Any informed discussion of the Internet and its relationship to culture and society must give serious consideration to the division between the Internet haves and have-nots. This divide, he continues, exists in terms of both access to Internet technology i. Hence research must be conducted into not only who is using the Internet and for what purpose but also how production of Internet content both reflects other deeply embedded social and cultural divisions and further contributes to them.
Cowan Finally, as suggested above, the Internet is both a mirror and a shadow of the offline world. That is, there is very little in the real world that is not electronically reproduced online, and very little online that has no offline foundation or referent. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, e-mail remains the most common online activity by far www. Beyond simply providing information, though—whether it be the current rate of exchange between Indian rupees and Thai bhat, the most direct air connection from Berlin to Bali, or the airspeed velocity of an African swallow—what is significant is how Internet content providers are also seeking to reproduce less tangible aspects of social experience.
Online bookstores such as Amazon. More than once, we have purchased books other than those we were looking for but which were suggested by this feature—not unlike the experience of finding something on the bookstore shelf right next to the book you were seeking. Likewise, many Web sites that deal with one or another aspect of religious life, belief, or practice are seeking ways to communicate not just information about faith but an experience of that faith as well.
Though its presence on the Internet hardly merits the rhetoric of some of its more enthusiastic observers e. As Hadden and Cowan note b: 8 : There is scarcely a religious tradition, movement, group, or phenomenon absent entirely from the Net.
And the online presence of religion is growing daily. As we point out in more detail below, more empirical research, informed by insights from sociological theory, is required before we can say with any certainty just what is going on with religion on the Internet and why. This is not to say, however, that no progress has been made.
First proposed by Christopher Helland , this distinction grounds many of the analyses contained in this volume, though others have elaborated and refined it e. This includes the many thousands of Web sites established by congregations, mosques, temples, and synagogues as well as the larger religious institutions of which these are a part. Commercial sites selling an astounding variety of religious books, products, and supplies fall under the same broad rubric of religion online.
Online religion, on the other hand, invites Internet visitors to participate in religious practices. These practices may range from online prayer, meditation, ritual observance of Catholic Mass, Hindu puja, and the Wiccan Sabbat, to spiritual counselling, online Tarot readings, astrological charts, and runecasts cf. Cowan forthcoming; Cowan and Hadden forthcoming; Hadden and Cowan b. The distinction, however, is not absolute.
An increasing number of Web sites fall somewhere between these extremes, offering their visitors some combination of the two. So perhaps, as Glenn Young this volume argues, we should treat this distinction as identifying the end points of a continuum and not as a dichotomy.
Increasingly, congregational Web sites, for example, not only tell visitors when services are held and where the church building is located but also offer online prayer chains, devotional pages, and even electronic confessionals.
Likewise, altars from a variety of traditions are available online for perpetual e-adoration, confusing the line between the provision of religious information and the actual practice of religion. Even when the use of the Web appears to be confined to providing various religious texts, more may be at stake. It is increasingly difficult to separate the mere provision of information from the practice of religion in cyberspace. While Dawson and Hennebry this volume; cf.
Berger and Ezzy, this volume challenge the notion that the Internet is a very efficient medium for the recruitment of converts, the Internet is used quite commonly for evangelism and proselytization, which are quintessentially religious activities. Likewise the Internet has proven to be an excellent venue for religious antagonism and countermovement cf. Cowan, this volume; Introvigne ; Mayer And it has become a unique resource for selfproclaimed religious virtuosi, who have found online a potential audience thousands of times greater than they could have dreamed of even a decade ago.
Cowan ways to be religious and not just the description of new ways to convey religious information. Utopias, Dystopias, and Beyond The first works published on the nature and social impact of the Internet were highly speculative. Regrettably and yet almost inevitably, before serious study could be undertaken commentators began to sing the praise of the transformative and liberating potentials of the new medium e.
The first truly global and mass mode of communication, they declared, was vastly expanding the time-and-space parameters of social interaction. With the anonymity of discourse online, people could readily meet individuals from other places, cultures, social classes, ages, and occupations.
New and perhaps even multiple identities were possible, as were friendships and conflicts with people of similar and different turns of mind from everywhere in the world. Other commentators, however, were just as quick to sense the dark side of the Internet. Dystopian texts called for greater caution in embracing the Internet e.
