Digital Theology
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Avatar Discipleship – Who am I engaging with the avatar or the person?
How do you disciple Christians in the metaverse? Is it possible to disciple a person represented by an avatar? Who are you discipling, the avatar or the invisible person it represents? Who are we really engaging with? These are questions often discussed in the church I work with in Virtual Reality (VR). These aren’t just questions that are relevant to VR. According to recent statistics in America[1] over 25 million attend church online. People use the description ‘in person’ for those who attend onsite church, but if we are ‘online’ are we not present ‘in person’ as well? If I attend church via Zoom or YouTube then the experience may…
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A Review of “Corpo:reality – Body and Embodiment in AI and Robotics”
The Corpo:reality – Body and Embodiment in AI and Robotics conference was held in early December in Würzburg, Germany, organised by Netzwerk für Theologie & Künstliche Intelligenz. Elon Musk recently indicated that AI would eliminate the need for all jobs and we will all have robot friends.[1] At the conference Dr. Ilona Nord raised the question will robots replace the pastor or is the physical presence more important? There are uses for robots in social care, industry and even to assist the pastor, but to replace them would remove the physicality. Even with Zoom meetings, YouTube services or in the metaverse, both pastor and congregation need to be physically present,…
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Achieving Authenticity: Dyslexic theology in response to festive Bible reading challenges
I’m doom scrolling on social media when I find myself stopping to read this post: Maybe it’s time to start A New Christmas Tradition. Beginning December 1st, read one chapter of the book of Luke in the Bible each evening. There are 24 chapters. On Christmas Eve you will have read an entire account of Jesus’ life and wake up Christmas morning knowing WHO and WHY we celebrate! At first, I’m mildly amused. The comments are filled with people saying, “I’ll be doing this,” and that it’s “not difficult to achieve.” As a researcher looking at dyslexia and reading the Bible, this is gold. But as a dyslexic Christian who…
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Can you do theology on TikTok?
As theologians, we are used to being on established social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and many of us will have featured on a webinar or lecture series uploaded to YouTube. Why then are so few of us practising theology on TikTok – the world’s most popular social network? Given that the church is desperate to reach a younger demographic and will often criticise the decline in religious literacy, why are we not alongside the people we so desperately want to reach? In this article I argue that theologians need to see TikTok as more than a place for ethnographic study but rather as a legitimate space in…
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The potential impact of closure of Churches in the metaverse
In March 2023 Microsoft ‘sunset’ its metaverse AltspaceVR platform to move its resources to support developing other immersive experiences. This may appear irrelevant to readers, unless you are involved in church mission in the metaverse.[1] Welcome to the metaverse! The term ‘metaverse’ first appears in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash describing a virtual environment where lifelike avatars engage with each other.[2] Thirty years later, it is a vision Silicon Valley are heavily investing in and a few churches (predominantly American) have grasped the vision of the metaverse mission field. However, churches in the metaverse are different, in August 2021 Facebook changed its name to Meta to focus…
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What would Christ tweet? Being a Christian on social media
Over the past month the Bishop of Oxford – and other Church of England bishops – spoke out in support of same-sex marriage. Those of us on Twitter who are LGBT+ and dare to speak up for LGBT+ people have received a torrent of homophobic abuse. Indeed, as I write this, I am on day three of receiving homophobic abuse on Twitter for speaking in favour of same-sex marriage. The response has been deeply unpleasant. Trolling is too kind a word. It’s abuse and it has been relentless. What has surprised me the most is that the overwhelming majority of people sending me abusive messages appear to be Christians. A…
