Is it possible?

Can the model of community practiced by the early followers of Jesus work in a pluralistic and postmodern environment? There is a modern "House Church" movement (of which I was a part at one time) consisting of Christian fundamentalists who wish to return to what they believe the Bible teaches about the church and the pattern of early christians. They seek unity in their community through shared dogma and myths. What they fail to realize is that the early church was pluralistic. Unity was found in sharing an ethic of love and trust rather than "doctrinal truths". Such "truths" didn't even exist yet. They fail to realize that early christians didn't come to church with a bible in their hands.

My vision of creating community in neighborhoods (seems like a redundant use of words, doesn't it?) includes some of the principles and values of the "House Church". Particularly important is the emphasis on participation and dialog at gatherings (and the absence of sermons). I think this selection from a book I read a few years ago points to a principle needed to create a pluralistic community.
(My emphasis added.)

Let us take as one illustration two people who employ directly contradictory language in relation to the symbol of God. One says that God exists. The other insists that God does not exist. Clearly, on the level of language there is no common ground here. But each continues to assume a unity of the spirit because each recognizes in the other a common ethical stance toward the world. Each sees that the other encounters the world in terms of trust and love....

What does the one mean by the statement "God exists," and the other by the statement "God does not exist"? For the sake of illustration, let us grossly simplify the nexus of human experience. One person was brought up in a home environment in which parents were kind, loving and trustworthy. For that person, a symbol pointing to divine parenthood expresses that which is kind, loving and trustworthy. Therefore, it comes easily that this symbol of divine parenthood (God) would be employed to express a spiritual experience of the world in which the path ofacceptance, in which an ethic of trust and love, can be taken with confidence. For God exists!

The other person, on the other hand, has had a very negative experience of parenthood. For such a person, a symbol pointing to divine parenthood only signifies that which is fearful, mistrustful, stifling of creativity. Therefore, he or she find it very difficult to employ a symbol of divine parenthood to express a spiritual experience of the world as trustworthy and infused with love. In the case of this second person, coming to the conclusion that God does not exist, that the world is not a place in which fear and mistrust create and rule, and that therefore one can live according to the path of acceptance, according to an ethic of love and trust with full confidence, may be a very valid way of expressing his or her spiritual experience. One may act with confidence and trust in this world because that great tyrant of tyrants in the sky is not real and does not exist!

In the absence of a dogmatic structure to enforce conformity to creed of doctrine, would total anarchy exist among people of faith in the area related to verbal expression of spiritual experience? Is it possible to foster and encourage pluralism in the verbal expression of spiritual experience and still take language seriously?

....Let us return to the illustration I began above. Both people claim a spiritual experience in which trust and love are seen as primary creative and sustaining principles in the world. One expresses that by saying that God exists. The other expresses that by saying that God does not exist. Within a structure of a gathering of people of faith, they contemplate their spiritual experience of the world and in freedom, without fear of censorship, speak to the group of spiritual truth as they see
it. It is understood by the group that such attempts to put spiritual experience into words are always experimental and tentative. Likewise, responses from the group are also experimental and tentative.

- Daniel Liechty, Theology in Postliberal Perspective: Trinity Press, Philadelphia, (pp. 65,66)