Book Review: iJesus: The Culture of God in a Digital World

 

iJesus: The Culture of God in a Digital World By Nadim Nassar ©2023 Sacristy Press (153 pages)

Last fall I went looking for a book I heard referenced in a podcast. Because I wanted to reach the free shipping threshold I needed to buy a second book and this title seemed like something that would fit my Sabbatical plan. Ironically I have yet to read the book I originally went looking for.

Nadim Nassar has written a previous book called The Culture of God to which this is a bit of a follow up. There were times, particularly early in the book, when it might have been helpful to have read that first one to know what Nassar means by the phrase “Culture of God” as he tends to use it assuming that foreknowledge. But with time I was able to pick up where he was going with it.

The book as a whole is, as one might expect from the title, very Christ-centered. Nassar is pushing the reader to find how we can best share the encounter with Jesus on a digital world. Within that discussion he talks about the centrality of communication as a building block of community. He also takes time to talk about the cultural clash we find in a digital world. I found his suggestion that the onset of digital globalization has brought about culture clash at a speed that was not known with slower, and earlier, forms of communication and cultural change quite intriguing Still the reality that how we communicate the old story in a new world is a central point of being the church in a digital world is inescapable. As he says at one point: “...because Christianity is about knowing the risen, living Christ, the Church has the responsibility in every generation and in different cultures to reinterpret the timeless revelation in Christ for its time and place” (p.30) [this quote reminds me if the United Church of Canada understanding that each generation needs to restate the Gospel which is why we have a succession of statements of faith].

I found that Nassar does a good job of naming both the positive possibilities and the negative possibilities of technology as we move into the new world. Over and over he talks about what new communications are available to us but also that we can not let the technological relationship replace ‘IRL’ relationships. This is important but at the same time I have to wonder at his suggestion later in the book that online relationships lack a reality that can only be found in person. I wonder how this might sit with the debate during Covid (and following) if online worship/online church was ‘real” or just a stand in.

In the end this book did not quite fit my Sabbatical goals quite as well as I thought it might. But that does not mean it was not an important read in the topic area. A big takeaway from it was the insistence that the way we measure our actions, the thing that we allow to shape our actions needs to be the Culture of God/Culture of Trinity (which is inherently relational)/Culture of Love. Technology may be one of the tools but it should not be the primary force that shapes us – even if it can be a powerful force to shape us. At a number of points I found myself thinking “I need to remember this for a sermon” even when the sermon was not going to be about the Digital world – for example Creation Time this fall.

Book Review: Tweet if you ❤ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation

Tweet if you ❤ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation By Elizabeth Drescher ©2011 Morehouse Publishing (190 pages)

Fourteen years ago standing at a Presbytery book display I saw this book and picked it up. Never really got into it at the time but gave it another crack this month.

Drescher uses this book to both explain what she sees happening in this new Reformation and share thoughts about how the mainline church might be best able to move into the new way of being. Based on her understanding of how social media works she suggests that the mainline Protestant church is better able to adapt to new communication patterns in the Digital Reformation Social Media than other forms of church.

The model that Drescher starts with is to talk about what she terms habitus, a term used to describe a model of understanding and being in the world. This is similar to a rule of life but a more complete thing than that. Early in the book she talks about how this habitus has changed from medieval to modern to current eras. Habitus, she says, is resistant to change but also evolves over time. One of the questions she raises pushes us to look closely at what our habitus is. As habitus evolves and a new paradigm takes over it raises questions about authority, something we can see happening in the development of the Digital age.

One of the things Dresher seems to see in this new paradigm is the idea that some of the ancient, pre-modern ways of approaching storytelling and h ma become more relevant in the new Social Media age. She talks about interactivity and visual imagery as examples. She suggests that Boradcast media (particularly in the last half of the 20^th Century) was much more spectator based than the new way of corresponding. She suggests that mainline churches, being less focussed on a charismatic leader ove the community as a whole, may be well suited to make use of those ideas.

All of what Drescher has to say in this book really is about communication and how we do it well (or poorly). How we mightdo it well using new tools and models is the discussion churches need to have. It is not about the technology, it is not about making use of all the flashy bells and whistles. It is the how rather than the what that takes precedence. At one point she does lead the reader to ponder “what might Jesus tweet?”, pointing out that Jesus makes use of the communication styles of his day. She also discusses more than once the challenge that the Digital Reformation might encourage more vicarious participation and lessen incentive of IRL participation. This certainly has been a discussion as more churches have moved to streaming worship services.

Drescher raises some very good points about how life in the church might look in what she terms the Digital Reformation. She raises the image of dispersed authority and less reliance on charismatic leaders repeatedly. This brought to mind Phyllis Tickle’s book The Great Emergence and made me ponder of maybe the Digital Reformation is part of what Tickle would call the church’s next great rummage sale.

At the same time Drescher seems more optimistic about how the Digital Reformation and Social Media in general will play out in society. Looking at how things like Facebook and Twitter/X have actually developed over the last 15 years makes me wonder if that optimism was accurate. Social Media has indeed democratized sources of authority and information but has that really been a good thing? Has it diminished the role of the charismatic voice or emboldened and empowered it?

This is a good read. Drescher raises important questions (each chapter ends with some questions for reflection). She challenges the church to seriously engage in this new world. It is not a book of how to use specific tools, it is a book calling us to reflect on how we will be in the new world and the last chapter does include some suggestions for building a digital rule of life.

The church, perhaps especially the mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox branches of it, does not have a great history of adapting to new ways of being church. But when the world changes we have no choice. I close with two things from the conclusion of the book. One is this quote:

“if we update practices that have served us reasonably well for some two thousand years, i do believe we will be able to enrich relationships and build communities that will allow us to more generously live out the commitments of our faith” (p.181)

The other is this question asked almost at the end of the book: Is the Digital Reformation the end of the church? The beginning of a new way of being the church? Both? (p.181). Only time will tell, and the answer will in part depend on us.