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Burns, Gary

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O'Brien, H

DebateWhat does the rise ofdigital religion duringCovid-19 tell us aboutreligion’s capacityto adapt?Hazel O’ BrienDepartment of Applied Arts, Waterford Institute ofTechnology, Waterford, IrelandWill the Covid-19 lockdown weaken the stability of modern religion? Can religionadapt 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 thenature of religion and its capacity for adaptation in uncertain times. SociologistDaniele Hervieu-Leger (2000) argued that religion is based on the authority oftradition and relies on an intergenerational transmission of collective memory ofthat 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 theindividual’s or society’s need to believe. Indeed, it has been observed that theuncertainty that flows from the dynamics of change has made the need stronger”.Acknowledging that the transmission of religious tradition is more challenging inthe contemporary era, Hervieu-Leger (2000: 93) argued that it would nonethelesspersist in different ways than before; “religion retains a creative potential withinmodernity”.Corresponding author:Hazel O’ Brien, Waterford Institute of Technology, Cork Rd., Waterford, Ireland.Email: hobrien@wit.ieIrish Journal of Sociology0(0) 1–5! The Author(s) 2020Article reuse guidelines:sagepub.com/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177/0791603520939819journals.sagepub.com/home/irjWhat does that mean? It means that fewer people might identify with theircountry’s dominant religion than in previous generations, but some may convertto another religion instead (Scharbrodt, 2015). It means that people will continueto use religion as a tool for cultural belonging, even as they reject key Churchdoctrine (Inglis, 2007). Hybrid religious practices will gain greater legitimacy(Brownlee, 2011). Increasingly, people will turn away from institutional religionfor their religious or spiritual needs, such as those who seek out New Age andalternative spiritualities (Gierek, 2011). Finally, we might see evidence of Hervieu-Leger’s (2000) argument in those who engage with worldviews and/or practiceswhich 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 uswith an opportunity to examine Hervieu-Leger’s (2000) arguments once more.What happens to religion when “normal” society shuts down? I imagine thatHervieu-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 regularchurch attendees have moved to incorporate online religious attendance, many forthe first time, during Ireland’s lockdown (Ganiel, 2020).However, there is nothing new about digital religion more broadly. Digitalreligion is “the technological and cultural space that is evoked when we talkabout 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 divisionbetween offline and online life has increasingly blurred (Boellstorff, 2015;Campbell, 2012). For some adherents, supplementing or even replacing offlinereligious community and practice with online alternatives and extensions is oldnews. 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 transformedreligion. Religion is always transforming.Exactly how offline and online religious worlds integrate will vary according tothe religion, and the wider culture that surrounds it. Some religions are particularlygood 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 religiouspractice and belief, allowing one to support the other until the distinctions betweenthem are less clear (Thain, 2012). In this way, people’s use of digital religion offersan opportunity for some to conform to their religion and to support dominantnarratives about their faith (Burroughs, 2013; Cheong, 2014). For others, digitaltechnologies create a space in which adherents can challenge or even reject aspectsof their religion. This space is used creatively by those who would perhaps behesitant to challenge their religion in “real life” for various reasons (Finniganand Ross, 2013).2 Irish Journal of Sociology 0(0)It is clear that there has been an acceleration of innovation in digital religioncaused by Covid-19 and its associated lockdowns across the globe. This innovationis worthy of sociological analysis. As it has done with education through its initiativeHomeschool Hub, Ireland’s public service TV channel RTÉ has taken the lead. Itbroadcasts Catholic mass six days a week followed by a religious message from otherdenominations 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 Knockonline since mid-March. Virtual pilgrimages are being created, with parishioners inthe 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, joininggroups like The Digital Parish on Facebook.Across the globe, people are innovating their religious practice. In the UnitedKingdom (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 worshippershave 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. churchservices are being streamed by church groups who have no previous experience withcommunity engagement of this kind. A lack of previous experience offers a space inwhich 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 howCovid-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 whowould not usually tune in to a livestream of mass from Knock are now moreaware that such things can be done and are trying it for themselves. For thosereligions which have not made use of digital technologies to the same degree asothers, 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, butthis is an acceleration of a pre-existing development, rather than something new.As per Hervieu-Leger (2000), people’s need for tradition continues even whensociety is no longer structured to sustain that tradition to the same degree.Sociology has demonstrated that people will claim tradition in innovative waysto sustain that need. From the “outside” looking “in” at online religious engage-ment during Covid-19, someone leaving comments on a religious social media pagemay not look much like “tradition”. But for an adherent denied physical access totheir church or to the sacraments, this action can be interpreted as maintainingtheir link to their parish, as continuing the public declaration of their faith, or asobserving sacred time that would usually be spent in church. For them, the tradi-tion of their religion may be sustained through such practices. Using thisO’ Brien 3perspective, we can recognize that what appears at first to an example of change, arupture with what has gone before, can also incorporate continuity.Many want to know if the trends identified in the first half of 2020 symbolize afundamental shift in how people will “do” religion in the future. Underpinning thisquestion is often an assumption that such practices are completely new. However,emerging research does indicates that many more people are engaging with religionin this way currently (Newport, 2020). Hutchings and McKenzie (2012: 75) remindus that the internet is “neither content nor material” yet nonetheless “it structureswhat we can do”. The digital world may be ephemerous and ungraspable but itdoes 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 becomeanother of religion’s adaptations. Will we see a permanent move towards a weeklyonline 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 allowfor greater ecumenical collaborations across denominations such as the recent UKinitiative 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 engagementthroughout Covid-19 will have been enough to sustain individual and collectivebelonging to religion? Or, will our time in isolation have irrevocably weakened thetradition that religion rests upon? Following the arguments of Hervieu-Leger(2000), I think that religion will continue to adapt in fascinating and unexpectedways, and I will continue to observe with interest.Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-ship, and/or publication of this article.FundingThe author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publicationof this article.ORCID iDHazel O’ Brien https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1728-0064ReferencesAFP 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 VirtuallyHuman. New Jersey: Princeton UP.Brownlee A (2011) Irish Travellers and powerful priests: An alternative response toNew Age healing techniques In: Cosgrove O, et al. (eds) Ireland’s New ReligiousMovements. 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, andreligious 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.) DigitalReligion: 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 andenlarged a movement. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 9(November2016): 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-coronavirus/ (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 ScholarsPublishing, 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 theSacred. 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 theirlives, Pew Research Center social and demograohic trends. Available at: www.pewsocialtrends.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 inIreland: 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 BritishAssociation for the Study of Religions 16(3): 47–56.O’ Brien 5

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