The information superhighway, they warned, isolated individuals from real life. It indulged an illusion of sociality that was superficial and furthered the real alienation of modern individuals from themselves, their families, their friends and coworkers, and their neighborhoods.
The anonymity of communicating online allowed for deception—men masquerading as women, and teenagers pretending to be professionals ready to offer advice. As popularized by Hollywood technothrillers like The Net and Enemy of the State, the ever-widening electronic Web gave government agencies unprecedented opportunities to monitor and intervene in the lives of ordinary citizens.
The increasing commercialization of cyberspace also meant that a capitalist agenda would soon dominate this new frontier, stifling true creativity and social protest. Finally, some feared that increased exposure to the Internet, with its growing dependence on images and graphical icons, would lower levels of literacy and the damage the capacity for serious thought as young minds became immersed in the glib, irreverent, and rock video—inspired culture of the new hypertext environment.
The first studies of religion in cyberspace veered towards these utopian and dystopian extremes e. Calling attention to the pervasive presence of religion online, these early investigations tended either to sing the praises of various fascinating possibilities for doing religion in new ways or to condemn the presumed excesses of virtual life, often from the perspective of some more traditional religious commitment.
In general, however, the study of religion online has suffered from relative neglect when compared with the burgeoning literature on the political, medical, educational, and even sexual uses and consequences of the Internet. By the late s things began to change. The first truly empirical studies of life in cyberspace and Internet usage began to appear see, e. The consequences of the Internet for religion also began to receive some serious consideration e.
But detailed study of how religion is being practiced online is only just beginning, especially the effort to understand developments online in the context of wider social and cultural conditions changing life in late-modern societies e.
This book is part of that new effort. The fact that we have adopted the technology so fast, however, means we are at risk of overlooking its significance. Like the telephone or television, it has become a routine feature of our daily lives. But communications technologies are rarely neutral in their effects Fischer ; Postman They are not mere media for the transmission of messages.
The cities and nations in which we live have been radically restructured, for example, by the advent of the automobile, and in ways few anticipated. Communications technologies mold the messages we deliver in unanticipated ways as well, crucially influencing our self-conceptions, notions of human relations and community, and the nature of reality itself e. From the first written word to the World Wide Web, each technology introduced into our lives has its own unique signature and set of social consequences.
Religious uses of the Internet evoke a comparison with the religious uses of television, most notably televangelism, based in turn on the earlier use of radio by religious groups in America e. There are important continuities between the religious uses of these technologies that have yet to be explored.
But, there are important differences as well—differences that need to be kept in mind in the search for the signature of the Internet. Cowan At least five crucial differences come to mind: 1 the Internet is an interactive and not simply a broadcast medium; 2 the Internet is truly multimedial; 3 the Internet employs hypertextuality; 4 anyone can launch himself onto the World Wide Web with relative ease and little expense; 5 the Internet is global in its reach. With a comparatively small investment in time, money, and knowledge, Internet users can make their religious views known, at least potentially, to millions of others throughout the world.
Television production, on the other hand, is largely the preserve of small cultural elites with the resources required to operate in this expensive medium. While these elites have a vested interest in the status quo, the World Wide Web is open in principle and in practice to almost anyone, no matter how unconventional his opinions. Because the flexibility of hypertext allows the Web visitor to select the order of the information presented on a particular site, that information is encountered in a variety of ways simultaneously.
Hypertextually speaking, it is entirely possible that no two visitors will view the site in exactly the same way. Both parties to this communication— content provider and Internet visitor—are actively engaged in an interaction that is always unique and largely uncontrolled. These key, qualitative differences in the medium itself have helped to generate the significant quantitative difference in the sheer presence of computer-mediated communication—a difference that in turn magnifies the social and cultural significance of this particular media revolution.
Questions, Questions, Questions. As the social-scientific study of the Internet begins to mature, spawning numerous new empirical studies of how the Internet is being used and with what results, it is becoming increasingly apparent that scholars of religion need to address some basic questions.
At least six research concerns spring to mind: 1. We need more and better studies of who is using the Internet for religious purposes, how they are using it, and why. In this regard we need longitudinal studies to detect any changes that are happening with the passage of time and increased experience online. In this regard we need surveys and interviews of users and case studies of groups, Web sites, or particular activities.
