Is online community real community?
Recently the influential National Pastors Convention happened in the US. One of the speakers was Shane Hipps author of the recently released Flickering Pixels who recorded an interview on the nature of online community. In the interview he boldly stated that ‘virtual community is not community.’ To check out the interview click here. Hipps then stated on his blog,
When I say that “virtual community” is not “community,” that does not mean it has no value. As I indicated in the interview, I know that all kinds of deeply meaningful connections and interactions happen online all the time. I have experienced them myself. Some may want to call this “community.” Fair enough. I just don’t call it “community.” That is not intended to dismiss or demean any one’s experience online.
Of the range of responses posted the one that impressed me the most was by Douglas Estes, author of the soon to be released book, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World. I contacted him and he was happy for his response to be re-printed on BrownBlog. So here it is:
Last month on the Out of Ur blog, Shane Hipps shared in an impromptu interview at NPC what he believes to be severe problems with labeling online connections as “virtual community”. Scot McKnight raised some questions (view comments); Anne Jackson mostly defended (view comments). Not to mention Shane’s clarifications. As much as I tremendously respect Shane, I feel I cannot let his fundamentally flawed assertions (and assumptions) about virtual community go unchallenged.
First, let me tell you what meaning virtual community has for me: on the one hand, I seldom participate in any type of virtual community. I’ve attended a number of virtual churches, but for the sake of my marriage I’ve stayed away from World of Warcraft, and I don’t blog (this is my very first!), Twitter, or yet do much else online as far as community goes; on the other hand, I’ve spent the last year asking some hard questions about virtual community for my forthcoming book, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World (Zondervan, 2009). Hard questions that started not by what I felt community to be, but hard questions that came out of my readings of the Fathers, church history, theology, and philosophy as they relate to community.
Let me start with a pointed critique of Shane’s criticisms of virtual community. He lists four necessary ingredients at the beginning of the interview, the first three of which he argues are lacking or absent in virtual community:
1) Shared History: The primary reason there is no obvious shared history in virtual community has nothing to do with the nature of virtual community; it has to do with the current infancy of the medium virtual community is presently tied to. Shane’s criticism is like saying the church was impoverished as a community in A.D. 38 since it had no clear shared history (not counting the history of God’s people up until the life of Christ). But my parenthetical aside makes my point: Christian virtual communities absolutely do have a shared history; they share the same history as any group of Christians under any label or name have shared for the last 2000 years (or far longer if we count the full history of God’s people). To deny virtual Christian communities this shared history would be the same as denying it to house churches, missionary organizations, or any other group working for the cause of Christ.
2) Permanence: Like the first one, the primary reason virtual community has no permanence has nothing to do with the nature of virtual community, but the infancy of the medium. In the next generation, virtual community will become as “permanent” as any type of physical community. Without playing languages games, it’s hard to find “permanent” community anyway. Nations aren’t permanent, and neither are churches. In fact, as a Protestant pastor I watch all the time as church planters plant churches or multisite campuses only to see some of them close up shop a year later because they didn’t have enough customers. How permanent is that? But we wouldn’t criticize the planting team’s efforts as being not real (problematic, yes). Even more so, I personally have a pretty big problem with this ingredient of community from a biblical standpoint.
3) Proximity: Some think this is the Achilles’ heel of virtual community, but not really. For example: It is incorrect to assume that virtual community is either/or. Virtual community is community that takes place primarily in the virtual world, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have physical aspects. To argue Shane’s point is akin to saying that physical community isn’t real community if parts of that community take place in the virtual world. Sorry, but just because I email (virtually communicate with) people in my physical church community doesn’t say anything about the validity or realness of the community I share with those people. For another: Critics suggest that dealing with people in the virtual world is more limited or more broken than dealing with people in the physical world-but I must assume said critics have never pastored a church or worked extensively with people. The fact that someone can experience incredible highs and lows of relationship in both physical and virtual environments strongly points to the legitimacy of both forms of community.
4) Shared Imagination of the Future: Since Shane admitted in the interview that virtual communities may have this, and in fact, this could be their strength, I’ll let his own words stand.
Given this is a blog, space prohibits my response to so many other problems that seem apparent to me in Shane’s arguments. Allow me, though, to hit on two more underlying flaws that Shane’s assumptions are rooted in.
One fundamental flaw I hinted at above is that I’m not convinced these four ingredients or many of the other statements are necessarily related directly to biblical community (whether ekklesia or koinonia). They seem to be more Shane’s assumptions of what he deems to be important aspects of healthy community.
