Living On Common Ground
Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario? Every environment? Your church, your school, your work, your friends. Left, right. Conservative, liberal. Religious, secular. From parenting styles to school choice, denominational choice to governing preference, it seems you're always being asked to take a side.
This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground.
Living On Common Ground
BONUS EPISODE: Peter Rollins-From Shared Beliefs to Shared Vulnerability
Ever wondered why building communities often leads to deeper divisions? In this special follow-up to our conversation with Peter Rollins, we explore a radical alternative to traditional community-building that might change how you think about human connection forever.
Rollins draws a crucial distinction between three forms of social bonds. Communities form around shared identities, beliefs, and especially shared enemies—inherently creating insiders and outsiders. The commons are spaces where different people mix freely, but these public spaces are diminishing in our society. Most provocatively, Rollins introduces the concept of communion—a social bond formed when we acknowledge our shared status as outsiders, connecting through our universal human experience of alienation rather than through shared beliefs or enemies.
"What makes communion different from community is that it is also forged on lack, on some impossibility, but it is not externalized on a scapegoat," Rollins explains. Instead, we recognize the lack within ourselves and find connection through this shared vulnerability. Using examples from Alcoholics Anonymous to family therapy, he demonstrates how this shift from blaming external forces to acknowledging our own implication in our struggles creates the possibility for genuine connection across deep differences.
For those seeking practical applications, Rollins suggests creating "Death of God Supper Clubs"—circle gatherings where people can openly acknowledge their outsider status and speak authentically. Unlike typical community groups organized around shared beliefs, these spaces allow us to encounter each other as "creatures of desire, creatures of longing, creatures of yearning, creatures who suffer."
Support Peter Rollins on Patreon to enable more of this thought-provoking work, and follow Living on Common Ground wherever you listen to podcasts. Share with friends—the more people living on common ground, the better our world will be.
https://www.patreon.com/c/peterrollins/posts
Theme Music Provided by: © 2025 Noah Heldman
Does it feel like every part of your life is divided, every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular? It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground. Do you think if we met today?
Speaker 2:we would still be friends. I don't know, but we're friends now.
Speaker 3:A mob is no less a mob because they're with you, man. So what? We won a few games and y'all fools think that's something, man. That ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp, cool. But then we're right back here and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.
Speaker 4:This is a special episode. It's kind of like a supplement to the conversation that we had with Peter Rollins a few weeks ago. If you haven't listened to that episode, I would suggest that you might want to go back and check that one out first before listening to this one. But this is a short episode and it was originally released as a video on Peter's Patreon page. If you're not following him or supporting him on Patreon, I would highly recommend you take the time to support his efforts on that platform. You can find a link in this episode's description. That being said, in this special episode you're going to hear Peter discuss the differences between community and communion. He's also going to offer some questions or suggestions on how to create true communion. What he has to say raises actually a question for me, and it's something that I've been thinking about ever since our first conversation with him several weeks ago. The question is this is the work that we're doing here at Living on Common Ground? Is it actually about creating communion rather than community?
Speaker 2:communion rather than community Thought. I would do one of these morning reflections on why I'm so uneasy with the word community and what alternative there is to the building of community. And this allows me to get into some of the stuff that I even explored with ChatGPT earlier today. If you watched that, there was a point maybe close to the end, when we started to discuss the difference between community and what I call communion. That's what I'd like to touch on briefly here, but probably with an emphasis on the practical and even an invitation for you to think about how you might set up a communion where you live. So anyway, let's start with that. It was interesting because I was listening to an interview with Todd McGowan recently and he's talked about how he was always uncomfortable with the word community. And then he decided to, you know, think more rigorously about that. And really one of the products of that is his book which is about community, which is the one on alienation. Can't remember the title off the top of my head, but it is a great book. And so when I heard him say that, I was like well, you know, that's funny because I've been the same, I've always been uncomfortable with that term and, you know, increasingly I've come to an awareness of, you know why that is and what a potential alternative to that is. So, to talk briefly then about community and then I'll reference, actually, the ChatGBT discussion which you can go and find on my YouTube channel Community can be defined as a social bond that is formed through something that is shared.
