How Can Christian Community Serve as an Alternative to Surveillance Culture?

Surveillance and Christian community can both shape behavior, but they work in opposite directions. As Vaclav Havel illustrates in “Power to the Powerless,” surveillance teaches the watched to perform expected behavior — his greengrocer puts up an ideological slogan he doesn’t believe, simply to avoid trouble. The behavior conforms; the person hollows. Christian community, properly ordered, works in the other direction. It calls members to confession, restoration, and growth — knowledge with intimacy rather than knowledge without it.

Practically, this requires churches to resist the surveillance logics they may absorb without realizing it. Measuring success by attendance metrics, social media engagement, and growth analytics treats members as data points. Faithful communities prioritize formation over performance, trust over tracking, and patient presence over efficient measurement. They embrace shared meals, in-person worship, mutual confession, and acts of service — practices that cannot be reduced to data. In doing so, the church becomes a sign to the world that being known is not dangerous but redemptive.

Key Takeaways: Knowledge With Intimacy

Scholars: Vaclav Havel (“Power to the Powerless”); William Cavanaugh (Torture and Eucharist).

Scripture: James 5:16 (mutual confession); Galatians 6:1-2 (restoration).

The “So What”: A church that measures itself by surveillance metrics has already absorbed the logic it should be resisting.

James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and completed the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as President of the D.L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program, and as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Christianity.com, and Sojourners. His forthcoming book is Discipleship and Discernment in the Digital Age (InterVarsity Press, Fall 2026). Learn more at jamesgspencer.com.

SECTION 5

AI, Reality, and Truth