Some assembly required? Paul Holdsworth on the value of worshipping ‘in person’

‘Quaker spirituality is an embodied spirituality.’

Friends have taken to online worship like ducks to water. During the Covid pandemic, worshipping via Zoom has been for many a welcome replacement – albeit not a perfect substitute – for attending in the local Meeting house.

And yet, now that restrictions are being relaxed, there is no rush back to in-person worship, at least not in my local Meeting, where attendance is down to as little as fifteen per cent of the former figure. Zoom seems to have taken the place of the Meeting room for many of us.

Should we blithely accept this sudden – and revolutionary – development? Like Clive Ashwin (14 January 2022) I wonder whether new Meeting mediums ‘can be integrated into the Quaker tradition without destroying the very thing that they are intended to preserve’. I want to ask here if online worship is denatured because it is disembodied. To what extent can online worship be considered a Quaker Meeting for Worship?

Quaker spirituality is an embodied spirituality – a bodily experience. Quakers have long understood that every aspect of a person – body, soul and spirit – has the capacity for connecting with the transcendent. We do not spurn the flesh – we get our name because our bodies quake when in communion with the Divine. We experience this when we are, literally, physically, gathered together.

Consider these differences between online worship and in-person Meeting. Online, I am not in the same physical space as my fellow worshippers, so I cannot be totally present to them with all of my being, nor they with me. I cannot smell them. I cannot feel their warmth. I cannot be lulled by the rhythm of their breathing. Nor can I bring to bear those other unconscious senses and intuitions that help me to know whether a Friend is anxious, angry, sad or cheerful. Only when we are physically present one with another can we truly gather.

Consider, too, the little physical acts, the elements of ritual that mark a Meeting. For me, quaking is a key part of the process of discerning whether to rise to offer ministry; if I’m not quaking, I don’t speak. Do online Friends quake before offering spoken ministry? The custom of rising from one’s seat before ministering is also a part of the process. Online Friends do not seem to rise to offer it. Perhaps this is why I find that ministry is often of a different quality online: there is no visible – bodily – sign to mark the fact that this is a message from the Spirit, rather than a discussion contribution.

These little actions have deep theological significance – through them our bodies signal the transcendent nature of our encounter; but they are absent online. Yet in our branch of Quakerism, what unites us is precisely our way of worshipping together; it should not be altered without due discernment. By settling for disembodied worship, are we not unwittingly denaturing the very act that defines us as Quakers?

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