WIT Repository

Short video explaining how to submit an assignment through Moodl

Widger, Laura

Burns, Gary

Moodle Student Guide: How to submit an assignment

O'Brien, H

Debate
What does the rise of
digital religion during
Covid-19 tell us about
religion’s capacity
to adapt?
Hazel O’ Brien
Department of Applied Arts, Waterford Institute of
Technology, Waterford, Ireland
Will the Covid-19 lockdown weaken the stability of modern religion? Can religion
adapt to a vastly changed society? This article reflects on this and other questions,
to explore what the rise of digital religion during Covid-19 might tell us about the
nature of religion and its capacity for adaptation in uncertain times. Sociologist
Daniele Hervieu-Leger (2000) argued that religion is based on the authority of
tradition and relies on an intergenerational transmission of collective memory of
that tradition in order to sustain itself. This does not mean that religion is static,
nor that the fragmented nature of modernity is incompatible with religion.
Hervieu-Leger (2000: 93) maintains that “modernity has not done away with the
individual’s or society’s need to believe. Indeed, it has been observed that the
uncertainty that flows from the dynamics of change has made the need stronger”.
Acknowledging that the transmission of religious tradition is more challenging in
the contemporary era, Hervieu-Leger (2000: 93) argued that it would nonetheless
persist in different ways than before; “religion retains a creative potential within
modernity”.
Corresponding author:
Hazel O’ Brien, Waterford Institute of Technology, Cork Rd., Waterford, Ireland.
Email: hobrien@wit.ie
Irish Journal of Sociology
0(0) 1–5
! The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0791603520939819
journals.sagepub.com/home/irj
What does that mean? It means that fewer people might identify with their
country’s dominant religion than in previous generations, but some may convert
to another religion instead (Scharbrodt, 2015). It means that people will continue
to use religion as a tool for cultural belonging, even as they reject key Church
doctrine (Inglis, 2007). Hybrid religious practices will gain greater legitimacy
(Brownlee, 2011). Increasingly, people will turn away from institutional religion
for their religious or spiritual needs, such as those who seek out New Age and
alternative spiritualities (Gierek, 2011). Finally, we might see evidence of Hervieu-
Leger’s (2000) argument in those who engage with worldviews and/or practices
which contemporary society has questioned as being “religion” at all (Watt, 2014).
These examples illustrate that we already know religion is malleable, adaptable,
and capable of dealing with rapid change.
The response of religion and of religious individuals to Covid-19 presents us
with an opportunity to examine Hervieu-Leger’s (2000) arguments once more.
What happens to religion when “normal” society shuts down? I imagine that
Hervieu-Leger might suggest that our society has not shut down; that society,
like our need for tradition, continues and adapts. This is evident through an exam-
ination of religion during Covid-19, where it appears that large numbers of regular
church attendees have moved to incorporate online religious attendance, many for
the first time, during Ireland’s lockdown (Ganiel, 2020).
However, there is nothing new about digital religion more broadly. Digital
religion is “the technological and cultural space that is evoked when we talk
about how online and offline religious spheres have become blended or integrated”
(Campbell, 2012: 4–5). Like all other aspects of our 21st century lives, the division
between offline and online life has increasingly blurred (Boellstorff, 2015;
Campbell, 2012). For some adherents, supplementing or even replacing offline
religious community and practice with online alternatives and extensions is old
news. It is important to be mindful of this as a bulwark against superficial report-
ing of the current moment which might suggest that Covid-19 has transformed
religion. Religion is always transforming.
Exactly how offline and online religious worlds integrate will vary according to
the religion, and the wider culture that surrounds it. Some religions are particularly
good at taking advantages of the opportunities that digital technologies have pro-
vided us. Mormonism, my current focus of research, provides a good example.
Within Mormonism, online cultural practices can blur with conventional religious
practice and belief, allowing one to support the other until the distinctions between
them are less clear (Thain, 2012). In this way, people’s use of digital religion offers
an opportunity for some to conform to their religion and to support dominant
narratives about their faith (Burroughs, 2013; Cheong, 2014). For others, digital
technologies create a space in which adherents can challenge or even reject aspects
of their religion. This space is used creatively by those who would perhaps be
hesitant to challenge their religion in “real life” for various reasons (Finnigan
