There has been some interesting buzz this week surrounding John Piper’s take on internet church. I tend to respect a lot of John Piper’s takes on culture even though we disagree on a lot of theology, so I took notice of what he had to say about online church:
God made us with bodies. He made us to give holy kisses to one another—embraces, handshakes, eyeball-to-eyeball conversation. He made husband and wife not to have imaginary video sex through Skype. He made them to go to bed together in the same bed. He made them to raise children in the same house, with hands-on hugs and spanks on the bottom and love. And he made churches to get together to hear each other sing, and to look at each other and talk to teach other, and minister to each other and help each other die well.
Some other bloggers have chimed in on the topic too. I can’t say that I disagree with Piper’s take and I will never criticize someone for what they didn’t say, so I will simple add these thoughts:
- We have to try. The Church has to try and explore every avenue to expand the Kingdom and pass the Gospel to the next generation, this includes the internet.
- The internet has become a real community. I know several married couples who met online and now have beautiful relationships and families. So, although the internet experience is not the vehicle for the deepest of relationships, we have to go as far as we can with it in order to impact more people.
- Its all so new. Its true that the internet has been around longer, but its only in the last 10 years that its truly become part of global society. I think we have barely scratched the surface of where we can go.
I agree with Piper on the fact that relationships are far too complex and mysterious to be fully realized over electronic media…but let’s do what we can and love each other and see how far that takes us.
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