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                                %COMMUNAL SALVATION 770411

    A  collection of individualists trying to  earn  their
passage  to  heaven  cannot  create  a  community.   Their
ultimately  individualistic concerns will undermine  their
communal perceptions and concerns.  Given a choice between
earning   individualistic   merit   points   and   serving
inconspicuously on  a communal team --- self,  rather than
community,     is    likely    to    rule.      Thus     a
theological/religious    orientation   which   presupposes
individualistic  salvation  as  a  focal  concern,  is  an
orientation  which  will  ultimately  frustrate   communal
welfare. If the individual's ultimate responsibility is to
save   his/her  own  soul,   community  welfare  will   be
undermined.    Cleverness  in drawing up the criteria  for
individualistic salvation will not help  individualisticly
oriented pilgrims transcend their fragmentive orientation.
Not  even  transcendence of narrow legalism  will  promote
fully the transcendence of fragmentive individualism.   An
essential aspect  of genuine communities is an integrative
concern  for  the welfare of the community woven into  the
communal  life  in ways which  transcend  the  imaginative
capabilities of isolated individualists.

    Thorough   going   individualists  cannot   understand
thoroughgoing communalists, and vice versa. Their cultural
frameworks  create perceptual contexts so foreign to  each
other as to make the frameworks imperceptible to both self
and  other.    Neither is able to perceive clearly  either
their own or the other's perceptual frameworks and so each
perceives  the other's  behavior  as incomprehensible  and
disturbing to self.  Each is threatened by the incongruity
of   the   unperceived   cultural   contexts,    and   the
incomprehensible  behavior the other's context  engenders.
Misunderstanding  will  probably  continue so long as  the
cultural  contexts  remain beyond the level of  conscience
comparison.

    Communal  salvation  will not come to  collections  of
individualists until they surrender their ultimate concern
for  individualistic  salvation.    Only when  their  love
transcends  concern  for  their  personal  salvation  will
individuals  become able to join together and  find  their
meaning and fulfillment in being an integrative community.
No collection  of techniques  will  transcend the dilemmas
generated  by individualists'  analytic orientations which
undermine the I-Thou modality of intimate relationships.

    Individual   salvation   will   not  be   enjoyed   by
collectivists until they surrender their exclusive concern
for  the community  and learn the importance of respecting
unique  individuals.   Collectivists often  undermine  the
welfare of the   community  by  legalistic  approaches  to
community organization  and  planning.   No collection  of
communal  techniques  for  manipulating  individuals  will
transcend   the   dilemmas  generated  by   collectivists'
communal   exclusivity---which   undermines   individuals'
creativity and love.

    Communal  salvation and individualistic salvation  are
interdependent  upon  each  other and are not  enjoyed  by
those people who exclusively value one but not the other.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
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