The Pope Embraces The Digital Age

Believe in Santa; believe also in me

The Bishop of Rome wrote, yesterday, on the 45th World Communications Day, and in it attended to the issues surrounding "Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age" 

I must confess to being mildly surprised that Pope Benedict XVI has a view on a world that seems now to be characterised by Facebook, MySpace - and in Christian circles, to blogging and Tweeting. I am pleasantly surprised too - not least of all because I clearly talked about this first a couple of days ago and it is always nice to pip a leading Christian to the post!

By way of summary, the Pope likens the advent of the digital age to the Industrial Revolution in terms of its scope and impact on the life of a large number of people. He points to the new possibilities for this new mode of communication and its implications not just for faith, but life as a whole. In summary:

• The digital age brings a new appreciation of communication as a whole.
• 'This means of spreading information and knowledge is giving birth to a new way of learning and thinking, with unprecedented opportunities for establishing relationships and building fellowship'
• Communication in a digital age can be at risk from being 'one-sided' and selective - that the communicator discloses only what they wish to disclose and on their terms.
• Social networking, the main outworking of this new digital age for young people, brings with it a new way of relating to others, and allows 'new forms of interpersonal relations'.
• While the dangers (of forming parallel personalities in cyber-space) have to be heeded, people enter cyber-space in a search for authenticity - of themselves and others. 
• This raises the question of 'who is my neighbour' in a new world beyond the physical and geographic?
• Will this have implications for the quality of our presence in the 'real' world in which we exist physically?
• The risks of being distracted from our 'real' world (relationships, encounters) are to be heeded
• 'When people exchange information, they are already sharing themselves, their view of the world, their hopes, their ideals. It follows that there exists a Christian way of being present in the digital world: this takes the form of a communication which is honest and open, responsible and respectful of others. To proclaim the Gospel through the new media means not only to insert expressly religious content into different media platforms, but also to witness consistently, in one’s own digital profile and in the way one communicates choices, preferences and judgements that are fully consistent with the Gospel, even when it is not spoken of specifically'
• Christians should now be ready to account for the hope that exists within them when engaged in the digital world. 
• Care must be taken in the integrity of the message proclaimed
• Avoid popularity or a 'popular' view, or that which is intended to gain most attention
• Avoid dilution and maintain the integrity of the message
• The Gospel must be 'daily nourishment', not a 'fleeting attraction'
• The Gospel should still be rooted in the real, and not left hanging in virtual space
• 'Direct human relations always remain fundamental for the transmission of the faith!'
• Christians are invited, 'with an informed and responsible creativity', to engage with the digital age
• Ephesians 1: 10 - we are called to embrace this new field of existence
• We should emulate the Emmaus Road dialogue in how we draw people to new understandings
• Genuine testimony from those in discipleship to Christ are the main means by which the digital age will retain integrity and not a means of de-personalisation and deception. The human search for truth will mean that many will follow authentic testimony

Writing as a blogger, the needs for authenticity, integrity and responsibility are what ring out of this. So many blogs are hobby-horses, psychiatrist's couch or soap-boxes, partly written to play to a crowd like little mini Christian sects in an online church. That is where blogging fails. Where it seems to thrive is in its unique opportunity to allow everyone with a computer and a signal to communicate their faith authentically, simply and as it is experienced. The world doesn't need ranks of the perfect Christians telling them how it is or how it must be, but they desire real people writing about real struggles with real faith in real life. I have stated this elsewhere here many times. 

Catholic, Anglican or Free - all Christians who have a sense that the digital age represents more than a counter-Church fad will be edified by the Pope's sentiments. I commend them you you in those terms. 

The Poor Selling of Salvation

Imagine that you are visiting a carpet shop for the first time. Imagine the scene unfolding thus:

You are met at the door by a man who smiles at you warmly. As you cross the threshold of the flooring emporium, the gentleman says, 'You need a carpet, don't you?'. Before you have a chance to reply, the man continues: 'yes, that's right - a carpet - a lounge carpet I think. Yes, you look like you need a lounge carpet to me.' You try to venture into the shop a little further, but the warm smiling man persists, saying 'a blue one isn't it? You look like just the kind of person who wants a blue lounge carpet. We have lots of lovely blue lounge carpets.' Still you have said nothing, but politeness and idle curiosity keep you there. You look at a wide array of the finest carpets, all shades of blue - thick-pile, short-pile, looped, tufted. There is not a blue lounge carpet that you have not seen this day. The helpful assistant presses you for a choice, some indication of preference. He has worked hard and given you much time, the benefits of his considerable training and experience, and his love for carpet is compelling. You have said very little until now, perhaps save for making affirmative noises and appreciative grunts. Genuine niceness on your part and his determination to send you home with a blue lounge carpet have seen you narrow what you have seen down to three samples. 'Well?' the man encourages, 'which one will you go for?' Finally you pluck up the courage and say, wringing your hands and feeling like a complete heel: 'I came in for bathroom vinyl, actually'. 

