THIS book assembles a collection of essays on “the unique opportunities and challenges churches around the world are facing” on account of the global pandemic, as “a period of concentrated digital integration and adaptation” when many “moved from primarily offline to online worship”.

Every reader of the Church Times is likely to have pondered these themes, which makes the book relevant and — as people say today — “relatable”. There are also weaknesses, however. The scholarship is frequently somewhat flaky, and while the best of the observations are certainly relevant, they can also be somewhat obvious.

Among the most useful or stimulating elements are ideas about how to characterise or categorise various online phenomena, for instance in the distinction between “religion-online” and “online-religion”. (Online element is secondarily for the former, but foundational for the latter.) We are reminded of Pope Francis’s emphasis on the primacy of “encounter” in the Christian life, which can do useful work in relation to online interactions.

Also intriguing is the presentation of social-media personalities whose arena is spirituality, religion, or values. A German scene is in view here, hence the appellation “Sinnfluencer”: not from the English word “sin” but from a German word (Sinn), which we might translate as “meaning”. Another helpful message, mentioned across the volume, is the reminder that online interactions are not disembodied: they are physical, but “differently physical”.

Themes of mediation — always a fascinating topic for theology — are central here. One of the principal forms of mediation in theology or religion, however, has been tradition, and that is not well represented here, or generally celebrated. The authors show a striking unanimity of outlook in not being very interested in any deep engagement with the long theological tradition, whether out of a “primitivist” conviction that theology is called always to start afresh with the Bible, a Pentecostal emphasis on today’s stirrings of the Spirit, or what we might call a Vatican-II-as-grand-reset approach within Roman Catholicism.

That raises questions about what is meant by “ecclesiology” here. This is a “digital ecclesiology”, but we will not find any substantial elaboration of a doctrine of the Church. Rather, this is more a work of ethnography: we are given snapshots of church practice. Some theological reflection is provided, which is the weakest part of the book, with little by way of substantial engagement. An author is described as a “key theological influence”, but only ten words are quoted, from a single essay. A 12th-century figure is invoked, but with reference only to an anthologised passage and a secondary journal article: the medieval writer’s own texts do not feature in the bibliography.

Poor structure or integration of ideas is also a problem in some essays, as is a looseness as to what is being claimed, as when we are told that the doctrine of the Trinity “can be linked to or seen as compatible with a networked understanding of community”. As an underlying problem, essays seek to cover too much material, and, therefore, in too fleeting a manner, to allow for any particularly scholarly discussion when it comes to history or texts.

Put doctrine aside, and the volume fares better, judged as a set of ethnographic observations of what has been happening with churches online. Even so, again, perhaps, because of the length of the contributions, the essays rarely really sparkle on that front either, whether as the fruits of deep and longstanding immersion in a particular context, or on account of theoretical or analytic sophistication.

One could take the book as something to read together, as a provocation to local reflection on the online journey in one’s own context. I expect that the contributors would value that, but I would still be wary setting some of these chapters before others as if they were good examples of scholarship in theology or the study of religion.

The Revd Dr Andrew Davison is Fellow and Dean of Chapel at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Starbridge Associate Professor of Theology and Natural Science at the University of Cambridge.

Ecclesiology for a Digital Church: Theological reflections on a new normal
Heidi A. Campbell and John Dyer, editors
SCM Press £40
(978-0-334-06159-5)
Church Times Bookshop £32