Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship 9789048552108

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Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia

Media, Culture and Communication in Migrant Societies International migration for work, study, humanitarian and lifestyle reasons is increasingly commonplace, representing an unprecedented movement of people, globally. With these transnational mobilities comes the emergence and establishment of migrant societies with their own distinctive cultures and socialities. These migrant societies however are not necessarily oriented to particular fixed ethnic nor national identities. Instead, they may be formed through other identity signifiers such as feelings of commonality of specific experiences. Migrant societies, moreover, may not be confined to geographical boundaries but due to the digital turn where media and communication technologies and products are ubiquitous parts of everyday life, may exist transnationally in the digital environment. This book series is dedicated to engaging and understanding the role, impact, breadth and depth of culture, media and communication practices in and across migrant societies. The series showcases high quality and innovative research from established and emerging scholars to engage readers in exciting and informed conversations on migrant societies. Editorial Board Sun Sun Lim, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore Jolynna Sinanan, University of Sydney, Australia Cheryll Soriano, De La Salle University, The Philippines Jonathan Y Tan, Case Western Reserve, USA Raelene Wilding, LaTrobe University, Australia Raminder Kaur, University of Sussex, UK Leslie Butt, University of Victoria, Canada Alma Maldonado, CINVESTAV, Mexico Ellen Carm, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway Muchativugwa Hove, North-West University, South Africa Elisa Costa-Villaverde, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia Faith, Flows and Fellowship

Edited by Catherine Gomes, Lily Kong and Orlando Woods

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Hill Tan, Singapore Management University Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 893 5 e-isbn 978 90 4855 210 8 doi 10.5117/9789463728935 nur 670 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

Acknowledgements No project like this can take place without the support of a community. We would like to thank our supportive Amsterdam University Press commissioning editor Maryse Elliot for believing in this project. We are also very grateful to Joanne Heng for casting an eagle eye over the manuscript and Padmapriya Padmalochanan for putting together the index. Thanks also go out to Chantal Nicolaes, Sarah de Waard and Mike Sanders who worked on various stages of this manuscript. We especially would like to thank each and every one of our authors for the hard work that they have put into developing their chapters. Thank you Francis Lim, Sng Bee Bee, Anna Hickey-Moody, Marissa Willcox, Han Zhang, Junxi Qian, Tan Meng Yoe, Jonathan Y. Tan, Justin K.H. Tse, Hyemin Na, Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir and Robbie Goh. It is not hyperbole to say that we could not have done this without you. We also acknowledge the support of the Lee Kong Chian Chair Professorship Fund and two Singapore Ministry of Education grants (Award Numbers: 17‐C242‐SMU‐005 and MOE2018-T2-2-102) in enabling the completion of the manuscript. Lastly, and on behalf of all our authors, we would like to thank all the research participants that so willingly shared with us their stories of mobility, media and faith. Without them, much of our work here would not have been possible. Catherine Gomes Lily Kong Orlando Woods



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

5

List of Illustrations

9

Introduction

Catherine Gomes, Lily Kong and Orlando Woods

11

Section 1 Community Creation: The Role of Digital Media in Faith-Based Groups 1. The Creation of Digitally-Mediated Christian Migrant Communitiesin Singapore

27

2. The Blog as a Platform for Spiritual Heritaging and Family Reconciliation: A Case Study

47

3. Material Expressions of Religious Culture

65

Orlando Woods

Tan Meng Yoe

Anna Hickey-Moody and Marissa Willcox

Section 2 Connectivity Through Faith: Maintaining Transnational Connections Through Religion 4. This-worldly Buddhism: Digital Media and the Performance of Religiosityin China

95

5. Forging Chinese Christian Digital Fellowship: Social Media and Transnational Connectivity

123

Han Zhang and Junxi Qian

Francis Lim and Sng Bee Bee

Section 3 Preaching the Faith: The Rise of Digital Pastors and Preachers 6. The Global Appeal of Digital Pastors: A Comparative Case Study of Joseph Prince, and Brian and Bobbie Houston

149

7. The ‘Open Letter to the Evangelical Church’ and its Discontents: The Online Politics of Asian American Evangelicals, 2013-2016

179

8. Preacher Playlist: Reception and Curation of Celebrity Pastors in the Korean Diaspora

203

9. Virtual Rohingya: Ethno-Religious Populism in the Asia Pacific

223

Afterword

247

Index

253

Catherine Gomes and Jonathan Y. Tan

Justin K.H. Tse

Hyemin Na

Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir

Robbie B. H. Goh



List of Illustrations

3.1 A future city, developed in a Manchester primary school in 2018.70 71 3.2 A future city, made in a Manchester primary school in 2018. 72 3.3 A future city, made by a church group in Adelaide. 3.4 ‘Evil Queen’ self-portrait made by a girl in Adelaide Church 78 youth group. 3.5 ‘Picture of anger’ made by a boy from Adelaide Church youth group.78 3.6 Materialising religion, a map of important things, made by a 85 girl in a London primary school. 130 5.1 Mixing of media types. 133 5.2 Intercontextuality: Prayers and Origami. 135 5.3 Transnational fellowship and solidarity on WeChat. 137 5.4 Reflections on Bible passage and teaching of catechism. 137 5.5 Reflections on Bible passage and teaching of catechism. 137 5.6 Commentary on society and morality. 137 5.7 Commentary on society and morality.

Introduction Catherine Gomes, Lily Kong and Orlando Woods Contemporary society is evolving at a pace never experienced before. Existing human processes of movement and settlement are becoming more frequent, whilst advances in technology have given rise to new processes of digitally-mediated connection, community-building and content-creation. Religion intersects with all of these processes; guiding them, and being transformed by them in turn. Indeed, in the two decades or so since Rudolph’s (1997, p. 1) observation that ‘religious communities are among the oldest of the transnationals’, research into the role of religion amongst diasporic and migrant communities around the world has ‘exploded’ (Johnson 2012, p. 95). Such scholarly interest stems from the fact that ‘people seem to carry religion with them more easily than they do for many other, less portable cultural clusters’, and that ‘religion, under certain conditions, acquires particular weight as an anchor of collective identity and distinction in diasporic situations’ (Johnson 2012, p. 95; see also Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Kong and Woods 2018). These two characteristics of religion – its porta­ bility and its anchoring effects – elevate its importance in an ever-shifting world of hyper mobility. By ‘hyper mobility’ we refer to the fact that not only are more people moving between countries than ever before, but that the pace of movement between countries, and the volume of connections, interactions and engagements (or, collectively, ‘flows’) between places has increased massively as well. Whilst movement equates to mobility, it is these increases in the pace of movement and the volume of cross-border flows that equates to hyper mobility. Hyper mobility is enabled by digital media. Digital media enable people to be instantaneously connected to other people anywhere in the world (Gomes 2016). As Cheong et al. (2014, p. 7) note, ‘information and communication technologies are often cited as one major source, if not the causal vector, for the rising intensity of transnational practices’. Importantly, digitally-enabled connections are not just based on verbal and non-verbal communication, but on the sharing of digital content as well. In this sense, not only do digital media nullify the restrictions of

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_intro

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Catherine Gomes, Lily Kong and Orlando Woods

space and time, but so too do they offer the potential for new forms of person-person, person-organisation and person-content engagement. The proliferation of digital media has therefore brought about a transformation in the ways in which people communicate and connect with others. Additionally, this proliferation has also impacted faith-practising migrant communities, often with the intention of portraying them and their religions negatively (for instance viral social media hoaxes on Islamic practices interfering with Western traditions such as the ‘Christmas lights banned’ hoax in Australia which claimed that Muslim residents in Cardwell, North Queensland found Christmas lights offensive). In view of the fact that ‘everyday life takes place on the Internet’ (Beneito-Montagut 2011, p. 718), they have caused social relations to increasingly be digitally-mediated. Increasingly, they have also come to augment the ways in which religion is consumed, experienced and understood, which has caused the study of religion in/and digital media to become a ‘vibrant and valid area of scholarly inter-disciplinary investigation’ (Campbell 2012, p. 4). Indeed, to the extent that ‘transnational migration is a process rather than an event’ (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1012), so too do digital media provide a lens through which the world is viewed and lived, rather than just a channel or platform for communication. In recognition of these developments, the overarching aim of this book is to bring understandings of transnational religion into conversation with understandings of digital religion through an empirical focus on the people and places that constitute ‘Global Asia’.

Asia in/and the world As Asia rises, mobilities associated with Asian populations have escalated (Ong 1999). The notion of ‘Global Asia’ is a reflection of this increased mobility, and refers to the presence of Asian peoples living in ostensibly non-Asian countries, and, contrariwise, the presence of non-Asian peoples living in Asian countries. Importantly, our notion of Global Asia goes beyond territory, and embraces the wide-ranging socio-cultural influences of Asia on the rest of the world. These influences have, over many decades of intermixing, play an important role in shaping Asian identities, communities and cultures; which have, in turn, come to inflect upon the experience and praxis of religion amongst the communities that comprise Global Asia. Indeed, the diversity of religious landscapes that are found through Asia are reproduced throughout Global Asia in new, increasingly innovative – and sometimes disruptive – ways. Underpinning these processes is the

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fact that Asian societies are some of the most digitally advanced in the world, which has important ramifications for the cross-border practice of religion. For example, Cheong et al. (2014, p. 8) note how ‘globally dispersed Chinese populations rely on digital media to enable the exchange of various resources and sustain ties to their physical church, jia,1 or spiritual home, thus transcending national borders’. Indeed, as much as the emergence of Global Asia contributes to greater diversity in the world, so too have digital media served to catalyse such processes. The movements and circulations of Asian people and Asia as destination are a result of differing motivations (economic, lifestyle, work, study and humanitarian) and due to the accessibility of available, cheaper and sometimes questionable (e.g. refugees and asylum seekers taking to leaky boats) transport. In the past four decades, the increasing migration and mobility of Asians, in addition to Asia becoming a destination, has resulted in not only in changing ethnoscapes but has also lead to transformations and disruptions in the socio-cultural landscapes of place not only outside Asia but also within Asia. However it is digital media which, in the past 20 years and more specifically the phenomenal rise of (and dependence on) social media in the last decade, have allowed unprecedented connectivity between people and place; thus defying the limitations of distance and time as well as transformed the migration experience. As Gomes and Yeoh (2018, pp. xiii-xiv) point out: [D]igital media play a crucial role in transforming [the migration] experiences, not only for transnational mobile subjects but also those they have left behind. Digital media in its various forms, in other words, functions as an apparatus in transforming the different aspects and levels of the transnational migration experience, whether the experience may be permanent, transient, economic, forced, precarious, based on unexpected opportunities or by self-design.

Gomes and Yeoh (ibid.) further observe that digital media not only create new understandings of the migration experience but also allow for new forms of agency to be facilitated. Digital media moreover alter relationships as part of the migration experience. Digital media play an important role in both enforcing yet also overcoming diversity; they can be both an equalising and disequalising force. In this capacity, they augment processes of transnationalism, and can contribute new 1

In this case, jia loosely refers to the global community of Taoist believers.

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understandings of the ways in which transmigrants negotiate and overcome difference. For a long time, the concept of ‘social fields’ has been deployed to explain the ‘multiple interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organised and transformed’ (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1009). Whilst social fields enable the empowerment of migrants when overseas, the concept was forged in a pre-digital age. As much as transnationalism recognises the existence of multiple, often criss-crossing ties and interactions that link people, groups and ideas across national borders, digital media serve to amplify and expand such ties. Digital media constitute a space of becoming and belonging that gives new meaning to Levitt and Glick Schiller’s (2004, p. 1002) observation that integration and the maintenance of transnational ties are ‘neither incompatible nor binary opposites’. Spaces of digital media are those that we immerse ourselves in and surround ourselves with, and that, increasingly, we use to engage the social and cultural worlds in which we live. They are spaces of simultaneity in which space and time play subordinate roles to the reality of being instantly and always connected to anybody, anywhere. These spaces have given rise to what we call a ‘digitised society’; a society that overcomes the constraints of place-bound belonging through new avenues of connection and experience.

From transmigrants to digitised societies A digitised society is one that straddles digital and physical space, and which interacts with the world through the lenses of digital media. It speaks to Levitt and Glick Schiller’s (2004, p. 1003) call for scholarship to overcome the migrant/ non-migrant dualism, and, in doing so, to bring about a ‘reformulation of the concept of society’. A digitised society builds on the premise that we all live in a world in which everyone, to some extent, and to varying degrees, experiences some form of dislocation. Dislocation could result from the experience of ‘alternative’ reality that is brought about by digital media (and which, in this case, would result in a degree of dislocation from the ‘physical’ realities of the real world), or from the experience of migrating across borders and the experience of life in a new country. Importantly, therefore, in a digitised society individuals do not need to be migrants in order to feel dislocated from their physical surroundings. Digitised societies are those in which ‘movement and attachment is not linear or sequential but capable of rotating back and forth and changing direction over time. The median point on this gauge is […] simultaneity of connection’ (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1011; emphasis added; see also Georgiou 2014). Thus, in providing channels through which the

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world is lived, observed and understood, and through which social relations are forged, maintained and complicated, digital media underpin the shift towards a digitally-mediated understanding of society; a digitised society. To date, scholarship has most noticeably explored the empowering potential of digital media for migrant communities through the concept of ‘digital diasporas’. Such work reveals how digital technologies have facilitated the processes of settlement and belonging amongst long-term migrant communities (Brinkerhoff 2009). Indeed, whilst digital diasporas are shown to ‘sustain vibrant cultural and political connections locally and nationally, but also transnationally’ (Georgiou 2014, p. 81; see also Morley 2000), they do so within a framework of stasis (or settlement) rather than movement (or mobility). Moreover, the digital technologies that are engaged with – such as online forums, mailing lists and bulletin boards – appear outmoded and anachronistic in a digitally-mediated world of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. In view of this rapidly evolving digital landscape, ‘research increasingly cites the need for greater care in how we conceptualise the Internet as social space’ (Parham 2004, p. 204; see also Crang et al. 1999). That aside, the simultaneity of current forms of digital media have a blanketing effect on society; theys provide an anchor, a point of connection to a transterritorial digital space of communication, content and belonging. They are, in other words, a new form of ‘locality’ that covers and collapses territory into digital space. Digitised societies are, in this sense, those that live in the real world, but experience it through the augmented lenses of digital media. These lenses provide the opportunity for new forms of connection and new forms of belonging. As Georgiou (2014, p. 97) puts it: These are media encouraging collective identities to emerge and connect, identities that bring together different individuals and groups into horizontally accessible spaces, that challenge pre-existing hierarchies between minorities and majorities or between community leaders and other members of minorities.

Indeed, as much as digital media enable new forms of community to emerge, and pre-existing hierarchies of organisation to be challenged, so too do they change the ways in which we engage with and experience the real world. As a cultural form that includes aspects of community, organisation and practice, religion has been transformed by digital media just as much as people have. Thus, in recognising the existence of a digitised society, we must also recognise the existence of new forms of digitised religion that have emerged in response to the changing demands and needs of their communities of believers.

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From ‘cyber-religion’ to digitised religion Religion moves with people, and when people move, the ways in which they engage with religion changes. A vast array of scholarship has focused on how human mobility can ‘extend religions into new places and situations of practice, sometimes invigorating them, sometimes threatening them, always transforming and remaking them’ (Johnson 2012, p. 95; see also Kong and Woods 2018; Gomes and Tan 2015), yet consideration of the ‘extension’ of religion into the digital domain remains a relatively more recent endeavour (see Kong 2001, 2006). In the mid- to late-1990s, ‘cyber-religion’ was used to describe the transposition of religion onto the nascent frontier of cyberspace – that new dimension of reality that was starting to be engaged with by an increasing number of individuals, albeit on an ad hoc and proactive, outcome-oriented basis. For example, the embrace of technologies such as Second Life enable the creation of online workshop experiences via digital avatars, thus revealing how the Internet has become a ‘tool to extend a church’s offline ministry into online spaces’ (Campbell 2012, p. 1). This was before the Internet became ubiquitous as it is today, and before digital media became embedded within the lives of most. In more applied terms, Dawson (2000, p. 29; emphasis added) uses the term ‘cyber-religion’ to describe ‘those religious groups or organizations that exist only in cyberspace’, which itself reveals how the Internet provided possibilities for new forms of religious engagement, experience and entrepreneurialism. As the Internet became a more everyday and everywhere phenomenon, so too did scholarship become more attuned to the complexities of religion in/and the Internet. For example, Helland (2000; see also Helland 2002) advanced the terms ‘religion online’ and ‘online religion’ to distinguish between the replication of offline practices online, and the creation of new forms of online religious practices. Importantly, online religion was ‘lauded for empowering its members to re-form rituals and bypass traditional systems of legitimation or recognised gatekeepers and the opportunities it provided to transcend normal limits of time, space and geography’ (Campbell 2012, pp. 2-3). As such, online religion can be viewed as a catalyst for new, more fluid and flexible understandings of religion to emerge. Subsequently, Helland’s (2000) distinction has become increasingly blurred in the advent of digital media. This has given rise to the latest category of understanding – that of ‘digital religion’, which refers to the ‘technological and cultural space that is evoked when we talk about how online and offline religious spheres have become blended or integrated’ (Campbell 2012, pp. 3-4). Not

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only has this witnessed an applied understanding of digital media on and to religious practices, but also deeper theoretical engagement with ‘the actual contribution “the digital” is making to “the religious”‘ (Hoover 2012, p. ix). With this, comes a need to better understand the unique understandings and experiences of how digital technologies augment, mediate and sometimes distort the meanings of religion. ‘Digitised religion’ is the latest stage of this quarter century-long evolution, and engages specifically with the ways in which digital media are changing the ways in which religion is practiced, understood, proselytised and countered. Digitised religion builds on the premise that digital media are ‘more than simply vehicles for culture but rather are […] active components in its production’ and thus ‘catalyse religious mutations’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 53). Yet, digitised religion differs from digital religion in that it is a direct response to a digitised society. Thus, it is no longer sufficient to recognise the fact that religion is becoming increasingly digitally-mediated; instead, we must consider how religion is ‘digitised’ through its appropriation by digitised societies. Digitised religion is religion that is viewed, encountered and experienced through the lens of digital media. It is the coalescence of lived religious practices and digital cultures into a ‘hybridised and fluid context requiring new logics and evoking unique forms of meaning-making’ (Campbell 2012, p. 4). For example, many churches now create and share content by recording and/or streaming their services through digital distribution platforms; a form of digital religion. These forms become digitised when we recognise the fact that it is not just churches or religious leaders that are sharing their religious products through digital platforms, but their congregations are doing so as well. This reflects an ‘exten[sion] and alter[ation of] religious practice for many’ (Campbell 2012, p. 1), with digitised religion being a more informal, more user-centric and more empowering experience of religion. As such, digitised religion plays a particularly important role amongst migratory and mobile population groups. It enables them to not only be able to connect to their faith – whether dormant, latent, emergent or (newly) established – wherever they are physically located, but also to interpret and engage with their physical, social and cultural surroundings through the lenses of digital media. Such a mixing of content creators and consumers in and from different places foregrounds the need to develop new understandings of how religion and people intermix in ways that lead to the forming or dissolution of new forms of boundary. As such, there is a need to understand the new forms of religious encounter, community and power that emerge at the nexus of faith, flows and fellowship.

