Josh McDowell vs. Kevin Kelly | Jesus Creed points to these two opinions about the internet and its potential for harm or health respectively.

• 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

Hat tip to SAET » Biblical Studies Toolbar » The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology for the link to the Tyndale Toolbar | Tyndale House.

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

The day started well yesterday. We had a really good session in the postgrad class ‘Science, Technology, Media and God’ looking at religion and spirituality in the online space, as well as some ethical thoughts on that, and then when I emerged from that there was a copy of “Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World“ from Lynne Baab waiting in the mail. Something to set as reading for the next time I teach the class, or for next year’s undergrad religion and media course that I’m waiting for approval on.

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).

Ran a three session workshop on “digital life” for a vestry retreat day over on the North Shore today. I enjoyed it, and there were good questions and comments from people in the sessions and over morning tea and lunch.

The most recent Spiritual Outlook programme on Radio New Zealand National is on digital religion and includes an interview with Rachel Wagner (Ithaca College, and author of forthcoming Godwired: Religion. Ritual, and Virtual Reality).

You can listen to the audio here (as well as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files). Podcast link is http://www.radionz.co.nz/podcasts/spiritualoutlook

Rachel was also interviewed recently over at Second Life (after death) – Tech 24 talks religion, faith apps and video gaming with Rachel Wagner | Les blogs

Related links:

Baylor University’s ‘Christian Reflection’ publication series (which is part journal, part study guide) has a special issue on the theme of Virtual Lives (including the article “Religious Authority in the Age of the Internet” by Heidi Campbell and Paul Teusner). See Baylor University || Christian Ethics || Virtual Lives to access the whole issue or individual contributions.
James McGrath points to a downloadable book of conference papers (“Visions of the Human in Science Fiction & Cyberpunk”) which includes some reflections on virtual religion. See his post over at: Exploring Our Matrix: A Long Overdue Book: Visions of the Human in Science Fiction & Cyberpunk
.

I’ve been wondering when something like this might happen. Various gatherings happen around the place – bibliobloggers, panels at conferences and other events, and then the non-denominational gatherings around religious blogging – but I can’t remember seeing anything else like this. Any other similar events around?

Vatican invites bloggers to first-ever summit – Religion and Beliefs – NZ Herald News

Clearing out random saved links from the web browser and came across these related posts:

Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church

Why Millennials are leaving church … you won’t believe this | Jesus Creed

Hat tip to Heidi Campbell for this conference announcement.

International Conference on Digital Religion 2012
The Center for Media, Religion, and Culture at the University of Colorado-Boulder has announced an International Conference on Digital Religion, to be held 12-15 January 2012 in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

‘Digital Religion” today includes a myriad of examples: an evangelical mommy blogging community, a Jewish online dating service, a virtual pilgrimage of the Muslim ritual of Hajj, offering Poojas on an online Hindu Temple service, a YouTube series of an ex-Catholic nun, the invention of Kosher phones, playing “Al-Quraysh”, a Muslim video game, an Anglican Church on Second Life, or a religious iPhone app like iTalk to God. What is striking about the proliferation of this digital religious culture is not only the creative adoption of new technologies, but also the challenges and possibilities these technologies offer for religious meaning-making in modern society. Both individuals and religious institutions today vigorously appropriate interactive forms of media generating new religious deliberative spaces, religious publics and counterpublics, and competing sources of authority, and collapsing in the process old boundaries of what constitutes the religious realm.

This international conference will bring together scholars of media and religion and producers of digital religion content from a variety of religious traditions to reflect on the implications of these developments. Papers and panels may address, but should not be limited to questions such as:

Theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of digital religion ? Relationships between offline and online forms of religious practice ?The emergence of networked religious communities ?The cultivation of authority and legitimacy in digital religious spaces ?Digitization of religion and the implications for scriptural text dissemination and reception ? Mediatization of religion in digital spaces ? Technological mediation and religious authenticity ? Representations of religion in digital platforms ? Intersections of religion and the market ? Influence on the religious public sphere ? questions of mundane, “banal” or “implicit” religion ? Digital religious transnationalism ? Religious aesthetics and sensations in digital forms ? Religions and spiritualities in social networking ? Generational and demographic difference and issues

Digital Religion is a conference of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture. For more information or for the full CFP, contact: Stewart M. Hoover, Director: hoover@colorado.edu, or Nabil Echchaibi, Associate Director: nechchai@gmail.com.

2011 ANZCA Conference

Communication on the edge: Shifting boundaries and identities
Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) 2011 Conference
The University of Waikato, Hamilton, 6-8 July 2011

The Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) conference will be hosted by the Department of Management Communication and the Screen and Media Studies Programme at The University of Waikato.
The conference aims to create opportunities for wide-ranging discussion of communication research, teaching, and practice, including, but not restricted to:

• Theoretical development with an innovative ‘edge’
• Empirical research from diverse perspectives
• Creative practice

Call for Papers for the Media and Religion section (chaired by Ann Hardy at Waikato) closes 7 February.

Missed this when it came out last year – an issue of the Princeton Theological Review oriented around the theme of ‘The Church after Google’.

You can get a list of all the past issues here (with download links).

Or just download Issue 43 (Fall 2010) The Church after Google directly (PDF).

Content of issue:

• Theology and the Church After Google – Philip Clayton
• The Separation of Church and Status: How Online Social Networking Helps and Hurts the Church – Brett McCraken
• Gospel Truth in the Age of Google – Rachel Johnson
• The Canon After Google: Implications of a Digitized and Destabilized Codex – Ched Spellman
• Faith Comes From Hearing: The Scandal of Preaching in a Digital Age – Matt O’Reilly
• Virtual World Churches and the Reformed Confessions – Neal Locke
• ‘Thou Hast Given Me a Body’: Theological Anthropology and the Virtual Church – Travis Pickell
• Hacking into the Church Mainframe: A Theological Engagement of the Post-Informational World – Henry Kuo
• Theo-Blogging and the Future of Academic Theology: Reflections from the Trenches – David Congdon & Travis McMaken
• Theological Blogging: A Contradiction in Terms? – Brian Brock

Hat tip to Andrew Picard.