Always On (Theology for the Life of the World)

Practicing Faith in a New Media Landscape

Gorrell, Angela Williams

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493418022
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

2020 Book of the Year Award, Academy of Parish Clergy Many of us are "always on"--scrolling through social media, checking email, or searching the web. New media spaces can be sites and instruments of God's unconditional love, but they can also nurture harmful conditions and become sources of anxiety, jealousy, and despondency. Always On provides useful tools for helping students and congregants understand the world of social media and engage it faithfully, enabling Christian communities to address its use in constructive, pastoral ways. The book includes discussion questions and sample exercises for each chapter.

one
Interested Conversation

Occupants of the unsaid sides of silence move

single-file by force through paths of grief and grace,

variegated planks for feet rough cut and worn

smooth with the friction-chatter of naked toes and heels.

Words worth saying often go unsaid—

worthwhile,

quieted,

words.

If you bring forth what is within you what you bring forth will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

Paul Gorrell,1 “Words Worth Saying”

This past year, a high school friend of mine, Aaron Jackson, was dying. Hundreds of people used social media to stay updated on his cancer treatment, hoping that he would be healed. Each week his Facebook page was flooded with encouragement. People reminded Aaron often that they loved him and were praying for him. He spent the last months of his life sharing his cancer journey with us: the joyful, the ugly, and the mundane. In the midst of it all he continued to use the phrases, “God is in control,” “Stay strong,” and “Never give up.” In November, he posted his last two Facebook status updates: one, an enthusiastic post dedicated to his favorite basketball team, and the other, a sobering post promising to watch over everyone and asking friends to let him know who to say “hey” to on the other side. Like so many others, I will be forever grateful for Aaron’s online vulnerability and positivity, and his insights into the experiences of those trying to survive cancer. For most of the last months of his life, Aaron was unable to leave his hospital room and could only have a few visitors because his medical team was trying to get him into remission. Social media was his connection to his friends and to the world.

Glorious Possibilities

God is online. God is active in every place and at every point of our lives. God’s investment in creation extends to the various developments of human culture, including internet spaces like social media sites.2 The Holy Spirit can be our companion in online spaces, as in all other aspects of life—teaching us; reminding us; empowering us; encouraging us; revealing truth to us; bringing us grace, joy, hope, and peace; praying on our behalf; telling us what to say; setting us free; making us holy; and, thus, inviting human beings to be receptive to and share in God’s loving, reconciling ministry in our hearts and in the world (Luke 2:26; 10:21; 12:12; John 14:26; Acts 1:8; 9:31; 13:9; Rom. 8; 14:17; 15:13; 2 Cor. 5:14–21; 1 Pet. 1:2). God is with us during our engagement with new media just as God is with us when we engage in physical spaces and activities and use other tools. Given God’s dynamic participation in people’s lives and the entire world, new media has glorious possibilities. In other words, incredible, meaningful things can happen as people use new media—because of God’s guidance, love, and active presence in our new media landscape.

Reflecting on Aaron’s story, I can see that he demonstrated God’s love, strength, and hope toward his family, girlfriend, coworkers, and friends online, and an extraordinary number of people mirrored that love, strength, and hope back to him through social media. Each week I witnessed people online rejoicing with Aaron when he rejoiced. When he posted about being able to spend time with people he loved in person, when he shared videos and photos of himself walking the halls of the treatment center (his will to survive and remain hopeful never wavered), and when the treatment he received was working and helping him feel more like himself, people wrote joyful, compassionate replies.

I also observed people mourning when Aaron mourned. They expressed sadness when he displayed a photo of the effects of chemotherapy on his mouth and explained that he was unable to eat even though he was starving; they communicated grief when he shared his sadness about missing events that were important to him; and they conveyed pain when he posted that doctors were struggling to find other remedies for curing him.

When Aaron posted his last status updates, the rejoicing and mourning were intermingled, as often joy and sorrow are. People wrote things like, “You have brought laughter and humor to such a heartbreaking time. You have had every right to complain and instead, you chose love.” And, “With tear-filled eyes all I can do is look at the sun rising over the clouds and imagine the beauty you are entering. Well done my friend, what a wonderful life you have led here. You are so loved.” And, “Your strength, faith in God, and determination have changed so many lives.”

