Comfort and Courage to Reject Assimilation and Avoidance in Digital Babylon
The exiles rejected total assimilation and avoidance in Babylon. Christ rejected both in his earthly ministry. We should do the same in Digital Babylon.
You’re reading “Passing Through Digital Babylon”, a newsletter of insights and reflections from the digital empire while journeying towards the heavenly city. If that sounds interesting to you, please consider subscribing!
Last week, I wrote that I was going to resume using this Substack to chip away at a book on Digital Babylon, and this week’s piece is the first piece to do so. While I’ll do my best to provide some context as to where this material will go in the book, I won’t be able to completely avoid the fact that these pieces will likely feel disjointed. That said: this material will go in the the third part of the book, where I focus on applications of the Babylonian Exile narrative to present day circumstances. The title(s) of these posts are likely the titles of the sections within a particular chapter, and that material begins after the divider below.
Ultimately, the doctrine of the providence of God ought to give us comfort in the midst of living in Digital Babylon. We have not ended up here by accident. Furthermore, since God uses means to accomplish his ends, we ought to have courage that God can use any means to accomplish his purposes, even means within Digital Babylon.
The comfort and courage that comes from the doctrine of providence ought to lead us to reject two equal and opposite errors when it comes to Digital Babylon: complete assimilation, and complete avoidance. Complete assimilation can take many different forms, but just as the exiles (namely Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah) still held on to Jewish identity while serving in the highest roles of the Babylonian and Persian governments, we should hold on to our Christian identity no matter how “deep” in Digital Babylon we may go. Whether we work or create in Digital Babylon, the center of our identity ought to be our identity in Christ, not an identity given to us in Digital Babylon.
On the other side of the coin, complete avoidance looks more straightforward: just as the exiles (Ezekiel being the most prominent) did not fully withdraw into their Jewish enclaves and retreat from society, we should not do the same either. Jesus Christ assembles his church to worship him, but he also sends his assembly out into the world as the ambassadors of his gospel. The word “apostle” quite literally means “sent one”, and as Christians belong to “only holy catholic1 and apostolic church”, we cannot be a church that retreats from the world we’ve been sent to.
In Christ, we see the tension between assimilation and avoidance displayed for us. Some exiles faced the temptation of assimilation, and some the temptation of avoidance, but Christ faced the temptation to both. The Son of God took on human flesh and entered into creation, but in his sinlessness, he did not fully assimilate to the world he had been sent to. During his ministry, Jesus Christ also withdrew from his disciples (and society in general) to fast and to pray, but because he eventually returned to his mission, he did not fully avoid the world he had been sent to.
As Christians are being conformed to the image of Christ, we ought to be conformed to how Christ handled the tension between assimilation and avoidance. Tension is uncomfortable and painful, but God has given us the stories of individual exiles and the Gospel narratives to show us that He is present with us in the tension of living faithfully wherever he has sent us. Tension is not always something to run away from (avoidance) or something we always need to make go away (assimilation); tension is often a sign that we take our identity in Christ and the circumstances around us seriously.
Thanks for reading Passing Through Digital Babylon. Unfortunately, I will not be writing the next two weeks, as I have two seminary papers due over the next week and a half. But, for the next piece I will chip away at the section immediately following this one, which in my manuscript I’ve titled “Blooming Where the Lord Has Planted You”.
If you’ve enjoyed this piece, please consider subscribing and sharing with your friends or on your personal social media channels! And remember: together, all of us are passing through this temporary digital empire towards the celestial city.
Austin
The word “Catholic” here does not refer to the modern institution of the Roman Catholic Church, but to the universal whole church. Christ does not have multiple people, or multiple bodies - there is one body of Christ that spans time and space, and while the term “Catholic” may have taken on additional connotations since then, we can (and should) reject those additional meanings and embrace its core definition for ourselves. The history of the Catholic Church - up to a certain point! - is your own personal history as a Christian as well, one given to you by God when he called you to belong to his people.