and thus aren't accurate.My opinion of our education is that it took a few years to get it up to snuff, but now it's awesome and it has been for several years.We are reviewed by the local school superintendent that we are on good terms with. He's a regular customer at our cafe, and he comes out and checks on classes on a random basis. Almost exclusively mobile homes, late model and in good condition. There are a couple small cabins and two renovated double-wides that are no longer mobile homes, but sturdy, large, well-built houses.