Title: Doing and studying religion in cyberspace
Author: Gwilym Beckerlegge
Last saved by: Peter Woodward
Company: Packard Bell NEC

Shap Journal 2004/2005

Shaping the Future

Shaping the future:Doing and studying religion in cyberspace
Gwilym Beckerlegge

Gwilym Beckerlegge received the Shap Award for 2002 on behalf of the Open University which has supported Religious Studies over many years.

Working for the Open University, it is difficult to avoid weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of teaching at a distance, including the use of electronic media such as the Internet. Such questions, of course, are not the special preserve of one university or any one subject because computer-mediated learning is now common in schools and universities. Yet, there are good reasons why those involved in the study of religions should reflect on the relationship between what they seek to understand, religion, and the Internet, the powerful electronic tool that many use so heavily for this purpose. How appropriate is it to use this medium when setting out to understand something as personal and, in certain of its aspects, as interior as religious behaviour? What impact has the advent of widespread use of the Internet had upon religious belief and practice?

In May 2004, The Times’ religion correspondent reported on ‘the first 3D church service in cyberspace’, under the headline ‘I attend first service of a church that casts its net in cyber sea’ (Gledhill, 2004). The cyber chapel can be visited at www.churchoffools.com. As a virtual participant, Ruth Gledhill was far from negative about the experience and confessed to enjoying the freedom granted to her cyber character, the ‘avatar’, or virtual representation of a real-life worshipper. She also noted that details had just been unveiled of the first online church within the formal structures of the Church of England, which will go online with a global audience in July (www.i-church.org). It will have a ‘web pastor’.

The somewhat incongruous reference to ‘avatars’ attending virtual C of E services was a reminder of an earlier journalistic comment on the first, extensive online coverage and celebration of Durga Puja. Writing in 1998, R. Bannerjee (1998) lamented ‘…one has to move with the times. Presumably, the pujas [worship/festival] will no longer be the same again.’ This seemed to encapsulate some of the ambivalence that has surrounded the transfer of religious activity to the Internet. It was this reflection on the way in which the Internet has affected the practice of religion, rather than just its use as an aid to study, which first attracted my interest (Beckerlegge, 2002).

Together with sex and medicine, web sites relating to all varieties of religions have a major presence on the Internet and are estimated to run into millions. At its simplest, a religious web site functioning as nothing more than a rather sophisticated notice board hardly marks a radical new departure for religious organisation and behaviour. Yet, even at this relatively simple level, this manifestation of religion on the Internet brings with it something new in terms of speed of interactive communication, global outreach, and the potential for sophisticated multi-media design. A complex web site, on the other hand, can be more like a mini-library, providing access to texts, pictures and video sequences, sounds of the religion, and links to related web sites. For dispersed religious communities – Hindus in Britain, Sikhs in Canada, Hasidic Jews in the United States, to name but a few examples – web sites can generate a sense of closer connection to their religious community as a whole. Virtual participation by members of the Hindu diaspora in festivals such as Durga Puja is a case in point. Web sites and electronic publications can be valuable resources for the religious nurture of the young, and for adults cut off from the major religious centres and authorities to whom they would turn routinely for advice. Hinduism Today, an online newspaper disseminated from Hawaii, is designed as a resource for Hindus around the world. 

If a web site can offer the texts, sights and sounds of a religion, does it have to restrict itself to being merely an information point? This takes us closer to the heart of our exploration of ways in which the use of the Internet has become a medium for religious activity and not merely a source of information. There are already numerous web sites designed to prompt interactive engagement rather than simply to relay information, although this distinction becomes less sharp when one considers web sites that remind Muslims of the daily times of prayer or relay the hukamnama to Sikhs. Religious teachers in many traditions currently maintain web sites through which their followers can access their recent pronouncements, seek guidance and receive blessing. In those religious traditions in which the study of sacred scripture is a central obligation, the Internet has for some time provided a forum for global study, discussion and prayer groups. Some web sites go beyond this level of activity and offer acts of worship that the individual visitor can follow and join at any point in the day. This kind of provision within Christianity has typically been associated with so-called ‘virtual (or electronic) churches’ in North America, and the initiative reported by Ruth Gledhill is but the latest in this line. There are also Christian web sites that enable individuals to make confession. Just as Durga Puja has been celebrated ‘online’, so too have Jewish festivals. All of these activities – prayer, worship, participation in festivals – provoke questions about the direction and authenticity of this kind of electronic religious practice, and not least the future roles of traditional officiants in such rituals.

