Can We Build the Village Again?
What would it mean to rebuild Christian culture—not as an argument or a political program, but as an actual place?
Around Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma, families have been attempting something increasingly unusual: building a community shaped by Benedictine life, faith, family, land, work, education, and the human scale.
In this Listen with Gilbert Deep Dive, we explore The Idea of a Village and the upcoming gathering at Clear Creek. We trace a fascinating line from G.K. Chesterton and John Senior to Clear Creek Abbey and Paul Kingsnorth, asking what their ideas might mean in practice.
Can a real village be deliberately created? What makes a community more than people who happen to live near one another? Can local ownership, farming, craftsmanship, education, worship, and modern technology coexist? And is Clear Creek offering a blueprint—or simply demonstrating that another way of living might still be possible?
Can we build the village again?
Perhaps the more important question is whether we are willing to try.
