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Putting together a brief overview of what’s going on with “theological education, religion and digital culture” is a daunting task.

Is “theological education” only what occurs in departments of theology and/or free standing seminaries? Or is theological education also something that occurs in religious studies departments, not to mention in settings in which undergraduates are learning about theology? What about theological issues that are raised in the midst of popular cultures?

I’m reminded of the distinction that was recently reiterated by John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas (in A New Culture of Learning). That is, are we teaching “about” a stable body of knowledge, or are we learning "through" engagement with the world? My own writing has tended to take the latter stance, that theological education is best exemplified through engagement with religious practice – whether one is a believer in that specific practice, or not. Here I would point you to two of my books, Engaging Technology in Theological Education: All That We Can’t Leave Behind (Rowman&Littlefield, 2005), and Teaching Reflectively in Theological Contexts (Kreiger, 2008).

I have been deeply impacted by the work of media scholars who take reception theories and cultural studies very seriously, and I have also learned an enormous amount from scholars exploring new media environments (people like Mimi Ito, danah boyd, Lisa Nakamura, David Weinberger, Clay Shirky, Yochai Benkler, and Lawrence Lessig).

Where does that lead in exploring “theological education and new media”? I’m going to answer that question in two ways, and hope that this first entry will not prevent you from reading the second. Those two streams are, one, the theologians whose theological (philosophical) work is giving us room to engage these changes more effectively within theological education; and two, the pastoral leaders who are finding ways to embrace new media in ways that are deeply grounded both in pastoral practice and nuanced engagement with media. One final caveat: although I teach and work in interfaith settings, the following resources are drawn from within Christian theological settings, as that is the context within which I am most fluent.

In this first post, I’ll start with theologians who are taking nuanced engagement with culture seriously. I think the following five books are essential reading:

(1) Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

This book is a compelling and serious examination of the ways in which Christian imagination takes shape from the earliest communities following Jesus to today. Jennings unmasks the destructive ways in which supersessionism, colonial powers and a general tendency to align with “power over” rather than “power poured out” has contributed to hegemonic Christian practice. In many ways the book is a grim indictment of Christian imagination, but it is also a vivid and hope-filled exploration of the many Christian alternatives which persisted alongside of dominant narratives. Given Jennings’ thoughtful engagement with critical cultural studies, and his innovative exploration of the arts (particularly jazz, the blues, and certain kinds of storytelling), the book paves a way for a deeply Christian theological engagement with new media, even though that is not its explicit goal.

(2) Jolyon Mitchell, Media Violence and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

This book is the single best theological engagement with a wide range of current media, religion and culture scholarship of which I am aware. Mitchell considers a wide range of media genres – everything from video games and films, to news media and photojournalism – bringing a keen theological engagement with representation of violence to the task. The book is a brilliant and significant contribution to the emerging conversation taking place at the intersection of media studies, Christian ethics, and practical theology. It’s also a model for bringing to bear a diverse array of disciplinary lenses respectfully and fruitfully, while keeping a focus on a specific topic – media violence. I was particularly struck by the innovative way in which he engages ritual theory and liturgical practice.

(3) John McClure, Mashup Religion: Pop Music and Theological Invention (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011).

This book is an excellent exploration of digital audio technologies and the ways in which they have entered into music production – particularly as represented in the vibrant music scene in Nashville, Tennessee, where McClure is on the faculty at Vanderbilt Divinity School. The book is grounded in some of the best of the recent engagement with audio and the ways in which soundscapes contribute to meaning, as well as bringing a mature theological imagination to bear. McClure is particularly adept at pointing to the resonance that exists between preaching and crafting songs, a process of “mashing up” tunes with layers of meaning.

(4) Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997).

This book first appeared more than a decade ago, and is an accessible and engaging introduction to various “theories of culture” as they have entered into Christian doctrinal reflection. While Tanner does not engage digital media at all, not surprising given the book's date of publication, she does work through a variety of perspectives on how “culture” is to be understood, concluding with a postmodern engagement with fluid notions of “culture” as a medium in which meaning is created, circulated, negotiated with, and contested.

(5) Brad Hinze, Matthias Scharer, Jochen Hilberath. The Practice of Communicative Theology: An Introduction to a New Theological Culture (Crossroads Publishing Company, 2008).