We need to gain a better grasp of the overall social context of cyber-religiosity. We need detailed and comparative studies of the specific religious activities online. How is the Internet being used to engage in such things as prayer, meditation, ritual, education, and organizational tasks, and to what effect? We need studies of how the features of the technology itself are being utilized in the service of religious ends and with what consequences for the intrinsic and the social aspects of religious life?
What are the actual and potential implications of hypertextuality for religion, for example? Are there special interface issues affecting the religious uses of this technology? How can the technology be changed or improved to facilitate its religious utilization? We need to discern whether the technological and cultural aspects of the Internet are better suited to the advancement of one style or type of religion over another.
Is the preponderance of Neopagan activities online, for example, coincidental? Or is the Internet better suited, for instance, to the practices and organizational structure of Hinduism than Catholicism? What is the case, why, and with what implications for the future? Click to Continue. Successful navigation anywhere is a function of two interrelated processes: orientation and intention—knowing where you are when you begin and having some idea where you want to be when you finish. Following that, the book is divided into four sections, each of which treats a different dimension of religion in the online world.
In Part I, we explore the nature of online religious communication and community. Following this, we are pleased to be able to reprint Stephen D. In all three regards it set an example that is still largely unsurpassed. This is true for most young people in Western societies today. How, though, does community happen online, and how would we know it if we saw it?
These are some of the questions addressed by Lorne Dawson as necessary considerations for any informed research into religion on the Internet. Religions traditionally happen in communities; they form and inform communities.
How would we know if online communities are different or even if they exist at all? What criteria need we implement to describe online communities, religious or otherwise, and analyze them effectively? Answering these questions will help us understand more fully what it means to be religious in cyberspace.
Part II moves to a consideration of how culturally mainstream religions— those that have long and deeply embedded cultural traditions offline—have adapted to life on the Web. It is likely that the Internet will benefit some religions more than others and in different ways. Because of their inherently innovative character, we include in Part III a number of examples of how new religious movements, particularly emergent Neopagan groups, are using the Web to experiment and extend their own religious communities and understandings.
As Helen Berger and Douglas Ezzy point out, however, the cultural anxiety over Internet recruitment still remains.
Addressing this concern, their essay considers teen witches both in the United States and Australia and locates the Internet as only one of an array of sources to which young people turn in their quest for religious identity and commitment. Wendy Griffin looks at the emergence of Goddess spirituality and how the Internet has provided an alternative venue for followers of the Goddess to form communities and to contribute to the globalization of various forms of Neopagan belief and practice.
Krogh and Pillifant trace the origins and nature of this cyber-religion and its all-important shift to an offline presence. Instead, the House of Netjer is a blend of offline and online relationships. Finally, using the often controversial Church of Scientology as an example, Douglas Cowan explores how different social movements have pursued religious conflict in cyberspace and what kinds of movements are best served by the hardware, software, and, indeed, the philosophy of the Internet.
Each of the essays in this book demonstrates that the range of religious experience one can encounter on the Internet is broad and varied. Most of these encounters are likely to mirror real-life events and conflicts. But over and over again the evidence also suggests that subtle transformations are under way as the Internet brings new possibilities and dimensions of experience to almost every aspect of religious life.
The key is to detect and delineate the elements of continuity and difference, since the future of the Internet as a medium of religiosity will hinge on the presence, nature, and degree of both elements. Cowan religion offline, its utility and appeal will be limited; if it is too much the same, it will be limited as well.
But small changes of the right type that expand and enhance our religious sensibilities and levels of satisfaction are bound to leave their mark.
We offer these exploratory essays in a new field of research to demonstrate the interesting and important ways we can begin to understand the interface of the one of the oldest and one of the newest cultural resources of humanity. A Final Caution The Internet is a remarkable resource for information on an almost infinite variety of topics. It provides the quickest way to answer our most basic questions. In some instances it can provide access to documents, statistics, and analyses that would have required extraordinary effort, expense, and expertise to attain even a decade ago.
It has become the logical first recourse for anyone doing research on almost any subject. This holds true for religious concerns as well, as the essays in this book demonstrate. The Internet has opened up a truly exciting opportunity to learn about the religious beliefs and practices of peoples scattered across the globe and even more to reach out and actually speak to individuals holding these beliefs.
