By Shafer Parker

The problem with Doug Wilson’s book, Gashmu Saith It, is that the title is so cute—and strange—that readers may miss the serious intent of the subtitle: How to Build Christian Communities that Save the World. Why do I speak of serious intent? Mr. Wilson has perceived one thing very clearly; if the modern world is to be saved from itself it will only happen through the courage and faith of Christian communities. Please note that I did not speak of the church, but rather Christian communities. The church has a vital role to play, but it will be the Christian communities on your block, in your building, or at your workplace or school, that save the world.

Don’t get me wrong, the church has a vital role, mainly through making the disciples that eventually become part of a network of world-saving Christian communities. But by itself the church will not be the change agent that is so desperately needed. At least not directly. Direct action is always taken by the “saints in Caesar’s household” (Phil. 4:22), and everywhere else a Christian community is formed.

What, then, is the nature of the Christian community that Wilson envisions? It is, he says, “the result of interwoven relationships,” that only come about through “an ethos of hospitality,” in other words, Christians deliberately meeting informally, learning to understand and love each other, until they truly have one another’s backs, to the point, as Jesus puts it, that they would lay down their lives for the friends in whom His presence has been discerned (John 15:13). In other words, developing such a love for Jesus through Christian fellowship (the tie that binds), that they would rather die than betray Christ by failing a sister or brother with whom they are linked in love.

Which brings us to one of Wilson’s more profound and intriguing statements. “Enslaved societies are atomistic, while free societies are molecular.” What does that mean, you ask? Governments with totalitarian leanings (and that means most of them) have long understood the importance of dividing the citizenry so that each individual relates more to the state than to any other set of relationships. Why? Because someone who depends upon the state for daily life (food, housing, medical care, transportation, etc.) will be predisposed toward doing the state’s bidding. He or she may maintain ties with family, if it’s convenient, and they may even go to church a little (support from Christians may be seen as a little dessert on top of the main menu), but when the chips are down, such people choose government every time.

By the way, in the early 20th century the government’s intent to separate people from families was made explicit in the arguments used to persuade the public to embrace the taxation that made social insurance possible. Although carefully constructed sentences sometimes obscured this intent, the argument always boiled down to, “Government needs to step in because you can’t trust your family to care for you in times of trouble.” Government-supported individualism is why nobody grows up like the Waltons anymore, with multiple generations living together, 

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supporting one another, learning wisdom from their grandparents, and learning to care for loved ones as age and disability take their toll. You don’t have to watch more than a single episode of the Waltons to realize what extended families accomplish—they humanize the younger generations. And, in a nutshell, the lack of such extended families explains much of what’s wrong with modern society.

But back to Wilson’s imagery. Because governments have learned to atomize our society, individuals are like BBs in a sack, he says, loose elements that roll around one another without order or meaning. But where the government takes a hands-off approach, “subordinate loyalties give society a molecular rigidity and structure.” If you think about it, you can see it in an instant. Out of their own free will people used to form any number of subordinate loyalties. Sometimes it was for the purpose of feeding the hungry, but it might also have included a group dedicated to supporting a local lending library, establishing an irrigation district, or developing a local orchestra and chorus.

Of course, many expressed their first extra-family loyalties through meaningful membership in a local church and its related ministries. Remember, that explains the origins of the YMCA, the YWCA, and the Salvation Army, not to mention local hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes. In every case people came together because they were committed to one aim or purpose, often undergirded by explicit commitments to a fundamental worldview expressed through a “Statement of Faith.” The combination of common purposes and goals based on common beliefs did indeed create the “molecular rigidity and structure,” that governments hate, and that Wilson calls upon God’s people to reestablish.

But how, you ask, can we reestablish these molecular relationships in a world where such associations are despised? It has to begin with a renewed emphasis on hospitality. In this chapter Wilson rehearses the Bible’s surprising emphasis on this neglected aspect of life. It’s through hospitality that Christians may actually entertain “angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2, ESV). It’s by being hospitable that widows qualify for church support (I Tim. 5:9-10), and it’s through hospitality, especially toward the “poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind” (Luke 14:13-14), that God’s people are blessed in this life and rewarded in the next. Perhaps, most especially, it is through hospitality toward the world that non-believers can see proof that God, not government, is the One Who never fails our trust.

Wilson has more to say about hospitality, but I’ll stop here because I know I’ve gone on long enough. You need to be familiar with Wilson. On a practical level I believe he has more to say about how to turn the world right-side up than anyone else writing today. Gashmu is surprisingly short and can serve as an excellent example of what the dictionary means by readable. If you’re a member of Kindle Unlimited it’s free on Amazon.ca, and will cost you all of $10.00 if you are not. So listen with your heart to Wilson’s closing sentence for chapter five: “There are many ways in which the Lord will repay us through [our hospitality]. One of them is the growth of true Christian community. As we extend this kind of love, the kind of love that has our brothers and sisters in our homes without any sense of reciprocal obligation, the Lord is engaged in weaving a tight fabric, the fabric of genuine fellowship, genuine community, genuine koinonia.”

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