Matthew, I just saw this thread.
Here's the thing - God Himself set up such a community once. He gave it a piece of land, with definite boundaries, and saw to it that the people he gave that land to took possession of it largely intact, so they didn't have to start from scratch and build up an infrastructure. The farms and towns, etc., were already there.
God gave them all of their laws, directly. He set up a government that consisted only of judges. There was no legislative authority of any sort - he gave ALL of the laws, and did not give his people ANY means to change ANY law, nor impose any NEW laws. Nor did he give them any executive branch at all. He was the King, directly. When war came, he sent a Prophet, and used his power to ensure victory. And as for the judges, he not only set up the rules of procedure, but also gave a long list of decisions they had to render in various cases. And in case of doubt, he gave an oracle, Urim and Thummim, whereby the judges could always directly consult God to be CERTAIN that their judgments were correct and just.
This was ancient Israel, the only state that God every founded, ruled, and gave all of its laws.
What happened?
What happened is that certain aspects of human nature - for our minds are filled with evil since our youth - refused to obey the WHOLE law. In particular, above all else, men refused to limit themselves to the economic structures that God established, for THAT required actual agricultural physical labor by everybody. The harder jobs could not simply be pushed down on other people. The promise was only that each family would live in peace on its own farm, with its needs met. There was no power to aspire to, and no particular accumulation of wealth; also no want.
Had God been obeyed, there would have been virtually no poverty...and also no slavery either, except for foreign captives, who could become part of the community and escape slavery through religious conversion.
With all of that, men screwed it up. They would not live within the bounds God set. Some men followed the rules, but most refused to. They wanted MORE, for themselves.
There was never any promise of life after death in God's one state. Indeed, it was never mentioned. God's Kingdom, Israel, was temporal and secular: he was the King and lawmaker, and final judge. And the men who lived under that system rejected him as king, turned to men, and destroyed it all.
The Old Covenant failed, because the men with whom it was made would not follow it, and because all it offered was a farm.
So God made a New Convenant, but it's only personal. It is possible for those of the New Covenant to cooperate with each other - indeed that was one thing that Jesus asked of us - that we be united.
And that, we Christians refuse to do.
So Jesus provided the eternal life and the forgiveness - but whereas YHWH asked a great amount of obedience to a great number of laws of the ancient Hebrews - Jesus merely asked us to do one thing: be united. And we refuse to do it. We think that our made-up differences and our intellectual theologies, which Jesus never gave, are MORE IMPORTANT than setting that aside to follow Jesus' one request that requires us to do something we don't want to do - BE UNIFIED.
We don't think that's important. God asked that of us, prayed for it for us. But we think our theological reasoning is MORE IMPORTANT than a direct request to us from God.
And therefore we are left to our bickering, weakness and impotence - by God.
For if we were united, we would, through our common voices, rule the world.
That's the truth.
God will NOT LET US have a "zone" to separate. We will do it HIS WAY, and unite, and stop being Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and be united - or he will keep knocking us down and let the world rule us in our division. Because THEY unite, under governments and causes.
So, what we should be talking about is UNITY, and how to get there. Do that, and the whole world is ours.
Refuse, and we defy God, and he will knock it all down. Our pride will not stand against God.
