The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion

The recently-coined term digital religion refers to the understanding that contemporary religion is practiced in both online and offline contexts, and these contexts intersect with one another. Scholars of digital religion recognize that religion is increasingly influenced and informed by its interactions with computer-mediated, digital technologies, including not only the different manifestations of the internet, but other emerging forms of technology, such as mobile phones and video games.

The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion will provide a comprehensive overview of religion as seen and performed through these various media, platforms, and cultural spaces. The text will cover religious engagement with a wide range of digital media forms (including social media, websites, gaming environments, virtual and augmented realities, etc.) and highlight examples of technological engagement and negotiation within the major world religions (i.e. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism), as well as significant subgroups. And because of the interdisciplinary nature of the field, the Handbook will be led by co-editors representing the fields of religious studies and communications, both with experience in how those disciplines intersect.

Heidi A. Campbell is Professor of Communication, affiliate faculty in Religious Studies and a Presidential Impact Fellow at Texas A&M University. She is also director of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies, and a founder of Digital Religion studies. She is author of over 100 articles and eleven books including When Religion Meets New Media (2010), Digital Religion (2013/2021) and Digital Creatives and the Rethinking Religious Authority (2021).

Pauline Hope Cheong is Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication and affiliate faculty at the Center on Technology, Data and Society, and the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University. She has published more than 100 articles and books and has co-led funded research projects on technology, religion, and culture, including AI and governance.

1. Introduction to the Study of Digital Religion
Heidi A. Campbell and Pauline Hope Cheong

Part I: Religious Engagement with Social Media

2. Christianity and Digital Media: Different Traditions and Different Aims
Stefan Gelfgren

3. Buddhism and Digital Media
Daniel Veidlinger

4. Islam and Digital Religion
Ibrahim N. Abusharif

5. Past, Present and Potential Futures of Digital Hinduism Research
Xenia Zeiler

6. Digital Judaism
Oren Golan

7. Sikh Digital Media
Jasjit Singh

8. New Religious Movements and the Internet
Margarita Simon Guillory

9. Secularism, Atheism and Digital Media
Teemu Taira

Part II: Explorations in Religious Community and the Internet

10. Digital Contours of the Black Church in North America and Community Online
Erika Gault

11. Mosques and churches and technology in Southeast Asia
Tan Meng Yoe

12. Religion and Online Community in African Contexts
Bala A. Musa and Agnes Lucy Lando

13. Digital Diasporas and The Religious Reproduction Of "Home"
Orlando Woods

Part III: Performing Religious Identity Online

14. Navigating Religious Identity and Embodiment in Digital Games
John W. Borchert

15. Gender and Agency in Digital Religion
Mia Lövheim

16. Hidden Religious Identities Online: Digital Religion and LGBTQIA+ Individuals
Ruth Tsuria

17. Islam, Digital Media, and Identity
Fazlul Rahman

18. Muslims Enacting Identity: Gender Through Digital Media
Eva F. Nisa

19. Digital Materiality in Protestant Evangelical Christianity
Robbie B. H. Goh

Part IV: Questions of Religious Authority in Digital Contexts

20. Authority and Communication: Dialectical Tensions and Paradoxes in Religious Organizing
Pauline Hope Cheong

21. Approaching Religious Authority Through the Rise of New Leadership Roles Online
Heidi A. Campbell

22. Challenges in Jewish Communities Online
Chen Sabag-Ben Porat, Hananel Rosenberg, and Menahem Blondheim

23. Mediatization and Religious Authority in Scandinavia
Henrik Reintoft Christensen

24. Religious Populism in the Digital Age
Magali do Nascimento Cunha

25. Religious Authority and Participatory Social Action in Indian Networks
Benson Rajan

Part V: Virtue Formation and Ethical Considerations about Technology

26. Value Formations through Digital Gaming
Gregory Price Grieve, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, and Xenia Zeiler

27. Building Virtue Through App Cultures: How Do Digital Religions Provide the Resources as Ideological, Social, and Transcendent Contexts?
Sarah A. Schnitker

28. Bible Reading and Interpretation in a Digital Age
Peter M. Phillips

29. Considering Religious Education and Online Pedagogy: The (Trans)Formative Potential of Theological Higher Education
Kutter Callaway, Tommy Lister, and Sara Wells

Part VI: Religious Reflections on Emerging Technology and Our Digital Future

30. Digital Religion: A Methodological Approach
Johanna Sumiala

31. Theoretical Approaches in Digital Religion Studies
Giulia Evolvi

32. Posthumanism and Digital Religion
Oliver Krüger

33. Robots, Ethics, and Digital Religion: Initial Considerations
Simon Balle and Charles Ess

34. Death, Religion, and Digital Media
Maggi Savin-Baden

35. Pocket Memorials: Digital Death and the Smartphone
Candi K. Cann

36. Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Religion
Mohammad Yaqub Chaudhari

37. Digital Religion Futures: Propositions and Complexities in the Now and Not Yet
Pauline Hope Cheong and Heidi A. Campbell