God and Community
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else."
My musing today is inspired by the above quote from C.S. Lewis. He once argued that Christianity is inherently communal, not a solitary pursuit. The New Testament emphasizes shared worship and mutual belonging, portraying the Church as the Bride of Christ and believers as members of one body. Yet in modern times, religion is increasingly treated as a private, leisure-time activity—an idea both dangerous and ironic, given the rise of collectivism in all other areas of life. Society now wages war on solitude through constant stimulation, organized activity, and intrusive technology. As a result, we are starved of silence, reflection, and the deep friendships that solitude once nurtured.
Lewis's reflection is a prophetic projection of modern-day life as it has evolved over the last hundred years or so. Even though we have had several periods of revival within the Christian communities of this nation during this time, it seems more like one step forward and two steps backward. Overall, those proclaiming allegiance to the Church have dropped from a roar to a whisper.
Now don't get me wrong—it's not so much that church attendance is neglected as it is the notion that we are no longer united under Christian principles. We don't have to agree on what church we choose, or even if we do or do not attend. But we should agree on the principles of what Lewis so aptly describes as "Mere Christianity." This is the kind of Christian virtue that used to be the backbone of our society.
There is a widely repeated anecdote about Thomas Jefferson that goes like this: Jefferson was once seen riding to church and a friend called out, "Why are you going to church when you don't believe a word of it?" Jefferson supposedly replied, "Sir, no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man, and I, as Chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example." This quote, though possibly apocryphal, aligns with Jefferson's known views. He was a Deist who admired Jesus' moral teachings but rejected miracles and much of Christian dogma. He famously created the Jefferson Bible, which retained only Jesus' ethical teachings and removed supernatural elements. Yet Jefferson attended church services in government buildings and supported religion as a moral foundation for republican government.
However, while Jefferson didn't believe in orthodox Christianity, he saw its moral principles as socially vital and felt a civic duty to support them symbolically. The anecdote captures that tension between personal belief and public example. And this was no isolated example. All the founders of this nation—whether devout believers or Deists like Thomas Paine, who matured to champion a reasoned faith in a creator God—embraced the core Christian principles of justice, liberty, and human dignity that shaped our society, wary not of Christianity itself but of man's fallen nature twisting its institutions.
And so, in an age of noise and fragmentation, perhaps the call is not merely to return to church buildings, but to recover the deeper architecture of Christian community—one built on shared virtue, quiet reflection, and the kind of friendship that solitude makes possible. Lewis reminds us that Christianity is not just a lens through which we see the world, but a light by which we recognize one another. If we are to amplify the whisper of faith into the blast of Joshua's horn piercing the fog of this generation, it will be through lives that shine—not in isolation, but in communion—one nation under God.
"Joshua fit the battle of Jericho
And the walls came tumblin' down, Hallelujah!"
