over the last couple decades society has experienced a huge disconnect. you can see the recognition of this trend in just about any sociological work you'd care to get your hands on. perhaps the most famous example of this is a book called bowling alone by robert putnam. the title comes from the anecdotal evidence that today there are many more people who bowl than a couple decades prior, but less who bowl in leagues. the illustration is meant to show the fragmentation and isolation of individuals in modern society. putnam blames this tendency primarily (though not exclusively) on technology. he is not the first to write of the isolating effects of technology, nor will he be the last. it is probably one of the great ironies of the 21st century that though we are drowning in a plethora of connections, we feel the lack of connectedness ever more acutely. however, to try to blame this shift on TV or the interwebs is a huge over-simplification. certainly the high mobility and transient nature of modern society is another large factor. we feel isolated because we move every few years to new places where we know no one and actually are socially isolated, at least for the first while. people rarely factor in how much social capital it will cost them to get that better job to increase their financial capital. another one of those millenial ironies i suppose.
at some point we started defining what it was we were looking for with the word "community". we worked on that for a while. but once we realized that flinging a buzz word around wasn't helping us to create it, we did the most logical thing we could think of to help the problem: make a new buzz word. that word today is tribe. our shallow attempts at building "community" had ended in largely superficial solutions and just weren't enough. we needed something with some more depth to it. we had accomplished our goals for "community building" and were still left with a deep sense of isolation. hence, we came up with "tribe". we now attempt to create "tribe" in our companies (not to slam seth godin. he has some really interesting ideas.), tribes on the internet and tribes on tv. the idea of tribe really does shoot at what we're all actual hungering for. a deep, meaningful inter-connectedness. cause the simple problem is, we're devastatingly lonely.
here's the thing: tribes (i mean real tribes, like the ones that wear hollowed-out vegetables for underwear and don't have iphones) are deeply interconnected because of a very obvious but perhaps overlooked prerequisite: they NEED each other. in a tribe there is a real, unglamorous dependence on one another for survival. the connection they experience is not voluntary. it is mandatory. if the tribe doesn't stay totally inter-dependent, they die. whether that's cause there's not enough food or cause another tribe destroys them makes little difference. therefore they exist around a common purpose: the preservation of the tribe. this highest goal is the same for each member.
this should already be enough to see why modern, individualistic society can never (that's right, NEVER) experience real "tribe" or "community" or whateveryouwannacallit without a radical shift in values. the fact of the matter is that since the days of descartes, we have put the ultimate value in western society on our individualism and autonomy. if you ask any modern, western urbanite "who gets to define your purpose in life?" you will most likely hear a single, oft-repeated answer: i do. (isn't it ironic that in the attempt to be unique, people end up being clones of each other?) as long as we continue to define the most important aspects of our lives autonomously, we will never experience tribe for one very simple reason: we don't believe that we actually need each other. if real tribe requires a true dependence on others and we are out there defining the essence of our lives through independent, autonomous decisions, how will we ever develop a true sense of tribe? short answer: we won't.
i should insert here that in more traditional societies today (and even in western society a long time ago) there is no such delusion of autonomy and independence. people are solidly convinced that they are not independent of each other. historically this sense of tribe has been provided by, well, the tribe. the family. people were really dependent on each member of the family to contribute to the family's survival and prosperity. along with this the common goal was the family's continuation. modern society has largely shunned this goal as being too small for our life's purpose (and rightly so.) despite being told by the materialist worldview that we have no other purpose than to propagate our own DNA, we refuse to believe it.
the dilemma we have is that on the one hand we want a real sense of tribe and inter-connectedness. on the other hand we want to maintain our autonomy (or at least freedom) and not make that inter-connectedness itself the only common value. now, you may have been thinking "what does the resurrection have to do with this?" the answer is: everything.
Christianity is a uniquely historical faith in the sense that it depends entirely on historic facts: the death and resurrection of Christ. every other religion, while having historical details, is not even close to dependent on its own history. that is why all other religions are, in essence, philosophies and rules. Christianity, however, is news of an historic event. the upshot of this is that since it is news, it doesn't come like a bolt from the blue. no one can just intuitively "figure out" the gospel, the same way you can't just meditate your way to knowing what's on the 6 o'clock news. the gospel can only be received from another and passed on.
in other words, the historical nature of the gospel automatically creates tribe among those who receive it. each person is literally dependent on others to tell them this news. there is no way of receiving the gospel except through the community of faith. this initial dependence establishes a paradigm for the rest of the Christian life: it cannot be lived alone. we are dependent on others in the tribe to receive the gospel and dependent on them (though not in an exclusive, unhealthy sense) to grow further in the gospel. this is why the Bible describes the Christian church with terms of deep inter-connectedness, such as, "you are all one body and members of one another." on the other hand, the Christian community, while preserving the inter-dependence of tribe, keeps freedom in tact. ultimately, you must make the choice to enter this tribe by receiving the gospel. the tribe of the Crucified is about much more than self-preservation. the goal (one which is sure of coming to pass) is nothing less than the coming of the Kingdom of God to the planet. big enough goal? the solution for our dilemma of wanting tribe yet also wanting freedom and bigger purpose is resolved in the gospel community of Jesus.
sadly, many Christians, while acknowledging the historicity of the resurrection of Christ and even agreeing that the gospel must come through others, deny its consequent paradigm: that growth in the gospel must occur in community. this denial is rarely an out-right renunciation as much as it is evident in Christians' choices to avoid real community, to keep their relationships at church superficial or worse yet to come, sit through service like they would a TV show and leave with absolutely no interaction. too many Christians are content to be a "body" with others in name only. if this is the case with us, we need to recognize that though we assent with our lips, we are contradicting the consequence of the historical resurrection of Christ with our lives.
