So it seems Tony Abbott is not the only bully in the Parliamentary playground. My old mate from school, Mark Newton, has accused Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Communications, of bullying him into silence over his views against the proposed ISP-level government filter. Research has shown the proposed technology is inaccurate and will lead to poorer performance, but any criticisms are being dealt with inappropriately.
Stephen and Mark had a televised debate on SBS’s Insight, last night. You can watch it here, depending on how many filters you have to go through to get it.
I’m not sure if the same is true today, but in the early nineties when I was studying in Italy, I could walk into most restaurants and find next to some menu items (pizza in particular) an emblem containing the letters DOC. Standing for d’origine controllata (of authorised origin), the emblem is a certificate that the method used in preparing, say, a margherita pizza, is the same as was used to make the dish that Queen Margaret ordered. DOC indicates that the recipe, or wine, or other produce, is authentic. The customer is called to trust that the item to be consumed is authentic, as DOC certification is only given after inspection by a government official. The item is authentic in that it is true to its claims to history and to authority.
According to Marshall (2007), authenticity is a value of modernity that is tied to others such as individualism and personal freedom (p. 105). In late modernity, authenticity is also valued against perceptions of public life as a performance, of fractured and fragmented identities, and of weakening and corruptible power structures in social institutions.
The emerging church movement holds authenticity as a prime value. The whole notion of being “missional” is wrapped in ideals of “being true” to both faith foundations, and to the cultural environment. Emerging churches strip away symbolic practices that are seen to have lost their authenticity – robes, processions, lengthy prayers and litanies – and experiment with new practices that are more true to everyday living and thinking.
Symbolic practices are often the focus of discussion in the emerging church blogosphere: what stays in, what is taken out, by what are they replaced. Bloggers find online a forum to express their concern that modern religious life does not reflect what is “inside them” and a place to explore and evaluate what authentic religious life looks like. For them, the blogosphere is a parliament on the DOC of Christian churches. This parliament is founded on the values associated with the Internet: a place where the etiquettes and rules of proper religious communication are lifted in favour of “getting real”.
Yet – and another hat tip to Marshall – etiquette is found in all sites of human communication, a necessity that functions to “establish the nature of a situation, it’s predictability and whether the people involved can be trusted” (p. 106). Just like the DOC emblem on a restaurant menu, we look to cues to show us that, in a social environment, we can truthfully express what is “inside us”, what is true, and that others are in fact doing the same. So while the blogosphere is perceived as a place where the old rules of etiquette are evicted, other symbolic practices have taken their place. Over the next few posts I’d like to list some, in the hopes some readers could help me think about this topic more by adding their own thoughts and criticisms:
- The downplay
- Irreverence
- The hat tip
- Thanks
- Apologies
A good mate of mine, whom you may have read from time to time, Stephen Garner is one of this hemisphere’s lead scholar in the field of religion, culture and technology. Based in Auckland, he’s recently written a piece for the NZ Herald, which offers readers a primer in researchers’ questions and concerns in approaching online religion and culture. He offers a good introduction into the age-old question about whether religion can stay authentic while virtual at the same time.
I think this excerpt is probably the crux of his article:
The very real spiritual needs being met online for some believers, and the claims they make about the nature of community they find, raise some interesting questions as to just what an authentic religious community looks like.
Can it be found online, or does it need to have a face-to-face flesh and blood element to it?
Though this is a question that theologians and social researchers alike consider most salient in the whole virtual religion topic, I wonder if it’s really a valid question. To me it sets up religion online and in the real world as either-or cases, as if people who go online for religion find something different or discontinuous or not complementary than they would at temple or prayer group. I think the reality, on the other hand, is that people’s experience of religious community is layered, where virtual church and local congregation are environments in which the entire concept of identity and belonging are explored.
I don’t think this is new. The writings of Paul in his epistles were mediations of a Christian identity that were negotiated in distant and far away lands, but always in the context of the houses they were read. The renewal of Papal authority in the counter-reformation was mediated by the publication of the catechism, but only made real in the teaching and homilies of the parish priest. And televangelism made more sense when coupled with the brochures and publications of its movements, and talked about in prayer and study groups.
Likewise, I think the experience of online religion can only be authentic when seen in context of other spheres of religious life. And the converse is true also. Rather than wondering whether religion in a chat room or the blogosphere in real, I think people consider the reality of religion as a whole in virtual contexts. So maybe the question should be: what validity do offline religious constructs give to the Internet, and how does online experience shape the nature of religious identity, belongong and participation?
