"The core idea of the Christian faith is the incarnation," writes Michael Frost in the opening chapter of his most recent book. But Frost, the Vice Principal of Morling College and the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute (a mission study center located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia), is worried that we've lost the rich implications of that doctrine in a "rootless, disengaged, and screen-addicted" world. I think he's awfully right. Enjoy our conversation (ahem) fleshing out this topic.
You begin Incarnate talking about the "defleshing" nature of modern culture. What do we lose when we lose embodiment?
The use of web-based communication and social media, the existential homelessness of much of modern life, the sorting of people into tribes, have all played a part in defleshing the human experience.
In the book I suggest that we find ourselves in an age where an excarnate experience of life is increasingly common. The term excarnation means to deflesh, and is the opposite of the much more commonly used term, incarnation, which means to take on flesh.
The use of web-based communication and social media, the existential homelessness of much of modern life, the sorting of people into tribes (political, theological, socioeconomic), have all played a part in defleshing the human experience. This is also apparent in the church. We are as capable of treating people as disembodied objects as anyone. And yet as philosopher Charles Taylor says, "Christianity, as the faith of the Incarnate God, is denying something essential to itself as long as it remains wedded to forms which excarnate."
In Incarnate I explore the dire need for the Christian community to embody faith more obviously than ever, inviting Christians to take seriously the calling to enflesh biblical values in action in context. Excarnation makes engagement with the poor and the lost much more difficult. It contributes to the sense of dislocation experienced by many in suburban neighborhoods. It fuels the steady stream of unseemly Internet-based debates, and it only increases the pervasive impact of pornography and violent video games.
You make a sharp connection between disengagement and "objectifying" others. How does the Western church objectify our neighbors? Please be painfully specific.
When we're disengaged from people it is much easier to objectify them as "other." We saw that in apartheid South Africa and in the American South prior to the civil rights movement. We see it daily on certain television news networks which regular decry the "other" as liberal or conservative and dismiss them summarily on the basis of that label. The church has been equally affected by the excarnating impulse that separates us from the other and then allows us to either disdain them (at best) or attack them (at worst).
The most extreme example of this would be something like Westboro Baptist Church. By completely disengaging from the world it is easier for them to objectify homosexuals as "fags" or to picket the funerals of servicemen and women. But even in less extreme cases, we all know what it's like to objectify others by applying cover-all labels to them such as "liberals," "conservatives," "Muslim extremists," "the undocumented," etc. In many instances our impulse to objectify emerges from a deep-seated fear that the world is unravelling and history is out of control. This fear leads us to scapegoat others as the cause for the dystopia or disintegration we are observing. When we don't know any Muslims personally it's easier for us to objectify them as all being extremists and scapegoat them for the world's ills. If we don't ever meaningfully engage with the people we call liberals then it's possible to blame them for the church's woes. And when these discussions or accusations are hurled across the Internet, disconnected from personal connection and the rubbing of life against life, the objectification of the "other" can be white-hot.
How do you respond to pastoral sentiments like "Not Tweeting? Repent!"? Can tech ever be incarnational in its posture? Doesn't it depend on how you use it?
Yes, technology can be relational in its posture. But the term incarnational literally means to do something "in the flesh."
Like any tool, technology is all about how you use it. I was at pains in Incarnate not to suggest we should completely abandon social media, but that we should take care in ensuring that it is not shaping us in ways we're not comfortable with.
Do an inventory of your daily or weekly tech usage to ensure it's not consuming you and wrenching you from meaningful face-to-face engagement with others. Don't check texts or websites while you're connecting face-to-face with someone else. Limit your usage of digital communication, as a spiritual discipline. To your specific question about tweeting, when limited to 140 characters much of our communication can lack nuance. We need to be careful about how we use it. Yes, it can be relational in its posture. But the term incarnational literally means to do something "in the flesh."
So talk to me about the spiritual disciplines related to … smartphones, for example.
That's a good example. Folks with smartphones need to be smart about their use. Utilize them for meaningful connection with others, but consider adopting a few spiritual disciplines when using technology. Why always text someone when you can call? Sure, it takes a little longer to call, but engaging someone with your voice is step toward deeper connection than simply sending a text. Take regular sabbaticals from your phone. Develop a daily or weekly rhythm that frees you from the screen. For example, only check social media before lunch, or take Lenten fasts from technology or social media. Take screen-free Fridays (or whatever day suits you). And we need to model such discipline to our children, by developing rhythms that ensure we're using the medium, it's not using us.
If the internet and associated digital culture vanished tomorrow, what would the church have lost? What would it have gained?
My concern is that many people don't think hard enough about whether they like the way technology is shaping them.
Look, Winston Churchill once noted that we build our buildings and then our buildings build us. A building is a tool, as is a car or a computer. We build them for various purposes, but we need to be cautious about how they in turn build or shape us. If the Internet vanished tomorrow much would be lost. There are many incredibly important uses for digital connection. I live in Sydney and I feel genuinely connected to friends, colleagues, and associates around the world because of the Internet.
My concern is that many people don't think hard enough about whether they like the way technology is shaping them, and in particular how it is shaping interpersonal relationships. We need to live a fully embodied existence, in community, and in place. Of course, having global connections is a wonderful aspect of 21st Century life, but if technology wrenches us out of a meaningful sense of embodiment, away from connection with neighbors, and out of the place in which we live, we lose something precious and important. Using web-based tools is great, but so is walking your neighborhood, hosting dinner parties, volunteering at community gardens, sharing a table at a soup kitchen, playing with children, gardening, sports, games, and sex. You can't phone those things in.
What's your advice to leaders struggling to disciple a digital, disembodied generation? How can we craft a compelling vision for incarnation?
Sometimes it feels like a lost cause. The effects of excarnation are like a cultural tsunami breaking over us. But I suspect many of us are tired of turning on the TV and hearing a newscaster blaming "liberals in the Democratic party" or "Republican conservatives" for all our woes; or checking Facebook and reading ill-informed people making grandiose criticisms of others; or reading tweets telling us to buy chicken from a certain fast food outlet in solidarity with their owner's theological views; or getting emails that insist we change our profile pictures as a protest against, well, whatever. Leaders should teach about the importance of embodiment, community, and place.
God has revealed himself most sublimely through exactly these things and he invites us to live a rich, physical, communal life in relation to the neighborhood in which we reside and the earth upon which we live. And leaders should also model this vision. We should know our neighbors' names. We should shop at local stores and know where our food comes from. We should befriend the outsider and take the stranger into our homes. We should practice hospitality, generosity, neighborliness, and place-making. The Internet can be used to contribute to this end, but ultimately it cannot achieve this goal alone. That happens primarily "in the flesh."
Paul Pastor is associate editor of Leadership Journal and PARSE.
