Alastair's Adversaria - Networks, Shortcuts, and Hubs

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

The following was first published on the Anchored Argosy: https://argosy.substack.com/i/177080624/networks-shortcuts-and-hubs. The Veritasium video I mention can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYlon2tvywA. Follow my Substack, the Anchored Argosy at https://argosy.substack.com/. See my latest podcasts at https://adversariapodcast.com/. If you have enjoyed my videos and podcasts, please tell your friends. If you are interested in supporting my videos and podcasts and my research more generally, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=4WX77P4F8S7WL), or by buying books for my research on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3…3O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035.

The following reflection is entitled Networks, Shortcuts and Hubs. It was first published on the Anchored Argosy. I recently watched a video on Veritasium, a popular science YouTube channel in which the host, Derek Mueller, discussed some of the fascinating dynamics of networks and connections. The video itself is highly accessible while covering an impressive amount of ground, so I recommend watching it. The link to it will be below. Among other things, the video explores. the small world phenomenon. The ways in which people who might seem to be extremely distant from

each other can frequently be connected through short paths. Muehler considers how, were each person only connected to the hundred people physically closest to them, connections between people on the other sides of the planet would take an extreme number of steps. However, the existence of shortcuts, people with connections outside of their ordinary clusters, causes the number of required steps to make such connections. across the entire network to plummet, lowering the degree of separation between everyone, even those with few or no connections between their immediate contacts. Remarkably, only a relatively small number of such shortcuts is needed to produce a small world effect

comparable to what one might observe in a network with random connections across all of its members. Yet, importantly, unlike a random network, Such a network will also retain the highly clustered character of an ordered network. It really has the best and sometimes the worst of both worlds. Later in the video, Mueller turns to consider the phenomenon of the hub. Examples of hubs within networks are familiar from the internet, which provide many of Mueller's illustrations of such dynamics, sites like Google, Twitter or Facebook, from and to which countless other sites are linked.

Hubs are not merely shortcuts, regular network members with slightly more eccentric connections than their peers. When networks are emerging, the connections that are formed are biased towards their more connected members, in part because they are more known. The dynamics here are related to the friendship paradox, the fact that most people's friends have a greater average number of friends than they do. Such well-connected members attract others to them more than other members. As a network emerges and grows over time, such members of a network can become hubs. Recognising the importance of hubs can radically increase one's effectiveness in addressing certain group dynamics. Mullah gives the example of Thailand's attempts to control the spread of AIDS,

and the way in which focusing on brothels as hubs proved markedly more effective than more general public health messaging. Such dynamics can shed a surprising yet important light upon the church. Michael B. Thompson has an essay in the Richard Borkham edited volume, The Gospel for All Christians, entitled The Holy Internet, communication between churches in the first Christian generation. Within it, he explores the dissemination of information in the earliest church. Thompson observes that contrary to theories of isolated communities built around the varying messages of different apostles and early church teachers, the first churches were bound together in a large network, within which methods. messages travelled with regularity and relative speed. While there were clearly defined clusters, local churches most of whose members would be geographically rooted, there were also a lot of shortcuts and some hubs too. One would only need a few such shortcuts and hubs for the early church to exhibit a pronounced small world character, while still having many distinct local clusters. Thanks to the vast infrastructure of Roman roads and the sea lanes of

commerce that joined places across the empire, it was possible for first century travellers to enjoy considerable mobility. There were also key hubs of communication for the early church, places like Jerusalem, Rome, Ephesus or Corinth. Christians in these and other localities would be expected to show hospitality to Christians from other parts of the world. The epistle as a medium was bound up with such a network, while we tend to regard epistles merely as texts, especially as we encounter them in our Bibles, imaginatively resituating them within their natural network of communication can reveal other purposes that the medium served. Descending and later circulating of an epistle created or strengthened connections between places and their

respective communities. For a fledgling movement, the Holy Internet Thompson describes, was a critical means by which the church was built up. In the Book of Acts, we repeatedly see this internet in action. While we may be tempted to read the accounts of the Apostles' travels, as if it were filler, it was a crucial part of the means by which the early church was strengthened, encouraged, and made secure in the truth. Axis, among other things, the story of the emergence of the church as a networked entity. The Holy Internet created bonds of mutual knowledge, concern, gift, support, and service between churches. It established churches as examples to each other. It connected the church with its origins in apostolic testimony, ensuring that believers

were rarely more than a couple of degrees separation from multiple eyewitnesses of Christ's ministry and resurrection. This network is one of the reasons why the apostles could boldly state that the work of Christ wasn't something that occurred in a corner in Acts 26, verse 26. News could travel quickly, especially in a closely networked set of communities, such as those of the early church. At the beginning and end of the various New Testament epistles, we can get a sense of this network too. As we want to get to the ideas, we can be inattentive to the ways that the early church was established, not merely through ideas, but through the constant circulation of apostles, evangelists, and various other servants of the church, through gifts, messengers, travelers, letters, news, etc.

