It's hard to believe this book was taken out of the Canon a couple times and put back in finally to stay, although the great Martin Luther never liked James at all.  In-fact, he called this book an epistle of straw fit only for the fire.  I am sure it had only to do with the way James describes faith as exemplified through our works.  Remember, James said faith without works is dead.  Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works (2:18-20).  Luther was a die-hard Paulinist, who believed that we are saved by grace and that through faith.  Well, I was asked this very question during one of my Q & A sessions as I am interviewing for Senior Pastor positions around the country.  Paul and the church at Jerusalem never saw eye to eye on this one, but we have, in the post modern church, reached a happy medium in that most of us express our adoration for our conversion in Christ through the works that we do.  I think that is all James is trying to tell us.  There has to be some praxis (feet) put to your faith.  After-all, Jesus did say, go ye therefore...

James also admonishes us to keep clean from the residue of the hedonistic world and its way of doing things.  James and Paul would indeed agree on this one because it is echoed in Romans 12:2, where Paul says, be not confirmed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Finally, what about the orphans and widows?  This is indicative of James espousing an intact and strong community, where even the least among us have provision.  We have to remember that in that time, a woman without a husband or a kid without parents had few choices.  Remember the widow woman who was to make her last meal for herself and her son and die until Elijah worked a miracle (I Kg. 17)?  Any good communitas of believers, locally or at-large, looked after the least of these.

Community can be destructive and indifferent.  We get a glimpse in I Cor 11:20-31, when the believers were meeting to "eat" communion.   The rich were eating and making merry, lavishly, for hours while the poor had hardly anything to bring and while the working laborers came only when they could leave work, probably exhausted.  What Paul instructed was communitas, rather.  He admonished them to feel a connection to their neighbors by considering that they were all in different places economically.  He said for them to eat at home if you they hungered.  Moreover, that when they were to come together to celebrate communion, be considerate and wait until all were able to be there-communitas!  That's what James is trying to show us!