• Jeff Sharlet is one of the authors of Killing the Buddha and Believer, beware, and one of my favourite commentator on religion in American history, politics and journalism. He is about to edit a new book on American religious history, by collecting pieces of literary journalism. I look forward to seeing it out. He talks about it here and seeks help from his blog’s readers.
• Pew has released its fourth edition of The Future of the Internet, and it appears to be a test of people’s responses to arguments introduced by Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google making us stupid?” (see my short post on it here).
• Heidi Campbell writes on her reflections on attending a conference called “Theology after Google” and has got some links to interesting thinkers and talkers whom she met.

Karachi, 20th May 2010

For Immediate Release

Date: 20th May 2010
Time: 5:00 pm
Venue: Karachi Press Club

Defenders of Internet Freedom Protest Against Nationwide Government Ban of Facebook

On Wednesday 19th May 2010, the Lahore High Court ordered the banning of Facebook across Pakistan. Facebook is the world’s most popular social media network and is used by over 400 million globally. In Pakistan, over 2 million people use Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family, conduct business, manage events, and share photos, news, and other content. A few days ago, a page called "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" was created on Facebook asking users to submit drawings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on 20th May 2010. This page, interpreted as blasphemous, has triggered a nationwide ban on the entire Facebook domain.

While we recognize that sites on the Internet are used to spew hatred and incite violence, we steadfastly believe that governments have no right to control access to information. We believe that every citizen has an inalienable right to freely access information and by censoring Facebook, the Government of Pakistan has taken away that right. This action will have a very negative impact on Pakistan, especially considering that countless small businesses, nonprofit organizations, restaurants, art galleries, magazines, and media outlets use Facebook to conduct day-to-day business and share information with their stakeholders.

In 2006, the Supreme Court of Pakistan banned the entire blogspot.com domain for over 18 months over a similar incident where only one blog carried blasphemous cartoons. Thousands of Pakistani bloggers were deprived of the freedom to express themselves and interact with others. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority now has the ability to block specific pages on the Internet and could have banned just the single blasphemous page. As members of civil society and professionals who depend on social media networks for our daily communications, we demand the immediate restoration of Facebook and an end to Internet censorship by the Government of Pakistan.

We would like to invite you to a press conference to discuss the worrying trend of Internet censorship and the resulting impact on civil liberties and the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and information.

Date: 20th May 2010
Time: 5:00 pm
Venue: Karachi Press Club

http://bit.ly/bzuEzg

Digital nation: One of my favourite authors, Douglas Rushkoff, engages some of the really big names in Internet research (danah boyd, Sherry Turkle. etc) in a roundtable discussion on what it means to be online. Issues include parenting, participating in the economy, you know, all things Internet and social and moral panicky-like. It’s part of PBS’s Digital Nation series and website. Lots of videos to watch.

The new landscape of the religion blogosphere: The Immanent Frame presents a new report on blogging about religion, considering its place within the larger blogosphere and what religious bloggers think about blogging. Another post in the blog introduces some contributors and readers.

I’m not going to buy a cat, because I already iz da flava. But I will be sleeping for a few months, and maybe making a quilt, or joining the Quaker movement, or just mucking around on my Playstation.

To the fellows and the committee of the Porticus Fellowship into Media, Religion and Culture, thank you for your continuing support and encouragement. On many occasions you reminded me that I was worth this opportunity. In you I have found a network of friends that spans the planet. Stewart Hoover, Lynn Clark, Adàn Medrano, Jolyon Mitchell, David Morgan and Mary Hess, you have humbled me with your generous support, and have always allowed me to be myself. Particular thanks go to Milja Radovic, Africanus Diedong, Juan Carlos Enriquez and Patricia Bustamante, with whom I have shared everything and whom I consider my global brothers and sisters.

Back home, Adrian Miles and Jenny Weight helped me not just prepare for good research, but introduced me to the principles of fine academia. Thank you for the smiles you maintained while you pushed me, even if I refused to smile back at times.

Spending time inside the mind of Peter Horsfield is a rare and precious privilege. I am happy to stay as his Kimosabe and his Grasshopper for as long as he would like one. Peter is a sage.

Due to the generosity of the Porticus Fellowship, this researcher has been able to present his work all over the world. I am grateful for the friends of have made there, who have supported me in my studies and at presentations. Mia Lövheim, Mark Johns and Chris Helland deserve more than a mention here. Above all, Heidi Campbell has kept herself in close communicado through the years, and has been a deep well of both academic information and personal wisdom. More than that, she has been a best mate.

Dad and Mum, you were babysitters, taxi drivers, bank accounts, and the best parents possible during this time. Thank you.

Megan and AJ, I thank you for letting me be a mediocre father these past four years. I look forward to a lifetime of making it up to you. You were too young for me to expect to have your support, but you never complained. And Kate, my best friend, who has sacrificed more than anyone so I can pursue this dream, may I say that your worst friend loves you for it.

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the emerging church bloggers that I’ve followed since 2006, way back when blogging was even cooler than Facebook. I thank you for following me in return, offering your opinions, advice and support for my researching you. (Matt and Linzc, my face still beams when I remember how we were flirty-fished in Parramatta). You all are prophets, risk takers, carers and comedians. It has been a pleasure getting to know you all, both online and offline.

But I must tell you about the comedy. To describe it in one word: Australian. To expand: irreverent, misplaced, a little off-the-wall and most notable in the faces of the characters than in their words of actions. Truly Brand Nue Dae is a comic masterpiece. If you want to know what good Aussie humour is like, this is it. The movie is willing to forego high production values, superb acting, brilliant cinematography (that we audiences demand after James Cameron and Jane Campion started making movies) in order to bring you characters you want to connect with. It succeeds to the point that you forgive the makers for not making a “fine piece of cinema”.

