There are some Twitter avatars or Facebook profiles that when they arrive on your timeline, you intuitively know what they are about to say, and you are provoked in one direction or another. Subtly, your sense of indignation or support is buoyed less by the individual’s profile before and more by the subgroup they represent that you either see yourself in or set yourself against. Without formal identification, there is a communal identity that we often take on that is not formed by our local community or ecclesial membership but by our online interaction. Not taking a name or forming a page, these groups are created by people’s choice of follows, replies, and interest. In other words, they are largely and subtly shaped by algorithms.
In this world of online community, within Christianity there exists numerous online sub-groups that offer lively and personal communal hubs for various people. In the six way fracturing framework previously laid out by Michael Graham and myself, you find the formation, recruitment, and sustaining of subgroups centered around shared experiences or theological interests. While, certainly, at times such grouping has just, correcting, and therapeutic results - as seen in the exposing of sin in things like #churchtoo or the confronting of theological error as in the debates surrounding EFS - there is also a tendency within these groups to absolutize their own particular understanding of Christianity. The perpetually online Christian descends deeper into sub-groups within sub-groups, confirming and reinforcing certain ideas, narratives, and views concerning the church, its leadership, its theology, and its expression today. In doing so, one might find themselves replacing the role of the church, as instituted by Jesus Christ, and the role it is meant to serve in the lives of believers.
This is a problem that one encounters both in those attuned to theological debates and those attuned to personal experiences within the church. Both groups, in various ways, can be enormous blessings to those who count themselves in their number, but they also run the risk of leaving their members lacking in a holistic formation that is meant to be found in the church. As Jake Meador has correctly observed, first and foremost, this is a question of discipleship, which raises the question: is the online discipleship we tacitly receive conducive to the growth of the subgroup or the health of the church? With this question, another then rises: is it conducive to the health and holistic formation of individual Christians?
Below, I will explore two headings that represent a wide array of subgroups – the theologically concerned and the church life concerned – for how they offer truncated forms of Christian discipleship, and I will conclude with reflections on the importance of discipleship within the church in the digital age.
Theological discourse on social media has been a reality for the church for upwards of twenty years, going back to the days of chat rooms. For many, like myself, the online communities developed around the instruction and discussion of theology were enormously beneficial in the early days of their personal theological development. As Samuel James rightly observed of the merits of online theological discourse, “Online technology makes exchange of ideas easier, convenient, and absent the barriers of credentialism and geography. It makes sense that Christians who take their doctrine seriously would gravitate toward it.”
As a result, the primary discipleship for many young people today, especially those who aspire to pastoral ministry, has taken place in online spaces. No doubt, at times, this leads one back to the church where these online disciples might find fellow theologically interested online co-travelers for them to continue their discussions offline and in teaching the church. However, as Marshall McLuhan has taught us, the medium is the message.
The medium of online engagement in subgroups carries with it habits and beliefs that, in turn, form people on fundamental levels. There are many ways this might manifest itself, but for my purposes here, I want to highlight one formative message communicated by this medium: humans are disembodied thought-processors that are primarily shaped and formed by their stated and defended beliefs. One’s humanity is no deeper than their online persona.
Theological engagement caters itself to this message, championing the banner of truth with little regard for the embodied or affective dimensions of humans. This is not necessarily a critique (yet) as other spaces similarly foster such environments (such as academic journals). The concern is raised when the patterns of such online discourse come to totalize the task of theology without regard for the more fundamental patterns of human communication, learning, and formation. As a result, the subgroup primarily concerned for the church’s theology can tend to find itself emotionally stunted and anthropologically deficient.
For these subgroups, the suggestion to be “winsome” can seem audacious because they have failed to be fully formed theologically in environments that would compel one to clarity, charity, and humility in theological discourse. As a result, theological discourse is not defined by persuasion intended to guide the listener toward belief, but is rather simply a series of assertions demanding acceptance by the listener.
Most notably, a subgroup demonstrating this posture might have failed to be theologically developed in and by the church. As opposed to Ian Bogost’s suggestion that “people just aren’t meant to talk this much,” I want to offer that people are rather talking too much in the wrong environments. For the one primarily formed theologically online, these contexts work against the goal of their communication by failing to open them up to fruitful engagement with opposing views and meaningful connection to human life. Social media mimes human communication without its fullness.
Subgroups that are concerned for the church’s life and practice share various concerns and experiences from across the ideological spectrum. Conceptually, much of what has been previously stated applies here. This might include groups with concerns ranging from liberal inroads made into the church, to alienation and loneliness experienced at a large church or church they disagreed with politically, to those who have shared experiences and concerns centered on past and perpetuated abuses by individuals and structures within the church.
