tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post1001478190117727017..comments2024-03-26T16:24:34.218+00:00Comments on Meeting The Masters: Online ServicesWilliam Wildbloodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-27484502551198464282020-04-13T07:45:25.253+00:002020-04-13T07:45:25.253+00:00@William - This is a thought-provoking post, becau...@William - This is a thought-provoking post, because you are correct - and we all feel this, I think - but it is difficult to pin-down exactly why. <br /><br />I came-up with the analogy of a theatre-lover being presented with a movie of the same production. It is not so much matter of its being necessarily worse (although it very probably is worse) but that it is *qualitatively different* - because live theatre demands a greater participation than does film - which is a more immersive and over-whelming experience. <br /><br />I think this is why movies have never been regarded as so high a form of art as live theatre; despite that there are far more good, successful movies than plays. Movies can steam-roller our emotions into a powerful reaction, and this makes them more of a mass manipulation.<br /><br />Online services, or - to follow JMS - lectures; have been available for a couple of decades; and someone who really wants to be part of a church, or to become really educated, will recognise that the live form is, at its best, a qualitatively superior experience - but certainly and always a qualitatively different experience (unless the live experience is deliberately degraded to the level of TV or a 'movie' which, sadly, happens a lot nowadays in so-called lectures in colleges). <br /><br />Either way, online services - like online lectures - are the death of their institutions; as we will find-out in the course of time. That era when our spiritual life (or education) could be sustained by communal engagement has been dwindling for several generations; but it is now moribund. <br /><br />We are back to our own individual initiative (assisted, perhaps, by specific ndividuals with whom we have a strong personal relationship) - and to accomplish anything Good we will have to do more than meet it 'halfway' (as has always been the case with lectures and church services): we will need to do More than half of the work our-selves. <br /><br />Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-49055771413583238172020-04-12T23:38:14.903+00:002020-04-12T23:38:14.903+00:00Yes, I think the problem stems from Ahrimanic tech...Yes, I think the problem stems from Ahrimanic technology, that which wants us not to use and trust our own senses, and outsource our thinking to the machine. I feel that's where we're headed with the Corona scare. In the media it is presented as a clashing of world views between left and right but from a vertical plane both nationalists and globalists are conjoined in centralization of an ever more monitored society. Physical borders are being constrained but the spiritual borders are being diffused for the coming 5G-paradise.Adilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12458942641355740167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-84514857417973680842020-04-12T21:49:50.033+00:002020-04-12T21:49:50.033+00:00Yes, Eric, the devil is a great fan of technology ...Yes, Eric, the devil is a great fan of technology because it separates man from God while often pretending to bring him to some kind of enlightenment. But just as Satan is the ape of God so any technological imitation of spirituality is no more than that, a fake and a fraud.William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-23748451962003851562020-04-12T20:43:49.827+00:002020-04-12T20:43:49.827+00:00Indeed, you'd hope at least the churches would...Indeed, you'd hope at least the churches would stay away from the TV. I agree that there can be no real communion from a virtual service. The television screen is two times removed from reality. It might aid some on an individual level but there can't be any communion. It is spiritual distancing. The devil loves cameras since it undermines human sensory perception in favor of technology. The goal being cutting of the world from human experience and putting it in the objective lens of technology so that the intelligentsia can set the stage and manipulate us in return.Adilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12458942641355740167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-87780799557589887122020-04-12T16:32:42.971+00:002020-04-12T16:32:42.971+00:00"I do expect more than to sit in a vast waiti..."I do expect more than to sit in a vast waiting room listening to the air-conditioner drone". Perfect! That just about sums it up. Family devotionals is a good traditional idea.I t takes one back to the early days of Christianity in a way.<br /><br />I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury interviewed on television this morning and he was very reasonable but is reasonableness what we look for in a spiritual leader? He made the reasonable point that the church is not its buildings but its people but actually it is the buildings that are the centres of worship and the places which spiritual power can be built up, especially old churches which were designed by inspired people who knew how to make a space spiritually resonant, for want of a better phrase. A building, church, temple or the like is or can be a sacred enclosure in which the power of God is concentrated.<br /><br /> I went along to my local church this afternoon and sat in its little garden of remembrance just to one side of the building. I felt I should do something to mark Easter. It was very peaceful and I was surprised that no one else was there. I thought a few people might actually go to the church even if it was closed but not while I was there which was about half an hour.<br /><br />Thanks Francis. If I can return the compliment I thought your Crime and Punishment post very insightful.William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-62802804667860423982020-04-12T15:37:29.401+00:002020-04-12T15:37:29.401+00:00"It's like thinking you can be fed while ..."It's like thinking you can be fed while looking at a menu."<br /><br />That pretty much sums up the intrinsic value and spiritual nourishment one can expect to get from a virtual church service. Good post, William.Francis Bergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11063224017320651978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1513199068907090344.post-73810800013596946952020-04-12T15:35:01.960+00:002020-04-12T15:35:01.960+00:00You've made a good and important point. Somet...You've made a good and important point. Something similar is happening with the schools and universities, where a pretense of teaching is maintained on-line, but this is mostly a means to justify uninterrupted revenue to the schools and universities. I've been working very hard to translate my classes to the on-line medium, and I hope some students are getting something from what I have done, but behind all of this is the fact that the university doesn't want to refund tuition and the students want to graduate "on time." To return to your topic, I recently stopped attending services for the reason you describe. I'm hoping to overcome this, but find I miss the services much less than I expected. We've substituted family devotionals, and there is in those devotionals a presence that was decidedly absent in church. The biblical metaphor of salt is fitting. That presence is like salt in soup, and its absence is like flat insipidity. I do not expect exultation on Sunday morning. If I did, I'd join the pentecostals. But I do expect more than to sit in a vast waiting room listening to the air-conditioner drone.JMSmithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14502377102987849260noreply@blogger.com