{"id":2548,"date":"2020-08-14T19:07:32","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T19:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/?p=2548"},"modified":"2020-08-14T19:07:32","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T19:07:32","slug":"the-unfolding-of-beloved-community-within-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/?p=2548","title":{"rendered":"The Unfolding of Beloved Community within History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As mentioned in my last blog, the term \u201cBeloved Community\u201d rose to popularity in late 20th<\/sup> Century America, due to the influence of Martin Luther King, Jr. While in graduate school, King was influenced by Royce, and particularly by the notion of \u201cBeloved Community,\u201d which King developed and used in various ways and in various contexts during the remainder of this life. For example, one of his most beloved quotes reads, \u201cOur goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.\u201d [1]<\/a> This particular quote identifies two distinct uses for the term \u00a0“Beloved Community” that must be clearly understood, one spiritual and the other practical. For King, the Beloved Community was both a transcendent ideal and a concrete program followed in his efforts to promote racial equality.<\/p>\n

The Dangers of a Purely Secular Use of Beloved Community<\/h1>\n

The use of \u201cBeloved Community\u201d as a guide to political activity has both usefulness and dangers. Its usefulness is in seeing society as an evolving reality on a pilgrimage towards a more loving, equitable, just and fair society. The danger comes in seeing what is finally an eschatological reality as capable of final realization within history. The danger of Marxism, Nazism, and certain forms of Laisse-Faire Capitalism, is that they seek a solution to the human problem and the end of history as achievable within history, as opposed to as history\u2019s final goal and purpose. This inevitably leads to violence, cruelty, terror, and demonic pride, things that Dr. King steadfastly resisted and opposed during his life. Seeking the goal of a Beloved Community inside of history means both seeking the future, and seeking that future with love, wisdom, peaceableness, and patience, as social problems gradually give way to the search for a more just society.<\/p>\n

The Heavenly City and Beloved Community<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Beloved Community is, however, partially realizable within society within history by the \u201cobedience of faith, hope, and love\u201d (See, Roand mans 1:5). The hope of the Beloved Community, in the sense that Royce conceived it, is the ideal of a universal community for which human beings hope, but do not and cannot fully realized within history.<\/p>\n

The writer of Revelation<\/u>, living in a time of religious persecution has a vision of a heavenly city coming down from heaven at the end of the trials of human history:<\/p>\n

Then I saw \u201ca new heaven and a new earth,\u201d\u00a0for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,\u00a0and there was no longer any sea.\u00a0I saw the Holy City,\u00a0the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,\u00a0prepared as a bride\u00a0beautifully dressed for her husband.\u00a0And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, \u201cLook! God\u2019s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.\u00a0They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. \u2018He will wipe every tear from their eyes.\u00a0There will be no more death\u2019 or mourning or crying or pain,\u00a0for the old order of things has passed away\u201d<\/strong> (Revelation 21:1-4).<\/p>\n

A close reading of Revelation<\/u> discloses that the heavenly city is the church, the Universal Community of those who have been called into the Beloved Community of God built on faith, hope, and sacrificial love. This Beloved Community is revealed, not in the heaven and earth we inhabit, but in a \u201cnew heaven and new earth\u201d (21:1). It is a community that exists when the old order of things passes away (v. 4). The origin of the ideal of the Beloved Community is not secular or political, but religious and eschatological.<\/p>\n

In the hands of St. Augustine, the vision of John became a vision of the “City of God,” an eschatological reality, imperfectly realized in the church during world history. The Heavenly City is never seen in the same way as the earthly city of Rome (and all other polities) are seen, for the Heavenly City is formed and ruled by love, but earthly cities are founded and ruled by force and human ambition. [2]<\/a><\/p>\n

