When we first heard about Life in Jesus, my wife Kathy and I were curious. Community was a completely unfamiliar concept, and certainly we had never contemplated becoming a part of one. At the time, we had two pre-school kids and a modest, but nice, house. I had a job as a seminary professor teaching Bible. However, there was an uneasiness about our lives. Our church situation left much to be desired. Kathy was thinking about going back to work so we could afford to send our kids to a private Christian school. I remember sitting in the comfortable library I had just built, looking at Kathy and saying, "This will not do!" We both knew then and there that there had to be something more than the rat race looming before us.
   We came to Life in Jesus for a week-long retreat in the summer of 1999 with no intention of seeking a call to community. I had been secretly drawn to the place when we had come to my father-in-law's ordination in March of the same year, but I had not pushed the issue with Kathy, thinking she would never do such a thing. A few days into our stay however, Kathy came to me and dropped the loaded question, "Why not us?" We went home, sold our house, and moved in at the end of March, 2000.
   Why would we do such a thing? When we first began this journey, we couldn't explain why ourselves. When we were first married, we wrote down goals for our marriage; after seven years, we knew none of those goals were even remotely being fulfilled. Many of our goals had to do with ministering together, specifically, working closely with people and their spiritual formation. We were in danger of stagnation, and we felt it. Neither of us were radical by nature, but we now found ourselves contemplating the "unthinkable."
What was the "unthinkable" for us? It was selling the home we had fixed up and had expected to live in for a long time, in order to move into a household with other families. For my wife, it was giving up her own home and career to homeschool our children and work in community. For me, the unthinkable was eventually losing the job I had enjoyed for 15 years. For both of us, it was making solemn vows from which we could not turn back. One vow is called conversatio, by which we commit ourselves to growing spiritually forever and to loving others into growth in Christ. In other words, we will never give up on ourselves or others. Another vow is obedience, where we place ourselves under the spiritual direction and authority of our abbot. Through the vow of stability, we commit ourselves to stay at the Life in Jesus Community for the rest of our lives. In addition, I was ordained a priest in 2001, a serious yoke to bear, and something unthinkable for one who had been a Baptist for most of his life.
   What makes all these things so "unthinkable" to us? They are "unthinkable" because they are unnatural to the way we think. Ever since the Fall, the natural way of man has been to fracture unity. This, in fact, was the judgment of God on Babel: God divided the peoples into ethnic and linguistic groups so that they could no longer easily unite to do evil, but instead would spread out over the earth. The history of the nations up to the time of Christ can be summed up as the prideful self-glorification of these peoples, who are suspicious of one another, who despise one another merely because the others are different, and who take advantage of others and oppress them if given the chance. The nations only unite, as Psalm 2 tells us, to plot evil against God and His Anointed. This is what comes naturally to us humans.
   Pentecost is an event in history that cannot be overemphasized. For the first time, peoples of many nations came together and communicated with and listened to one another. Christ descended through the Holy Spirit in a fiery theophany upon the first believers, enabling them to truly love one another. They responded with radical obedience and did the unthinkable-they lived together in common. Never before was there anything like this; it was supernatural! There were struggles for sure. St. Paul was aghast at the divisions in the church at Corinth and brings down upon them a most telling indictment in the form of an astonished question, ". . .are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?" (I Cor. 3:3). Evidently, St. Paul was shocked when Christians acted "naturally." He expected something more from them.
   The Church managed, with the help of God, to maintain this precious unity for many centuries. But little by little, unity gave way to divisions as Christians more and more began to live "naturally," falling back on old cultural identities. It is painful today to observe the many fractured pieces of what was once, by and large, a church united supernaturally in Christ. Moreover, this has happened in a world that is once again, like Babylon of old, uniting together against God. A movement began long ago in the depths of Western civilization that has grown to monstrous proportions and now threatens to take over the whole world. It is called, for lack of a better name, secular humanism.
Secular humanism is a complex thing, comprised of a strange paradox. On one hand, it is innately fractured into as many pieces as there are individuals. As it is popularly presented among the masses, it is the "me" culture: all that matters is what I want. Anything goes as long as I do not harm anyone else. It is essentially materialistic and pleasure-seeking, living according to the senses. "Spirituality" is part of the vocabulary, but it is understood in terms of self-fulfillment and an interior feeling of warmth and comfort. There is no right or wrong; one religion is as good as another as long as it doesn't force its viewpoint on others. Everyone is scattered with no meaningful principle to unite them.
