Religion in the Age of the Internet

Supervisor: Justin Glessner

Fall 2015

Jacob DickeyReligious Studies Independent Study

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Introduction

The invention and implementation of mass media has undeniably effected modern

society in a number of ways and aspects. Here, I will examine the effect of internet has on

religious practitioners, particularly with the aspect of authority in their respective faith.

Religious authority in the current age has shifted away from the only religious officials to also

include the layperson. Media, specifically the internet, now has given the layperson some

autonomy in what they believe and practice. I will not be focusing on a singular faith, rather, I

will use examples from various major religions to provide evidence for my claim. The internet

has given a new space for people to practice their faith without a previously established

authority. Briefly at the end, I will touch on how this shift in power has effected the exact

definition of religion.

Religious Authority

Before I attempt to answer the question of how the internet affects religious authority,

there exists a need to clearly identify what specific form of authority is at play. Without

definition, there is a danger of failing to fully capture the complexity of the relationship

between the online and offline religious communities. Simply put, “Authority refers to one’s

ability to gain the trust and willing obedience of others” (Meyrowitz). Heidi Campbell in her

book Digital Religion, gives a more detailed description, dividing it into four aspects: Hierarchy,

Structure, Ideology, and Texts. Hierarchy refers to the perceptions of recognized leaders such as

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priests, rabbis, and imams. Structure involves the practitioner’s perceived community and

pattern of practice. In other words, who they connect with religiously and what actions or

rituals do they partake in to fulfill their faith. Ideology concerns the faith beliefs that are a

group’s qualifications for becoming apart of their shared identity. Lastly, texts simply refer to

the recognized holy teachings and scriptures of a group such as the Bible and Qur’an.

One thing to note is that the political constraint put on religion which demands that

citizens share the religion of the sovereignty has disappeared and become void of meaning. This

is no longer applicable in modern society and therefore not a source of religious authority.

Ultimately, what gives these four aspects power is popular opinion. Whatever belief has the

majority opinion is the most prevalent and therefore dominant. Traditional religious authority

heavily influences popular opinion, but as evident by the swaying beliefs due to emerging mass

media, it is not the only power. It seems as though popular opinion is ruled by the current

society. The internet has become apart of everyone’s daily life, religious or secular, and religion

has adapted to accommodate that fact; opposed to the notion of he internet adapting to

religion. People go online with a variety of motivations: to gather information, to search for

social cohesion, for identity experimentation, and even in search of spiritual motivations. There

is a change in all four aspects of religious authority, mainly concerning hierarchy, structure, and

ideology. This has additionally changed part of the definition of religion by changing the

practices and requirements thereof. Now, it is impossible for a religion to completely ban online

and still survive. The internet is apart of daily life and it must adapt to the current times.

Religion is about experience, not history. It holds traditions, but they are not a core value.

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Another aspect to keep in mind is that the effect on the internet on religious authority is

intertwined in very diverse social and political contexts. For example, Islam in China has

remained relatively traditional. The mosque is a male space and the Qur’an is traditionally

taught to men only. Whereas in Indonesia, women have played a central role in Islamic

revivalism. The cultures in which this religion is being expressed allow fundamentally different

regulations and qualifications. This can also be seen by the fact that London has more Internet

domains than the whole of Africa. The internet is obviously more prevalent in English life than it

is African. This means that it will have more of an effect on their religious practices. Scholarship

on this subject of cyber-religion only spans about ten years in total. This field of study is still in

its infancy and while it has made great strides so far, it must be emphasized that these strides

are largely taking place in the developed world and are restricted to major traditions deemed

significant by the Western scholars. Work in this field is in no way complete and is still in

progress. Although the work in this field has found pattern and trends, it cannot yet be taken as

wholly representative of the cyber-religious world and its various traditions with emerging

possibilities and new directions.

Innovations from the Internet

The internet has allowed a number of things that weren’t previously, but this is nothing

new in the development of mass media. Originally, religion was purely oral. With the invention

and implementation of paper, these traditions were subsequently written down. Now

knowledge storage and information retrieval, a new form of communication, has been

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introduced and religion must adapt to continue to thrive. The invention of paper has forced the

oral traditions of religions to comply and cooperate. Distinguished philosopher Herbert

Marshall McLuhan has classified history into three major periods: oral, writing/printing, and

electronic, each being characterized by its own forms of thinking and communicating. These

adapting forms of thought and communication play an important role in the development of

religious traditions. The progression and split of Christianity from Judaism, for example, can be

seen as stemming from the incorporation of written elements. The invention of the printing

press held a similar challenge to religion at the time. The Medieval Church had a monopoly over

religious information and therefore salvation. The printing press broke this stranglehold. It

bypassed the Church’s scribes and made the Bible and other religious material widely available

to the public. It allowed many more people to be reached and permitted them to have their

own bibles to read and interpret it their own way as previously, scriptures were only taught by

the traditional hierarchy. This new media allowed freedom of information and therefore

authority was lowered in traditional roles and raised in the lay population. This reconstructed

the religious institution as it somewhat undermined religious authority.

