Faith and the Internet
An old acquaintance and colleague of mine, Morten Thomsen Højsgaard has edited and published a book titled Den Digitale Kirke - syv artikler om internet og kristendom (The Digital Church, 7 articles on the Internet and Christianity). It is out in the stores today.

Morten was interviewed on DR2 (the "secret" public service channel of Danish Television) yesterday in Deadline and did a good job of explaining how and why debates on religious faith have exploded on the internet during the last year. Changes in (Danish) society (the introduction of other religious beliefs through immigrants, the awareness of the importance of religious belief spawned by September 11th etc); changes in technology which allows people access to new modes and forms of communication, and changes in the modern church itself (faith increasingly becoming a personal matter or choice) is reflected in people's curiosity and need to discuss faith on the digital meeting ground.

Morten, I believe, is a visionary, in that he was thinking about the relation between the internet and religious belief already 4-5 years ago, when I met him for the first time, long time before many of his peers did. His research is interesting because we meet on common ground to a certain extent: we both need to know about virtual communities and communication forms and modes for our individual research. There are MUDs with Christian Themes, even. It is a good reflection of the fact that many researches with a background in the Humanities will find themselves crossing the same land while trying to reach their individual research goals. We might as well benefit and learn of each other, rather than rejecting "the other's" insights, because their field of study at first glance do not seem relevant to us.

An example of puzzling intersection: I browsed through Morten's introduction to the book, in which he mentions a "virtual diocese" on the www: Partenia.fr. It has its own bishop and is, in fact, a "real" diocese, however there is no physical anchoring of this diocese in the physical world. A new example of what one could call a virtual world, presenting a new and intriguing mix of the virtual with the real.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 09:37