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Virtual Communion: Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Posted by John Saddington on Jul 8, 2009

The video above is pretty much all you’ll need to view to get the “picture” of what’s going on here. If you’d like more juice in terms of the background concept, check out John Dyer’s post here for more information.

This nugget, though, is worth a reblog:

Please don’t take this too seriously – it’s not meant to engage in complex questions about sacramentology or online church (none of which would actually suggest using this). It’s just a fun example of something that is a technologically can, but not a theological should.

Which really brings up the much bigger question about technology and theology: “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

Thoughts?

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John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

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12 Responses to “Virtual Communion: Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should”

  1. Mikes
    Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial

    Reply
  2. Adam_S
    Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    What I was not clear about, from either this post or John Dyer's original post, is why the assumption is that we should not do it. I take communion very seriously, and have a friend that thinks that the eucharist is the central point for all Christian Ethics, so I have thought about it a fair bit. But I am left wondering what about the virtualness is it that make it not worth doing?

    Reply
    • John Dyer
      Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 12:17 pm

      Adam, I'm glad you brought that up. I think it's definitely worth talking about. It sounds like you probably already have a good understanding, but here's a few points if it helps:

      Depending on your views about communion (Transubstantiantion, Spiritual Presence, or Memorialism), your theology may or may not allow for the spirituality of communion to be transferred from one physical place (where the priest is) to another (where the congregant is).

      Even if you swing Memorialist and don't see a problem with a transfer from place to place, today's online churches still hold that communion, like baptism and sex, but unlike preaching and singing, are meant to be inherently physical things. However, those who do church in Second Life where everything is virtual probably would say that physicality is completely unnecessary.

      Reply
  3. John Dyer
    Friday, July 10, 2009 at 11:55 am

    Adam, these are some great points. Perhaps we should start a discussion somewhere :)

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Friday, July 10, 2009 at 11:59 am

      head to the forums.

      ;)

      Reply
    • Adam_S
      Friday, July 10, 2009 at 12:16 pm

      Or we can move back to your blog. I don't have answers for any of this. I really have been draw to online church not because of anything other than human3rror asking me to participate. So I am trying to work through a lot of this fairly recently. I do appreciate that so many others have been working through for a while.

      Reply
      • human3rror
        Friday, July 10, 2009 at 12:26 pm

        my fault.

        Reply
        • Adam_S
          Friday, July 10, 2009 at 12:33 pm

          No complaints! I am excited. I have no problems working through the theological and practical issues at the same time, in fact I think that trying to work through the theological issues before you ever start on the practical usually gives you bad theology and even worse practice. But not thinking about the theology at all by default is bad theology.

          This is a good example of your leadership. I am involved in something primarily because I was asked. (I might have been involved anyway though.)

          Reply
  4. Adam_S
    Friday, July 10, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    I followed Human3rror's advice and moved it into the forum.

    http://churchcrunch.com/forums/topic/virtual-comm...

    Reply
  5. Adam_S
    Friday, July 10, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    I followed Human3rror's advice and moved it into the forum.

    http://churchcrunch.com/forums/topic/virtual-comm...

    Reply
  6. Adam_S
    Friday, July 10, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    I followed Human3rror's advice and moved it into the forum.

    http://churchcrunch.com/forums/topic/virtual-comm...

    Reply
  7. @adamrshields
    Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 9:11 am

    Thanks for the summary John. I think we need to be clear, especially with important things like the sacraments. I also want to start with the understanding that I basically agree with your point that because we can doesn't mean we should.

    I am memorialist/spiritual presence guy with respect to the Eucharist. I think it is a very important part of any church community, it is the main prescribed community building activity that in the NT. One of my frustrations about coming to a mega-church is the fact that we almost never have Eucharist, and certainly not as a regular activity. My past church experience was usually monthly participation. But I really liked doing it weekly (as we often did during Lent and occasionally Advent.

    So the question for me is if it really is a central part of process of building church community then can we ever truly have an online church community? Now I have always said that I think that online church will be primarily suppliemental for most people. I also think that except in very rare cases we should be encouraging people to find a local physical community to participate in (so moving people from online only, into a physical primary church experience.) But if we do have online church communities that become primarily online (for whatever reason, physical disability, remote locations, people in religiously intolerant countries, etc) would restricting communion as a physical only activity be appropriate?

    Reply