This book grows out of a pedagogical practice that is particularly common in German-speaking Catholic communities across Europe, and which is spreading into other settings (this book is the first comprehensive English translation of that work). Drawing on the theorizing and practice of Ruth Cohen, a psychoanalyst known for her work in theme-centered interaction, this form of theological engagement is rigorously grounded in actual communities, and is a dynamic communicative process featuring nodes of “I” (an individual person’s reflections), “we” (a community’s or group’s reflections), “it” (the logos or heart of a specific doctrine), and the “globe” (distinctive reflection centered in and through the surrounding world contexts).

While this form of theological reflection is only beginning to be used intentionally or in a focused way in relation to digital media (cf. my own work), its pointed attention to these four nodes inevitably means that people reflect in the midst of their lives, and thus in the midst of new media.

Turku, the old capital of Finland was the host city for the 'Digital Religion' Symposium which was held by the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Cultural History. Prof. Hannu Salmi, who welcomed us to the Symposium, explained that Turku is an old Finnish word for 'marketplace'. And indeed, the conference in Turku was a marketplace, an Agora for ideas.

Although dominated by a European crowd (many of whom are members of the 'Nordic Network for Religion and Media') the conference started with the American 'rock star' Prof. Heidi Campbell ('Rock star' being a title she received at the international conference held earlier this year in Boulder, Colorado). Campbell set the tone for a conference that will deal not only with the phenomenology of religion online and/or online religion, but also with the theories and methods used to understand these phenomena. After establishing the five characteristics of the research made so far (convergent practice, multi-site reality, networked community, storied identity and shifting authority), she finished with the statement that the future of Media and Religion studies is in nuance examination and critical thinking. Mostly, it seems that religion online should not be seen as a separate or independent occurrence – the relationship between online and offline seems to be a prominent aspect in the future of this field. I later felt that the issue of online and offline religion became a 'sacred concept' throughout the conference, present almost in every session, explicitly or implicitly.

For example, Prof. Jolyon Mitchell, one of the keynote speakers, tried to examine the translation which occurred when Passion Plays were transmitted online – were we watching the same play? Did the religious feelings changed when watching it offline or online – and what were those changes? Mitchell put a spin on the notion of offline-online relationship by bring into mind the concept of 'translation'. Another interesting example was Claire Clivaz's crusade to put the manuscripts of the New Testament online, which – not surprisingly – raises issues of authority within the Christian world of manuscripts.

What I found interesting in Turku, is that – much like its name, the conference itself became a marketplace of ideas from a variety of religions. True, Christianity has been the dominant religion talked about, but by far not the only one. Islam (and Islam video gaming! Given by Vit Sisler), Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and monks, druids and vampires were all explored online and offline.

Lastly, but most importantly, the Finns know how to treat their guests. In both nights of the Symposium we were treated – on the first night we went on a boat to a small island just outside Turku, where we ate and danced, and on the second night we traveled to a marvelous old manor were we ate (but didn't dance, sadly). Every day we enjoyed music performed by locals, and being so high north, we got to experience whole days and night of light.

The Donner Institute marked the Symposium as a success, and I couldn't agree more. However, the need to keep on exploring the right tools to understand religion and media is only growing, as the relationship between online and offline becomes blurry and the question of 'what is religious?' becomes harder to answer.

My early research into online religious activity developed a system of classification that recognized a distinction between online religion (where the religious activity actually occurred in the online environment) and religion online (where the medium was used as a tool to facilitate religious activity in the “offline” world). This dichotomy was useful in a very general way for trying to make some sort of sense out of the explosion of religious expression that was showing up on the World Wide Web. It also helped demonstrate the different ways the medium was used for religion: many-to-many forms of communication where the end user could participate online in various forms of religious activity—and one-to-many online communication where the religion is dispersed in many of the ways religion had been mass communicated in the past (much like radio, television, and the printing press).

Although the framework was helpful as a very general heuristic tool there were issues that were not properly addressed by the system of classification. As several scholars argued (e.g., Cowan, Dawson, Young) having a dichotomy is not as representative as recognizing a scale between these two forms of online expression—and in many cases religious groups will provide both forms. It still remains helpful to see how and when different groups communicate in different ways—particularly as Web 2.0 develops and online user-generated content becomes more standard—but a clear distinction between the two is linked to recognizing a separation between life “online” and “offline” and for most Internet users that distinction never really existed.

