We All Know About Fake News… But What About Fake Community?

The Fragmentation of the “Family of Man”

Watching Jimmy Carter’s funeral and hearing John Lennon’s “Imagine” at that funeral was a great reminder of the hopeless humanism that seems to be with so many today. Apparently, we are to imagine a kind of hazy oneness that unites us all. But when we ask for specifics, we get only fog.

Voices from many sources continue to proclaim a universal “family of man.” Yet the more people confess belief in this vague notion, the more our world becomes divided. We find the ugly truth that instead of forging genuine solidarity, such “imaginary” abstractions ultimately engender indifference or dismissal.

Time and again, large-scale appeals to some supposed shared humanity fail to inspire true community. The reason is both simple and profound. These chantings and rantings never address the reality of human sin. Instead, they assume that intellectual agreement or a general sense of goodwill can unify us without ever confronting the fact that our fallen nature inclines us to isolation and self-interest.

The Danger of False Attempts at Community

Throughout history, various attempts at community have hinged on race, nationality, or class. German National Socialism and Japanese militarism defined community by bloodlines. In our own era, forms of racial or national identity are still used as rallying cries. Watch the news, especially coverage of the Middle East, and you realize all this is alive and well.

Others have tried to build communities around pagan philosophy and intellect… an idea that reached its zenith during the Enlightenment. Yet even academic circles are rife with rivalry and mutual suspicion. Ask yourself… have pagan philosophers ever really gotten along with each other?

Economically based societies, including Marxist orders, have similarly promised unity but ended up in tyranny. Because these false philosophies never address sin, they cannot supply a genuine foundation for unity of any kind.

The Trap of Single-Interest Community

Another feature of modern life is the tendency to form friendships and associations around a single interest. Sports, clubs, school activities, and shared hobbies can spark a kind of existential camaraderie, yet they do not provide lasting fellowship. Single-interest connections are, by their nature, shallow. Participants simply move on when the season ends, the meme is no longer funny, the club disbands, or the activity no longer appeals.

If you live in a city with millions of people and have specialized interests, you might only find a handful of individuals who share those passions. Further, even if you manage to connect on some level, a mere shared interest can never forge deep bonds across the complexity of life’s many spheres.

The Family as the Nursery of Life

In a psychological climate where so many feel isolated, some pockets of true community do appear. Immigrants, for instance, often form close-knit groups. They often share language, churches, and charitable structures that provide connectivity and a sense of real interdependence, at least for a generation or two. Over time, those ties dissolve as younger family members assimilate into the broader culture.

Another important sphere of belonging is the family itself. However, the modern era has whittled family life down to a “nuclear” core, in which extended relatives have little interaction. Family reunions were a big part of summer when I was young, allowing reconnections with second and third cousins.

Now, there is revival of Christian family life in many places. Grounded in faith, these families are strengthening ties through home-centered discipleship, Christian schooling, and intentional support structures.

Christ as the Foundation of True Community

The most enduring form of community is found in distinct Christian orthodoxy. As faith revives, it fortifies families and gathers them into a larger covenant people that finds its unity in Jesus Christ. Rather than fixating on status or branded identity markers, Christians are united by God’s grace and guided by His law.

Wherever the true gospel takes root, it restores broken relationships and renews bonds of fellowship. This is far more profound than a superficial agreement to “be nice” to everyone you meet. It’s a transformation of the heart that draws individuals into loving service to one another.

Covenantal Life: Law and Grace Intertwined

At the core of true community lies the biblical concept of covenant. According to Scripture, a covenant is both a binding act of law and an outpouring of grace. God, the superior, commits Himself to human beings by providing His law as the path of life. That itself is an act of grace, or at least David thought so. (Read Psalm 119)

In Israel’s history, atonement preceded the giving of the law, demonstrating to us that grace makes obedience possible. This means the law is never a cold list of dos and don’ts. It’s a gift through which God invites His people into a common holiness. Once atonement is received, the covenant law guides believers into faithful living.

Unity in Christ vs. Domination Over Others

Because sin leads each of us to imagine we can be our own God, communities built on human pride slip into efforts to dominate. History shows that attempts at racial or class-based unity ultimately move toward oppression or even genocide.

The more earnestly a regime tries to force a utopia apart from Christ, the more brutal its methods become. The covenant of life that God offers, however, counters this grim pattern. By submitting to Christ as Lord rather than seizing autonomy for ourselves, we find a genuine basis for fellowship and cooperation. Faith, then, is not mere intellectual assent but a commitment to follow Christ in daily life.

Branding, Badging, Status Symbols, and the Retreat from Covenant

In societies that drift away from biblical faith, external branding, badges and symbols become the means of dividing and then ranking people. We see this when certain fashions, cars, clubs, or vacation resorts are deemed “exclusive,” only to be discarded once they catch on with the wider public.

Where God’s covenant recedes, status markers replace genuine community. True fellowship collapses into competition for social superiority, and loneliness grows in tandem with all the superficial strata of connections lite.

Reviving Covenantal Community

Throughout American history, there have been moments where towns or churches formed covenants explicitly under God’s authority. Early settlers often gathered to take oaths and pledge themselves to mutual care, vowing to advance the honor of Christ in all they did.

These commitments recognized that people cannot merely will themselves into unity. Instead, they must submit to the One who reconciles human hearts, heals sin’s wounds, and teaches them how to live together in love.

A Call to Covenant Faithfulness

When we see Christ merely as a savior from trouble, offering “fire insurance” for life after death, we reduce Him to a utilitarian figure. Yet Christ is King, not simply a vendor or dispenser of blessings. If we approach Him only for what He can give, we miss the heart of the gospel.

Genuine faith acknowledges Jesus as both Redeemer and Ruler. The One who forgives our sins but also the One who commands our obedience. By living under His Lordship, we become members of one body, united across every divide of race, status, and personal interest.

Life Together in Christ

Without acknowledging sin and turning to Christ, all attempts at community will remain futile. Racial, social, and intellectual projects for unity invariably crumble under the weight of self-interest and human pride. Only the covenant of life in Christ can bind individuals into true fellowship.

God enables us to build families and churches where people genuinely belong to one another by giving us both His saving grace and His guiding law. Freed from the need to dominate others or outshine our neighbors, we gather into a communion of life and love. In that space of covenant faithfulness, community is restored, nourished, and extended for generations to come.

The post We All Know About Fake News… But What About Fake Community? appeared first on Off The Grid News.

Source: https://www.offthegridnews.com/religion/we-all-know-about-fake-news-but-what-about-fake-community/