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New religious formations at the nexus of faith, flows and fellowship In recognising the advent of digitised religion, there is a need to critically engage with what this means for pre-existing assemblages of religious encounter, community and power. This is important, as relatively little is known about how the digital narratives of the transnationally mobile are ‘influenced by social discourses of power’ (Kienzl 2014, p. 67). Specifically, digitised religion represents the ongoing shift towards the dismantling of traditional hierarchies of religious power, and their replacement with newer, and more democratic experiences of religion. We say ‘democratic’ in view of the fact that digitised religion is often susceptible to the same ordering logics as other digital cultural forms. Visibility can be a function of the number of likes, clicks and shares, whilst traditional forms of authority and authenticity can be diluted or challenged by the relativising effects of being transmitted through digital space. In this sense, digital media are ‘neither neutral instruments of communication nor ideological superstructures legitimising ideologically infrastructural domination’; instead, they ‘shape culture, including religion’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 54; original emphasis). Digitised religion is as emancipatory as it is appealing; it provides options for individuals to engage with religion on their own terms, in ways that may or may not be acceptable to more established sources of religious authority. Indeed, to the extent that digital media ‘normatively shape religion today’, digitised religion ‘consecrat[es] the break from traditional regulations of and shift[s] religion towards a radically different horizontal regulation operated through public opinion and expectation, typical of our globalised consumer societies’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 54). Being plugged into – and a function of – ‘globalised consumer societies’, digitised religion has a strong grounding in new community formations. It locates religion within digital space, and thus renders it liable to the claims and (mis)appropriation of people that exist beyond or outside of more formal congregational arrangements. It makes religion vulnerable. Just as the ‘democratisation of information pursued by the Internet erodes traditional and State authority’, then so too is religion ‘no longer catered, produced, and debated within traditional institutions and national boundaries but rather on a transnational level with an idealized […] community’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 65; see also Woods 2018). Digitised religion loses – to some extent – the authority and established materiality of the physical world, and becomes liable to democratisation. Through

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democratisation, it can be deployed to serve the purposes for which the ‘idealised’ communities within which it is embedded desire. This can have profound implications for more traditional or pre-existing formations and logics of religious organisation, as authority in the real world does not necessarily translate to authority in the digital world. Given that digital media ‘essentially serves an ideological function’, then anyone can participate in the ‘reproduction and legitimisation of social structure and their underlying domination logics’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 55). The fact is that: To enter the World Wide Web is to enter a world of competition where players are levelled […] the Vatican has no advantage on the Web with respect to religious and spiritual affairs. It must fight for visibility and interest as much as anyone else (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p.56).

The point is that digital space ‘levels’ the playing f ield. As much as it overcomes the limitations of space and time, so too does it predicate the need for social relations to be reassembled according to the logics of digital organisation. Thus, to the extent that we live in a digital age, then so too is the ‘appropriation of digital and social media is central to the self-production’ of religious organisations, as it ‘enables them to be incarnated in such a way that they are perceived and experienced as identifiable unities around the world’ (Cheong et al. 2014, p. 11). These could be for instruction, for belonging, for connection, for empowerment, or for a host of other reasons. For example, Cheong et al. (2014, p. 8) have shown how a transnational Taiwanese spiritual organisation – Tzu Chi – is ‘co-constituted or “coproduced” as a socio-technical network by different social actors through the appropriation of digital media and mediated communication, including Facebook’. These idealised communities become more nuanced when they are comprised in whole or in part by migrants. Irrespective of the extent to which they are integrated into digitised society, migrants are more likely to ‘employ territorial identifications, engaging their creative forces in the use of things, bodies, words, and acts to deal with a perceived spatial crisis, to close or dwell in a gap between “here” and “there” in ways that are socially consequential’ (Johnson 2012, p. 103; see also Edwards 2013; Georgiou 2014). It is not just social relationships that are transformed by such ‘spatial crises’, but individuals relationship with their religion as well. These more fragmentary understanding of people, place and religion define the nexus of faith, flows and fellowship in Global Asia, and underpin the contributions that follow.

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Structure of the book This collection brings together, for the first time, a diversity of case studies across the migration, religious and digital media spectrum which decipher the ways in which individuals and groups use digital media to facilitate expressions of faith to give meaning and anchor their migrant experience. It spans nine chapters, separated into three thematic sections, that are distinguishable through their respective foci on the role of digital media in enabling or hindering the formation of community, connectivity across borders and the preaching of faith. The first section titled ‘Community Creation: The Role of Digital Media in Faith-based Groups’, comprises three chapters, and examines how digital media can contribute to the creation or disruption of online and offline religious communities. Orlando Woods starts by exploring how Asian migrants to Singapore forge various types of faith-based online communities to help them cope with the upheaval of dislocation. In doing so, he highlights the enduring tensions between being here and there, and being online and offline. Francis Lim and Sng Bee Bee continue the focus on the role of digital media in enabling China’s religious revival, but explore it from the perspective of Chinese Christians. In particular, they problematise the enabling role of digital media by contextualising it within China’s political environment and Internet regulatory regime. Finally, Anna Hickey-Moody and Marissa Willcox provide a different take on the migrant-religion-digital media nexus by looking at the impact of digital media on religiously observant migrant communities in selected secular cities in Australia and the United Kingdom. They do this by using a mixed-methodology approach including child-centric art-based practice, to understand how migrant children and their parents respond to negative media depictions of their religions. The second section titled ‘Connectivity through Faith: Maintaining Transnational Connections through Religion’ comprises two chapters, and looks at how digital media are deployed to maintain transnational connections through religion. Han Zhang and Junxi Qian start with a discussion of a topic of great important in recent years – the religious revival in China. They interrogate the transmission of this-worldly-Buddhism from Taiwan to mainland China. In doing so, they highlight the role of digital media in enabling this transmission, and the seemingly paradoxical role of Buddhism therein. Tan Meng Yoe explores this dynamic from the opposite perspective, by considering how blogging enabled a Malaysian-Chinese Christian blogger to cope with migration to New Zealand. This movement is articulated as a form of physical and spiritual exile from Malaysia, with

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the blog constituting a sort of virtual pathway through which geographical separation can, in some way, be reconciled. The third and final section titled ‘Preaching the Faith: The Rise of Digital Pastors and Preachers’ comprises four chapters, and examines the role of digital media in enabling religious leaders and activists to cross boundaries and exert some degree of influence. Catherine Gomes and Jonathan Tan explore how new patterns of congregation can emerge in response to the creation of digital pastors. By exploring the influence and appeal of Brian and Bobbie Houston – the New Zealand-born founders of Hillsong – and Joseph Prince – the Singapore-born founder of New Creation Church – they explore the ways in which digital marketing and branding is used to shape and expand the appeal of these digital pastors. Justin K.H. Tse takes the idea of religious influencing through digital media, and explores it through the prism of online politics. Contrary to cyberspace being a medium through which difference can be transcended, he instead demonstrates how it can be used to reproduce differences between the Anglo-American and AsianAmerican evangelical communities. Hyemin Na delves into the case of Asian-American Christian communities in more detail, by focusing on how Korean-American Christian women living in the U.S. incorporate religious digital media produced in South Korea into their everyday lives. In doing so, she highlights how these women exert a form of spiritual authority over the ways in which they curate and consume these media. Finally, Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir explores the role of digital media in enabling forms of transnational religious activism. Drawing on the recent plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar, he shows how Muslim leaders in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Australia used digital media to make a case for the acceptance and integration of the Rohingya into their own respective communities. Altogether, these chapters highlight some of the nuances that emerge at the intersection of digital media and hyper-mobility. In some instances, digital media can help overcome the dislocations that arise as a result of hyper-mobility; in others, they enforce them. While the major organised religions of Buddhism, Islam and to a lesser extent Hinduism are represented in this collection, it is Christianity which dominates much of the discussion. However, rather than seeing this as a drawback, this collection is really a ‘first step’ to unpacking and understanding the faith, flows and fellowship nexus. With the unprecedented numbers of people circulating transnationally into Asia, within Asia and into Asian diasporic communities outside Asia together with their ubiquitous reliance of digital technologies, this book provides us with a glimpse of the significance of faith in today’s world.

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The chapters thus are united in their focus on Asian communities, but are unique in terms of their empirical insights into the ongoing evolution of faith, flows and fellowship in Global Asia.

Postscript While we were completing this collection in early 2020, the significance of religious instruction and observance in the digital space became even more profound. The world at this time was gripped by an unprecedented health crisis in the form of COVID-19. Emerging first in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the virus soon spread far and wide resulting in travel bans, self-quarantine, social distancing and in-country lockdowns. This meant that religious gatherings for worship were disallowed thus making the digital space even more significant for religions as people sought solace from real world happenings. For many, it is the first time their lives have been disrupted in such a way; for some, it has prompted the search for comfort and reassurance in religion to offset the growing sense of uncertainty and threat felt throughout the world. Whether the digital space will grow in importance and substance for world religions is yet to be seen. For now, it is providing the environment for meaningful engagements between religious leaders, preachers and instructors with the faithful, some of whom are finding themselves immobilised within their homes, and socially distanced from their friends and families. In such times, the intersections of the digital and the religious find renewed meaning as the basis for hope, continuity and resilience in an increasingly volatile world.

References Beneito-Montagut, R. (2011) ‘Ethnography goes Online: Towards a User-Centred Methodology to Research Interpersonal Communication on the Internet’, Qualitative Research, 11(6), pp. 716-735. Brinkerhoff, J.M. (2009) Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, H.A. (2012) ‘Introduction: The Rise of the Study of Digital Religion’, in Campbell, H.A. (eds.), Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1-21. Cheong, P.H., Hwang, J.M. and Brummans, B. (2014) ‘Transnational Immanence: The Autopoietic Co-Constitution of a Chinese Spiritual Organization through Mediated Communication’, Information, Communication & Society, 17(1), pp. 7-25.

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Crang, M., Crang, P. and May, J. (1999) Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations, London: Routledge. Dawson, L. (2000) ‘Researching Religion in Cyberspace: Issues and Strategies’, in Hadden, J.K. and Cowan, D.E. (eds.), Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises, New York: JAI Press, pp. 25-54. Edwards, B.H. (2003) The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gauthier, F. and Uhl, M. (2012) ‘Digital Shapings of Religion in a Globalised World: The Vatican Online and Amr Khaled’s TV-preaching’, Australian Journal of Communication, 39(1), pp. 53-70. Georgiou, M. (2014) ‘Diaspora in the Digital Era: Minorities and Media Representation’, Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, 12(4), pp. 80-99. Gomes, C. (2016). ‘Introduction’, in Gomes, C. (eds.), The Asia-Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility: The Search for Community and Identity on and Through Social Media, London: Anthem Press, pp. 1-16. Gomes, C. and Tan, J. (2015) ‘Christianity as a Culture of Mobility: A Case Study of Asian Transient Migrants in Singapore’, Kritika Kultura, 25, pp. 215-244. Gomes, C. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (2018) ‘Introduction’, in Gomes, C. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (eds.), Transnational Migrations in the Asia-Pacific: Transformative Experiences in the Age of Digital Media, London & New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, pp. xi-xxv. Helland, C. (2000) ‘Online-Religion/Religion-Online and Virtual Communities’, in Hadden, J.K. and Cowan, D.E. (eds.), Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises, New York: JAI Press, pp. 205-223. Helland, C. (2002) ‘Surfing for Salvation’, Religion, 32(4), pp. 293-302. Hoover, S. (2012) ‘Foreword: Practice, Autonomy and Authority in the Digitally Religious and Digitally Spiritual’, in Cheong, P.H., Fisher-Nielsen, P., Gelfgren, S. and Ess, C. (eds.), Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices and Futures, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, pp. vii-xi. Johnson, P.C. (2012) ‘Religion and Diaspora’, Religion and Society: Advances in Research, 3, pp. 95-114. Kienzl, L. (2014) ‘Digital Participatory Culture: Transnationality, Fandom & Diversity Religion and Gender in German-Written Fan Fiction and Fan Forums’, Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, 6, pp. 66-89. Kong, L. (2001) ‘Religion and Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity and Community’, Area, 33(4), pp. 404-413. Kong, L. (2006) ‘Religion and Spaces of Technology: Constructing and Contesting Nation, Transnation, and Place’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 38(5), pp. 903-918. Kong, L. and Woods, O. (2018) ‘Mobile Bodies, (Im)mobile Beliefs? Religious Accord and Discord as Migratory Outcomes’, Social Compass, 65(2), pp. 149-167.

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Catherine Gomes, Lily Kong and Orlando Woods

Levitt, P. and Glick Schiller, N. (2004) ‘Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society’, International Migration Review, 38(3), pp. 1002-1039. Morley, D. (2000) Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity, London: Routledge. Ong, A. (1999) Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Parham, A.A. (2004) ‘Diaspora, Community and Communication: Internet Use in Transnational Haiti’, Global Networks, 4(2), pp. 199-217. Rudolph, S.H. (1997) ‘Religion, States and Transnational Civil Society’, in Rudolph, S.H. and Piscatori, J. (eds.) Transnational Religion and Fading States, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 1-26. Woods, O. (2018) ‘The Digital Subversion of Urban Space: Power, Performance and Grime’, Social & Cultural Geography, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2018.1491617.

About the authors Catherine Gomes is an Associate Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Her work contributes to the understanding of the evolving migration, mobility and digital media nexus. She is a specialist on the Asia-Pacific with Australia and Singapore being significant fieldwork sites. She has authored and edited 7 books. Lily Kong is the President and Lee Kong Chian Chair of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University. Her research focuses on social and cultural change in Asian cities. She has studied topics including religion, cultural policy, creative economy, urban heritage and conservation, and smart cities, and has won numerous research and book awards from various institutions such as the Association of American Geographers and the Singapore National Book Development Council. Orlando Woods is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Singapore Management University. His research interests span religion, digital technologies and urban environments in/and Asia. He holds BA (First Class) and PhD degrees in Geography from University College London, and the National University of Singapore, respectively.

1.

The Creation of Digitally-Mediated Christian Migrant Communitiesin Singapore Orlando Woods

Abstract This chapter explores how digital technologies and religion coalesce to help strengthen and/or weaken the formation of communities. Whilst digital technologies have made it easier than ever before for international migrants to remain connected to the communities they left behind, religion can provide a potent source of belonging for the territorially dislocated. The creation of digitally-mediated migrant communities can enhance this sense of belonging, but complicate it as well. Drawing on 72 in-depth interviews conducted with Christian migrants and Singapore-based clergy, I explore how digital technologies enable the formation of content-based, connection-based and support-based Christian migrant communities. I highlight the ways in which migrants must negotiate the tension between being here and there, and between online and offline religious praxes. Keywords: Christianity, community, Singapore, migration, digital media

Introduction Whilst international migration once meant a break from the place of origin, for many migrants this is no longer the case. Advances in communications technologies have almost nullified the cost of creating and maintaining transnational linkages that traverse space and time, whilst simultaneously expanding the range of communications tools available to migrants (see Faist 2000; Navarrete and Huerta 2006). Accordingly, the physical dislocation associated with cross-border movement has become decoupled from the

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch01

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socio-cultural dislocation of such movements. In other words, as people continue to move around the world, they remain, to varying degrees and in various ways, plugged into the socio-cultural environments that they left behind. More than anything else, this decoupling has been caused by the proliferation of digital technologies into almost all walks of life. Many of us now navigate our daily lives with a smartphone in our pocket or handbag, and rely on its constant connection to the digital domain for entertainment, communication, information and a host of other uses as well. As a result, digital connectivity has now become ‘a prolongation of social life, a resonance chamber in which social bonds and values are circulated and produced’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 53; see also Woods 2018). It has transformed the practice of communication, making it both more accessible and multi-faceted, but also more unavoidable, than ever before. As much as digital technologies push the boundaries of our ability to communicate and connect with others, so too is there a need to ‘pay close attention to the potential and restrictions in communication within and across boundaries’ (Georgiou 2014, p. 81). This chapter explores the ways in which digital technologies aid and abet the process of community-building amongst Christian migrants in Singapore. Religion provides a potent source of comfort and belonging for many, especially those that are territorially dislocated. Yet, the ways in which it is practiced, communicated, shared and consumed have evolved in line with the encroachment of digitally-mediated ways of living. Religion is not, therefore, immune to the effects of digital disruption. Moreover, the convergence of religion and the digital domain is often a contested process that some religious organisations are better able to navigate than others. Convergence foregrounds the need for religious organisations, leaders, communities and individuals to reimagine their positions vis-à-vis one another, bringing about situations whereby they are ‘enmeshed in […] communicative struggles for identity’ (Cheong et al. 2014, p. 11). Enmeshment occurs in digital space, and as much as it causes relationships and hierarchies of power to be renegotiated, so too does it enable migrants to experience multi-faceted forms of connectivity to religious communities around the world. Such communities can be of their choosing, and can be immune to the physical realities and constraints of space and time. New strategies of religiously-rooted migrant community-building have therefore emerged, enabling migrants to ‘experience community-like feelings and behaviours in online settings paralleling those of physical communities’ (Navarrete and Huerta 2006, p. 2). This is particularly true in Singapore, where technological uptake has been championed by the government since the first IT masterplan was formulated in 1980 (Kong and Woods 2018a). Since then, it has evolved to become ‘one

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of the most wired cities in Asia’ with organisations spanning a variety of religious traditions being ‘highly embedded in the media landscape’ (Poon et al. 2012, p. 1971). As such, it provides a suitable empirical context in which new understandings of the ways in which migrants build new, digitally-mediated forms of religious community can be forged (Woods 2019; Woods and Kong 2019). The data presented below draw on fieldwork conducted between November 2017 and February 2018 amongst Singapore’s migrant Christian community. Specifically, the data were derived from 49 depth interviews conducted with Christian migrants from Burma, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea; and 23 interviews with Singapore-based clergy and church leaders. Before the empirical analysis, however, I first provide an overview of existing scholarship surrounding how religious groups go about building communities of belonging in an era of digital technology.

Religious community-building in a digital age The Internet has transformed the ways in which communities are (re) produced. This is especially true for migrants and religious groups, as the former must negotiate the dialectic of dislocation and relocation, whilst the latter must reposition themselves in digital spaces of content, community and connection. In both instances, advances in technology have brought about opportunities for new types of community to be forged, but also challenges to existing ways of being. As Kotowski and dos Santos (2010, p. 151) put it, ‘the Internet surpasses the barrier and distance of isolation, offering the opportunity of connection to those living in remote zones, to the religious and cloistered, to the homebound, to the detained, etc.’. That said, whilst the Internet is a globe-spanning web of connections that enable digitally-produced information and content to be shared with ease, it is no more than the infrastructure that undergirds what I call the ‘digital age’. The digital age refers to the advances in digital technology – particularly software platforms that enable the sharing of digital media, and hardware such as smart phones that enable people to be constantly connected to the Internet – that have caused them to become an increasingly inescapable part of daily life. Indeed, for many of us, they mediate our lives, and provide a lens through which we engage with the world around us (after Georgiou 2014). Thus, whilst digital technologies provide a ‘bridge home’ for migrants (Navarrete and Huerta 2006), so too do they enable more simultaneous forms of interaction with both people and content.

