Throughout our marriage, which marked its 44th year last month, my husband John and I have been “early adopters” of new technology. Part of that stems from my “gadget guy;” he bought our first home computer around 1979. I think I made my first online purchase, a blouse from JC Penney, in 1989, long before the easy-to-use picture interface made its debut for PCs.
Plus, the newspaper and printing industries in which we’ve worked have undergone massive changes in the past half-century. Until about 15 years ago, when the bottom started falling out of our professions, we made a good living because we worked on the bleeding edge of innovation.
Given that we’ve lived through one “tectonic event” as business schools call it, you’d think the digital tsunami inflicted on the Church by the global coronavirus pandemic wouldn’t rock me at all. I’ve worked via the Internet for the past 15 years. I’m addicted to Facebook. I tolerate Twitter enough to post updates for this online journal, but I don’t use Snapchat or TikTok. I have a Pinterest account and an Instagram account that I rarely visit (so maybe that’s why I’m suddenly getting notices in Italian). I have three professional email addresses for various specialties, a personal email account for family and friends, and a couple more association emails that I manage.
Even our small-but-mighty congregation has moved to an online planning, giving, and message center. So why does the rush to digital worship, online prayer, and Zoom gatherings disquiet me so? I’ve spent the past three weeks trying to figure it out, and this week I finally read something that helped me make some sense of it.
‘We can’t go back to normal’
In an article for The Guardian, Chicago-based freelance writer Peter C. Baker posed the question on everyone’s minds: "'We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world?" The summary paragraph lays out his focus: “Some believe the pandemic is a once-in-a-generation chance to remake society and build a better future. Others fear it may only make existing injustices worse.”
Bull’s-eye! We’re already seeing these two perspectives in The United Methodist Church’s debate over virtual Holy Communion. Some bishops who favor the idea of communion bringing spiritual comfort to people in the midst of this crisis are setting up guidelines for how clergy can preside via the Internet. Other bishops, adhering to a 2014 agreement that virtual worship is inappropriate for the Eucharist, are advising their clergy to substitute the Love Feast for communion.
Which view will prevail? Bishops who’ve sanctioned virtual Eucharist stress that their accommodation is solely for the duration of the pandemic lockdown. Yet, as the World War I song goes, “how ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?” Meanwhile, bishops and pastors who stress the millennia-old sanctity of the gathered meal are fearfully disturbed: aside from its theological implications, will online communion from the comfort of home further decimate in-person attendance at a time when church membership is declining rapidly?
After reading the Guardian article, however, I find myself thinking that an “either/or” mindset may be a false dichotomy, as Leonard Sweet and Richard Rohr and other contemporary spiritual prophets have asserted for years. Perhaps the current crisis gives us an opportunity as the body of Christ to jettison at last our dualistic approach to faith in favor of what United Methodist leaders have been advocating recently as “contextualizing” our ministry and mission.
Imagine this: Suppose we as the Church decided that, instead of paying millions to keep up decaying buildings, we chose the “digital divide” as our mission field in light of the dearth of computers and connections uncovered by the coronavirus pandemic. How would our ministry expand if we made sure that all of our congregations had the means and the skills to transmit worship, prayer, and Christian education during times that in-person gatherings weren’t possible? What if every one of those transmissions carried messages to come to the church building for those things that digital means can’t convey, such as a food distribution or a shared meal? And what if each of those in-person contacts was accompanied by a service of Holy Communion (only communion, not a full Sunday liturgy)?
More than learning tech
Such a vision isn’t that far a stretch. United Methodist boards, agencies and related institutions have been crossing the digital divide for years now, equipping and training individuals and congregations. And the shared meal of early Christians cited in Acts wasn’t only Eucharist; it was a full meal. In other words, we have precedents galore for making cyberspace our mission field.
However, the changes engendered by the coronavirus’ social upheaval portend much more than simply learning how to Skype or FaceTime. Foundational changes in how we live and work and minister as Christ’s Church are happening now and will continue. We have no way of knowing at this point what we’ll face, and that’s the most disturbing aspect of what we’re living through. The uncertainty of what’s coming and how to respond is shaking all religions to their core. We’re no longer necessarily tied to a particular place because of our virtual connections, but what will happen to our embodied connections as we move forward?
During these weeks of social distancing, I keep remembering a dystopian vision put forth by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’ first feature film, “THX 1138.” The film centered on a world where humans and their emotions were kept in check by drugs and robot police. At one point, the protagonist played by Robert Duvall sought solace and guidance from a plastic panel decorated with an image of Jesus while a robotic voice gave banal reassurance. I recoiled from that scene, as I imagine would most of us who believe in and sense God’s Presence with us daily. And yet that’s the fear that keeps resurfacing for me the longer we’re kept apart by COVID-19: will our technology, so necessary in this crisis, prove so manipulative, so seductive that we’re unable to back away from it in future?
Hard questions, these, as hard as being kept apart from our church families. Harder still will be summoning up the courage to make tough decisions, to trust God to help us make them, and to follow through on our choices with kindness and faith in one another. These social changes will be difficult for United Methodists who’ve been on the verge of splitting apart until coronavirus cancelled the 2020 General Conference. It’s definitely time to rethink that theological battle.
Ironically for the UMC’s schismatic tendencies, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how much we need one another. It has also shown us how easy it can be to use technology to separate from one another, to overpower one another, even to abuse one another (for a troubling example, look up “zoombombing”). Yet despite my own disquiet, a tiny flame of hope still burns.
Like most of us, I’ve watched lots of movies these past three weeks. This week I returned to a longtime favorite, “The Lion in Winter,” starring Peter O’Toole as King Henry II and Katharine Hepburn as his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. As one point in their family’s Christmas Eve feud, Queen Eleanor says, “Love, in a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything is possible.” She meant it sarcastically, but we know she’s right: if we set our sights on what’s best for the most people, with God’s help anything is possible.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011. Click here to email her news of how you and your congregation are coping with the coronavirus pandemic.