Those who use the Internet for religious purposes are building new kinds of virtual and, in a sense, remote religious communities. This kind of access brings with it challenges to traditional religious authorities. Gary Bunt (2000:118) has noted, for example, that ‘…CyberIslamic Environments allow sensitive questions…[relating to homosexuality and suicide] to be addressed, which would be unsuitable or impossible in other circumstances’. The Internet can strip away the symbols of power that often surround authority figures in a religion. Although the resultant levelling may run counter to ideas of hierarchy that still dominate in many religious traditions, it also contributes to a greater democratisation in electronic exchanges. The freedom to ‘browse’ a religion in privacy may lead an individual into contact with a ‘surfing’ Buddhist monk, rabbi, Christian ‘web pastor’, or imam. Such exchanges in theory allow an enquirer to choose to accept the counselling that is most congenial, rather than responding simply to what is offered in the immediate locality.  If, moreover, the flexibility offered by virtual participation in religious activities on the Internet can be attractive to those leading a 24/7 lifestyle, it is no less true that the transference of religious activities to the Internet has prompted questions about access in terms of wealth, computer-literacy, and proficiency in English, which to date has been dominant on the Internet.

To explore questions posed by increasing use of the Internet about the changing nature of religious community, challenges to received notions of authority, and what is held to be authentic ritual activity would seem to lie at the heart of any serious study of contemporary religion. But, perhaps for educators one of the most provocative arguments relating to communication via the Internet is Walter Ong’s (1981) identification of electronic communication as the third stage in the development of human communication, each shift bringing with it a change in the nature of ‘community’. Whereas the oral-aural stage was characterised by intimacy and reliance upon sound and memory, with the development of picture and alphabet writing the emphasis moved to the visual and independence from the historical context in which the text was created. Ong (1981:91) has argued that the sense of simultaneity of oral culture is recovered in electronic media. The nature of the ‘community’ that enjoys this form of communication, however, has been transformed and globalised. In the process, individuals have been freed or, as some have argued, isolated from intimate, more localised groups. Yet, Ong has suggested that the nature of the isolation implied by participation in Internet-based religion may foster introspection, which could lead to religious reflection, and that the debate about alienation caused by increasing reliance upon electronic communication might be one to which religious groups have their own distinctive contribution to make. 

It is now almost fifty years since the creation of the computer network that evolved into the Internet. The use of the Internet has become commonplace and teachers in all sectors of education are now all too familiar with the perils of relying uncritically upon it as a source of information. If religions are major denizens of this cyberworld, so too are their most partisan, racist, nationalist and homophobic expressions where they are given free rein, almost unrestrained by national laws. But the Internet is not simply a vast and variable source of information about religion. It is a medium through which some at least now express intensely personal values and are prepared to carry out the most highly charged symbolic activities associated with their religious lives. Although there has been only a limited transfer so far of religious activity to the Internet, even this raises far-reaching questions about future forms of religion and community, free speech and censorship, and social inclusion/exclusion in a globalised, electronic world. Those involved in the study and teaching of religion now have sufficient experience of using this medium to be able to take the lead in placing such questions at the heart of the curriculum. 

Bibliography
R.Bannerjee (1998) ‘Victory Parade’ in India Today International October 12, p.34.
G.Beckerlegge (2002) ‘Computer-mediated religion: religion on the Internet at the turn of the twenty-first century’ in G.Beckerlegge (ed.) From Sacred Text to Internet  Aldershot: Ashgate in association with The Open University, pp.219-264.
G.R.Bunt (2000) Virtually Islamic: Computer-mediated Communication and Cyber Islamic Environments Cardiff: University of Wales Press
R.Gledhill (2004) ‘I attend first service of a church that casts its net in cyber sea’ The Times, May 12, p.3.
W.Ong (1981) The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

A Webliographical Note 
Good starting points for sampling religious web sites are the web site maintained and updated by Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion (http://www.wabashcenter.wabsh.edu/Internet/front.htm) and the ROUTES collection of web sites maintained and updated by the Open University library (http://routes.open.ac.uk). The Division of Religion and Philosophy at St Martin’s University College have mounted a number of initiatives in the field of information technology (ELMAR – Electronic Media and Religions), one of which (RE-XS) is specifically for teachers of Religious Education (accessed via http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk). MultiFaithNet, maintained by the University of Derby also provides Internet resources for the study of religions and for inter-faith dialogue (http://cedm.derby.ac.uk/multifaith/index/asp).   Comprehensive, hardcopy (and thus not updated) surveys of religious web sites are provided by M.A.Keller God on the Internet Foster City: IDG Books, 1996, B.B.Lawrence The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Religions Online Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2000. Gary Bunt’s The Good Web Guide: World Religions (London: The Good Web Guide Limited, 2001) does offer free online updates. For new religious movements, including neopaganism, see Zenzibar Alternative Culture Directory (http://w.w.w.zenzibar.com/beta/directory.asp?cat=R) and T.Cottee, N.Yateman, and L.Dawson  ‘NRMs, the ACM, and the WWW: A Guide for Beginners’ in L.L.Dawson (ed.) Cults in Context: Readings in the Study of New Religious Movements New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1998.