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The digital spaces created by digital media can therefore provide a means of disconnecting or escaping from the place-based constraints of the real world. As Hiller and Franz (2004, p. 732) note, ‘geography often appears irrelevant as a basis for interaction on electronic connectors’, which results in situations whereby ‘it is not shared location that provides the catalyst for interaction but shared interest’. Place-based forms of belonging can be supplanted by more ideological or interest-based forms of belonging, creating a digital polity that people can engage with and shape, irrespective of their status in society. For those that identify with a particular religious group or belief, this means that engaging with like-minded communities of people is easier, and is often based on ‘fluid social interactions rather than notions of shared geography and familial ties’ (Campbell 2012a, p. 14; see also Campbell 2012b; Kong and Woods 2018b, 2019). In their study of a digitally-mediated transnational spiritual organisation, for example, Cheong et al. (2014, p. 9) argue that digital technologies enable religious engagement with ‘a collective “self” with symbolic and material characteristics’. In other words, they empower people to construct their own religious communities that could be based on ideas and images (‘symbolic’ characteristics), or territorial and physical attachments (‘material’ characteristics). Yet, as much as they enable engagement and connection, so too do they foreground the formation of new types of power, hierarchy and authority. Digital communities are intangible entities, meaning they are an outcome of the people that choose to engage with them. Jenkins (2006) argues that digital engagement foregrounds the formation of a ‘participatory culture’ that involves the co-creation and co-circulation of content and community. Building on this logic, Bruns (2008) has coined the term ‘produsers’ to describe how people are ‘continuously engaged in reciprocal production and transmission of knowledge as well as the reproduction and recirculation of media’ (Poon et al. 2012, p. 1972; see also Kienzl 2014). This idea that individuals are as important to the production and distribution of religious content as more traditional hierarchies of religious authority, power and influence, and can have profound implications for the ways in which religion is organised in the contemporary world. Religious content becomes more multi-faceted and multi-sensory, more transgressive, and more reciprocal. More than that, it also underpins the need for more expansive understandings of the ways in which religious communities are formed using digital technologies, and the politics therein (after Campbell 2012b). With this in mind, the empirical section that follows identifies and expounds three types of digitally-mediated religious community – content-based, connection-based

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and support-based – that are reproduced by Christian migrant communities in Singapore.

Reproducing Christian migrant communities in Singapore Digital media are inherently transgressive in their accessibility. They do not adhere to the boundaries of territory, the convenience of proximity, or the divisions of socio-spatial status; rather, they operate according to a newer, more level playing field that is shaped by those who engage with it. Amongst Christian migrants, digital media have enabled the recreation of both specific and tangible – and more abstract and intangible – forms of belonging within the digital domain. In the first instance, they enable the recreation of place-based congregational practices (such as prayer and worship communities) in a more placeless, online environment. This has created a situation whereby having a digital presence is an essential extension of offline presence; indeed, one Burmese migrant, who was responsible for his church’s social media accounts, described how ‘we need to have a Facebook, it’s a must, it’s a need!’. More specifically, migrants forge connection-based and support-based communities through digital media. Both enable a sense of belonging to territorially dislocated peoples, as ‘once upon a time, there is nothing, no social media and no communication, so I feel lonely’ (Indian male, late 30s). These communities are explored in more detail in the second and third subsections below. In the second instance, digital media also enable engagement with more trans-territorial and transcendental communities of like-minded individuals. These communities are typically content-based and are often online-only; i.e. they have no offline presence. Content-based communities are explored in the first subsection below. Combined, these three forms of digital community-building enable migrants to forge a sense of religious belonging. Indeed, the affective power of digital community-building is that it is underpinned by forms of stimulation and experience that can only be communicated by digital media, rendering the experience as unique as it is accessible to the territorially dispossessed. As Poon et al. (2012, p. 1971) put it, ‘digital media amplify the modulation of sensorium and social experiences by allowing sound, the visual, and action to be integrated’. That said, whilst the beneficence of digital media can be great, so too can it be undermined by the online and offline practices of community participants. In this sense, I problematise the view that ‘media, as a technique, is neutral, a mere vessel for transporting and transmitting content’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 54) by highlighting the politics embedded

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within each of the three digital communities explored in the three subsections that follow.

Content-based digital communities With digital media, new possibilities for community formation emerge. The new forms of religious content associated with digital media are, perhaps, one of the most unique forms of community-building available to Christian migrants. Indeed, whilst churches traditionally ‘demand[ed] the regular physical presence of worshippers’ whereby the ‘performance’ of congregation-based worship was predicated on ‘clergy and the choir assuming center stage in the sacred space of communication’ (Poon et al. 2012, p. 1973), this is no longer the case. In many instances, migrants would consume church-generated content through digital media, often at a time and place that was more suitable for them. For example, a Burmese maid recalled how she would listen to the services of her church when she could not attend in-person: This week I didn’t come [to church], right, so what they are doing, they share the video clip [of the church service], so I can see when I am not going out also […] after work, all done, when I go to sleep, I just listen […] I know what they are doing, what they are singing.

This sort of engagement would not be with any particular individual, but with the content shared by her church on Facebook. Whilst for some this provided a good substitute for not being able to attend church in-person, for others it enabled the church to be more accessible when they needed it most. For example, an Indian migrant observed how Facebook ‘has helped a lot, because sometimes when we come back home from work, the moment I am plugged into something nice, it lifts my spirits’. Greater access to the church would often result in a strengthening of faith, as it played a greater role in everyday life. Another Burmese maid in her 20s explained how ‘I also want to know [more] about my church, so my church […] open[s] Facebook, I joined my church Facebook […] my Christian [faith] very believe [i.e. became stronger], we everyday post bible, so we everyday read bible’. In this case, her church’s Facebook page provided the catalyst need to read the bible on a more regular basis. For many migrants, however, the true value of digital media is that it enables them greater access not only to their church in Singapore, but also other

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forms of Christian content from around the world. This could include content from their home countries, or churches from further afield (Kienzl 2014). In particular, digital content created by churches based in Western countries would often be embraced as it was deemed to be of a higher quality: ‘I follow other [Facebook] pages from American Catholic [organisations] and stuff […] I like seeing all those pictures and verses and news about Catholicism’ (Indian female); ‘I listen to the U.S. one [i.e. sermons]’ (Indonesian female). Through such engagement, Christian migrants can be seen to participate in an imagined community of like-minded content consumers who would engage in the same content from disparate locations around the world. In essence, this is what I mean by a ‘content-based’ digital community; one that is ‘enable[d by] the use of similar music, similar worship styles, and similar recruitment strategies across the globe’ (Koning 2017, p. 42). Not only that, but through engagement, consumers would become implicated in the ongoing reproduction and distribution of content, as ‘under Web 2.0 and other digital technology […] increased consumer engagement leads to the cocreation of value in the marketplace’ (Poon et al. 2012, p. 1969). The valency of cocreation on a global scale is often underpinned by the fact that digital media is multimodal, causing the affective power of digital communication to expand beyond words and to incorporate images, videos and sounds as well. A Burmese migrant explained how ‘I post my family pictures […] I post gospel songs [as well]’ on her Facebook page, the aim being to share both personal and religious content with her contacts. Thus, whilst words are an ‘operationally closed way of interacting’ (Cheong et al. 2014, p. 10), the multi-modality of the digital domain allows for a more open and transgressive form of experience. Some churches, especially those more sensitive to the promotional power of digital content, were more responsive in their digital media strategies. For example, a Filipino migrant who volunteered at the Catholic organisation, Opus Dei, explained how ‘we started with Facebook, and we see the trend that young people like to browse Instagram more, so we move to Instagram’. Beyond the preferences of young people, this shift was also based on the fact that Instagram content was believed to be easier to consume and share, which, in turn, translated into the fact that ‘you feel more belonged there’ (ibid.). Whilst an effective way of inculcating a sense of belonging amongst territorially-dislocated migrants, spaces of digital media could often conflict with or contradict the offline spaces of the church. As Poon et al. (2012, p. 1970) note, ‘interrelations between these two mediums alter the nature of sacred space, which is traditionally devoted to the codif ication and ritualisation of spiritual meanings held dear by a community of worshippers’.

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These interrelations – and, more specifically, the tensions that arise from negotiating ‘two mediums’ – are reflected in the oxymoronic comments of a Filipino migrant in his 30s, who recalled how: Before social media arrived, my faith is not that strong, it’s kind of like you’re lost […] But when you know that there is someone out there telling you that everything is OK, that there is a God guiding us, it’s like I feel more comforted. When you see a verse in a Facebook group or a page that keeps posting bible verses, they post something everyday, like ‘whatever it is, you know that God is around us’, like motivating messages. Now I don’t have Facebook, I don’t have social media, I only depend on going to church.

The sudden change of direction in the last sentence – from espousing the ‘comfort[ing]’ and ‘motivating’ power of digital media, to rejecting it and ‘only depend[ing] on going to church’ – brings into stark contrast the short-lived appeal of digital media vis-à-vis the more enduring appeal of the physical church. Many respondents raised other limitations of digital media, and in doing so revealed some of the politics of digital content. For example, a recurrent theme was that the consumption of digital content was often through smartphones, which encouraged shallower engagement with the material, as ‘[you] forget easily […] I tend to flip very fast, like just browse through. I don’t really pay much attention unless I really force myself’ (Chinese male). The lack of sustained attention given to digital content is often because it is consumed when ‘I am outside, so I will get distracted’ (Chinese female). These comments reveal the fact that ‘digitalization facilitates a process of mediatization that converts religious performance into forms suitable for commodification and commoditization’ (Poon et al. 2012, p. 196), and thus reflects Einstein’s (2008) view that competition between different religious organisations has resulted in a shift towards religion as entertainment. Digitally-mediated religious content thus ‘impos[es] the importance of aesthetic and sensory dimensions to the detriments of faith contents’ (Gauthier and Uhl 2012, p. 53), rendering it at once more accessible, digestible and everyday, but also more removed from its offline formations. The net effect, as explained by a Filipino migrant, is that digitally-mediated religious content: Has become more mindless, because if it pops up on my feed, that means I’ve read a part of the bible today because Pope Francis tweeted it, for example, or I’ve learnt about this or that teaching […] [I feel] nonchalant in a way. But, of course, I feel slightly guilty as well, it reminds me that I should be reading the bible regularly but I don’t.

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Whilst the claimed ‘mindless[ness]’ of digital content restricted engagement for some, for others it was a distraction from offline religious practices. For one domestic helper from Burma, the risk was that digital content ‘wastes time […] if you don’t control yourself, you will waste a lot of time’, which in turn meant that ‘you will not give more time to pray or [read the physical] bible’. In this case, online and offline religious experiences are not viewed as complementary, but antagonistic. Thus, as much as digital media can be an extension of offline religious practices, so too can it be an unsatisfactory substitute for them. An Indonesian female explained how ‘now you can watch Sunday service online, [yet] one of the Christian teachings talk about how physical gathering is important, so there is a tension to that’. This tension reflects the fact that content-based communities are an accessible way for migrants to elicit comfort and direction from their religion during their dayto-day lives, but such access is often superficial and unsatisfactory. Human connectivity is also needed to bring the experience of religious content to life, as shown through the creation of ‘connection-based’ communities.

Connection-based digital communities Spaces of digital media are those that enable multi-faceted forms of connection. They therefore enable the formation of connection-based communities. Whilst content can be conceptualised as a form of connection, I treat contentbased communities as separate from connection-based communities, as such connections are often abstract, and often associated with entertainment. Connection-based communities, on the other hand, are grounded by the people that engage with them through digital media. They are particularly important for migrants, as they have the ‘capacity to link many people interactively across great distances’ (Parham 2004, p. 1970) through the ‘immersion of worshippers and visitors in [a] mediatized environment, real and virtual’ (Poon et al. 2012, p. 1971; after Couldry 2008). In this sense, connection-based communities straddle the online and offline worlds, and provide opportunities for relationships to be forged, strengthened or reassessed (see Hiller and Franz 2004). For example, a Burmese male, who is an administrator for his church’s Facebook page, explained how: We use it [Facebook] to interact with people […] for those [Burmese] people coming to Singapore, they are looking for a church, and right now we have Facebook, they can search for ‘Myanmar fellowship in Singapore’, they can use the Messenger to contact us […] There are [also]

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some Singaporeans asking us whether they can send their [Burmese] maids here for church service.

In this case, digital media not only provide an opportunity for migrants themselves to find and connect with physical communities, but Singaporeans (who have migrant dependents, such as domestic helpers) as well. Migrants themselves engaged in similar practices, with one Burmese domestic helper describing how she would share religious content with her Burma-based mother by ‘tagging’ her: ‘I [read my] bible every day, so some verse[s], my mother like, I will tag my family and friends’. Beyond putting migrants in contact with churches, digital media also enable the organisation of larger-scale events and community gatherings. A Korean pastor of a Korean migrant church explained how Facebook was the primary channel he used to engage with his congregation, as ‘most people get information from mobile phones, that’s why we try to focus on social media and communicate with them even via Facebook Messenger’. He went on to give a more specific example of how he used social media platforms to go beyond the confines of his own congregation, and to reach out to the broader Korean Christian community in Singapore. As he explained: ‘This Friday we have a big event where we have a guest speaker from Korea, and we reached out to more than 800 people [via Facebook] […] when we have an event, we will open [it] to other Korean churches in Singapore’. In this sense, digital media goes beyond the individual, and enables outreach to much larger communities of migrants. Beyond the ability to connect with more people, digital media also enable migrants to connect with new people. In this sense, digital media can be viewed as a tool of social expansion that transcends the boundaries and limitations of space and time. The example of a Burmese domestic helper based in Singapore who befriended another Burmese domestic helper based in Malaysia via Facebook highlights the point particularly well. In this case, the helper told us how, although ‘I never see [her] before […] we are friends on Facebook, she asked me [on Facebook] if I am a Christian, and I said I am also Christian, then we pray together’. Over time, their friendship evolved from sharing messages over Facebook, to engaging with their shared religion by video calling each other via Facebook Messenger: ‘We read bible, I read number one, then she reads number two, then after that we sing songs, and we pray, finish, then we talk, we do like that, it’s just me and that girl’. In this case, digital media enabled two migrants from the same country to find each other and connect based on their shared nationality and religious identities. It also enabled them to strengthen their faith through shared religious practices,

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and, more than that, to enable them to cope with the dislocation of migration by forging a connection that made her ‘very happy’. This is particularly important for domestic helpers, as their mobility is often restricted to the homes in which they work, meaning opportunities for socialisation outside of the home are rare, and often restricted to their days off. By enabling connection to different, spatially dispersed individuals and communities, digital media help migrants – and the churches of which they are a part – to overcome the restrictions of space. For one Burmese domestic helper, this meant being able to simultaneously stay connected to her church in Burma, and the church she attended in Singapore. As she explained, ‘I have two churches to follow on Facebook, it’s this Hallelujah International Church in Singapore, and then the other one is Hallelujah Worship Centre in Myanmar – the pastors are brothers’. She went on to explain how Facebook enabled her to stay connected to the church in Burma, as ‘I can see their programmes’ and thus watch the services of the Burma-based church online and also attend church in Singapore. This example reveals how digital space involves a dialectic of place and placelessness, as the two churches she is connected to are distinctly place-bound, yet they become placeless through digital connectivity. In other instances, digital media could be used to emphasise connections to specific places. For example, an Indonesian Catholic explained how digital media enabled her to foster a sense of connection to her church in Singapore: Recently, the church reopened after three years of renovation, and we were livestreaming the mass [on Facebook]. So, I was, like, texting my friend ‘are you watching the livestream?’ and she was like ‘yeah!’ So, maybe it’s a form of connection other than just being there, so even if you can’t make it, there is a way for you to be involved. So, it’s more of how they’re trying to make busy working adults and students feel part of church celebration […] I think they’re trying to use technology to not just help migrants integrate, but to be a general Catholic as well, to feel more involved in the church.

This sense of involvement is important, especially for migrants who may struggle to develop a sense of belonging to the churches they attend in Singapore. Moreover, in this case the empowering role of digital media in overcoming the constraints of space and time is shown in the fact that three different locations (the church itself, the migrant’s home, and her friend’s home) were brought into one space of connection and engagement within digital space. The reverse of this logic was expressed by a Filipino

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domestic helper, who would use digital media to organise her group of her Filipino friends so that they could sit together as a group in church. Given that ‘I cannot reserve seats, you know the rules, first come first served’, she would urge her friends to arrive at the same time so that ‘when I reach the church already [I can message them and say] “I am here, where are you?”, “OK, OK, reaching now!”‘. This ability to exert more exact control over their negotiations of physical space is of particular importance for domestic helpers, for whom, because their time and mobility is restricted, often strive to maximise the time they can spend together. That said, as much as digital media can be spatially inclusive, so too can they be socially divisive. The inclusiveness of digital space is based on an assumption of digital accessibility that may be unevenly spread across different migrant groups. For example, many of the Burmese domestic helpers we spoke to explained how they could only access their phones during weekends, with one explaining how: ‘My employer, Monday morning keep my phone, then Friday night give [back to me] […] then I got no contact [during the week]’. In another case, the Indian pastor of a Telugu migrant ministry – which targeted low-paid construction workers from the Indian subcontinent – admitted that ‘I thought of starting a Facebook group, but it didn’t work for us, they [the migrants] are not on Facebook, they have no time [and] they are not smart in using social media’. In this case, whilst the benefits of connectivity afforded by digital media are recognised, the reality is that engagement assumes a certain degree of technological literacy and access that may not be available to everyone. He went on to admit that ‘I really have a concern in this area, because the world is growing in social media, and this people are really, they are away from it, you know?’ (see Kong and Woods 2018b). This causes those communities that are digitally-engaged to become further removed from those that are not digitally-engaged, which in turn can cause existing social, economic and cultural divisions to become even more entrenched. Conversely, digital media can also bring about unwanted forms of connectivity. The possibility of being able to always access digital space – and to be always accessible by people through digital space – caused some to disassociate themselves with digital media. For example, a Chinese postgraduate student admitted that ‘I’ve spent enough time in my church […] I don’t think I can give more to the religion [through digital media]’. Another Chinese postgraduate explained how: When I want to focus on my work, I don’t want the interruption from social media, so most of the time I turn it off. And many sisters [i.e. Christian friends] complained ‘why don’t you reply my messages?’ […] They call

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me via WeChat every morning […] I don’t want to get up so early […] I feel it’s so boring to read that [Christian] material […] so they just give up [trying to contact her].

