The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World by Deanna A. Thompson (review)

At the core of this slim volume is Thompson's self-described conversion to a new way of thinking about the virtual age in which we live. She wrote the book "because my experience of being supported by a virtual network since my diagnosis [with stage-four breast cancer in December 2008] has converted me to a new reality; I have . . . [become] an unabashed advocate for the under-appreciated ability of virtual spaces to help incarnate healing love in the lives those who suffer" (9, emphasis added). She weaves together the language of conversion, testimony, and witness throughout the book.

Thompson makes her case for the power of social media to communicate an incarnational "healing love" in an introduction and five chapters. First, she presents a brief testimony about her illness, the benefits of social media during her treatment, a summary of the book, and an appeal to the reader to "be converted to the surprising ways that virtual connectivity can help us better care for one another" (12). The five chapters are accessible yet grounded in the work of experts in social media and the internet, biblical scholarship, and Lutheran theology.

In chapter one she asserts that "the digital revolution is here to stay" (10) and draws on the work of sociologists to name both strengths and issues with this new world. She argues in the second chapter that St. Paul, through his letters, was "virtually present" to the early Christian communities and that his imagery of the church as the body of Christ is significant for understanding "the new model of community" that Paul introduced (33). This new model, according to Thompson, "has not just been about local communities of faith but also about . . . the virtual body of Christ, a body that is wedded to but also transcends specific, individual incarnations of church" (47).

Luther's theology of the cross introduces the third chapter, where Thompson states, "Luther's theology understands suffering descriptively, rather than prescriptively, as an inevitable consequence of incarnational living" (55). The digital world enables the followers of Jesus to engage in incarnational living that reaches out to the marginalized, just as Jesus did in his earthly ministry. Each of the first three chapters includes a brief section of personal "testimony" that provides experiential support for her argument to seek the positive benefits of social media for the good of the body of Christ.

Thompson begins the fourth chapter by addressing the objections and concerns of the skeptics; without dismissing potential dangers, she makes a case for the value of digital tools to "expand," "enhance," and "augment"—some of her favorite verbs—the reach of the Christian community. This chapter then discusses the importance and value of corporate worship, closing with a challenge to see online worship as an opportunity for "bounded openness," a phrase borrowed from theologian Serene Jones, in the spirit of St. Paul (93). In the final chapter Thompson begins with concrete examples of positive uses of social media by congregations as "places where weak ties are becoming strong ties" (101), a sociological concept introduced early in the book. She also acknowledges issues of privacy, lack of internet access for those in lower socio-economic brackets, and the shallowness of "click activism" (102-07).

To close, she returns to the language of testimony: "I am here to testify to the power of virtual supports . . . It is important for Christians to recognize that the body of Christ has always been a virtual body and that, in this digital age, incarnational living must be understood as incorporating virtual as well as face-to-face interactions" (110). I take issue with Thompson's equating of "the body of Christ" with the phrase "virtual body"—a phrase far more mundane than "mystical body," which better captures the biblical witness. To speak of the body of Christ as virtual seems to rob it of all transcendence and misses the church's claim to be the body of Christ...