A More Intentional Online Community

As I emerge from my annual Twitter rant about how skewed our celebration of Labor Day has become, I am struck by the example of the Clapham Circle. Working about 200 years ago in England, they were a close-knit group of social justice activists led by William Wilberforce.

The Clapham Circle lived in close community about six miles outside of London, and they lived and breathed efforts to improve the lives of the poor and oppressed. They achieved the end of the British Slave trade, better conditions for the working class, and even the first animal humane society.

As I consider their amazing accomplishments, I wonder if justice-minded people of faith today need to emulate their commitment to community - to intentional, comprehensive community that goes deeper than sharing a common cause. 

There are countless organizations working for the poor and the working class today, and those that are focused on local issues seem to be quite successful. This is because these groups don't just talk about the issues together. They go to church together. They raise their families together. They are with one another for baptisms, weddings, and funerals. In short, their lives are shared in all dimensions, not just on political and social activism.

There are also countless networks and groups working for justice on the larger issues, as the Clapham Circld did. But in my experience, these groups are more fractured and haphazard. There are conferences to attend, and online conversations to join - but the wholistic closeness of the local group is not there. At times, it can be hard to tell who is really part of a community and who is not, and even how to define the parameters and goals of online groups that form in such undefined ways.

Several times, I have seen plans for ambitious justice movements get hatched in such communities, only to find they never come to fruition because of overriding commitments in our local communities. Certainly this barrier to launching effective campaigns such as the Clapham Circle did has existed throughout history - but it seems the nature of online communication is intensifying the challenge. Perhaps a little more intentionality to organize will help us get over this hump.

Obviously, living in the same geographic space and making forays into the nearby halls of power is no longer the way to organize for justice - or maybe it still is? Who knows? But we are in new territory here, and we need to find ways to foster that wholistic sharing of our lives - not just our social and political convictions.

How that is best done, I cannot say. There are some online groups who are being intentional about taking their fellowship to a more personal level, who are beginning to act more like a church family than a professional organization. My hope is that we can continue to build our relationships beyond where they are today, and that we can think creatively and purposefully about this powerful new tool for connecting that we possess.