Thus, whilst digital media is based on an assumption of access, so too is it based on the willingness to be accessible anytime, anywhere. In this case, the unwillingness to read all the content that was sent to her by her ‘sisters’, or to chat with them ‘every morning’, caused her to withdraw from digital media, and eventually, the connection-based community that she once belonged to. As an aside, Chinese migrants are slightly unique in this regard as the Chinese government is believed by some to use WeChat as a form of surveillance. This caused some to avoid using WeChat for religious purposes, as ‘there are some supervision by the government […] for some [Chinese] students in the Singapore Bible School, they may choose [to use] WhatsApp’ (Chinese female). Finally, some migrants gravitated away from digital media as it fostered weak forms of connectivity that meant little in the offline world. In this sense, connection-based communities mirror content-based communities in their perceived superficiality. As a result, an Indonesian female explained how digital media was used as a tool of organisation rather than interaction: ‘Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, whatever, right, it’s just to organise the schedules and give information, but it’s not a means to personal interactions’. Indeed, digital interactions are not a reproduction of offline interactions, but a different form of communication entirely. The rules of engagement change. Often, this means that there is less incentive to invest in digital interactions, as they are, by definition, abstracted from reality. As a Chinese migrant explained: ‘I mean, what’s the point? There is not really a commitment […] there is no physical reward’. Whilst this perspective may be overly (and, to prove a point, intentionally) cynical, it also highlights the fact that ideas of communication, connection and inter-personal commitments take on a different meaning in digital space. Whatever the medium, ‘people must be motivated to be connected’ (Kotowski and dos Santos 2010, p. 15), yet digital media make communication so accessible and so easy that its affective power can be diminished. These dialectics become more acutely felt when digital media are used to create support-based communities.

Support-based digital communities The enhanced connectivity afforded by digital media is felt strongly by migrants, for whom such connectivity is often leveraged as a form of support.

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In this sense, the power of digital media is that ‘those with common needs who may be isolated where they live are able to find and support each other’ (Parham 2004, p. 210). Some migrants would use digital media to send ad hoc messages of support to each other – ‘you can quickly say a word of encouragement’ (Indian male) – whilst others created more structured communities of support that would convene on a regular basis through digital platforms. For example, a Burmese domestic helper in her 30s explained her participation in a prayer group consisting of Burmese migrants in Singapore and their extended families back in Burma that regularly convened through WhatsApp: We have one day to pray together, every Monday 10pm, we pray together! […] At that time, they will message ‘time to pray’ so we will take time to pray together in different places through WhatsApp. So, some will send what to pray for them, then after the prayer time, we will just pray in our places – different places, but we are praying at the same time.

The pervasiveness of such practices is reflected in the fact that another Burmese domestic helper in her 20s also engaged in such a support groups, albeit in a more unstructured way, and through a different platform: We use Viber for my group, sometimes when they want to pray or talk about things, then we pray for them. Like […] are you sick? If she is not OK, then we pray for them like that. My care group is 20 people in the Viber group […] They send messages every day, every night, 9pm like that, we pray for them.

These prayer-based support groups provide an important source of comfort for migrants, such as domestic helpers, who may experience a degree of social isolation when territorially removed from their families and friends. Religion often provides an important basis from which support can emerge, as evinced in the prayer-based nature of the examples shared above. In such instances, support is often peer-to-peer or friend-to-friend. In other cases, however, support-based digital communities could be more hierarchical, and could involve pastors reaching out to their congregations. For example, an Indian migrant and the leader of his church’s Telugu ministry explained how he would send daily messages to a community of Indian construction workers that he was trying to support through his religious outreach: Every morning I send them one SMS of the bible verse, which is [to] encourage[e] them, like God is with you, God loves you, to encourage

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them to be strong, take hope. And I send a small prayer to them, that I am praying for you, be strong in your workplace. And they said that sometimes they face some challenges in their workplace, but my SMS encourage them.

In this case, the fact that his ministry targeted low-paid construction workers meant that he had to substitute digital platforms (such as WhatsApp and Viber) with more analogue, SMS-based communications. Beyond verbal words of support, communicated through either digital or more analogue platforms, others would rely on more multisensory forms of media to evoke a feeling of comfort when feeling stressed or depressed. For example, an Indian female explained how ‘when I am very down, I open those YouTube links to watch sermon, I feel very comforted’. However, the same migrant went on to explain how such practices would sometimes be taken too far by her husband, who would substitute digital forms of religious support with the offline, physical experience of religious community. She described how ‘the other day, my husband was telling me that he is very tired and he is not going to church […] I am very against that, because I feel that you should be coming to the church service, coming to God’s presence. You shouldn’t do it in the comforts of your home’. The easily accessible nature of digital media does, in this case, encourage a substitution of digital experiences for the physical practice of religion. This dynamic was also observed by a Korean migrant in her 20s, who explained how friends from her church had their own informal support group that enabled the barrier between Korean migrants and Singaporeans to be overcome, but, in doing so, created a new barrier between online and offline practices: There is a group for the Korean group chat in Hope Church, and there are some Singaporeans in that same group. And sometimes they just share their personal issues, like ‘I broke up with my boyfriend’ and stuff like that in the group. So, I feel like inside that group chat is more friendly, more family-ish atmosphere, I guess. Maybe fifteen people [in the group chat], six to seven people barely come to Hope Church, but they are present in that group chat.

In this case, support groups can blur the line between religious and nonreligious engagement, and between the discipline of attending church versus the ease of being ‘present’ on a group chat. Indeed, one of the most consistently heard problems relating to support-based digital communities was the dilution of meaning associated with the easily accessible nature of

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digital media. This dilution of meaning was revealed in the ways that some people interacted with each other through digital media, as explained by a Burmese domestic helper: One thing I don’t like is when some people message something then the other people [type] ‘amen, amen, amen’ and I thought [it’s] something important, so I went to open the messages but it’s just ‘amen, amen’ […] [Also] some people just chit chat [in the WhatsApp group], chit chat and disturb other people, like ‘how are you, have you eaten lunch?’, that is not important right?

This example reveals how support-based digital communities can easily become more social communities for ‘chit chat’ and gossiping. Boundaries are easily blurred in digital space, and it can be difficult to define and enforce acceptable rules of engagement between community members. Each member has different expectations of what they hope to get out of the community, and each would have different rules that they would adhere to when communicating with others. Some would feel more open and relaxed online, whereas others disliked the anonymity of digital space and would thus become more closed. The same Burmese domestic helper quoted above went on to state how ‘we are together in one care group, [so] cannot be personal’. A Korean migrant echoed this sentiment when explaining how her church had organised a specific support group that was open to all members of the Korean congregation: The church has a group for praying for other members […] It’s on KakaoTalk, and they do meet together and pray every Wednesday or something, but they feel that it might be a bit difficult for us to open up to them because we don’t know them well and we don’t feel comfortable sharing our difficulties and personal problems. So, they encourage us to change names on our KakaoTalk before we join the group and send them a message. So, they will not know your name, but they can pray for you.

In this case, the inclusiveness of digital media foregrounds its value as a support platform that can easily be accessed by anyone. Yet, support is often a highly personal need that can be undermined by the anonymous nature of digital spaces of interaction. To reconcile this tension, the aforementioned migrant was encouraged by the church to ‘change names’ and become a digital avatar that is removed from the true self. Ironically, of course, doing so serves to further anonymise the members of the group, and thus

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detract from the affective power of community. As much as digital media provide a convenient, accessible, and, in most instances, very inclusive tool of community-building amongst migrants, so too is their efficacy often undermined by these very characteristics. Digital media are paradoxical in that they both – and often simultaneously – enable and disenable processes of community formation amongst migrants. The convenience of digital media underpins their (in)efficacy, and, as much as they can help migrants negotiate the dislocating effect of migration, their value is often relative to the extent to which users are able to access physical, offline communities.

Conclusion This chapter has identified three types of digitally-mediated communities that Christian migrants form in Singapore: content-based, connectionbased and support-based. These communities are not discrete entities, but often overlap and are engaged with in tandem. As such, this chapter has demonstrated how ‘increasingly, human subjects develop their sense of being and becoming in relation to the interconnected spaces, which they might experience, associate with or be excluded from’ (Georgiou 2014, p. 95). A common thread that underpins all three communities is the fact that digital media enable engagement between people, but the ease of such engagement can often render it superficial. Being categorised as a migrant invariably means being in a situation of territorial dislocation, which in turn means that any form of engagement – digital or otherwise – is likely to have elevated meaning and importance. That said, for most, the accessibility of digital media renders it a primary method of communitybuilding amongst the socio-spatially dislocated. Whilst digitally-mediated communities may be an unsatisfactory substitute for more physical forms of connectivity, the fact remains that they have radically disrupted the experience of migration. They have helped to nullify the distantiating effects of space and time, and have enabled the formation of new, more multi-modal forms of connection that go beyond text. Indeed, it is in this sense that a domestic helper from Burma told us that ‘I think I feel like I am closer [to my family], that’s why I don’t want to go back [to Burma] yet’. Whilst being digitally-engaged creates ‘closeness’ in ways that no other technology is able to do, religion provides a point of connection that has the potential to overcome all manner of socio-spatial boundaries. Combining these two factors will continue to enable the formation of different types of migrant community in years to come.

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References Bruns, A. (2008) Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang. Campbell, H.A. (2012a) ‘Introduction: The Rise of the Study of Digital Religion’, in Campbell, H.A. (eds.), Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1-21. Campbell, H.A. (2012b) ‘Community’, in Campbell, H.A. (eds.), Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 57-71. Cheong, P.H., Hwang, J.M. and Brummans, B. (2014) ‘Transnational Immanence: TheAutopoietic Co-Constitution of a Chinese Spiritual Organization through Mediated Communication’, Information, Communication & Society, 17(1), pp. 7-25. Couldry, N. (2008) ‘Mediatization or Mediation? Alternative Understandings of the Emergent Space of Digital Storytelling’, New Media & Society, 10(3), pp. 373-391. Einstein, M. (2008) Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age, London and New York: Routledge. Faist, T. (2000) The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gauthier, F. and Uhl, M. (2012) ‘Digital Shapings of Religion in a Globalised world: The Vatican Online and Amr Khaled’s TV-preaching’, Australian Journal of Communication, 39(1), pp. 53-70. Georgiou, M. (2014) ‘Diaspora in the Digital Era: Minorities and Media Representation’, Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, 12(4), pp. 80-99. Hiller, H.H. and Franz, T.M. (2004) ‘New Ties, Old Ties and Lost Ties: The Use of the Internet in Diaspora’, New Media & Society, 6(6), pp. 731-752. Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York University Press. Kienzl, L. (2014) ‘Digital Participatory Culture: Transnationality, Fandom & Diversity Religion and Gender in German-Written Fan Fiction and Fan Forums’, Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, 6, pp. 66-89. Kong, L. and Woods, O. (2018a) ‘The Ideological Alignment of Smart Urbanism in Singapore: Critical Reflections on a Political Paradox’, Urban Studies, 55(4), pp. 679-701. Kong, L. and Woods, O. (2018b) ‘Mobile Bodies, (Im)mobile Beliefs? Religious Accord and Discord as Migratory Outcomes’, Social Compass, 65(2), pp. 149-167. Kong, L. and Woods, O. (2019) ‘Disjunctures of Belonging and Belief: Christian Migrants and the Bordering of Identity in Singapore’, Population, Space and Place, 25(6), pp. 1-10.

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Koning, J. (2017) ‘Beyond the Prosperity Gospel: Moral Identity Work and Organizational Cultures in Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches in Indonesia’, in Koning, J. and Njoto-Feillard, G. (eds.), New Religiosities, Modern Capitalism and Moral Complexities in Southeast Asia, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 39-64. Kotowski, M.R. and dos Santos, G.M. (2010) ‘The Role of the Connector in Bridging Borders through Virtual Communities’, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 25(3-4), pp. 150-158. Navarrete, C. and Huerta, E. (2006) ‘Building Virtual Bridges to Home: The Use of the Internet by Transnational Communities of Immigrants’, International Journal of Communications Law & Policy, Autumn, pp. 1-20. Parham, A.A. (2004) ‘Diaspora, Community and Communication: Internet Use in Transnational Haiti’, Global Networks, 4(2), pp. 199-217. Poon, J., Huang, S. and Cheong, P.H. (2012) ‘Media, Religion and the Marketplace in the Information Economy: Evidence from Singapore’, Environment and Planning A, 44, pp. 1969-1985. Woods, O. (2018) ‘The Digital Subversion of Urban Space: Power, Performance and Grime’, Social & Cultural Geography, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2018.1491617. Woods, O. (2019) ‘Religious Urbanism in Singapore: Competition, Commercialism and Compromise in the Search for Space’, Social Compass, 66(1), pp. 24-34. Woods, O. and Kong, L. (2019) ‘Fractured Lives, Newfound Freedoms? The Dialectics of Religious Seekership among Chinese Migrants in Singapore’, Asian Studies Review, DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2019.1674778.

About the author Orlando Woods is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Singapore Management University. His research interests span religion, digital technologies and urban environments in/and Asia. He holds BA (First Class) and PhD degrees in Geography from University College London, and the National University of Singapore, respectively.

2.

The Blog as a Platform for Spiritual Heritaging and Family Reconciliation: A Case Study Tan Meng Yoe

Abstract This chapter features the case study of a Malaysian-Chinese blogger, Stark,1 who after migrating, blogged about her spiritual experiences back in Malaysia, including her conversion to Christianity and the subsequent estrangement from her parents. Through analysing this intersection of religion, the internet, and migration, the notion of authenticity in the practice of online religion can be explored. Online authenticity is a difficult element to measure, and is made more complicated when applied to a subjective matter like spirituality. The case study will demonstrate that the act of blogging serves the purpose of heritaging, spiritual catharsis, and communication with her parents, and thus infer a genuine spiritual activity that contributes to her still-developing religious identity. Keywords: Malaysian Christianity, blogging, heritaging, authenticity

Introduction The internet as a communicative medium has opened new possibilities of how Christianity can be experienced. Since the early days of the World Wide Web, church institutions established their presence online to provide more information about their respective organisations. It soon grew to be a repository of theological knowledge, with websites dedicated to making commentaries, books, and other types of information available to the public. 1

‘Stark’ is a pseudonym

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch02

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When blogs and other social media platforms became popular, both church leaders and lay-Christians became highly active in content creation, sharing their own thoughts and views about their faith. In recent years, the idea of a virtual church expanded with the development of virtual reality technologies. Like all other media technologies that preceded the internet, Christianity found ways to adapt it for everyday use. However, the online realm also presents unique challenges for the church as some of its key features are not immediately synchronous with common features of Christianity. The online experience departs from conventional brick and mortar experiences; social and networked engagement is decentralised, and information from multiple sources is easily accessible. These can prove difficult to reconcile with institutional religious practices that emphasises the materiality of ritual practice, for example. Networked virtual communities and forms of online social relationships challenge the notion of how relationships and communities are cultivated without face-to-face interaction, and issues like spiritual authority is contested when religious leaders are no longer the sole source of religious knowledge. Much of these debates can be analysed through the lens of ‘authenticity’ – can online religious practices constitute an authentic spiritual experience, and if so, how do these new practices and experiences challenge, enhance or alter the landscape of Christianity? This chapter contributes to this discussion of online spiritual experiences in relation to migration. Migration is described as ‘the (more or less) permanent movement of individuals or groups across symbolic or political boundaries into new residential areas and communities’ (Scott 2014, p. 473). The experience of migrating, like religion, has changed since the increased accessibility of the internet in everyday life. Where migration once carried a sense of permanence in the separation of migrants and their home countries, the internet has allowed people to stay closely connected over long distances. This ability to maintain connections provide emotional, psychological, organisational and other forms of support over previous situations (Reips and Buffardi 2012). A migrant’s ability to use the internet to maintain social and religious ties creates a new channel of spiritual flow on a transnational level. These new forms of connections, through emails, blogs, social media sites and mobile chat applications, create a perpetually available network of communication that spans the globe, thus allowing spiritual support from home to remain. An example of this would be live streaming of church services from their home country – it is now possible to live in a different country but still remain a member of your home church. It is this intersection of internet, religion and migration that inspires research. This chapter presents a case study arising out of this intersection.

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The case study here features Stark, a Malaysian-Chinese blogger who began publishing in 2009 on the WordPress platform after migrating to New Zealand. She uses the blog to process her spiritual journey as a Christian in Malaysia prior to her migration, and as a platform for reaching out to her estranged parents, whom she had a difficult relationship with and was abruptly separated from during her university years. The blog serves both as a memory of the land and life left behind, and a beacon of hope for reconciliation with her parents. This case study is extracted from a larger sample of twenty blogs that I tracked to learn more about why Malaysian Christian bloggers’ use the blog as a platform to publish Christian content. The process of data gathering involved conducting textual analysis of the contents of the blog and interviewing the bloggers to find out more about their Christian experience prior to their blogging experience. Through that, the blog is analysed within a more comprehensive online-offline context, which illuminates how the offline directly inspires the online and vice versa. All of these bloggers were Malaysian Christians, and saw the blog as an opportunity to network with other Christians online, write alternative views and commentary about matters pertaining to Christianity (social issues, politics, theology, etc.), and share everyday experiences. Stark’s blog stood out for a number of reasons. Apart from writing the most extensively about her personal spiritual journey, it was the only blog where migration was a significant aspect of the narrative. The transition between the two phases – before and after leaving Malaysia, presents a unique perspective on the role of the blog in an individual’s spiritual identity.

