Author: David Ellis

I thought this article from the BBC might help inform our discussion of community. Magazine 7 March 2013 Last updated at 03:05 ET Getting away from ‘the world’ Hutterite-style By Chris Summers BBC News North America is home to many religious communities, one of which – the Hutterites – believe that living communally and separately…

Don: Last week’s discussion led us to conclude that what was most responsible for the chaos we experience individually and communally is fear.  It seems to be related to the loss of something important, something critical to our self-esteem. The state of not fearing loss seems to be at the root of emptiness. Fear is…

Don: Last week we looked at “emptiness” in the context of the desert environment in which Jesus spent 40 days and nights and was tempted by Satan. The desert is a barren, empty, dry, arid, lifeless place, filled with need and want (from the human perspective, though scientifically we know it has a thriving ecology.)…

I wonder if the article below brings us any insights on the question of community? The pilgrims seem to experience a sort of emptiness and silence at the very height of the festival cacophany. I have to say, having visited India and seen it first hand, that India does a laudable job of maintaining a…

Don: We have been talking about the transition from pseudo community to true community, through a phase of emptiness. We’ve studied it in part with reference to the transition that took place in the early Christian church, when its Jewish founders were told by God to welcome in the gentile. (Acts 10.) There followed much…

by David Ellis This essay seeks to outline science’s potential contribution to an understanding of the “Emptiness” stage of M. Scott Peck’s four-stage  process of community building, which we began discussing in Community, Kingdom, and M. Scott Peck (January 12, 2013. The four stages are : Pseudo community, Chaos, Emptiness, and True community.) This essay…

Don: We’ve talked about community in the context of Matthew 18, and of M. Scott Peck’s analysis of the phases of community, and of the Book of Acts. In the first part of the latter, the church is pretty much of one mind, and was quite functional until “other sheep not of this fold” started…

In connection with the proposed new class blog, Don remarked that more than 30 years ago, his church leaders approached him about ways to deal with church members who would raise issues or make statements in bible class that others found discomfiting. He was asked to lead a class whose principle criterion would be openness…

I had a slight brush with the first chorus from Eliot’s pageant decades ago (my master’s thesis discussed distinctions among data, information, knowledge, and wisdom — you may see the connection if you read the lines below.) I had occasion to look up those distinctions just now, and in so doing found (only some, I…