Internet is doing what newspapers, radio, and television has done in the past; it is a

continuation of the incorporation of mass media in everyday life. As Heidi Campbell explains,

“Since its emergence, the Internet has often been presented as a revolutionary tool,

transforming society in a myriad of ways, from how we do business, educate youth, perform

our daily tasks, and even live out our religious lives.” The internet is changing every aspect of

everyday life; religion isn’t any different from anything else that is being effected. Websites and

other forms of online communication are crucial for offering guidance relevant to people living

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in secular cultures. The same goes in religious cultures. It is also important to understand that

the internet is adding new means rather than replacing the old. New media simply adds to the

spectrum of forms of communication. Writing did not destroy oral discourse, but it changed the

function of speech and memory. The addition of a new communication medium to a culture

alters the functions, significance, and effects of previous forms. The impact of new media to a

culture is hard to comprehend. Material changes, such as an increase in price of a cup of coffee,

are concrete and conceivable. Whereas informational changes seem very abstract and puzzling.

The internet allows many things that were unimaginable at the time of conception of

religion. Democratization of knowledge, development of the notion of community, and

conception of new rituals and practices online pose challenges to traditional religious structures

of authority. The emergence of the internet not only increased public access to alternative

religious information, but also allows anyone to share rather than just to read. It empowers

people to contribute information as well as opinions and experiences to public conversations

and debates in online forums. Anyone can have their voices heard, no matter how deviant from

the standard. A growing number of web sites and chat rooms dedicated to a variety of faith-

related issues provide followers new ways to explore religious beliefs and experiences. Ideas

presented on the internet tend to be much less formal and more discursive, allowing more

discussion and innovation of thoughts. Many social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube

do not engage in the formal theological discourse as found in sermons. Rather, small snippets

of text and videos as well as hyperlinks to other sources have become the norm of social

interaction.

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These social interactions online are no longer bound by geography either. You can

connect with different people in various locations and cultures around the world, wherever

there is an internet connection. As stated before, this Is still somewhat limited to the locations,

mainly in developed countries, but theoretically the internet can connect any two people

regardless of location or background. For example, Islamic women from traditional China can

now connect and discuss beliefs with the Islamic revivalist women in Indonesia. This means that

people can talk to others with various backgrounds and opinions to establishing a dialogue

creating innovative thought. The ability to connect with those outside the traditional

community allows further discussion of theology to occur.

Communication and cultural practice are fundamentally intertwined. Peter Horsfield

states, “Every cultural practice is a communicative event. Every act of communication is a

cultural event.” Internet affects communication, therefore it also affects culture. One way it

does this is through the disassociation from cultural markers. This disconnect is the result of

religion moving into an otherwise neutral, secular, online space. Religion online separates it

from the culture it originated from, making it a product able to be marketed. In particular, this

separation of religious and cultural markers in an online diaspora allows people to partake in a

religious produce without first being familiar with the culture and traditions that produced it.

The potential for innovation, thus a challenge to traditional teachings, are maximized in this

diaspora. An example can be seen by the westernization of Buddhism. Western Buddhism is

fundamentally different than India, where it originated. The same effect can be observed in

Islam in the west and Christianity in traditionally Muslim countries such as Algeria. As Oliver Roy

puts it in his book Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways, “Successful religions

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all have an export formula.” Religions must separate, not necessarily abandon, their cultural

markers from religious markers. For export, religion must be removed of its culture as well as

its territorial and ethnic components. However, cultural markers sometimes can be seen as

exotic and attractive such as “French bakeries” or “Italian wine.” Hinduism is an example of a

territorialized religion that has been altered for export. In India, the role of the Ganges river and

the caste system are central. These fundamental aspects are overlooked or altered to export

and spread the religion worldwide. Although conversions due to this disassociation is not

statistically significant, it is significant symbolically. They break a taboo and subsequently help

threaten a religion’s social embededness. It’s not necessarily the prevalence of conversion, but

the present opportunity to when it was not previously that is noteworthy.