Speaker 2:Now, on a surface level, it's shared identity, it's shared beliefs, shared practices, shared values, but also, at a deeper level, a shared enemy or a shared obstacle. So what kind of really binds a community together is either wanting to get rid of some group or having some sort of problem that they want to overcome, and so the community is buying together through a goal, and the goal is related to a problem that has to be solved. Um, so there is a what I was saying, a negativity, uh, a lack that forms community uh, something I won't get into in depth have had a shared trauma, and that kind of binds them together. In a sense, all bonds are social bonds. All social bonds are trauma bonds, in that there is a certain lack that enables them to function, and in a community, that lack, as much as possible, is rendered into an obstacle. You know, we're lacking something or something we want to achieve and bind together in achieving that goal. And if the community achieves the goal, gets rid of the enemy. What can often happen is the community collapses because what was holding the community together was precisely the obstacle.
Speaker 2:But I say shared beliefs, shared practices, shared values, shared obstacle, shared enemy. That's community, which means that community inherently has insiders and outsiders. Now, this is what I discussed with chat, because chat GBT kept, when it was pretending to be me, it said communities tend to be built around identity. They tend typically to have insiders and outsiders. And what I was saying to chat is that I think it's more appropriate to say the community always has insiders and outsiders. It is always built on shared identities, obstacles, enemies, and that's an important distinction.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a very minor distinction whenever you say well, you know to say a community is typically about insiders, but the problem with that is it is actually that's the very idea that sustains communities, and what I mean by that is whenever you have a community of insiders and outsiders. One of the things that sustains you is the fantasy that there is a community that has no outsiders and that can allow you to try to, you know, have a better community, to be open to more people, to always be changing. Nothing wrong with that, that's brilliant. And we're all in communities, communities are part of life. But when you have a fantasy that community is only contingently about insiders and outsiders, in other words, that it is possible to have a community of all insiders, in other words that it is possible to have a community of all insiders, then that fantasy, as I say, both drives community, sustains it, and it means the kind of the closer you get to that ideal, it's not the fewer outsiders you get, but the more invisible the outsiders become. And so the ultimate outsider in a community is the one who is nobody and nothing, who is banished to hell, right there. So there's I mean, there's that old joke. You know the joke that you know my girlfriend is never late for me, because if she was ever late for me she would no longer be my girlfriend. It's where you've got a set of your partners or whatever, and then, but if the person is outside the set, they are, so outside, they're nothing, they're nobody, they're nothing. And that's kind of like how communities that try to be super inclusive end up simply having outsiders that, to them at least, are invisible.
Speaker 2:So when you see a community saying all are welcome, you can ask yourself okay, who are, who's not welcome, right? Um, so then you go. Well, is there an alternative to the community? And the first thing to say is well, we have something in society called the commons. The commons is different because the commons are areas where people can mix who don't share the same identities, the same values, the same enemies and obstacles. So think of a park as an example. You go to a park. A park is a commons. Nobody owns it, there's no insiders. You're not allowed to take over a park and say only such and such people are welcome here. Right, a park is a commons, it is for everybody.
Speaker 2:And that's where you can rub shoulders with people who are very different from you, who, as I've said before, don't simply disagree with you, but disagree with you about what the disagreements are about or how to interpret the disagreements. That's what makes disagreements intractable. When you have two people arguing and they just have a disagreement about something right, whether it's politics or whatever, then that can be resolved. They argue, they fight because they just disagree on, say, how to interpret the facts or they, you know, they haven't had access to what you think, right, there's two people and they have disagreement. But in society we disagree also on how to interpret the disagreement. So it's not just two people on two sides.
Speaker 2:There's a further twist, and that second twist is what makes a community, a worldwide community, impossible, right? And so in a park or in a shopping mall or on a Greyhound bus or whatever it is, there are these places diminishing sadly, but these places where you can genuinely encounter people who would be offensive to you, encounter people who would be offensive to you, and, as I say, we are the commons you could say is under threat. And when the commons is under threat, then societies generally break down. Because once you're only got communities and you don't have the commons, then you, yes, then you get factions and then you get civil wars and all of that stuff right Now. And that's what Todd McGowan explores in his book on alienation.
