Love Kindness. Do Justice. Change the World ... Right Now!
One of the many things I cherish about my 17 years at the United Methodist Reporter newspaper was the collaborative working style of the editorial staff. Each Monday morning we gathered for spiritual devotions and rigorous, sometimes even fierce, critique of the newspaper product we had created that week. Two questions encapsulated this vigorous assessment of the Reporter's capacity as a media form to affect events and issues through communications:
What have we done FOR [our audience] the Church, and what have we done TO the Church?
The same two questions are being asked these days as religious organizations everywhere begin to assess theologically the impact of social networking.
In the text released Jan. 24, Pope Benedict XVI previewed a letter for the Catholic Church's World Communications Day, to be celebrated on June 5, 2011. In his letter the pope acknowledged that new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity.” He added, however: “It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives.”
In a response to the pope's letter on Religion Dispatches, scholar Elizabeth Drescher noted that although the Catholic Church is coming late to the usefulness of social media, it appears to have the right idea about learning to use social media without being captured by it. Author of the forthcoming book Tweet if U ♥ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation, Dr. Drescher wrote in her essay: "Acknowledging, exploring, and developing strategies for meaningfully and safely navigating the contours of this convergent, diversely populated landscape seems to me to be especially critical work for believers today."
This perspective poses a ticklish dilemma for churches and faith-based websites of all types, including The Progressive Christian. We've seen the advantages of being on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. That's where people are, and where we need to be if we are to convey any kind of viable Christian message in the 21st century. Are we making a deal with "the devil" if we take part in something so far removed from our traditional face-to-face religious encounters?
Furthermore, theological assessment of the effects of social networking behaviors requires time to think through their implications. Some of the most recent works such as the Princeton Theological Review's special issue, "The Church After Google," are just now beginning to filter out to thoughtful pastors and laypeople. (See Philip Clayton's article).
Finally, given the light-speed pace of social media, moments for critique slip past before the Church's best thinkers can wrap their heads around them. It's hard, sometimes impossible, to theologize responsibly about an event or issue before the next one pops up on Facebook or Twitter.
Survey results released Jan. 21 from the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board's LifeWay Research unit begin to show the scope of social media's penetration into the life and practices of the church. In brief, the survey indicates that social networking bodes major change for churches, which have been primary places of human interaction for two millennia.
LifeWay conducted a survey of 1,003 Protestant congregations in September 2010 with sponsorship from its Digital Church partner, Fellowship Technologies. The survey found that 47 percent of churches actively use Facebook. Tools included in church management software were the second most popular way of networking used by 20 percent of congregations. Three percent use MySpace, 2 percent a church-specific package like Cobblestone, Unifyer, or The City, and 1 percent use Ning.
An even more striking statistic, however, was that some 40 percent of churches use no social networking tools at all. These non-using churches tend to be smaller congregations without the human and financial resources to devote to social networking technology, which requires constant attention. The survey showed that most faith-based institutional users of social technology are large-membership churches.
LifeWay Research Director Scott McConnell said, “Congregations are rapidly adopting social networking, not only to speed their own communication, but also to interact with people outside their church. … Biblical community requires feet and faces, not only re-tweets and fan pages. But clearly social networking is a helpful tool to build and maintain community.
Curtis Simmons, vice president for marketing and community at Fellowship Technologies, summed up the dilemma facing churches in their use of social media. “Social networking tools have become an integral part of most people’s daily lives and relationships,” he said. “If churches desire to connect with their congregation and community in meaningful ways, then they need are sharing support and encouragement through these tools. The church needs to be an active participant in these conversations and connections.”
'Biblical community requires feet and faces, not only re-tweets and fan pages. But clearly social networking is a helpful tool to build and maintain community. '
-- Scott McConnell, LifeWay Research
But how do churches to go about such interactions?
In May 2010, a media specialist for the Unitarian Universalist Association addressed some of the ethical implications of churches using social media. In a video of her presentation posted in December 2010 on YouTube (how's that for an integrated example?), Shelby Meyerhoff, posed a series of questions that that churches have been asking:
One of the most comprehensive theological assessments thus far was presented in the Fall 2010 issue of the Princeton Theological Review. Under the theme, "The Church After Google," editor Elizabeth Dias made the problem clear: "The Internet is the printing press of the twenty-first century—it changes authority structures, democratizes information, and reframes societal expectations."
We need only look at what's happening in Egypt to verify Dias' assertion. The Internet has been a major link among dissenting voices in Egypt, a fact emphasized by the government's efforts to take it down.
Similar comparisons could be made with the antiquated structures of most denominations. Churches are making great strides in using social media to disseminate information, yet the two-way nature of social networking often poses threats such as these:
In other words, the global connections made possible by pixels and packets are wonderful, but we live our lives in physical, not virtual, reality. Where and how do we draw appropriate boundaries for this brave new world we've created?
A professional writer and editor for more than 38 years, Cynthia B. Astle is a veteran of both print and online journalism. She has worked on the Internet since the late 1980s and has been a driving force behind the development of digital publications wherever she worked. Her accomplishments as a religion journalist have won national and international awards of excellence in both digital and print media for more than two decades.
Comments
Cynthia,
An insightful article both compiling and raising significant questions for us to grapple with.
Here I just want to take on one: "Can enthusiasm for various missions and ministries expressed via social networking be translated into real-life, feet-on-the-ground human effort and relationships?"
Generally speaking, I'd say, "Not so much." I think Malcolm Gladwell stated the case accurately in his article in the New Yorker last October when he noted that the kind of relationships currently fostered on most social networking platforms are "thin"-- requiring little or no actual commitment. I've commented on this further, with its implications for the church, here.
Some may say, "Don't Tunisia and Egypt disprove this?" No, actually they make the point. The role of online social networking was not to organize these massive social movements, but rather to light a fire under some very dry kindling and plenty of fuel-- people who had simply had enough of oppression and were ready to give their lives if necessary to end it. Social networking alone did not generate this result. It simply helped to ignite it.
The point-- social change requires real commitment first. Then social networks can help spread word of how that commitment can be put into action. Both matter, and both have a role.