Migration and the authenticity of online religious experiences Authenticity is a deceptively straightforward term. It alludes to something that has the quality of being authentic or genuine. But, while this may seem obvious, the application of the term is highly subjective, especially when it involves experiential elements that may appear immaterial – such as a spiritual experience. There is no consensus of authenticity in the matter of one’s spiritual experience. That is not to say that there are no attempts to def ine it. Religious institutions have attempted to assert authority over what is considered genuine religious experience. Hutchings’ review of early debates on the subject pointed to the Catholic church’s caution of the internet during its early days as ‘a threatening medium which may be used to attack Catholicism, to confuse the faithful’ (Hutchings 2007, p. 245). Similarly, Campbell states that the ‘chief concern voiced by many

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traditional religious organizations […] is that the Internet will lure people away from local churches and temples in favour of completely online religious experiences’ (Campbell 2004, p. 82). Radde-Antweiler (2012, p. 92) acknowledges that while there are several approaches to identifying authenticity in online environments, there remains ‘strong evidence for the claim that ritual cannot be subsumed or reproduced through media representations’. It seems, so far, that it is easier to define what is not a genuine spiritual experience. However, research has also shown that people do experience spirituality online. Through his study of online churches, Hutchings (2007, p. 257) found that ‘first-person interviews with online churchgoers confirm that this immersion can lead to powerful emotional commitment and experiences of sacred space’. The weblog, or blog as it is more commonly known, has also been subject of other studies, and has noted as a site of religious identity construction (Cheong et al. 2008). Blogs allow ‘individuals the opportunity to self-publish narratives on a variety of subjects and passions using text[s], images and even video[es] to help express their thoughts’ (Campbell 2010, p. 253). It is in this theoretical vein that this chapter will approach the subject of authenticity in online religion. An authentic online spiritual experience is hard to measure or prove, except experientially. Experience, be it the process of engaging with something, or the subsequent impact of an experience, can be described, attributed and analysed through the user. Only through studying the wider context of online religion can one ‘fully appreciate how the internet is yet another incorporated extension to the already diverse repertoire of everyday Christian expression of spirituality’ (Tan 2014, p. 185). This is because the online and offline are not separate realities but are realities that are simultaneously existing. The online and offline are both legitimate avenues of expression and representation of a user’s lived experiences. Thus, to comprehend the nature of one’s online reality, it is imperative to situate the online spiritual experience in the context of a person’s broader Christian narrative. Radde-Antweiler (2012, p. 99) rightly states that ‘research on authenticity must concentrate on the strategies and legitimating processes employed by religious users and must analyse how authority and credibility is constructed in a mediatized world’. Applied to the study of blogs, it means that it is not just important to see what is published on the blog, and who the blogger is, but how the person blogs to achieve his or her spiritual goals. The subject of authenticity in religious blogs is an underlying point of inquiry in research. Even if the term ‘authenticity’ is not explicitly discussed as a central analytical point, almost any analysis of religious blogs, either

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textually or as a practice, is an exploration of what constitutes genuine religious/spiritual practice and experience. To give a few examples, Cheong et al.’s (2008, p. 107) early foray in the field identified a variety of reasons of why Christian bloggers blog, and how their practices ‘differ from the popular characterization of blogging as a trivial activity’. Teusner’s (2013) research on how religious blogs problematise notions of authority is another example, with an in-depth description of what conditions contribute to the perceived authority of religious bloggers. The discussion of whether spiritual authority can exist in the hands of bloggers is an investigation on the authenticity of spiritual activities online. In this chapter, my contribution to the ongoing exploration of online authenticity is in the context of migration. In an attempt to identify the flow of spiritual experience across time and cyberspace, it is possible to extract relevant data by borrowing well-established concepts that are associated with migration studies. One relational concept in migration studies is identity, which is usually framed in terms of cultural identity. The development of cultural identities of migrants usually involves both negotiation and assimilation of the host country’s culture, and the remembering and maintenance of their ties to the home country. As a starting point, Frederick (2015) provides a comprehensive background on the dominant approaches to studying the relationship between religion and migration, and in the process highlight the existing works of Schreiter and Smith that ‘religion can be the reason for migration, religion sustains people in times of diff iculty, religion can serve as an identity marker in a new context or as a source for reconciliation and healing in cases where the story of migration and the migrant’s experiences have been humiliating, hurtful, violent or demeaning’ (pp. 185-186). Furthermore, religious organisations are among the first associations in a new locality, in large part because it provides a network in which ‘migrants can gain multiple forms of support, and provide symbols of unification of individuals who may otherwise have many different characteristics, such as cultural, economic, and social differences’ (Plüss 2011, p. 494). While religion serves as a social point of reference in moving forward in a new society, religion also plays an important role in maintaining a link to the past. One of the ways this is achieved is through ‘heritaging’, which Hua (2019, p. 68) describes as a process in which ‘migrants reach back to past times or places of origin through the practice of “heritaging”‘. In the context of ethnicity, which Hua (ibid.) writes, people ‘construct practices or objects under the concern as authentic or invented tradition’ to remember the past. Incorporating religion into this discussion, Bandenhorst and Makoni (2017) suggest that

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‘religious belief of the migrant serves as a host for the transport of embedded ideologies’ (p. 275). This means that beyond the material aspects of socialising and enacting rituals and artefacts to create a sense of heritage, Bandenhorst and Makoni’s (2017) view suggest that one’s religious belief is carried from place to place for the purpose of identity maintenance. To combine Bandenhorst and Makoni’s (2017) claim that religion is actively transported along in the process of migration, and Hua’s (2019) point of heritaging for the purpose of remembering, I posit that the blog can be an artefact that is constructed for the purpose of heritaging one’s religious identity in the host country. It is possible to triangulate the intersections between religion, internet and migration to identify a unique spiritual experience. A study by Straiton et al. (2017) regarding Filipina women who work in the labour force in Norway serves as a straightforward example of how such triangulation takes place. In their work, they state that there are many reasons why people opt to leave their home countries, and there are sufficient findings to demonstrate that there are different types and levels of stresses involved in the process of migrating and adapting to the new environment. In a high stress context of Filipina labourers, migrants relied on online social media and video calls to maintain close ties with their loved ones in the Philippines, and that this allowed them to remain active in the lives of loved ones in the home country. Furthermore, for the people interviewed in Straiton et al.’s (2017, p. 8) research, their religious beliefs rooted in the Catholic faith served as a source of comfort, which helped them to feel ‘strong enough to face difficult situations’. This warrants further investigation into whether the online habits and religious associations back home intersect, and if they do, what impact does it have on the lives of these people? There are two further considerations. Firstly, much of the research on migration and identity are studies that have mostly been explored in the North American context, and require further application in other contexts (Frederiks 2015). Secondly, much of the literature above discuss migration on a macro level, where particular communities are researched for useful generalisations. This chapter is an opportunity to venture further in the pursuit of understanding religion, migration and the internet on a micro level, especially since migrations consist of individuals with unique circumstances, some related to broader socio-political phenomenon, some less so. These individuals provide us with the opportunity to trace specific flows of identity development. The case study presented here is an attempt to identify the nodes of authenticity in one blogger’s practice of online religious heritaging of her journey of faith in her home country.

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Tracing the nodes of authenticity How then can one trace the links between internet, migration and religion in order to identify legitimate spiritual experiences? Lövheim (2011, p. 161) states that apart from focusing on how media and religion intersect, it is imperative to ‘focus on religious actors as active agents who use media to develop their aims, values and practices and who transform media forms and practices in the process’. This perspective gives rise to the need to comprehend ‘everyday communication practices as a shaping factor of society’, and that these changes are ‘often, but not exclusively related to digital media and communication practices’ (Zeiler 2019). This ‘everyday’ approach to digital communication is not something that is limited to what is expressed online alone. In order to fully make sense of the online, one must uncover the offline that exists before it, and in parallel with it. Tan (2016, p. 45) states that in order to see the complete picture of an online phenomena, ‘one of the ideological challenges that needs to be overcome is the presumption of a “hard” disconnect between the online and the offline’, as this would allow the broader social context that informs and inspires the online activity to come to the fore. Identity building thus becomes a more fluid construct that traverses online and offline experiences. Similarly, the act of migration alone cannot be well understood without contextualising within the larger framework of life before the migration, and life after migration. That said, linking the online and offline is difficult. To fully trace the relationship between the online and offline and to highlight the link between internet, religion and migration, I employ the methodological concept of actor-network theory (ANT). First proposed by Latour and Callon, ANT proposes that any given phenomenon can only be described within its existing network of associations. In ethnographic terms, Latour argues that through thick description of data, the necessary social explanations will emerge. Nimmo (2011, p.113) states that such a method of studying social life ‘involves acknowledging the disparate elements that routinely enter into the complex and active processes by which people give meaning to the world, their activities and their lives between subjective and objective or social and natural dimensions is rendered nonsensical’. The emphasis on describing the broader narrative of the blog takes us closer to the ‘idea that cyberspace is more than just a virtual realm, but is one that encapsulates what we consider as “offline”‘ (Tan 2016, p. 50). Lövheim (2004) similarly argues for focus to be given to both ‘structuring conditions of the offline as well as the online’ (p. 61), when analysing the construction of cultural identity.

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When it comes to blogging as heritaging, and if Badenhorst and Makoni (2017, p. 275) are right in that the ‘religious belief of the migrant serves as a host for the transport of embedded ideologies’, then it is imperative to describe what ideologies are being transported, and how these ideas came to being in the first place – which means describing in detail the ‘offline’. It is not unlike what King (2009) argues for in the construction of meaning in material artefacts, that the sacred is located where and when an individual actively enters into a relationship with an object. As Cheong et al. (2008, p. 123) state, ‘blogging provides for the transmission of values and culture, ranging from an explicitly evangelical mission to defend the faith, to goad readers to become seekers, to the subtle expressions of religious views ingrained in personal reflections’. In the context of online religion, the blog is the artefact where the development of meaning occurs. Similar to the features of monuments, shrines, altars, accessories or festivals, the writing and publishing of words and images on the blog carries a sense of permanence and is a clear signpost to the past for remembering and reflecting upon. The ANT approach of tracing the nodes is useful in drawing our attention ‘to the particular constellation of how these factors relate to one another in specific moments’ (Clark 2011, p. 179), and allowing the ‘complexities of collectives to be deployed’ (Latour 2007, p. 57) in online/offline experiences, rather than organise it within theoretical frameworks, which force certain interpretations of data. Latour (ibid.) states that ‘actors are also able to propose their own theories of action to explain how agencies’ affects are carried over. Actors also have their own theories of how agency acts’, or as Farnsworth and Austrin (2010, p. 1121) explain, the focus also on ‘how fields are constituted that then become the material for fieldwork in traditional ethnographic practice’. If the blog is the artefact, then the blogger’s writing of it is the expression of his/her spiritual identity. While it is possible in some cases to determine the context of a blog simply by reading its published contents, it is imperative that the broader network of cultural associations are uncovered through further engagement with the blogger. The blogger is then able to present their various socio-cultural fields out of which they operate. To this end, the following case study will be a re-telling of Stark’s story as featured on her blog, along with additional narratives and explanations gleaned from my interview with her. The result of this approach is a case study that situates a blog within the intersecting fields of religion, internet and migration. It presents an individual’s spiritual journey from her teenage years to adulthood, when she migrated from Malaysia to New Zealand, where she chose to publish her story in a series of blog posts. Through the re-telling of her story, it becomes evident that she experienced a spiritual

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journey, and that the writing of the blog has spiritual implications on the author and potentially a wider audience, which in turn infers spiritual authenticity through an online practice.

Case study: Stark’s blog Stark’s story will be charted over three points: her conversion to Christianity, her departure from Malaysia and the setting up of her blog. A key theme that connects all three phases of her life is her relationship with her parents, and her making sense of her family’s turmoil from a Christian perspective. As a preview, the middle portion regarding her migration recounts the occasion where she decided to relocate to New Zealand, partly to settle with her boyfriend and eventual husband, Tony, and partly to flee the dangers of her parents’ mounting debt to loan sharks. During the time of my interview with Stark, she harboured little hope of ever returning to Malaysia or seeing her parents again. The narrative in the blog, as explained by Stark, thus serves as a spiritual bridge between her new home and her past. The blog is written with a pseudonym, with only close friends knowing the true author of the blog. Stark explained that this is her way of protecting her parents from public scrutiny. Stark’s blog contains a variety of themes, from debunking atheistic views on the existence of God, debating socio-political issues like abortion and homosexuality, personal expositions of Biblical issues, and more. However, the dominant narrative in her blog is her personal testimony of how she converted to Christianity in her teens, the breakdown of her family in Malaysia, her migration to New Zealand to get married and start a new life, and her thoughts on her journey of faith. The period of my analysis, June to September 2009, saw Stark publish 29 blog posts documenting in detail this experience. Before venturing into the posts, I wish to draw attention to a post titled ‘Preliminaries’, the very first post published on the blog. In it, Stark introduces herself and briefly describes her cultural identity as a Malaysian – Malaysian Chinese, multi-lingual, a love for food and warm weather, and more. The final two statements refer to her religious identity. She states that she was a folk Taoist, and that now she is a Christian. In both statements, she shares that she has experienced the spiritual reality of these faiths, and that while it may seem far-fetched, she wanted to tell those stories. It is evident in the following narrative that these aspects form the core of her cultural and religious identity. The conversion is a crucial part of Stark’s story, and the reality of how two spiritual beliefs clashed in her life forms the lens in which she interprets her journey.

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Stark’s conversion to Christianity The f irst segment of her story, told over ten blog posts, documents her experience growing up with staunch Taoist parents in the small city of Seremban, roughly an hour away from Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. They frequently visited what she described as a powerful medium in a nearby temple, who was well-versed in Taoist rituals. The medium knew the family well, and when he did not wish to be disturbed by other visitors at the temple, Stark’s family would offer their home for séances to be performed. It was this close proximity to the everyday life and practices of the Taoist medium since the age of thirteen that led Stark to believe in the reality of the spiritual realm. She recounted in detail how she saw the medium enter trances and channelled various deities, spoke in different voices, and on one occasion, manipulated the weather. Such experiences were so routine in her family that she did not stop to think further about her religion, yet she did notice her parents’ increasing dependence on the medium’s advice on several personal matters in their lives. The change that disrupted the Taoist dynamic in the family was by means of technology. When Stark was seventeen, her parents bought a computer, and one of Stark’s early use of it was the chat platform, mIRC.2 It was a random occasion where a stranger from another country named Tony3 sent her a message, inviting her to chat. They hit it off quite well, and would chat daily for months until they developed a romantic interest in each other. However, at that point, there was an obstacle. Tony was a Christian, and was unsure if a pursuing a relationship with a staunch Taoist was a good idea. He did, however, share his beliefs with her in hopes that she would one day convert to Christianity. Their computer mediated text-based romance continued for some time, and eventually led to him travelling to Malaysia at the end of the year to meet her and her family in person. It was during this time that Stark witnessed a different side of her Taoist environment. The medium was convinced that Tony was there to take advantage of her sexually, and to lead her away from her beliefs, which Stark vehemently denied. The family held a séance during his visit to ward off the threat of conversion, and Stark claimed that her parents were instructed by the medium into pressuring her to disassociate herself from Tony, and to not entertain the idea of Christianity. Tony, on the 2 mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client that was created in 1995 and was one of the earliest mass-adopted chat platforms on the computer. 3 ‘Tony’ is a pseudonym.

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other hand, suggested to Stark to try praying to his god, and that she had nothing to lose in the process. After Tony returned to New Zealand, Stark reflected on the recent events. Her experiences with the medium in particular led her to reconsider her faith. She described the medium as ‘malicious, slanderous, wholly without honour or kindness, and comfortable with accusing and lying […] and after thinking long and hard about the implications of all the stuff that transpired in that séance, I couldn’t keep worshipping the gods I’d been worshipping’.4 The knowledge of her conversion led to a series of arguments with her parents, and more séances at her home. The medium challenged and coerced her to renounce her religion, to which she claimed only further emboldened her newfound faith. Despite this, Stark was very careful to ensure that ultimately, her dispute was with what she considered spiritual forces at work to torment her family. While she disagreed with her parents’ behaviour, she ultimately wanted them to hear her out.

Stark’s exile from her home The frequent confrontation regarding her conversion somewhat abated because she moved to Kuala Lumpur to pursue her university studies, and the weekdays away from home allowed her to make new friends, develop her Christian faith and find solace from the constant arguing. This, however, did not mean that she did not often think of her increasingly strained relationship with her parents. Stark’s preoccupation with religious matters took a backseat when she received a phone call one night while on campus. It was from her mother, who instructed her not to come home as it was no longer safe. This was because a new problem had emerged. The story was never made fully clear to her, but the gist of it was that her parents were in serious trouble with loan sharks.5 During her time at home over the weekends she had noticed strangers keeping an eye on her parents’ home in the months leading up to this, and wondered what it was about. Furthermore, she had noticed her parents’ increasingly worried looks and allusion to financial difficulty. Her parents also sought out the same medium for a solution to their problems (although the extent of their problems was never fully disclosed to Stark). It 4 Extracted from research interview with Stark on 4 August 2011. 5 Loan shark is an informal noun used to describe a moneylender who charge high interest rates, and one who is not authorised as a legal lender/organisation.

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was most likely they accumulated a debt that they were unable to repay, and debt enforcers have been watching their home, waiting to collect the debt. It was also hinted in her blog that something illegal must have taken place as her father, in her final meeting with him in her aunt’s house, indicated that he was fleeing the country to avoid the loan sharks and jail time. After secretively moving most of her belongings from her home to her aunt’s home, and abruptly saying goodbye to her parents, she was, in her own words ‘exiled’. She never did set foot in that home or saw her parents again since then. The series of blog posts that documented her forced eviction from her own home was titled ‘Exile’ by Stark. More significantly, this abrupt and forced separation from her parents caused her to reflect deeply about her Christian faith. The blog posts were attempts by her to make sense of it in relation to her experiences as a Christian. She wondered why God had allowed such troubles to befall her parents, and wondered if their insistence on following the medium’s advice had caused them to be too far gone spiritually. Despite that, she also believed that she was largely preserved from the worst of troubles. She was on a full scholarship, with a room and a workspace on campus, a supportive extended family, and was never the target of her parents’ debtors. She credited this to God’s protection for her unwavering faith, and this would eventually be a major inspiration behind her blog. As time passed, Stark’s studies did not suffer. In fact, she excelled and graduated as the best overall student in the course. Also, Stark’s mostly online relationship with Tony continued, and upon her mother’s suggestion during a phone call (which took her by surprise considering how they rejected him years ago), she explored the possibility to migrate to New Zealand to settle down with him and start afresh. After some discussion with Tony, she agreed to move. She said, ‘In the coming months, we made preparations to migrate, and when the time came to leave at the airport I put my passport in the scanner and didn’t look back again’.6

Stark’s motivation for blogging In the journey described above, there were two points of separation. The first was the forced exile from her home due to her parents getting into trouble with potentially illegal financial dealings. The second was a voluntary migration to another country to settle down. While little was discussed 6 Extracted from research interview with Stark on 4 August 2011.

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about her migration to New Zealand, it is evident that time and distance away from her homeland provided her with the hindsight necessary to effectively document her story. It was several months after settling into New Zealand when she decided to start a blog. There were a few reasons that led to her decision to do so. Firstly, the physical migration did not mean that her ties, both emotional and filial, diminished. As evidenced by the contents of her blog, her spiritual identity is closely tied to her Malaysian experience. As Hiller (2009, p. 323) states, ‘the backward gaze of the post-migrant is a powerful element of computer use in this phase of the migration experience. There is a sense of rebuilding by emphasising continuity between the new and the old. The desire for virtual contact with home might be a mechanism of adjustment to a new place or it could be indicative of a desire to return home’. Secondly, she had initially written it for the purpose of processing her conversations with a cousin overseas, who, as Stark puts it, ‘had become bitter with God after she lost her child’. While she never spoke to her cousin about the aforementioned stories, the blog began as an imaginary conversation which involved her saying the things she wished to say in response to her cousin’s circumstance. In Christian-speak, it became a record of her testimony which she wanted to share with others. The process of writing the blog was not difficult in itself. Stark explained to me that growing up, she had the habit of journaling. The blog provided her with an avenue to not only document her spiritual journey, but to also share it with the general public. I put a lot of time and energy into the writing. It’s quite a full expression of who I am. It reminds me of where I come from, where I’m supposed to be headed, who I’m supposed to be. Basically it’s a record of my better thoughts and moments, and when I forget, reading back helps me remember. I don’t really have anything else that serves that function.7

The above explanation by Stark is indicative of the act of heritaging as Hua (2018) describes. While Hua (2018) def ines the act of heritaging as one in which people construct objects or practices as a signpost to the past in the material sense, this is applicable to Stark’s blog as well. The contents of the blog serves as the signpost, and is symbolic of the building of a monument as a reminder of her journey to the Christian faith, the lived reality of the spiritual realm, and her longing for a resolution with her 7

Extracted from research interview with Stark on 4 August 2011.

