Church as Network: Christian Life and Connection in Digital Culture

by Jeffrey H Mahan

Just as the emergence of print and literacy created conditions for vast religious change at the time of the Reformation, the emergence of a digital culture shaped by computers and the internet has led to radically different assumptions about religious identity, how people connect and maintain transformative relationships, and how people follow and give authority to leaders. The central issues concerning this digital culture are not technological but theological and anthropological. Old models of stable religious identity and community seem irrelevant in a culture in which everyone is in motion. The book identifies three profound changes produced by digital culture which challenge existing understandings of 1) a shift to seeing Christian identity as an ongoing constructive project, 2) the development of fluid networked forms of community, and 3) the emergence of less hierarchical more conversational forms of leadership.

174 pages, Hardcover

Published December 15, 2021

Reviews

[Stasi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very dense, scholarly language. Repetitive, seems to have only one example used over & over (After Hours Denver).
The point appears to be not to worry about if people commit to church, but rather see ministry as a "touch" that happens from time to time. I think this approach will definitely kill the church off, since people long to feel like they belong to something and that their presence is important not just once in a while, but truly missed. Feels like a "convenience Christianity". To reach new generations what we need to do is give them belonging and purpose, not "see you when we see you" mentality. People need to know they matter.
This doesn't mean it happens inside church buildings, nor on Sundays, but it will involve deep trust, community building, and commitment to place and people. And it's very grounded and embodied. It's not in digital spaces.
This just doesn't jive with how I do ministry, but to each their own.

[Jeremy Garber · Rating 5 out of 5]

What will the church be like in the 21st century? It is certain that it will not be what it was before, and attempts to preserve that reality in amber will only lead it to crumble. Distinguished professor of media and culture Dr. Jeffrey Mahan provides a series of provocative questions for church leaders to imagine a new kind of church for our current digital reality. Mahan surveys the historical relationship between church and media, observing that the church has always adapted to its surrounding culture since its very beginning. He then looks at the fluid, nonhierarchical, constructed nature of digital reality and how it relates to religious culture. Digital natives (particularly younger people in the USA) see religion as an individualized personal identity pieced together from many different resources, rather than a stable historical community under which they place themselves. Given this fact, Mahan suggests that we shift to an understanding of church as network – a fluid, ever-changing nexus of relationships where we help people encounter God for brief periods of their lives as they move through. Mahan provides both concrete examples of how this is working and questions to help church leaders figure out this new model in their particular concrete context. An invaluable resource for theologians and church leaders who don’t want to see their congregations die the slow death of irrelevancy, but instead want to see the Holy Spirit creating a new thing.