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Review Article and Podcast – Religion and the News, ed. Jolyon Mitchell and Owen Gower

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Review Article 

Jolyon Mitchell and Owen Gower (Eds.),
Religion and the News

(Ashgate, 2012), 200pp.

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This review article is an edited version of David Wilson’s contribution to a panel discussion of “Religion and the News”, co-hosted by JRMDC and the Religious Studies Project at the Annual Meeting of the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group in Durham, UK, in April 2013. The full recording of the whole panel, featuring David Wilson, Christopher Landau, Eileen Barker and Tim Hutchings and chaired by Chris Cotter, can be accessed here:

http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/2013/04/29/podcast-religion-and-the-news-panel/

 

About the Author

David Gordon Wilson wears many hats. He served as a solicitor, then partner, then managing partner in Scotland, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Egypt, before returning to university to embark on a Religious Studies degree. His PhD at the University of Edinburgh focused upon spiritualist mediumship as a contemporary form of shamanism, and his monograph has recently been published with Bloomsbury, titled Redefining Shamanisms: Spiritualist Mediums and Other Traditional Shamans as Apprenticeship Outcomes. Wearing one of his other hats, David is a practising spiritualist medium and healer, and among his many connected roles, he is currently the President of the Scottish Association of Spiritual Healers.

 

Review

Religion and the News is an edited collection of eighteen essays contributed by journalists, religious practitioners and scholars of religion. The collection is framed by an introduction and conclusion by the editors, with Jolyon Mitchell also contributing the first essay. The book is organised in four parts, the first three examining the ways in which religion is understood, covered and represented by various news media; the final part considers the ways in which the space given to religion in the news, remains contested.

 

This is a very British book, English even: although three of the contributions provide input using Jewish, Muslim and Sikh perspectives, the contributions to this book are generally indicative of engagement with what in England is familiar as traditional Christianity, principally the Anglican and Anglo-Catholic churches. This gives the book a particular focus, and therefore a particular usefulness: the different contributors to the book corroborate each other very consistently, and although the editors of this volume have used their editorial ink sparingly, the overall effect is to provide a deeper analysis than the style and format might suggest.

 

As an academic, religious practitioner and radio interviewee, I have a choice of perspectives from which to respond to this edited collection of essays. At various points in this paper, I will make use of each of these, but regardless of perspective, the first contribution (Chapter 1, by Jolyon Mitchell) brings home the point that this is fundamentally a book about relationship, specifically the relationship (or networks of relationships) between religious practitioners and journalists. The main difficulty perceived is that the two parties involved belong to distinct (and quite different) discourses. The relationship with religious practitioners is not the most important one in most journalists’ working lives, and vice-versa. Further, Mitchell is among a number of contributors to highlight conflict as a recurrent journalistic trope, whereas most religious practitioners will, I suspect, whatever their actual practice, make at least some attempt to adhere to a more positive rhetoric.

 

The next three chapters reach some interesting conclusions on the basis of statistical contributions that appear to highlight differences between media. Teemu Taira, Elizabeth Poole and Kim Knott (Chapter 2) detect a BBC bias in favour of historically familiar religious traditions (including folk traditions), and against common religion (a category that appears similar to Martin Stringer’s ‘basic form’ of religion (2008) – a practical engagement with the non-empirical, such as fortune-telling, use of psychics, unexplained phenomena etc.). The BBC exhibits a socially conservative bias, in other words. The categorization of my own tradition, Spiritualism, catches my eye here. Taira, Poole and Knott include it in their ‘common religion’ category, yet this is a religion with churches and the familiar panoply of officials including Ministers who conduct weddings & funerals, in the context of forms of service that are recognisably Protestant Christian in derivation. To be fair, Spiritualism can be a challenging customer: some Spiritualists bristle at the suggestion that they are Christian, while others bristle at the suggestion they might not be. Journalists are not the only ones who can find the process of categorization a little tricky.

 

This may seem picky, but I make this point in part because the contributors of Chapters 2 (Taira, Poole and Knott) and 3 (Robin Gill) have contrasting conclusions to offer, even although their conclusions are drawn principally upon the basis of quantitative data (apparently gathered in similar fashion). Part of the reason for this may lie in their use of different categories (i.e. different definitions) in order to interpret the data. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the definitions we use are essentially summaries of the research questions we are asking; and as we all know, the questions we ask do have a habit of dictating the answers we develop.

 

Taira, Poole and Knott make the point that religion tends to appear in the news when it has political significance. Discernible in their analysis is a BBC (or establishment) bias in favour of traditional forms of Christianity, as against more secular attitudes in other media organisations that tend to have a more liberal leaning. This raises the possibility that religious traditions having (like Spiritualism) historic affiliations with radical social causes simply fall between these two biases. If the political ‘left’ doesn’t ‘do’ religion, and the political ‘right’ only recognizes certain traditions as ‘religion’, there is every likelihood that much of what people actually do as their religious practice(s) will simply go overlooked. Again, categorization matters; our definitions bound what we are aware of, excluding as well as including. The use by different researchers of the same terms to mean slightly different things is, perhaps, a normal part of academic conversation but it is, I think an underlying reason why there might seem to be a ‘confusing set of trends’ (Chapter 3, p.50) in the data.

 

You may have guessed that I speak from a position of personal preference for interpretive research, which leads me to welcome not only Paul Woolley’s contribution in Chapter 4 but the further contributions which make up Part 2 (Chapter 5-9), comprising some very valuable self-reflexive contributions by journalists (some working for religious publications). Woolley takes us back to the opening point that religious practitioners and journalists inhabit different perceptual worlds, different discourses. He acknowledges that there is a widespread lack of religious literacy among journalists. My own thought is that, in part, this may reflect the liberal arts backgrounds of many journalists, whose education derives from scholarly traditions that are (in some degree) the product of past struggles to be free of religious control. It is perhaps no surprise that a number of contributors to this volume note a higher degree of secularity (or lack of religious affiliation) among journalists as compared with the British population at large. There is a fair bit of relationship-building and learning to be done, particularly if (as Christopher Landau puts it in Chapter 5) religious practitioners are to become skilled and confident enough to play the media at their own game.

