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Arthur Clarke's avatar

Fredrick, you have written a very needed piece. Governments, big or small, cannot provide the community that the church once provided, although that often led to a separation by religion, and still does. As we retire, which the Baby Boom is now, we leave behind the community of our work and have to fall back on our families. But as families become smaller and fewer couples have children that enhances the need for community. Private clubs can help—some. When entering a church or synagogue we recognize a sense of a covenant. We do that also when entering a private club. We need to develop community.

I once went to a lecture at Trinity Church in Boston on its architecture. The speaker began by lamenting that fewer people were coming to church; they were visiting museums. In the Q&A I asked, if that should be a puzzle. After all we think of the church as the House of the Lord; why shouldn’t we think of the museum as the House of the Muses? He agreed. But the museum, while providing a covenant of proper comportment, doesn’t provide real community. I think that non-profits are missing a chance to do a better job at proving community. They don’t embrace fully the Role of Reciprocity. Instead, they hold galas, expecting us to contribute to attend—and even sign pledge cards before leaving. I like to joke that the closest thing to a free lunch is an invitation not accepted: you get credit for asking without having to pay, and, properly invited, the recipient senses a duty to respond.

Below is a link to a modern Quaker meeting house in Houston. The ceiling slopes to a knife-edged opening that, weather permitting, shifts from the real world of the building to an infinite sky. I was once in it and was so moved that if living in Houston I would have converted. It is quite awesome.

https://art21.org/read/james-turrell-live-oak-friends-meeting-house/

Keep writing fine articles! Maybe one day we can go boating on the Neckar!

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Tom White's avatar

Two quotes from intellectual titan G.K. Chesterton come to mind here. His Orthodoxy (indeed, his entire corpus) is a must-read on this front:

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

“Hence the difficulty which besets "undenominational religions." They profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but they appear to many to have collected all that is dull in them. All the colours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white. Mixed together on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud, and a thing very like many new religions. Such a blend is often something much worse than any one creed taken separately, even the creed of the Thugs.“

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