As I have continued to study online religious activity the one clear shortcoming I had when I developed the theory was arguing that people are only “doing” religion when they engage religious activity in a form of reciprocal exchange, communication, or communal participation (online-religion). In my examination of online activity associated with Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan Government in Exile, it became very clear that many people within this tradition do religion online by watching the Dalai Lama perform ritual activities and communicate information about their religion—of course many religious traditions function in this way. This activity is clearly “religion online” and the flow of information is absolutely from one-to-many. However, it is also a way of “doing” religion, much like sitting at the feet of the guru to receive a blessing or teachings, it is a powerful form of religious engagement and one that happens online now much more frequently with the development of new technologies that can broadcast HD and HP (high powered) sermons from charismatic religious leaders and teachers.

Examining how new media is impacting religious activity and how people “do” religion is exciting and interesting work. I have listed five articles that have helped me think about how people do religion online—there were a lot of good articles and scholars to choose from and I apologize in advance for only being able to post five of them.

1) MacWilliams, Mark (2006). Techno-Ritualization: The Gohozon Controversy on the Internet. Online—Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 2(1). Avaliable online at: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2006/6959/pd...

Through a detailed examination of Nichiren Buddhism, Soka Gakkai International (SGI), and the American Nichiren Buddhist Independent Movement, MacWilliams examines the controversy over ritual practice and authenticity of the sacred when the “Gohonzon” is produced online and made accessible through the Internet. In this very detailed article MacWilliams demonstrates that one-to-many communication online can be a very powerful force for religious engagement. His work also shows how controlling this flow of information can have significant impact on religious organizations and individuals.

2) Miczek, Nadja (2008). Online Rituals in Virtual Worlds: Christian Online Services between Dynamics and Stability. Online—Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 3(1). Avaliable online at: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2008/8293/pd...

Miczek examines two forms of online Christian ritual activity to further develop the ritual transfer theory. Her work highlights the changing processes that occur when ritual is transferred into cyberspace and how ritual can “fail” if a number of criteria are not met. In this article she explores how it is (or is not) possible to create an online activity that becomes a form of real ritual engagement for the participants.

3) Grieve, Gregory P. (1995). Imagining a Virtual Religious Community: Neo-Pagans and the Internet. Chicago Anthropology Exchange 7: 98-132.

Although most people credit O’Leary with publishing the first scholarly article examining online religious activity, the recognition should go to Gregory Price Grieve for his research article that came out one year earlier. Like O’Leary, Grieve was fascinated with the development of neo-pagan online communities and ritual activities in the early years of the Internet and World Wide Web. Unlike O’Leary, who examined ritual transcripts after-the-fact, Grieve did significant online ethnography and online fieldwork to explore the activity. This included interviews, surveys, and meeting with participants “off-line” at the World Parliament of Religions in 1993. His article explored the aspects, qualities, and characteristics of neo-paganism that made it compatible with online activity—particularly the manner in which their ritual (and ritual imagination) functioned.

Grieve’s early article drew upon a number of theoretical frameworks to develop and clarify what he was seeing online. This includes work from Benedict Anderson, Weber, Eliade, Baudrillard, Turner, Catherine Bell, J.Z. Smith and Walter Ong. Although this article was written almost 20 years ago it is still worth a read.

4) Campbell, H. (2012). Understanding the Relationship between Religion Online and Offline in a Networked Society. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 80 (1): 64-93.

In this recent article, Campbell explores the developing shifts and intertwined relationship occurring between broader Western culture and the online religious environment. She develops the concept of “networked religion” as a tool for exploring the larger picture of what is occurring when we talk about religion and the Internet. Networked religion has five components or characteristics: networked community, storied identities, shifting authority, convergent practices, and multisite reality. Campbell’s article challenges the dichotomy between life online verses life offline and explores how life in a networked society impacts religion in the society. She makes it clear that these two things cannot be separated out—Western society and culture has changed significantly with the development of the Internet and World Wide Web and religion is not immune from these changes—or a separate sphere that somehow operates outside of our networked world.