 

Ruth Gledhill’s mellifluous prose (Chapter 6) gently, meanderingly guides the reader to an, if not enthusiastic, at least amused acceptance of the robust messiness of the journalistic arena. Despite her appropriately ecclesiastical, civilized tone, we are reminded that it takes discipline, training, commitment and good old-fashioned guts to take part in this contest, let alone score points. And herein lies a fundamental difficulty: religious practitioners very naturally put their time and energy into practising their religion, and many may regard that private example as their most effective way of being publicly evangelical. All relationships take time and effort, and relationships lived with other real individuals can seem much more attractive and productive than media(ted) relationships that may or may not happen through achieving more nuanced journalistic representations of one’s tradition.

 

Further, as both Gledhill and Charlie Beckett (Chapter 7) both point out, if I as a religious practitioner have the time and energy to articulate my tradition for the benefit of outsiders, I can now do it directly, through Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and WordPress blogs (which I for one do). Why put my time and energy into helping journalists do their job better, especially when they get paid for it and I, quite possibly, do not?

 

At least two responses are possible here. First, as Gledhill points out, retreat from the hurly-burly of life, in whatever context, often seems tempting but is rarely productive. Secondly, if the contributions by Gledhill, Beckett, Catherine Pepinster (Chapter 7) and Andrew Brown (Chapter 8) are anything to go by, at least some journalists (some of whom are themselves religious practitioners) are keen to see closer engagement.

 

This is something that as scholars we should seek to encourage. When it comes to recording and interpreting patterns of religious activity in Britain, and western society more widely, scholars have often been badly misled by simply noting declining church attendances and failing to maintain scholarly attention on what people actually do when not in church. There are practical reasons for this (and awareness of them is leading to more balanced perspectives) but a stronger media-religion discourse could do much to enhance the resources available to scholars of contemporary religion, as well as scholars interested in mapping other discourses (e.g. secularism, atheism) that have developed with reference to religious activity.

 

From the perspective of many religious practitioners, however, such points may still not quite be persuasive enough to overcome sensitivity to particular portrayals of one’s own tradition. The media do not report lived reality; instead they report newsworthy bits (or bites), which generally means disputes, schisms, or outright conflict. As Beckett and Pepinster remind us, journalists are, first and foremost, storytellers competing for the attention of their audiences, whose craft requires them to present narratives with a beginning, middle and end, with interesting characters, unexpected turns of events and dramatic plots aplenty. We have here two quite different experiences of life.

 

It may, therefore, come as a surprise when I say that my own limited experience of engagement with the media (in the form of radio interviews with commercial broadcasters) has been almost entirely positive, and inclines me to listen to Beckett’s claim that religion gets a pretty fair deal on the whole. I say this conscious that my own tradition, Spiritualism, which coheres around the practice of mediumship and asserts that life after death can be demonstrated using non-journalistic forms of communication, is (arguably) one that lends itself to ridicule from both (other) religious and scientific perspectives as developed in western culture. I say it also in the knowledge that some of my co-religionists have had less happy experiences, coming away feeling angry and insulted, vowing never to have anything to do with the media ever again.

 

The contributions in Part 3 of the book reflect a similar variety of experience. Journalists have long worked with familiar tropes, phrases in their products. Much of what they do is not the telling of new news but the retelling of gnarled narratives that have their origins not in religion but in more widespread cultural stereotypes. We are all familiar with the Muslim terrorist, the self-deprecating Rabbi, the ineffective vicar we acknowledge but don’t actually listen to, the ferocious Sikh no fool would cross. It is telling that the book we are discussing enables intelligent, humane responses to lazy prejudices such as these but that the news, by and large, does not. The stumbling block is that the number of people who will read and reflect upon the contributions to this book is tiny as compared with the number who will be reinforced in their subscription to these stereotypes by consuming newspapers or news broadcasts. Most of the contributors acknowledge this mismatch, and detail its varied consequences, while agreeing there is no easy solution.

 

This is why (to revert to my opening point) this is a book about the importance of relationship. The only common suggestion for dealing with the mismatch I highlight is the possibility of improved relationships between religious practitioners and those who represent them, enabling a process of learning and education about each other. Yet good relationships take time, which is why a single life does not have room for an infinite number of them. My worry is that the lack of boundaries characteristic of the internet (including the speed of comment and response) will prove even more inimical to this goal than printed newspapers ever were. This is an excellent book, full of detailed insight born of rich experience, which I have enjoyed reading and reflecting upon, but it is not news.

 

This is the difficulty taken up in the final part of the book and it is striking that while the contributors highlight the same difficulty, they appear to be agreed that there is no easy way forward. That said, one of the more interesting suggestions comes from Simon Barrow’s final paragraph (Chapter 15, p.182):

Journalists have an inbuilt professional tendency to prefer speech (however noisy) to silence (however profound), as well as venerating headline-worthy bad news over worthy but un-dramatic good news. Only engagement and subversion will challenge this. A new generation of religious dramatists, producing mystery plays for a new generation, is needed. This is why the willingness and capacity of ‘ordinary people’ (religious and otherwise) not just to join the new media circus, but to improve it by offering a different style and fresh content, is so important. The revolution is on, but it is in its very early stages, and it is not being televised. That was yesterday’s medium. Today’s and tomorrow’s is multiplatform.

This paragraph illustrates a point made by many of the contributors: the news media themselves are attempting to survive during a period of considerable flux, and are often struggling to find appropriate responses. Speed of change has itself become a constant feature of the journalistic arena, arguably increasing the distance between journalists and religious practitioners. The former are increasingly running to keep up, whereas the latter are more often seeking to apply the brakes so as to adhere to what they regard as authoritative within their tradition.

 

The contributions to this volume make it clear that there is a need for a new journalism if religion and the news are to have a more mutually beneficial relationship in the future. Journalists need to slow down a little so as to be better informed as to the traditions they are reporting upon, and religious practitioners need to become a little fitter, in the correct Darwinian sense of being suited to the journalistic environment. What is less clear is who is going to take up that challenge.

Review – Brandon Vogt (ed.), The Church and New Media

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Brandon Vogt (ed.), The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists and Bishops Who Tweet
(Huntingdon: Our Sunday Visitor, 2011), 224pp.

