Paul communicated with the church in Corinth through letters, the technological medium of his day. By examining his usage of the written word, we can find guidance for our use of digital media today—the technological medium we use for distance communication—to foster genuine ecclesial community.

The comparison of these two tools is imperfect—the world is vastly different than it was in the first century and the media themselves are not entirely analogous. To find guidelines for today in Paul’s letters, we cannot directly transpose his writings into our own digital world; we must work to translate his methods, message, and strategies into our own context.

In the previous post, we sought to understand Paul’s concept of church as developed in his correspondence with the Corinthians, and in this chapter we will seek to translate that concept into a digital context.

We will begin by considering the ways in which the potential of the digital world can be harnessed within an online ecclesiology, then we will look at the modes and structures of gathering online, and will conclude by identifying some of the dangers of an online church and attempting to create boundaries to mitigate them.

Unity Requires Diversity

Paul’s primary concern for the church in Corinth was that they be unified, but that unity was one found in submission to the cross of Christ rather than in any kind of economic, social, or political uniformity.

Throughout his communication with the church, Paul did not erase the distinctive beliefs and statuses of different believers, but affirmed the necessity and sacredness of diversity within their congregation, as demonstrated in the metaphor of body in 1 Cor 12:12–31. Natalie K. Watson summarized this idea as she outlined the basics of a feminist ecclesiology:

...in the context of Christian theology and praxis this difference [in human beings] cannot be the basis for exclusion or marginalization but is rather a factor of enrichment for the church…. Theologically such an affirmation of difference and particularity must be grounded in an understanding of Christ which describes Christ not only as the guarantee of the unity of the church, but also prevents such unity from being gained only at the price of diversity.Natalie K. Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology

Within our social media platforms today, which drive us to divide our “friends” into an antagonistic binary—those who think like us, and those who do not think like us—a digital church must actively resist the tendency to reduce participants into either/or factions.

Paul’s development of the wisdom of God as an identity marker is helpful here, because it orients the church’s identity around a posture of participation in the lowliness, weakness, and love of Christ’s crucifixion, rather than any kind of particular doctrinal distinction, social status or, as is prevalent on social media today, political association.

The cruciformity we explored in previous posts must be especially emphasized within the day-to-day existence of an online community because it is so at odds with the way social media users are accustomed to interacting online. From the beginning of the group’s formation, the humility and self-giving of cruciformity should be such a norm in the life and discussions of the community that it is readily identifiable as the attitude that binds the community together—that is to say that it ought to be both spoken and modeled by each member of the group, establishing a feedback loop that reinforces the group behavior. 

Creating this kind of culture is, of course, far easier to write about than to achieve; indeed, we might consider this challenge to be the penultimate task of Christian community—after all, that is precisely the challenge to which Paul found himself continually returning in his relationship with the Corinthians.

Limitations to Diversity

The local church has always had natural limitations to the diversity of its body. For example, the church in Corinth was basically limited to those who lived within the urban, Hellenized context of the city so, while it was diverse in its philosophical, religious, and economic representation, it likely did not have many believers who lived in agrarian or rural cultural contexts.

Douglas Estes, in his book SimChurch, writes that, “While geography forces some degree of heterogeneity, the virtual world strongly encourages ideological homogeneity” (emphasis added). In the social media world today, where geography is not a restriction, we naturally become divided into homogeneous in-groups and out-groups based on our political stances and social groupings—divisions which are irreconcilable with Paul’s understanding of diversity in ecclesial formation.

In an online ecclesial community, we must be particularly vigilant regarding the tendency of social media platforms to algorithmically segment users into isolated groups.