Last summer, my family acquired one of the latest revolutions in
virtual reality — a headset that uses a smartphone as a display. It looks like
a giant visor, and once you hold it up to your eyes and strap it on, you are
immersed in a wide variety of 360 environments — from standing in a dense
forest with a very real-looking computer-generated dinosaur to balancing on a
surfboard gliding under giant curved walls of moving water.
Some of the environments almost feel like the real thing — and
many people are drawn to it.
“This technological paradigm shift brings a level of immersion
unlike any that has come before it,” says Monica Kim in “The
Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality.”
Like many technological developments, there are concerns about
how it will affect us and our culture — but immersion itself is nothing new.
“We are always immersed in something, whether it is narrative, a
form of media or just our own thought process. It can be difficult, though, to
see what we are immersed in and influenced by; in part because it is all around
us and defines us,” says
Kevin Brooks, the principal staff researcher and technology storyteller for
Motorola.
This kind of immersion can be an amazing tool — especially when
it comes to stories. Some of the most engaging virtual reality environments are
documentaries that put you up close and personal with refugees or endangered
rhinos or stories that plunge you into the life and experiences of another.
Virtual reality environments “might help us see our daily real
world a little better, because by creating new virtual worlds, we can see what
we might have left out, through comparison with our daily life,” says Brooks.
“Story gives us both a method for expressing that comparison and a key element
for bringing closer similarity to the two worlds.”
All this intrigues me, not only from the storytelling standpoint
but also as a part of God’s people — his church — who are, you could say, a
virtual expression of the reality of God and his kingdom.
In Scripture, the kingdom of God is already present and yet
still in the future. The church lives in this tension, as New Testament scholar
Scot McKnight puts it, partially redeemed and on our way to full redemption.
We are the virtual expression of God and his already-and-working redemption in
the world today.
This is designed to be an immersive experience — in Christ.
In Reimagining Church, Frank Viola
says “we gather together so that the Lord Jesus can manifest himself in his
fullness.” None of us alone is a full expression of Christ, says Viola, but
when we gather together we “reassemble the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth” and
reflect “the self-emptying exchange of life, love and fellowship that has been
going on in the triune God from before time.”
This expression of God will draw others to the kingdom and its
king. We are, as Dallas Willard puts it, the people in whom God “is tangibly
manifest to everyone on earth who wants to find him.”
Where are we today? Are we immersed in and defined by this kind
of living-together in which Jesus is manifested and reassembled in our midst?
Does our life-together story help others not only see the world a little better
but also what they are missing through a comparison with our daily
lives-together?
If not, maybe we are immersing ourselves in the wrong thing.
This post first appeared as a column at MWR.