   On the other hand, secular humanism is amazingly unified. Fortified by the Western democratic victory over communism in the last twenty years, its core doctrine of individual freedom is sweeping the globe. This passion for the freedom to do what we want to do with no authority speaking into our lives melds this unwieldy mass together. This new international culture has its own music, its own way of dressing, and its own mode of entertainment; it rejects traditional boundaries, especially sexual boundaries. That which is novel and weird is glorified as creative, drawing the attention of the whole. No one has to think in this culture, because there is no longer any reason to think, for there is no right or wrong, no hope of getting down to any meaningful truth. The masses are mesmerized by all the flashing neon lights pulsating from the media and electronic instrumentation. They make a mighty unity, a formidable force in the world today.
   In fact, secular humanism is the major force today in the world. Since 9/11, many Christians feel Islam is the bane of civilization. Nothing could be further from the truth! Islam can never capture the imagination of the human race; it is simply too clumsy in this post-modern age, or in any age for that matter, to win the world. In fact, Moslems see clearly the real threat to their traditional way of life; they see the real monster! It is the behemoth of secular humanism, which many of them confuse with Christianity, that they fear. Walk the streets of the Middle East and carefully watch the youth. Listen to the music they hear. Walk into their houses and see what they watch on their television sets. What has caught the attention and allegiance of their hearts? Secular humanism! This is why there are terrorists! Those who believe in traditional Moslem values are frustrated and fearful of this monster; they are trying to strike back at it any way they can. Though they are committed and determined, they will not win. It is much easier for the masses to succumb to the monster than to be a good Moslem.
   I have ventured far from the testimony of my family's journey to Life in Jesus. In light of the present world situation, we might raise the questions: who are we at Life in Jesus, and why do we do what we do? We are called out of the Babel which has arisen in our times. We reject the superficial doctrine of individual freedom, which secular humanism proclaims at the expense of universal truth revealed to us through Jesus Christ and His Church for two thousand years. We have given ourselves over to relive the power of Pentecost where people are unified not by the superficial, self-serving notions of secular humanism, nor by the sword, fear, and forced submission of Islam. We are here to accomplish, by God's grace and calling, the impossible: to live supernaturally, to love one another as Christ commanded us to do. We are here to lock arms and ascend the holy mountain together. We humans were made for something greater than what the world offers; we were made to aspire to high things!
   There have to be places in the world today where the unity and power of Pentecost is displayed against the backdrop of our modern Babel. The world needs to see a city that is set upon a hill. Indeed, I can say from the experience I have had at Life in Jesus that this place is a miracle. I have seen miracles every bit as great as the raising of the dead. I have seen people give up what they never dreamed they could give up. I have seen people grow to love each other who by nature never would. I have seen interior healing and growth in my own life I would never have seen elsewhere. Indeed, I came needy into the Community, as one who needed others to learn and grow, and I know I will always need others.
The Community is geographically located in the belly of the monster! It is our Western world from which this evil has been birthed, nurtured, fed, and expanded. Its Babylons are places like New York City and Washington, D.C. We are small, pitifully small, but our Lord tells us not to despise the day of small things. Though small, we are not insecure. We sit on the shoulders of God's giants, the saints, who faced great odds in their day, and by God's grace, succeeded. Hating the sins of our age, we love the sinners, and in a way, exist for them. We are not the only place God has raised up to meet the challenges of our times, but we are one place; and for the sake of this nation which God loves, we will succeed, and must succeed, in carrying out the mission to which God has called us.
   Readers, pray for us. We are not perfect. We struggle. It may sound like we have it all together, but we don't. Nor do we think we have all the answers, at least not in our more lucid moments. Pray for more people to be called here. We especially feel God wants to establish a brotherhood soon. Pray that God will move in the hearts of men, especially young men, to make the ultimate sacrifice of laying themselves completely on the altar for the prize before them. By nature this will never happen, but Christ has called us to live supernaturally, not naturally. What we cannot do in our own strength, Christ can do in us. The world, though it is benighted with Babel, wishes deep down to see the light of the Gospel radically shine forth. The world is starving for truth. Could it be that God is calling you or someone you know to this place?