Incarnational presence as prophetic resistance
A missiological critique of digital church in the algorithmic age
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21423909 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Misael Cornelio-Arias (0009-0000-2670-6173, Global University, Springfield, Missouri, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-14 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Missiology An International Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0091-8296 • E-ISSN: 2051-3623 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00918296261450198 |
| OpenAlex | W7161133321 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a shift toward digital church models that prioritize scalable reach over embodied presence. This article argues that such models, despite their pragmatic appeal, unwittingly replicate a functional Gnosticism incompatible with the Incarnation’s missiological pattern. Through comparative analysis of two pastoral paradigms, digital-only versus radically local ministry, the study illustrates how God’s chosen method of salvation operates through costly, particular, embodied presence rather than frictionless information transfer. While engaging scholarship that documents genuine spiritual formation in hybrid contexts, the article maintains that algorithmic mediation differs categorically from prior communication technologies, it does not merely transmit content but reshapes the user. Drawing on Orlando Costas’s integral mission theology, Kwame Bediako’s African Christology, and the witness of Christian communities from the early church to contemporary Global South contexts, the article recovers the Trinitarian foundations for incarnational ministry (the Son’s embodiment as paradigm, the Spirit’s animation as power, the Father’s promise as future). It concludes that embodied presence in the digital age functions as prophetic resistance to algorithmic empire and eschatological rehearsal for bodily resurrection
Apocalypticism · Christian ministry · Embodied cognition · Eschatology · Mediation · Scholarship · Secularity · Witness · Christian Theology and Mission · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |