Thread: Here's something that occurred to me yesterday. Historically speaking, we are in a time where we ought to expect very major social upheavals--including within the Church--not just because of conflicts & scandals or whatever, but specifically because of the Internet.
It's pretty universally acknowledged that the Reformation, and many other major 16th century political & social upheavals, are pretty unthinkable without the printing press & the new social & information practices it engendered.
Martin Luther was strictly nobody--socially, politically, theologically, & in terms of the hierarchy of the Church. It was in part the ability to mass-produce pamphlets & books & widely disseminate them among all classes of society, that made him & his message important.
This is even truer for John Calvin; & it can be seen clearest, perhaps, in England, where William Tyndale's mass-produced pamphlets were answered by Thomas More's Catholic counter-pamphlets, & then eventually by Henry VIII's royal propaganda pamphlets defending the new CoE.
The point in all these cases is that that which was mass-produced, and the people who mass-produced it, was made *real* and *effective* socially & politically & theologically by virtue of that very fact, absent any of the ordinary markers & sanctions of society, the Church, etc.
In a similar way, it is only really very recently, I think, that it has become completely clear that what is on the Internet, & the people who produce that information, are, in fact, *real* and *effective* ipso facto & absent any older form of sanction or authority.
The Internet is still treated, in many quarters, as a joke, unreal, trivial; just video games & nerds & social outcasts & jokes & mild entertainment. It doesn't match up with, isn't regulated by, ordinary social rules, or Catholic authority--just as mass-printed pamphlets weren't
This attitude is no longer supportable. Maybe Steve Skojec (or whoever) is just a Catholic layman with access to the Internet--well, John Calvin was just a Catholic layman with access to a printing press. This is an exaggeration, but not a very big one. There is power here.
Of course, there are all kinds of relevant differences between the mediums that will come into play here, but: in 2018, *everyone* is on the Internet. It penetrates our lives & our minds deeply, & the level of disruption it can unleash on Church & society is hard to measure.
You can now observe people in real life simply repeating, word for word, cliches & news & narratives & fragments of "arguments" they got from Rorate Caeli or Donald Trump's twitter account--things that otherwise have no socially or ecclesiastically-sanctioned existence at all.
Anyway, I don't pretend to know what is going to happen, but: be aware of who you are listening to, on the Internet. Be aware of what you are believing, who and what you are trusting, with your mind and your immortal soul. It is all real, whether you want it to be so or not.