If you’ll excuse my oversimplification, I still believe there is a shared thread between these subgroups that connects them. Often, subgroups centered on their concern for the church’s life find themselves primarily discipled by personal experiences and subsequent feelings and interpretations of those experiences shared by others. Practically, this might look like someone who is already involved online finding a profile that is voicing many of their concerns and sharing experiences similar to their own. They begin to connect more with that profile, which opens them to other profiles of similar experiences and concerns. In time, this person begins to share their own experience, which is then interpreted by others in this subgroup they now find themselves in. While they may have initially had other interpretations or explanations for their experiences, the subgroup’s come to be their own.
Now, in my description, I admit this might sound like a wholly negative turn of events. This is not necessarily the truth. As I have seen in my own life, this sort of experience can offer perspectives one could not otherwise access and help reform a person according to the biblical ethic. There can be legitimate benefits to many found in subgroups connecting to their experiences.
Still, this does not excuse the weaknesses and dangers of such discipleship. Dealing in the realm of subjective personal experience from platforms separated by thousands of miles and with no personal knowledge of the other person’s unique context and experience is dangerous. Likewise, entrusting your experiences into the hands of others in this way is a startling amount of trust to place in people that do not know you well enough to help shepherd your heart to fountains of living water. Interpretations and feelings that arise from one’s experiences, when disconnected from a committed context like the church, can easily stray from the deep well of scripture as it is taught and lived out by our brothers and sisters in Christ near us.
Often, this comes from the sad reality that social media subgroups trend towards expressions of anger and resentment rather than cathartic reconciliation. Elsewhere, Meador is helpful in identifying this problem, “One side effect of this is that in forming coalitions and alliances, it is more intuitive and natural for heavily networked people to band together over common objects of hatred or fear or concern rather than common objects of love.” Coalitions centered on fear and hate then habituate us to mental and emotional pathways that our subsequent experiences will follow, shaping us more than our theology.
My purpose in writing this reflection is not merely to raise alarm bells concerning our continued use and misuse of media technologies. I am sure the alarm bells have been ringing in many of our ears for quite some time. Rather, I want to raise the more subtle reality that lurks beneath the surface. Our preferences and the algorithm’s smelling of that blood in the water sorts us into subgroups that reinforce and reiterate our natural (and at times worst) inclinations towards topics and other people. As a result, we are largely dealing with a problem of discipleship and formation rather than mere media consumption. In other words, “You are what you eat.”
My hope would be to call subgroups focused on the church’s theology and subgroups focused on their experiences in the church to see that the discipleship they receive from their subgroups is deficient in various ways. The theology concerned will undermine the church’s diversity, as they fail to learn from the whole church. The church-life concerned will undermine the church’s unity, as they fracture and drift from the church.
For the church and its leaders, we must respond to this reality by cultivating spaces in our church that fulfill the good aspects these subgroups grope at while filling out the places they lack. This means we must promote the church and create systems within it that take on the burden of theological development of its members from a young age onward. In the embodied context of the local church with different people at different places in their theological journey, the diversity of the church helpfully shapes and reshapes our theological development by “filling out all the corners” through considering perspectives we would miss, teaching and being taught, and charitably engaging with differing views.
Likewise, the church and its leaders must respond to this reality by cultivating spaces for healing in the church that help members of all ages and backgrounds sort through their experiences in life and in the church. Churches must be humble to admit their failures and faults and quick to repent and adapt, while remaining faithful to scripture. The church’s body of believers, even in small churches, share a wealth of experiences that one can draw from to understand and faithfully interact with their own experiences. With these two concerns met by the church’s fulfillment of its calling to build up the strong and care for the weak, the church will see a beautiful interplay between these two spaces. The church will find theological resources that are attuned and will care for the wounded. The church will also find therapeutic resources that draw on the full wealth of scripture.
My concerns above are not meant to suggest one cannot or should not be shaped theologically and personally by online platforms and resources. Theological and personal formation that is driven by those embedded in and influenced by the local church and that seeks the edification of the local church is a gift that online media offers us. When those resources arise from the church and then return to the church, they are a mutually reinforcing good that we are right to purchase and partake in. Still, we must be aware of the excesses platforms might be given to and constantly be returning to the local church as God’s good gift to us for our particular location and season in life. Paul teaches us this in Ephesians 4. Let us not forget it.
Your local church embodies the unity of the Spirit – one Lord, one faith, one baptism – and the diversity of gifts given to each of us according to Christ’s gift. It is there, in the local church, God has given us shepherds and teachers to equip us for the work of ministry, “building up the body of Christ, until we attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” It is there that we find the solid ground to no longer be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” It is there that we learn to speak the truth in love, grow up into Christ, and build one another up in love.