Product Description

Religion and Cyberspace explores how religious individuals and groups are responding to the opportunities and challenges that cyberspace brings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #411340 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From the Back Cover
In the twenty-first century, religious life is increasingly moving from churches, mosques and temples onto the Internet. Today, anyone can go online and seek a new form of religious expression without ever encountering a physical place of worship, or an ordained teacher or priest. The digital age offers virtual worship, cyber-prayers and talk-boards for all of the major world faiths, as well as for pagan organisations and new religious movements. It also abounds with misinformation, religious bigotry and information terrorism. Scholars of religion need to understand the emerging forum that the web offers to religion, and the kinds of religious and social interaction that it enables.

Religion and Cyberspace explores how religious individuals and groups are responding to the opportunities and challenges that cyberspace brings. It asks how religious experience is generated and enacted online, and how faith is shaped by factors such as limitless choice, lack of religious authority, and the conflict between recognised and non-recognised forms of worship. Combining case studies with the latest theory, its twelve chapters examine topics including the history of online worship, virtuality versus reality in cyberspace, religious conflict in digital contexts, and the construction of religious identity online. Focusing on key themes in this groundbreaking area, it is an ideal introduction to the fascinating questions that religion on the Internet presents.

About the Author
Morten T. Højsgaard is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History of Religions at the University of Copenhagen, and is editor of the journal Den digtale kirke (The Digital Church). Margit Warburg is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Copenhagen. Her books include Baha'i (2004) and New Religions and New Religiosity (1998, co-edited with Eileen Barker).

Lorne L. Dawson, Stephen D. O'Leary, Eileen Barker, David Piff, Massimo Introvigne, Mia Lövheim, Alf G. Linderman, Mun-Cho Kim, Debbie Herring, Michael J. Laney, Mark MacWilliams