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parents. Furthermore, the mention of how the blog ‘helps [her] remember’ her origins, present and her future aligns with Bandenhorst and Makoni’s (2017, p. 275) view that the ‘religious belief of the migrant serves as a host for the transport of embedded ideologies’. There is one other aspect to her blog beyond the purpose of testimony and memory. As mentioned earlier, the reason her blog is written anonymously is because she did not want her parents to be publicly identified, and therefore, spared from shame. At the same time, she hoped that one day her parents would be able to read her version of events on the blog and eventually convert to Christianity: I’ve thought many times about opening the blog and not keeping it anonymous anymore, because I actually want people to know my testimony. But it’s never felt right. It’s like, I know there’ll be a day when it’ll all come out in the open […] But my family’s not in the place for that. For their sake, I don’t let as many people know about the blog as I’d like because I didn’t spare details. There’s things that would shame and infuriate my parents if they knew I’d written them down for people to read. So I think on some level, I’m waiting for the day when they’ll want to testify how lost they were, and then there’ll be no problem. Whereas if I did it now, they wouldn’t understand.

Based on her statement above, the blog also serves an open channel of communication with her parents (albeit one-sided at the time of writing), which both accentuates the potential of the internet as a communicative device, but also the harsh reality of her practical and spiritual estrangement from her parents. In other words, it remains an active platform in which the reality of their separation continues to impact Stark’s life regularly. As a post-script to the above case study, a quick browse of Stark’s blog led me to a series of posts written several years later that was not part of my original study. The four posts, written in 2015, marked ten years since she last saw her father, and was written in the form of letters to her father. She mentioned that they had a few phone calls in-between, and recounted from the conversations that their relationship had not improved, and she was instead further frustrated with their stubbornness. The primary subject of the four letters was to share what she felt about her relationship with her parents as she never had a chance to, and for the opportunity to mend their relationship. The letters were not so much a plea for a reply, but an argument as to why she feels that her parents have been wrong about her beliefs all along. She addresses accusations that her parents have hurled at

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her, and gives a staunch defence of her marriage to Tony, and how she still dreams of home. She also says that she is aware that he would never come across the blog, and while not holding out much hope for reconciliation, hopes for it nonetheless. She ends the four letters with the words ‘I’m waiting. God is waiting’.

Conclusion In a post entitled ‘Epilogue’ in 9 September 2009, Stark wrote that ‘I opened my blog with stories about myself and my family because I didn’t want to come across as a Bible-thumping loon with no personal context or thoughtful reasons for what I believe’, and the description in the above sections is demonstrative of the depth of which her spiritual journey has impacted her life as a whole, and specifically, her blog. The overarching question that this chapter had set out to explore is whether online religious practices constitute an authentic spiritual experience. Two main arguments were proposed as evidence: An experience that had a clear impact on the user that took place, and that a blog served as an artefact for memory and identity building. The case study of Stark’s blog shows how these arguments can be made through a thick description of the network of issues and narratives that underpin the inspiration and content of the blog. The reality of separation, coupled with the extended narrative of her Christian journey, served as evidence that the blog plays an active role in the ongoing development of Stark’s identity as a Christian and as a migrant. The first point, that experience is indicative of authenticity, is demonstrated by the lived reality of Stark’s estrangement from her parents, and how the blog serves as an ongoing representation of this separation. While it is true that computer mediated communication has led to the idea that ‘boundaries are now perceived to be more permeable’ (Hiller and Franz 2004, p. 735), the lived-reality of online practices suggest that the online and offline are inseparable, and are constantly mirroring each other. Stark’s blog is a constant reminder that the social boundary remains intact, and that the estrangement remains unresolved. While there is no indication whether Stark’s parents have read her blog, the letters to her father, published on the blog six years later as described in the previous section, indicates the ongoing struggle to reconcile with her him, which is an expression of her ‘offline’ lived-reality. Secondly, the case study shows how a blog can serve as a cultural artefact for the purpose of ‘heritaging’. Earlier in the chapter, I referred to Frederick’s (2015) statement that religion can both be the reason for one’s migration,

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and the marker of identity post-migration. While it is not stated explicitly both in the blog and my interview with Stark, it is possible to conjecture that her Christian belief was an influential factor in her moving overseas, especially since she migrated to be with the one who introduced her to Christianity. It is also clear that the distance has afforded her the opportunity to express herself freely and publicly, albeit anonymously. Her blog enabled this freedom, and also serves as an artefact that points to the memory of her life in Malaysia and her journey to another country; testimony of her spiritual experiences; and a channel of communication to her readers, that they may learn of her story. Stark’s recording of her religious journey through blogging points to the reality of the intersection between the internet, migration and religion on an individual level, and infers a form of authenticity in her writing of spiritual matters online. Despite a narrative of exile and estrangement, the blog has facilitated a unique migratory experience containing multiple layers of connectivity (particularly to her parents and past spiritual experiences) that continues to be negotiated textually and spiritually as long as the blog remains accessible online. These types of connections are potentially indicative of what Gomes and Yeoh (2018, pp. xiii-xiv) describe as how digital media can function ‘as an apparatus in transforming the different aspects of and levels of the transnational migration experience’. This is, however, only one narrative. There are many questions that spring out from this one case study: Are there other narratives globally that mirror Stark’s journey? Can a stronger generalisation of online expression and experiences be developed through engaging with these bloggers? Is the blog an effective object for heritaging and memory on a larger scale, beyond the experience of one individual? All of these, and more, are potential areas for future research.

References Badenhorst, P., and Makoni, S. (2017) ‘Migrations, Religions, and Social Flux’, in Canagarajah, S. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 275-295. Campbell, H. (2004) ‘Challenges Created by Online Religious Networks’, Journal of Media and Religion, 3(2), pp. 81-99. Campbell, H. (2010) ‘Religious Authority and the Blogosphere’, Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, 15(2), pp. 251-276. Cheong, P.H., Halavais, A., and Kwon, K. (2008) ‘The Chronicles of Me: Understanding Blogging as a Religious Practice’, Journal of Media and Religion, 7(3), pp. 107-131,

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Clark, L.S. (2011) ‘Considering Religion and Mediatisation through a Case Study of J+K’s Big Day (The J K Wedding Entrance Dance): A Response to Stig Hjarvard’, Culture and Religion, 12(2), pp. 167-184. Farnsworth, J., and Austrin, T. (2010) ‘The Ethnography of New Media Worlds? Following the Case of Global Poker’, New Media & Society, 12(7), pp. 1120-1136. Frederiks, M.T. (2015) ‘Religion, Migration and Identity: A Conceptual and Theoretical Exploration’, Mission Studies, 32(2), pp. 181-202. Gomes, C. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (2018) ‘Introduction’, in Gomes, C. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (eds.), Transnational Migrations in the Asia-Pacific: Transformative Experiences in the Age of Digital Media, London & New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, pp. xi-xxv. Hiller, H.H. (2009) Second Promised Land: Migration to Alberta and the Transformation of Canadian Society, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Hiller, H.H. and Franz, T.M. (2004) ‘New Ties, Old Ties and Lost Ties: The Use of the Internet in Diaspora’, New Media & Society, 6(6), pp. 731-752. Hua, Z. (2019) Exploring Intercultural Communication: Language in Action, London and New York: Routledge. Hutchings, T. (2007) ‘Creating Church Online: A Case-Study Approach to Religious Experience’, Studies in World Christianity, 13(3), pp. 243-260. King, E. F. (2009) Material Religion and Popular Culture, London and New York: Routledge. Latour, B. (2007) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, New York: Oxford University Press. Lövheim, M. (2004) ‘Young People, Religious Identity, and the Internet’ in Dawson, L.L. and Cowan, D.E. (eds.), Religion online: Finding Faith on the Internet, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 59-74. Lövheim, M. (2011) ‘Mediatisation of Religion: A Critical Appraisal’, Culture and Religion, 12(2), pp. 153-166. Nimmo, R. (2011) ‘Actor-Network Theory and Methodology: Social Research in a More-than-Human World’, Methodological Innovations Online, 6(3), pp. 108-119. Plüss, C. (2011) ‘Migration and the Globalization of Religion’ in Clarke, P.B. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 491-506. Radde-Antweiler, K. (2012) ‘Authenticity’ in Campbell, H.A. (eds.), Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 88-103. Reips, U, and Buffardi, L.E. (2012) ‘Studying Migrants with the Help of the Internet: Methods from Psychology’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38(9), pp. 1405-1424. Scott, J. (2014) A Dictionary of Sociology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Straiton, M.L., Ledesma, H.M.L., and Donnelly, T.T. (2017) ‘A Qualitative Study of Filipina Immigrants’ Stress, Distress and Coping: The Impact of Their Multiple, Transnational Roles as Women’, BMC Women’s Health, DOI: 10.1080/1369183x.2012.698208. Tan, M.Y. (2014) ‘Malaysian Christians Online: Online/Offline Networks of Everyday Religion’ in Maj, A. (eds.), Post-Privacy Culture: Gaining Social Power in CyberDemocracy, Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp. 177-202. Tan, M.Y. (2016) ‘Authenticity in Online Religion: An Actor-Network Approach’, International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation (IJANTTI), 8(1), pp. 44-54. Teusner, P. E. (2013) ‘Formation of a Religious Technorati: Negotiations of Authority among Australian Emerging Church Blogs’, in Campbell, H.A. (eds.), Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, New York: Routledge, pp. 182-189. Zeiler, X. (2019) ‘Mediatized Religion in Asia: Studies on Digital Media and Religion’, in Radde-Antweiler, K. and Zeiler, X. (eds.), Mediatized Religion in Asia: Studies on Digital Media and Religion, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 3-16.

About the author Tan Meng Yoe is a lecturer in communication with the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. His research interest is in the field of online religion, where he has studied and published on subjects like blogging and spirituality, religious engagement in online religious communities and more.

3.

Material Expressions of Religious Culture Anna Hickey-Moody and Marissa Willcox

Abstract Materiality communicates complex information, often about the perspectives of people whose voices are silenced, or left off historical records. Material cultures provide indirect archives of such social histories, values and feelings. Examining the expressive qualities of material culture, we draw on data from the trans-national research project ‘Interfaith Childhoods’. This project generates and documents community perspectives on faith, identity and belonging. In response to our data generated through arts workshops with children and focus group discussions with parents, we develop a theoretical framework which observes how the materiality of religion can shape the ways young people and their parents build relationships with those from different religions. Here, we theorise how our empirical evidence makes a case for thinking through visual and material cultures of religion. Keywords: Material Culture, Religion, Arts-based research, Art Practice, Materiality, New Materialism

Introduction The material world of landscapes, tools, buildings, household goods, clothing, and art is not neutral and passive; people interact with the material world thus permitting it to communicate specific messages (McDannell 1995, p. 2). The shift towards the new material culture studies began in the 1960s with a desire to recover the voices of those who had been left out of the

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch03

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historical record, including women, children, ethnic minorities, and non-elite groups. With little written evidence to help us understand them, material objects offered a new way to understanding these people’s lives (Matthews-Jones and Jones 2015, p. 2).

Materiality communicates complex information, often about the perspectives and experiences of people who are written out of dominant discourses of colonial ‘history’ or colonised and colonising culture. As the quotes at the beginning of the chapter show, material cultures can provide indirect archives of social values, while also communicating information about people whose voices are often silenced or left off historical records, such as women, children, decolonial subjects or those not fluent in a dominant language. In examining the expressive and communicative qualities of material culture, we draw on two streams of data from a large, trans-national research project called ‘Interfaith Childhoods’. This research project is an investigation of experiences of belonging, identity and culture, articulating from faith and beliefs. The project generates qualitative and quantitative data within mainly LSES1 areas in the UK and Australia. We reflect on children’s art-based expressions of identity and belonging and their located geographies of religious and everyday cultures as well as interview and focus group data exploring similar themes in discussion with their parents. The research methodology is grounded in children’s arts workshops as a means of building relationships with community. We explore themes of identity, faith and belonging through arts-based ethnography with children in schools, community centres, art galleries and places of worship. Through art practice with children and focus group discussions with adults from the children’s families, we aim to develop interfaith understanding, empathy and encourage self-reflexivity in relation to faith and identity attachments. As we have noted, in the larger data set, which we draw on throughout this chapter, we unpack the research themes of belonging, community, identity, attachment and faith, which the parents reflect on in focus groups and interviews. A quantitative survey canvassing community sentiments about the research themes is also administered in the local communities in which the research participants live in, however this is not the focus of our analysis here. As such, the project generates multiple community perspectives on faith, identity and belonging. This chapter cannot be read as being wholly representative of the complete findings of the ‘Interfaith Childhoods’ study. Rather, in response to material and visual data generated through our work 1

Low Socio-Economic

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with children, and the ethnographic observations that illuminate these material practices, we begin to develop a theoretical framework designed to support the observations of how the materiality of prayer (e.g. books, mats, rosary beads, holy water and bodily orientation) and religious and ‘secular’ schooling, can shape the ways young people and their parents are, and on occasion are not, able to build relationships with people from religions different from their own. Undertaking this theoretical project in its entirety is outside the scope of this chapter, rather, here we theorise how some of our empirical evidence makes a case for the significance of thinking about attachment and orientation through visual and material cultures of religion. Surveying literature that provides resources through which visual and material cultures can be read as communication tools for more complex information, we position our data analysis as an exemplar for considering the effects and affects of material expressions of religious culture. We present some children’s creative and physical geographies of ‘Future Cities’ where they collaboratively imagine and create an ideal place to live together. Through this, children communicate quite complex information about their religions and worldviews (which include Christian, Hindu, Atheist, Muslim and Catholic). We offer initial ethnographic observations of these children’s faith worlds and think through transnational and trans-local mobilities expressed in the children’s representations of their religion. In the final section, we examine children’s artworks that depict identity, belonging and community as a speculative imaginary that is comprised of ‘what really matters’ to them. As noted above, the children are from a range of religious and secular backgrounds, and their imaginative futures often depict the possibility for a religious and secular social unity. We develop new ways of listening to and engaging with community perspectives on belonging, identity and religion. Perhaps there is the possibility here for an imminent, non-ideological, non-representational view of faith as that which orients a body, a view that offers a materialist perspective on how belonging is brought about in people’s lives.

Methodology A generalised fear of religious cultures remains a social and systemic issue in many largely secular countries, including Australia and the U.K. The enduring politicisation and racialisation of religious identities is, in part, what this project works to problematise and change. The broader digital media framing of religion in terms of war and terror and the relative lack of

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primary school curriculum focusing on religion in Australian public schools contributes to a lack of understanding about the vernacular significance of religion in community life. Our research methods allow children to be expressive and communicate about religion through art making, to show how their creative and physical geographies can be communicated in artistic spaces. The analysis below is concerned with some of the visual qualitative data from children, which offers rich depictions of the material expressions of faith based culture, providing multiple perspectives on experiences of faith and shows how faith is mediated creatively across cultures. The collaborative methods employed to work with children also map out what an interfaith ‘future city’ might look like. The cities in which this work takes place are: Adelaide, Melbourne, London and Manchester. Data collection for the project takes place across six cities in the U.K. and Australia: Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, London and Manchester. At the time of writing, fieldwork was ongoing at twelve ethnographic sites across the six cities. Over 400 participants are involved, although this number is increasing. Our ethnographic work involves making art with children and video recording this process, and as this is the method used to generate the data analysed in this chapter, this is the method we discuss in the most detail. The methodology for this project is designed to gather three sets of data and these are: 1. Visual, creative and imaginative data that is collaboratively developed with children, exploring faith, values and community in arts workshops. The workshops are used to build community and provide safe spaces for children to express themselves non-verbally. We later analyse the art works to see how they reproduce visual and material expressions of belief systems and cultural values. 2. Focus groups with parents over a shared meal that examine the feeling of belonging, the idea of community, religious values, migration and attachment, as well as faith relations and feelings of acceptance. This discussion is expanded upon in detail through one-on-one interviews with the parents after the focus group. 3. Quantitative mappings of values, beliefs and sentiments of belonging in the communities in which the qualitative data is gathered. A survey is administered in the postcode areas of the workshop locations to develop a statistical representation of the attitudes towards migration and religion from the communities in which we work. The arts workshops with children take place over three days, once a year, for three consecutive years. Each child thus undertakes nine workshops in

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total. Some sites have afforded a longer period of time with children than the usual 1.5 hour teaching block, but extended periods are often precluded by school settings. During this time, the children work to make art that expresses how they feel about themselves, what their values are and often share their family or migration story. Across the course of the week, the children typically give us a sense of their worlds and ‘what really matters’ to them. The in-depth focus group discussion with the parents and families of the children is held at the end of workshops, and as noted, follow-up interviews with parents are conducted. The focus group questions for the first set of workshops are included below, and these are used as a framework for less structured discussion: 1. Could you please share any intergenerational experiences you have with religion? 2. Has/do these intergenerational experiences inform your approach to your personal relationship with religion and your sense of identity? (And how do they?) 3. What makes you feel connected to your community/where you live? 4. How would you describe your identity/sense of self? 5. How do you deal with negative or discriminatory comments made about your religion/religious beliefs? Can you provide an example? 6. Are there any specific religious beliefs or practices that you disagree with in your faith? Why? 7. What specific religious beliefs or practices matter most to you in your religion? Why? a. Feelings of belonging – places, recipes, objects, etc. – which of these give you a sense of belonging and community? (in the present) 8. Do your religious beliefs/practices ever change or adapt to reflect the communities you belong to/are a part of? Can you provide an example of how or when this happened? 9. Do you feel you belong to Australia/U.K.? We have a total of over 400 participants from a range of religious backgrounds, including Hindu, Christian, Anglican, Muslim, Pagan, Buddhist, Greek Orthodox and Atheist. The children in the arts workshops are of ages four to eleven, with most participants aged seven to nine. Arts workshops are usually held in schools, in places of worship or community centres. In most cases, the children’s guardians are not present, although we have often found that parents like to sit in and observe for workshops conducted in mosques and churches. Children build relationships with the researchers through their assistance during the workshops. These children also learn

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Figure 3.1. A future city, developed in a Manchester primary school in 2018. (Source: Author’s Own)

to map their emotional and material geographies of religion, community and belonging. The data we present here is largely from Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia, alongside some children’s art from the U.K. in our Manchester and London workshops. With socially engaged arts practice workshops, we open the doors to intersecting conversations that go further than religion. In the children’s drawing of interfaith futures below, we see ‘Future Cities’ as being built on the ideas of hope, kindness and social harmony.

Future Cities Fig. 3.1 and 3.2 are images of large canvases that have been made collaboratively by four children per canvas in a Manchester primary school. The children are aged seven to nine. They use pastels, felt tip pens, paint pens, and collage techniques (wool, felt and cotton printed fabric) to depict what they believed would be a livable and enjoyable ‘Future City’. The canvases represent what the children think is the most important components of a city. Prior to the painting, the children would engage in a discussion to

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Figure 3.2. A future city, made in a Manchester primary school in 2018. (Source: Author’s Own)

decide ‘what really matters’ to them, and devise ways of incorporating all the important things that matter in their daily lives onto one canvas. When completed, these canvasses depict imagined worlds comprised of ‘what really matters’. Fig. 3.1 features a mosque in the lower right-hand corner, positioned in front of a road, houses and people. There is also a veterinarian clinic, animals, green spaces and a large cup that says ‘hope’. In the upper right-hand corner, a Church is painted bright yellow. At first glance, this city looks to be designed for high density living, but trees and a sun decorate the backdrop of the painting. The colours of the mosque and church are both yellow, possibly symbolising unity between places of worship. Fig. 3.2 features a hospital, temple, church, mosque, an airplane, and the sun in a blue sky. Surprisingly, there is not a lot of green space or many animals in the second image (Fig. 3.2), as the buildings take up a majority of the space. Researching with children requires having multiple opportunities to communicate through indirect discourses, as often children will express themselves through doing, through the ways in which they conduct themselves and through the kinds of values they perform in their expressive and representational practices. The size of the buildings and the proximity of the religious spaces in Fig. 3.2 indirectly speaks to the importance of religion for the children who created that piece.

