In a peeling house on South 32nd Street, five friends came together to stretch their faith.
They left comfortable apartments for a communal home within walking distance of a prison, a pawnshop, a derelict trailer park. Exhaust from a sugar beet factory drifted down the streets.
Moving in last January, they pledged to spend one year together, learning to become true followers of Christ. They would give generously, love unconditionally. They would exchange their middle-class ways for humility and simplicity, forgoing Hardee's fries, new CDs, even the basic comfort of privacy.
"The focus has to be on God and the way of life he has set out for us, as opposed to the way we want to live, which is very selfish," Jeromy Emerling said.
A few months into the experiment, at a weekly house meeting, Jake Neufeld framed the vision this way: "Church is not something we attend. It's something we are."
But even lofty rhetoric could not lift the mood that sleety evening in early April. A quarter of their year together had passed, and the friends felt they had failed. They had not met a single neighbor. They had not given any aid.
[...]
Some monastic communities pool their resources and renounce private property. The Billings friends chose to control their own finances, though they shared equally in rent, utility and grocery bills. They all said they wanted to consume less, spend less, so they could give away more. Yet they found it unexpectedly hard to give up little comforts.
Each family had come to the house with a refrigerator, so they now had two. They sat on a leather couch to watch Bible study videos -- and Jennifer Aniston comedies. Their pantry was filled with bulk beans, but they splurged on kiwi fruit, reduced-fat Cheez-Its, mint-chip ice cream.
When Phyllis, trying to be diligent about budgeting, refrained from buying a $5 pacifier for her baby, she stewed all day, questioning how much she must sacrifice to live up to the ideal of a simple life.
"Do we want to be simple about how many outfits our kids have? Or how nice the furniture is?" she demanded. "How many kinds of salad dressing are in the fridge?"
Phyllis proposed a cap on discretionary spending -- perhaps $250 to $300 per adult. Excess income would go into a community account, to be given away. Everyone nodded approval. Months later, though, they still had not put the plan into effect, or even agreed on a definition of discretionary: Did that include car insurance? Cellphone bills? What about Christmas gifts?
In the spirit of Christianity, I will give this group of friends a piece of advice: You made a critical mistake. You formed a cult without a charismatic cult leader to enforce discipline. There is indeed a sure method to tricking people into denying themselves what they naturally want in the service of an irrational idea. That method is just good-old-fashioned exploitation by seduction. In the political realm, that exploitation requires a dictator. In the religion genre, it requires a cult leader, like Charles Manson or St. Paul. You New Monastics are never going to destroy your desires on your own -- you need a strong leader to skillfully coerce you into doing it.
Maybe you could put an ad on Craig's List.