For instance, even before Paul visited the city of Rome, he knew a great number of Christians already active there, people who would welcome his visit. The Book of Romans isn't merely a book of theological ideas, it is a book paving the way for a visit, a book appealing to and developing existing connections, and anticipating the establishment of a greater future bond between Paul and the church at Rome. The hospitality of churches to strangers was part of how the Holy Internet, was made possible. There are various mentions in the epistles of Paul of him seeking a place to stay, Vileiman, verse 22, provisions or praising Christians for their hospitality to others, 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 10. The degree to which Paul's apostolic teaching was bound up with an intense practice of networking can be seen in his extensive description of his movements and various

practical missions in such places as the end of Romans. The relationship between Jews and Gentiles wasn't merely a theological notion, but something to be worked out through such things as the contributions of the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia to the poor saints in Jerusalem. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. The Jerusalem collection strengthened the ecclesiastical and theological web of connection between Jewish and Gentile churches, enabling Gentile Christians and churches in the wider empire to participate in the needs of the saints in Jerusalem. The sending of epistles was also a way in which the form and the content of the apostolic message

and ministry were closely related. Most of the epistles of the New Testament are addressed to the Christians in a particular city or to a specific person. Such epistles strengthened and built upon existing connections, ensuring that each church could be nourished by the ministry of others. They were a form of resistance to sectarian and isolationist tendencies, establishing unity through mutual sharing and ministry in a body. The epistles consistently remind their recipients of their place within a larger body of Christians. The recipients of the epistles are also frequently called to pass on the messages that they have received to others, or to ensure that a wider audience hears them. Second Corinthians chapter 1 verse 1, Galatians

chapter 1 verse 2, Colossians chapter 4 verse 16, Romans chapter 1 verse 7, 1 Peter, chapter 1 1 verse 1. Over the last few years, as we have divided our time between Stoke-on-Trent and New York, and have travelled extensively in the US, the UK and elsewhere, I have frequently reflected on the importance of shortcuts and hubs in the Book of Acts, also upon the importance of the pilgrim feasts and the Levites as ways Israel was preserved from breaking apart into detached, regional clusters. As we travel and connect with Christians in various places, we play a part in making the church a smaller world, often creating further connections as we bring people into contact with each other. In our travels, we frequently have small world experiences. We have been recognized

on the streets and in the bookstores of several cities and towns in the US, UK and even elsewhere. We have come to love the serendipity that comes with putting ourselves in lots of of situations where we are likely to meet new people, within which unpredictable new connections can arise. I've almost certainly met more than 500 people in person whom I first knew online. Likewise, while we are not hubs, a lot of people initiate contact with us due to our connections, for instance on account of Susanna's work as a plow editor, and we have small virtual communities around us. Another analogy to which I often return is that of bridges and bridge building. connecting places that might otherwise be divided or difficult to access from each other.

Much of our lives is between worlds, between the US and the UK, between the Academy and the Church, between various regions of the US, between various denominations, etc. A good bridge can enable fruitful and well-managed commerce between worlds, while also maintaining the distinctions between them. A bridge need not collapse worlds into each other, as some forms of networks are prone to do, but it can make possible worthwhile communication. Likewise, a good bridge provides a well-defined point of contact and channel of exchange with other worlds,

which lowers the sense of threat in the connection between worlds. The worlds remain distinct, while the points of contact and channels between them are provided by persons, agencies and institutions who can be known and trusted. This contrasts with many of the ways in which groups can connect with other worlds and outsiders online, which heightens conflict and polarization. I firmly believe in the need for dense clusters of local Christians, highly grounded and stable communities of Christians committed to and growing within specific places,

and have often felt that modernity and weakening clustering dynamics can leave us poorer off in certain regards. There have been times when I wondered whether the more peripatetic character of my work was somewhat in tension with this conviction. However, over time, I have come. to appreciate, the church has always required dense clustering and broad networking as complementary and counterbalancing forces. Were our way of life more widespread, it would not be good for the church, yet if there were no people like us, the church would also suffer. Extreme travellers like the

Apostle Paul in the Book of Acts were quite unusual in their time, yet their travelling was immensely important for the development of the church, had everyone scattered after Pentecost to form local churches in various parts of the world, and travelling between churches not being a regular and enduring feature of the church's life, the church would have become a very different entity, its catholicity and unity much less felt. These are in many ways introductory thoughts. The real meat of what I want to explore relating to networks lies elsewhere. I'll probably add some thoughts on these issues in a future reflection. Thank you very much for listening.

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