Gavin Ortlund and Jay Kim question if the essential physical elements of traditional church can be authentically replicated in a virtual environment. They consider how digital platforms may supplement our church experience but ultimately conclude it ought to be a stepping stone to a more profound sense of community and belonging in a physical setting.
Transcript
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Jay Kim
Gavin, I have a question about the church and the digital age, and specifically the metaverse, this sort of strange but increasingly ubiquitous space that people are spending time in. Is church in the metaverse an oxymoron. Or is it possible?
Gavin Ortlund
Yeah, it is. I’m hesitant to say only negative things about technology because I feel like I’ll be a hypocrite if all I do is talk about how bad technology is. And it’s so dangerous because I have a YouTube channel. I think that’s a form of ministry. You know, we can use technology in limited ways. For ministry and for there’s good that can be had. But when I think of church, you know, we think of the sacraments, for example, the sacraments are one of the marks of a church, you don’t have a church without sacraments. So baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and those are physical acts, a church is irreducibly physical, you know, you need physical bodies for church because you have to have people there to get into the water or to eat the bread and wine. And so that’s just one example of where something gets lost if you’re moving away from face to face, bodily contact. And of course, there’s so many others we could think of, but I think the driving pastoral heart that probably both of us have here is just we don’t want people to lose what is so valuable about that face to face interaction. Yeah,
Jay Kim
I mean, whatever your theology of the sacraments may be, what is undeniable is that they are physical, tactile, embodied experiences, and realities, the resurrected Christ eats lunch, you know, there’s a physicality even in the resurrection life. i It makes me ask the question, we almost have to, because the question is interesting, like, is church in the metaverse an oxymoron? And I think people have a general sense for what the metaverse is. But I think the word church gets sort of pulled apart like some people might say, Well, yeah, you could listen to some music and watch a sermon in the metaverse. That’s church right? Or? Or is the church the gathered people of God? And is the metaverse an actual gathering? So I mean, you live in this world on your YouTube page, you do such a great job helping people sort of understand big ideas. How would you how would you define church just as a launching point to talking about its existence in the metaverse? Yeah, I
Gavin Ortlund
think so a local church, just to think of like historic Protestant standards for what constitutes a local church, you’d have to have the word of God preached, you have to have the sacraments celebrated, then there has to be some sense of membership. And that could include church discipline. So historically, Protestants have said, Sure, church discipline is a mark of the church. And so there must be a sense of belonging. Yeah, you know, you’re we’re members of this church. And so if today, you know, there’s a lot of people who maybe have become a Christian, maybe through a campus ministry, maybe they just never learned about that. And we can encourage them by just helping them to consider if we leave off sacraments and church membership, we really are cutting ourselves off from Christian history, because those have always been so important. And I would just want to say one other thing. I’m curious if this sparks any thoughts with you, but I just want to encourage people not to see this as just a restrictive thing. Like don’t engage with technology, but as an invitation to the best kind of community that God built us for. I think there’s so much loneliness right now, in our culture. You know, so many young men, for example, never have the chance to sit around in the living room and just share what’s on their heart. We’re so busy, we’re so distracted. And so we want to invite people into that kind of rich community in the church. Yeah,
Jay Kim
I think you said the key word for me is belonging, you know, but at its best, I think places like the metaverse, what they really do is deepen and broaden our hunger for the real thing. You know, when I’m here we are, you know, away from home. We’re both from California. And I FaceTime my kids yesterday. And it was a wonderful leveraging of the tool at my disposal. But the thing it made me really want to do was go home in a couple of days and hug my kids, you know, in my real arms, and at its finest. I think that’s what tools do digital tools do for us. And so reminding ourselves even if you are present in the metaverse and churches can be present with information and this event and that or whatever else. To remind ourselves really, this is just a pathway to to a much deeper sense of belonging in a real embodied way.
Gavin Ortlund
Yeah, somebody once said social media is a is an okay supplement to real friendship and community but a terrible replacement.
Jay Kim serves as lead pastor at WestGate Church. He’s the author of Analog Church and Analog Christian, and he and his wife, Jenny, live in the Silicon Valley of California with their two children. You can follow him on Twitter.
Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is a pastor, author, speaker, and apologist for the Christian faith. He serves as the president of Truth Unites, visiting professor of historical theology at Phoenix Seminary, and theologian-in-residence at Immanuel Nashville. He is the author of several books, including The Art of Disagreeing, Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t, and What It Means to Be Protestant.