Reviewer: Tim Hutchings
tim.hutchings@open.ac.uk

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Brandon Vogt’s edited volume is a distinctive and valuable contribution to the rapidly-expanding field of publications seeking to explain social media to a Christian audience. Most books on this theme are written by and for evangelical Protestants, often by commentators not directly involved in online ministry. In welcome contrast, The Church and New Media gathers some of the most interesting examples of Catholic online activity. Vogt has assembled a fascinating collection of 11 chapters and 25 brief case studies reporting on a wide range of Catholic media projects, from online apologetics to political activism and the campaign to canonise Fulton Sheen. This book will be of genuine value to academic scholars of digital religion, both as a report on the current state of online Catholic activity and as a series of examples of the rhetoric deployed by a conservative religious institution attempting to engage with a new media landscape.

 

The Church and New Media comes with the very highest recommendations from the American Catholic hierarchy. The book opens with a foreword by Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, praising the books “trailblazing… pioneers” (p.12), and ends with an Afterword by Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, tracing the long history of Catholic enthusiasm for mass and new media. Two more archbishops are included in the book’s lengthy endorsements (pp. i – iv). Royalties will build computer labs in Catholic schools in Kenya, a project framed as a response to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 call to overcome the “digital divide” between rich and poor (p.224).

 

The book is structured in four sections. Sections One and Two consider the closely related topics of Evangelization (to non-Catholics) and Formation (of Catholics, through education). Chapters and case studies offer examples of blogs, videos and podcasts intended to explain the Catholic faith, with particular focus on apologetics.

 

According to the author, teacher and speaker, Father Robert Barron (Chapter 1), ‘some of the most effective work I’ve done’ in ‘evangelizing the culture’ has been online (p.28). Barron’s Word on Fire ministry focuses on YouTube sermons, which he claims have attracted 1.4 million views and tens of thousands of negative comments. ‘Since I can respond to these postings’, Barron argues, ‘I have an opportunity I would have in no other way, namely, to engage people who would never dream of coming to any of the institutions of the Catholic Church’ (p.29). This openness to dialogue is a major theme of the book, identified as such in Vogt’s introduction (p.17).

 

One of the most interesting and useful chapters in the book, by Jennifer Fulwiller (Chapter 2), demonstrates the part that online dialogue can play in an individual’s shifting sense of spiritual identity. Very little academic research has been conducted so far into the role of the internet in conversion and deconversion, and Fulwiller’s chapter will be highly valuable for future work in this area. Fulwiller offers an autobiographical account of her own journey from atheism to Catholic faith, entirely through her reading of blogs that brought her into contact with ‘new voices that I would never have sought out on my own’ (p.47). Online, she claims, she discovered that it was the Catholic commenters who consistently had the best answers to atheist objections. ‘We’re at a tipping point in the history of the Church’, she concludes, when ‘almost anyone who seeks truth can find it’ and ‘the witness of individual Catholics’ can ‘win hearts and minds’. This “tipping point” theory is another theme of Vogt’s introduction: the Catholic Church has great wisdom to bring to online ministry, but now is the time to act (p.21).

 

Parts Three and Four engage more closely with the offline contexts of Catholic activity, addressing Community and the Common Good. In Part Three, Scott Landry (Chapter 7) discusses the many media initiatives of the Archdiocese of Boston, while case studies praise the activities of the Archdiocese of St Louis (p.119) and the Vatican (p.124). Matt Warner (Chapter 8) narrows his focus to the individual parish, promising the modern technology brings new opportunities to communicate in church and throughout the week. Warner offers a set of five practical rules for parish communication, beginning with a warning that “the parishioner is in control” (p.133). Part Four promises to help Catholics change the world through online activism. Thomas Peters (Chapter 10) calls for Catholics to ‘bypass the old media’, promising that ‘New Media… creates the perfect, even playing field for Catholics to communicate the Good News’, without having to deal with media ‘gatekeepers’ hostile to Catholic teaching (p.163). Faith, unity and numbers are the keys to Peters’ model of online activism, and he lists a series of cases in which large-scale Catholic encouragement or protest has led to change in commercial and political policies. Shaun Carney (Chapter 11) focuses on his own online work with the Catholic pro-life movement, mobilising and training hundreds of thousands of supporters for a prayer-and-picketing campaign called “40 Days for Life”.

 

As an overview of contemporary online Catholicism, this book is of course incomplete. None of the chapters and case studies mention any kind of Catholic activity that might challenge church tradition and authority from a more conservative, charismatic or liberal perspective – all of which can readily be found online. Critique of digital culture is minimal, and some contributors seem implausibly confident that Catholic voices will triumph online. Nonetheless, for the academic reader this remains one of the most helpful of the recent wave of Christian books on digital culture, posing a useful challenge to some lazy but widespread assumptions. Early scholars of religion and the internet assumed that new media would prove inherently democratising, undermining hierarchies and structures of authority. This attitude remains commonplace across a range of fields, from politics to education. In fact, at least some conservative and hierarchical institutions are thriving online, investing in official projects and encouraging their supporters to innovate. This book offers great insights into how and where this is happening, and that alone should make it essential reading for academics and religious practitioners hoping to understand the new landscapes of digital religion.

Review – Pauline Hope Cheong et al. (eds.), Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture

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Review

Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Fischer-Nielsen, Stefan Gelfgren, Charles Ess (Eds.)
Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture:  Perspectives, Practices and Futures 
(Peter Lang, 2012), 326pp.

Reviewer: Louise Connelly (University of Edinburgh)

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Within recent years, there has been an increase in the number of publications within the field of media, religion and culture; many of which have focused on examples of how the internet has been used, negotiated and for some repurposed. Latterly, the focus has highlighted how social media or digital media is being used for religious purposes. Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: perspectives, practices and futures (2012) is a valuable contribution to this topic and provides a greater insight into how social media is being used by individuals and organisations. The book contains seventeen chapters and is divided into three sections: theorizing digital religion; empirical investigations; and historical and theological examinations. Accordingly, the authors discuss a number of themes including, community, identity and authority and in doing so, they present an insightful “cross-disciplinary approach to these subjects” (p.293). The foreword is provided by Stewart M. Hoover, who presents the enormity and complexity of the task of examining how “religion is constituted today in new ways through digital cultures” (p.ix).

