Introduction: The phenomenon of online church
The topic this essay will consider is the phenomenon of online church. In this new age of online networking and communication, some Christians have begun to regularly meet online in various ways and call it ‘church’. For example, St Pixels is a text-based ‘church’ meeting facility. There are different areas in the church you can go to: the sanctuary, the lobby, the prayer room and even a bar. Once there, you can see little cartoon faces depicting other real people who are online in that room with you, and whatever you say can be read by anyone in that area. They have two regular services every week, with Bible readings, sermons, songs, prayers. I had a conversation with one of the ladies there who told me that this was her ‘church’. She hasn’t been to a real-life church for a few years, and loves the openness and fellowship at St Pixels.
Another significant online church is LifeChurch.tv. This is a church in the US that has several physical locations across the country all linked up with big screens so that you sing along with the band in Florida while watching the song leaders in Texas. There is one sermon beamed out to all the locations that everyone listens to. One place you can be part of LifeChurch is in SecondLife, a 3D world, or MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) on the internet. You can walk your character (avatar) into the LifeChurch building, sing along, hear the reading and watch the preacher on the big screen.
This is the phenomenon that’s out there. People are going to these virtual meetings, and calling them church. They’re hearing God’s word taught, they’re being encouraged, and they even stick around afterwards to chat and encourage one another. So the question is how should we think Christianly about this phenomenon?1
Key doctrines and methodological concerns
If we are going to think properly about this phenomenon of online churches, what are our key doctrines and methodological concerns?
The reason I think this is an interesting topic is because our key doctrine, Ecclesiology, seems to struggle with the idea of internet-based churches. Historically, Ecclesiology has always assumed a basic idea of Christians gathering in a geographical sense. When Jesus says, “[W]here two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them”, no one would have even thought about whether that ‘gathering’ could be done online. Until about 10 years ago, there was really just no other way to conceive of ‘gathering together’ apart from physically and geographically.2
Therefore, to help us think about this ecclesiological issue, we have to consider what other doctrines are going to be significant. The two big ones, I think, are going to be our Created Anthropology and our Eschatological Christology. We need to think about who we are this side of creation, and who it is that we are eschatologically gathered around.
I also need to point out a methodological danger we might face as we come to this topic. I think we need to be careful that we don’t make a theological argument based on personal preferences. We have to be careful of just saying things like “You can’t really have deep relationships online” or “Online interaction is never as good or as speaking face to face”. We need to be careful because many people do find internet-based relationships much deeper and more real than the shallow relationships people share at church on Sundays.3 So we need to be careful that what we say is theologically based, rather than just an expression of our preferences and cultural norms. So, with these doctrines and concerns in mind, the real question we have to ask is “Can we call these online things churches?”
Is it really church?
As mentioned before, it seems the most distinctive element of these online churches is that they lack a physical aspect. Therefore, I want to start by asking two important questions. Firstly, can we call these online events a gathering? And second, if so, how theologically important is the physical aspect of a Christians gathering? Third, are there any physical expectations of Christian gatherings that online churches cannot reproduce? After we look at these things, I’d like to conclude by offering some final reflections about meeting in a fallen world, and how well we do church in our circles.
1. Can we call online church a ‘gathering’4
The eschatological picture of church we’re given in the New Testament is of a great gathering of God’s redeemed people around their redeemer, Christ. All glory and praise is directed to the Father’s Son who took on physicality and was slain. It’s this eschatological reality that our churches here and now are meant to be reflecting—people commonly relating at a certain time and place.5 Now, driven by the Spirit, Christians will find a place where, at a certain time, they can do this Christ-oriented thing together.6
If this is our picture of Christian gathering, it’s hard to say that an online church isn’t a real gathering because an online church is people commonly relating together around Christ at a certain time. It may not be in a geographical location like we’re used to, but it is still a place in some sense. You have to find it and log in, and choose to go. And when you’re there, other real people are there also. You’re not distant from them. Knox has a good term we can steal to describe this: he talks about being “in each other’s company”.7 That’s how Christians are when they go to one of these online churches. They talk, see and hear each other. They participate together in the songs, the sermon and the prayers. Although it’s not a physical or geographical gathering, it is still a gathering of people at a certain time to do a certain thing.
