Elizabeth Pyatt, a Penn State Instruction Designer, participated in New Media Consortium's 2008 summer conference. There she attended a presentation by Edward Lamoureux of Bradley University, titled "Expanding our Knowledge About Online Religion and Religion Online."

This presentation reports research about online religion and religion online (OR/RO) in virtualSecond Life communities. Extant literature about OR/RO is based on, primarily, text-basedinteractions via email, listserves, and bulletin boards, or relatively static websites. The expandedbehavior potentialities in virtual environments, such as Second Life, provide transformativeopportunities for OR/RO. Research therein sheds light on new horizons for the use of technologyin spiritual practice.

Ms Pyatt wrote a detailed blog entry about the session. Her notes mentioned that Lamoureux remembered that other great media revolution (Gutenberg), explored the question is whether the Internet can be used as a source of information only or whether actual religuous ritual can happen online, analyzed the interest in building elaborate churches in Second Life ("the act of building is itself a religious or meditative activity for many people") and coveed how the Internet is a double-edged sword for religious groups.

Reading Religion Dispatches will slowly introduce me to more people who write, study, work on the topic of religion and the internet. On Labor Day I read about a new online game based on the Bible. The author, Rachel Wagner, explains what a MMORTS (massively multiplayer online real-time strategy) is and how this kind of games work.

I read a creative connection in a current column of Religion Dispatches. In "The Amish and the Myth of the Simple Life" Elizabeth Drescher compares the digital hyperconnectivity of teenagers with the communitarian culture of the Amish. I liked so much the freshness of  this idea that checked out the author's other writings at the same site. They were equally impressive. Here are some quotes, relevant to this blog Forget Right or Wrong - Why the National Day of Prayer is Obsolete

...social media sites have done more than increase the frequency with which Americans “use” the internet in the context of their faith lives. Digital social media have made it clear that the Internet is not a tool, but a place: a locale for religious seeking, expression, engagement, and other practices that are increasingly woven into the fabric of daily life by wireless technologies...

Medieval Multitasking: Did We Ever Focus?

my brain has been damaged by my affinity for digital media...almost every morning my friend Diane’s husband Hans “likes” the daily quote I post. Lots of people do, depending on the quote, though Hans is particularly attentive about it. It seems kind of like a spiritual practice. A little prayer....My mind might be going on the digital fritz, but, like my medieval exemplars, I’m saved by the fact that I don’t have to think alone.

The Pope and Social Media: A Digital Counter-Reformation?

...the Pope’s message, starting with the title, “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word,” made clear that the Vatican did not intend to engage in the sort of wide interactivity, distribution of authority, and mashing of diverse perspectives that is characteristic of the Web 2.0 world. The message makes clear that the task of proclaiming the Word of God belongs primarily to priests, and that they must be trained to be actively present on in the internet...

Having read four incisive pieces I wanted to know more about the author. She "is a religion writer and scholar of Christian spiritualities who teaches at Santa Clara University." What impressed me the most on her own site, elizabethdrescher.net--beyond her skills in critical thinking and knowledge of the topic, scholarly merits-- is how she managed to combine left and right brain activities, how she can write from a whole person's perspective:

As a person of faith in a pluralistic, post-Christian, and post-traditional world, I attempt to practice a spirituality of inclusiveness, critical reflection, and practical engagement with those in need.

I am looking forward for her upcoming book Tweet if U ♥ Jesus: Leadership, Communications, and Community for the Digital Reformation, to be released in Fall 2010." Meanwhile I follow her on Twitter.

Last week I posted about Heidi Campbell's article on iPhone4 as religion. Since the, on Friday, she posted another entry on her blog as a reaction to a furry of emails by angry Mac fans. They reacted not to the academic article, not even to the article in a popular magazine, but to a misquote of Campbell's words on Fox News. She explains it all in her post. The short version is that the journalist deduced that she was making the claim that "Apple is a religion." based on the following written answer she gave to a question:

"The religious like behavior and language surrounding Apple devotion/fandom could be interpreted as an example of 'implicit religion', where secular activities/rituals & artifacts take on sacred like attributes due to how they are used and viewed by some fans. Implicit religion demonstrates technology use can take on a religious role or quality in postmodern culture when it substitutes for belief and behaviours once attached to religion and religious practice."

Heidi Campbell posted a new entry on her blog in which she points out that The Atlantic has a piece in which an article is quoted that she co-authored. The article, written with Antonio C. La Pastina, appeared in the June issue of New Media and Society: How the iPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning

This article explores the labeling of the iPhone as the ‘Jesus phone’ in order to demonstrate how religious metaphors and myth can be appropriated into popular discourse and shape the reception of a technology. We consider the intertextual nature of the relationship between religious language, imagery and technology and demonstrate how this creates a unique interaction between technology fans and bloggers, news media and even corporate advertising. Our analysis of the ‘Jesus phone’ clarifies how different groups may appropriate the language and imagery of another to communicate very different meanings and intentions. Intertextuality serves as a framework to unpack the deployment of religion to frame technology and meanings communicated. We also reflect on how religious language may communicate both positive and negative aspects of a technology and instigate an unintentional trajectory in popular discourse as it is employed by different audiences, both online and offline.