In section one (Theorizing Digital Religion), there are five chapters which explore different aspects of web 2.0 environments and new media in everyday life, including wikis, virtual churches, and smartphones. The discussion highlights how both individuals and communities are using technology for religious purposes. The discussion focuses on the repositioning of technology and how technology is being negotiated. For example, in chapter five, Campbell states that “the negotiation of a new technology often requires religious communities to create a communal discourse that validates their technology choices so that the use fits more easily within the boundaries of the community” (p.92). Understanding how technology is negotiated and can be used to maintain authority online (and offline) is also addressed by scholars in other chapters.

In section two (Empirical Investigations), there are six chapters and it is within this section that the authors provide an insight into how individuals and religious organisations are using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to reach out and engage with existing and new congregations. Fischer-Nielson (chapter 7), provides evidence to illustrate how pastors are using the internet within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. While the evidence suggests that there are benefits for the pastor, Fischer-Nielson also points to some consequences of using the internet. Chapter eight presents demographical and internet usage data of Catholic priests, which broadens our understanding of how different denominations are using (or not using) digital media. Chapters nine and ten focus on the use of Facebook, while chapter eleven focuses on the use of Twitter. Cheong (chapter 11) highlights some of the possible implications of digital media usage and presents the concerns of some, that the 140 character tweets may result in a “passive and trivial form of religious info-tainment” (p.204) and could diminish the religious message or indeed transform religion on the internet. In chapter 12, Hutchings focuses on the development of the online church and Christian communities. His ethnographic approach focuses on three themes, namely “online ritual, the transformation of religious authority, and the impact of the internet on local church attendance” (p.207). Hutchings introduces the reader to different platforms, including the virtual world of Second Life and in doing so emphasises that there are both “possibilities and limitations” for online churches (p.221). Many of the chapters in section two illustrate that digital media can be both personalised and community focused. Furthermore, social media is positioned in a fluid and constantly changing environment; which can be challenging for the researcher to engage with.

In section three (Historical and Theological Examinations), there are five chapters.  The first of which examines a selection of churches and their use of the net, as “today the word of God is mediated through” various online platforms, communities and individuals (p.240). Therefore, social media can be used as a means to connect to people, which is important at a time when some churches in the West are in decline. The historical and social context is further discussed in chapter fourteen, where Horsfield addresses the implications of digital media in relation to theology and audience participation (p.257). As a result influential theology may become “more characteristic of oral theology than written theology” (p.257).  In chapters fifteen and sixteen, the discussion further emphasises the historical context in relation to widening our understanding of the relationship between digital media, religion and our modern society, including that of addiction and the increasing amount of time in which individuals are spending online (p.289).

Lastly, it is important to highlight the possible trajectories for future research developments which are outlined in the concluding chapter. These directions include the need to examine religion in the context of using mobile technologies; individualisation and personalisation of digital media; environments will development further and become more sophisticated online; complex power struggles; “commercialisation of religion online”; and the use of digital media in the third world (p.295). How these areas are examined will also need to be revisited and require broader and innovative methodologies to be used. Therefore, researchers will need to “systematically study and observe people and contexts, if they want to reach a fuller understanding” (p.296). Accordingly, the demarcation between online religion and religion online which was originally proposed by Helland, may no longer be appropriate, as the online and offline become increasingly merged (p.300).

In conclusion, this book provides a valuable contribution to the field of media, religion and culture. The book is targeted at a wide range of disciplines and provides an insight into this developing area of research. The contributing authors and editors identify the key themes and provide a variety of examples, which focus on different religious groups and platforms and therefore exemplify the diversity of a constantly changing landscape. This is a valuable addition to the book shelves of any scholar of religion, media or cultural studies and it will likely encourage further research of areas such as those mentioned in the concluding chapter.

Review – Rachel Wagner, Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality

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Rachel Wagner
Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality
(Routledge, 2011), 272pp.

Reviewer: Stefan Gelfgren
stefan.gelfgren@humlab.umu.se 

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What is the relationship between religion and digital media? That is the focus of Rachel Wagner’s book “Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality”, and she emphasizes that there are several areas where the two are intertwined. Wagner herself is Associate Professor in Religion, Ithaca College, USA, with focus on religion and games, media and virtual reality.

Research dealing with the relation between religion and digital media is said to have gone through three different phases (Højsgaard & Warburg 2005). In the early nineties, when internet was relatively new for most users, research focused on the novelty of internet-mediated religiosity and considered “cyberspace” as an almost separate universe. In the second wave previous enthusiasm calmed down slightly and a higher degree of contextualization took place. In the currently ongoing third wave internet-mediated religion is seen as one aspect of religious practices among others. Online and offline activities are now merging and it is no longer relevant to divide the two realms of reality. Online religion and religion online (a divide highlighted by Christopher Helland in 2000 and again in 2005), virtual religion and “real” religion can no longer be seen as separate and competing entities, but rather as complements to each other.

Rachel Wagner’s book definitely belongs to the third wave of research, and she convincingly argues that digital culture and practices are integrated parts of contemporary religion. She writes: “The question of where we situate ‘the virtual’ in relationship to the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’ exposes the indeterminacy in our own understanding of what religion is, and how we can know it when we see it.” (p. 79) Arguing along these lines – and this is one of the true strengths of the study – she sheds a new light on religion itself through the vocabulary and terminology associated with the digital. What is religion if not a form of a virtual reality?

People involved and participating in religious faith and activities buy in to, and obey, the rules of their particular religion, even if they are somewhat uncertain about its objective truth. People who play computer games also make such arrangements – you enter and are embraced by a world in which you can live and act for a while, even if one knows it is not the “real” world. We enter the so called “circle of play”, whether it is through games or religion, according to Wagner. However, sometimes Wagner seems to overemphasize the similarities between games and religion. Religion may seem like play in many ways and can indeed be expressed through game-like rituals, but there is a difference – for religious people religion is not play. People die for religious convictions and purposes, but very few would do that for a game.

Wagner also convincingly discusses what happens when sacred ritual and text move into digital space through our different devices. Can confession be made through an iPhone app? What happens to prayers sent out into cyberspace? Is a tablet sacred if it contains the Quran?