This is an example of poor selling. It happens day by day by day in many places and is not good practice. If it persists, it lowers turnover and thereby profit and in the end, the shop shuts. 

But it is what we do in some of our churches. 

Now, 'selling' is only illustrative, but this was a phenomenon that I identified in conversation with a friend of mine, himself of the charismatic tradition. It is the 'let us tell you what you need syndrome', and is in all but name, bad 'selling'. 

Good 'selling' is about having a heart to meet the needs of people. It involves providing an approrpriate welcome, space and time for the person to browse and orientate their thoughts and choices, enquiring as to their needs, matching their needs with the correct benefits of what we believe we have to 'sell' - offering choices where possible, even in the event that we have to be honest if our 'product' isn't fully what the person claims to need. If all has gone well, it is appropriate to ask for the 'sale', mentioning the pertinent extras, managing future expectations for the process going-forward and then commending the 'sale'. The need to "go the extra mile" is crucial, perhaps revisiting that person some time later to see if the 'product' met the needs as expected. This is the broad framework of competant selling, and on this I know what I am talking about! 

Bad evangelism is like poor selling. It makes assumptions, chooses incorrect pathways for seekers and thereby renders the encounter's success to the realms of 'hoping for the best', and in the end, is largely fruitless. This stuff happens, as I have discovered myself. Someone tried to sell me a blue lounge carpet once when I was delighted with the one I had. I have never returned to that 'shop' since.

Pious Voyeurism

Before you write to the Bishop, let me explain .... Voyeurism can also refer to 'an obsessive observance of sensational subjects'!

I have been thinking about the notion of 'witness' recently, not least of all because it seems to have cropped up in the scripture readings that have featured large in recent weeks. We don't hear of people 'seeing' or 'looking', or 'watching', 'peering', 'staring', 'glaring', 'noticing' or 'overseeing'. No, the term used is 'witness', and this is important, to me at least. 

It strikes me that the term 'witness' is used almost exclusively in the context of the law and its processes. A witness is a person who can demonstrate by their experience of the events in question that those events took place in the ways described, or not. After forensic evidence, a stable witness statement carried much weight in a court. A case against someone that lacks a witness statement is often weakened, even terminally. After a crime has been committed, the police expend much time and effort in seeking witnesses. Witnesses see the event from one perspective, so many witnesses provide many perspectives - and a fuller image is taken from the one to the multi-dimensional. The witness becomes the authority on the event, whatever their circumstance. An aristocrat or a vagrant - both are equal in the 'witness box'. The other aspect of the legal acceptance of the 'witness statement' is that is asks simply for the facts, not for interpretation from the witness. The law holds that a witness is only qualified to say what they saw, but not what it means or its implications after the fact. Those who are qualified to interpret the events are asked to do so, and not the witness. I wonder if the effort of interpretation could potentially cloud the memory of events, but I can only guess ...

So, I have been wondering how it is that this loaded and complicated term has come to be so crucial in the context of the life of Christ and the Church. From the Disciples and beyond, right up to 11.48am in Aylesbury this day, we are witnessing to the events and effects of the Gospel. I am not one with a particular appetite for Christian Testimony, as it as almost exclusively owned by one section the church, and almost exclusively characterized by 'when I gave my life to Jesus .... ' (which us cradle Christians never needed to do), but none the less, a witness statement is part of the life-blood of our Christian existence. If I don't say what I see, in church and out, to those around me, then the case for Christ is weakened. 

The reason that I called this post 'Pious Voyeurism' (apart from grabbing your attention which, if you have reached this part, I succeeded in) was because I think it is important for all Disciples of Jesus Christ to watch obsessively upon this sensational subject, not just in the decent and public places, but in the dark and less savoury places in our world - through the proverbial keyhole. The work of God is happening all over the place at all times of the day and night, and without witnesses, those moments are at risk of being thrown out - no case to answer, insufficient evidence.