and Ross, 2013).
2 Irish Journal of Sociology 0(0)
It is clear that there has been an acceleration of innovation in digital religion
caused by Covid-19 and its associated lockdowns across the globe. This innovation
is worthy of sociological analysis. As it has done with education through its initiative
Homeschool Hub, Ireland’s public service TV channel RTÉ has taken the lead. It
broadcasts Catholic mass six days a week followed by a religious message from other
denominations called With You in Spirit. People are streaming mass in large num-
bers; RTÉ reports that 1.2 million people have watched church services from Knock
online since mid-March. Virtual pilgrimages are being created, with parishioners in
the Catholic diocese of Cloyne being amongst the first to experience a virtual pil-
grimage of Knock Ireland’s national Marian shrine, located in Co. Mayo (McGrath,
2020). Adherents are also making use of social media to support their faith, joining
groups like The Digital Parish on Facebook.
Across the globe, people are innovating their religious practice. In the United
Kingdom (UK), BBC One has returned to broadcasting Sunday morning services.
In Iran, Muslims are attending drive-in religious ceremonies during Ramadan,
something described by one participant as “creative and beautiful” (AFP TV,
2020). In the United States, early studies show that 40% of regular worshippers
have replaced church attendance with online services instead (Pew Research Center,
2020). Similar to Ireland (McGrath, 2020), it is likely that many of these U.S. church
services are being streamed by church groups who have no previous experience with
community engagement of this kind. A lack of previous experience offers a space in
which novel adaptations of ritual, prayer, and community may emerge.
So, people’s use of broadcast media, social media, blogs, livestreams, podcasts,
forums, and other digital technologies to support, adapt, and challenge their reli-
gious experience is not new in the age of Covid-19. What is new perhaps is how
Covid-19 has made digital religion more visible and accessible to more people,
especially due to recent media coverage of these trends which have brought wide-
spread attention to what is possible within digital religion. Clearly, many who
would not usually tune in to a livestream of mass from Knock are now more
aware that such things can be done and are trying it for themselves. For those
religions which have not made use of digital technologies to the same degree as
others, the current moment may accelerate a transition to greater online integra-
tion. Digital religion has opened itself up to the masses as a result of Covid-19, but
this is an acceleration of a pre-existing development, rather than something new.
As per Hervieu-Leger (2000), people’s need for tradition continues even when
society is no longer structured to sustain that tradition to the same degree.
Sociology has demonstrated that people will claim tradition in innovative ways
to sustain that need. From the “outside” looking “in” at online religious engage-
ment during Covid-19, someone leaving comments on a religious social media page
may not look much like “tradition”. But for an adherent denied physical access to
their church or to the sacraments, this action can be interpreted as maintaining
their link to their parish, as continuing the public declaration of their faith, or as
observing sacred time that would usually be spent in church. For them, the tradi-
tion of their religion may be sustained through such practices. Using this
O’ Brien 3
perspective, we can recognize that what appears at first to an example of change, a
rupture with what has gone before, can also incorporate continuity.
Many want to know if the trends identified in the first half of 2020 symbolize a
fundamental shift in how people will “do” religion in the future. Underpinning this
question is often an assumption that such practices are completely new. However,
emerging research does indicates that many more people are engaging with religion
in this way currently (Newport, 2020). Hutchings and McKenzie (2012: 75) remind
us that the internet is “neither content nor material” yet nonetheless “it structures
what we can do”. The digital world may be ephemerous and ungraspable but it
does physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually affects us, as we affect it.
On this basis, it is reasonable to question if these recent trends are to become
another of religion’s adaptations. Will we see a permanent move towards a weekly
online mass in Ireland’s Catholic parishes where priest numbers are already low?
Could this be a part-solution to Ireland’s vocations crisis? Will this moment allow
for greater ecumenical collaborations across denominations such as the recent UK
initiative Church Support Online? Initiatives such as this demonstrate what is pos-
sible in bridging theological or cultural divides through the use of digital technol-
ogies. A significant question might be to ask if online religious engagement