5) Helland, C. (2005). Online Religion as Lived Religion: Methodological Issues in the Study of Religious Participation on the Internet. Online—Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 1(1). Available online at: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2005/5823/pd...

In response to Glenn Young (2005), I explored the limitations of the Online-Religion/Religion-Online framework in relation to ritual practices. The original paper was presented at the University of Heidelberg online ritual studies conference and helped me clarify my understanding of online religious activity and the limitations of one-to-many forms of communication in the online environment.

My book Digital Zen: Buddhism, Virtual Worlds and the New Economy will be published by Routledge in 2013. The impetus for the book was when I first logged on to Second Life in October 2007 and found myself sitting in full lotus position, meditating next to a bear. The “bear,” like me, was currently logged onto Second Life, a 3D interactive world of over 20 million residents in which users interact with one another through animated avatars. He might have been in same room, or on another continent. Along with twenty-one other practitioners, I—or really my avatar—was sitting at the Upaya Mountain Zen Retreat (UZMR), a community whose members describe themselves as an “owned and operated Buddhist practice center in the virtual universe of Second Life.” To say the least, I was perplexed. What did these people hope to gain by sitting at their keyboards, while their avatars remained silent and motionless? What relationship did silent online meditation have to physical Buddhist practices, which are often characterized as leading to direct bodily experiences?

Virtual Buddhist Communities, such as the UMZR, tend to stand under the weight of three suspicions. First, because they are virtual, online religious communities are often dismissed as unreal, or at best just play. Second, because they are part of popular culture they are perceived as not really serious. Finally, because they are Western forms of an Eastern religion they are frequently rejected as inauthentic, or even virtual postcolonial forms of orientalism. However, the three years of ethnographic study (2007-2010) conducted by my research group, the Cardean Virtual Research Team, displays that these Second Life residents had very real, authentic and serious reasons for practicing Zen Buddhism in virtual worlds. They were not fools. For some it was pragmatic. Digital religious practice on Second Life affords isolated and solitary practitioners a Buddhist community, if only a virtual one. As the bear, whose user in real life lived in a small Alaskan fishing village said to me, “we log on so we can sit [meditating] together” (personal communication, October 2008). For a sizable minority of residents it was spiritual. Many of the practitioners maintain that online practice has an ethical or spiritual element because by pointing out the constructed nature of reality virtual worlds lead to “awakening,” an Non-heritage Buddhist term which corresponds to the Sanskrit word “bodhi,” and points to the knowledge possessed by a Buddha about the nature of reality. For practitioners of digital Buddhism, awakening typically means to be mindful of desire. As a Second Life notecard, given to me by the Resident Mystic Moon, read, “ . . .in the addictive culture of capitalism, remember the hungry ghost who desires more and more of what can never satisfy ” (personal communication, November 2009).

Digital Zen argues that these pragmatic and spiritual reasons indicate that Buddhist practice in the virtual world of Second Life is both a product of, and a response to the New Economy. On the surface, understanding religion on Second Life is significant because of the increasing dominance of digital media not only in daily life but also in the practice of religion. As Lorne Dawson and Douglas Cowan write, “[t]he Internet is changing the face of religion worldwide” (2004: 1). As the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2009) “CyberFaith: How Americans Pursue Religion Online,” demonstrates every month twenty-five percent of Americans search for information about religion online. On a deeper level, the religion being practiced online, reflects the changes in religion caused by the New Economy that are occurring more generally across contemporary culture. As Charles Ess suggests, as everyday life in contemporary society is increasingly lived in an online-offline connection, religion “impacts and is impacted by these transformations.” In other words, analyzing Buddhist practice at UMZR is important not just for comprehending religious practice on virtual worlds, or even digital religion more generally, but it is key for understanding the “religious imaginary” of the New Economy, the way average people see religion and use religion to make sense of, and organize, the world around them.

For those interested in the study of non-Heritage North American Buddhism, ethnography, New Economy, and virtual worlds I suggest five books:

Bartle, Richard. Designing Virtual Worlds. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2004.

Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. New York: Polity, 2000.

Dibble, Julian. My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World. New York: An Owl Book, 1998.

Prebish, Charles. Luminous Passage: The Practice of and Study of Buddhism in America. Berkley: University of California Press, 1999.