What I’m suggesting is this: church is when a group of Christians draw their collective attention to their Lord and Saviour and each other as his brothers and sisters at the same time. Sometimes Christians will do this is in a jail cell, a room, a house, a hall or even a stadium, and sometimes Christians will even do it in a certain place online. At that moment, they are in each other’s company, and their minds and hearts are drawn to one another and to the Lord. Therefore, I think we’re hard-pressed to say that an online church isn’t a real gathering just because it’s not physical.
But if that means Christians can ‘gather’ together validly online, does that mean the physical aspect of gathering isn’t that important? Are physical gatherings just a pre-21st century crutch?
2. How important is the physical aspect?
Again, when we come to think about the physical aspect of church, our anthropology and Christology are very important. We have been created physical beings in a physical world which is innately good. And what’s more, God in his Son took on flesh like ours to save us. When we’re in the new creation, it will be a physical place and we will physically know what we now hold in faith (1 Cor 13:12, 2 Cor 4:18). Ecclesiologically, on that day we will be physically gathered around Christ. The heavenly reality of church is a physical reality.
So, if the heavenly ‘being-in-each-other’s-company’ is physical, how important is the physical aspect of this collective mutual relation?8 In other words, how much do relationships require physicality? This really comes down to a theology of relationships.
A starting point, therefore, is to note that human relationships at both the beginning and the end of God’s redemptive history are physical. It seems that physically expressed relationships are the ideal. They’re ideal in the sense that it’s how God dreams us to be. Physically being together provides the opportunity for an ideal expression of personal relationships. However, although this is true, relationships can still be real and deep and flourishing all without physicality.9
We see this most clearly when we think about our present relationship with Christ. The deepest and most significant relationship anyone can have is with Jesus. And yet, even though this relationship grows and matures over time, it has no physical closeness in this life. We are presently physically separated from Christ, yet we grow in our relationship with him. One day our relationship with him will be physical. But the point is that, theologically, though relationships with physical propinquity are ideal, true relationships—deep relationships—can develop without physicality.
3. New Testament physical expectations
But there is one more question we need to consider about churches that lack this physical aspect. Can they facilitate everything that the New Testament expects gathered Christians to do? Are there things which the New Testament expects gathered Christians to be able to do that just can’t be done online? I’d like to suggest two.10
Firstly, five times in the New Testament Christians are called to greet one another with a kiss (Rom 16:16, 1 Cor 16:20, 2 Cor 13:12, 1 Thess 5:26, 1 Pet 5:14). There seems to be a biblical expectation that Christians don’t just meet together, they also express their fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ physically. They took a physical greeting that was culturally only for family members, and used it to express their common Sonship in Christ.11 I’ve racked my brain, and I just can’t think how this can be done online adequately. Maybe others can.
Secondly, I don’t think you can do the Lord’s Supper online. The picture Paul paints in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 is of the Christians gathered together sharing in one loaf of bread. They don’t have their own loaves; they all share in the same loaf as a physical expression that they all share in the same Christ. You just can’t do that online. Serious questions must be raised if the most significant expression of Christian unity in the New Testament cannot be done in an online gathering.12
Initial conclusion
From the brief theological bases we have jumped from, I think we can say that online churches are real Christian gatherings where Christ’s people can relate to one another deeply, love one another and become more like Christ. However, even though an online church can be a real Christian gathering, I don’t think it’s an ideal Christian gathering; it’s just not how God dreams us to be. It seems that the physicality of the eschatological church and human relationships means geographical churches are theologically more ideal, but no more real.
Final thoughts
Having thought through this topic, there are some important practical issues that are worth noting. Firstly, our doctrine of sin should remind us that many people have been hurt physically and emotionally when they have gathered physically. This means such online churches may seem very appealing to these people. It provides them with a layer of protection, while also allowing them to ‘open up’ much more than they could in face-to-face conversation at church. It is terrible that sin has had this debilitating effect, and we need to show grace towards people trapped by such fears.
