Not a strawman.
I did actually say community, not church.Forced integration laws have moved us into a (hypothetical) place where people like the OP and I could be living down the same street with no option of openly separating.I don't like his views he does not like mine. People who are opposed in principles and values are forced to associate and the expectation from the people like the OP for everyone to replicate his way of life or else. It shouldn't be that way, I should be able to live in a nation with laws that allow people to choose their associates unconditionally. After we screen out people who are identified as inappropriate and bring in those who are right for us, then we set up the church with the people who are like minded as us.
Simple.
Christians should be choosing their associated extremely conditionally: Other Christians, without regard to how human societies divide up people.
Late in my first night of military basic training back in the early 70s, which was a long, long, strange, tumultuous day, our instructor sat us on the floor of the barracks dayroom before sending us to bed to give us a final lecture for the day.
Sergeant Jimmy Weeks was a short, squat man from South Carolina. He was maybe 5'-6" and built like a fireplug. He had a deep Southern drawl and spoke out of the side of his mount.
That night he said to us:
"One thing we ain't gonna have in this flight is any racial troubles.
The reason we ain't gonna have any racial troubles is because you ain't got no reason to have racial troubles.
The reason you ain't got no reason to have racial troubles is because you're all the same color, namely green.
You all got the same hair, namely none.
You all got the same daddy, namely me.
And you all got the same wants and desires, namely to get the #$%& out of here!"
Here is what Sergeant Weeks meant: The Air Force had taken away the lines the civilian world had drawn between us. There were no Levis, no Guccis. No long hairs, no short hairs. No wealth, no poverty.
We became members of a Corps with its own shared culture, with its own hair style, it's own system of vocations, it's own system of value, its own system of integrity. One corps under one commander with one mission, each member with a role and a fragment of that mission.
That's what Christianity is supposed to do. It is supposed to erase the lines that the world has drawn between us and form us into one Body with one Head, each member with a role in the mission given to us by our Head.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.-- 1 Corinthians 12
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. -- Galatians 3:28
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Colossians 3:11
The military gets this right--why can't the church?