Idea of the Community in Modern Sociological Thought and Christian Community

Sa？etak The aim of this paper is three major sociological debates on community that are critically examined: (1st) the notion of community as tradition (especially with regard to Ferdinand T？nnies), (2nd) the idea of moral community (especially around the work of Emile Durkheim) and (3rd) the theory of symbolic community (as proposed originally by Victor Turner and restated by Anthony P. Cohen). They share the same approach and community conceptions in sociological thought and the Christian community with the idea that the community is concerned with belonging such as expressions of longing for community, the search for meaning and solidarity, recognition and collective’s identities. The next in the selection of the classification sociological approach of the T？nnies conditions, the community is ？alive？ and is more entrenched in the position of family life in agreement, in rural life in folklore and in the life of the city in religion. Another important concept of the community is recognized by Durkheim in the failure of modernity to develop a new spirit of community that could be called post-traditional. Hence the understanding of the Christian community presupposes a historical and social opportunity for social action and cultural transition outside the framework of the social structure of the traditional and civic community, as well as the idea of a symbolic construction of a community determined by a boundary construction of individual affirmation in self-other-relations. Identifying the Christian community with the psychological dimension of belonging and solidarity, and it is more symbolic-interactive in relation to the metamorphosis towards itself but it confirms itself in relations with others. Accordingly, the idea of a symbolic community in modern sociological thought points to the possibility for a social and cultural transition or (liminal) boundary section in the Christian community. The abolition of all distinctive features of the social structure (antistructurality) during the liminal period beyond the narrow framework of the traditional and civic community and their values leads to temporary, spontaneous and equal communion of individuals. At the same time, not diminishing the communion of the phenomenon within the predetermined theoretical (ideological) framework of the contradiction between the idea of the traditional and the civic community in the social structure. Thus, within the identification of individuals with the value-ideological ？fragmentary？ space of liberal individualism and communal collectivism