From Augustine to Marx, this distinction between the heavenly and earthly city was fundamental to how Western regimes, whose history looked back into the Judeo-Christian past, were formed. In the hands of a Luther, this hard division between the heavenly and earthly city became the so-called \u201cTwo Kingdoms\u201d doctrine that freed earthly kings to become and be a separate \u201csphere of influence\u201d from the earthly and heavenly kingdoms of the church. [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Modern World and the Dream of an Earthly Heavenly City<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the Enlightenment, there developed the hope of a \u201crealized eschatological kingdom,\u201d as the progress of science and human knowledge created an expectation of a \u201cnew heaven and new earth\u201d within and not at the end of history, as John\u2019s vision implied. When bourgeoisie capitalism failed to bring in the perfect world, Marxism arose, which implied that the eschatological hope of humanity for a perfect society (the universal community) would be created by the operation of mechanistic, historical, economic forces. The cruel, heartless, cold dystopias of Communist Russia, Nazi Germany Communist China, and contemporary Venezuela (to give but a few examples of the phenomena) are the results of the misguided \u00a020th Century \u00a0attempts to bring an eschatological (and by definition not historical) hope into the present of human history. We are still not at the end of the false modern expectation of the perfect world within history. [4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfolding Transcendent Ideals in Continuing History<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cruelty and evil of Communist Regimes, and the leftist violence we are now experiencing, are the result of the demonic form of the eschatological impulse prevalent in the modern world, and so dangerous in the postmodern world set free of all traditional norms. Such regimes feel justified in seeking a \u201ckingdom of peace and plenty\u201d by means that are incapable of doing so. Lenin\u2019s words \u201cYou have to break a few eggs to make an omelet,\u201d while killing thousands upon thousands of Russians, are the inevitable result of the madness of the misplaced hope that is the modern ideal of a perfect world within human history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Royce never speaks of the Beloved Community in such terms. Thus he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to be thus lovable to the critical and naturally rebellious soul, the Beloved Community must be, quite unlike a natural social group, whose life consists of laws and quarrels, of a collective will, and of individual rebellion. This community must be a union of members who first love it. The unity of love must pervade it, before the individual member can find it lovable. Yet unless the individuals first love it, how can the unity of love come to pervade it?\u201d [5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Royce realized that the Beloved Community of which he spoke was imperfectly realized in the church, which is based upon voluntary love of the community, \u00a0but could not ever be perfectly realized within human history among nations formed and maintained by force. Within human history fallible human beings seek the attainment of these ideals, but the fact of human nature, with its propensity to darkness and fallibility, make the full attainment of \u00a0Beloved Community impossible within history.<\/p>\n

Concepts like that of the \u201cBeloved Community\u201d represent transcendent ideals, such Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Justice, that are not fully achievable within history. Attainment of these ideals can only be approximated by progressive realization as human beings in a free society seek to solve the concrete problems of their day and time, \u00a0holding these values always before them while progressively unfolding their undisclosed content and meaning in each era of human history.<\/p>\n

Transcendent ideals can be progressively unfolded within a society and among its members as part of the disciplined search for justice. Until the end of the history of the human race, the content of Transcendent Ideals, such as those mentioned above, will continue to be unfolded in a continual process of unfolding their content and meaning. Contrary to the modern ideal, there can be no \u201cEnd of History\u201d until the end of history. The content of Transcendent Ideals can and will \u00a0be approximated in a slow, patient, wise and peaceful process of progressive realization that will continue until their are no human societies remaining to unfold them.<\/p>\n

Copyright, 2020, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> See, https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/7240105-our-goal-is-to-create-a-beloved-community-and-this <\/a>(Downloaded August 13, 2020.) Dr. King had a very nuanced and complex understanding of this term. There are many places where he is quoted and in which he uses and gives flavor to this notion of the meaning of the notion of \u201cBeloved Community.\u201d I expect to devote a blog this fall to Dr. King and his non-violent search for the Beloved Community in the 1960’s. It seems to me that his life and ministry has much to teach contemporary American society.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> St. Augustine, City of God<\/em> tr. John O\u2019Meara (New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1972)<\/p>\n

[3]<\/strong><\/a> This is not the place for a fair exposition Luther\u2019s two kingdom\u2019s doctrine, which will be the focus of a future essay. For a brief introduction, seeAnders Nygren, Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdom<\/em>, ECLA website 08\/01\/2002, \u00a0https:\/\/www.elca.org\/JLE\/Articles\/931<\/a> (downloaded August 14, 2020).<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> While human experience now amply refutes any expectation of an end to history within history, the burning embers of modernity, together with the moral inversion mentioned in a prior blog create a violent expectation among some, usually leftist, but not always, that the Marxist expectation fan be realized. This may be one of the last aspects of the limited metanarrative of modernity that withers away in the new era now dawning.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Excerpt From: Josiah Royce. \u201cThe Problem of Christianity, Volume 1 (Barnes & Noble Digital Library).\u201d Apple Books. https:\/\/books.apple.com\/us\/book\/problem-christianity-volume-1-barnes-noble-digital\/id1280398775<\/a> (downloaded August 12, 2020).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> This is not the place to discuss the problem of Transcendent Ideals, and their exact content and status, which will also be the subject of a later blog. In my unfolding thought, however, there is a similarity between the notion of \u201cTranscendent Ideals\u201d and the traditional notion of Universals and Whitehead\u2019s notion of \u201cEternal Objects.\u201d Readers of David Bohm will also recognize that I am seeking to understand his notions of “enfold” and “unfolded” realities as I seek to understand this aspect of political theology and philosophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As mentioned in my last blog, the term \u201cBeloved Community\u201d rose to popularity in late 20th Century America, due to the influence of Martin Luther King, Jr. While in graduate school, King was influenced by Royce, and particularly by the notion of \u201cBeloved Community,\u201d which King developed and used in various ways and in various … Continue reading The Unfolding of Beloved Community within History<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4CzBH-F6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}