True religious dialogue may still be wanting online, but the sheer possibility of such dialogue has changed the spiritual landscape that humanity inhabits forever. The Internet offers us the opportunity to banish the kinds of religious parochialism based on ignorance that have harmed so many throughout the centuries.
But as the essays in this book also starkly reveal, the Internet must be used with caution when investigating religious concerns. Everything is subject to interpretation but, as common sense suggests, some things are more obviously open to interpretation than others.
Religion, like politics and sex, as the old adage asserts, is one of those subjects. Extreme care must be taken in using the Internet as a resource for research on religion to discern the explicit and implicit biases of the people and organizations providing the information. In the unregulated environment of cyberspace extreme opinions can be voiced with little fear of the consequences, and propaganda of one sort or another is pervasive see Cowan, this volume.
What you read may or may not be accurate or even true, and it is wise to exercise some skepticism about claims until you can access multiple sources of information and critically compare them. When the views of a religion and its opponents clash, for example, an ethically responsible researcher, whether a student or eminent scholar, must seek to hear and give voice to both sides of any dispute. Ironically, the very freedom with which ideas can be posted online and the sheer scope and diversity of the opinions offered increase the care with which all information must be approached.
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New York: Simon and Schuster. Wellman, B. Haythornthwaite, eds. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Wright, S. Just Add the Net. Zaleski, J. The Soul of Cyberspace. San Francisco: HarperCollins. This is an increase from our survey findings in late , which showed that 21 percent of Internet users—or between 19 million and 20 million people—had gone online to get religious or spiritual material.
The September 11 terror attacks compelled millions of Internet users to turn to religious issues and concerns online. Presumably most of them considered this to be information-gathering activity rather than spiritual activity.
The most popular online religious activities are solitary ones. Used with permission. However, they also interact with friends and strangers as they swap advice and prayer support. The practice is far more common among congregation members 42 percent than nonmembers 12 percent.
Within the Religion Surfer population, variations in religious devotion, history, and affiliation play a role in determining what activities attract individuals. Four patterns of practice highlight different groups: active Religion Surfers use the Internet in different ways from less-active Religion Surfers; religious converts use the Internet in different ways from faith loyalists who remain with the religion in which they were raised; religious outsiders use the Internet in different ways from insiders who consider themselves in the mainstream of their communities; and church or temple members use the Internet in different ways from nonmembers.
Outsiders are those who see themselves as a minority, who say they have few people of the same religion in their local communities, or who say they have faced discrimination due to their beliefs. For Religion Surfers, the Internet is a useful supplemental tool that enhances their already deep commitment to their beliefs and their churches, synagogues, or mosques. Use of the Internet also seems to be especially helpful to those who feel they are not part of mainstream religious groups.
About 27 percent of Religion Surfers attribute to the Internet at least some improvement in their faith lives. Survey, July 24—August 15, And 62 percent of Religion Surfers say that the availability of material on the Internet encourages religious tolerance.
Religion Surfers are distinguished from other Americans by their religious devotion rather than conventional demographics. They take their faith seriously in the offline world and use online tools to enrich their knowledge of their faith and to practice their devotions. By comparison, 54 percent of all Americans say they pray that often, and 23 percent say they meditate every day. Many Religion Surfers think key spiritual resources are more easily available online than offline.
Despite this official religious presence, individuals using the Internet for popular or nonofficial religion have embraced this medium as a new environment where freedom of religious expression rules supreme. He was board chairman of General Electric and the Radio Corp. By the s this vision was becoming a reality. Academics were beginning to use computer networks to share their data and communicate their research, although this was initially a complicated procedure undertaken only by a select few.
Although these systems were developed for military, academic, and industrial use, they began to allow for much more personal communications and contact. Having linked this system together, computer technicians developed a software program that allowed users to attach personal messages or electronic mail to the outgoing and incoming data. Within a very short period of time e-mail became one of the most popular aspects of computer-mediated communications Hafner and Lyon By the s, e-mail was such a significant component of the developing Internet system that many researchers felt they had created simply the most expensive post office in history Sterling In this way, these computer networks developed into social networks Hampton and Wellman , and with the creation of a program called MODEM in the late s, the public also gained access to this communication technology.
Now, using home-based microcomputers, people separated by both time and space could communicate with each other through telephone lines Kitchin Located on a Santa Cruz BBS called Communitree, ORIGINS promoted a syncretic, open-ended form of religious discourse in which people of varying levels of religious faith, commitment, and practice could post and respond to questions ranging from divination to the afterlife and from the Christian Bible to the Norse Eddas.
