Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Christian Cohousing

[Allen Butcher (allenbutcher]

I have played around lots with definitions of terms and would like to
suggest something.

First point is to recognize that hybrids, mixing different forms of
community is common.  So the first step is to be clear on definitions.  I
am not going to list them all here (I've done some of that elsewhere). 
Second step is to determine what are the major elements of the particular
community.  So if a group built a community that had all the elements of
a cohousing community (once we all agreed on what that would be, or at
least took the definition offered by its founders)  AND the group added
something else, like a general emphasis on Christian faith (or Catholic
or Methodist or what ever), it would be most appropriate to call the
community a:

Christian cohousing community, or a Catholic cohousing community or
whatever

And maybe they would get away with doing this as a non-discriminatory
selection process (God knows, maybe a Methodist would like to live around
Catholics? Maybe if the people really like each other they would not care
about a few theological differences) or maybe they would not get away
with it.

The point is that we should use modifing terms added to basic descriptive
terms, after we have come to a decision on what the different terms mean.

Another perspective is that a Christian community could just call itself
a Christian community and leave it at that if that is the most important
aspect of the community.  At best they might say that they are a
Christian community using the cohousing design.  

Allen