In the previous blog, I critiqued (okay, criticized) a new trend in the world of Church. My ranting was based upon a spoof run by Lark News. According to Lark News there is a trend to replace senior pastors with electronically produced and projected virtual preachers. As a pastor I went through a gamut of emotional responses upon reading the article, from uproarious laughter, to puzzlement, to anger, and then sadness. But wait! You too can have a pastor who has no such reactive emotions. Thankfully, this new pastor will only emote through the messages on screen, with emotions tailored to fit your desires.
In the blog I based my evaluation about this virtual EGHEAD (electronically generated, humanly engineered, adjustable device) from the objective standard of the Bible. After all, that’s what orthodox, Evangelical people do. It wasn’t a purely objective evaluation, nor a complete one; but it was a start. As I began thinking more about it, I also saw some practical implications and problems with this virtual EGHEAD.
By the way, I’ve been trying to come up with an appropriate nomenclature. The congregation in the article had given the virtual thing the name Don Lawrence. Giving the virtual preacher a human name only serves to make it easier for people to believe this thing is a real human (should I say superhuman?), thereby deepening the deceit. Why did they call him Don? And why did they give male qualities to this virtual pastor? Does that mean this particular congregation is still stuck in an antiquated, pre-androgynous and sexist culture? I would have thought the new minister would be sexually indefinable? You know, neutered. As neutered in appearance as it is in spirit.
“Virtual pastor” doesn’t cut it for me. I know pastors, and this is no pastor! What shall we call it? Uhmm, how about PMS for Post Mortal Shepherd? Naaahhh. I like EGHEAD, but I also thought of Automated Simulated Shepherd. People could give it the first name, Jack. But this thing is neither a shepherd nor a pastor. No matter how much one might believe it to be human, it is not. No matter how much one might believe it to be a life-like preacher, it is not. We could call it APE for Automated Preaching Entity. I think a better name might be Simulated Thing that Undermines People’s Intrinsic Design or STUPID. You can think a while about the many reasons why that would fit.
I suppose there is a downside (upside?)to STUPID APE: no God-ordained undershepherd to love you, to pray for you, to counsel you, to encourage you, to exhort you, or to disciple you. You know, all that in-your-life stuff violates too many self-preferential boundaries. What’s worse is that with an EGHEAD there would be no “main man” about whom to gossip or slander, to get angry at, to fight with, to berate, to cut down or to kick out of the church. That, of course, is one of the selling points to this new thing.
Since we are being clever and innovative, perhaps we should develop yet another version of the Bible? After all, the one we have is too out of date with too much of the human element we don’t like. We need a new one that projects the dawning of this new age. This new translation might begin with, “Then Church said, ‘Let us make a pastor in our image, after our likeness…’” But wait! There’s more! To be biblically consistent it should also read, “Then Church said, ‘It is not good for pastor to be alone. I will make a helpmate suitable for him,’” which would require a virtual associate, or virtual elders, or a virtual staff.
Frankly, as a pastor, I really like the idea of a virtual congregation. Granted, it would take much longer than eighteen months to configure just the right kind of congregation. That would be fun, though. Endless hours developing individuals without quirks and problems could be therapeutic. A congregation without abusers, complainers, the lazy, the incompetent, the uncommitted, the half-committed, those who are over-needy and suck the life out of others, the arrogant and proud, the disobedient, the irritating, the angry, the gossips and slanderers, the drunks, and…phew! Such a project could take at long, long time. The virtual church would be like the Stepford Wives, except with Stepford husbands, and daughters, and sons, and brothers, and sisters, and cousins, and neighbors, and strangers. But, there is one major problem with this virtual congregation. You know what it is? No matter how hard I try, I still won’t be able to get it right. Why? Because I’ll be in it.
It’s not too surprising that it takes about eighteen months to fine-tune EGHEAD to fit the desires (read: lusts) of the congregation. It also takes twelve to eighteen months for a congregation to identify the multitude of things they don’t like in a new pastor. That’s usually when the conflicts begin. One of the selling points to this EGHEAD is that by having a congregation manufacture a pastor in their own image they won’t have someone to criticize since they will only be criticizing themselves. Uh-huh. As if that ever stopped criticisms before. Given time, the focus of sinful grumbling and disgruntledness will shift to the associate pastor, a staff member, elder, deacon, teacher, or the team who put together EGHEAD. C’mon! Are we so biblically illiterate that we’ve forgotten what Israel did in the desert? They grumbled against Moses. But their real anger was directed at the most pure, perfect, complete, all-encompassing, super-fulfilling, all-knowing, beautiful entity – God! If a mega-church congregation like that, who witnessed unbelievable live-action, special effects that superseded by a million times the best, most captivating reality show, quickly became fickle complainers, what makes anyone think EGHEAD will do better? Hey! I’ve got news for you. It ain’t a pastor problem! It’s a people problem. And it’s called sin.
The heart of what’s wrong with the virtual pastor is the philosophy behind it. It is clever, but shallow and wrong. It is wrong because it is a sophisticated attempt at creating heaven on earth; and a heaven on earth without God’s involvement. That was the mistake Adam and Eve made. They wanted utopia without God. This virtual thing also attempts to address sinful attitudes and actions of people without the redemptive work of Jesus. For some mysterious reason God determined to work with, in and through sinful creatures to accomplish his redemptive and transforming purposes. He designed and used sinful and imperfect prophets, priests and kings in the old covenant era, and designed and uses sinful and imperfect evangelists, pastors and teachers in this present covenant era. No virtual pastors, just actual ones. That was God's design. How can we think we can do better?
I suspect that if these virtual pastors explored the depths of biblical theology, rather than the breadth of the internet, they would be able to find the mind of God as to why God intends to use sinful but redeemed people to accomplish his purposes in history. I also suspect that if the truth came out these virtual EGHEADs would crash and fizzle into oblivion.
However, I’m not that optimistic. Since this virtual stuff is all about avoiding problems and pleasing people the trend will only grow, and with it will come new and innovative things. This “church” of the future won’t resemble anything of God's Church in history, let alone the Church described by God in his Word. Yet, that’s all right, because throughout redemptive history God has always called forth a peculiar remnant. And peculiar they will be, because they’ll be real.
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