The scandal of the incarnate screen christ’s flesh in a world of digital ghosts a christian reflection on embodiment technology and the god who came close enough to touch the wounded when screens make us ghosts the incarnation calls us back to flesh presence and costly love in a way we are turning into ghosts with passwords
I know it has a dramatic ring to it, but you need only look about you. Bodies are no longer required for much of what we do these days. We have profile pictures to speak for us and comments to argue through. Our love is expressed in hearts and emojis,
our grief in posts, our confessions made from behind an anonymous handle. we befriend folks we have never put a hand on and let faceless voices be our guides then there is artificial intelligence which lets you hold a conversation with something that has the sound of presence but none of the substance no breath
to it no skin or hunger or wounds it has no mother and no dust on its feet we are making a strange world of it i won’t stand here and cast the internet into the lake of fire it is not all evil or without use a digital tool can put
the scriptures in the hand of someone in a hospital at two in the morning or carry a sermon across an ocean or give voice to those who would otherwise be left out in the cold god be thanked for that but there is a price to pay as life migrates to the screen one can be forgiven for forgetting
that christianity is not some spiritual cloud or a religion of floating notions it is not a brand a feed a live stream or a pithy quote set against a dark background it is rooted in the scandal of god taking on flesh real flesh
the eternal son didn’t just put out a statement he came he was born into the blood and crying and straw and smell and danger of it he had hands and feet he grew weary he slept he ate fish he wept at a grave and made contact
with people no one else would we have a habit of relegating the incarnation to christmas cards and the occasional doctrinal formulation the word became flesh fine words true enough but do they unsettle us they should for the incarnation is a holy interruption a protest against being saved from afar god did not issue
a heavenly email to redeem the world christ did not put salvation on from a safe glowing remove he put himself within reach of a traitor’s kiss close enough to be spurned close enough to have his body broken and the modern digital soul quails at that we prefer distance and control
we like to be seen but not truly known we want to edit ourselves to pick our angle and our silence we want community with none of the inconvenience confession without having to look someone in the eye ministry without the odor of humanity the screen offers you a kind of presence without the burden of it how tempting
a pastor can address hundreds online and yet sidestep a hard word in the corridor a church can have a slick digital operation and still not know the names of the hurting among them you can post up about love while the person two rows over sits alone or you can spend the night debating truth and not once pray
for your opponent this goes beyond technology it is a matter of discipleship the screen will teach you to value the image above the neighbor the reaction over the relationship the idea of love over the doing of it but christian love is physical in a stubborn way you don’t wash feet
in theory you don’t anoint the sick with a slogan you can’t break bread as a concept consider the leper jesus put his hand on him In those days a leper was more than unwell. He was untouchable, marked by public shame and religious fear. Christ could have offered a clean little blessing from down the street.
Instead he reached out and made contact. That was theology. in itself. It told us that holiness is not so delicate it cannot be handled, that human bodies are not to be discarded and that even shame is no match for the mercy of God.
The kingdom of God, it says, comes close enough to put your hand on what the rest would rather not. You have to wonder how remote our ghostly age is in comparison. we can certainly care from afar and at times we have to yet if all
of our caring is done at a distance you will find some part of you dries up we lose the sense of another’s weight the way one sits in silence with grief we are prone to forget the ministry of a shoulder to be put upon or a meal left at the door or
a prayer in the same room as someone who needs it a visit that takes time digital life has a way of making us quick love does not it is slow work it waits it may be a poor listener at first but then it is better it looks at faces and sees through an i’m fine when
the eyes tell a different story it shows up and stays put that is the import of the incarnation for our ministry today an efficient church can be digital first and look alive while reaching far but in forgetting bodies it forgets the very heart of the gospel
the church is no content machine it is the body of christ not the concept or the platform of him and so bodies are of consequence the old and the disabled the sick and the tired children and those in their grief the awkward ones those who don’t sing well or stand long or make for good viewing on
a live stream we must not have a place where only the articulate and the digitally fluent seem to be real christ came for the flesh all of it in this we see a challenge to artificial intelligence that we are only beginning to grasp ai can talk and put on a tone
It can do theology and draft a sermon or a pastoral reply, even a song. Some of it is useful but it will never become flesh. It cannot repent or love God. It will not sit by your hospital bed with a trembling hand nor can it be baptized or bear your grief.
It can put words to mercy but it is not merciful. there is something to sober you in that there is no need for christians to panic over technology panic is seldom holy but discernment is called for what are these tools doing to our souls are they a means to love people or
an excuse to hide do they serve the church or teach it to view ministry as a form of production an online sermon might bless you but it is no substitute for the gathered people of god a bible app is fine for reading scripture but it won’t make you obedient
a post can put heart in thousands yet it doesn’t replace the one god has placed before you the truth is the digital world is built to reward disembodiment speed image performance the incarnation is about faithfulness found in the flesh Think of a mother up with a child,
or a pastor on a call with a man no one else has thought of, or a friend with soup. A believer dragging himself to church in a depression. A hand at a funeral, a whispered prayer, a meal after worship. None of it is much to the machine. But heaven is watching. Perhaps we should get back to that.
Not less of the technology per se, but more of the incarnation. More local love and tables and touch where it is right. More walking with people instead of just posting at them. Christ had no contempt for the body and neither can we.
He made his way into the world in the flesh, healed and fed and gave his body and rose in it. Our hope is not to be rid of embodiment but to have it redeemed. That is the faith, no side issue. so use the screen if it serves love stream the sermon send the word reach out to
the isolated but don’t be a ghost don’t let your soul be reduced to an avatar or think that being seen is the same as being present don’t equate your digital reach with christian love the word was made flesh let that be the end of any age that wants salvation without nearness or love without its price.
Daniel J. Grace