The emergence of the internet has also introduced new ways to worship and preform

ritual. There are numerous new websites and programs that allow followers to worship in new

ways. www.24-7prayer.com, for example, allows users to post prayers online for others to see.

If other users would like to express their support for a prayer, there is an option to “like” the

prayer by clicking a button labeled “amen.” There is even an option to attach hashtags to a

prayer so that others can search for certain prayers. Other websites such as

www.vipassana.com offer online video chat courses such as a 12-week course on meditation.

Pujas are also available online. When you enter www.spiritualpuja.com, the first thing you do is

click on an image of a temple to “enter” it. From here you can choose a god to pray to and

when you click on their image, a virtual shrine appears with recommended prayers. Above all,

ritual is simply an assertion of difference. Although it also has other religious purposes, the

backing motive is to be different and that can be accomplished online as it has been through

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these websites and many others. This can also be exampled by the neopagan vocabulary. When

praying for blessings, the wishes are emphasized and given power by uttering the phrase, “so

mote it be;” similar to the Christian and Jewish phrase, “amen.” The speech is not necessarily

declaring it a wish or giving it power, but it is simply apart of the tradition’s rituals.

Some organizations have used the internet as far as creating a new religion based

online. For example, www.chuchofreality.org identifies themselves as an internet based

religion. They see technological advancements as something to embrace and celebrate. They

founded the religion online so that their church would be in front of the entire world from the

very first day of conception. Traditionally, churches have started in the location of the founders

and have developed over many years as it spreads from region to region. The church of reality

uses the online sphere to shed traditional notions of time and space and inhabit this location

without limitations as their home. Obviously the internet has had a profound effect on

religiosity as it allows many new additions and alterations. Next I illustrate how these effects

have impacted the notion of religious authority.

Implications for Religious Authority

Offline religious officials are in a state of crisis. Religious organizations may no longer be

the main source of religious information, practice, or even truth for their own members. They

lost control of the flow of information and the use of sacred symbols. There is competition with

the internet for attention and authority. Some officials such as Orthodox rabbis in Israel have

issued bans regarding internet use for their members. However, this absence of online

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presence diminishes perceptions of relevance of faith in everyday existence. The internet is

deeply embedded in modern society, and now for a fraction of their day, everyone’s attention is

now being diverted to this online realm. Religious officials need to stay relevant online to keep

control offline. This incorporation of the internet into religion allows the officials to sanctify this

new social sphere. Many religious traditions have in fact been proactive in advocating the

internet as a sacred territory in order to both import traditional rituals online and create new

forms of devotion online. One of the first public demonstrations of this was in 1996 when

Tibetan Buddhist monks performed a ceremony to place a blessing over cyberspace using a

tantric ritual. The idea of making cyberspace sacred allows religious officials to take a position in

this new realm and let it exist cooperatively with the offline realm.

It is vital to understand that online doesn’t replace offline, but simply alters it. It alters

various traditions differently. Christianity online, for example, simply provides a new context for

creating an unconventional community and theology and is still clearly connected to offline. In

an interview conducted by Heidi Campbell, a Christian interviewee described the online

Christian community as supplementing the offline church. They suggested that it is a good way

for newcomers to begin to understand the structure of the traditional church. Online

community was described as a bridge to the normal patterns of local church life. Increasingly,

cyber churches can be found in virtual environments, such as the simulation game Second Life.

In this game, people can create an avatar to explore a virtual world to do various actions,

including going to church services. The cyber Anglican Cathedral in the game seeks to offer an

authentic experience online, and, according to Campbell in a 2015 study, it draws around 400

participants to its many weekly services. They have gone to the extent to even develop official

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links with the offline Anglican Communion. This “networked community” helps cultivate unique

communication and socialization between individuals and institutions. Islam and Judaism have

slightly different approaches to the internet. Muslim teachers and leaders still come first and

foremost. They are respected and their opinions about the use of the internet are respected

and viewed as offering wisdom to the community. Their advice is not strictly adhered to, but it

is still valued. The Jewish interviewees seem to frame things in communal terms in Campbell’s

interviews. They didn’t place emphasize on religious authority as decision-makers, but rather

emphasized the idea of a community of one voice.

