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A House Divided

Technology, Worship, and Healing the Church After COVID

Book Details

Author: Benjamin D. Giffone
240 pages
Publication date: April 12, 2025

Summary

The purpose of this book is to help the church revive and thrive in the wake of the COVID crisis. It is directed mainly at the Western (North American and European) evangelical church, though much of what it contains can be broadly applicable beyond those communities. The book focuses specifically on the importance of the church gathered for corporate worship, and the clash between that value and the concerns during the pandemic. The pandemic was not only a crisis in itself, but also revealed weaknesses in the church and society that need to be addressed. Using the theme of flawed leadership and accountability in the book of Ezekiel, Giffone argues that church leadership erred during the pandemic in three specific domains. The root causes of these failures are twofold:

  1. the abdication of spiritual responsibilities to secular authorities, who are not only not omniscient but are also in some cases openly hostile to Christian beliefs, and who engaged in censorship and manipulation;
  2. undervaluing the knowledge of God through ritual and embodied worship (N.T. Wright’s “epistemology of love”).

However, church leadership can be restored and lead the church back to flourishing, through repentance.

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Endorsements

“Benjamin Giffone takes readers on a dark but necessary journey into the COVID-stricken world of 2020. This is a must read for those who seeking restoration and holiness for Christ's church.”
David H. Wenkel, PhD (Aberdeen)
LCC International University, Lithuania
“Benjamin Giffone's book is at once a badly needed critique of the Church's unreflective embrace of modern technology in worship and a powerful call to the Church to repent over its failure to  respond properly to the Covid-19 crisis by embracing the pseudo-scientific consensus narrative that was forced upon much of the world's population by political, cultural, and economic elites. It should be read far and wide by ministers, clergy, and laity alike.”
Fr. Jamie Franklin, DPhil (Oxford)
Anglican priest, host of "Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs" podcast
"Giffone explains that the impacts on the church of technology and the COVID-19 pandemic were profound, perhaps even existential. Going online to avoid in-person worship, for instance, exacts a far higher cost than most people might realize. The author urges Christians to resist mob mentalities and government overreach by a recommitment to truth, courage, and the very essence of the faith—a message both the clergy and the laity urgently need to hear now. This is not a book for faint-hearted, fair-weather believers."
Lawrence W. Reed
Foundation for Economic Education

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