Cyber community, e-mail-prayer lists and the Revealings of False Community and our own Self-Deceptions
Friday, June 09, 2006
In Emmanuel Katongole’s Beyond Universal Reason he talks about (actually how Hauerwas talks about) how novels, good fiction, biographies and auto-biographies provide ways to experience concretely the sort of lives formed by different stories without experimenting with one’s own life as well (p. 136). We benefit, in other words, by seeing how other narratives and accounts of reality bear fruit in the character of other people’s lives. We are able to test or prove the power of another one’s story without entering into its potential destruction for our own. I view this to be a telling and brilliant analysis of the way we sort out truth within the narrative worlds of a post-modern society. Having said this however, there is the danger of living only in fictional, semi fictional or, dare I say, cyber worlds given the fractured world of simulacra we live in today.
In an admittedly obscure footnote Katongole offers this thick bit of caution,
“Significant as it is, fictional contact can never be a surrogate for the hermeneutical necessity of actual contact with real people. This particularly needs to be stressed in the context of the technology- controlled world of cyberspace. In cyberspace, a lonely soul, the product of the modern market and liberal individualism, seeks engagement with the other, but without, however, the epistemological and moral challenge such a contact would normally have. No doubt, cyberspace may create certain feelings and thoughts, but only in a way which significantly detaches them from their ‘normal’ context in life. This means that one is neither able to be seriously challenged by, nor himself/herself able to help or hinder, benefit or harm, comfort or dismay, the other … “ (p.286)Brilliant I say. Especially for a time such as this when church seems to be hyper-individualizing to the point of removing all serious contact between persons. I recently saw where entire churches are being founded on the web here and here among many examples. There is no space, time, flesh and blood meeting of people for worship or sending out. All of this happens in cyberspace. We might be quick to laugh this off as an extreme example. But there are some similar dangerous drifts possible in the swell of various means of cyber communication used to organize churches today in N. America. I contend we need to be aware of the dangers of hyper individualizing as the chat-rooms, blogs, instant e-mail technology, the onslaught of cell phone pod casts, wi-fi communication, proliferate as organizing forces in our churches. Indeed, we may be creating a copy of the church which is really not the church, i.e. a simulacrum of the church.
Once again, as always, I am not suggesting we dump the use of these tools altogether. I have admired the way certain churches and para church organizations have used “yahoo-group” conversations and chat rooms to facilitate communication. Our own church has greatly benefited from using these tools. But I believe we must ask these questions. For instance, we must ask, at what point do the ways we use e-mails to create communities for prayer request-sharing, and conversation-sharing create false community, a simulacrum of the church?
And so, this is the threat posed to the church by the endless parade of new communication technology. We risk setting up false simulacra of community, prayer, and even worship by centering it around the Internet which enables convenience but also enables us to never having to actually meet together. We set up false worlds where little or no prayer is actually going on, it just looks like it is going on. Worse, cyber engagements protect us in our own delusions. We rarely are challenged out of our own self-deception because we never are challenged morally or epistemologically by close contact with the other, as Katongole says.
In the end, there are reasons why we must physically gather, to physically lay hands on the sick in community (James 5.16). There are reasons why the most powerful moments happen when we engage one another’s physical presense sometimes in silence, sometimes only in listening, yet being present enough to speak genuine words of truth in love that build up, transform and heal another person by the Spirit (Eph 4:15,25-32; 5:8-13). There are reasons why Jesus is present when two or three are gathered in His name (Matt 18:18-20). There are physical social reasons why His special presense comes to us as we gather around the meal at the Lord’s Table. And so it almost goes without saying that all of this takes us beyond cyberworld and cyber-dispersed prayers? All of this is probably obvious. Yet I believe this level of community is growing ever more extinct among the worlds of cyberspace. I believe the small emerging house churches are one way of fighting this drift. At our church, we are continually fighting to make time for triads (places where three or more gather for these simple practices), house gatherings (times of sharing a meal and conversation together cross generationally), and social engagements with the poor. For these are the spaces out of where real life gives birth to real mission, real change in character gives birth to witness, real transformation of the soul gives birth to real engagement of the poor and the sick and the lonely.
How are others discerning the use of cyber-tools in your churches? How are others finding spaces for the physical contact with the other?
Posted by David Fitch | 8:27 AM
COMMENTS:
Dave,
Good post. I love the fact that it's based in an obscure footnote.
I agree there is something special and uniquely important about our meeting together in person. I think a lot of it has to do with what we might call the "negative" aspects of our relationships. That is, the fact that when we come together in person with other people we are forced to deal with each other's baggage and all the things about other people that annoy us. In cyber-community we don't really have to deal with these kinds of things as we can simply walk away from the screen or block the other person's comments from our blog, etc. I know some Christians who don't spend much time in community, and, as a result, they tend to be harshly critical of others, ungracious, impatient, and arrogant. I've found that it is also much easier to treat other people with rudeness and incivility in a virtual community. Some of the rudest, most mean spirited treatment I've received in the past couple of months has come from Christians on other blogs.
I also couldn't help but think of online dating services as I was reading this post. It seems to articulate some of the same concerns I have about them as well.
Lastly, I really resonate with the part about fiction and fictional worlds providing us with the chance to broaden our awareness of the how certain ways of being in and looking at the world can bear certain kinds of fruit in people's lives. I think immersing ourselves in good art, literature, film, etc. can really help us as Christians to understand better where unbelievers are coming from, as well as deepening our own understanding of God's world and the gospel. These things can't replace lived communion with others, but they can supplement our lived experiences and help us to empathize more with others, which strikes me as a necessary aspect of healthy community.
