Back to Life. Back to Virtuality.

I was woken up at 4am last night, by a party outside our house. The relaxation of lockdown is bringing people out into the streets and parks. Recently, several beaches were crowded by hordes of holidaymakers, completely ignoring social distancing. And pubs overflow their seating on our pavements. That it is mainly the young doing this reflects the state of their hormones, and their innate desire to mix and mingle. It also instantiates Mikhail Bahktin’s concept of the “carnivalesue”: that people occasionally need to let rip.

The Dangers of Digital

Imagine if Covid had happened pre-internet. We have maintained relationships and connection through video calls and social media. Without them, the isolation could have been much worse. Church too has flourished through virtualisation. Small prayer groups and Bible studies occur via video calls. Church services are also shared through this clunky means, or through pre-recorded, heavily-edited productions, on social media, which demand intensive volunteer labour.

Assemblage Theory and the Virus

A few weeks ago, I had a bit of a meltdown (I am rather administratively and managerially challenged), as I was trying to work out our Church’s risk assessment, with a view to possibly returning to our church building in July, the date our government had declared safe for churches to reopen. Discovering the amount of detail needed to ensure safety for everyone made us delay any reoccupation until September. Reading the (justifiably) complex Baptist union Guidelines this month caused us to establish a task group to plan restarting services in the building, perhaps not until October.

Dispatches from Lockdown

I thought I had an idea for a book. I would call it “Corona Theology: Dispatches from Lockdown”. It would examine my own personal and theological responses to the crisis, and draw out themes for reflection. It would be an example of Contextual Theology: a contextual theology of Covid-19 and also a model of how to do any contextual theology. As such it would be a blend of the theoretical and practical. Consequently, like Jacques Ellul’s work, the finished product would embody a dialectical oscillation, and draw on writings from my column, “Edgenotes”, for The Prisma (an online multicultural newspaper), and this blog, “Jeremiad”. The former contains notes on society and culture, leaving aside my own faith commitments, as I try to analyse what’s going on. The latter expresses my own personal faith convictions much more explicitly.

Flourishing and Fragmentation. Ministry in all seasons – including Covid

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun, in their book For the Life of the World. Theology that makes a difference, articulate a vision for a relevant Gospel-centred theology in this century. Written before Coronavirus, it nevertheless contains much that is applicable to our situation. For them, theology must be measured by its ability to promote “human flourishing”, in a holistic sense, in all areas of life.

However, realistic about our fallen world, and the as-yet unconsummated nature of God’s kingdom, Volf and Croasmun recognise that every empirical realisation of the gospel is also “fragmented”. In this half-time, this overlap, of the ages, our attempts at living out the new creation will be flawed, inadequate, and partial (1 Co.13.9-12) - although no less significant for all that.

The Mysticism of Covid

This week, I cycled through the deserted streets and squares of London’s central university district. The recently opening stores, with their queues, had made me forget how abandoned the city still is. I talked with one coffee shop worker, fearing closure; with their usual clientele absent – professors, students and office workers.

White Consciousness and Black Lives Matter

(My friend Nathan McGuire asked me to write this for his blog. You can see the article there - https://www.nathanlmcguire.com/blog/white-consciousness-and-black-lives-matter)

It could have been expected that the worldwide Covid pandemic would produce worldwide socio-political convulsions. The health crisis has brought to the surface deep underlying inequalities and injustices. In particular, of course, we see this in the unrest and uprisings sparked by the killing of a black man in Minneapolis. In one sense, nothing unusual; we’ve seen many of these. But coming during the tensions caused by inefficient and unjust responses to Coronavirus, it exploded into a global reaction.