Digital media turns the world like we used to know it upside down. Games and digital virtual worlds open up alternative universes and introduce the player to open-ended narratives, through which one has to navigate and make choices. The virtual worlds of today, which we can move into and out of, contribute to a pluralistic society. Wagner claims that alternative worlds and digital media show us new and different possibilities to relate to traditional linear narratives we are used to. This encourages and forces us (in the connected part of the world) to chose our path in life. Therefore we are today bound to live in a reality where we can, and do, pick and mix our own choice of religious affiliation.

What I miss, not only in this particular work but also in other work within the field of digital religion and the digital humanities, is how digital developments relate to other social and intellectual processes. On the other hand, scholars outside these disciplines seem to a large extent to be uniformed of what is going on within digital culture.

It is not the first time in history when changes within communication technology have transformed religious patterns and behaviors, a point which Wagner also touches upon. The contemporary situation is not as unique as Wagner seems to want us to believe. It is true that digital media contributes to a more pluralistic situation which encourages picking and mixing various elements of religious faith, but that is not only dependent upon technical achievements. Sociologists Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead made similar claims in 2005 in “The Spiritual Revolution” while studying new forms of religion in relation to established religious institutions. The process of pluralisation is related to the process of modernization and has been continuing at least since the 19th century, an ongoing process in which technology advancements of cause is an important aspect. It would have been interesting to see Wagner relate her work to far-reaching processes and concepts such as modernisation and secularisation.

One of the many strengths of this book is how Wagner relates practices within digital culture to religious faith and practices. Personally I think that the understanding and interpretation of religion can be supported with terminology from the digital sphere, and here Wagner’s work can give inspiration to seek and find such connections.

References

Heelas, P. & Woodhead, L. (2005) The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality, Malden, Mass: Blackwell.

Helland, C. (2005). Online Religion as Lived Religion. Methodological Issues in the Study of Religious Participation on the Internet. Retrieved August 25, 2010, from http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/frontdoor.php?source_opus=5823&la=en.

Højsgaard, M. T., & Warburg, M. (2005). Introduction: Waves of research. In Religion and cyberspace. Eds. Morten T Højsgaard & Margit Warburg. London: Routledge.

 

Review – Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong, @StickyJesus: How To Live Out Your Faith Online

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 Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong
@StickyJesus: How to Live Out Your Faith Online
(Abingdon Press, 2012), 224pp.

Reviewer: Dr Bex Lewis
bex.lewis@dur.ac.uk

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Sticky Content: The Word of God stands and does not need to be spiced up or watered down to fit the taste buds of any culture or generation. The Word is as alive and active as it was when God spoke it into existence. The only thing that must change is your mind-set about how you now relate to the culture around you (p18).

The extract above sets the tone for much of the book Sticky Jesus, drawing upon Daniel 4:34: “His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation”, emphasizing that however many tools are available, Christians are working within an eternal timeframe with a strong, compelling and timeless message. Within marketing, the term ‘sticky’ is about getting people to ‘hang around’. In a world in which messages must pull people in, rather than be pushed at them, the book emphasises that the church must get better at using tools that the world understands.

The authors, Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong, are professional communicators and social media practitioners, identifying what works in the secular world and applying it to the Christian arena. They draw attention to the fact that they are not from what some would term ‘the digital generation’, but argue that success online is about communication and relationships rather than ‘shiny technology’. There’s a certain sense in the text that we’re dealing with virtual/real, rather than online/offline, but overall the tone of the book is extremely positive about what can be done online, offering suggestions to help overcome some of the challenges.

Heim and Birdsong give incredibly persuasive arguments as to why Christians should be in the online space: they need to ‘get in the game’, understand the rules, and become a part of the global online community. The authors argue that the Bible gives Christians a model of ‘social networking and the importance of community’, drawing on Matthew 5:14 to argue that God has entrusted believers with (social networking) circles of influence, in which Christians can impact on ‘cultural, social and political issues, world events, personal struggles, and issues of morality that a global culture all but shrouds’ (p12). They also showcase the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 9:22-23) as mission-centric, respecting and adapting to the culture in which he found himself, rather than imposing himself upon it.

The book is designed for Christians at all levels of digital literacy, though particularly designed to help those in church leadership understand the need to be engaged in social media. There’s an emphasis on understanding what you stand for, your message and developing real relationships:

You don’t have to talk about Jesus all the time. In fact, just keep it real and be yourself. Your faith isn’t a checklist of something you log on “to do” each day. Your relationship with Christ becomes an overflow of who you are and what you do (p29).

Alongside its strong call to participate, the book offers a range of practical information, emphasised by a range of insightful case studies, demonstrating that people need to show up, be consistent, and be part of the conversation, with a strong emphasis on listening. This is one of only a handful of books that takes such a practical approach, although there are certain Americanisms that British readers may find uncomfortable, and on occasion the metaphor of e.g. upload/download may feel a little strained. The book has a coherent structure, utilising appropriate technical words without losing the greater meaning that the authors set out in the introduction, and the text is written in an accessible and readable style.

The internet is an incredibly powerful communications tool that is here to stay. Any readers who don’t yet grasp the importance of digital media should come away from this book convinced of the need to participate online.

Review – Douglas Estes, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World

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Douglas Estes, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 256p.

Reviewer: Mark Howe
mvahowe@gmail.com

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It is wrong to judge a book by its cover, but the gratuitous typography of Douglas Estes’ “SimChurch” almost dissuaded me from reading it. One day publishers will realise that they can give us books about the Internet without adding scroll bars and buttons. The dissonance between style and substance is particularly striking because Estes provides a dense and earnest apologetic for the establishment of online churches. The church needs to act now to claim a place within virtuality, to avoid being marginalised for decades to come while online religion is defined by renegades and heretics.

Estes is an American free church pastor with a background in New Testament studies. He writes to and from the American church, and, to a Southern European resident, the book sometimes felt like eavesdropping on a private conversation, for example when Estes criticises a LifeChurch preacher an excess of tractor references in his sermons, or when he assumes that the average church will soon be hiring a web pastor to work alongside the senior pastor, the youth pastor and the rest of the full-time ministry team. The understandable decision to avoid writing another descriptive work does not help – I do not think I would have worked out the meaning of “campus church” from the book alone, for example.

