As I was looking at the picture I noticed that, there are combinations where I spend proportionately less time, than with others. E.g. Music and Sociology is something I didn’t study explicitly yet, although I could name 2-3 books I read on the topic. Soon after I noticed this I got an email alert pointing to PhD thesis bearing the title “Punk Rock Is My Religion“. That piqued my interest, so I opened it. Its subtitle was more explanatory, “An Exploration of Straight Edge punk as a Surrogate of Religion“. Right now anyone can download it from the website of University of Stirling. (5 MB, PDF) It was written by Francis Elizabeth Stewart and “submitted in fulfilment of the doctoral dissertation requirements of the School of Language, Culture and Religion.”

I was never straight edge, but liked the music and found the movement fascinating. Looking forward reading, although I don’t know when will I find the time though as it is 354 pages. Here is the abstract:

Using a distinctly and deliberately interdisciplinary approach to the subject of religion and spirituality as it presents itself within modern Western Societies today, this thesis argues that Straight Edge hardcore punk is a surrogate for religion. The term surrogate is used to denote the notion of a successor and a protector and provider of nourishment. It has been re-interpreted from Theodore Ziolkowski’s work on the same term in ‘Modes of Faith’, in which he examines surrogates for religion which emerged during the early part of the 20th century.

An in-depth study, both theoretical and ethnographic in nature and presentation, of Straight Edge hardcore punk is provided to demonstrate that traditionally held categories of religion, secular, sacred and profane are being dismantled and re-built around ideas of authenticity, community, integrity, d.i.y and spirituality. Through the syncretic practices of the Straight Edge adherents they are de-essentialising religion and thus enabling us to re-consider the question of what religion is or could be.

This thesis relies on theoretical ideas, interview quotes, informant quotes, researcher taken photographs, and interviewee created or utilised images, tattoos, graffiti and flyers. All of these are interspersed with song lyrics from various bands relevant to the time period under discussion and the themes being drawn out. Much like the adherents themselves, this thesis exists very much within the space of the ‘in-between’, which creates and reacts to necessary tensions throughout.

Then I realized why I was so unusually hyped up. Earlier this week I’ve seen the latest episode of the TV series “The Event.” Here is a segment from the episode’s recap from the official site: “In the Jura Mountains, Dempsey arms the heavily guarded site. Dr. Ellis tells Dempsey they’ve unearthed nearly a dozen limestone Amphoras dating back to 2000 B.C. One Amphora has been inscribed in an unknown language.” So my excitement about the real artifacts found in Jordan was premeditated by the fictional ones from a TV show. I wonder whether the creators of the show were influenced by this discovery or not. I hope to follow the story of both in the future. Meanwhile here are two captures from the show.

Then I proceeded to connect three stories of the parasha to two contemporary events and to a commentary I read online. Abraham argued with God, trying to convince the divine that he should not wipe the town of Sodom off the Earth if there was 50 righteous people in it. Ha hassled God down to 10, so  God agreed not to kill off the whole city if there was ten good people. (In the end they didn’t find that many…)  This reminded me of the “Ground Zero Mosque” polemic. The planned Islamic cultural center is not at Ground Zero but several blocks away. People against it say it is too close to the sacred ground. But they would be hard pressed to define what’s not too close.   The number games can also be turned around. Would you bomb a whole madrasa if you know that half of them are terrorists-in-training? How about if only 10%, or only 2 people? Mixing math and morality is a tough game built in muddy grounds. Any principle can be turned around, against to your original point.

Earlier this week a rabbi ruled that it is kosher for a (married) Jewish woman to sleep with man, if he is an enemy of the state (of Israel) and she can gain valuable information to defend the state. The ruling referred to two Torah sources. One of them is in this week’s parasha: Abraham said about Sarah, his wife, that she really was just her sister, when they went to live in the kingdom of Abimelek. (The king ended up not sleeping with Sarah as God informed him  about the nature of the situation in a dream just  in time.) The argument goes that if it was OK for Sarah to pretend to be available, it must be ok for today’s spyesses.  I know that a rabbi’s ruling is not necessarily binding and possible only his followers adhere to it. Nevertheless I found the assumptions underlying this ruling highly problematic.

First it shows the theocratic tendencies of Israel. Why does “honey-trapping” even need a religious justification? (I am aware that the answer is, so religious women could be spies too. So they would believe that they comply with halakhah when proceeding in their national duties.) Second, what about the other way around; is it OK for a man to sleep with a woman, who is an enemy of the state? It doesn’t  mention the reciprocal situation. This ruling is misogynistic. Third, how can you define who is an enemy of the state? What if later it turns out that s/he wasn’t? The question of whose interest is served needs to be looked at both in the Torah story and in the rabbi’s ruling.

