The Church Online?
After having been told off this morning at church for not ‘friending’ someone as quickly as apparently I should have on Facebook, I was reminded of a discussion at the World Council of Churches General Assembly that I attended last year in Brazil.*
A group of us was talking about the role of technology in the future of the church, especially with regards to ‘young people’ who, in the terms of the World Council, was anyone under the age of 35. The conversation turned to the question of sacraments, and whether or not they would be valid if performed over the internet.
Now, the knee-jerk reaction of many would be to say, no, of course not, and in same cases I think I would agree. One definition of a sacrament would describe how it needs to have both words and a physical act together in order to be properly celebrated. One can see this is the combination of liturgical words and actions present in baptism and the Eucharist. In baptism, the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” are said while water is poured over the candidate’s head. In the Eucharist, the words of Jesus at the last supper are repeated while bread and wine are held up in a reflection of that event, and these elements are then shared with the congregation.
One could see some inherent difficulties in sharing these kinds of activities electronically, although perhaps we should not preclude the idea of some future technology that would allow in the sharing of ‘virtual’ elements. Personally, I think that part of the gospel message to our modern world needs to be that we should be more grounded in the real, physical world and not loose ourselves inside our technology (which real, physical sacraments might help with), but I also would certainly never want to discount what God might do through what we have created.
On the other hand, a sacrament such as reconciliation (or confession of you prefer) does not necessarily have a physical act associated with it. In some traditions it might entail a laying on of hands, but not always. Similarly, although prayers for the sick might involve anointing with oil, they needn’t necessarily. There are numerous websites where you can ask for prayers for yourself or another, or ask to be forgiven for your sins. Some will even allow you to chat in real time with another person, perhaps a ‘confessor’ or a ‘prayer partner’. Are these valid only as potentially helpful spiritual encounters or are they sacramental acts? I think that the boundary is much more gray here. In one sense, the physical act of being with another person is an important part of our relationships with other human beings and collectively in our relationship with God. But in another sense, some would certainly believe in the transformative and healing power of prayer that may or may not be occurring in the same physical space as those being prayed for.
What is clear to me above all else is that these and future technologies will continue to impact the Church in real and meaningful ways, and we should embrace them rather than running away to hide because we don’t understand them or we don’t like the implications of what they might mean. This is not to say that there is not a place for a theological understanding of what role technology should have in society, but that any such understanding needs to be grounded in a reality that is fully experienced and explored.
*For anyone who does not know, Facebook is an website where you can network with your friends, and by extension their friends, to build online communities. The key is that you have to ask permission to be added as a ‘friend’ to somebody’s list, and so you send them a ‘friend request’. If they approve you, you are then permitted to look at their profile, or whatever portion of it they choose to show you, so that you can get to know them better and discover connections with others in similar communities.
