Do Not Outsource Your Soul
The Internet Cannot Carry a Coffin
The hidden assumption is that digital presence is presence enough, that being reachable, visible, and responsive online counts as truly being with someone. But there are things no network can do: it cannot carry a coffin, hold a shaking hand, or sit in silence in a hospital room. Christ came in a body, near enough to touch, and calls his people to that same costly nearness, which means the soul cannot be outsourced to a screen without slowly starving.
Notice when the internet suddenly fails you. Someone dies, and your feed fills with grief you cannot hug. A friend is in crisis at two in the morning, and all your connectivity delivers is a glowing rectangle. In the moments that matter most, the very presence we call staying connected turns out to be a kind of absence dressed up as company.
We have come to treat digital presence as the real thing. We say we spent the evening with friends when we watched them through a screen; we call a stream of messages a relationship; we feel we were there for someone because we commented. The medium is so constant and so convincing that we rarely stop to ask what it quietly cannot do.
This shift was gradual and understandable. As communication tools grew richer, they genuinely let us reach across distance, comfort the far away, and stay in touch through seasons that once meant silence. These are real goods. But a tool built to transmit words and images began to be asked to transmit presence itself, and it cannot, because presence is not information. Somewhere along the way the convenient stand-in started to replace the thing it stood in for, and we mistook reach for nearness.
The cost shows up in the body and in the deepest moments of life. A hand held in a hospital, a meal carried to a grieving house, a shoulder that takes actual weight, these cannot be sent. When we outsource our presence to screens, we get the illusion of showing up without the cost of showing up, and love without cost slowly stops being love. We can accumulate hundreds of connections and still have no one who could physically carry us, or our coffin, and not notice the poverty until the day we need a body in the room.
Christianity is stubbornly physical about this. Its central claim is that God did not stay safely remote but came in a body, entering the world close enough to be touched, to weep at a friend's tomb, to share bread at a table. Christ did not comfort from a distance; he drew near, and he formed a people meant to be a body, present to one another in the flesh, bearing real weight. The faith even centers on a shared meal and a gathered assembly, insisting that some things must be done in person or not at all.
The better way is not to smash your devices; the network is a genuine gift for keeping love alive across distance. The discipline is to refuse to let the convenient replace the costly. Use the screen to arrange the visit, not to substitute for it. Let the message be the prelude to the meal, not its replacement. And guard, fiercely, the practice of being bodily present to people in their worst hours, because that is where the soul is fed and where love proves it is real.
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14The strongest objection is that for many people digital presence is not a lesser substitute but a lifeline: the disabled, the homebound, the geographically isolated, and the socially anxious often find real and even life-saving connection online that they could not find nearby. To dismiss it as fake presence would wound the very people it serves most. That is true and must be honored. The claim here is not that digital connection is worthless but that it is incomplete, unable to do certain irreplaceable things. For those who can be bodily present, the danger is choosing the screen out of convenience when nearness is possible; for those who cannot, digital connection is a real mercy, and the church's answer is to go to them in person where it can.
If your relationships have quietly migrated entirely onto screens, you may be hungrier for embodied presence than you realize. The church exists partly to be a body that shows up in person, at hospital beds and gravesides and kitchen tables. Consider using Living Bread to find believers near you and take the step from connection to presence, because your soul was made for people you can actually touch.
Think of one person you have only been present to through a screen lately, and this week show up in the flesh, share a meal, sit with them, or simply be in the same room without your phone.
Questions worth sitting with
Is online Christian community real community?
It can be a genuine and valuable part of community, especially for those who cannot easily gather in person, and it can encourage, teach, and connect people meaningfully. But most Christian traditions hold that it is incomplete on its own, because the faith centers on embodied practices like shared meals and physical gathering. It is best treated as a supplement to in-person life, not a full replacement.
Why does the Bible emphasize physical presence?
Because its central claim is that God became present in a body, drawing near enough to touch, weep, and share bread, rather than comforting from a distance. From this flows a vision of the church as a body whose members are physically present to one another, bearing real weight. Certain acts of love, sitting with the dying, carrying the grieving, simply cannot be done remotely.
How do I know if I am outsourcing my relationships to screens?
A useful sign is whether you have anyone who could physically show up for you in a crisis, or whom you would show up for in person. If your closeness lives almost entirely in messages and never in shared rooms and meals, the connection may be real but thin. The remedy is to let digital contact lead to embodied presence rather than replace it.