Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies

From the blurb on the web site:

The Network is designed for scholars, students and those interested in exploring topics and questions emerging at the intersections of religion, the internet and new, social and mobile media. The Network offers an interactive space for researchers and others wishing to learn more about this growing research area to share related resources and highlight news items as well as events. Users can engage with key research sources and information integral to this dynamic field. Scholars can also apply to join the network and contribute to the collaborative spaces on the site.

More details over at Heidi Campbell’s blog post: When Religion Meets New Media: Announcing the Launch of the New Media, Religion & Digital Culture Studies Website

Hat tip to io9 : How should Christians feel about Transhumanism?

And here’s a list of related books by the conversation partners.

"This Mortal Flesh: Incarnation and Bioethics" (Brent Waters)

"From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology And Technology in a Postmodern World (Ashgate Science and Religion Series)" (Brent Waters)

"Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond To The Redesigned Human Of The Future" (James Hughes)

Waters also has an essay “Whose Salvation? Which Eschatology ? Transhumanism and Christianity as Competing Salvific Religions” in

"Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement" (Georgetown University Press)

You can access the entire magazine in electronic form here: Tyndale, The Magazine | eVersion | Tyndale

The summary article is available here: Church and Technology | Tyndale.

And you can download the infographic from the article here: Church and Technology Infographic | Tyndale

Hat tip to John Dyer at The Church and Technology Survey and Infographic | Don’t Eat The Fruit who has some brief comments on it.

Transhumanism and Transcendence | Georgetown University Press.

From the blurb:

Transhumanism and Transcendence
Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement
Ronald Cole-Turner, Editor
The timeless human desire to be more beautiful, intelligent, healthy, athletic, or young has given rise in our time to technologies of human enhancement. Athletes use drugs to increase their strength or stamina; cosmetic surgery is widely used to improve physical appearance; millions of men take drugs like Viagra to enhance sexual performance. And today researchers are exploring technologies such as cell regeneration and implantable devices that interact directly with the brain. Some condemn these developments as a new kind of cheating—not just in sports but in life itself—promising rewards without effort and depriving us most of all of what it means to be authentic human beings. “Transhumanists,” on the other hand, reject what they see as a rationalizing of human limits, as if being human means being content forever with underachieving bodies and brains. To be human, they insist, is to be restless with possibilities, always eager to transcend biological limits.

As the debate grows in urgency, how should theology respond? Christian theologians recognize truth on both sides of the argument, pointing out how the yearnings of the transhumanists—if not their technological methods—find deep affinities in Christian belief. In this volume, Ronald Cole-Turner has joined seasoned scholars and younger, emerging voices together to bring fresh insight into the technologies that are already reshaping the future of Christian life and hope.

Essays include:

1. Introduction: The Transhumanist Challenge
Ronald Cole-Turner

2. Contextualizing a Christian Perspective on Transcendence and Human Enhancement: Francis Bacon, N. F. Fedorov, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Michael S. Burdett

3. Transformation and the End of Enhancement: Insights from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
David Grumett

4. Dignity and Enhancement in the Holy City
Karen Lebacqz

5. Progress and Provolution: Will Transhumanism Leave Sin Behind?
Ted Peters

6. The Hopeful Cyborg
Stephen Garner

7. Artificial Wombs and Cyborg Births: Postgenderism and Theology
J. Jeanine Thweatt-Bates

8. Taking Leave of the Animal? The Theological and Ethical Implications of Transhuman Projects
Celia Deane-Drummond

9. Chasing Methuselah: Transhumanism and Christian Theosis in Critical Perspective
Todd T. W. Daly

10. Human or Vulcan? Theological Consideration of Emotional Control Enhancement
Michael L. Spezio

11. Whose Salvation? Which Eschatology? Transhumanism and Christianity as Contending Salvific Religions
Brent Waters

12. Transcendence, Technological Enhancement, and Christian Theology
Gerald McKenny

13. Transhumanism and Christianity
Ronald Cole-Turner

(TANSA = Theology and the Natural Sciences in Aotearoa)

Christian Faith and Postmodernity
Saturday 17 September
Postmodernity has not only challenged our understanding of truth it has also opened us up to new ways of accessing and understanding the truth, and has given us new challenges in transhumanism and in the interaction with artificial intelligence. A number of speakers will look at issues of truth, postmodernity, and Christian faith.

Speakers include Prof. Wilf Malcolm The Nature of Rational Truth in Mathematics and Theology; Yael Klangwisan, The Road to Awe: Art, the Poetic and Truth; Stephen Garner The posthuman in popular and academic cultures?

Time: 9am-2pm (including lunch)

Cost: $25

Venue: Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat Centre, Long Bay

You need to RSVP – see the link above for details.

• In the negative corner: Apologist Josh McDowell: Internet the Greatest Threat to Christians, Christian News
• While in the optimistic corner, Kevin Kelly: Geek Theologian | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

I read Kelly’s blog The Technium from time to time. An interesting mixture of futurism, spirituality, and commentary on technology through an optimistic lens. In a course I teach I get students to read the following and respond in class to it: Kelly, Kevin. “Nerd Theology.” Technology in Society 21, no. 4 (1999): 387-392.

There’s also an interview in “Science and the Spiritual Quest: New Essays by Leading Scientists” (Phillip Clayton, Mark Richardson, Robert J. Russell, Kirk Wegter-McNelly), followed by a similar essay.

Kelly’s ideas on technology as a third-culture are also a good discussion starter. See: Kelly, Kevin. “The Third Culture.” Science 279 (1998): 992-993.

And related to digital life, Paul has some recent thoughts over at:

• fishers, surfers and casters » Coming of age in the digital era
• fishers, surfers and casters » Sherry Turkle has Carr syndrome

And I’ve been concerned with other things over the past year or so, but here’s a couple of transhuman/posthuman links to note:

• Singularity: Kurzweil on 2045, When Humans, Machines Merge – TIME
• Posthumanity stories – io9

Might be useful to have it available in the web browser from time to time.

You can read a preview here

There’s also this interview here – Social Media “Friending” as a Spiritual Practice? A Q&A with Lynne Baab – Flunking Sainthood

(Will have a quick skim through tomorrow and see if it’s got anything useful for my ACADPRAC project hiding in it).