There is a greater fundamental flaw: Shane seems unaware how steeped his view of community is in modernist philosophy. Few Westerners realize their view of community is shaped as much or more by thinkers like Rene Descartes than a “purely” biblical viewpoint. In fact, many people are unaware that in the 17th century, Descartes had already considered virtual existence (of a sort). His conclusions gave the Western world a strictly rationalistic viewpoint-one that in many cases strongly contrasts with a theistic or biblical worldview.
Shane’s metaphor of virtual community as a one-stringed guitar is misplaced. Physical community is a six string acoustic guitar, whereas virtual community is a six string electric guitar. Nothing sounds as sweet to most ears as the note from an acoustic instrument, but there are those people who like the distorted sounds of an electrified axe. There are some who will hate the one, and some who will prefer the other. Both have strengths and weaknesses. But both are in their nature and essence real community.
Still, just because Shane’s arguments appear on shaky ground doesn’t mean his concerns are. His concerns are critically important if we want virtual community to be as “real” as physical community. Proponents of virtual community need to take these kinds of observations to heart to create the most viable, meaningful, and yes, healthy, virtual communities possible.
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To see the original post click here.
Filed under Second Life Church, Social Media/Web 2.0, Virtual Reality, Web 2.0 | |
10 Responses to “Is online community real community?”
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Douglas comes at this from a perspective of not being part of any online communities so as someone who’s been involved in online church for several years his view that online community is real is very affirming.
I’ve also been involved in ‘real’ churches for over 20 years and I think it’s equally easy there for people to create a ‘virtual’ persona, i.e. the person they are in church is not the person they are the rest of the week.
In fact, when I think about my experiences of RL churches, shared history (we’ve always done it that way), permanence (this church will carry on existing regardless of what we do or don’t do to sustain the community), and proximity (I come here because it is my local church not because God called me here) can work against true community in offline churches!
I agree with Shane Hipps to some extent - I think he hits the mark with his comment about proximity, and I would take it one step further and say that what virtual communities lack is physicality.
We are physical creatures, not just minds unfortunately connected to inconvenient chunks of meat. That may sound a rather crude way of putting it, but it’s one which I believe is justified by the pervasive dualism of contemporary western culture (which is where most virtual communities originate) - a dualism which was given a huge impetus, as Douglas Estes rightly points out, by Decartes’ metaphysics.
Physical proximate community may have its problems (the roof never leaks in a virtual church) but it grounds us and forces us to relate to others, warts and all. We can’t run away as easily as we can online. We have to take the consequences of our actions and words far more “really” than we do online. Physical presence permits being with someone in qualitatively superior ways compared to virtual presence: we can’t sit in silent fellowship online, nor can we pay obvious attention - we can’t _listen_ online.
Virtual community can be a very good thing - it can create and enhance relationships, and be a source of advice and support - but it will always be lacking compared to physical proximate community. I believe this distinction is at the heart of the Christian faith - we believe in the Word made flesh, not the Word made web !
This post could hardly have come at a more appropriate time for me. This afternoon I cleared my email and found that one of my student friends had just written on my Facebook “Wall.” Her message? That she had been in hospital for a week, and was being treated for a relapse into anorexia. I first met her in a Religious Studies class that we shared, but it was only after reading her FB page that I knew about her ED. She is not a Christian, but is desperately searching for meaning in life. She may become the first person I bring to faith. OK, our relationship isn’t exclusively virtual, but without the virtual means of communication there is much she would never have been able to communicate with me.
I myself frequently use my FB status updates to send prayer requests to my Christian friends, either relating to my own needs or about situations that concern me. I’ve heard that many people use Twitter for the same purpose. There’s no question to my mind that social networking and other expressions of ‘virtual church’ fit the Church’s mission in the contemporary context, and those who knock them do so only out of ignorance.
I think the ‘duality’ argument is a bit of a red herring Steve to be honest - since we can’t (as you say) be separated into ‘mind’ or ’spirit’ and ‘body’, then this can’t be happening on the web either. I’m in a physical space and physically typing, what I’m doing is holistic!
Would you say a phone call or a get well card are not valid forms of expressing a relationship because they don’t involve physical proximity?
I’ve written a quick response to Shane Hipps’s video here, in particular to his main issue, “shared history” - http://anglicanecumenicalbiblestudy.blogspot.com/2009/03/quick-response-to-shane-hipps.html - it’s quite clear to me that Shane is missing something since our Bible study has some very clear marks of a shared history.
