I appreciate linking the language of horizontal and vertical communities with incarnation.
I grew up in Pentecostal and Evangelical spaces that navigated this differently than the mainline churches I inhabit now. Early TV evangelists like Swaggart and Bakker were forerunners to creating vertical com…
I appreciate linking the language of horizontal and vertical communities with incarnation.
I grew up in Pentecostal and Evangelical spaces that navigated this differently than the mainline churches I inhabit now. Early TV evangelists like Swaggart and Bakker were forerunners to creating vertical communities. The communities became ethically messy when they spilled over into horizontal spaces with mail fraud at Heritage USA and prostitutes. Consequently, I attached a negative value to these non-incarnational communities that claimed to be churches. Vertical communities seemed to be fertile spaces for ethical abuses because they lacked the natural oversight that incarnational community grants. When I go to church with others in meatspace, I know one how one talks to one’s partner or those with less power, and my spidey sense can be activated.
Over the years, I’ve also gravitated to vertical spaces with others who have deconstructed that Evangelical identity. I’ve found deep community with others who shared experiences. Where else do you find others who speak with clarity about experiences like my church in Maryland who assigned a “mentor” to a youth for conversion therapy away from same-gender attraction? Leftists with no personal experience of this community offer simplistic screeds but little awareness. The trauma created in the meatspace of that Pentecostal church needed a vertical community for healing.
And yet, if I retreat into those vertical spaces, I lose the incarnational joy and pain of learning who I have become when living with my neighbor. I can’t unfriend my neighbor two doors down with MAGA bumper stickers as I could on Facebook. The incarnational community wears down the rough edges of my humanity that are too quick to judge.
The vertical and horizontal communities have their place, whether it is finding vertical, niche communities of healing from specific trauma or horizontal communities where I have to see the truth of what my love of others actually looks like.
Thank you, JVL, for this post. The vertical/horizontal framework is life-giving and helpful for my reflection.
Re: vertical vs. horizontal communities
I appreciate linking the language of horizontal and vertical communities with incarnation.
I grew up in Pentecostal and Evangelical spaces that navigated this differently than the mainline churches I inhabit now. Early TV evangelists like Swaggart and Bakker were forerunners to creating vertical communities. The communities became ethically messy when they spilled over into horizontal spaces with mail fraud at Heritage USA and prostitutes. Consequently, I attached a negative value to these non-incarnational communities that claimed to be churches. Vertical communities seemed to be fertile spaces for ethical abuses because they lacked the natural oversight that incarnational community grants. When I go to church with others in meatspace, I know one how one talks to one’s partner or those with less power, and my spidey sense can be activated.
Over the years, I’ve also gravitated to vertical spaces with others who have deconstructed that Evangelical identity. I’ve found deep community with others who shared experiences. Where else do you find others who speak with clarity about experiences like my church in Maryland who assigned a “mentor” to a youth for conversion therapy away from same-gender attraction? Leftists with no personal experience of this community offer simplistic screeds but little awareness. The trauma created in the meatspace of that Pentecostal church needed a vertical community for healing.
And yet, if I retreat into those vertical spaces, I lose the incarnational joy and pain of learning who I have become when living with my neighbor. I can’t unfriend my neighbor two doors down with MAGA bumper stickers as I could on Facebook. The incarnational community wears down the rough edges of my humanity that are too quick to judge.
The vertical and horizontal communities have their place, whether it is finding vertical, niche communities of healing from specific trauma or horizontal communities where I have to see the truth of what my love of others actually looks like.
Thank you, JVL, for this post. The vertical/horizontal framework is life-giving and helpful for my reflection.