One late afternoon, two girls around my age stopped me on the street. They asked if I believed in God and if they could tell me a short reading from the Bible. The next second, I was instructed to look into a mobile screen as one of the girls started telling the story, tapping on the display to see other lines from the Bible. The content on her screen, accompanied by small animations and buttons, intrigued me as I looked at a digital version of a Bible that suddenly seemed fun, interactive, and almost like a game, unlike the traditional black and white paper version.

Struck by my novel experience, I could later recall the story better thanks to my memory of the app's design. This reflection motivated me to explore the relationship between religion and technology and its future where, through artificial intelligence or other digital tools, app developers or the general public can renegotiate their religious identities, religious authority roles, and religious practices. Suppose these developers can attract more believers to engage with their technological products. In that case, religion might be returning (and becoming cool again). Moreover, while they are at it, can religion eventually turn into play?

To support my argument, I address research on contemporary forms of digital religion (predominantly the Christian religion) by discussing religious apps, video games, and the AI-ification of religion as a form of implicit religion. Furthermore, I argue that religion is pervasively penetrating the economy and thus becoming less secular in the public sphere as a form of digital religion that is more attractive and reaches previously unaddressed audiences.

Almost two decades ago, Casanova (2006) noticed how some believers started to move away from God or approached him in their private environments outside the public sphere. With the term “secularization”, he described how the state of religion in modern societies changed and became strictly separated from state, economy, and science. By acknowledging that religion might find its way back into our private lives because of technological innovation, he hinted at the possible consequence of it – digital religion.

But how is the concept of digital religion rendered in real life? In the past, religion was limited to local institutions such as the physical church, which is now less influential because people have other (technological) resources to reach religious structures. Now, there are “hypermediated religious spaces” (Campbell & Evolvi, 2019) situated in the online world where we can reach God, the contents of the Bible, or like-minded believers through our smart devices whenever we feel like it.

 Moreover, Campbell and Evolvi (2019) describe technology as the new “implicit religion”. This religion emerged in the form of religiously oriented apps or technologies with religious implications that can encourage certain user practices. With apps such as Faithlife, Bible Gateway, and YourVersion, church-goers can turn into religious app-goers as they use the technology for setting prayer reminders, following reading plans, sharing scripture on social media with others, and reading or listening to more than 1 000 versions of Bible in 799 languages with additional materials (Rakow, 2017).

Is this the end of the physical Bible, then? Rakow (2017) is skeptical, as she thinks religious apps with the Word of God lack true “Bibleness” embedded in the materiality of a physical Bible's copy. What does the trick is the worn-out, duct-tape look of a family Bible, which serves as the most authentic religious symbol and affects the emotional interaction of believers with the text – something a smartphone could hardly fulfill (Rakow, 2017).

In the entertainment world, however, technology brings religion to both believers and agnostics, especially those who play with new technologies most often and from an early age – the youth. De Wildt and Aupers (2019) noticed how contemporary pop culture is full of religion. They asked young gamers of various backgrounds how they feel about the often-present religious elements in video games. Turns out, players (believers or not) can temporarily ignore their religious worldview and engage with a different one while gaining empathy and sensitivity to other religious believers, thus engaging with religion in new ways while gaming.

 In their most recent research on digital religion, however, De Wildt and Aupers (2023) call for a greater study of religion's mediatisation - the way media technologies and products influence and transform our common religious practices (Krotz, 2017) - in video games, focusing on the production of these digital religions and how “users” respond to them. Video games again serve as an example of how the perception of religion changes amongst modern societies, as video game companies package religion into games aimed at largely secular audiences. To demonstrate this, scholars De Wildt and Aupers (2023) analysed the case of Assassin's Creed, an adventure video game series made by the biggest game studio in the world about a religious conflict of the Holy War between two ancient secret societies. After gaining an inside look at the video game's production by interviewing game industry experts and game development workers from the Assasin's Creed production, De Wildt and Aupers realised that here, religion was marketed in a depoliticized, universal form and essentially sold as a commodity.

 Such commodification of religion then hints at a clear need to reflect on the economic aspect of digital technologies in general and how its developers' commercial incentives may have the power to shape the current dynamics of religion. Most religious apps surveilled their users' habits and patterns, and the gathered data is further utilised for technological improvement or sold to third parties (O’Leary, 2013). Furthermore, Dyers (2022) extensively recorded how Bible apps may construct a version of a “kinder, gentler God instead of the judgemental God they might see in print” (p. 185).

Is it because developers of these technologies want to keep their users engaged and tied to their religious tech products? The context of the technologies' production needs to be investigated more economically and culturally, as it can reduce religious traditions to commodities (De Wildt & Aupers, 2023).

 What most digital religion scholars hint at but have yet to explore are real examples of artificial intelligence with a religious twist. Evolvi (2021) talks about the “sacred gaze” and how digital media facilitates the visual culture of religion. Is AI the final version of the sacred gaze that, through our use of digital media, will change the way we think about our gods and religious entities? The 24/7 AI representation of Jesus streamed on Twitch nods toward this vision (SBS News, 2023). With its characteristics reminiscent of a virtual assistant, as ChatGPT is part of its construction, this digital version of a religious figure is highly responsive to most messages written by Twitch users into the chat and appears quite human-like. Furthermore, AI Jesus' responsive nature allows viewers to interact with religious texts in a new way, acting as an image of a higher power that, like actual preachers or the Bible, can similarly answer important life questions. Creations such as this one, or other religious chatbots (Mishchenko, 2023), suggest how new, unusual ways of interacting with religion might emerge in the future, together with the risks of underexplored biases and dangers AI technologies can generate (SBS News, 2023) and in the name of Jesus, represent.

References

 Campbell, H. A., & Evolvi, G. (2019). Contextualizing current digital religion research on emerging technologies. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.14 

Casanova, J. (2006). Rethinking secularization: A global comparative perspective. The Hedgehog Review, 8(1-2).

De Wildt, L., & Aupers, S. (2023). Marketable religion: How game company Ubisoft commodified religion for a global audience. Journal of Consumer Culture, 23(1), 63–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405211062060

De Wildt, L., & Aupers, S. (2019). Playing the Other: Role-playing religion in videogames. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 22(5–6), 867–884. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549418790454

Dyer, J. (2022). People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture. Oxford University Press. 

Evolvi, G. (2021). Religion and the internet: digital religion, (hyper)mediated spaces, and materiality. Z Religion Ges Polit, 6(1), 9–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41682-021-00087-9

Krotz, F. (2017). Explaining the mediatisation approach. Javnost-the Public, 24(2), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2017.1298556

Mishchenko, T. (2023). Religious chatbots that speak in the voice of God and condone violence are gaining popularity in India. Mezha.Media. https://mezha.media/en/2023/05/10/religious-chatbots-that-speak-in-the-voice-of-god-and-condone-violence-are-gaining-popularity-in-india/

O’Leary, A. (2013). In the Beginning Was the Word; Now the Word Is on an App. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/technology/the-faithful-embrace-youversion-a-bible-app.html

Rakow, K. (2017). The Bible in the Digital Age: Negotiating the Limits of 'Bibleness' of Different Bible Media. In Opas, M., Haapalainen, A. (Eds.), Christianity and the Limits of Materiality (pp. 101-121). Bloomsbury Publishing.

SBS News. (2023). What would 'Jesus' do? Here's one way to find out. SBS News. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-would-jesus-do-heres-one-way-to-find-out/ktnhuvrcs