However, the book is mainly about themes that are relevant to any form of church, such as identity, worship and sacraments, leadership and personal morality. In each case Estes argues that, while the online church is a novel situation, the underlying issues have existed throughout church history. Online church may even provide a way for churches to take a step back from their received ecclesiologies to reconsider what is and is not taught explicitly in Scripture. I would have liked to see more connections with discussions about ecclesiogy in general at this point. But, here and elsewhere, Estes avoids the detail of specific ecclesiologies, opting instead for the argument that online church is no more controversial than the sum of the controversies that occur offline. The result will probably be more satisfying for those with low ecclesiologies.

Estes is strongest when dealing with Scripture and church history. He points out that the ancient world’s understanding of presence was more nuanced than is often recognised, even in Paul’s writing. He reminds Protestants that visual art has often been central to the spirituality of other branches of the church. His grasp of technological detail seems more uneven. In my view he misrepresents open source, constructs a dichotomy between loops and packets when the most popular Internet packet protocol depends entirely on feedback loops, and falls for the popular futurist scenario within which each of our online actions will be stored forever, indexed and published for the whole world to read.

My main concern is that the book assumes that the future of the Internet is 3D. That argument was at least tenable around the time Estes was conducting his research. But in 2012 the Second Life embassies have closed, and the largest social network in history uses real names, photos and forum-style posting. Then again, this is the danger of any attempt to extrapolate into the future: the erratic dance between technological innovation and societal usage makes fools of us all.

Overall, SimChurch is an intelligent and challenging read for anyone concerned about the future – and, indeed, the present! – of the church. Estes has not provided the last word on this topic, but this book raises the important questions and flags the importance of action.

Review – Robert Glenn Howard, Digital Jesus: The Making of a New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet

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R.G. Howard, Digital Jesus: The Making of a New Christian Fundamentalist Christian Community on the Internet (New York: NYU Press, 2011), 211 pp. 

Reviewer: Paul Emerson Teusner

paulteusner@me.com

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In the short tradition of research into religion online, the study of Web-connected communities has highlighted many topics of debate and exploration, including the construction and negotiation of religious authority and personalities, the value of online relationships in a “virtual” religious community in relation to offline religious settings, and the power of the Internet to balkanize people, ideas, and beliefs into electronically gated religious enclaves. Robert Glenn Howard’s Digital Jesus: The Making of a New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet offers an insightful contribution to all these discussions through a study of more than ten years of online interactions between American Christian fundamentalists.

At the beginning, Howard presents contemporary Christian fundamentalism through the eyes of two of the many Americans he has interviewed and whose web sites he has explored. Here, he presents fundamentalism as a phenomenon that, while necessarily involving a literalist interpretation of the Bible, and personal responsibility to evangelize, gathers people together through its emphasis on personal experiences of divine revelation and discussions about biblical prophecy and the imminent arrival of the End Times. Furthermore, Howard presents a branch of Christianity that is first and foremost “vernacular,” that is, not defined by formal doctrine or bound by structures and practices of institutions, but born of organic and fluid relationships and everyday discourse.

In chapter 2, the author maps the rise of fundamentalism in American Protestantism in the nineteenth century through to its demise in political and legal spheres in the twentieth, and its survival in vernacular form through radio programming, Evangelical Protestant revival movements, and televangelism. Howard describes a vernacular Protestant fundamentalism that could not be maintained in the rational and literal worlds of institutional religion, politics, and law, but had a message that aligned with the emotional and spectacular values of mass media. Howard shows that, in the United States, it is a mass-mediated religion.

In the next four chapters, Howard traces the development of this religion alongside that of the technology it uses: from Usenet groups and email lists through static pages on the World Wide Web to blogs and other media understood as “Web 2.0” formats. Using careful analysis of online data, together with engaging narratives of his meetings with producers of online religious content, the author explores how these Christians work to create and sustain a common fundamentalist identity, or as Howard names it, a “virtual ekklesia.”

Moreover, the author presents a thorough investigation into the distribution of authority among members of this ekklesia. Howard describes two devices used by those he interviewed: the presentation of unique ownership of knowledge, whether by expert biblical interpretation or receipt of divine revelation, and the engagement of readers in theological and pastoral communication (through the reproduction of email discussions on web pages, or by the moderation of comment threads on blogs). Howard gives to this second device the term “ritual deliberation.” It is “ritual” because the process of deliberating on the divine and its interventions in the world is more useful in promoting one’s identity and authority than its result, because “it does not seek conclusion, but rather repetitious action” (p. 59).

Within this investigation, Howard tracks the development of online technology as a new frame for the mediation of belief and experience, and the affordances given to those religious to explore a new type of church that complements, enhances, and reshapes vernacular Christian fundamentalism as found in radio and television. From Usenet through WWW to social media, the increasing ability of audiences of these religious sites to participate in the production of online religious content has led these original producers to reflect, with increasing caution, on the ways they engage in ritual deliberation and allow others to do the same. As such, Howard explains how technology, belief, and politics are tentatively and creatively intertwined in the formation and distribution of religious authority among a group of people, coming to terms with its own marginalization within a larger Christian context.

Howard presents a balanced understanding of moral values attributed to this technology: having the potential to create equality and tolerance, and yet able to house religious enclaves that reject opposition and dialogue, and foster self-sealing ideologies. Likewise, his approach to this religion is sensitive, but no less critical, describing a movement that is at best wary of, and at most aggressive toward, voices from other forms of Christianity. Most importantly, he does not forget what major social political upheavals and events, especially those of September 9, 2011, have impressed on the religious minds of all Americans, not just those he has studied.

Howard arrives at the end of his investigation to the understanding that those who adhere to “radical certainties” (p. 174) in religion, despite the rhetoric of democratization and globalization that surrounds Internet technology, can create connections with like-minded believers in protected, regulated enclaves. This, I believe, is a highly important consideration for those who study the impact of online communications on religious authority, community, and identity. Furthermore, Howard’s contribution to the growing tradition of research into religious community formation on the Internet is the recognition that all users of the technology are producers of religious content, and participate in the politics and rhetorics that build “ekklesia.” As such, this book is a treatise on the power of the vernacular in the shaping of a religious future.

