Every Christian aspires to obey God, avoid evil and do good. But some modern day predicaments are not discussed specifically in the Bible. How, then, can we apply biblical principles to our lives?

In this series, The Methodist Church in Singapore shares reflections on its Social Principles which, more than ever before, can help believers live by God’s firm principles in today’s volatile and complex world. 

Here, Rev Dr Bernard Chao looks at the struggles of an increasingly digitalised society and how the Church can respond through a biblical lens, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Engaging the post-pandemic Church

What should our attitude towards the Internet, science and technology be as Christians and churches?

Should the relationship be one of suspicion, competition, or fearful distance?

Or can there be a more hopeful and mutually respectful engagement between the Christian faith and the digital world, scientific knowledge and new technologies?

Globally, churches have been slow and reluctant to engage the digital world for decades. Even as the Internet emerged, gaming culture and social media swept the world, online commerce expanded, video content exploded and entertainment migrated from cinemas to online streaming, churches in general have been hesitant to actively consider how Christian witness and mission may be imagined and experienced through various digital media and platforms.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, few churches had regular online ministry of any sort.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a seismic shift in attitudes and practices in Singapore churches. As restrictions tightened on physical meetings, churches pivoted to online services and conducting various forms of ministry using videoconferencing and other digital modes and apps.

Our pre-pandemic fears and discomfort with the use of digital modes were quickly jettisoned.

Post-pandemic, the State of the Church: Singapore 2022 study showed that the pandemic was a hotbed for digital innovation and 77% of the 144 churches surveyed continued with livestream services after the pandemic.

When compared to pre-pandemic practices, more than half of the churches surveyed had shifted between 25% to 75% of their activities online.

Although churches have now restarted most of their pre-pandemic in-person activities, the new normal has witnessed changed patterns in both society and church.

There is now a significant preference for working from home, holding meetings online and an emerging exploration of new digital ministry and mission.

However, churches have yet to develop a coherent theology for digital ministry, let alone construct and settle into new liturgies or practices.

Taking digital engagement from superficial to authentic

Christian social principles can guide thoughtful, faithful and holy engagement with the sphere of the Internet, sciences and technologies.

Three out of four sections of the Methodist Social Principles relating to this sphere, for instance, recognises the Internet’s “ubiquitous presence in modern life”.

This is an implicit recognition of how the Internet dominates our life and how the world is mediated through digital means for most people today. 

The digital sphere can be an educational, commercial and social tool that can be used for the good of humanity and even Christian living and mission.

Furthermore, digital or online communication and relationships are not necessarily “superficial or fleeting” and can be authentic, “life-giving expressions of mutual love” even if in-person interactions can never be adequately replaced.

However, the digital environment is also a space in which evil and anti-social behaviour can be easily propagated and accessed.

These include the spread of falsehoods, anti-religious or anti-Christian rhetoric, pornography, paedophilia, hate groups, terrorist ideologies and the theft of intellectual and financial property.

It is not the source of such social evils. However, evil can be served and propagated via the Internet.

Christians should view the digital sphere as they would any other physical space, social context, or tool which can be used for good or evil.

We are not called as Christians to isolation and distancing away from the world but toward thoughtful and faithful engagement through “patient and faithful public witness to the Gospel”, including on the Internet.

A God who is everywhere

Our commission as followers of Jesus in the fast-changing digital space is to actively participate in, and shape, the thinking about and use of the Internet in ways that extend divine design for social holiness, seek the shalom of people and advance the mission of God.

We seek then, in the words of the apostle Paul, to be the church of Christ that expresses “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:23, NIV).

I take the hopeful posture that the Internet is our parish, recognising that there is no sphere in which our God is not present and ahead of us in accomplishing His mission to redeem the world.

Christian social principles apply a similar approach of hopefulness to technology and the sciences by regarding all technology and science (including the Internet) as a divine gift that can serve the good of society if they are used with spiritual wisdom and not abused.

As such, Christians should engage the sciences in conversation and view technology as a help, subject always to the scrutiny of Scripture and careful spiritual discernment.

Such a hopeful posture toward the Internet, science and technology reflects John Wesley’s keen sense of God’s omnipresence.

In his 1788 sermon, On the Omnipresence of God, Wesley declared that “there is no point of space, whether within or without the bounds of creation, where God is not.” Wesley had in mind the words of Jeremiah 23:24: “Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?”

To understand that God is present everywhere has profound implications for our understanding of both space and mission. God is present in both physical and digital spaces.

To conceive of divine presence and activity extending into cyberspace challenges the Church to reconsider our tepid engagement with the Internet.

To comprehend of God’s sovereignty over all creation, knowledge and truth dispels the fear and any inadequacy Christians and churches may feel in engaging scientific knowledge and technological changes.

With such a scriptural, Wesleyan and hopeful perspective, Christians and churches can reimagine and engage with new missional zeal the Internet as our parish, the sciences as a conversation partner and technology as a helper for the mission of God today.

The Methodist Social Principles on the Sphere of the Internet, Sciences & Technologies articulate The Methodist Church in Singapore’s response to the issues that Christians face today. These are not rules, but guidelines drawn from Scriptural and theological foundations as well as Methodist traditions. 

Watch this space for the next social principles article: The Bible doesn’t talk about stocks, bonds and bitcoins, so what should we do? 

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