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Figure 3.3. A future city, made by a church group in Adelaide. (Source: Author’s Own)

The interfaith futures depicted in the U.K. ‘future cities’ differ slightly from the interfaith futures developed by children in the Australian fieldwork. Fig. 3.3 is an image of a ‘future city’ made by a church youth group in Adelaide, South Australia. The ‘future cities’ are intended to be examples of how the children hope their future might be made, and we encouraged them to be imaginative. Reoccurring themes of environmental sustainability often come into discussion. In Fig. 3.3, the city is designed around a circular park filled with grass, trees and plants. A few things of note would be the spacing of houses and buildings that surrounded by plenty of open, green space. The mosque, a Hindu temple, church and school, all have their own corners but are connected by roads which are brought together in the same circular park. This seems to show how religion, animals and culture can connect through nature. The values and desires communicated in the children’s ‘future cities’ are ultimately products of the teachings of their parents and communities; the belief systems in which they are embedded. Their art gives us a glimpse into their worlds, and provides a foundation for us to base our conversations with their parents. After working with the children for nine workshops spread across three years, we begin to be acquainted with the school teachers or religious leaders, and form relationships with the families and parents.

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Then in the focus group discussions with the parents, we are able to delve deeper into the themes the children had introduced in their art, and better understand the broader relations of religion to feelings of community and belonging amongst families of various faith backgrounds.

Artistic expressions of religious culture The Interfaith Childhoods research project is designed to engage with and listen to feelings of community and belonging that arise from faith and religious beliefs. Our understanding of visual and material cultures of religion is guided therefore, by lived faith worlds. Often these include vernacular ways of expressing religious experiences. When looking at the children’s art in line with our field notes and video recordings, we find the visual representations of culture, sometimes unconsciously, emerge from the act of drawing. For example, both the mosques and churches in Fig. 3.1 and Fig. 3.3 have gold and yellow details. A focus on light, hope and kindness emerges through most of the paintings. Through the act of working together and building communities that support many different ecosystems (the plants, animals, humans, cars, etc.) and belief systems (the various religious buildings, schools and hospitals), the children are active in their representations of religious culture as being colourful, hopeful, light and unified with the other components in the cities. To hopefully change the way religious cultures are represented in traditional and digital media, and in political systems (often relating to war and terror), we argue that a better understanding of the way faith shapes communities, identities and bodily orientations is needed. In order to advance this argument, we review literature that focuses on engaging with artistic expressions of religious culture. To this end, we explore conceptual resources relating to visual and material cultures of religion. In his piece ‘Art, Religion, and Material Culture: Some Reflections on Method’, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, John Cort (1996) reviews research into religion that methodologically operates through canons of texts (books, texts, manuscripts such as scriptures, hymns, poems, treatises). Cort (1996) explains that ethnographic knowledge is important for the study of religion: In recent decades this [historical] textual hegemony within the study of religion has been challenged by the influence of anthropology, with its methodological emphasis on ethnographic fieldwork. Its influence has

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been especially felt in the study of non-literate religious traditions. […] While scholars have branched out from studying only texts to studying other expressions of human experience, most are still concerned to link actions and beliefs explored through fieldwork with ideas found in texts. All too often these studies located at the intersection of textual and non-textual research are still weighted heavily in favor of the textual. Non-textual data are employed to expand upon, fill out, or argue with textual data, but in most cases the starting point lies with the texts. […] In the hierarchy of the senses, sight and hearing are supreme, and these two coalesce around the word (p. 614-615).

Cort (1996) uses the phrase ‘textual data’ to refer to words, historical written documents that form a dominant archive of experiences and knowledge of religion. He suggests that ‘[m]aterial objects by definition are largely static, whereas ritual is largely dynamic, so we have to go to fieldwork sources to understand more fully the ritual contexts of these objects’ (ibid., p. 640). Cort (1996, p. 615) expands, by saying that indeed it ‘would be a useful exercise to attempt the study of a living tradition, for which we have an adequate textual and ethnographic record, by using material culture as a starting point’. Material cultures such as the places where communities worship, objects that are part of practices of worship, foods, colours, textures and smells, are all part of choreographing belonging. Cort (ibid.) continues, asking, ‘if we look first at the objects, and base our attempts at understanding on them, will we emerge from our study with a different view of the tradition?’ Perhaps there is the possibility here for an imminent, non-ideological, non-representational view of faith, a view that offers a materialist perspective on how belonging is brought about in people’s lives through aligning corporeal orientations and attachments. Cort (1996) focuses on Jainism as his example of material religious culture, looking at Jain Art. Speaking about a highly detailed carved wooden house shrine, he writes: ‘We have here an object indicating a highly sophisticated aesthetic tradition, and patrons who were intimately involved with the employment of the senses in a Jain expression of what Richard Pilgrim (1981) has termed in a Japanese context a “religio-aesthetic”‘ (ibid., p. 616). The religio-aesthetic of a culture arguably shapes its member’s tastes and comportments, influencing what they are drawn to and how they present themselves to others. Cort (1996) continues with this stance, suggesting that: Much of what we can understand from these objects is inevitably seen through an interpretive lens informed by textual and fieldwork studies,

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and the inquisitive visitor to this exhibition who wants to learn more about these objects will most likely turn to texts for that information, whether they be traditional Jain texts or contemporary scholarly texts (p. 630).

We agree with Cort (1996), that the interpretive lens many use to judge an object (or in our case, art) is inherently influenced by the textual or systemic knowledge used to produce those texts. The viewer of art or objects is conflicted by the ‘religio-aesthetic’ of the culture with which they engage or were raised with. Our art workshops work towards a non-representationalist view of material expressions of religion, or indeed faith – they aim to offer a new materialist perspective on how belonging is shaped by faith in people’s lives.

Reading children’s art An object can speak for itself across a number of registers. Art can therefore say many things. It can speak to a person’s emotions, and their being in the world when they created that piece of work. It can tell stories and weave together places and time. In our research practice, the focus is less on the analysis of the children’s art for its artistic value (the colour, line and form), but is more interested in listening to the story that coincides with creating it. Reading children’s art is a part of how we engage in their worlds, but the art-making and reading is just one step in the direction of building our understanding through relationships. Humans interpret an object as soon as they think about it. It becomes hard to avoid. Cort (1996, pp. 630-631) continues this belief by stating that: A look at the material culture of a religious tradition indicates that texts alone are insufficient. Texts at best provide only a limited perspective on a religion. Two centuries of textual studies have led to an academic understanding of Jainism as an ascetic, world-renouncing, unaesthetic religious tradition. […] Looking only at texts has blinded scholars to the extent that Jains for centuries have built temples, sculpted and adorned images, painted, embroidered textiles, and created a myriad of other objects – in short, have created a full material culture.

Words often tell only one part of a much larger story. The gap between transcendental philosophy and the material cultures of celebration noticed in the above quote makes the point we wish to illustrate. Too often, culture, especially religious culture, is read in terms of existential beliefs: it becomes a

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start and end point. What if material cultural forms were taken as a starting point and were even privileged above transcendental ideas? There seems to be no reason why a reversal of this would not be worth attempting, as privileging the abstract has shaped our understanding of religious cultures to date. Indeed, Cort is just one of many scholars who offer resources to support such a material turn. In their introduction to Material Religion in Modern Britain: The Spirit of Things, Linda Matthews-Jones and Timothy Jones (2015, p. 2) remind us that: On the one hand, objects are shaped by people and cultures and become expressive of their beliefs and values. On the other hand, objects have the potential to shape and condition people. An appreciation of these twin processes is essential to understanding religious faith and spirituality.

This material dialogue, and the work of Iris van der Tuin (2017; 2018), Rosi Braidotti (2008) and Vera Bühlmann et al. (2017), helps us understand how new materialist philosophies can teach us new ways of being, specifically within social worlds and art practices. Matthews-Jones and Jones (2015, p. 2) continue, suggesting that: Traditionally, the study of ‘things’ has been limited to research on decorative arts, architecture, or museum collections. While these areas remain important, the study of ‘material culture’ is now much wider, encompassing everyday objects and their cultural significances. With its origins in social anthropology, particularly in the work of Daniel Miller and Christopher Tilley, the new field of material culture research has become a truly interdisciplinary affair from which scholars of religion have a good deal to learn.

Following this lead, and looking to understand material cultures of religion, we invite children to reproduce the material cultures in which they are embedded. We take colours, textures, sounds, smells, symbols and movements as resources that are points of departure for art works – these elements are produced through individual and collective collaborative practices of making. Legacies of line, shape, form, tone, shade and colour carry on from lived worlds into imagined futures and are mediated by children’s biographies and emotional attunements. In framing the value of material cultures, Matthews-Jones and Jones (2015, p. 2) explain: ‘Rather than perceiving them as the end product, or as a reflection, of social and cultural systems, material-culture scholars prefer to see objects as playing an

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active, constitutive role in the construction and maintenance of these very systems’. However, what they frame is more than a materialist methodology for understanding religion, Matthews-Jones and Jones (2015) also provide a complex, entangled and embedded approach to the world as a material flow shaped by faith, objects, places and everyday spaces that make up ‘religions’ and religious experiences. They (ibid., p. 3) explain that: Religiosity is not simply an internal belief that comes to find codified form in the written texts of religious institutions. Religion is also constructed in the day-to-day, through people’s engagement with material things. Thus belief is not static, but negotiated through contact with everyday objects. Belief is highly dependent on the sensory experiences that enable people to make meaning out of their faith.

It is in the reading of the objects and art that the children create, along with the process of making, where we find the connections to home, family, friends, religion and belonging. In the material expression of colours, places, people and objects, we see feelings of belonging and faith come to life.

Materialising emotion In line with our reading of Cort (1996) and Matthew-Jones and Jones (2015), we undertake materialist readings of the art making process along with artistic expressions of the children, to ignite conversations with parents. Figures 3.4 and 3.5 below are from the first set of workshops with a South Australian church youth group in 2018. In Fig. 3.4, a young girl aged six drew herself as an evil queen, wearing a powerful pink headscarf and jeweled crown. Fig. 3.5 shows an expression of emotion, where the boy participating drew himself as an angry brown swirl. These material expressions of emotion gave an insight into the children’s self-image, and we began our discussion with the parents with these expressions. For example, in the focus group discussions held with parents and older family members in the South Australian workshops, there was much discussion of place and community as sites of belonging. Starting with the same topics we introduced with the children, focusing on ‘what really matters’ and discussing some shared values across the group, the parents could often provide links between feelings of belonging or exclusion and those children who drew themselves more angrily (see Fig. 3.5). One white mother in the South Australian focus group, who is not a recent migrant, felt drawn towards the affection offered by

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Figure 3.4. ‘Evil Queen’ self-portrait made by a girl in Adelaide Church youth group. (Source: Author’s Own)

Figure 3.5. ‘Picture of anger’ made by a boy from Adelaide Church youth group. (Source: Author’s Own)

migrant cultures. She described the physical and emotional place of religion in her life through stating: And so this place has sort of been something that has been a place to talk to others, with other people, around values, ethics and community. And those kind of things, the lovely things about religion, without the dogmatic aspects of religion. So in terms of what purpose it serves in my life, um, I guess it’s a sort of, structured way to do that for our children. Whereas if it was just us, we could talk about that and talk about that at uni[versity] and friends and what have you. But to have a place where that is embedded structurally for our children to come to, is what is important about it (Carina, Adelaide Focus Group 2018).

A place to talk to others, a place organised around values, ethics and community, a place for children to come to and believe. This place of faith clearly takes up a physical space as well as a cultural one in Carina’s life. Another mother explained how finding material links between religions undoubtedly mattered to her, explaining that: Just yesterday we strolled past a barber shop near our house, that [shop] is run by some Muslim men and a lot of their clients are Muslim men and

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I was chatting about how looking clean, being clean and looking neat and tidy, shows respect for religion and the religious beliefs. So um, the kids and I were able to have a conversation about how you show respect and, and, what’s important, what you value, um, and it was great that we could use our experiences meeting people of different colours, and different cultures and backgrounds here, in a non-judgemental way to sort of, link the two, link the Muslim faith to sort of the things that we believe (Amy, Adelaide Focus Group 2018).

Place, space and communities of practice are clearly significant aspects of what makes religion matter to these two women. They belong to the same church in a small Australian city, but notably other research participants who live in the much larger city of Melbourne, and belong to very different religions and socio-cultural groups, expressed similar attachments to places of worship as key features that hold significance in their communities of practice. The following focus group discussion with parents from our research site in Melbourne after a first round of arts workshops in 2018, shows that the temple, the mosque and moon cycles hold material and symbolic power for some of our research participants: Fatima:

Yeah the old people, you know, old people always go to temple. But for the young, it’s alright. Just support, okay this Sunday I want to go to temple. It doesn’t matter, you go or not go, doesn’t matter. But your heart need to be inspired. We not force, oh you have to or something like that. This world free, you can do what you want. Abdi: We have, I think, is the same, uh, programme in our religion, but not for three months. About the three or four days. It’s like the people uh, it’s a free, anyone can go. As you know the mosque go, mosque special place for programme. Mosque yeah. And the mosque are going on there, and stay and they don’t allow to come out until three day and three night they are praying. Yeah. Researcher: Which nights are these? Abdi: Actually in the special months. Researcher: Which one, which one are you talking about? Abdi: Uh, when I come to Australia I actually a little bit forget (laughs). Researcher: (laughs) Oh, I can imagine Abdi: Now uh, we have like three different calendar. It’s like uh, calendar from the western country. Islamic calendar and the other kind of Persian calendar (laughs).

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Researcher: Oh yeah, you can get confused. Abdi: Some programme I must check every three calendar and find which exactly the day is it. And also we have some special from months, like Ramadan. That month we, all Muslim people, practicing. For example, from the five o’clock or three o’clock in middle of night, wake up and eat something food like drink. And after that stop until the sun set. But in that time in the one month, keep doing and to practice, the message of that programme is to understand better poor people. Yea, the situation. If you don’t eat […] it’s a very very (pause) sad […] Like homeless, yeah. Researcher: Yeah, yeah. So there’s poverty all over the country, all over the world. Abdi: Yeah, but most of people praying and try to donate to that people as well. Like uh, food, sharing your food. Like money, like dress, everything to that month, to sharing with the poor people as well. At the end of that one we celebrate that it called Eid. That Eid, all of people, it’s a counting from each day how much, for example in the during the year, I’m using from the bread or rice and I calculate the one kilo from that price. How much is it, one kilo […] three kilo, for each person, I’m using most of the time the rice. Each person must pay three kilo price for the rice and collect together the money and pay to that, donate to poor people. In this discussion in Melbourne, temples and mosques are shown as a centre point for intergenerational community and the location for community faith based values, such as charity. These spaces are clearly sites of attachment and belonging, a theme that is also prominent in the Adelaide church focus group cited above. In the Adelaide church focus group, the parents are adamant about the importance of providing their children with the understanding that ‘however unfortunate our lives seem to be at the moment, there are still people less fortunate’ (Melissa, Adelaide Focus Group 2018). One Adelaide mother describes the importance of having a community place of worship through explaining that: I really liked the idea of coming together and having the ritual and tradition and singing, and a base where my kids would have different age levels and people, you know, that weren’t their school friends and whatever to see and

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to have that extended village like setting. […]. When I had kids I was kind of, floundering a bit, because I quite wanted them to have that upbringing about values and social justice, that you should treat people fairly, and um, look after poor people um, you know. I also wanted that extended family kind of feeling but I didn’t really love the churches that were on offer (laughs) and we tried going to an Anglican one, because some of my mother’s group went there and there was going to be another family with kids, so that was like, it was weird and so traditional, old and didn’t fit. And then through our friendship with Greg and Amanda, we heard about this place, and I came to teach some Sunday clubs/school classes to earn some extra money and I thought I better come along and see if I believe in it before I preach it myself: Oh wow this is the place I’ve been looking for! Like it’s got all the values I want to teach my kids. It’s got some tradition and ritual and music and but yeah, it doesn’t have the dogma. But the role it plays in my life it […] um, yeah to feel like everyone is equal on the planet, and that we should be looking after the planet and looking after each other, I think is, that is what I try and take to my kids, you know, in the way that you do stuff and the decisions that you make in life. (Amy, Adelaide Focus Group 2018)

Crossing over to Melbourne, Australia, a different religious structure is also credited with teaching, giving, and sharing community values. Our workshops in Melbourne led to a focus group with parents, where they discussed similar values of religious expression and religious structures (Melbourne Focus Group 2018): Medina:

Yeah, giving, sharing, respecting and pray all together, like when we older. I was sixteen, we had to go in the Buddha temples, to pray when the like, half moon, full moon. Researcher: So it’s around the moon a lot of things Medina: Yeah Researcher: Paganism is as well. I don’t know a lot Erica: Thirteen moons in a year every year. It’s a special […] Researcher: It’s interesting how everyone, like there’s something about the moons. Medina: Yeah so pray that and um, every seven day, you have to go one day to celebrate with the uh, monk. Yeah, bring food and some like sweet we make and going to pray every seven day. Like a one month, we have seven day, we have one day to pray to Buddha and the monk to uh (struggles to find words and talks to others in their language)

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Here, symbols, places and values are interwoven in the research participant’s accounts of meaning making in religious life. Indeed, other participants also expressed how the organisation of religious culture too, shapes the organisation of their workplace culture (Melbourne Focus Group 2018): Erica:

Researcher: Erica:

Researcher: Erica:

Researcher: Erica:

Researcher: Erica:

I was working at a Starbucks, and because we had about six Muslim staff, we’d always have to keep, we had a line chart that goes every hour that you’re open so you’d know who’s working when in front of you as a manager, and we’d have to draw a mark on sunset on the dot every day, a great big red X. Get Sonya, get Harrick, get them off the floor. Ah yeah for Ramadan. It’s a part of the roster, you write it down every day. Sunset on the dot, 5:17 they leave and they eat. Because we know they have not eaten a thing since sunrise and it’s a hard job. You can’t have a staff member fainting. So you take that into account when you write our roster, and just like uh, lots of Chinese staff come Chinese New Year. Don’t even bother trying to roster them on. They’re outside watching fireworks, they’re not coming. Yeah. So it’s quite open to people’s needs, you find yeah? Exactly, another staff member there, he was Chinese, but he was a um, he was studying to be a Catholic minister, and so he’d have to, come Easter, come Christmas, those are all very important to him. So don’t bother rostering him on. He needs that time. They don’t even need to come to our boss and ask for time off or So they’re quite accepting and aware. There’s awareness Yeah, and there’s that great sensitivity there where we’re aware of everyone’s differences and make sure we can allow for it. Because everyone does their part when something comes up for you, it’s like for me I’ve got kids. There’s no real religious holidays, but it’s like me and the other mums come, you know, start of school year, she’s going to want her first kids day of school [off work]. Ah so working around your needs And when everyone’s working around for everyone else, there’s no jealousy, there’s no issues, there’s no big deal. It’s like, of course I’ll cover for Erin on her kids first day, she covered me for Eid. Like it’s no big deal.

