A statement of faith

Life has a way of being overwhelming at times, especially if we choose to be thoughtful and discerning about how we interact with what is going on around us and others.  Sometimes it seems tempting to simply go with the flow and turn off our brains and our hearts, but for me, at least, that is not an option.

This morning, a friend talked to me about some articles he read that said the future of the church, in its attempts to stay relevant, is going digital, but a digital church is an anathema to the core of what church is.   For me, church is the gathering of like-minded people who come together to care for each other, to eat, share, discuss, worship, and draw strength from each other.  It is not something in which nothing is required but to watch a screen and be spoon-fed ideas from a credal AI.  We can redefine church in that way, of course, since it fits in with the direction we are going, but that, in the end, would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  Having one’s only worship experiences  be on screen is at odds with what the Gospel and what the church has taught down through the ages.   For the classic understanding of the church is that it requires participation, choice, commitment, and a dedication to the way of Christ’s love, as exemplified in love and respect for self and others, especially the poor and outsiders.

Every age has needed the beloved community to show it the way, and perhaps that is even more true now that we are moving deeper into a digital world in which we are increasingly separated from each other.  The development of robots, AI, and all forms of technology in the end calls into question what it means to be truly human.  Yes, we can give up our individuality and become part of a human herd being thoughtlessly led like a flock of sheep, being spoon fed what we should believe and what we should think,  all in pursuit of money, power,  and comfort, but that is giving away that very thing that makes us truly human; our ability to think and discern right from wrong.  

Coming from an Anabaptist or Mennonite background, I have never looked to the church to administer sacraments designed to save me, or have allowed the church to tell me what I am to believe or how to act.  My religious experience has always been one of living within a loving, caring community that is shaped by the life and teachings of Jesus.  Over the years., I have been encouraged to think and search out truth for myself,  to define for myself what it means to love and to be made whole, i.e. to be saved.

I simply cannot conceive of a digital church in which everyone is spoon-fed the same ideas, the same interpretations of Scripture, and the wisdom of the ages.  The very essence of what Jesus taught and lived was intensely personal.  His life and teachings were designed to bring us together as caring communities in which we shared resources and ideas, in which we cared for not just ourselves but also the outsiders and the forgotten.   So to speak of a digital church is an anathema to the teachings of what I understand as church.  

Perhaps it is good that I am an old woman with not many more years left in this world, for I increasingly feel out of step with our times.  My life began at the end of the so-called Great Depression and has moved with increasing speed through every new advance.  That has meant that the more quickly things change, the more difficult it is for me to adapt to our increasingly digitized world.  

During times of doubt, I fear what lies ahead, but then I reach back to the Ground of my being and recognize no matter what happens, the Divine Creative Energy, that great mystery we sometimes call 

God, who has shaped the universe from the very beginning,  will continue to create and evolve no matter what we mere mortals do.  And in the end, that is more than enough.