Enabling digital accessĪt the start of the lockdown, Wöhle recalls, his church responded to the need to provide online worship, but also saw that enabling digital access for less technologically minded members of the congregation was an urgent “diaconal task.” During Lent 2020, he notes, many felt that fasting from the Eucharist was the most appropriate response to “Christ present in the pain of not sharing together.” The experience of quarantine, Wöhle added, has provoked “a new dimension of communion” which runs “deeper than our current theological thinking.”Īs chair of the Lutheran Church in Malaysia’s Faith and Order Commission, Rev. As a member of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands and principal pastor of the Old Lutheran congregation in Amsterdam, he has seen how online services have engendered profound new experiences of faith, especially within families worshiping together.
Speaking from a European perspective, Dr Andreas Wöhle said that we are “being surprised by God’s creativity” during this unprecedented time of challenge for the churches. Noting that many non-church goers have been attracted and found time to attend online religious activities, she says that digital worship offers “more connectedness than we think.” Online prayer and worship, Thompson insists, are important pastoral priorities, especially for the sick, the elderly and the vulnerable who may never return to in-person services. Before the pandemic struck, Thompson began exploring implications of the belief that "Christ is really present in the Word", a belief that has been further expanded during this time of quarantine. Having been originally “very skeptical of all things digital,” she saw friends organizing vital online support networks and found that “virtual tools were not poor substitutes for reality, but rather life-giving connections.” New communities of faithĪs a people who are, “persuaded by Luther’s theology of the Cross,” Thompson says, “we know that God is present where we least expect him to be. Recently, she has also gained a reputation as “a spokesperson for virtual church”, a role thrust upon her in the wake of a stage four cancer diagnosis in 2008. Professor Deanna Thompson is director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values and Community at St Olaf College in the U.S. In a 3 February ‘Being Lutheran’ webinar, three theologians from the United States, the Netherlands and Malaysia reflected on these questions, as they shared personal perspectives on the way the church has been profoundly challenged and changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. (LWI) - How did churches respond to the sudden restrictions provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic? One year on, how are they coping with ongoing lockdowns and online worship? Most importantly, how will this experience shape our theology, worship and pastoral practice in the years to come? ask how pandemic is changing theology, liturgy and pastoral priorities
0 kommentar(er)