As all good musicals do, and all “good movies” fail to do, this story seeks the redemption of all people, celebrates the possibility of reconciliation in culture, and refuses to judge the good and bad in our history. It attests that white religion has something to say for its part in the subjugation of indigenous, but at the same time recognises that the Church, as other Western institutions, can be forgiven for this. It points to the effects of racism in Australia’s education system, police system, etc., while at the same time acknowledges there is truth somewhere in the stereotypes that Aborigines carry. Every character is heavily flawed, inherently worthy of love, and capable of turning their loves around.

Maybe I’m tired from staying up late, but this was the movie that made me laugh when I was crying.

Special issue of "Online ? Heidelberg Internet Journal", due for publication in October 2010

We herewith invite scholars from Religious, Cultural, Social, Media Studies and other related disciplines to hand in proposals for possible articles which deal with questions of the aesthtics and sensual dimensions of religions and rituals on the Internet.

When we look on the various representations of religious groups and individuals on personal homepages, in weblogs, in virtual worlds or the like and when we follow their communications on religious topics online, the visual and auditive aspects of the medium seem to play a major role. Using pictures, videos, icons, as well as music and other sounds, the internet users can design a multisensual virtual environment which might implicate its own notion of ‘aesthetics’. This might be the case in e.g. a virtual Church environment which is embedded in an area with plashy waterfalls and bird sound instead of organ music or for religious groups in social networks who link to home-made Youtube videos, online games and other homepages. But we also must not forget the connection to these sensual dimensions that refer to and rely on the (offline) bodies of religious practitioners.

Religions and rituals on the Internet might most probably provoke emotional or other physical reactions. Furthermore, in transfer processes between the offline and online realm there might be a redefinition of what seems to be an ‘appropriate’ design for religious settings.

As the aesthetic and sensual dimensions of religions and rituals on the internet are so far a mostly neglected area of research, we call upon theoretical and methodical reflection as well as on empiric studies referring to these topics. We are looking forward to receive the title and a short abstract (max. 250 words) of the planned article until 31st of March 2010.

Further important dates and deadlines are:
April 15th: Notification on the acceptance of your proposal by the editors
August 31st: Submission deadline for full article
September 15th: Deadline for comments, requests of revisions by the editors (if necessary)September 31st: Submission deadline for revised articles
November, 1st: Publication of the Online Journal

Please send your abstract to the following Email-addresses:
Simone.Heidbrink AT zegk.uni-heidelberg.de
Nadja.Miczek AT zegk.uni-heidelberg.de

Here are some pictures of all the people I met at the various colleges and seminaries. Everyone was beautifully welcoming, and treated me like royalty. These guys should be careful because a white guy like me could get very used to that.

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It’s also because Kerala is one of the world’s most religious places on the planet, and when it comes to religious diversity, may be one of the world’s most peaceful. Though predominantly Hindu, Kerala claims to be the oldest Christian and Muslim missionary outposts. It is believed St Thomas arrived with his Gospel as early as 60AD, and many say that European colonialists of the second millennium were so cut to find the place already Christianised. Here we have photos of the Syrian Orthodox Church of St Thomas (you know him, that guy who didn’t really believe Jesus came back, and according to the Syrians, was the only witness of Mary’s Assumption), and a complex to commemorate his arrival at the point of his disembarkation. The shrine inside allegedly contains a piece of his arm. A bell tolls automatically at the shrine’s opening, calling all pilgrims, including many who have come from some other parts of his corpse in Ortona, Italy.

According to my good mate Fr Jose, my gracious host throughout my stay, Kerala is about forty percent, Christian, and the Catholic:Protestant:Evangelical ration is about 2:1:1. Though of all religious advertising that I could see on TV and posters and billboards on every street, most were either Hindu or Evangelical. Indeed January and February seem to be the state’s festival season, and the time for the world’s pilgrims to come together, whether they be Hindu, Hare Krishna, Jane or how-cool-is-JC-right-now dudes. And like Hindus, Christians proudly wear their religion of the sleeve, and their house, and their car etc. I couldn’t tell if way they adorned themselves or their belongings was more to evangelise than it was some breed of Animist-Christian sanctification.

Though there are about as many Christians in Kerala as there are Hindus, Islam is running a very close third (a ratio of about 4:4:3). Islam has been here since the seventh century, and was welcomed by the people, to the extent that the first mosque was commissioned by the then Hindu king. The mosque itself contains a museum that celebrates not only Islam but the state’s Hindu and Christian heritage. Its curator wanted to offer a tour of the entire complex, and told much of how the three religions lived and worked in harmony in Kerala, but he found it difficult to share my attention with all the attendants present who wanted to tell me their own stories of the place. I think they saw me as a bit of a weird novelty, and assumed that because I greeted them in Arabic, that I was Muslim. I didn’t really try to correct them– not sure if that was a good thing to do or not.

This above is the mosque, and below is a model of the three major religious centres of Kerala, used in presentations on the place’s history.

But Kerala is also Hindu, and I saw brilliant examples of this. I have actually no idea whether these were weekly events or if it was a particular time of year, but I saw houses and families everywhere being greeted by elephants and drums, and music seemed to fill the air.

Ah, elephants, so many elephants…

In the middle of my first night in the country I was woken by what I thought was the boogey man finally coming to get me, only to discover a little later (after much embarassment) that my room overlooked a hidden Hindu temple, where people meet at all hours to chant. It eventually became my nightly lullaby… (sorry there’s not much to see in this video, but it is like 4am).