Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2160

Typed material by Heath with edits in Spencer MacCallum’s hand, presumably under Heath’s direction.

No date

The Free Community

     Man shares the familial form of association, or community, with the animals. But man differs from the animals. He is cooperative with his own kind beyond the limits of the family and can recreate his environment. He can be creative because of his divine spark of reason; animals perceive, but we can conceive and there­fore be creative like God. As man differs from the animals, so he associates in ways that distinguish him, that transcend the level of familial association.

    The communities distinctive of man are of two kinds, slave and free. In the competition between these two modes, it is the free relationship which is prevailing. This is the economic relationship. It is self-supporting. It is spiritual. It is effective. It is the relationship which is properly called social.

    Christianity is preferable to other religions, Asiatic ones for example, because it points the way to the free, or the social, relationships. Though the Church itself has been other-worldly, Christianity historically was a worldly religion of life in the here and now. This is a valuable focus, for our present civilization gives us much to work with and to build upon. This civili­zation came from the practice of the free relationships. It is these we must cultivate; we cannot build on the other.

    Social relationships are based on contracts and are not limited as familial reciprocities are. Contract is a spiritual, not a material relation. It is commanded by the New Testament. It is the practice of the golden rule. Society is the Christian fulfillment of mankind’s nature.

     The contrary of the social relation is the political, which has been described sufficiently by Burke, Aristotle, Machiavelli. These competing modes of behavior are mutually exclusive. The social will prevail, because it has the power of life and of growth.