Although there have been many discussions about the effect of incorporating the

internet into religious traditions, claims about its potential blessings or harms have often been

exaggerated. Involvement of the internet has some obvious implications, but they aren’t as

extreme as believed to be. Religious sites frame authority in ways that may more often affirm

than challenge traditional sources of authority. It is more common for people to expand ideas

presented rather than challenging and replacing them. In fact, “bloggers are most likely to cite

texts as sources of authority and are more likely to affirm [offline] authority than to challenge

it” (Echols). The following paragraphs will explain how each aspect of religious authority has

been effected.

Hierarchy

In the time before the printing press, the religious community required learned scribes

and scholars who could understand and describe the scriptures through repetitive forms of

learning certain chosen lessons. Memorizing these revelations were essential for the survival of

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the religious community. The recitation was exact proof of devotion. This accounts for the

traditional significance of recitation and reliance on religious officials. In general, the freedom

and secularity of internet’s new cyber environment allows and may encourage practices and

discourses that bypass the authority of accepted religious institutions. Immigrating religious

rituals and relics online means followers now have the opportunity to reinterpret their context

and use. This transforms traditional practice in ways that may compete with religious

institutions offline.

Traditional religious hierarchies are the most affected aspect because they are self-

reaffirming. Before the internet, religious leaders largely controlled and directed discussions of

theology and orthodoxy. Anything that is in short supply or that requires a very special

encoding or decoding skill, such as religious information, is prone to be exploited by an elite

class that has the means and authority to decode it. “Knowledge access in itself is not enough

to justify authority. One must have more access than the other people in the situation”

(Meyrowitz). This privilege of protected knowledge is in part to preserve status. This can even

be seen in modern times as the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR), until recently, was very

difficult for the average person to obtain. Same can be said about the codes put on auto parts

that need to be analyzed by the mechanic. With this unequal control over information, the

person in control is generally the one to initiate interactions with the others. It was nearly

impossible for someone to challenge the teachings of the elite.

However, in the age of the internet, there has been a distinct shift in how people receive

their religious information. Inversely to protected knowledge, something that is very accessible

to the public tends to democratize a society. The modern practitioner needs not to seek council

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through the local church. They can find meaning through the plentiful information and opinions

produced from a simple Google search. Mobile technologies also now allow people to use their

phones to instantly fact-check the teachings of their clergymen. The internet facilitates

information access and free-thinking. Exploiting the same principle, Martin Luther progressed

the Protestant Reformation by encouraging personal reading and interpretation of the Bible.

Structure

Most notably, the internet connects anyone and everyone who is using it. It also allows

new forms of practice and ritual that weren’t available or possible previously. People can now

take advantage of computers and smart phones to preform various religious tasks in a new

way. Online users can build social connections and foster relationships that are unconstrained

by time and space. This means that, rather than living in a singular static religious community,

modern followers can live in emerging fluid and highly personalized religious social networks,

allowing different relationships to form. Therefore, it expands the religious community that one

can be apart of. It is now possible to be connected with and share ideals with people outside

your immediate surroundings with various divergent backgrounds and cultures. With these

abundant possible connections, it is easier to find people you agree with online rather in the

local community; online allows a separated, like-minded community apart from traditional

constraints. Sharing new interpretations of religious ideas and symbols, an environment is

created allowing a community to be together yet simultaneously and separately live out their

religious lives. “What I was getting online from the other email posts was such an

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encouragement and such a different perspective than what we are seeing here locally”

(Campbell Interview, 1999). The broad consequence of this is that people are diverted away

from membership and identity within a singular community and toward membership and

identification with a variety of different and specific communities. As mentioned previously, this

is supplementary and does not replace traditional religious community. Obviously communal

involvement and loyalty are still possible, but it is no longer a necessary element of the general

religious expression or experience. Psychological motivations for a belonging to a group hasn’t

necessarily changed, but belonging can now be expressed in different ways. In his studies,

Stephen O’Leary discovered followed an online neopagan community that constitutes

something close to an actual neopagan congregation. They gather together regularly to worship

even though they have never seen each other in person. This online group even holds rituals

and rites of passages online.

Technology has an ability to alter individual and communal religious practices as they

are brought online. The internet is a technological landscape, able to revolutionize religious

expression and understanding (Campbell). Groups like the online neopagans and other

scripture studies, prayer groups, and cyber churches reinvent religious exercises and practices.

