Abstract
The restrictions imposed due to the pandemic have forced churches to acknowledge and engage with the digital technology that has revolutionized society. This has resulted in digital ecclesiology coming to the fore. Ecclesiology for a Digital Church is a product of this increased prominence.
The volume boasts 14 contributors, both male and female, from a variety of geographical and ecclesiological contexts: from Oceania to America, from Roman Catholics to Pentecostalists. These contributors inevitably vary in their views; however, the editors effectively ensure that an argument in favour of the Church’s exploration of digital technology subsists throughout.
The book is divided into three parts, beginning with a linguistic and conceptual discussion that defends the ‘reality’ of online mediations of church. Having laid the linguistic groundwork in the first section, the second takes a more experiential and practical approach, with the aim of displaying the learning points of the Church’s foray into digital technology thus far. The key conclusion of this second section is that digital technology has helped a church in danger of becoming a Sunday event to restore its status as a community of believers. The third and most radical section of the book looks ahead to the future. Bala A. Musa and Boye-Nelson Kiamu draw parallels between this period and the first Pentecost (pp. 120–3). A number of radical ways in which digital technology may assist the Church’s mission are presented, including increased accessibility and opportunities to break down previous discriminatory barriers in the Church (p. 143). Additionally, Philip Butler argues that there may be a pastoral demand in the digital church that artificial intelligence could address (pp. 161–4).
The editors state that the aim of the book is ‘to offer talking points that challenge traditional ecclesiological models and theological modes of thinking about the nature of churches and how we might need to begin to think differently about Christian community in the future’. This is just what is achieved. Ecclesiology for a Digital Church does not attempt to address one of the many questions that have arisen over the course of the pandemic, as Richard Burridge’s Holy Communion in Contagious Times does (see Bishop Pierre Whalon’s review article in the May issue of Theology). The only firm conviction offered is that the digital world should be incorporated into the Church. It does, nevertheless, touch on numerous points of discussion, including sacramentology, missiology and pastoral implications in many contexts. It is an accessible book for those unfamiliar with ecclesiology, although readers unfamiliar with digital technology may become quickly lost in the range of technical terms, despite Dyer’s brief typology in the first chapter (pp. 5–7, 11–13).
As we have heard so often, the times through which we have lived and continue to live are unprecedented. The pandemic has interrupted the Church’s norm and forced it to engage with the digital world. This book represents a marker on the journey towards a new normal that may see the Church enter more fully into the twenty-first century.