My vision for our final project is to dig deeper into the ways that religion today is using new media and technology - (and perhaps how the media/technology is using religion). The world today is mediated in a way that is changing so rapidly, and it seems as though we're sometimes running to keep up. Religion also changes with the times and culture, but can it keep up? And beyond that can it use the multitude of new media as a tool?
For example, within the Christian church, a new missions strategy is forming to reach people groups in Africa using mobile phone technology. An important source for this is The Little Phone That Could: Mobile-Empowered Ministry by Keith Williams and Leith Gray which details the project.
Another interesting source is Globalization of the Electronic Media and Universality of Religion: Convergence or Divergence by M. R. Saeidabadi which speaks to how both religion and electronic media have an increasingly global scope and how they interact with each other.
'The Little Phone That Could: Mobile-Empowered Ministry' was a pretty interesting article! It was particularly amusing to know that 'the people of India now have better access to mobile phones than toilets.' It's obvious that the Christian Church is lagging behind in using new technologies and innovations with their faith. I wonder why this is?
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Drew. Part of me thinks that it takes people a while to embrace anything new, especially in "The Establishment of Religion". Have any thoughts as to why the Christian Church is lagging behind? One of the reasons I'm so interested in this project is it seems like maybe now, the Church is trying to catch up.
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