Second, such online churches need to face the obvious dangers of Gnosticism and must resist ultimately denying the goodness of creation. These churches may need a more-than-normal emphasis on the physicality of the resurrection to balance such dangers. Accordingly, trying to gather physically would be an appropriate desire for an online community.13 Hopefully these meetings will allow those who are trapped by fear to have that being-in-common experience in a more physically ideal way as we have suggested.
However, the last point I want to make is the most significant for our own circles. I genuinely question whether many people in our congregations would find the experience of online church much different to their present geographical churches. Most Christians 19 years old and up (Generation X and most of Y) would probably prefer geographical gatherings, but I wonder whether they would notice anything different in what they do or how they relate to others online. More significantly, many below this age seem to be much more embracing of online relationships and communities. I fear this group especially could look at these two forms of gathering and see nothing special about meeting together physically. Therefore, I think, having examined this topic, it’s worth asking how well we are going at expressing and celebrating the physical aspect of meeting together.
Have we lost physical expressions of our fellowship with Christ, like the Lord’s Supper and greeting one another with a kiss? The thing that made these actions so special in the first century was partly because they were culturally insensitive. It would have been cultural suicide for a Jew and Gentile, or a master and slave, to eat from the same loaf and to greet each other as brothers. But those very physical actions screamed something very significant: here were two men—a master and slave, even—who had a deeper brotherhood than they had with members of their own family. Is there any expression of anything like this in our present-day meetings? What are we doing that screams to ourselves and to the world that the cultural norms of this earthly kingdom are not fitting for those of us who belong to the heavenly kingdom?
This essay has only begin to think in this direction, and much more consideration needs to be given as to how this might look, but here are a few thoughts. Picking up this culturally insensitive element of the Lord’s Supper is harder to do in our (mostly) non-racist culture. Maybe this is best expressed by excluding non-believers and making it clear that this meal is only for those united together in Christ.14 The New Testament encouragement to greet with a kiss is easier to consider. What if godly Christian men really did greet each other with a manly kiss? (Or a hug; let’s take it one step at a time.) What if they did it not just in church, but also when they meet at the shops or at the pub? Would that speak to us and to the world that Christianity isn’t just something you believe, but instead it’s something that changes who you are? Would that help people see how special it is that we physically gather, as we will when Christ returns?
Endnotes
1 Unfortunately, this seems to be a question that has rarely (if ever) been pondered by those few who have written on the subject. Most seem to begin where we have—by noting that such online events exist (or could exist if they were written before 2001). However, none that I have found have thought about how such a phenomenon fits with the doctrine of ecclesiology, for example. See Brenda E. Brasher, Give me that Online Religion (San-Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 2001); Heidi. Cambell, ‘“This Is My Church”: Seeing the Internet and Club Culture as Spiritual Spaces’ in Religion Online: Finding Faith in the Internet (Edited by Lorne L. Dawson and Douglas E. Cowan. New York: Routledge, 2004), 107-121; Daniel M. Griswold, ‘Beyond the Hype: The Internet and the Church’ Perspectives 18 (2001): 8-9; Cheryl Perry and Dianne Greenslade, eds. Get Me to the Church Online (Kelowna: Wood Lake Books, 1998). Walter P. Wilson, The Internet Church (Nashville, Word: 2000); James P. ‘Wind, Crossing the Digital Divide: New Forms of Community on the Virtual Frontier’ Congregations 27/3 (2001): 8-9, 28.
2 DB Knox says “[B]eing in fellowship with God and one another through the gospel, involves being with one another in a physical visible assembly or meeting”. David Broughton Knox, ‘The Church’ in Selected Works Volume II: Church and Ministry (Kingsford: Matthias, 2003), 21.
3 Several examples of this have been written about in newspaper articles and online forums: Miraclemansmom (online alias) ‘Would You Go to Church Online?’, Cited 24 Sept. 2007. Online: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/239205/would_you_go_to_church_online.html; Reuters News Services. ‘Hooked on the Web, No Time for Nookies’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September, 2007. Vachon Che, ‘Reply—July 14, 2007, 2:08 pm’ in Finally a Church You Can Attend in Your Underwear. Cited 24 Sept. Online: http://www.newlife-glastonbury.org/blog/2007/04/10/finally-a-church-you-can-attend-in-your-underwear/
4 It is beyond the scope of this question to debate different ecclesiological views, rather we will rely heavily on DB Knox’s view.