Speaker 2:One is community, which is about having insiders, which generates outsiders. Then you have the commons, which is just outsiders, right. So in a way there's nobody as an inside, nobody owns the park, nobody owns the space. That's what a true commons is. You can encounter anybody within legal kind of constraints, right. But then there's a third move. And the third move I want to call communion. And communion is a social bond where we all acknowledge that we are outsiders and that's what makes us insiders, that's what connects us. We are connected precisely by all being outsiders not fitting. In that there's something about being human. This is the inside of existentialism you see it very beautifully in the work of Jean-Paul Sartre in being a nothingness but the idea that there is something about being human which means that we don't fit. We don't even fit within our own ideology or our own minds and we definitely don't fit in society. There's something about being human which, as in the words of Albert Camus, makes us an outsider.
Speaker 2:What makes communion different from community is that it is also forged on lack, on some impossibility, but it is not externalized on a scapegoat on something outside. It is seen as within, within the group, within the group. You know, one example of this might be in family therapy where, instead of thinking about if there's a problem in a family and say there's one child has issues with, say, anorexia or something like that, and kind of identifying that that child has issues within kind of models of family therapy, you see the family as a unit and you see that you can't really address just the individual with the anorexia, but in a way you have to address the entire family system. The whole family system is implicated in some way with this symptomatic explosion. And in analysis it's the same thing. Even though you're not necessarily talking to the family members, you're always exploring how the individual in front of you is woven into the desires of a wider system. And so in a communion you acknowledge the lack within yourself. And the example I like to use is AA, which I think is a form of communion, because in aa you're not going oh, the problem is outside, right is out there, right, the enemy is out there. You're going like I'm the problem right and my situation and my world, like there's something about me that and you have to acknowledge that, take responsibility for it, and that's kind of the, the beginning of the 12-step process.
Speaker 2:Within a community of grace community, I use the word within a collective of grace you are able to acknowledge your own lack, your own obstacles, your own implication in what you're experiencing, your symptom, and that allows you to get a purchase on it and it transforms the way you relate to it. So communion is a is what is the type of social bond that comes out of church of the contradiction. The church of the contradiction is the liturgy where you go to a space and through the art and the music and the spoken word and the ritual, you encounter that lack. You are able to symbolize it, you're able to experience it, you're able to live it, and then the social bond that comes out of that is communion, where you're able to be in a space with people who are radically different from you. Now, I don't think that happens in the world.
Speaker 2:Uh, very briefly, I'll say that it's almost like you know, um, churches have their service and then they have their small groups. Well, communion is like the small groups. It's a space where, maybe once a week, you come together in a circle and you hear each other's experience of lack of obstacle and you see in your own struggles and in other people's struggles something that is shared, that you share that lack together. And I'm experimenting with that, with something called the death of god supper club, and there's various ways in which this can be done. But I'm inviting you as well to think with me about what that looks like and potentially experiment.
Speaker 2:I think largely it should be based on a model of maybe putting chairs in a circle and providing a space where people can say something like my name is Peter and I am alienated, I am an outsider, and then you maybe all go around saying that once, if you want, somebody can stay silent if they're not ready to say that, and then after that you just let whatever happens happens and the facilitator is there just to name what's going on and to, if things get stuck in, like maybe two people talking, they, the facilitator, can name that and say, oh, it's interesting, you know, these two people are talking, uh, other people are being silent. Can I ask people to reflect on that? And you know, just naming what's going on in the space to keep it moving. And the idea is not that you create something where you identify around shared religious, political, cultural beliefs, but where you see briefly in that, say, are of time, you see that you're all um, creatures of desire, creatures of longing, creatures of yearning, creatures who suffer, um. I'd like to make another of these on the difference between suffering and pain. I maybe do the next one on that, so I won't't go into it. Anyway, I hope that's of interest.
Speaker 2:We've talked about community, the commons and communion and the idea that community is based on shared identity, beliefs, values, obstacles and enemies. The commons is a space of all outsiders, where you can basically rub shoulders with anybody. And then communion, which is weirdly where people of radical difference like the commons can have a social bond. Like community, but not based on particular identities, but, in the universe, universality of lack itself. All right, thank you for your support on Patreon. By the way, this allows me to do this work. I deeply appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Living on Common Ground. Please follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and share it with your friends. You can also find a link to our social in the description. The more people we have living on common ground, the better the world will be.