For example, death rituals have been affected by the internet in a substantial way. When

someone dies, their online presence stays; their accounts, comments, and contributions remain

on the internet. These can be key for the survivors of the deceased to remember and continue

to live through them. A good example of this is of a renowned philosopher Rajneesh, now

popularly known online as Osho. Osho passed away in in 1990 but still holds a strong online

presence through his organization. The Osho website contains hundreds of hours of talks and

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225 books. Because of this incredible amount of continuously uploaded content, many people

are unaware that Osho is no longer alive. The internet has allowed his image and message to

continue on after death. There are numerous rituals that have been brought online over the

years. Many have adapted to the internet and some still have not. The internet is still relatively

new and, as the popular phrase goes, necessity is the mother of invention. If online rituals

haven’t developed to a certain extent, it may simply be because there hasn’t been a need for it

yet.

Ideology

Internet has allowed people’s ideals to spread out in the spectrum of religiosity. More

opinions, easier access to them, and less traditional authority allow other beliefs to prevail

other than those appropriated by religious officials. New varying opinions widen the religious

spectrum, therefore making it more acceptable to believe slightly varied things and still be

considered apart of the collective identity of their sect or denomination. This makes the

definition of that group to become a little more ambiguous. Before mass media, access to a

group’s territory was the primary means of incorporation into the group. Now that religion has

introduced itself to the online territory, anyone online can identify with any group. For

example, someone could attend a Baptist Christian church and also be an active member on a

nondenominational Christian website. They have connections with people from various

Christian backgrounds both online and offline and may consider their affiliation as more fluid

and less constricted by a particular location and history. If this person were to move homes, it is

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not guaranteed this person will necessarily join another Baptist Christian church. Subsequently,

a once small and unified group may divide into factions after an introduction of many new

members. Increasingly religious identities are tied to personal networks through the internet,

rather than to local religious communities bound by geography and family ties. “As social

information-systems merge or divide, so will group identities” (Meyrowitz).

As discussed before, the internet offers an alternative space to discuss what religious

leaders teach in church. Members can now reinterpret the claims made through their own

theological lenses. This allows the legitimacy of leader’s claims to be discussed rather than just

to take it directly as fact. This new challenge to traditional teachings allow new movements,

such as gay and lesbian Muslim groups for example, to flourish with religious support. Around

these new movements there have been a number of websites constructed to offer advice,

much of which is innovative and supportive rather than conservative. Although LGBT

movements have been around before the internet, the freedom of information and freedom

from traditional practices have allowed new ideas and interpretations of teachings and

scriptures to form and gain authority to support the cause.

Followers have the ability to seek answers to questions without having to go through

traditional gatekeepers or interpreters of information. This poses a problem for religious

officials as the answers that followers conclude to might not be the same answer they would

have given. Followers can justify whatever belief that pleases them. One result of this new

ability is that there is a competition over who has authority to speak for the collective faith.

These struggles are different in the various religions. For example, Islam and Judaism

traditionally have master interpreters that release information to the masses. Teachers now

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have to prove their credentials to the members by proclaiming what is and is not compatible

with the Shari ‘a or Halakah. The more definitive and radical the interpretation, the more

prestige is associated with that teacher. This creates a constant negotiation between

interpreters for the faith creating new beliefs. It is clear that followers embrace the internet

and include both online and offline in constructing their faith. Yet it seems as though local

religious structures are hesitant and, in some cases, unwilling to recognize online as equal part

representative of their collective community of faith.

Conversely, Christianity sees the internet more as facilitating and encouraging a globally

shared Christian identity. Members have a greater understanding of the “global body” of their

faith which includes online and the local church. This not only benefits the individual members,

but also the local church now has freedom of information to help understand the various

histories and common practices of the global church. Here, opposed to Islam and Judaism, a

shared identity is acknowledged and studied rather than creating a new identity that locally

competes for authority. Membership in this community is based on personal connections and

relationships rather than official affiliations. The internet has been used as a tool by this

organization to help refine who is a part of the church and what the church represents.

Connecting the online and offline communities and their religious ideologies lets the fullness of

the Christian community can be actualized and experienced.

Texts

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Religious texts are the authority least affected by the emergence of the online sphere.

The internet has allowed anyone’s ideas and opinions be shared with the world through social

media sites, blogs, chat rooms, and other websites. The approval of these posts from other

practitioners makes them authoritative to their belief in some way. Although nothing will be

more authoritative that religious scriptures, they are no longer the only sources of religious

information. Many interpretations can be found online and they can be found and chosen to

reinforce a certain ideology desired by the practitioner. This is a large distinction from, for

example, the time when religious canons were being compiled. Religious officials chose specific

texts to read and follow and others to disregard as unauthentic. In modern times, all texts

regardless of author is authentic in presenting new innovative ideas and beliefs to followers.