throughout Covid-19 will have been enough to sustain individual and collective
belonging to religion? Or, will our time in isolation have irrevocably weakened the
tradition that religion rests upon? Following the arguments of Hervieu-Leger
(2000), I think that religion will continue to adapt in fascinating and unexpected
ways, and I will continue to observe with interest.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
ORCID iD
Hazel O’ Brien https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1728-0064
References
AFP TV (2020) Virus-hit Iran holds drive-in religious ceremonies. AFP TV. Available at:
https://youtu.be/igkMxh_S5A8 (accessed 14 May 2020).
Boellstorff T (2015) Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually
Human. New Jersey: Princeton UP.
Brownlee A (2011) Irish Travellers and powerful priests: An alternative response to
New Age healing techniques In: Cosgrove O, et al. (eds) Ireland’s New Religious
Movements. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.97–111.
4 Irish Journal of Sociology 0(0)
Burroughs B (2013) “And I’m a (social media) Mormon”: Digital ritual, techno-faith, and
religious transmedia. QWERTY Rivista interdisciplinare di tecnologia cultura e forma-
zione 8(2): 71–81.
Campbell HA (2012) The rise of the study of digital religion In: Campbell HA (ed.) Digital
Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds. London: Routledge, pp.1–
21.
Cheong PH (2014) “Tweet the message”? Religious authority and social media innovation.
Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture 3(3): 1–19.
Finnigan J and Ross N (2013) “I’m a Mormon Feminist”: How social media revitalized and
enlarged a movement. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 9(November
2016): 1–25.
Ganiel G (2020) Is Ireland turning to religion during the Covid-19 crisis? RTE Brainstorm.
Available at: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0408/1129276-ireland-religion-corona
virus/ (accessed 11 May 2020).
Gierek B (2011) “Celtic Spirituality” in contemporary Ireland In: Cosgrove O, et al. (eds)
Ireland’s New Religious Movements. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, pp.300–318.
Hervieu-Leger D (2000) Religion as a Chain of Memory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hutchings T and McKenzie J (2012) Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the
Sacred. London: Routledge.
Inglis T (2007) Catholic identity in contemporary Ireland: Belief and belonging to tradition.
Journal of Contemporary Religion 22(2): 205–220.
McGrath P (2020) Surge in people viewing church services online. RTÉ. Available at: www.
rte.ie/news/ireland/2020/0507/1137149-mass-online/ (accessed 11 May 2020).
Newport F (2020) Religion and the COVID-19 virus in the U.S., Gallup Polling Matters.
Available at: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/307619/religion-covid-
virus.aspx (accessed 11 May 2020).
Pew Research Center (2020) Most Americans say coronavirus outbreak has impacted their
lives, Pew Research Center social and demograohic trends. Available at: www.pewsocial
trends.org/2020/03/30/most-americans-say-coronavirus-outbreak-has-impacted-their-
lives/?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_307619&utm_medium=copy
(accessed 14 May 2020).
Scharbrodt O (2015) Being Irish, being Muslim. In: Scharbrodt O, et al. (eds) Muslims in
Ireland: Past and Present. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, pp.216–229.
Thain L (2012) Negotiating modesty: Reading Mormon fashion blogs as visual rhetoric.
Viz. Available at: https://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/negotiating-modesty-reading-
mormon-fashion-blogs-visual-rhetoric.html (accessed 11 May 2020).
Watt G (2014) Santo Daime in Ireland: A “work” in process. The Journal of the British
Association for the Study of Religions 16(3): 47–56.
O’ Brien 5


What does the rise of digital religion during Covid-19 tell us about religion’s capacity to adapt?

Short video detailing how to access exam papers in Moodle for the School of Busines

How to access exam papers in Moodle for School of Business

Presentation given by John Hartery at the 'Use of Technology to Support Teaching Practices' Seminar on Wednesday, 21st of May 2008

Hartery, John

John Hartery Presentation on the Use of Technology to Support Teaching Practices

This short video explains how to enroll a student on a course

Moodle Teacher Guide: How to enroll a student on a course

short video explaining how staff can access WIT Task Force Information in Moodl

Accessing WIT Task Force Information in Moodle

Set of slides to accompany internal repository talk

Kane, David

The WIT Repository, Why and How

Presentation given by Eamonn de Leastar at the 'Use of Technology to Support Teaching Practices' Seminar on Wednesday, 21st of May 2008

de Leastar, Eamonn

Eamonn de Leastar Presentation on the Use of Technology to Support Teaching Practices

Screencast explaining MyMoodle

Demonstration of how to enroll on a module in Moodl

Waterford Institute of Technology

Not a member yet