Fragmented religion: A conversation between Gary R. Bunt and Fouad Gehad Marei on spirituality in the digital age

Spirituality is an essential part of people’s lives. But what happens when this life has become inseparable from the digital media? This is the question prompting a conversation between two researchers who analyse the form religion and spiritual identity take online and their influence on the physical life of religions or on religious practice.

Fouad Gehad Marei is a researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) of Berlin who specialises in religious and Islamic studies, digital and material religion, Shiite Islam and heritage. Gehad started studying the digital dynamics of Muslim communities through sheer serendipity, as he recounts it: just as COVID-19 made it impossible for researchers to conduct fieldwork, it also forced communities to focus their practice in the digital space, which prompted new questions for his research. Gary R. Bunt has been focusing his research on the digital practices of Muslim communities for decades. This field sparked his interest when he was doing fieldwork in Malaysia and Pakistan, where more and more people were making religious queries online and getting involved in online dialogues. Bunt is currently principal investigator of the project ‘Digital British Islam’ and co-researcher in ‘Digital Islam across Europe’ (DIGITISLAM).

The conversation was moderated by Avi Astor, a sociologist from the Research on the Sociology of Religion (ISOR) research group and the principal investigator of the Spanish DIGITISLAM team.

• Constant connection defines our everyday lives. What effect does this have on religious practice? What is the relationship between the virtual and the physical?

Fouad Gehad Marei: To start, I believe that the claim that there is an online and an offline space is very difficult to defend right now. There is not a real world and a virtual world; instead, there is a very close connection between them, even in religious contexts. Discussions that happen online affect physical life so much that there are cases of digital harassment that lead to institutional disapproval or even expulsion from temples. There are also physical spaces where virtual interactivity has come to stay: a QR code is needed to enter some temples, such as the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico, and Mecca in Medina. They are used to control the flow of people. Therefore, I believe that both spaces are profoundly intertwined, so we’re talking about the same thing or parts of the same thing.

Gary R. Bunt: I think this is truer in some contexts than in others. In mosques today some people use an iPad to recite the prayers or coordinate the rhythm. That’s an undeniable reality. But it is also true that these are generational practices related to the level of digital literacy, so I don’t think we can make sweeping generalisations. It’s contextual, and it’s much more interesting if we look at it case by case, because it can vary a lot.  However, what Fouad said is true: the digital space is also extremely influential, even for people who are offline, due to the dialogues and interpretations swarming the Internet. Many things are happening that are trickling down to the most basic levels.

• Would you say that there is a digital spirituality, or that at the very least one can have an experience that minimally resembles spirituality in digital spaces?

GRB: In the past, we would have said no, you have to be physically present at the temple, but COVID-19 changed this paradigm. Some authorities encouraged their followers to attend digital events, which I find funny bearing in mind that years earlier those same authorities were questioning the role of the Internet.

FGM: What do we define as a spiritual experience? It’s a connection to another world, and it’s an important experience in traditions like Hinduism, Catholicism and Islam, which are very experiential. From this standpoint, there are technological innovations that are interesting to think about. In fact, I recently focused on my research on virtual reality and how it is used in contexts like religion. I perceived that even though there is an element of community that occurs in religious spaces but is lost with immersive technology, there are other experiences that become more important: you no longer have to imagine the saints, the eschatology or the lives of the prophets; now you can experience them.

I began studying material religion, objects, sounds, smells, the transmission of abstract concepts through touch, sight, sensitivity. This kind of immersion has always existed in religion, but what is interesting with the emerging immersive technologies is that the person seated next to you disappears. You no longer see your mother, your cousin or your neighbour when you shift your gaze from the church dome. There is a kind of isolation. These tools were previously used for tours of some pilgrimage sites like Karbala, Jerusalem and the Indus River.

GRB: Well, immersion may be good for the soul. Maybe you can actually have what we would call a religious experience. Some of the practices which are performative or ritual in nature can certainly be presented online. And it seems like if you’re wearing earphones, if you’re actively listening in the right place, you could have a spiritual experience. But obviously, watching these videos on the underground would not be the same.

