I received an email from an overseas mate who asked me why he hasn’t seen any new posts on this site for a while. I must say it’s nice to be missed. I’m in the midst of a sampling period, and I’ve been up most nights transferring information from blogs onto the NVivo program. It takes a lot of time; I’ve transferred over 120,000 words from one blog alone, and I’m only half-way through it. On top of that, we’ve lost some staff at work and I’m filling in some jobs which means more time at work and feeling too exhausted to think.

I presented the framework paper to my supervisor last week who thought it was a good start. It’s thrown a bog question to the research, about religious community. Our religious tratditions have developed theologies, regulations, agendas and rituals around memberships of individuals into religious communities, and of communities into wider networks and communions. The modern era has favoured the formalisation of membership and identity, and print communication facilitated and shaped this. Onlien communication and cyber-culture places new challenges to older notions of being in community with others, and of what consitutues a “religious” communal identity. This is the focus of my next paper, which I hope to have ready and online in two to three weeks.