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My reference to the Body of Christ in Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 5, may have been looking for more of what we find in Chapter 6:  Collective Action and Institutional Challenges.*  Let's explore what "new tools give life to new forms of action" which "in turn challenge existing institutions, by eroding the institutional monopoly on large-scale coordination" (p.109, from Chapter 6 Abstract, italics in original).

Chapter 6:  Collective Action and Institutional Challenges is actually focused upon the church, i.e., the Roman Catholic Church.  In what manner?  Clay Shirky devotes significant attention to how on-line lay coordination (Voice of the Faithful, i.e., VOTF) in 2002 led to sexual scandal reforms/resignations which failed to occur even ten years previously when the issues were raised by the media in 1992. What enabled strong lay mobilization?  The ease of sharing information (versus expending the energy to collect/mail newspaper clippings and find out the the stories of others) along with the coordination of response through on-line resources and arranging public meetings.  

Later in the chapter, Clay Shirky also refers to the challenges of parish authority by the Episcopalian Church in Virigina when they brokeaway from the U.S. denomination, in protest to the ordination of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson, to go under the Nigerian Anglican Church. 

What powerful tool do we find now in regular use, email.  The ability to go viral. 

social tools don't create collective action -- they merely remove the obstacles to it.  Those obstacles have been so significant and pervasive, however, that as they are being removed, the world is becoming a different place.  This is why many of the significant changes are based not on the fanciest, newest bits of technology but on simple, easty-to-use tools like e-mail, mobile phones, and websites, because those are the tools most people have access to and, critically, are comfortable using in their daily lives.  Revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new behaviors. -- p.159-160.

Clay Shirky's stringing me along as I anticipate Chapter 7:  Faster and faster is going to provide intense illustrations regarding Collective Action and Institutional Challenges.

*Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization (Clay Shirky. NY, NY: Penguin Press, 2008).

Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 1
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 2
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 3
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 4
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 5