Template:Communitarian

Communitarianism

Communitarianism is "of or relating to social organization in small cooperative partially collectivist communities." It is also said to be a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism.

John Goodwyn Barmby was a leader of the British Chartist movement, who used the term Communitarianism. After his "Communist Church" failed he moved toward a more radical Unitarian Christianity. He often referred to a socialists utopia but often found it easier to imagine than establish.

The term fell out of use until after the sexual revolution of the 60s and the political frustration of the 1970s. The term became popular in the 1980s among socialists who had progressed in modern academia taking over the teaching of a new American political philosophy. Ideas of the "common good" pushed against individual liberalism and libertarians with their love for personal autonomy and the endowed rights of individuals. This was actually a new version of communitarianism where collectivism is king, at least at the beginning.

John Goodwyn Barmby had at one time been a follower of Robert Owen and his well financed Owenites. Robert Owen had been a follower of Jeremy Bentham, who believed in the "free markets" as to a partial solution for the abuses that may arise with the freedom offered through capitalism.

Owen had become disillusioned with the Church of England and became what was called a deist as defined at that time. He understood that the mind, thinking and character of men was often altered by their environment. He was influenced by high moral standards and the views of men like Sir Isaac Newton's views on natural law, and others from Plato to Jeremy Bentham.

Because of personal wealth and the advances in the mill industry he was able to experiment with new ideas to reorganize society with seemingly some intermediate success.

His community was formed as a collective where the people lived in common housing providing private apartments but a common kitchen. Children were raised by their parents only until they were three when the community would take over the rearing and education of the child. The parents would still have contact but the community would take over traditional roll of the Fathers and Mothers as educators/

Of course only the most competent care givers and educators would be chosen for the task of rearing children but nature would dictate a divided loyalty and responsibility undermining the law to honor your Father and Mother.

Owen's utopian model envisaged an association of 500–3,000 people as a working community unit. Interesting enough he desired such communities to organize "unions of them federatively united shall be formed in circle of tens, hundreds and thousands" but traditionally in the Law of Nature the family was the foundational unit of society and not the village.

Many historical political and religious systems seen in the Old Testament and the New Testament seems to have elements of Communitarianism but the devil may be in the interpretation and application.

Communitarianism is also said to be a social and political philosophy that emphasizes the importance of community in the functioning of political life, in the analysis and evaluation of political institutions. The real conflict from a Biblical view point may be identified in the definition that communitarianism has "a viewpoint on welfare issues that stresses common interests and common values arising from communal bonds. As such, communitarianism is opposed to purely individualistic conceptions of welfare"

Corban was a part of the welfare system of Israel but some how under Herod and the Pharisees they politically tweaked the practice of Corban and were making the word of God to none effect.

Failing for almost a thousand years to grasp the structure of the Church and the relationship of the Christian community to that Church several passages have been taken out of context. Acts 4:32: talks about an appointed and called out Church which held "all things common". Like the Levites who held lands in common as joint heirs because they had no personal inheritance in the land the early Church ministers had to meet the criteria of the Christ as spelled out in His Gospel. Because the appointed Ministers of Christ held "all things common" as joint heirs, and could not have a personal inheritance but instead they inherited the job of the Church. They could then be the Benefactors who did not exercise authority one over the other.

The people in congregations did have an inheritance in the land. The people in Israel and the early Church were not communists nor socialists communities.

The early Church and the Church in the wilderness, consisting of the Levites, provided a daily ministration through the individual freewill offerings of the people in faith, hope and charity. The practice of Religion, especially Pure Religion was defined as worship. The ministers of the Church were in the world but not of the world and consisted of ministers who were called out to serve the people who organized themselves in the tens.

Christ had commanded that His minister require that five thousand men and their families organize themselves in the "tens, hundreds and thousands" before there would be a distribution of loaves and fishes.

The altars of the Bible are actually describing a the structure of God's Kingdom we are to seek which makes us free souls under God if we establish the "bonds " of society through faith, hope and charity rather than fealty, fear, and force used by the world.