It is a framework for improving your life and improving the world at the same time. All the practices are based on action. None require any special equipment, settings, leaders, theories or social status. The human universals of the ordinary, everyday moment, and the personal relationship, form the basis for this training. Because it started in an open computer conference, no one knows who all the creators are.
Rheingold and — Using text to communicate in forums like ORIGINS, individuals began using the Internet to express their religious beliefs and concerns, as well as simply to talk about religion. In this way, the Internet became a vehicle for religion, and as the BBS system continued to expand and flourish, religion permeated the medium. Within Brainstorms there are hundreds of forum areas, with topics ranging from politics and war to community and life online. Although there is a significant amount of dialogue about different religious beliefs and practices, actual online rituals are not performed on the BBS.
However, people will provide links to such rituals as online Hagaddahs i. I Link, Therefore I Am As Internet communication became more popular, home computers became less expensive, and software made the whole process a lot more user-friendly, computer-mediated communication expanded rapidly.
But with hundreds of thousands of e-mails sent to the Pope, the site was quickly overwhelmed and crashed. Since then, while sites like www. The conclusion of a study by Barna Research in California recommended that church organizations quickly establish their presence in cyberspace or they would lose touch with many of their parishioners and risk losing the ability to advise them in an era of rapid technological growth.
When the World Wide Web was still relatively new and uncharted, organized religion was urged to establish its presence on the electronic frontier before it was too late. In , Patrick McCormick believed that the massive expansion of religion into cyberspace occurred out of necessity. Believers had to make their presence known in the new environment before the influence of the Church would be lost to unofficial religious groups.
As of August , the categories of Web sites representing Christian beliefs and practices had increased by over percent and showed no signs of abating. These figures demonstrate two important factors. First, that the religious and spirituality sections of the World Wide Web continue to expand at a very rapid rate. In search engine subsections and categories of classification, the religion and spirituality sections have always been among the largest and most dynamic.
On Lycos, for example, the section devoted to religiously oriented Web sites increased by almost 70 percent from 57, in to 96, in August No other category—including activism, lifestyle choices, relationships, sexuality, or law—comes close to this level of representation.
Secondly, the overall rate of growth suggests that regardless of the increases in official church representation on the Web, it is unlikely that they account for all the new religious and spiritual Web sites coming online on a daily basis. Drawing upon data from a number of search engines, it is evident that popular religion is flourishing online. Unlike most other search engines, which use computer software to review and assess Web sites, human beings do the job for the OPD; currently there are 57, of these Web editors, all volunteers in the project.
According to the OPD, Christianity is the largest belief system and constitutes almost 78 percent of all online religious Web sites. Within Christianity, Roman Catholicism is the largest single denomination represented.
The majority of these sites are official Catholic sites and include parish and diocesan sites, pages for various church and parachurch organizations, and Catholic religious orders. And when one begins to examine Christian classifications within the ODP outside the Catholic framework, the numbers of these popular sites increase dramatically.
While all major and most minor Christian denominations are presented online, as well as most Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions, in each case unofficial expressions of these religions along with individuals wishing to communicate their personal religious and spiritual beliefs have permeated the medium.
And, with the turn of the millennium, that trend has become even more prominent, since individuals can now create their own Web sites without having to learn HTML, the programming language in which much of the content on the Web is written.
In the s, those wanting to create their own Web space were often selftaught computer programmers who learned HTML exclusively so that they could create their religious or spiritually based Web sites. Now some, such as Ellie Crystal, who created Crystalinks. Still in operation today, the site has been extremely successful and is part of a full-time metaphysical endeavor for Ellie. Ellie Crystal is not a unique case; a significant number of individuals learned HTML just so that they could create their own religious Web site.
Many of those then freely offered their Web design services to others who wished to create similar Web sites. Hadden and Cowan 9— The resources provided by thepwa. To demonstrate this influence, the software TouchGraph Google Browser can be used to illustrate the links maintained between Web sites. This shows how individuals who visit sites related to Neopagan beliefs are exposed to a link for thepwa.
