The Tsiological Orangutan: The Rest of the Story

Josh and I talk sometimes. We talk about tea and papers and chocolate and philosophy and pears and love. Mostly about love, really, though chocolate comes in a close second. Each of us has experienced love, and then at times not experienced love, so it's a subject of great interest to us. We talk about people being together and apart, and how the former is generally a great improvement over the latter.

This isn't really anything new; we're not that smart. One of the first things God said after He created Adam was, "It is not good for man to be alone." And so He made Eve. People weren't meant to be alone, and all of us feel that need, that purpose, in everyday events. We find it at the gas station, joking with our neighbor about the high price of fuel. We feel it at the bookstore, when we arrive to find another person browsing our favorite shelf. Unfortunately, we also feel it when we are rejected, whether in romance or otherwise. It can be as though a carpet has been pulled from beneath your feet, only to reveal that nothing awaits beneath that carpet save a deep chasm. The purpose and longing for togetherness remains, but hope has abandoned us for a time.

And so we tell ourselves, "I don't need anyone to make me complete. I am a self-sufficient human being!" The reality, however, is that no person is self-sufficient. Companionship is not merely a desire or a hobby. It is a need, and a strong one at that. It is no more a weakness to confess this aspect of ourselves than it is a weakness to breathe in and out. The truly weak man is the one who gives in to the lie which says we do not need each other, for he is the man who is without help when trouble comes.

This is not to say that people aren't wonderful in and of themselves, quite apart from their friendships and romances. I am sure hermits throughout history have had some very fine qualities -- for instance, they are usually excellent farmers and hunters. But a hermit is not whole. Suppose he is a great philosopher, sitting silently in his forest cabin waxing eloquent about the nature of truth and beauty; with whom will he share this philosophy? Whom will it benefit? Limited as his lifetime is, and without fellow philosophers to share the burden, how will he ever fathom the greater depths of his musings? He is a fine man, but broken and incomplete.

Far too often, the modern Church forgets these truths. You simply cannot imagine how often my teachers, pastors and leaders have emphasized the individual nature of faith in Christ. "Your parents can't save you," they say. "Faith is something you have to do for yourself, you can't rely on the faith of others to save you." And, as far as such statements go, they are mostly correct. I believe a personal, individual relationship with Christ is required by God, and that individuals without such a relationship may properly be termed "lost" on many levels.

But the faith of others has saved me, and does save me on a regular basis. This salvation is not always from hellfire and brimstone, though that has certainly been the case in the past. At other times, however, the salvation is simply rescue from depression, or from temptation, or from frustration. The example set by fellow believers both young and old steers me to cling to the good and flee from evil in many kinds of situations. Faith is not simply an individual matter, it is a joint venture undertaken by the entire community.

We are exhorted many times in the New Testament epistles to assemble together, to encourage one another. Christ Himself, before He was taken to be crucified, prayed specifically that the Church would be unified -- He said that our unity was the way the world would know that God had sent Him. How can we face such a clear message of our need for faith community, and then continue to teach and believe that faith is a purely individual journey? When reading the words of Christ, or tales of the early Church, it seems the height of absurdity to suggest that we do not have a very real need for the encouragement, example, fellowship and intercession of our brothers and sisters in Christ, along with a responsibility to provide the same for them.

This is not to say that individual faith is useless, or that it is not a very fine thing. But you see, it simply isn't complete without the ties which bind us to fellow believers. We are not self-sufficient; the hand cannot say to the eye, "I don't need you." It is not good for faith to be alone. Like the tea without chocolate or the philosopher without colleagues, the Christian faith without deep roots in a like-minded community is a tragic beauty: wonderful in so many ways, and yet also a heartbreaking collection of wasted potential.