I read Douglas’ response to Shane Hipps’ view with great interest. Upon reflection some additional thoughts are as follows:
1) Shared History
Shared history can be realised and experienced at different levels. On the one hand shared history can be at a macro or global / universal level - it is something which ALL Christians have in common, and therefore on this basis any Christian community can be said to have a shared history. But I am not sure that this is what Shane is getting at.
Shared history can also be at a micro or local level, and can be shaped by society and culture - different ways of doing and different ways of being. With a virtual community, drawing upon people from different societies and cultures surely everything is up in the air and it takes TIME for such a community to establish its identity at a local level? So it is not just related to the infancy of the medium; it is also to do with the diversity that may be realised through these communities.
If you go into a church building in RL, take a look at the dominant features - and consider how these may define the nature or characteristic of that community. Is there an emphasis on the pulpit for example, or the Lord’s Table, or the choir stalls? These reflect the tradition, history and theology of the expression of Christianity in that place.
Let’s not forget Mission history when many missionaries tried to impose a westernised view of Christianity on the people that they were reaching out to…was the gospel that they were sharing a first hand gospel? The point to make here is that a viritual community has to grapple with what does the gospel look like to the people that are part of it, how might the virtual medium influence that, and does that change understanding of what it is to be church. All of this is underpinned by theological anthropology.
2) Permanence
I would argue that the pace of change in a virtual context is much faster that a real life context. If you look at Second Life as an example, there are so many Christian expressions that have come and gone. This has NOTHING to do with the infancy of the community. I wonder can a vurtual community ever be static or permanent, or will it always evolve, change and adapt? Is permanence a bad thing or a good thing? And to what extent is permanence related to being consistent and demonstrating integrity.
You could also argue that the only thing that is permanent is the Trinity, and we know that when thinking of Jesus as the true vine in JOhn’s gospel that the language used includes a sense of abiding and how we are apppointed “to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (John 15:16-17)
I would also argue that there is a huge difference between something that can come and go and something that changes - and often church communities struggle with handling change. Through change there may well be characteristics that remain unaffected - like core values or identity.
3) Proximity
For me this again comes down to the nature of being church and what it is to be church, going back again to theological anthropology.
In the Bible there is a sense of the importance of God creating us in his image a likeness - and our physical representation is clearly important. A sense of being face to face is also important.
With introduction of alternative forms of communication, we have had to learn how to communicate effectively in different ways. When the bulk of communication in a face to face situation is non verbal HOW do we compensate when using alternative forms of communication? How do we effectively communicate emotion in an email or in chat?
It may come down to expectation and understanding. If people come into a virtual environment and expect it to be the same as real life or face to face, then their expectation will not be addressed. Do people understand the differences in communication in a virtual context and are they able to compensate for the different communication medium that is used?
I think is is also important to bear in mind ’screening’ and ‘projection’ that may happen in a virtual context - of course people can wear masks in real life - but a virtual environment can have a profound impact on self esteem, self awareness and realisation and people can behave in different ways to how they might in real life. Wisdom is knowing how to address these challenges and foster effective communication and trust.
In all of this, I am not saying that Shane has all the answers is necessarily totally correct. But I do think that there are wider implications we need to be aware of.
There’s a more extensive interview with Shane at http://shanehipps.blogspot.com/2009/02/virtual-community.html where he explains more what he’s getting at
[…] Mark Brown asks the questions, Is Online Community Real Community? and does a great job over at Brownblog of rounding up some of the thoughts, comments, controversy […]
I welcome Douglas’ recognition of virtual communities as real communities - I think they can be - but I think Shane Hipps’ concerns are quite real, as Douglas acknowledges at the end of his post.
For me, “community” is just a way of talking about “the kind of group I’d like to live in” - there is no one definition of what a “real community” is. Once you get that red herring out of the way, it’s apparent (I think) that what people call community online is different in some important ways from what people call community offline - for example, online group members are much less likely to stick around for long periods of time. Some do, most don’t.
Here’s another thing to remember: almost (not quite, but almost) everyone I meet in an online church is going to church offline too. Talking about “online communities” as if these were the only communities people were involved in is really missing the point.
I guess the important questions would be along the lines of…
- What is a good life?
- How is the Internet helping you, personally, live a good life?
- How is our online group helping the people who join us to live a good life?
… and that may well include making friends online, finding people you can confide in, creating a space where people feel they belong, sharing fun and relaxing company, learning about God, etc. The emphasis should be on how the group fits into and enriches the lives of its members, not on anything so black-and-white as whether its a “real community” or not.
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