Although there is a cost involved in purchasing a Web domain name and hosting the Web site on a server, many religious and spiritual Web designers have been fiscally creative and are online for free. One example is a Web site created in by Paul Harrison to express his pantheistic religious worldview. Imagine touring the backwoods, organizing meetings in echoing community halls. By the end of March , his site had recorded over a million unique visitors and now receives an average of 43, visitors per month.
Sites like Crystalinks. In this way, small Web pages such as The Dance www. On its own, The Dance contains a relatively small amount of information and has a small group of regular participants. However, once linked to the larger Neopagan community through a cyberspace hub like the Witches Voice www. As figure 3.
While The Dance represents only a few small circles within the much larger group, it is enmeshed and interlinked with hundreds of similar Web sites. As Wellman and Gulia note, Web surfers do not ride alone, and by linking into these cyberspace megalopoli, individuals who have created their own popular religious Web sites can participate in an ongoing and expanding religious environment.
Popular Religion Online In many ways, the examples I have just presented pose no challenge to official religious traditions in that they are representative of unofficial, personal, religious beliefs and practices. That said, in many ways these Web sites do pose a significant challenge to official religious traditions simply by the very fact that they exist—firmly established and thriving in cyberspace. Like the printing press, power has shifted through the development of a tool of mass communication.
Doctrines and teachings that were once centralized and controlled can now be openly challenged, contradicted, or ignored through a medium that is accessed by hundreds of millions of people every day. However, the Internet is more than just the printed word. In a detailed ethnographic study of Internet participation, Markham found that people viewed the Internet as a tool, a place, and a state of being—and each level of perception affected the interactions of the individuals with the Internet environment Markham In this case, it is the popular religious sites or the unofficial religious sites that are providing the preferred environment for the online practitioners.
An excellent example of this is the contrast between the official Vatican Web site www. Although the Vatican site offers a wealth of information, it is Partenia that provides the environment for people to talk about their religious beliefs and practices, ask challenging questions concerning their faith, and participate in a safe environment where they can open up and share religious feelings and concerns. Through the Partenia site, even Catholics estranged from their tradition can enter into an open dialogue with other Catholics.
There is no hierarchical segregation on the site, and Catholics, both practicing and nonpracticing, as well as individuals who have left the church entirely can be part of an ongoing religious dialogue. In this, for many people cyberspace is a real space. And for many of them, it is an acceptable medium for religious and spiritual participation.
With simplified programming, people can now simply point and click their way toward the creation of their own cyberchurch, religious pulpit, or spiritual clearinghouse. One example of this virtuosi activity on the Web is the Church of the Simple Faith www.
Along with online devotional services, chat rooms and bulletin boards, even baby dedication ceremonies, visitors to the site can get an up-to-date horoscope, local weather forecasts, and even information on the Boy Scouts. Brother Bill takes his online church very seriously and has detailed, specific guidelines for online religious participation.
After performing the rituals and reading the liturgy, the e-devotee can then partake in the sacred Eucharist cf. Although the Web site is reasonably well designed and looks as though it represents some form of official Christian Church, Brother Bill is in fact a middle-aged man with no formal religious training or background. According to information he has posted online, before his epiphany he was an alcoholic with serious marriage and financial problems.
In , he became religiously active, attending prayer sessions and taking a Dr. Although it may seem fanciful and insignificant, the Church of the Simple Faith appears successful and even has a section for M2M Ministry to Ministry services that includes not only spiritual event planning but also online Internet service support, Web hosting and design, as well as computer and Internet technical assistance.
The cyberculture environment also includes Web-oriented religious organizations. Technosophy www. Recently, however, there is has been an increase in the number of more traditional forms of religion establishing an exclusively online presence.
In this sense, the e-church is becoming more common. Among those sites, for example, is the Alpha Church www. While the Alpha Church site is extremely well designed and features Flash graphics and automatic audio files, there is no information available concerning its denominational affiliation or the credentials of its founder, Patty Walker.
The worship section contains a number of PowerPoint-type sermons that flash text, graphics, and sound files across the screen. Our Worship Services involve people of every age, race, and ability. Online Religion in the Wired, Wired West The examples presented in this chapter demonstrate an important aspect of the religious dimension of the World Wide Web.