Review – Adam Thomas, Digital Disciple: Real Christianity in a Virtual World

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 Adam Thomas, Digital Disciple: Real Christianity in a Virtual World (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011), 144pp. 

Reviewer: Dr Tim Hutchings

t.r.b.hutchings@dur.ac.uk

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Adam Thomas’ first book is a brief, personal discussion of faith in digital culture, drawing on his own experiences as “one of the first Millennials to be ordained to the Episcopal priesthood” (back cover). Thomas’ youth, nerdiness, and Episcopalianism have been selected as the key selling points for this book, marked across both covers in text, review quotes, and photos; Thomas himself appears twice in clerical shirt, jeans, and fashionable glasses. Despite this marketing, nothing in the book itself is specific to the Episcopal denomination. Thomas’ theology is broad and uncontroversial, using Bible passages and classic prayer techniques to encourage a personal spirituality focused on awareness of God’s presence in everyday life. His writing style is informal and frequently witty, without assuming technological competence, and an appendix of questions aims to interest both independent readers and study groups.

Thomas’ first chapter, “Virtual People,” sets out his key arguments. “The Tech”—a shorthand term for the technological advances of the last 50 years (p. 5), particularly digital media—connects people while isolating them, creating dependence on gadgets and promoting a form of “remote intimacy” (p. 2). Technology can limit openness to the divine: God can be encountered online, but only if Christians practice awareness of his presence.

These suggestions are drawn out in more detail over the next four chapters. “From Connection to Communion” calls for Christians to recognize the ‘seed of holiness’ (p. 28) within every online contact, and identifies the emergence of a new kind of house church online—“meeting” whenever two people talk about Jesus, ask for prayer, or donate money to charity. Practicing awareness of God’s presence means cultivating these connections and seeing God in them. “Remote Intimacy” addresses the danger of technology-based communication, encouraging Christians to seek meaningful and preferably offline contact as well as transient online connections. “Empty Minds and Disposable Bodies” accuses the Tech of devaluing the body and the mind, offering easy substitutes for presence and memory. “Googling Prayer” focuses on time and expectation, identifying an incompatibility between the instant gratification and constant activity promoted by technology and the patient waiting required by prayer. Thomas’ final chapter, “Tech Sabbath,” offers one solution: brief vacations from digital connection, to experience solitude and regain appreciation for personal connection.

None of these suggestions are new, but Thomas presents them with unusual persuasiveness through personal anecdotes, particularly focused on his experiences in seminary and his heavy use and eventual rejection of the game World of Warcraft. There is little engagement here with academic theology or media studies, but Thomas’ reliance on his own experience still offers a considerable advantage over competitors in this rapidly expanding genre of Christian publishing. It is rare to find a book that combines appreciation and critique of media, treating neither as an after-thought, and rarer still to find an author who can speak with confidence about contemporary media culture. As an informal contemplation of contemporary Christian life, Digital Disciple is excellent—but we must hope that future books in this field will start to build on current offerings and offer some genuinely new insights.

Review – Elizabeth Drescher, Tweet If You Heart Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation

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 Elizabeth Drescher, Tweet If You Heart Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation (New York: Morehouse, 2011), 192 pp. 

Reviewer: Dr Bex Lewis

bex.lewis@durham.ac.uk

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“God never told the world to go to church; but God did tell the church to go to the world.” – Sharon Watkins quoted in Tweet If You Heart Jesus (108)

Elizabeth Drescher is a self-proclaimed ‘digital optimist’, who in Tweet If You Heart Jesus aims to address enthusiasts, pragmatists, and skeptics. Working from an American focus, this book practices what it preaches in gathering material from both face-to-face and digital connections. Many others have referred to the ‘Digital Revolution’, but Drescher prefers the term ‘Digital Reformation’ as she considers the huge technological changes in recent years. She seeks to understand the cultural contexts in which they were formed, concerned with a focus on the ‘transformatory power’ of our language and practices, rather than simple ‘revolution’.

Drescher draws strong parallels between pre-modern era in which community and oral traditions were strong, and the modern day, which replaced the former with a print-based world in which individual, solitary practices, and the “opinion of the professional” have become the core focus. Western culture became obsessed with conformity to rules rather than practices of relational engagement. Technology has always changed what is possible: the printing press, the light bulb, and indoor plumbing have all changed our practices. Social media has often been accused of replacing ‘real’ friendships with ‘virtual’ friendships, but television gave us ‘fantasy friendships’ in much less ‘real’ ways than social media does.

Technology is neither the problem, nor its uncomplicated solution, but it is the reality for most in our world, and therefore we need to engage it. Drescher says:

If you’re somewhere in the formal leadership hierarchy of your church and you’re not engaging these digital groups in some way, you’re truly not attending to one of the most vital, active segments of your community (91).

Many churches are finally starting to get that the online landscape is important, but still need convincing that something more radical is needed than a new website. Technologies may be changing what is possible, but core practices of attentiveness, nurture, and cultivation, in which the church is experienced, are key. The characteristics (creative improvisation, participation, and distributed authority) that have made broadcast media unsuitable for so many mainstream churches are assets in a social media world, which offers more space for questioning. Drescher would likely contend that social media offers options for re-engaging with sermons, which have only relatively recently become passive, performance-based consumptions.

Where discussions focus on the notion of ‘unplugging’, we are given the impression that the effects of digital culture on our life are optional. We, however, are identified as a part of the ‘digital habitus’, in which immediacy, transparency, interactivity, co-creativeness, integration, and distribution are central facets of everyday experience. Drescher encourages us to think of the online world as a place, one in which the church has a long history, and to which the church can offer much—once we redirect the focus away from the technology that enables this. We have the opportunity to bring back old habits, returning to a 24/7 engagement that existed before the modern age, and opening up our communities more widely, offering a radical welcome to the marginalized, demonstrating by action, rather than by voice, going where the people are (online) as Jesus did, and breaking down the barriers created by the notions of private/public spheres generated during the industrial age.

Keith Anderson (177) is quoted as saying that church buildings have become anchors, and even idols, for many in the church. Digital technologies offer us the opportunity to go out into the world, and to practice “ministries of listening and attentiveness”, demonstrating an active engagement with the daily issues of the world, and to think more widely than our traditional (geographical) constituencies, putting us in a position to connect with things that are meaningful in people’s lives. As Drescher says:

We are not selling something to the world that will make more people like us, believe in our story, join our churches. We are trying to be something in the world that invites connection and compassion, encourages comfort and healing for those in need, and challenges those in power to use that power in the service of justice and love (127).