Last I quickly summed up Rabbi Irwin Kula‘s article on Autonomy Vs. Heteronomy In The Covenantal Relationship: “Abraham’s responses to the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah and to the command to sacrifice Isaac provide two models of challenge and submission that must co-exist in our covenantal relationship with God.” In short there is a time/place/occasion to challenge God’s word (like when Abraham fought for the possibility of saving Sodom) and there is need to submit to God’s will other times (like when Abraham went with the attempted sacrifice of his own son.)

In the end I drew my lessons learned for the board in the realm of principles influencing our decision making:

• When/if deciding what programs/facilities we support within the shul we need to be careful when we look at the numbers of how many people it serves. Can we sacrifice a program with low attendance, knowing that it is meaningful for the participants?
• We always need to look at whose interests our decision serve: the board’s the membership or s subset of the membership (like women only, or seniors, or people with families.) We need to asses how different subgroups of our community would be affected.
• When making important, large scale decisions we may want to fight trends that work against us, but we also need to know when it is time to submit to the winds of change.

My drash was well received by the board and I felt inspired to do something similar in the future.

Shabbat Shalom! (FYI: I am posting this a few hours before Shabbat is upon us.)

• Publisher’s preface: written by Chaim Kramer, explaining why Rabbi Alter of Tepik “gathered all the writings of Rabbi Nachman and his disciple, Rabbi Nathan of Nemerov, that dealt with meditation (hithbodeduth) and published them in a single book… Hishtapchuth HaNefesh (“Outpouring of the Soul”).
• Translator’s introduction: written by Aryeh Kaplan, essentially a short history of the development of Jewish meditation and its connection to prayer. (Sidenote: In the edition I read the date of this introduction is printed as 5780 (2020) and not as the correct 5740 (1980).)
• Author’s introduction: a 12 page long essay on the history and need for prayer/meditation. As is customary in Jewish rabbinic literature the current ideas were put in the context as promoted and practiced by earlier authoritative figures. In this case Rabbi Nachman describes how Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s sons, Moses, Samson, Elisa, Daniel, Ezra and the Baal Shem Tov all meditated. Why bother?: “He will learn how to ask God for all that he needs, both materially and spiritually. This is the only way that one can receive divine help at all times.”
• The bulk of the book (42 pages) contain 52 lessons, stories, practices or outpouring if you wish.
• The book concludes with a fairly comprehensive index for such a short book, a list of biblical quotations, and a list of the publisher’s other books.

The 52 lessons, the essence of the book range from 4 page length(#1) to 2 lines. (E.g. #21: “After true contrition comes joy. A sign of true contrition is when one is later truly happy.”) Each entry is numbered, has a title and for most,  the original source is cited. A few entries are made up from multiple sections from various sources (1, 2, 14, 17, 27, 28, 30, 39, 42, 48.

With the above I am done with the easy part of the review, where I describe the book’s format and structure. The more interesting part is of course the content itself. That’s where I have a bit if a difficulty. One obstacle is that it is all written in third person masculine: he must/should do this or that. I am male, so I can identify with that, but I also feel that this non-gender neutral language is excluding half of humanity. When I am reading such lovely and tempting thoughts the lack of harmony between the meaning and this exclusion bothers me.

My other challenge is that as I have never practiced meditation this is all reads as a theory to me. The ideas here presented as guidelines on how/why/when meditate, therefore reading it as literature is not its intended use. But that’s they way I accessed it and as such it reads a bit of a closed indoctrination system. Closed, because looking at it from the outside it seems to have circular logic: If you meditate you will be happier, which will make you want to meditate more. Meditation is presented both as a mean and as an end. Nevertheless I found the language and the concepts tempting. I experienced inner calmness and relaxation just reading about the topic. It is clear that both the author and the translator had enormous charisma and skill with words.

But the book didn’t convince me to change my lifestyle. What it did was to awaken my curiosity to ask for more. So I will periodically return to this book to read a page or two to “meditate” on. The book is an excellent resource for seekers because of its modular structure. I just need more time to internalize what I can from it. Reading from cover to cover, the way I did it is not recommended.

The book at Amazon

First, in order to fully understand the topic I need to read beyond its immediate scope. For example a lot of the articles place the study in the tradition of studying the interaction of religion and media. In this context “religion and the internet” needs to be understood in a similar way to “religion and press,” “religion and radio” and “religion and television.” On one hand it makes perfect sense and I am sure there are plenty of lessons one can learn from those fields. On the other hand the internet is much more participatory so the previous models where individuals were mostly consumers of media have to be seriously modified if not fully rebuilt.

