Congregation

Rod Dreher is either a genius or too much of a pessimist.

He writes for The American Conservative, and is also a prolific Christian philosopher. I’ve been reading his recently published Live Not by Lies, and I recommend it. I hope it’s not prophetic, because if it is, we’re in for a rough span of years, such as the Russians endured for some 70 years. I have to admit, I found myself nodding my head and grunting agreement to no one in particular. He has interviewed Russians who remember when the Bolshevik revolution was beginning to foment, and who then endured 1917, the Red Terror, and the ensuing oppressive years of the communist regime. And, looking at our culture, he sees remarkable similarities, while admitting that there are some key differences. I see the differences too, and we can hope they’re significant enough to keep us from sliding into a totalitarian abyss. Theirs was a hard totalitarianism, ours is creepingly soft—and creepy. He put it like this in an article I also recently read: “Unlike the Bolsheviks, who were hardened revolutionaries, SJWs get their way not by shedding blood but by shedding tears.” But maybe, hopefully, enough people today are awake than are woke, and can somehow stem the tide. Russia had suffered through some very real times of dreadful trouble leading up to the revolution, very much greater than the societal crises that we have been wading through of late. Today’s SJWs are manufacturing trouble we might be able to expose, if enough of us are willing. As I said, we can hope.

There are nevertheless some very troubling changes that have marked our society. One thing we have clearly been losing, and nobody seems to notice or care much, is community. The company of other people. Family. Congregation.

It’s been a long, slow erosion. One could say it began when families began to be taught that smaller is better. That goes back to the mid-20th century with the onset of birth control, with which came the great societal deception by which virtually everyone began to believe that if your family got too large, you’d be in for a world of hurt. You wouldn’t be able to afford it; you’d somehow find yourself in desperate need. And so the ideal family size shrank to four. Five was ok, but six was getting out of hand. The baby boom was really nothing of the kind; it was mostly a contrast from what followed. Families had shrunk, and it happened in such a way that large families—of Catholics, mostly—were looked upon with a subtle shaking of the head. That was the beginning.

Then came the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Engineered by widespread birth control, by now people had learned that maybe they didn’t need families at all. A libertine and hedonistic ideal began to grow on young people, though it was imperfect in the sense that sometimes you could get in trouble. Now, as never before, pregnancies were likely to be considered unwanted rather than celebrated. And along came Roe v. Wade, and the abortion floodgates opened. A culture of death had arrived, and it was scarcely noticed. Infants were being massacred, but it was hid in the antiseptic abortion mills that were kept largely out of the news.

And a sense of community continued to flag.

Then along came the Internet. So widely celebrated a thing it was, benefitting everyone, and without any of the strings of immorality attached. We all learned to love the Internet.

But there was a silent price to pay. Soon social media became the replacement for real gatherings, and a new wave of isolation so subtle washed over society that we didn’t even know we were drowning. Today’s electronics and technical advancements have brought us to the place where we enjoy our immersion in them. Not only ubiquitous TVs, but smart phones too.

And then came COVID. Now, somehow by a diabolical sleight of hand, community was suddenly considered immoral, by a soft totalitarianist inculcation in which great swatches of humanity began to believe. You must stay in your home. You must be socially distanced, or you might spread the disease! You might die! And you might be failing to love your neighbor, just by being with him. Yes, now loving your neighbor means staying away from him! And community is stamped out and lost.

I gasped the other day when I read a pitiful rationalization for online communion. We at Gottesdienst have already provided many reasons this is utterly unacceptable, but here’s another: It’s isolationist, if I may coin a term.

Here’s how the argument goes. Online communion can happen responsibly, by Zoom, because everyone is “in the room.” The pastor can see them all. The pastor speaks the words of consecration while you have your own personal bread and wine in your little square, your little part of the computer screen in front of you, and voila! - you can get your communion right there in your home. This is a Christian “gathering,” an internet gathering, don’t you know! It’s a chat room. We’re all together.

Only we’re not.

Everyone is entirely isolated. Everyone is alone. And there’s no congregation at all. And everyone is even fooled into thinking it’s desirable.

We seem to have forgotten what that word means: congregation. It’s a gathering, a real gathering of real people, physically, in the same room. It has to be. Cyber space is not real space. You might even be sitting there in your pajamas, though maybe with a decent shirt on, because that’s the part the other people will see on their screens. But more to the point, look at a Zoom screen. What do you see? Boxes, cubicles, and everyone is separate. Separated, more accurately.

How do we turn back this dreadful trend, this horrid new reality?

First, I’d suggest, by recognizing it for what it is. And then, I’d also suggest, by simply learning to treasure the real presence of real other people. Get off your cell phone and get out into your own backyard, even. Talk to the neighbor over the fence, whom maybe you haven’t seen since COVID began. Disregard the doomsday prognosticators who have fooled you into thinking that isolation is good. And gather.

And remember your family, too. Cherish them. Take time to be with them, physically, really.

Love one another. Live with one another. Even if only subtly, by small increments. Reject the “new normal,” even if only in this small way.

And come back to church.

Remember the marvelous Good Friday collect: “Almighty God, we beseech Thee graciously to behold this Thy family . . .” Whatever it takes, come back. And if the government should oppress you for doing so, then congregate secretly if you must (as they used to do in the first century). At least—at the very least—learn to yearn for this company, especially the company of your fellow Christians. They need you beside them in the pew, and you need them too.

I pray that Rod Dreher is not a prophet. But it’s abundantly clear to me that even without the dreadful depths into which our society could yet fall, we have already fallen in ways we haven’t even noticed. Well, then, let’s notice them. And let’s learn again to want to be together. And especially to believe in the congregation of saints.