Romance Requires Showing Up and Staying Apart

Are social media tools a blessing or a curse for people of faith? Should we use digital technology to commune with the divine? Does God tweet?

God loved the world so much that He came Himself and did not just Twitter about His feelings, but God loved reason enough that He gave us a book and did not just overwhelm us with His irresistible presence. There is lesson there for humans created in His image as they think about using new media.

Love demands closeness, but often the beloved needs distance, too. A true Romeo would not wish to kill Juliet by his impatient demands. A good relationship, deepest love, uses reason to moderate passion: too much closeness smothers and too much distance makes hearts wander.

The new technology is a wonderful tool to provide a sort of closeness while keeping our distance. That is a good thing. We can immediately share information and some kinds of experiences through the new media, but with some space for physical safety. We can become close while hiding important things about ourselves.

This good thing can, however, become too much of a good thing. Like a theme park so concerned about danger that it wraps its guests in bubble wrap, an "online church" would allow too much hiding and too much distance. Being there is risky, but for love to grow some increased risk will eventually be necessary. One way of viewing faith is as the compromise between being totally safe and secure with the demands of consuming passion. Faith risks, but does so based on best available evidence.

Love without reason is blind, because without reason it accidentally can harm what it loves. Unfettered reason is impotent, because it seeks impossible certainty. Faith carefully and humbly takes a risk on love even though it only sees dimly the outcome.

Faith is reason's risk on love. Part of that risk will be online and part, in some cases, will be in being present: body and soul. I have met dear friends through e-mail, but like the old pen pals of my grandparent's era, new media relationships carry limitations with their opportunities.

There is nothing new in this for Christians, since we have always embraced coming together physically and a distancing technology: the book. The book after all allows the dead to speak to us without any psychic! However, we are also people of the "church" . . . a gathering of those who share a like-minded passion. Nobody can be a Christian and avoid books or fellowship.

These general truths should guide our approach to new media. It would be foolish to reject new tools to speak to those who are distant, but it would be equally foolish to abandon person-to-person ministry. It is good to have Facebook friends, but also friends in three dimensions.

Why bother with "real" friends when online communication can be so satisfying?

Physically being present is necessary, because we are not just disembodied heads! In the Bible story, Adam, the first man, could walk with the spirit of God every day in the perfect garden of the newly created world. He was without sin, but God still describes this perfect man as alone. God knew people need other people.

Our knowledge about God's action teaches us even more, because God Himself did not remain distant. He wanted a closer relationship with His children and so became the man Jesus.

God did not stay far away or stand apart form what it means to be human. In the Incarnation celebrated at Christmas, God became human and we could see in Jesus what a good and noble life looked like. That is not the whole story, however. God came, but He did not stay in the flesh.

Why did Jesus leave? After His death, He was so remarkable that no one who saw Him could do or think of anything else. If He did not hide from our view, nothing would be left to us but cursing or worship. God stays as near as He can while allowing human choice to play out.

Romance requires showing up and Christianity is romantic. The love of God forces us to love each other and those in love cannot be kept apart for very long! It is nonsense to ask if Church could be exclusively "online," because those who love their spiritual fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends will demand to see them.

Reason requires calm detachment from passion and Christianity commends the development of this emotional room to be reasonable. The divine Logic of God (John 1:1) demands that we use our minds. Human beings, unlike mere animals, are capable of restraining their passions for the good of those they love. It is folly to reject the information and communication that new media can provide as tools to the creation of authentic community. The Bible can be online, but Christians cannot be. We can only see or hear what is online.

Of course, we are at the very beginning of this technological revolution and the wonders have only begun. Last year Roger Overton and I edited a book of essays, The New Media Frontier, with a group of friends and colleagues to try to understand the promise and peril of new media. We are gloriously excited about what might be created by the human imagination and this only increases our desire to really be together with fellow creators!

By John Mark Reynolds  |  August 13, 2009; 1:06 PM ET
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