Online Worship Deficiencies

The issue of Liturgy dealing with “Worship and Emotion,” guest-edited by L. Edwards Phillips, looks at the relationship between worship and emotion. What follows is an excerpt from Phillips’ essay in this issue, “Emotions Online,” exploring how online worship, that so many congregations and presiders are struggling with in this time of pandemic, generates emotion and in what ways. –– Melinda Quivik

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Returning to the practice of “online communion,” it is fair to say that Christian traditions that lean toward the Catholic end of the ecclesial scale have been much more resistant to the possibility than those that skew toward the congregational side. Some Catholic congregations (and some Episcopalians and Lutherans), do stream video of their services, including the Eucharist, encouraging viewers to watch such services and pray along with them, as a sort of devotional practice. Indeed, not a few Protestants have been known to watch the Christmas Eve Mass broadcast from the Vatican (or at least have it on in the background while they are finishing up wrapping gifts, as we have done in my house!).

Yet, as far as I know, no one (Protestant or Catholic) has been encouraged to put bread and wine in front of the T.V. screen, pray the prayers along with the Pope, and receive these elements as the Eucharist. Even if someone were to do that, it would not actually be the Eucharist as it is understood within the catholic tradition, no matter how personally meaningful the experience may be to that individual. In short, communion is not primarily an emotionally-engaging experience but a concrete, real practice.

Online communion is not merely a bad practice, it is essentially impossible, no matter how effectively it is conducted or produced.

During the pandemic of 2020, many congregations are, therefore, “fasting” from the Eucharist as they pause in-person gathering, even as they are exploring new devotional and small group practices of prayer and scripture reading through online social media and in domestic settings.

Online media, therefore, can provide many ways for congregations to stay in contact with each other and to share some acts of worship, but these media cannot accomplish the actions that require actual physical contact: the laying on of hands, the kiss of peace, the actual sharing of real food, to name a few.

At the risk of being offensive, I recall an observation a colleague shared with me a few years ago: The internet exists for two things: cat videos and pornography. It doesn’t take much imagination to know why cat videos and pornography can be emotionally fulfilling and even meaningful in their own way. But a video cannot produce the actual purr of my cat as he sits contentedly on my lap or the actual touch of a beloved sexual partner in moments of deep intimacy. My 91-year-old mother is truly grateful to be able to see the faces of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren on Facetime, but she still tells us this is not the same as an actual hug and kiss. Regarding online worship, I share a comment from my Baptist brother: “Watching online worship is like watching a video of a fireplace.”

The full article and the entire issue of Liturgy 36, no. 1 is available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

L. Edward Phillips, “Emotions Online,” Liturgy 36, no.1 (2021): 49-54.