Introduction
In many ways I have been disheartened—and at times distraught—by how congregations across America have responded to Covid19, not in the first weeks when so much was unknown, but in the months since. I had, like most everyone, originally thought we’d be at home a few weeks, but from the very beginning I thought more services was the answer, not less. By which I mean, more worship opportunities, like the Polish Archbishop, Stanisław Gądecki, called for when he released a statement in March asking that extra Masses be made available so that the congregations will be smaller.
I have heard people say they liked virtual church because they didn’t have to get dressed and made up and commute and would probably continue virtually after full reopening. I have also heard people say it’s too easy to get distracted by other things (just like anything done on a connected device). Others have said they feel very disconnected—ironic, that…let it sink in—and that they worry about becoming apathetic and wonder if they’ll return. I wonder how many will feel the churches failed their witness and responsibilities, to each other and the world, and won’t return because it seems hollow now in light of that, true or perceived.
Disembodied
The thing that distresses me the most is the fear that the delay in fully reopening will generate a new concept and acceptance of normal, and that it will also accelerate an already growing tendency many have lamented for years; that is, disembodiment. American churches have long had a tilt towards semi-gnosticism, for lack of a better word, (“spiritual but not religious,” mind-body cleavage, image-centric rather than logos-centric). Screens and the Internet have vastly increased this tendency (this link was written 24 years ago!).
Virtual Isn’t Sufficient
I know that God is with us in reality even when we worship virtually, but the very word ‘virtual,’ if people paused over it long enough, would highlight its insufficiency. Imagine sustaining your body on virtual food!
We can sing and pray at the same time, but does that make it “together” when we can’t hear or see one another? Are we kneeling or engaging in other embodied practices at home? I’m not. My wife and I are forced to watch on a small screen on our laps because any attempt to cast to a TV causes buffering problems.
Even if we could watch on a decent size TV it nonetheless wouldn’t be “real food.” I have always listened to tons of sermons and theology podcast, but that’s not “church,” even if the sermon I am listening too was once preached in a worship service. Our church now has limited opening and is switching to a live-stream of the actual service. This is better than prerecorded, because some people are there and we can at least hear them singing together, but it still faces the same limitations for those at home, and only about 25 people are going.
One reason I have resisted text and web tithing until now is I think the Offertory is an important part of worship, and the physical act of placing it before God during worship with my body is an ordinary means of grace that helps make me a better steward.
There’s a reason the writer of “Hebrews” exhorted us not to neglect “to meet together, as is the habit of some.” How many times did Jesus say “Come,” sometimes as a command and sometimes as encouragement? To disembody ‘come,’ ‘gather,’ ‘meet,’ and to sing, pray, and praise “alone together,” makes it hard to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” We were designed for physical interaction and corporate, corporeal worship.
In contrasting a confessional context with a pietistic context, Justin Perdue writes that “In confessionalism, the emphasis is on the ordinary means of grace [which] show up in a unique way when the church is gathered.”
Performances Aren’t Practice
The model of performance that has been slowly infecting American churches for decades with stages, monster screens, surround sound, and bands, rather than choirs, has gone viral now as we watch prerecorded Zoom sessions of members singing alone in their homes. It’s all blended into one track, but they aren’t together when they record it, and we’re singing in our homes like you might watch a concert on TV, softly and also alone or with a few family.
As John Ahern recently wrote, in a comprehensive essay titled Secularity and the Problem of Church Music, we have “a simulation of communal singing but the benefits of high-production value. Music perfectly mirrors the social disintegration of modern society.” And he’s writing about music during a real, live worship service with Hi-Fi sound systems, bands, and nearly professional singers. It’s much more of a simulation at home.
To quote Ahern again: “We find ourselves in a unique cultural moment— perhaps unprecedented. Where our ancestors enjoyed music by doing [emphasis original] it, we enjoy music by listening to others do it. This is not a problem of church music, but a problem of all music in every part of our lives.”