Social media was used to keep people updated about Aaron’s treatment plans, support him with practical resources, shower him with love, and invite people to pray for his healing. For example, a sock campaign was started in his honor. He loved to wear crazy, colorful, decorative knee-high socks. Everyone who knew him, knew he loved wild socks, a beautiful idiosyncrasy that people used to share his story and let him know that he was seen and heard. His family, friends, and coworkers wore crazy socks and posted photos on social media of them wearing the socks with special hashtags dedicated to him and with loving words of support. One friend made an image in his honor of a cancer awareness ribbon in blue and white (the colors of his favorite Kentucky basketball team: University of Kentucky), and many of his Facebook friends replaced their profile picture with it.

People held events on his behalf—a softball tournament and social events at a local restaurant—to raise money for whatever he needed, and they posted about the events on social media to acquire additional funds. Then, three months before he passed away, friends used technology (in fewer than forty-eight hours) to gather a large group of over one hundred people outside the cancer center where Aaron was being treated. He had been at the center for ninety-two days and was about to be moved from Kentucky to a new cancer center in Texas. The purpose of gathering people was twofold: (1) to encourage him to stay strong by bringing him to the balcony of the cancer center to look down on the crowd and see how loved he was and (2) to raise more money for the new type of treatment he was about to receive. To raise the money, someone filmed the gathering and posted it on Facebook so people could find the website to donate money for the treatment that everyone was hoping would save his life. In the video, you can see the crowd cheering and holding up handmade signs with loving words like “Stay Strong,” “You are our Superhero,” and “We love you.”

Connection

The major possibility that new media use affords is connection. In the early days of AOL, message boards allowed people to discuss, among other things, their hobbies. My aunt Teri told me that one day she was messaging a group that discussed favorite childhood books. She mentioned that hers was a book about a girl visiting the circus and seeing female riders and horses with plumes on their heads, but she could not remember the name of the book. Instantly a man in the group recognized the book and provided the title; he even asked for an address where he could mail her a vintage copy for free. Teri said this was when she was first awakened to new media’s possibilities and reawakened to the kindness of strangers.

Most online activity comes from a desire to connect. In It’s Complicated, danah boyd explores the important reasons young people stay online, arguing that “most teens are not compelled by gadgetry as such—they are compelled by friendship. The gadgets are interesting to them primarily as a means to a social end.”3 Basically, if young people can find a way to hang out with their friends, they will. Youth have a way of “socializing” technology—that is, always finding a way of using technology to nurture relationships with their friends.4 When cars became popular, youth went cruising with their friends and drove to parking lots to sit around and talk to each other. For teens today, having a cell phone means having access to friends. And teens love to talk to their friends.

New media is not just being used to connect with friends though; it is also being used to help young people have healthier experiences with their peers and to feel empowered. “Connected Camps” offers a weeklong program that allows kids to have a camp experience by playing games and engaging in various activities online. There are even counselors who monitor and lead the experiences. Paul Darvasi tells the story of Karen Gilbo’s daughter. She is twelve years old, loves LEGO and playing Minecraft and also happens to have a form of autism (Asperger’s syndrome), which causes her to struggle to read social cues in person.5 In the past, Gilbo sent her daughter to in-person camps (the type most people are familiar with), but her daughter needed an aide with her at all times, and this made her feel different. However, at online camp, she did not see herself as different, and she had positive social interactions with other campers while enjoying some of her favorite activities.

There are also adults who find that the internet helps them relate to others and embrace and participate in God’s love when it would otherwise be difficult or even impossible. Numerous online support groups have been created for people who are facing similar things in life: the challenges of parenting, specific diseases like migraines, various addictions, and so on. Social media use can be deeply encouraging to people who feel alone or marginalized in the community they live in or in the organizations they are a part of.

Internet spaces can also be inspiring and motivating, spaces that nurture learning. Tori McGraw-Rowe, a friend and research assistant for this book, described the importance in her life of the Vineyard Women website, a hub for women’s pastoral voices in the Association of Vineyard Churches.6 It aggregates sermons preached by women in Vineyard churches in North America. For Tori, a young seminarian, recently ordained in the Vineyard church, the sermons have been encouraging and empowering examples of preaching. She is also part of a monthly coaching group, composed of women Vineyard pastors in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Tennessee. Without the social media site that hosts their monthly meeting, the women would probably not know each other, and each would likely be on her own.

The internet has also become an important space for people to relate with those they would otherwise not know. I met Jedidiah Haas while working at an in-person summer camp in high school, approximately eighteen years ago. I ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Gratitudes
• Introduction
• 1. Interested Conversation
• 2. Traversing the New Media Terrain
• 3. Shaping Stories
• 4. Online Jesus
• 5. The Convergence
• 6. Glorious Possibilities
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover