Digital theology

Digital theology or cybertheology is the study of the relationship between theology and the digital technology.

Terminology

In Catholic discourse, the more dominant term has been cybertheology.^[1][2][3] There has also been the yearly Theocom symposium since 2012 at Santa Clara University, which has explored topics related to theology and digital communications.^[4]

In more recent discourse related to digital humanities and digital religion, some scholars have begun to use the term "digital theology." They identify four kinds of digital theology:^[5]

1. Digital technology as a pedagogical tool to teach theology
2. Digital technology that opens new methods for theological research
3. Theological reflection on digitality or digital culture
4. The reappraisal and critique of digitality based on theological ethics

They also suggest a fifth aspect of digital theology, which offers a more integrated yet critical use of digital technology in the study of theology and religious belief and practice.^[5]

However, as digital theology is a burgeoning field, much of the literature has been critiqued as having a poor understanding of technology and digital culture.^[6]

Digital church

Much of the research on digital theology relates to church communities online. Some studies have explored churches which only have online existence,^[7] whereas others explore the relationship between how people connect through online and offline communities.^[8] Often the conversation is around the nature of Christian worship and how it changes when in an online format.^[9]

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many churches have needed to implement social distancing measures and make choices to run services online. However, these decisions were often made quite haphazardly and for practical reasons, as opposed to more considered choices about the implications of digitizing church services.^[10] This has resulted in growing revived discussions around what it means to be a church and what being socially distant and being online does to ecclesiology.^[11][12]

See also

• Douglas Groothuis

References

1. Borgman, Erik; Van Erp, Stephan; Haker, Hille, eds. (2005). Cyberspace, Cyberethics, Cybertheology. SCM. ISBN 9780334030829.
2. Spadaro, Antonio (2014). Cybertheology: Thinking Christianity in the Era of the Internet. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823256990.
3. da Silva, Aline Amaro; Gripp, Andréia (9 July 2021). "Cybertheology and Digital Theology: the development of theological reflection on the digital in brazilian Catholic Theology". Cursor_.
4. "TheoCom 2019". Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
5. Phillips, Peter; Schiefelbein-Guerrero, Kyle; Kurlberg, Jonas (1 January 2019). "Defining Digital Theology: Digital Humanities, Digital Religion and the Particular Work of the CODEC Research Centre and Network". Open Theology. 5 (1): 29–43. doi:10.1515/opth-2019-0003.
6. Hutchings, Tim (2015). "Digital Humanities and the Study of Religion". In Svensson, Patrik; Goldberg, David Theo (eds.). Between Humanities and the Digital. MIT Press. pp. 285–286. ISBN 9780262028684.
7. Hutchings, Tim (2017). Creating Church Online: Ritual, Community and New Media. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781136277504.
8. Campbell, Heidi (2005). Exploring Religious Community Online: We are One in the Network. Peter Lang. ISBN 9780820471051.
9. Berger, Teresa (2018). @ Worship: Liturgical Practices in Digital Worlds. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-351-67063-0.
10. Chow, Alexander; Kurlberg, Jonas (November 2020). "Two or Three Gathered Online: Asian and European Responses to COVID-19 and the Digital Church" (PDF). Studies in World Christianity. 26 (3): 298–318. doi:10.3366/swc.2020.0311. hdl:20.500.11820/01990e2e-a9ea-47c4-bf8f-a0315bab65da. S2CID 226353248.
11. Campbell, Heidi (2020). The Distanced Church: Reflections on Doing Church Online. Digital Religion Publications. doi:10.21423/distancedchurch.
12. Campbell, Heidi (2020). Digital Ecclesiology: A Global Conversation. Digital Religion Publications. doi:10.21423/digitalecclesiology.