In the early days of the world wide web (say 1994-1997) there was a lot of idealism that this media will democratize the knowledge sphere and eventually all spheres of life. The idea was that individuals and small companies have equal footing with big corporations as the barrier of entry was so low. Anyone could build a website, while starting up a newspaper/radio/tv station was significantly costlier in terms of financial and technical capital. This promise did not played out to its full possible extent till the advent of Web 2.0, when the technical barrier went even lower: you don’t need any technical knowldge know to start a blogk, post your pictures or thoughts. (Even posting videos is getting less and less technical) Now that there are more sophisticated structures in place that allow not just building a website but spreading one’s message or idea on social web channels one really has a chance to crate fame and/or money with limited resources. (Check out the report and the earnings of TubeMogul’s list of top ten independent YouTube stars.)

My second point, also affecting the scope of my studies, comes directly from the first one: I need to go beyond how established offline religions (and their adherents) behave online and consider in what ways the internet enables the creation of the new religious movements*. As I pointed out above the internet has the potential to fundamentally change the relationship between media and the individual. This must have consequences in the are of religion. Two obvious examples: movements like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the “Invisible Pink Unicorn” would have remained much smaller in the pre-internet era.

* “New religious movements” is the term used by sociologists for what in every day use would be called sects or cults, as this term is value neutral, has no pejorative connotations.

This note leads to my third point: the various lenses “online religion” can be viewed. Reading the abstracts I encountered articles examining the phenomena from the social, educational, proselytism, spatial, generational, gender point of view, but didn’t find any yet about the financial and legal questions. The latter was brought to mind, by Heidi Campbell’s post from earlier today titled “Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!” She pointed to a recent court case, ruling that

religious organization that primarily holds their worship services on the Internet (or radio), did not meet the Internal Revenue Code’s definition of a “church.” (PDF) That means they are not eligible for tax-exempt status….
The full ruling it explains this online church failed meet a 14 criteria test set out by the IRS on the form/function of a church….
So to have validity the online will be forced to establish offline structures of accountability.

This was a “simple” US case, but if we consider the international nature of both the internet and organized religion the legal questions are even more complicated. E.g. Scientology is a legally accepted church in some countries are from being one in others.

To summarize, I will need to

1. familiarize myself with the study of religion and (old) media,
2. think of the two way nature of internet and religion (not just how offline religion plays out on the net, but the other way around too),
3. be aware and systematically think through the numerous disciplines the topic can be viewed from.

His second entry is less relevant for us as it was about “the struggle between church and media as meaning-making institutions in the context of [the] television program, Rescue Me.” But his third entry focused on a presentation about “a small conservative Christian community on the Atlantic side of Canada, who wanted to go live online, by video-streaming their services.” The most important sentence from this post for me was, “Going live online for them was a test where the search for new and distant friends and fellow congregants required the relinquishment of control over their own church environment.”

Thank you, Paul, for your notes that accompanied nicely the abstracts I read earlier.

Observing Ramadan? There’s An App For That

Cell phone applications such as “iPray” or “iQuran” offer a beeping reminder of requisite prayer times, while the “Find Mecca” and “mosque finder” programs help the Muslim traveler in an unfamiliar city find the nearest place to pray…

Abstract

This article introduces issues associated with Islamic apps for mobile devices, and surveys some of the products that have emerged into the market. It considers the potential impact of mobile phone interfaces in relation to interpretations of Islam and the use of Islamic resources, given that mobile devices have widened potential audiences for online materials in various forms, especially in areas where other forms of digital access may be more problematic. The article also explores some of the religious and ethical concerns associated with mobile phone use.

Conclusions

The impact of increased and varied phone applications in the name of Islam is transformative, in that it offers wider access to Islamic resources (amongst a competitive marketplace) and digital access continue to increase. As 3G phone technology becomes more widely available, evolves (towards 4G) and is integrated into more phones, then the key providers of apps and other phone compatible services have the potential to be a significant channel of influence and authority. Islamic software products continue to develop at the cutting edge of technological innovation, so as new products for mobile phones enter the marketplace, one can expect developers and content providers to respond with Islamically ‘appropriate’ applications. The modes and communications dynamics of scholars, opinion providers and petitioners (or consumers) are shifting in response to technological developments, while perhaps maintaining the essence of long-held traditions of religious authority and interpretation. Following these trends will be a significant area for observers of Islam in the contemporary world.

