The Covid 19 Corona Virus crisis that has broken out around the world is not an isolated problem. It comes at a unique moment when around the world there is a counter-action to globalization, a decline in democracy, a rapid rise of nefarious social-media use, a collapse in the trust of institutions, growing environmental concerns, and a decline in institutional religion. In other words, Covid-19 is just the fuse that has lit a very big powder-keg of TNT that was building up for a long time. Could we be headed toward not just a new reality, or simply some areas where the church needs to make some minor adjustments, but rather a complete re-invention of church and society?
While every period of history has conflict, war, disease, and death; every once in a while, the Earth truly does enter into a radically new era. The Post WWII era was very different than what had preceded before. What followed saw the rise of automobile usage, massive commercial air-travel, anti-colonialism, the Cold War, the nuclear age, and new levels of prosperity and the establishment of a global Middle class. These things re-invented the world. So did the Industrial Revolution beginning in the 18th Century creating a new world of nation-states, heavy machinery, traveling faster than a horse can gallop, and relying on electricity to name just a few epoch changing shifts.
The sudden shift in mood after the Wuhan outbreak became a global pandemic had the makings of a moment where we enter into a new epoch; not just another simple moment on the world’s future path. I immediately thought of a book I read back in 2008 by Phillis Tickle entitled “The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why.” Tickle argues in that book that Christianity is entering into a completely new paradigm; an epochal shift that occurs every 500 years. The first 500 years, of course, begins with the life of Christ and becomes the age of the Disciples and the Church Fathers who form the various church councils as Rome is Christianized (and Christianity institutionalized and legitimized). The second 500 years rely on the monastic movement to preserve a lot of Christian heritage amidst a lot of institutional carnage. It leads to the division between the Roman Catholic West and the Orthodox East known as the Great Schism of 1054. Five-hundred years after that, Martin Luther ushers in the Protestant Reformation, which puts an emphasis on the individual and Scripture which is then challenged by Enlightenment, modernist ideas. Now, (she argued back in 2008), that we were heading into a time when various different Christian traditions (Pentecostals, Conservatives, Liturgicals, and Social Justice Christians) would cross-pollinate with each other.
There’s a lot that is interesting and unconvincing about Tickle’s theory. Like the Fourth Turning Theory of Strauss and Howe, there are a lot of things historians will want to pick apart. Tickle’s cross-pollinating view doesn’t seem to have come to pass and it is also not a very macro-shift. Perhaps, she simply didn’t think big enough in her paradigm change. What might be valuable is simply the idea that there is such a thing as epochal changes (I believe there are), and that they completely re-set societies values, expectations, living conditions, and destroy complete industries and ways of life.
So what might a completely new Christian epoch look like? The shift would be so transformative it would be hard to imagine beforehand. My guess is that it will have less to do with a virus-panicked future of events that are no longer held, schools that are no longer safe, and masks and spacesuits that need to be perpetually worn. There will eventually be nanotechnology or ultra-violent technology that can kill and control viruses. But the economic displacement, distrust of institutions, shift to more cyber-life, cyborg technology, and technological surveillance could alter people’s daily life, social expectations, and theology. Initially, as people become disillusioned with materialism and technology; we will probably see an explosion of sects, cults, and an openness to spirituality. This does not mean Christian institutional growth. Ministries (like most churches) that have high overheads and live basically from month to month will struggle. Spiritual discipleship may need to occur one on one, in homes, and outside of the confines of high-expense Christian institutions. Expect, for instance, to see far fewer Christian colleges and seminaries and people getting their theological training more hands-on or online, or forgoing it all-together intentionally. The lack of an emphasis on theology (will terrify traditionalists and probably lead to a lot of heresy,) but Christianity has certainly been through that before. It could also mean that there’s far less of a concern with theological training and more of a premium put on leaders that mobilize people to action outside of classrooms and church buildings. It could be that in the same way that we see empty Cathedrals all across Europe, we may see empty church buildings across America; or churches that have been turned into environmentally-friendly studio apartments. Communal living could return with spiritual communities being mainly tied to local, communes that share an environmentally power-grid (with everyone working at home). If it sounds far-fetched, then it’s probably a good guess of what life after an epochal change would look like. Nobody would have predicted four months ago that there would be no airplanes in the sky and every concert around the world cancelled.
We may see an initial increase in Christian nationalism as the counter-action phase of hyper-Globalization kicks in and people look locally and nationally to develop their identities (and identify enemies). That will further delegitimize Christianity in many places and amongst many ethnic groups. That nationalism will eventually be discredited and bottom-up, very non-institutional Christianity may grow. With a growing divide between rich and poor and hundreds of millions of jobs lost to automation and artificial-intelligence, it could be that Christian communities form around labor movements as they did in Brazil. Those movements were not about Marxism or Liberalism, they were about Christians vouching for basic, decent, human living conditions for a large class of Christian and non-Christian exploited workers.
It could be that so many people in the future are under surveillance and make body-alterations with new biotech technology (instead of a mechanical leg for a war vet, think of mechanical enhancements that prevent Alzheimer’s or improve memory and knowledge), that most Christian debates with non-Christians revolve around issues of bio-tech and not social issues.
These are not predictions; although I do expect some of these things to come to pass; even rapidly. Obviously, there is no way to know the future. Neither are these things I necessarily want to happen. Rather I am suggesting that we may be on a cusp of a completely different epoch. When there is an epochal change, we cannot imagine what life was like before. We may be stunned that we ever met in large, expensive buildings, or paid $120,000 for a college education, or drove cars that didn’t fly and operated on oil instead of banana juice. Epochal changes mean things are radically different and the old ways don’t make sense and aren’t even possible anymore. Many things about the church will stay the same; but Christianity has always been infinitely more flexible than we have allowed ourselves to admit. After all, our leader said “wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there will I be.” All we know is that the future will take us to some completely unforeseen places and He will be there with us.
Patrick Nachtigall is a Europe-based missionary and the author of 5 books dealing with globalization and Christianity; including In God We Trust?: A Challenge to American Evangelicals.”