Peace,
Gordon
2:04 PM
Simply excellent ... a wonderful expansion of this blog post ... that made it better ... thanks .. DF
8:42 AM
I definitely think cyber-tools boost the ever-present risk of sectarian behavior in the Body of Christ. That's not to say that they can't serve the church in some positive ways. However, I think there is a greater danger in things being done so impersonally. The children among us learn so much through participation and observance and it will be harder for them to know what the Body is about if they only see their parents on the computer an awful lot.
In the church I previously attended there were a couple times per year when we would have a Saturday that was geared around getting all of the kids together with their parents for a day of playing, creating and just eating together/being together.
//Jenny
5:52 AM
There is another way to look at this.
One is that all this individualized interactivity online is not the final flourishing of individualism, but the beginning stages of the development of the capacity for genuine human relationships. The technological advances that have made social networking software possible are far advanced in comparison to our human capacity for taking advantage of this technology. Our use of this technology is at an immature stage of development because one, much of this interactivity is not really relational, but a social activity of being with people who have common interests. It is more just finding an environment that validates my own views and opinions. These are not really relationships in the sense that genuine trust and mutuality is developed. Second, there is the silly belief that personal identity is not something real, but merely a facade that one takes on in differing circumstances. This exploration of the boundaries of identity may have a place, but if there is no starting point, then there is really no journey to somewhere, only a wandering in a confused setting.
The question that pastors and church leaders should ask about the use of online technology in the church is how is it suppose to change how we relate to one another as the Body of Christ. Without clarity on that point, it will not progress towards realizing the benefits of the technology.
1:47 PM
Interestingly, our pastor recently gave a sermon whose primary topic was technology and its effect on the Christian community, in the context of the Word of God and how it's message is given and recieved. He talked about the teachings of Marshall McLuhan, and the difference between the ancient Hebrew's oral tradition and our written tradition, and how that changes the very message itself, since "the medium is the message" (Marshall McLuhan).
He is also taking, interestingly an online class, at Fuller, and is currently doing a blog series by which he is posting his research paper on the topic, also primarily based on the teachings of Marshall McLuhan.
Another thing that is being considered in our church is an online private chatroom for our leadership training community, only, however, for the second year of the program. We have already been through the first year, in which there was littel to no "online community", but in which a very intimate and fruitful community was developed "in person". The online community in year two would only be an "extension" of the face to face community already developed in year one. This whole idea for year two, however, is still only a possibility and hypothesis.
I would like to present another question, taking the dialogue a step further. If, according to McLuhan, "we become what we behold" (and I agree with him), then what do we become as a Christian community if the technology through which we relate to each other is and creates a virtual world, a virtual context, and virtual net of relationships, and is "merely a simulacra"? I'm curious to know how the statement "we become what we behold" strikes many of my fellow-Christians. I'm also curious to know what such a beginning point then logically follows into for many of us.
"Arnold Toynbee made one approach to the transforming power of media in his concept of 'etherialization', which he holds to be the principle of progressive simplification and effeciency in any organization or technology. Typically, he is ignoring the EFFECT of the challenge of these forms upon the response of our senses. He imagines that it is the response of our opinions that is relevant to the effect of media or technology in society, a 'point of view' that is plainly the result of the typographic spell. For the man in a literate and homogenized society ceases to be sensitive to the diverse and discontinuous life of forms. He asquires the illusion of the third dimension and the 'private point of view' as part of his Narcissus fixation, and is quite shut off from Blake's awareness or that of the Psalmist, that we become what we behold." - p. 19, Understanding Media, by Marshall McLuhan.
Is this really a question of our very identity, or is the issue really limited to the "best way" to form a community? Is our very identity at stake ("we become what we behold"), in which we carry cyberspace in the deep recesses of our memory-banks with us to the church sanctuary, or is what's at stake simply one way of doing things or not doing things, that changes the moment we either enter or leave cyberspace or change our opinion or "point of view" on the matter? Further, like getting "swept up into" Bach's "Ode to Joy" by the time we are "one note into it", if we ARE "in" cyberspace from the very first moment we make contact with it, and we "become what we behold", then how do we counter that illusion-making force for the coming of the kingdom of the God of Is-Real?
8:44 PM
Jason ... I love the use of McLuhan ... and the phrase ... "we become what we behold." Indeed, this phrase illumines why space, art, and focus are important as we gather in person to worship. This all extends the conversation to significant levels I think are so important for we who are aware of what modernity is doing to us.
To Jenny, I like the connection between sectarianism and cyber technology ... since often my thought, as alligned with hauerwas as it is, is often viewed swith sectarian suspicions where I am of course trying to push in the opposite direction.
Thanks again to Ed ... I'm still processing you my man ...
DF
6:52 AM
Speaking of how the internet seems to support sectarianism (something of which I am admittedly very guilty), why were there 24 comments to your liberalism and fundamentalism blog, but only 6 to this one? Is it because that one requires a subjective postion on varous theoretical propositions, whereas this one is simply based more primarily on some perception? I am thining of McLuhan's quotes, "Moral indignation is the technique used to endow the idiot with dignity", and "I have observed for many years that people often like to substitute anger for perception." The second one is probably more relevant, as I don't really know very many idiots, unless by idiot one simply means, as McLuhan seems to hint toward, one who lacks perception of the things around him or her. It could probably be said that the current bombardment of information turns us all into blumbering idiots. I, deerr, uuhhh...feel that way, uuhh, sometimes, or, uuhh, maybe most of the time.
4:22 PM
Thanks for this, David, especially the second to last paragraph.
4:05 PM
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