• A Study of the Interrelationships Between the Internet and Religious Organizations: An Application of Diffusion Theory by William T. Ruppa; Alan D. Smith; Published in Services Marketing Quarterly, 2002/01
• “The Fabric of our Lives”: Catholic Church Perspectives on the Internet by Jim McDonnell; Published in Fieldwork in Religion, 2009/06
• Another Time, Another Space: Virtual Worlds, Myths and Imagination. by Beatrice Bittarello ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Believing in the Net. Implicit religion and the internet hype, 1994-2001 by Parna, Karen; Published in Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies, 2010/01
• Buddhist Meditation Through the Medium of the Internet by Joanne Miller; Published in School of Social Science, The University of Queensland. , 2010/01
• Communicating Spiritual Experience with Video Game Technology. by Gino Yu, Michael Highland ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Computer Mediated Religious Life of Technoshamans and Cybershamans. by Libuse Martinkova ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Computer-Mediated Communication by Charles Ess, Akira Kawabata, Hiroyuki Kurosaki ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Death and the Social Network by Jed R. Brubaker and Janet Vertesi; Published in , 2010/02
• Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands by Christopher Helland; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Doing Religion in Cyberspace: The Promise and the Perils by Lorne L. Dawson,; Published in The Council of Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin, 2001/01
• Enhancing the Spiritual Relationship: the Impact of Virtual Worship on the Real World Church Experience. by Andrea Robinson-Neal ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Gender and sexuality online on Australian Muslim forums by Roxanne D. Marcotte; Published in Contemporary Islam, 2010/04
• How Religious Leaders Communicate Trustworthiness through the Web by Stefano Pace; Published in Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 2004/08
• Inner Listening as a Basic Principle for Developing Immersive Virtual Worlds. by Simeon Simoff, Ludmil Duridanov ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Internet Use Among Religious Followers: Religious Postmodernism in Japanese Buddhism by Rev. Kenshin Fukamizu; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Islam and Online Imagery on Malaysian Tourist Destination Websites by Noor Hazarina Hashim, Jamie Murphy, Nazlida Muhamad Hashim; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism in Post-9/11 Arabic Discussion Boards by Rasha A. Abdulla ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Kemetic Orthodoxy: Ancient Egyptian Religion on the Internet — A Research Note by Marilyn C Krogh* and Brooke Ashley Pillifant ; Published in Sociology of Religion, 2004/05
• Logging-on to Sai Baba: The Poetics of Sacred Globalization by Feike, Meredith Morgan ; Published in Louisiana State University, 2007/04
• Making Space for Religion in Internet Studies by Heidi Campbell; Published in The Information Society, 2005/09
• Muslim surfers on the internet: using the theory of planned behaviour to examine the factors influencing engagement in online religious activities by Shirley S. Ho, Waipeng Lee, Shahiraa Sahul Hameed; Published in New Media and Society, 2008/02
• Net worth? : Religion, cyberspace and the future by Jay Kinney; Published in Futures, 1995/07
• No More SMS from Jesus: Ubicomp, Religion and Techno-spiritual Practices by Genevieve Bell; Published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006/04
• Online Rituals in Virtual Worlds. Christian Online Service between Dynamics and Stability. by Nadja Miczek ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Online-Religion in Japan: Websites and Religious Counseling from a Comparative Cross-Cultural Perspective by Akira Kawabata, Takanori Tamura; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Religion is Becoming Virtualised. Introduction the the Special Issue on Religion in Virtual Worlds. by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Rituals and Pixels. Experiments in Online Church. by Simon Jenkins ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• S(l)pirituality. Immersive Worlds as a Window to Spirituality Phenomena. by Pablo Martinez-Zarate, Isabela Corduneanu, Luis Miguel Martinez ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Technological Modernization, the Internet, and Religion in Singapore by Randolph Kluver, Pauline Hope Cheong; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Technology in spiritual formation: an exploratory study of computer mediated religious communications by “Susan P. Wyche, Gillian R. Hayes, Lonnie D. Harvel, Rebecca E. Grinter “; Published in Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2006/04
• The Church of Fools: Virtual Ritual and Material Faith. by Randy Kluver, Yanli Chen ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• The Internet as Distributor and Mirror of Religious and Ritual Knowledge by Oliver Krueger; Published in Asian Journal of Social Science, 2004/05
• UNDERSTANDING RELIGION AND CYBERSPACE: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED, WHAT LIES AHEAD? by Doris R. Jakobsh; Published in Religious Studies Review, 2007/01
• Virtual Incarnations: An Exploration of Internet-Mediated Interaction as Manifestation of the Divine by Julie Anne Lytle; Published in Religious Education, 2010/07
• Virtual Pilgrimages on the Internet by Mark W. MacWilliams; Published in Religion, 2002/10
• Virtual Religion. An Approach to a Religious and Ritual Topography of Second Life. by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Virtual Worlds Today: Gaming and Online Sociality. by Gordon Calleja ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber-Rituals in Online Spaces by Stephen Jacobs ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Where Dreams and Dragons Meet. An Ethnographic Analysis of two Examples of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) by Kathryn Stam, Michael Scialdone ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet by Heidi Campbell; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06