Online sources for official religious texts also frequently have popular unofficial interpretations

linked to the verses. Websites like www.biblehub.com provide commentaries for every chapter

or verse displayed. This allows followers to read primary religious texts and immediately get

various interpretations for insight to decide their own belief.

Complications of the Definition of Religion

The internet has had a couple of implications for religion as a whole. One is that the

excess of religious material online has created a competition for attention and loyalty. As Heidi

Campbell further explains, “This religious assembling of religious meaning from multiple

sources and contexts in a global society has been described by some scholars as syncretism, the

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mixing or overlapping of multiple traditions, or hybridization, combining ideologies from

different contexts such as belief with commodification and consumerism.” This hybridization

also implies that traditional religious culture can be transposed on actions and objects

previously considered nonreligious. This has the consequence of adding to yet diluting the

significance of religious voice and symbols. With all of this religious material online and the

public sphere, there becomes a religious competition between traditions, sects, or

denominations. Mass media, and in particular the internet, is appealing to the marketing

approach by wrapping religion into “packages” or “services” that appeals to the wide audience

(Hoover). Congregations exist in a religious marketplace that compete with one another for

attention and membership.

The main change brought by the internet is that now religion is more about experience

rather than traditional identity and belonging. As explained, the cyberspace is a new safe

environment without any precious inherited constraints. Without any native legitimacy or

authority, personal choice becomes significant. Practitioners are utilizing the internet to satisfy

all aspects of their own religious needs. The freedom over religious artifacts enables individuals

to pursue religious knowledge that benefits and encourages the particular chosen theme that

pleases them. This means that religion has subsequently shifted from belonging to meaning.

The definition of religion has adapted to new ways of general religious practice. Tradition is

what originally defined religious identity and brought people together. Now, less stress has

been placed on the importance of traditional ways due to the overwhelming presence of

online. This has shifted the focus on experience rather than identity.

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The oral time period was composed of closed societies with high independence and a

lack of individuality. Practitioners in these oral cultures have an experience where everyone’s

senses live in harmony. Membership in congregations were dependent on compliance of

tradition. There were steps and directions that were to be followed to comply and ensure the

proper and accepted experience. The invention of writing and printing and therefore the break

from total reliance on oral communication allows people to become more introspective,

rational, and individualistic (Meyrowitz). Internet continues this trend of personalization by

providing new methods and possibilities to construct personal religious identities, especially for

those who lack the opportunities to do so in the offline world. As mentioned before,

expressions of individually constructed identities online are not separate from their identity

outside the internet and should not be considered as such.

Change in authority warrants changes in the guidelines and requirements of religious

practices. Religion is allowing things now it previously hasn’t. This again changes the very

purpose and definition of religion and possibly infers that it is transition to something

completely different. “Religious freedom is not only an abstract thought: it helps religion to

evolve” (Roy). It seems as though religion is turning into a philosophy; no longer is it a means of

socialization into a group, but rather something to apply to guide your own life. The internet

has facilitated an end to a familiar means of religious worship as mandatory and a beginning of

a new kind of worship in a form where no one can reasonably predict or control.

With these newly allowed practices, a question arises if they produce the same

experience or are as authentic as the traditional means. Ultimately, it is up to the individual

practitioner to decide that. Authority and therefore the final say of religion has left the hands of

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officials. There is no set way one should feel while practicing their religion; everyone has their

own purpose. Doris Jakobsson has studied the social interactions in virtual worlds. She has

concluded that virtual worlds are as real as the physical world. “They are filled with real people

interacting with each other evoking real emotions and leading to real consequences,” she

explains. “There are no fixed boundaries between the virtual and physical arenas that make up

a participant’s lifeworld.” For example, worshippers who cannot find their way to their religious

institution for services can simultaneously pray alongside their fellow congregation members

through their smart phones, with confidence that other worshipers are doing the same thing on

the other end. "When I do pray in real time with them, I have a sense of a large, international

community praying together. It's pretty powerful," claims Darleen Pryds, an associate professor

of Christian spirituality and medieval history at the Franciscan School of Theology in California.

However, the change in church attendance isn’t the bottom line because religion is a much

more complex thing. The internet changes how people relate to each other and that’s

ultimately what religion is concerned with. “The variables are want and can. The can –

actualized though technology – is out of control. Our souls have become what we make of

them” (Zaleski).

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