Life Together, Apart: An Ecclesiology for a Time of Pandemic - Roland Chia

The following blog post is an edited excerpt from an essay appearing in the Network’s eBook Project entitled Digital Ecclesiology: A Global Conversation. The eBook includes 11 essay where authors reflect on the realities of the church revealed through moving from offline to online worship during a time of global pandemic. The eBook is available for FREE download at: https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/188698.

Life Together, Apart: An Ecclesiology for a Time of Pandemic
Roland Chia

The coronavirus pandemic has brought about unprecedented disruption to the life and ministry of the church. With stringent lockdown and social-distancing measures, churches have no choice but to move their Sunday services (often radically truncated) to online platforms. Some Christians doubt if participating in online Sunday services can really be regarded as authentic worship (Banks, 2020). Others are concerned that the digitalisation of the church may result in the erosion of the communion (koinonia) among members. Such extraordinary times should compel Christians to ask fundamental questions about what it means to be a community gathered in the name of Christ.

Christ and the Spirit
As we reflect on the question “What is the church?” I would like to state at the outset that there can be no proper understanding of ecclesiology without Christology and pneumatology. In Life Together, Bonhoeffer grounds everything he has to say about the Christian community in Christology. “Christianity,” he writes, “means community through Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this” (Bonhoeffer, 1954, p. 23). Because Christians are members of the one Body of Christ, their relationship with one another is always mediated by their Lord, who is the Head the Body (Colossians 1:18).

The relationship between Christology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology is brought out in 1 Peter 2:5, where we find the image of Christ as the cornerstone of the temple and where believers are described as “a spiritual house.” The Spirit who has brought the church into being now indwells it—both in the individual and in the community—and acts as its principle of animation.

Worship
The central activity of the church is, without doubt, worship. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the worship experience of many Christians as churches were forced to suspend physical Sunday services when countries went into lockdown. Churches in many countries have made creative use of technology to ensure that worship services are made available either through livestreaming or some other arrangements. But many are of the view that online services pale in comparison with physical services and wonder if the worship of the church is in some important ways deficient when services are conducted in this way.

It is the Spirit that gathers the church, the Body of Christ, for corporate worship. In so doing, the Spirit knits the stories of its individual members together so that they form the tapestry of the story of the doxological community. Through the agency of the Spirit, Christians participate in this spiritual reality whenever they gather for worship, regardless whether it takes place in St. Peter’s Basilica or in their living rooms.

The administration of the sacrament of holy communion is also an important aspect of Christian worship. There is, however, much debate as to whether it is appropriate for holy communion to be conducted when worship services are livestreamed or pre-recorded. In Singapore, many churches have elected to temporarily suspend the practice of holy communion. Even the Roman Catholic Church has taken this approach and chosen to practice “spiritual communion” instead. The judgements that churches make concerning the validity of practicing holy communion remotely are guided by their different eucharistic theologies. However, if the Spirit of God could bring God’s word to believers as they participate in online services such that it may be truly heard and received, surely the same Spirit could ensure the reality and efficacy of the sacrament even though the scattered members of the community participate in it remotely.

Koinonia
We turn finally to reflect on the Christian community. Many Christians feel that their ability to engage with one another in fellowship has been seriously hampered because of the stringent lockdown measures. While it is no doubt true that meeting via Zoom (for example) to study the Bible cannot be as engaging as meeting physically, many scholars have shown that it is not necessarily the case that virtual meetings would lead to the total loss of community (Campbell, 2005, pp. 176-177). God has ordained the church in such a way that its members are profoundly dependent on one another. Of course, this is best done in person, face to face. But it can also be accomplished through communications technology such as WhatsApp, email, Facebook or Zoom.

Conclusion
In this brief essay, I have argued that in the wake of this pandemic with all its attendant disruptions to the life of the church, Christians must rediscover the essence of ecclesiology. The church is sustained by the grace of God and is therefore not ultimately dependent or bound by historically contingent forms. Thus, even with the strictest lockdown measures as a result of which the regular activities of the church are suspended or disrupted, the identity of the church as Christ’s Body is not diminished.

Roland Chia is the Chew Hock Hin Professor of Christian Doctrine at Trinity Theological College and the Theological and Research Advisor for the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity in Singapore.

Sources
Banks, A. M. (2020). Shunning online services, some clergy preach “abstinence” from gathered worship. Religion News Service. Retrieved from https://religionnews.com/2020/04/09/shunning-online-services-some-clergy....

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Pope Leo XIII. (1897). Divinum Illud Munus: Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the Holy Spirit. Retrieved from http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xii....

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