Christian Fellowship in the 21st Century
In his book, The Shallows, Nicholas Carr quotes David Levi as saying “Today, more information is available to us [through the internet] than ever before but there is less time to make use of it—specifically to make use of it with any depth of reflection. Tomorrow it will be worse.”
Carr gives credit for the things the media has enabled us to do, like my being able to publish this blog. But the negatives, Carr writes, far outweigh the benefits. In his blog Our cluttered minds, Jonah Lehrer, accordingly writes, “We don’t see trees anymore, just twigs and leaves.”
We fail to see “the hand,” the roots that feed us. Socrates, known for his attempt to find the eternal hand that feeds us spoke of this in terms of Truth, Beauty and Virtue. Our culture as a whole in all its various complex ways and the media in particular, reflect the distances we have strayed from “the hand” that provides with truth and honesty.
Instead, everything becomes a contest of winners and losers. Tomorrow, well over 100 million people will be watching the 58th super bowl. Besides there being only one winner, some will lose millions in betting, others will win. Political preferences will divide brother from brother in the upcoming November elections,
This leaves me extremely sad. At age 90 I would like to think that the Good Old Days were better at providing truth and honesty. Living on a small farm with no running water, electricity, or indoor bathrooms there was nothing ideal or nostalgically pristine about that life.
Oh, there was a Norwegian bachelor, then, who lived a mile from us. He spoke no English and would walk past our farm as he made his way to a nearby town to buy the essentials—a month’s supply of coffee, beans and bacon. As he walked past our place he would keep looking towards our house, hoping that my father or mother would call out to him to come up the driveway for a cup of coffee and converse a bit with him in Norwegian. There seemed to be something good about that at that time.
While this was happening there on the farm, the world had been torn apart by the Second World War which my folks followed on a little battery-operated radio in the kitchen. It would be years later that the truth concerning the atrocities of that war became known, lending a certain pessimism reflected in David Levi’s statement that “Tomorrow it will be worse.”
There are no “pristine places” where we can pull the blankets up over our heads and let the rest of the world go by. The devastating years of Covid19 drove us to facetime and Facebook for comfort which David Levi describes as “The church of the google.”
These incredible phones get inside our heads with such force they affect the very nervous systems of our brains. We have what is called the salient system in our brains, which really means the orchestrator of ourselves. Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook now admits, the salient system in our brains was being programmed. P 234 The Shallows
We are not only being programmed by all the information, we were becoming removed from the source that brings peace, comfort and joy to our souls which can only be found in Christian fellowship. Here is link that defines Christian fellowship. In the book of Acts we learn that the early Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:42 The book of Acts also records the coming of the Holy Spirit through whose means they might form one body of believers. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; Ephesians 4:4
As Paul explains to the church at Corinth For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body–whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 1 Corinthians 12:13
Rather than to respond to the ways our brains have been programmed through Christian fellowship, we are given one mind as Peter writes. Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 1 Peter 3:8 To be like-minded means to live in the promises of the Spirit which gives us the vision of the glories that shall be ours in the life to come. The downside of digital knowledge is that it gives us the illusion that we know far more than we actually know about what is really happening.
The blessings of the Spirit assure us of being a part of the family of God. When Paul compares our relationship as one people to the marriage of a male and female, he is not referring to an orgasmic union but a spiritual union. 1 Peter 3:8 is saying the same thing.
Every Christian believer is given the same instruction in how to live in Christian fellowship.
First, we are to be “harmonious,” or like-minded. God means for the community of Christians to be unified around one way of thinking: the way of Jesus.
Next, Christians are to be sympathetic. We should be emotionally moved by, and sincerely interested in, the feelings of other believers.
Then, Peter commands us to love, as brothers love each other. In other words, a “family” kind of love. Of course, siblings don’t always like each other. But, for the most part, they are committed to each other above those outside of the family. Christians should carry that commitment for other Christians.
Next, we are to be compassionate or kind-hearted. This is similar to being sympathetic, but it implies that we are ready to show each other kindness, with a desire for the good of the other person.
Finally, Christians are to be humble in spirit or have a “humble mind.” We should be ready to set ourselves aside. We should make others the focus of our attention. Christians are to lift up one another, to disappear in our efforts to support each other.