5 See Knox, David Broughton. ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’ in D Broughton Knox Selected Works. Volume 2: Church and Ministry (Kirsten Birkett ed. Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2003), 57.
6 Knox, ‘Fellowship’, 76.
7 This is the ‘basis’ of friendship, which Knox says continues “when we are not together physically”. He also says that we “continue in each other company in our mind and spirit”. Knox, ‘Fellowship’, 57.
8 It’s worth noting that every earthly expression of the heavenly gathering fails to reflect some aspect of it. Take the universality of the heavenly church. The heavenly church is the gathering of all God’s people from every tribe and nation. It is not divided into a morning congregation and an evening congregation, it’s not a set of Bible study groups. So we could say that every time we take one of our Sunday churches and split it up into groups, we’re moving away from that universal aspect of the heavenly reality. So if we’re happy to let slide that aspect of the heavenly church, what’s wrong with letting the physical aspect of church slide also?
9 We can see this in how Paul continues to have a relationship with the churches he’s planted, and even how he has a relationship with the Colossians who he has never even met. He says in Colossians 2:5, ‘For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.’
10 I should begin by saying that, surprisingly, there are a lot of ways that Christians can love and care and encourage each other on the internet. You can send flowers, organize a meal, get someone to mow a lawn—and all from the other side of the world. You can correct, rebuke and encourage. You can preach the word. You can listen and share one another’s burdens. So much of how the New Testament expects Christians to treat one another can be done online. But there are two things I don’t think can be done online.
11 Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Rom 16:16.
12 But, then again, if you personally don’t think the Lord’s Supper is that important for Christian gatherings, this point is null and void.
13 From my research, many online churches naturally attempt this.
14 Maybe we should put signs outside our churches: “Sunday 10 am Lord’s Supper Service: Christians ONLY! Non-Christians may come but not participate!”
Bibliography
Brasher, Brenda E. Give me that Online Religion. San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Cambell, Heidi. ‘”This Is My Church”: Seeing the Internet and Club Culture as Spiritual Spaces’. Pages 107-121 in Religion Online: Finding Faith in the Internet. Edited by Lorne L. Dawson and Douglas E. Cowan. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Che, Vachon. ‘Reply—July 14, 2007, 2:08 pm’ in Finally a Church You Can Attend in Your Underwear. Cited 24 Sept. Online: http://www.newlife-glastonbury.org/blog/2007/04/10/finally-a-church-you-can-attend-in-your-underwear/
Griswold, Daniel M. ‘Beyond the Hype: The Internet and the Church’. Perspectives 18 (2001): 8-9.
Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Knox, David Broughton. ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’. Pages 57-84 in D. Broughton Knox Selected Works. Volume 2: Church and Ministry. Edited by Kirsten Birkett. Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2003. Repr. B. G. Webb (ed.), Explorations 2: Church, Worship and the Local Congregation. Sydney: Lancer, 1987.
Knox, David Broughton ‘The Church’. Pages 19-22 in D. Broughton Knox Selected Works. Volume 2: Church and Ministry. Edited by Kirsten Birkett. Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2003.
Miraclemansmom (online alias) ‘Would You Go to Church Online?’, Cited 24 Sept. 2007. Online: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/239205/would_you_go_to_church_online.html.
Perry, Cheryl and Dianne Greenslade, eds. Get Me to the Church Online. Kelowna: Wood Lake Books, 1998.
Reuters News Services. ‘Hooked on the Web, No Time for Nookies’, The Sydney Morning Herald. Cited 21 September, 2007.
Reuters News Services. ‘Online Buddies Are Fair Weather Friends’, The Sydney Morning Herald. Cited 11 September, 2007. Online: http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/online-buddies-are-fair-weather-friends/2007/09/11/1189276688256.html
Wilson, Walter P. The Internet Church. Nashville, Word: 2000.
Wind, James P. ‘Crossing the Digital Divide: New Forms of Community on the Virtual Frontier’. Congregations 27/3 (2001): 8-9, 28.