And then setting aside these specific innovations like virtual reality, we still have to ask ourselves what we mean by spiritual experience and the role that the vast amount of content we are exposed to plays in it Yes, it can be immersive to constantly receive updates of prayers and sermons, it could be a way of life, if you will, but the constant ‘ping’ (notification) of the mobile phone… Where do we set the limit? We have to think about how to mediate all this because it has a major effect on people’s lives.

• You have both mentioned religious authorities’ attitudes towards technological innovations. Could you talk more about that?

FGM: It’s a curious dynamic. First, the large institutions and religious authorities resist them. They’ve done so since the invention of the printing press. But even though they come around to these tools somewhat late, when they come they try to establish their authority over them and use them to mediate and preserve the production of knowledge. This has been crystal clear with organisations like the Al-Azhar Observatory and the Catholic Church, which are now pioneers in the field of digital religion.

GRB: Yes, all innovations have been a challenge for religious authorities. In the digital sphere, since the advent of the first search engines, there has been a challenge from these technologies. At first, they thought that the Internet would not take off or have an impact. But soon platforms like IslamOnline and Islam Q&A appeared, and things started to change. These platforms’ voices provided specific interpretations, the opinions of ‘scholars’ who offered advice on issues that can be extraordinarily personal, including life-and-death matters.

• What challenges do these voices or influencers pose for traditional religious authorities?

GRB: The advent of these platforms challenged the traditional dynamics because they replaced the voice of the mosque, which could sometimes entail a threat to its security. This is coupled with the steep increase in a custom that existed among believers before, when they used to make telephone inquiries, namely searching for the opinion or interpretation that is the most convenient for each person. They would pick up the phone, the authority would offer a response that had taken them years to reach, and if they didn’t like it they’d call the next one. And this has only expanded with digital searches.

Regarding the latter, we also have to ask about the source of information and the knowledge found in these searches. The Internet is a chaotic market filled with disinformation, which can be extremely confusing because it is full of purported ‘authorities’.  All the information just flows; there is no culling and no gatekeepers.

FGM: This is compounded by the fact that as a whole, users can influence the information flow via clicks and views. There is no mediation by an authority who discerns where the information comes from; instead, there is an algorithmic order which is unconsciously affected by users’ actions. Given this, what I am interested in is not whether there is a challenge resulting from these dynamics but how religions change, which is the constant in all the cases we’ve discussed. Because one key factor in religions changing is how knowledge is produced and spread. Today, religious knowledge has become fragmented, and responses are given out of context, without the voices of experienced people, jurists, rabbis, theoreticians. The religious content found online meets the modern information market. If you inquire about a saint, you want quick answers, not 300 years of debates on whether or not what they did is a miracle.

It’s true that this can be useful, but it also makes religious knowledge superficial, affects its quality and leads to extremism and sectarianism.

• How are the authorities responding to these dynamics or challenges?

GRB: Well, how do we define ‘traditional authorities’? To me, an authority may be that person in the corner of a mosque who is totally inept at online dynamics. The younger generations, whether Gen-Z or Gen Alpha, are not interested in what the person in the corner has to say. Maybe they find talking to them too trying. But lots of other things are trying, too.

FGM: Maybe we should also mention the fact that religious authorities are adapting to all of this. There’s the example of the imam at the Memorial Mosque in Moscow, who is both a traditional imam in the pulpit and a coach on the social media, combining two different types of discourses and knowledge.

GRB: True. There are religious organisations that invest a great deal of time into their social media in the hopes of having an impact. But they are often competing with influencers who have a massive online footprint. Indonesia is an interesting case where there are many influencers with Islamic interests who speak about religious practice in their day-to-day lives, with sleek posts with lots of images. They even sell products. They are quite adept at the dynamics that operate online, while you also have platforms like that of the Naqshbandi Muslim Sufism, which contains countless videos of people talking about different topics.

• You’ve mentioned issues that are intrinsic to the social media: they limit, fragment and determine the content we consume and how we consume it. How does this affect the digital dynamics of religions and the way the general public perceive religious groups?

FGM: I think that the social media and the culture of influencers is actually just the continuation of a long-standing tradition of religious activism. Things like televangelism have existed for years. The social media have exponentially increased their scope and regularity. We no long have to wait for anything; we’re constantly being inundated. Plus, it is increasingly difficult to blame the content creator for the information they post, and this is particularly dangerous and facilitates the promotion of attitudes like misogyny and LGTB-phobia.