And now we are literally being catechized by “cultural liturgies” into watching a performance of everything, not just music, rather than practicing our faith.
Nature of Church
I really think that many very important Scriptural and confessional truths about the nature of the Church have been over-whelmed by these type cultural liturgies and by postmodern conceptual frameworks.
One of the biggest problem with ecclesiology today is defining the Church merely functionally and not considering it ontologically. The Church is not just an instrument to accomplish God’s purposes. It is foundationally an actual incarnational expression of God’s ultimate purpose. The “profound mystery” Paul writes of in Ephesians is the Incarnational nature of the Church.
If the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, which we believe, and if the Spirit indwells believers, which we believe, then in a very real, but mysterious, way the Church is the on-going Incarnation of Christ. No individual believer, no gathered congregation, no branch, denomination, or sect is in any sense divine, is in any sense Christ; nonetheless, the Church is not just metaphorically the hands and feet of Jesus any more than the bread and wine is mere bread and wine. The idea demands both caution and deep humility, but such is the nature of mysteries.
The Church needs to bear witness to this reality! It’s nearly dead in Protestantism and American Christianity in general. When we lose sight of the ontological we risk creating a sociological definition of the Church as service provider catering to the needs of individuals. It’s important that we physically gather, “kneel before the Lord our Maker,” eat and drink together, sing, pray, listen, hear, give, and praise together.
I keep hearing that Covid19 is forcing us to redefine the church outside the walls of the building, but it has nothing to do with the building per se. It has everything to do with the “gathering,” the “great assembly,” be it outside or in a grocery store.
I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him. Psalm 22:22 & 25
Love of Neighbor
Likewise, the ontological nature of the Church (being Church) is what actually manifest Church (doing Church). Therefore, any discussion of expanding church outside the walls hits the same barrier, not the physical walls of the church building but the walls of the pandemic. I’m reminded of the Asimov book, Robots of Dawn, in which people have become so afraid of disease and technology has become so advanced that they only ever see one another in holograms…and then murder happens. People are so repulsed and disgusted by the very idea that someone actually physically encountered another person that they blame a robot.
Jesus said “if you love me you will keep my commands.” One of those commands is the Great Commission with three strong action verbs: go, make, teach. “Go into the world” now faces the exact same barriers as “come unto me.”
Many churches, like rural and inner city ones, are just too poor to set-up virtual church with the required equipment or use services like Vimeo. There are thousands of such rural churches. How about churches in poor areas of cities where most of their members walk or take public transportation?
It’s the same problem as with distance learning. Tens-of-thousands of students have had no access, either because they have no devices or no high speed network. Think, also, of the thousands of churches, like certain sectors of the health care industry, who can not afford to pay their staff, mortgages, rent, or utilities. Are we loving them?
Just like those who are privileged to be able to telework and order grocery deliveries and shop on-line (and are like “What’s the big deal?”) many churches with mostly educated, middle-class members seem to have no sense of solidarity with those who can’t. It’s simply not true that everyone can do everything on-line, no matter how much those who can think it is. Is this love? How do we love our neighbor who needs to walk into a church in order to worship?
And what becomes of the ordinary vocations so many people have in their workplaces? Scratch. Visit the sick? Scratch. Prison ministry? Scratch. Hospital ministry (essentially founded by the Church)? Scratch. Bury the dead? Scratch. Does a pandemic redefine “love your neighbor” to mean stay away from them and then elevate it to “the first and greatest command”?
I don’t see how the Church can “go, make, and teach” well if we don’t “come” well; they are organic, just as the Body is. One can not disentangle them anymore than one can disentangle the water from the wave. The rationalization that Covid19 is somehow forcing churches to become more missional denies both the indispensably interconnected nature of Sabbath rest and work and the walls imposed by our response to the pandemic. It’s an illusion at risk of becoming delusion.
Where Are Our Leaders?
Psalm 30:9 says “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?” Timothy Keller translates this Psalm: “What is gained if I am silenced…” Functionally, what’s the difference for the churches? We’ve allowed ourselves to be silenced. We might as well be dead.
