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| Photo of a large electric fan, with the text "I'm a big fan." Image source. |
I recently wrote a post called The Power Dynamics of the "Personal Relationship With God". It was about why the evangelical Christian concept of a "personal relationship with God" is not healthy for me and I'm not going to have that kind of relationship again.
So instead, I have a parasocial relationship with God.
What is a "parasocial relationship"? It's a sort of one-sided thing where a fan follows a celebrity, and the fan knows all sorts of things about the celebrity's life, but the celebrity doesn't know the fan, and they don't have an actual relationship of any kind. They don't actually know each other.
And it doesn't even have to be a real celebrity- people have parasocial relationships with content creators on the internet all the time. Some youtuber or blogger posts a lot of things about their life, and people follow their content, and people feel like they know them, even getting emotionally invested into the details of their life.
Typically when people talk about parasocial relationships, they are seen as a negative thing. Like, you feel like you know this person because you watched all their youtube videos, but hold up, let's have a reality check: They do not know you. You are not friends. And it can be an extremely weird thing for the celebrity/ influencer/ internet person to have random strangers making references to the minor details of the celebrity/ influencer/ internet person's personal life. You posted it online, so all these people know about it, but you have no idea who they are.
I mean, I don't think a parasocial relationship is necessarily a negative thing. (And maybe I don't have the terminology right here- maybe "parasocial relationship" is specifically referring to the unhealthy version of this, where you incorrectly believe that you're friends with this celebrity, and there should be a different term for just being a normal fan? Not sure on that.) The key thing is, though, you have to keep it in perspective: You are not friends. And they are a person with a regular person life, not whatever larger-than-life image about them you have in your mind.
Anyway, so, that's how I think of God. (Well, except the part about the "regular person life" I guess.) I don't talk to Them, but I'm a big fan of Their work. Just spending my time following Their work, but I don't want any actual personal connection.
It's just like how I'm a fan of Taylor Swift but I don't think I really want to meet her. Like, what would I even say? It would be a cool experience to tell other people about, but ... not really meaningful beyond that.
And here's another thing: maybe God has a parasocial relationship with me. God knows all about my life. God loves all of us, individually.
Wait, can 2 people both have a parasocial relationship with each other? What does that even mean? Yeah, sure- what if they are both celebrities, and they both know who the other person is and maybe have some kind of opinion about them, but they've never interacted directly. Or what if someone follows my blog, and I also follow their blog, but we've never actually talked to each other? Like that.
Actually, I think there are Christian denominations that *do* believe people have this kind of parasocial relationship with God. (Not that they would use those words though.) They don't have the evangelical habit of praying and then listening to see if God speaks to them. They don't believe God gives them individualized commands that they're supposed to follow.
I've been in churches where I judged them for the way that they prayed, like they were just sending the prayers off somewhere far away and weren't expecting a response. And I judged them for the way that they relied on their church's teaching about the bible to tell them what to do, rather than each individual asking God for the details on "God's plan for your life" and expecting God to tell you what specific choices you're supposed to make. And the way their church felt like just a tame ritual that you do, rather than the Creator of the universe coming down and grabbing you by the heart and overwhelming you, and it's wild and thrilling and emotional, and you feel that the only response that makes sense is to devote every part of your life to this God.
I'm not judging them any more. Maybe what they were doing was more healthy than telling everyone "you need to have a personal relationship with God." But also, I don't really know much about that variety of Christianity; it's so different from evangelicalism. I'm actually really curious about this but I shouldn't say too much here because I probably have a lot of misconceptions about it.
(I mean, obviously I know they're not standing in church saying "we have a parasocial relationship with God.")
It might seem weird and paradoxical, that I say I love God and I think about Them all the time and They are very important in my life, but also I don't want to talk to Them or have any kind of "personal relationship." But the way I think of it is, it's a parasocial relationship. I'm a fan.
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Related:
The Power Dynamics of the "Personal Relationship With God"
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