In this sense, and especially with the current climate in Europe, I think it’s important to talk about a specific type of disinformation, the kind that tells only part of the story while omitting part of the information. This dynamic, regardless of whether it comes from active censure or algorithmic order, shapes the narrative and perpetuates extremism, violence and hate speech, within religious, as well.

GRB: One example is the Red Pill movement, associated with Andrew Tate, where, among other things certain interpretations of Islam have been used to justify misogynistic positions. In these cases, it’s no longer about algorithmic order or the confirmation bias that is intrinsic to the way the Internet works. Here it’s the people themselves implementing and spreading opinions directly, with definitive answers as to what is or is not a religion.

FGM: Yes, and one tool for this kind of attitude is translation apps, where verses from the Quran, the Torah or the Hindu scriptures are sent to be translated outside their textual context, which enables any position to be justified, ignoring an entire tradition and extrapolating information and conclusions with religious significance.

• Can these dynamics be subject to regulations in order to limit their influence on the production of religious knowledge? Can they be controlled? Or does this perhaps only require an educational process to train users on how to consume information in a more informed way?

GRB: Although I hate to generalise, I think that there has been a change in our attention span. If the answer doesn’t come in a few minutes, you change website. And this happens in religious settings, too, and the way we mediate information is affected. This obviously has advantages, like reaching the heart of the matter quickly, but you also miss a lot of nuance.

FGM: Yes, but at the same time we can find differences in these ways information is usually produced and consumed. The traditions that are more individualistic, more activist, more revisionist, perhaps, and less associated with religious institutions have an online presence in which what we’ve been discussing applies a lot . This includes evangelical religions and Muslim Salafism. In contrast, there are branches of Judaism, Islam and Christianity which adhere very strongly to the institution. The content creators from these traditions make a concerted effort to check the validity of their content with the assistance of prominent religious authorities. But making these initial inquiries is a personal choice, and the possibility of damage control after the fact is diminishing.

GRB: There have been some attempts to create gatekeeper algorithms, or even people who can help to filter part of this information and guide users through all the data. This is what some influencers are trying to do, too.

FGM: In my case, even though I understand the need for some level of oversight, the figure of the gatekeeper sparks some sense of fear in the current climate, with the economic policy of the digital industries. We have seen this with some governments, like Trump’s office, where big tech is no longer promoted by the state but is the state. In my opinion, promoting forms of oversight in this framework would result in a terrible merger of big companies of the metaverse, major religious institutions that exert control and governments, an ‘evil trinity’.

GRB: I do not endorse the tactic of the gatekeeper, of course, but I understand that it’s a logical solution. Ultimately, we can also draw parallels with the information control that occurs in the written press or in education. For example, in schools in the United Kingdom, an Islam based on Wahhabism (a branch of Suni Islam) is taught, while all the other traditions are ignored. They lump them all together.

FGM: And this is now happening online. Just because a country or an institution sinks money in the digital space in a certain way, the algorithm is influenced and users get a single interpretation without being aware that it is just one of many. Diversity is being eradicated.

• On this issue of diversity, do you think that interfaith dialogues can take place in the digital space?

FGM: Although I don’t want to be pessimistic, I think that this kind of dialogue would be difficult because of the way the digital technologies work. The algorithm emphasises confirmation biases and news bubbles. However, perhaps if the networks were intentionally mobilised in the opposite direction, if we turned them around, they could be very effective tools for this purpose. We could read, see and feel things that we could never experience otherwise. But this requires an intentional intervention in the technology. Here is one clear example: there is a virtual reality laboratory here in Barcelona that allows you to experience life through the eyes of a sex worker, or a racialised person being questioned by the police. It could also be used to experience other people’s faith and culture through empathy.

GRB: This could lead to situations of empathy. You could be part of a community and connect with another. But I believe that interfaith dialogue is hindered by the way we get and construct information. In many cases, information searches on Google mean sticking with the top results, which are seldom informative or positive.

Gary R. Bunt and Fouad Gehad Marei opened the event ‘Digital religions: Technological and spiritual transformations’, which was held on 13 and 14 February at the Pati Llimona Civic Centre, organised by the Office of Religious Affairs (OAR) and chaired by Avi Astor and DIGITISLAM. You can see the report on the event here and pictures of the different talks and panel discussions here.