4/23/14. AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE FOR THE CHURCH IN A DIGITAL CULTURE.

BLOG 4/23/14. ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE FOR THE CHURCH IN THE DIGITAL, SOCIAL-NETWORK CULTURE

Reading Sherry Turkle’s provocative study: Alone Together, raises a most compelling question in my/our quest for an understanding about, and the form of, the church for the emerging generation, which generation is obviously not too taken with the church is so much of its present expressions. She spells out that this culture, formed as it is by artificial intelligence, social networking, text-messaging, internet communication, robotics, and such … has rather displaced true intimacy and communication with a substitute intimacy in which we can create our own personas, while staying hidden from any real encounter with true intimacy. She notes that: “we are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.”

I’m biting off more than I can chew in one Blog, but indulge me a bit of caricature here, … all too many familiar church institutions fall into the same substitute with a kind of ‘quasi-fellowship’, that allows us to participate while remaining hidden from any of the risks of intimacy. Folk “insecure in their relationships and anxious about intimacy” resort to iPhones, text-messaging, Facebook-created images of themselves, and laptop journeys into the Internet, to give themselves some sense of relationships. We, similarly, put on our ‘churchy’ personas’ ( that includes ‘clergy’ as well) while remaining strangers to one another. Such guarded participation enables folk to sense belonging to something that has some link with the transcendent—but it doesn’t create the true intimacy that God intends.

I think it not too much of a stretch to say that all-too-many church institutions are inhabited by just such folk who fear intimacy, but are rather like ‘churchified robots’, who sincerely ‘go to church,’ who respond to all of the expected services, who are polite and friendly, who participate in the institution’s activities—but which religious institutions are rudderless, and seemingly oblivious to the purpose for which Christ calls out his people to be (as we have said in recent Blogs) the incarnation of Easter hope, and the demonstration of true New Creation relationships—or community that is being recreated into intimacy with God and each other.

The demise of such ‘religious institutions’ into oblivion would not be too great of a loss to the Kingdom of God and the mission of God.

In our quest for an alternative narrative for the church, a ‘macro-priority’ will be that of both re-conceiving, and refounding the church into its true purpose: that of being the very incarnation of the community of God’s New Creation, i.e., Kingdom, in our relationships of true intimacy, of true communication, of shared lives, of the “one another” dynamics implicit in the New Testament teachings. This will be a key component of our Easter incarnation. There are real dangers to such, but there is no hope of its becoming real without the risks. Even Jesus had his Judas, you remember. It will have to be composed of those who have intentionally chosen the straight path and the narrow gate that leads to eternal life—true repentance and faith in God’s purpose in Christ. Such communities will be communities of grace for all kinds of folk with self-doubt, failure, fears, arrogance, pride, brokenness in many forms—you name it. The confession of sin will be a critical component of our self-understanding, because that’s who we are. In such communities we are free to come out of hiding, but the result is true freedom, true faith, true hope and authentic love.

There’s much more to be said, but a good clue is that such communities must be small. The post-Pentecost church in Jerusalem did indeed have its large gatherings, but it was more importantly formed in homes, sharing in true intimacy (koinonia/fellowship), in the apostle’s teaching, in eating together, and in prayer (Acts 2:42-43). You can’t hide in such expressions of the church!

Catch my drift? The recreation of true intimacy and relationships in the community of the New Creation.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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