One way to approach the rise of religion online is to consider how different religions have engaged the rise of new media technologies. This helps create a platform for understanding common themes and questions that emerge in studies of religion online. Zaleski’s The Soul of Cyberspace (1997) was a forerunner in comparing the use of the Internet within different religious traditions, specifically Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and investigating how the Internet might erode hierarchy and change the ways in which different religious groups worship. Over the past two decades, we have seen a number of unique forms of religious integration with technology, from worship at cyberchurches to transporting religious prayer ritual online and creating new forms of religious interaction and community via email and social media. By looking at how religion has emerged online in the past two decades, we begin to see some shared questions and issues that the integration of the religious with the digital raises.
For almost three decades the Internet has been used as a space where spiritual rituals are conducted and traditional religious beliefs discussed. Religious use of the Internet can be traced back to the early 1980s. Rheingold (1993) documents some of the first religious-oriented activity taking place at this time on Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) under“create your own religion” on the discussion area of CommuniTree, which soon evolved into numerous BBS forums on religion. During this same period online reli- gious discussion surfaced on Usenet. It was a time when religious computer enthusiasts began to explore “ways to use this new means of communication to express their religious interests” (Lochhead 1997: 46). For example, at this time the “net.religion” discussion list emerged as the“first networked forum for discussions on the religious, ethical, and moral implications of human actions” (Ciolek 2004: 799). Throughout the 1980s many other religious computer enthusiasts formed online groups dedi- cated to their specific religion, such as the first Christian email newsletter “United Methodist Information,” and the “net.religion.jewish” Usenet group.
In the 1990s, increasing numbers of religious groups and mailing lists began to emerge online, such as Ecunet (www.ecunet.org, an ecumenical Christian email list- serve), H-Judaic (www.h-net.org/~judaic), and BuddhaNet (www.buddhanet.net). Early in this decade, the first Christian online congregation (The First Church of Cyberspace) was established by American Presbyterians, and for over a decade they held a weekly service via Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and offered Web interaction for participants (www.godweb.org). In 1996, Time magazine published a special issue on religion online, highlighting the dozens of religious Web sites and resources that could be found online: from thefirst monastic Web site, “Monastery of Christ in the Desert” (www.christdesert.org) and Islamic e-periodical, “Renaissance: A Monthly Islamic Journal” (www.renaissance.com.pk) to the first Zoroastrian cybertemple (www.zarathushtra.com) and establishment of the“Virtual Memorial Garden” tribute to people and pets (catless.ncl.ac.uk/vmg). The special issue also proved an important landmark, highlighting media recognition of religious activity online.
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Throughout the 1990s, people from traditional and non-traditional religions experimented with creating new religious resources online. For example, Gospelcom (www.gospelcom.net) provided Christians with access to online Bible study tools and various interactive devotional or fellowship groups. Others experimented with altering and adapting ancient beliefs to this digital environment, from Wicca (NightMare 2001) to new religions such as technopaganism (Davis 1998). In the late 1990s, inter-religious information hubs such as Beliefnet (www.Beliefnet.org) emerged online offering thoughts for the day from the Dalai Lama and the Pope to inspirational screensavers and access to sacred text from different traditions.
In the 2000s, religion online had become a common part of the Internet’s land- scape, and as new forms and features of digital engagement began to emerge so did their religious counterparts. In the early 2000s, as blogging platforms and hosting tools such as Live Journal and Blogger.com gained popularity, so did religious blog hubs such as Jblog: The Jewish and Israeli blog network (www.israelforum.com/ blog_home.php), Christian Bloggy Moms (www.bloggymoms.com), and Muslim bloggers (at hadithuna.com). The rise of podcasting also led to a revolution in “godcasting” or audio and visual broadcasting of religious-style talk shows from tel- evangelists to home school mums (see The Godcast Network [www.godcast.org] or GODcasting.tv[www.godcasting.tv]).
The rise of virtual world environments in the mid-2000s also birthed innovations in religious worship. For example, Church of Fools (www.churchoffools.com) was a short-lived online church experiment in 3D sponsored by the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and the satirical Web site Ship of Fools, and its off-shoot St Pixels: Church of the Internet offered chat rooms and a “live” online worship forum to its members. Both examples challenged the notion of what it means to be a church in a digital age. The emergence of Second Life (secondlife.com), a 3D virtual world, allowed residents to interact via a motional avatar to socialize, play, create, and do business with other virtual residents, and also enabled room for people to re-image religious location in digital. As it allowed residents to create a“second life” online, people soon began to import their religious practice into the digital space. This includes attending Shabbat services at the Second Life Synagogue-Temple Beit Israel (slurl.com/secondlife/nessus/18/146/103) and participating in a virtual Hajj (slurl.com/ secondlife/IslamOnline%20dot%20Net/128/128/128).
By the late 2000s, social media had replaced email as the number one activity online, and religious users began to populate spaces such as MySpace, Facebook, and later, Twitter, using these new forms of social interaction as opportunities to publicize their faith or create novel forms of religious engagement. One can nowfind that Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and Mohammed all have multiple Facebook accounts. These creations are not without controversy; debates over the imaging of the Prophet Mohammed on Facebook led to public protests, online demonstrations, and several Muslim countries threatening to ban Facebook due to such activities in 2009–10.
Some religious groups have also become concerned about the negative side of social networking: it exposes their members to secular values or problematic sexual content and promotes a trend toward the creation of religious versions of popular social networking sites, such as Jewmango for Jews (www.jewmango.com/home.php) and MillatFacebook for Muslims (www.mymfb.com). Religious versions of the video
HEIDI A. CAMPBELL AND PAUL EMERSON TEUSNER
sharing Web site YouTube.com have also been launched, such as JewTube.com and Godtube.com, offering alternative venues for religious believers to participate in the same activities offered by these popular sites, but in the context of a community of like-minded believers.
Within these varieties of religious uses and adaptation we see a number of common motivations for using the Internet (Campbell 2005b). For many, the Internet is simply a functional technology, and so is viewed as an essentially useful technology, supporting the social practices or work-related tasks valuable to the religious com- munity. Yet for some religious Internet users, the Internet is seen as a spiritual medium, facilitating spiritual experience for individuals and communities, and so it is utilized as a spiritual network or a place where spiritual encounters are made and activ- ities performed. Other religious users see it as sacramental space that can be set aside for religious ritual or activities, so that the Internet becomes a worship environment. The Internet may also be used as a tool for promoting a specific religion or set of beliefs, and so the Internet becomes a missionary tool for making disciples or converts. For others, the Internet may be viewed as a technology to be used for affirming one’s reli- gious community, background, or theology; here the Internet can be seen as helping an individual build and maintain a particular religious identity by connecting into a global, networked community of believers. However, the Internet itself is essentially neither sacred nor secular in its character. Noting the perceptions different groups have of the Internet helps us uncover how different religious groups approach the technology.