Virtual Community

A significant part of the Christian story is about community: about its formation and reconciliation. During the last 250 years theology has often tended towards the individual, and has concentrated on a Robinson Crusoe type of figure in which the story is entirely about one person and their God. Yet to think of Christianity as a solitary business is to strip it of much of its meaning and force. Christianity is not primarily a religion about individuals, but about communities.

From the very beginning of the biblical narrative we are presented with the view that ‘it is not good for man to be alone’. Humans are made for community. Their identity is forged and found by being with other people. The story of sin that is told through the Old Testament after the expulsion from Eden is one in which human relationships become possessive and violent. To deal with this God creates community. He interacts with certain individuals in Genesis and Exodus to form a people for himself.

Jesus’ own ministry was one of community building. One of his first acts was to call disciples. The miracles are not simply about wonders, but rather they are stories that tell of people being restored back into their communities, and therefore of healing and reconciliation. Jesus’ last act before his death is a fellowship meal with his friends, and after the resurrection he appears to them to make them a new community as the church.

To be a Christian, from the very earliest of times, was about belonging to the community of faith. The early Christians suffered persecution for belonging to the church and participating in the eucharist. The Western church for over a thousand years formed society so that it adhered to Christian ideals regarding the moral and good. Until modernity (after 1750) thinking about Christianity as mainly an individual commitment to God would have made little or no sense.

And that is what makes the current situation so difficult for us… We are a community of faith, and yet we cannot physically meet. To be church means to be an assembly, and yet we cannot assemble in one place. This is why maintaining community is of paramount importance. As tempting as it may be to pull up the drawbridge from the rest of the world, Christians are called to be a community and to engage with the world.

I think that in some ways the word ‘virtual’, when we refer to electronic communications, is not helpful here. When we speak to someone over Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, Teams or other programmes, we are establishing and maintaining real relationships and real communities, and there is actually little that is virtual about that. We would all prefer to be back as we were but, until churches can re-open, building community is a profoundly Christian thing to be doing. And so especially during this time, I encourage you to use the technology that is available to maintain relationship, prevent isolation, and support the vulnerable.

After the event… the future of the church after the virus

For those who are part of central planning in dioceses and the national church the question that will increasingly be on the horizon over the next month is ‘what happens after the virus?’ Will people return to church? Will the virus particularly affect the congregations of the church? Will live streaming continue to be popular? How might this, and an ongoing culture of social distancing, change our worship? Who will be providing this worship? How can this worship be sustained if people do not physically come to church and financially support it?

So, some thoughts:

The dangers: Gnosticism. The chief danger in all this is that Christianity becomes rather virtual and cerebral during the lockdown. If Christianity becomes chiefly something that we think on our own, then we have lost significant chunks of the Christian message. Christians believe that the word became flesh, not an image on a computer screen, and we celebrate this in physical sacraments. We are also a physical community. The first thing that Jesus does during his ministry is to call disciples, and the first significant event after the resurrection is Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples to forms them into the community of the church. Christians rightly should reject a disembodied Gnosticism that stresses only personal religious experience, for the life of Christ described in the Gospels is one in which physical life and community are significant.

The opportunities: Evangelism. Despite all the theological dangers there is a great opportunity here if we seize it. Normally morning prayer in the cathedral is attended by a gathering of around 7. At present several hundred people tune into the Facebook Live-Stream at some point during the day. Our daily office worship has been re-orientated away from the needs of a few clergy towards those of the general public watching at home. This gives us a huge opportunity to engage de-churched and unchurched people with the Christian story. Churches need to be pro-active to seize the opportunities that Live-Streaming can bring so, for instance, a cathedral choral evensong normally attended by around 20 people could be streamed to several hundred.

The challenges: Resources. The greatest challenge will relate to resources. Those churches that have truly excellent worship (whether traditional choral or modern) and are able to engage with modern means of communication (and buy the relevant kit) will be those that are able to engage with the opportunities for mission. The use of Live-Streaming and virtual conference programmes demonstrates that church life is heading in two directions. Firstly, the demand for high quality large scale worship that is inspiring and professional. Secondly, the desire for community in smaller groups. Clearly, cathedrals and larger churches can provide the former. The challenge for smaller churches is the degree to which they can provide the latter. In evangelical circles this twofold approach has been happening for some time: large worship gatherings backed up with home groups. The challenge for dioceses will be in creating benefice units that are capable of supporting such a life.

A good deal will depend on how long the current lockdown lasts, and our response when restrictions are ended, but the church of 2021 may be very different to that of 2019.

Sabbath Rest

Many of us will have been feeling bewildered over the past week. In a week we have gone from the frenetic pace of modern life and work, to a world in which we are physically isolated and surrounded by quiet. Many of us find ourselves directly confronted with questions about health, wellbeing, work, rest, illness and death in a way that was not the case a week ago.

If your normal work life is anything like mine, you are confronted by a constant stream of meetings, phone calls and emails. Last week’s announcements meant that I had something like what an Oxford undergraduate might describe as a Saturday of 8th week (i.e. end of term) experience: after a period of hectic activity, you look back and ask what had actually been achieved, and what was valuable.

The measures that have been forced upon us by the threat of COVID 19 have made many of us break off from the normal round of productivity and, as we adapt to new technology, make us ask whether activities are necessary. There is an element of forced rest about the current measures: we cannot carry on as we used to. We have been forced to keep (at lest in part) a sabbath rest.

As Christians we often misunderstand the Sabbath. We tend to view it through the prism of our knowledge of a puritanical legalistic sabbatarianism that once dominated British society: a day that was about being miserable because it was felt that God would love us more if we suffered. So we have a tendency to seize on Jesus’ words and actions to justify our sabbath breaking: he did it, so we can too.

Theologically this has led us into a bad place. We buy into a Protestant work ethic in which rest is a waste of time, and that human worth is about productivity. We think that our recreation is unworthy in God’s sight. The crown of creation is not sabbath rest, but an omnipotent humanity that can do whatever it likes with the environment.

Yet what we fail to appreciate is that Jesus’ sabbath breaking was about a Christological claim, and also about the proper use of the sabbath. Jesus comments after healing on the sabbath remind us that it is not meant to be about a puffed up puritanical work to make us religiously distinct. Sabbath is holy because it is a time of healing when the ill are made whole and reincorporated into the community. A challenge for the church is how it can use this time of rest from its normal activities to bring healing, fulness of life and peace.

I pray that you find time for your own healing and that of others in the coming weeks.