Introducing What does it mean to be a Christian in the digital age?
Christchurch Parish News, May 2017
A few years ago, I was talking to Fr Graham Newton about tattoos. It was after the 9.30 Sunday Eucharist over a coffee in the Lady Chapel. As you do. But let me back up a little and start with a simple question.
Do you have a tattoo? (I hasten to add that this wasn’t the question I asked Fr Graham.) According to a 2015 YouGov UK poll, if you’re a woman, you’re more likely to have a tattoo than if you’re a man, as 22% of woman have a tattoo whereas only 15% of men do. Age is also a factor: for the UK as a whole, the data suggest that if you’re over 60 years old, there’s only a 9% chance of your having one, whereas if you’re between the ages of 40 and 59, that probability rises to 21%.
But what about wanting to get rid of a tattoo? Strikingly, of those surveyed who had had a tattoo at some point in his or her life, only 14% regretted having one. 86% were happy to keep their tattoos and expressed no desire to have them removed.
Whilst the lifelong permanent adorning of one’s body with an image, a word or a phrase is not something to be regretted for most of those who have proceeded to have a tattoo, for the vast majority of us, the 80% of the population who have chosen not to have a tattoo, its very permanency is likely to be one of the chief reasons that puts us off having one done (not that we’re not tempted – the same survey revealed of those who don’t have a tattoo, 25% have considered having one done at some point in their lives).
With all this in mind, back to my conversation with Fr Graham over coffee. I was talking to him about a YouTube talk I had watched the previous week by the futurologist, Juan Enriquez. The gist of the talk was that our online lives, e.g. the time we spend web browsing on the Internet, staying in touch with ‘friends’ on Facebook, posting photos to Instagram etc., are leaving a data record akin to a series of ‘digital tattoos’. These will stay with us for the rest of our lives and furthermore will be harder to get rid of than a tattoo on the body.
Whilst training for ordination about 10 years ago, I was struck that even though there was much spoken about mission and mission-shaped church, hardly anyone was talking about the key technological change that was affecting every aspect of society (and therefore the church, too): the Internet. As part of my theology MA, I wrote a paper comparing two churches in Seattle, both viewed as being as cutting-edge in their own ways at the time. Both were making huge use of the Internet yet had totally divergent theologies. In looking at them, my question was a simple one: how was the use of this relatively new technology going to shape these churches, and given their heavy use of the technology, which one was more likely to flourish?
A few years later, watching the YouTube video about digital tattoos, I found myself once more asking similar kinds of questions. Not just about ‘being church’ but also about ‘being disciples’. If the record of our online lives is a series of digital tattoos, how are we as a society going to cope? I thought back to my early twenties, when I’d spent a couple of years living in Japan. As this was before the Internet, there was no online record of the fun and games I’d had whilst I was there. No one was tagging me on Facebook or uploading an image of me at a party to Snapchat. And there was no video of me competing in a sumo tournament, thank goodness – it wasn’t a pretty sight. I could give other examples, but you get the idea.
Nowadays, what used to be a problem only experienced by Hollywood celebrities, for example the equivalent of an embarrassing Paparazzi photo or unguarded remark being caught on camera, is now the problem for all of us who use the Internet. For example, when companies routinely run digital background checks on new job applicants. Similarly, the issue of the past suddenly becoming the present through an unexpected photo or video being posted online can cause problems in all aspects of our lives, most notably our relationships.
I found myself thinking about what grace and forgiveness might mean in this digital new age, one in which we’re increasingly covered with digital tattoos. And this is what I was talking to Fr Graham about over coffee, little knowing that a few months later it would lead to my being invited to talk to the Winchester diocesan curates about what it is to be the church in the digital age.
On that occasion, the focus of the day’s training was on what are called the Occasional Offices (baptisms, weddings and funerals). We spent our time exploring the theological underpinnings of these offices in light of the digital age. Since then, I’ve been invited to give various talks on the general topic of the church in the digital age to ordinands and priests, as well as to those not specifically in authorised ministry, but who are simply interested in how we can best get a handle on these changes from a Christian perspective.
In the hope that it might be of interest, I will be exploring some of these topics here in the Christchurch Parish News over the coming months. It may be that for you the thought of living without the Internet is now anathema; or it may be that you’re not online and you never want to be. But for most of us, it’s simply become a fact of life. It’s just there, like electricity. We now only think of ‘the Internet’ when we can’t get a wi-fi signal. As such, and before it disappears from view and we cease to be aware of it at all, I reckon it’s important that we consider its impact on our individual Christian discipleship and on our being the church together.
I’ll be covering three key topics: what does it mean to be baptised in the digital age?; what does marriage, union and difference mean in the digital age?; and finally, what do death and resurrection mean in the digital age? We’ll be taking each in turn, starting in the June issue.