In its very structure, the Internet has an affinity with the patterns of religious participation in late modern societies in the West. This occurs in two ways. Anyone with sufficient motivation can create their own Web site and express their own personal religious beliefs. A clear example of this form of mass religiosity occurred in conjunction with the events of September 11, After the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the attack upon the Pentagon, hundreds of thousands of people began posting online prayers, lighting virtual candles, and entering into religiously based dialogue in an attempt to cope with the tragedy Helland A need arose, and the Web was able to respond quickly and diversely.
Bainbridge A large percentage of the Western world maintains religious and spiritual beliefs without belonging to a traditional religious organization and without attending religious services on a regular basis Bibby , ; Davie , For these, the Internet can constitute an effective medium for nondenominational, nonaffiliated religious participation.
Conclusion The most recent Canadian census reveals that significant changes in religious participation patterns first noticed in the s are continuing. Mainline Protestant church attendance is in steady decline, falling from a national average of better than 50 percent in the s to 20 percent or less at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But none of this means that people are abandoning religious and spiritual beliefs entirely.
On the contrary, more detailed survey results demonstrate that most Canadians are still interested in the ultimate questions of meaning that various religions seek to answer and wish they could find satisfying answers to these spiritual questions Bibby , , But many of these people are now seeking their answers outside the traditional churches and other religious groups. While a significant proportion of the massive Baby Boomer generation i.
And younger folk—Generations X and Y—seem even more interested in religious and spiritual experimentation Beaudoin ; Dawson and Hennebry, this volume.
As an open and developing religious environment, the Internet caters to people who wish to be religious and spiritual on their own terms. In this environment, by developing and maintaining their own religious Web sites or by searching the tens of thousands of religiously oriented sites available, individuals can either create or simply find what they require religiously.
In this way, the expanding religious dimension of the Internet is reinforcing the growing polarization between those who are affiliated to some degree with a traditional religious institution and those who are now expressing their own religious inclinations in a more popular and amorphous way. In some respects, as seekers turn to the Internet for religious purposes and their diverse experiences online reinforce the motivational wellsprings of their seekership, a positive feedback loop is created that will likely accelerate the processes of religious change already happening in the West see Dawson 48— But since we lack the detailed empirical studies with which to test this supposition, it must remain speculation.
It has become the significant environment for a wired generation of religious seekers and spiritual entrepreneurs. And if statistical trends continue in Western societies, it appears that popular religion online will become a significant aspect of the religious environment of the future, creating a new space where a freedom of religious expression rules supreme.
References Bainbridge, W. The Sociology of Religious Movements. Bibby, R. Toronto: Irwin. Toronto: Stoddart. Davie, G. Religion in Britain since Believing without Belonging.
Hennebry Galston, W. Cowan Cowan, 3— Hafner, K. Lyon New York: Touchstone. Hampton, K. Wellman Cowan, — Horsfall, S. Howard, T. A Rhetoric of Electronic Communities. London: JAI Press. Keene, M.
Kitchin, R. Cyberspace: The World in the Wires. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Time 15 1 : Markham, A Matei, S. Ball-Rokeach McCormick, P. McGuire, M.
Religion: The Social Context. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Roof, W. McKinney Schwartz, E. Shapiro, A. Statistics Canada Ottawa, Ont. Sterling, B. Gulia Published June 29th by Routledge first published January 1st More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Religion Online , please sign up.
Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Nov 30, Tamara rated it it was amazing Shelves: dissertation-reading , book-challenge. One of a list of foundational books in the study of religion and the internet. Milo Rhys rated it really liked it Nov 19, Dan Mayes rated it it was ok Jul 14, Ess rated it it was amazing Mar 23, Jack Lewis Graham rated it really liked it Apr 22, Narges rated it really liked it Jan 28, Kolby Golliher rated it it was ok Nov 11, Anthony rated it really liked it Apr 26, Cheyanna rated it did not like it Aug 20, Riezta El rasyid rated it it was amazing Jun 18, Leonard Epafras rated it it was ok Aug 02, Robert Campbell rated it really liked it Jun 29, Joseph rated it liked it Jun 03, Paul Harrison rated it it was amazing May 23, Guru Truth rated it did not like it Jan 16, Michael marked it as to-read Jun 04, Danielle added it Aug 13, Sara marked it as to-read Aug 21, Jeremy added it Jan 01, Narges added it Apr 12, Chris marked it as to-read Apr 28, Matt John marked it as to-read Jul 04, Sean Quinn marked it as to-read Nov 19, Damien Knuckey marked it as to-read Sep 24,
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