In Matt 24:45 Jesus asks: “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?” Who indeed? Are our pastors, bishops, preachers, and ministers not those He has “set over his household”? Is not communion food? The next verse is “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.” Lord help us!
I wrote in my journal two decades ago that Christians in America needed to prepare for persecution, and that we probably need it. But, just as the political and cultural elites failed us by not caring for the “city” or its citizens, so have Christian elites: theologians, pastors, and writers. Elected “conservatives” gave lip service to cultural issues, but they only cared about free trade, tax rates, and increased immigration (i.e. globalism), telling us that cheaper products would solve all our problems.
Christian conservatives either signed-on whole-heartily, conflating America with ancient Israel and prosperity with the Gospel, or, more often, felt like they had no choice; however, there was never a plan like building local nodes and interconnecting them. Plus, branches and denominations have been too fragmented and too busy attacking one another to focus on the real foe in any productive, meaningful way, other than writing endlessly the same jeremiads over and over for decades (e.g 1995’s Either / Or: The Gospel or Neopaganism v 2018’s Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac).
This Isn’t Sudden
Every week we delay fully reopening may add months to the time it takes for the pews to refill to their pre-Covid19 numbers, if ever. They were already historically dwindling, and all we’re doing is creating more “Nones.” Our response could come from Screwtapes’ playbook.
I have read and heard dozens of times in the last few months how quickly and unexpectedly everything changed. This is simply not true! Like that scene in “A Fish Called Wanda” this steamroller has been slowly headed our way for decades. 9/11 and the Great Recession merely put it all on the back-burner simmering until, unattended, the pot caught fire, but we have seen it coming! One could literally take hundreds of books and thousands of articles from the 80s and 90s and republish them as if they were current.
More, Not Less
We should worship more, not less. If church leaders and staff are at risk, too far away, or can’t do it all, lay leaders could do vespers or an even shorter compline almost every night of the week. We could do some at midday, or even mornings. They could be without a homily or we could use a condensed version from the prior Sunday, or one of the “classics” of the Reformation or early church (say, Chrysostom), or the lay leaders could write a short meditation.
Since some churches, like ours, are partially open and streaming the service live they could set up a couple of TVs in the fellowship hall, if they have one, and double the capacity and have two sanctuaries. We could even close a partition across the middle of our fellowship hall and have three sanctuaries!
What we rank-and-file “grunts” with gifts aplenty except for the gift of leadership need and yearn for is commanders who will be in the lead boat, the first wave ashore, gesturing back at us yelling “Come on, you sons of [God], do you want to live forever!”
Leaders need to stop just diagnosing the disease and start being Joseph showing how to fight by leaving their garments in Potiphar’s wife’s hands and going to jail. They need to actually lead us to:
[T]ake the mystery and the joy of the feast into the streets. Our enemies will not use the phrase ‘freedom of religion,’ but only ‘freedom of worship.’ They fear that freedom of religion will be too public a thing. Then let freedom of worship be a public thing. Bring it forth, bring it outdoors. It will make people uncomfortable. Well, let them be made uncomfortable; all truly great things make us uncomfortable.
Eugene Peterson wrote: “It is the task of the Christian community to give witness and guidance in the living of life in a culture that is relentless in reducing, constricting, and enervating life.” Covid19 has done all three, and it just seems to me that we could bear witness to and guide the world in living life under a pandemic better by having more, smaller services, enacting our story and not theirs.
Bo Grimes is an orthodox, confessional, evangelical Christian who worships in the Lutheran tradition, a mere Christian with a Theopolian heart. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife of 33 years, and they have 5 grown children and 2 granddaughters. He has registered the domain livingliturgically.org with plans to develop a 5 minute podcast styled like “A Writer’s Almanac” with a supporting blog to help others bring liturgy into daily life, hopefully launching in Advent. He can be reached using the email forwarder vcg3rd@hash.fyi