Once you can get past the book title (at which some do cringe), you will find pages packed full of useful, and thought-provoking content. The arguments that emerge in the book are convincing for skeptics (set as they are against the longer history of the church), and encouraging for optimists, who frequently find their efforts undervalued. The book is open to a wide readership but will be of particular interest to those who have a theoretical interest in cultural history, and also those in church leadership who are looking for a more practical understanding of what is possible in online spaces. Drescher acknowledges that in areas she has had to over-simplify, but this makes the text accessible to a wider audience, includes a big challenge to churches not to get left behind, and issues a charge to reengage with the “priesthood of all believers,” rather than becoming detrimentally occupied with a concern for retaining authority.

Review – Michael Bailey and Guy Redden (eds), Mediating Faiths: Religion and Socio-Cultural Change in the 21st Century

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Michael Bailey and Guy Redden, eds. Mediating Faiths: Religion and Socio-Cultural Change in the Twenty-First Century (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), 239 pp.

Reviewer: Louise Connelly
louise.connelly@ed.ac.uk

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The editors, Michael Bailey (lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex) and Guy Redden (lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney), alongside seventeen other contributors, draw from the fields of cultural studies, religious studies, sociology, anthropology, communication studies, and other social science disciplines. The first chapter (“Editors’ Introduction: Religion as Living Culture”) underlines the purpose of Mediating Faiths as a complement to “other ongoing explorations that are bringing religion back into frames from which it has largely been excluded” (5), such as the relationship between “religion, media and popular culture” (5). The term ‘mediation’ refers to “the intersection of multiple, co-determining factors amid any set of relations in which religiosity is implicated” (6). Therefore, the breadth and depth of expertise presented in Mediating Faiths provides an alternative perspective to understanding how faith and religion are mediated in everyday life.

Mediating Faiths comprises sixteen chapters presented in four sections, namely new media religion; consumption and lifestyle; youth; and politics and community. A number of critical questions are raised and a wide variety of topics are explored, including Christian beauty pageant queens, Muslim youth culture, and the relationship between religion and politics. Primarily, the discussion focuses on Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and although the topics are diverse, it might have been beneficial to widen the discussion to include other religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, or New Religious Movements. Nonetheless, the contributors engage the reader and demonstrate the complexity of examining religion, faith, media, and culture in the twenty-first century.

Section one, “New Media Religion,” contains four chapters and focuses on different media and how these are being received, used, or treated with distrust. The first chapter of this section focuses on religious broadcasting in Britain over the past three decades and how it has been confronted by increased secularization and regulation within the “growing competitive environment” of a global market place (25). Chapter three examines how Muslims use the Internet. This is contextualized within the wider socio-political cultural arena and focuses on the decentralization of traditional Islamic authority via “alternative Islamic voices” found online (37). Chapter four examines how new media can be used to engage Norwegian youth culture through storytelling and how this helps them to differentiate between faith and traditional religious belief structures. The use of new media, such as ‘Digital Faith Stories’, can transform our understanding of religion and faith (55). This process is defined as ‘mediatization’ (50). In chapter five, the discussion centers on the Israeli Haredi Jewish community and their negotiation of the Internet challenging the traditional way of life while being used according to agreed controls and boundaries.

Section two, “Consumption and Lifestyle,” highlights how faith and religion are engaged with consumerism and everyday life choices and in doing so brings to the fore how certain areas of religion and faith are changing. The section is comprised of five chapters and covers a number of areas, including alternative therapies as a quasi-religious or religious endeavor (chapter six); the case study of the Catholic World Youth Day Celebrations in Cologne in relation to sacred brands, such as the figurehead of Catholicism, the Pope (chapter seven); and the sometimes controversial relationship between feminism, identity, evangelism, and beauty queen pageants (chapter eight). In chapter nine, traditionalism and the use of media are explored in relation to three neo-Pentecostal churches in the United Kingdom. Questions are raised as to whether “congregations are becoming consumers” and whether “religion of choice is replacing religion of birth” (119). Lastly, chapter 10 explores the themes of popular music, individualism, authenticity, and experience in American Evangelicalism and considers whether “worship itself [is] being redefined” (131) in relation to “consumer choice” (134).

Section three, “Youth,” is the shortest of the four sections and includes two chapters that outline what organized religion can offer the younger generation. Both chapters in this section highlight a number of challenges that need to be overcome, including the opposition to traditional forms of religiosity, as well as competition from everyday popular culture. This section discusses Muslim Youth in Europe (chapter eleven) and presents a case study on two Christian megachurches in Singapore—City Harvest Church and Faith Community Baptist Church (chapter twelve)—in order to demonstrate how religion is appealing to the younger generation.

Section four, “Politics and Community,” includes four chapters focusing on the relationship between religion, society, and politics and the inter/co-dependence of these facets. The relationship between these domains is often complex, as illustrated by the political and ethical representation of British Muslims in literature (chapter thirteen), as well as the role of the media and the tension between secularity, political activism, and the apostolic Destiny Church and Brethren in New Zealand (chapter fourteen). Following this theme, chapter fifteen questions whether Australian politics might be seen to represent “Christian values”; and chapter sixteen concludes the section by discussing the interplay between the Catholic charismatic movement, El Shaddai in the Philippines, and the use of mass media to create a de-traditionalized form of Catholicism.

This book is invaluable for those interested in the intersection between media, religion, and culture in the twenty-first century. Significantly, Mediating Faiths argues that “mediation is part of religion” (49) and that “religious communication and experience has always been mediated” (7). The format in which mediation of religion materializes has, in some instances, moved beyond the institutional face-to-face community, to one that may include the use of technology (internet, television, and new media). The contributors to this book have highlighted how mediated faith and religious belief needs to be “interpreted through its place in socio-historical formations, not against universalist benchmarks that themselves prove to be creations of very particular histories” (7). Scholars and students from different disciplines will benefit greatly from this insightful contribution and will hopefully engage with a wider understanding of how religion and faith are being mediated in everyday life.