The virtual world does not adequately prepare our minds for conceiving of or apprehending the spiritual realm. To say that the imagination has long been our best guide to understanding the spiritual realm is not to render that realm any less real; indeed for those most practised in the art of daydreaming, that world is more real than the one made up of mere physical matter.
But the danger presented by the virtual world is that its abstract forms encourage us to think that the immaterial is representable on a whim; that it is as fleeting as the disappearing text on a scrolling ‘page’ or in the case of church, the lyrics temporarily projected onto a screen; at once accessible, and yet transient.
But where the virtual world is merely accessible on a whim, God is imminent in every moment, through the incarnation of the Son, as now revealed through Scripture and the Spirit. And where the virtual world is merely transient, God is transcendent, a constant unveiling mystery, other, holy, a depth into which one plunges upwards.
We must take care that our forms of worship revolve not merely around screens, with their merely accessible, transient representations. We must read, we must tell stories, we must sing songs without words on the screen; we must crack open old hymnals. We live by faith, not by sight. We must pause to close our eyes in order to have the eyes of our hearts opened.
Ben David Trigg 