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In Melbourne, the children’s parents and guardians expressed in the workshops how different religions, or faiths, fed into their everyday practice and workplaces. Faith materialised in the shape of a big red X on the roster for Erica and her staff as Eid, Ramadan and Chinese New Year turned into a cross out on the work roster. ‘It’s a part of the roster, you write it down every day. Sunset on the dot’ Erica says (Melbourne Focus Group 2018). Likewise, Medina, also in the Melbourne focus group, related the moon and the cycles of the moon to the prayer and the time of prayer. Time, moons, big red X’s and sunsets looked to be how faith materialised itself in the structures and workplaces of people’s daily lives in Melbourne.

Things that matter Values are embedded in research participant’s engagements with religion, faith and attachments to symbols, places, colours and foods. They are intimately interwoven with social and cultural values. This enmeshment of material culture, of place, symbols, values and needs, must be understood as more significant than the constructions of religion as a metaphysical system. Indeed, Matthews-Jones and Jones (2015) expound the political nature of the historical construction of religion as a supposedly immaterial system, and they draw our attention to some of the limits of such ways of thinking. They (ibid., p. 3) explain: Through a range of processes, including particularly the Reformation and European colonialism, ‘modern’ religion came to be associated in the Western academy with the intellect and with the written word, whereas the reverence of objects was, broadly speaking, associated with ‘primitive’ and pre-modern religion. The Reformation doctrine, sola scriptura, scripture alone, privileged the word above visual and material forms of piety. Non-textual religious practices were devalued or even excluded as idolatrous, in order to mark a sharp break with Roman Catholicism. Codified and aural–oral expressions of faith (sermons, prayers and hymns) came to dominate in the Protestant tradition. An ideology of mind over matter also came, in a wider sense, to structure modern Western notions of religion.

The push to construe religion as being a textual and immaterial set of practices was therefore, both racialised and classed. Yet, as the data introduced above from both non-white low socio-economic status CALD families,

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and white, middle-class English speaking families show us, religion is still very much a material, located set of community practices for most people. Matthews-Jones and Jones (2015, p. 4) go on to specify the fact that: The intellectual tradition that has privileged religion-as-thought over religion-as-material is part of that highly problematic modernist tradition in which all sorts of binaries – mind/body, male/female, modern/premodern, civilised/uncivilised and so on – have taken on the appearance of universal truth rather than ideological construct. Just as we have come to question these binaries in relation to histories of gender and sexuality, for example, so too we should question assumptions made about practices of faith in modern societies.

As the research participant’s accounts clearly show, religion for them is about material and social cultural practices. It is about values and respect, not dogma and doctrine. Turning away from the metaphysical, we look at the richness in the material expressions of religion that evolve from art making. Further exploring the material basis of religion, McDannell (1995, pp. 1-2) argues that: ‘People learn the discourses and habits of their religious community through the material dimension of Christianity’. She continues, explaining that: The symbol systems of a particular religious language are not merely handed down, they must be learned through doing, seeing, and touching. Christian material culture does not simply reflect an existing reality. Experiencing the physical dimension of religion helps bring about religious values, norms, behaviors, and attitudes. Practicing religion sets into play ways of thinking. It is the continual interaction with objects and images that makes one religious in a particular manner (McDannell 1995, p. 2, emphasis added).

For McDannell (1995) then, religion is an accumulation, an embodied routine, orientations in relation to objects, and set of practices that are acquired over time and which inform the habitus of bodies. Religious worlds, like ‘secular’ worlds, are formed not simply from ideas but also from objects or things (ibid.). The ways in which we use things, the ways things are carried with/in us, in our imaginations, in the colours, textures and places that feel like home, and the ways in which we feel things express our identity are all illustrations of the great importance of materiality in our worlds. The non-written text is key to the communication of information. More than this, the ‘artifacts,

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Figure 3.6. Materialising religion, a map of important things, made by a girl in a London primary school. (Source: Author’s Own)

landscapes, architecture, and arts that make up material culture are not discrete units. Each of these interacts with the others to produce an array of physical expressions. Material culture is not static; it is constantly changing as people invent, produce, market, gift or dismantle it’ (McDannell 1995, p.3). To put this another way, material culture is intra-active, it is responsive and is co-constituted in its relationships with people and its social functions. For example, the blue fabric square included above (Fig. 3.6), decorated by an English Muslim girl that participated in a number of our London workshops, shows many aesthetic characteristics for which Islamic art is renowned. Islamic textiles feature intricate geometric patterns, and cyan blue, crescent moons and stars as well as family trees, all of which we can see in the image above. Although, here, these traditional images are fused with love heart bubbles celebrating Christmas, Easter and popular English cultural events. Islam as a religion prohibits pictorial representations of Muhammad and discourages representative images of earthly objects in general, so Islamic designs tend to be abstract, featuring complex patterns of symbolic colours and shapes. The blue fabric square (Fig. 3.6) features the shape of the family tree, symbolising the girl’s attachment to her family. Geometric patterns are gestured towards, featuring stars and a larger ‘shooting star’,

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all of which cite smaller parts of popular Islamic geometric patterns. These histories, and often unconscious practices of reproduction, cite generations of social, material and religious cultures, in which: ‘Objects become meaningful within specific patterns of relationships. It is only through an examination of the historical and present context of material culture that it can be “read”‘ (McDannell 1995, p. 3-4). Sitting in spaces of worship and community gatherings, amongst people of many different backgrounds, some struggle to find the words but want to share their culture, they want to talk about their experiences and share their stories. The focus groups become safe spaces to share these stories, and we learn about histories and family life. Participants brought food for us in many instances, which caused us to be constantly reminded of the significance of the historical and present context of material cultures. Further instructive comment on this significance of material culture can be found in Levi’s (1998) paper ‘The Bow and the Blanket: Religion, Identity and Resistance in Rarámuri Material Culture’, published in Journal of Anthropological Research. Levi (1998, p. 300) suggests that he is ‘taking seriously the call for “ethnographies of the particular”‘ and he argues for the renewed consideration of ‘material markers of internal differentiation […] between global and local economies’. Levi argues that if artifacts are seen as: Modulated voices within a dialectic of power and powerlessness, then material culture itself becomes an articulate idiom for the expression of everyday forms of resistance typical of subaltern groups. Articles of everyday life, such as ethnically distinctive costumes, allow people to use silence as a means to ‘speak out’ and nonviolence as a way to ‘fight back’ (Beaudry, Cook and Mrozowski 1991, cited in Levi 1998, p. 300).

Material cultures, therefore, speak as loudly, if not more loudly, than words. A similar line of argument is developed by David Morgan who (2015) examines some ways in which material and aesthetic practices in religion mediate the social life of feeling. Aesthetic practices shape and refine feelings, and provide contexts to which feelings adhere. As such, belief is embodied and material: Belief, it is important to point out, is not simply assent to dogmatic principles or creedal propositions, but also the embodied or material practices that enact belonging to the group. The feeling that one belongs takes the shape of many experiences, unfolds over time, and is mediated in many forms. Moreover, belonging is nurtured by the aesthetic practices

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that are designed to generate and refine feeling on the crossed axes of human relationships and human–divine interaction (Morgan 2015, p. 141).

Intersections between belonging, aesthetic practices and symbols are often unconscious, as the following conversation in our Melbourne Focus Group (2018), makes plain: Researcher: It doesn’t, so for you symbols don’t come into it. They don’t mean, is not part of Islam for you. Abdi: Mmm, not symbols, the only symbols for ours is the, like in the Saudi Arabia there is the Ka’ bah. Researcher: Ka’ bah yeah Abdi: That’s the only thing. Researcher: Ka’ bah uh, crescent moon? Abdi: Crescent moon Researcher: And the star? Abdi: Actually not exactly, that uh, that the moon. Not exactly. We have in our religion, is a very very special moons. Ramazan, or Mohairam, it’s like these two […] like for every people around the world going there to Saudi Arabia for praying. Researcher: Mecca Abdi: Yeah, Mecca. Actually that’s why I think that doesn’t mean that moon shapes related to that two special moons. Researcher: Cause you have it on a lot of Muslim country flags Abdi: Mmm, yeah. But yeah in our Researcher: But it’s a symbol Abdi: It’s a symbol yeah Researcher: But not for all, maybe all Muslims? Abdi: No, I think it’s from the Malaysia, or the Indonesia […] yes Researcher: Because that Turks love that Erica: Do you use anything like [shows pictures on phone] Abdi: Uh, that’s the name of god Erica: Nothing like that really conjures up a symbol of Islam? Abdi: No, no. It’s a name. Allah in the Persian, you put Arabic when you write, in the name of God. Researcher: They’re just people made Erica: I’m just saying, a very very special shape – we don’t have it. Just when you think about the Muslim people, the very important thing is about Mecca, yeah Researcher: So direction of prayer, where people pray to all over the world

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Abdi: Yes. Erica: I know. Hotel rooms in Asia, you open the [drawer] and there’s a bible and a little arrow that points to Mecca. In a hotel room. Researcher: Oh really? Erica: Yeap. Researcher: Yeah so that’s important. That direction of praying. Special moons, crescent moons and stars, and the direction of prayer are just some of many possible examples of material cultural practices and symbols that shape experiences of belonging to religious culture. Bodily orientations, geography, food and colours emerge from conversations around religion and faith (Melbourne Focus Group 2018): Researcher: White, like that’s interesting as well. Did you [Erica] have a colour for your religious organisation? Or any faith that you have? Erica: Uh, um. I had natural colours. And blues and greens and browns, um. I’m a pagan. Researcher: What do you call it? Oh you’re a Pagan. Erica: Yea, um. Anything natural and it’s real. The earth, the plants the sky. That’s sort of the colours you associate with us. Researcher: So what’s, what’s Paganism to you? Like what does that mean to you? Erica: [fumbles for words] People worship an invisible God, while destroying the world around them. Every day because the feel they’re the shepherds. God is the world we live in. Everything and we’re part of it, and we should be worshipping what we have. Not what we hope to have after we die. We were given this amazing planet, by the God and the Goddess, they created this and we’re part of it and we’re not different from it. We’re all supposed to live in harmony with nature and Researcher: So harmony? […] Researcher: Yeah, so living in peace. So you talked about respect (Abdi), and you talked about respect (Medina), you talked about living in peace (Fatima) and you talked about harmony (Erica). So to me, there’s like similarities there, like would you agree? Like even though you have a different belief, a different belief, there’s some similar beliefs. Do you think, similarity? Medina: Yes, I think so because […] I listen to all religion and why do the people respect each other, right. Even though we come from

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different colour, but we are human, that’s why yeah. And then just how to live together, listen each other. That’s it, right. Yeah. Never mind even though the people hold different religions or any culture, or custom, it quite different, because we are different house. Anyway we can live together, in the community. Across religions, across countries and cities, we see the material cultures of religion and faith based practices that emerge through sharing stories of faith, belonging and identity, and through art making that focuses on community values. These discussions around shared values are often cultivated first by an unconscious connection to a similar material or community practice of someone else; the Anglican mother from Adelaide who felt connected to the Muslim men in the barber shop through the hair cutting practice, the colours of the earth which the Pagan mother Erica highlighted as a sign of harmony and respect, the Muslim man who valued his Mosque as a special place for prayer and community, alongside the Buddhist whom saw temple as an intergenerational place to practice respect, and the blue geometric drawing of the young English Muslim girl which highlighted family, love and stars: these experiences are connected through their materiality to landscapes of faith, belief, and belonging. The symbols, practices and expressions stand for more than the metaphysical thinking of religion as doctrine or dogma. The principle of bringing people together over objects, materials, places and spaces speaks to the physicality of religious culture, the material expressions that unconsciously emerge, and the potential for framing religious identity differently. For even though the various material cultures of faith or religion have developed in different forms for different people, the materiality of faith is worked into many of the participants’ daily practices. Whether the material expressions of religious culture are found in the art of children, connecting mosques and churches by colourful beams of yellow and gold lights, or in the stories of parents about their shared feelings of respect and harmony, we see the potentiality for an imminent, non-ideological, non-representational view of religion, that offers a materialist perspective on how belonging is brought about in people’s lives.

Conclusion This chapter is an initial exploration of how, often unconsciously, things matter or come to matter in faith cultures. Places, colours, symbols, orientations and practices become intimately interwoven with values, and are key

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objects in material networks that shape belonging. There is no one way in which these intra-actions take place, but there are, however, consistent and multiple moments of coming together of objects, patterns, textures, shapes, practices and feelings. The children’s art at the beginning of the chapter shows us the close relationship between social values and aesthetic systems – the images of future societies bringing together social institutions such as places of worship, schools, hospitals and so on, with aesthetic registers that appeal to the children, echoing their enculturated tastes. The blue textile square and the self-portraits of emotion are more individual, and they present a personal semiotic of these children’s lives. The great value in these works is in the opportunity to talk to the children indirectly about what they value and how faith shapes their emotional geographies. Talking through, and with drawing, is much more generative than talking alone, as the discussions are scaffolded by art making and expression. As the conversations with the children’s parents and guardians show, the role that symbols, colours and places of worship play in the children’s artworks carry on in the parent’s cultures, lifeworlds and emotional geographies. The material expressions of faith culture develops in various forms across different religions, but the materiality of religion and faith evidently works its way into many of the participants daily practices. As the excerpts from the parent focus groups we present above make so plain, and as many theorists working on material cultures of religion show us, faith and religious beliefs are intersections of material cultures and social values. Everyday faith is rarely dogmatic, rather, it is an emotional and material orientation towards community, place and practice. Faith more broadly, is a materiality to which we all, on some level, relate.

References Braidotti, R. (2008). ‘In Spite of the Times: The Postsecular Turn in Feminism’, Theory, Culture & Society, 25(6), pp. 1-24. Bühlmann, V., Colman, F. and van der Tuin, I. (2017) ‘Introduction to New Materialist Genealogies: New Materialisms, Novel Mentalities, Quantum Literacy’, Minnesota Review, 88, pp. 47-58. Cort, J.E. (1996) ‘Art, Religion, and Material Culture: Some Reflections on Method’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 64(3), pp. 613-632. Levi, J.M. (1998) ‘The Bow and the Blanket: Religion, Identity and Resistance in Rarámuri Material Culture’, Journal of Anthropological Research, 54(3), pp. 299-324.

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Matthews-Jones, L. and Jones, T.W. (2015) ‘Introduction: Materiality and Religious History’, in Jones, T.W. and Matthews-Jones, L. (eds.), Material Religion in Modern Britain: The Spirit of Things, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-14. McDannell, C. (1995) Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Morgan, D. (2015) ‘The Look of Sympathy: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Social Life of Feeling’, Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 5(2), pp. 132-154. van der Tuin, I. (2017) ‘Signals Falling: Reading Woolf and Guattari Diffractively for a New Materialist Epistemology’, Minnesota Review, 88, pp. 112-115. van der Tuin, I. (2018) ‘Neo/New Materialism’, in Braidotti, R. and Hlavajova, M. (eds.), Posthuman Glossary, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 277-278.

About the authors Anna Hickey-Moody is Professor of Media and Communication, an Austra­ lian Research Council Future Fellow and an RMIT University Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow. Anna is located in the Digital Ethnography Research Centre where she leads the Creative Research Interventions in Methods and Practice (CRIMP) feminist research collective. She currently supervises 6 PhD students and holds honourary appointments at Goldsmiths and Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written 5 books. Marissa Willcox is a digital ethnographer currently undertaking PhD research in the school of Media and Communication at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Marissa is writing an autoethnographic narrative around the ways feminist and queer artists on Instagram use art practice to build online activist communities.

4. This-worldly Buddhism: Digital Media and the Performance of Religiosityin China Han Zhang and Junxi Qian

Abstract Buddhism in Mainland China has demonstrated evident inclinations in recent decades towards This-worldly engagements and has accommodated adherents’ demands for blessing and spirituality. In this process, media and digital technology have played an abiding and enabling role, not only as a new venue of preaching, but also a new frontier of social experiences that religions strive to shape and influence. This chapter investigates the entanglement of digital media and religion through a case study of the recent rise and popularisation of This-worldly Buddhism. In particular, it documents: (1) Chinese Buddhist organisations’ and clergies’ use of social media as a public engagement approach, and (2) the seemingly paradoxical involvement of Buddhism in secular activities such as technological innovation and creativity to reconcile the relationships between religion and technology. Keywords: Social media; technology; This-worldly Buddhism; China

Introduction Religious revival in reform-era China (from 1979) has been the subject of a growing body of studies (Yang 2006, 2011). However, academic research has been largely confined to activities and dynamisms within religious communities. However, the ways in which religious organisations and clergies engage with the secular society through innovative approaches have not been examined in depth. The rapidly changing social realities of religions in contemporary

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch04

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China cast into sharp relief religious actors’ engagement both with people’s spiritual pursuits and this-worldly concerns. Deliberating on the relationships between religion and secularity, Hjarvard (2011) notes that religious revival and secularisation are intertwined; in particular, he emphasises that mediatisation, namely the increasingly application of media technology to religious activities and practices, is an important process negotiating between religiosity and secularity. The increase in public religion in many countries may not be attributed to spontaneous revival of religion, but rather to religious mediatisation processes. With the rapid development and widespread adoption of media and digital technologies, the spread of religion in the era of globalisation has differed from earlier periods. If the mission of religious organisations was previously to meet needs within highly localised religious organisations, they are now committed to promoting values and discourses on much broader scales, from the local to the national, and to the global. In this scenario, translocal, cross-border, and transnational religious mobilities have become prominent and commonplace, facilitated to a great extent by digital media (Goh 2005, 2009; Kitiarsa 2010; Cheong et al. 2014a; Weller 2015). In this chapter, we investigate the entanglement of digital media and religion through a case study of the recent rise and popularisation of 人間 佛教 renjianfojiao (‘This-worldly Buddhism’) – a school of Buddhism – in Mainland China. We draw upon the literature on the relationships between media and religion, and focus on how This-worldly Buddhism has been constructed and performed in digital spaces in Mainland China. In the context of reform-era China, under an authoritarian regime, we discuss first what the digital landscape of Buddhism in China looks like. We point out that, while Buddhist actors need to negotiate political legitimacy under the atheist and monopolistic state of China, digital media nonetheless enable them to increase the public visibility of Buddhism, respond quickly to ordinary people’s spiritual needs, and reconcile with a context of market economy and capitalist modernity. Furthermore, this chapter shows that religious organisations legitimate their heavy reliance on digital technologies by balancing between the logics of religion and technology. In other words, while certain religious people across the world may claim that modern science and technology impoverish humanity and spirituality, Buddhist clergies and organisations in China tend to maintain authority through, rather than against, technology, especially given that science and technology are held by the Chinese state and society to be central to the values of modernity and progress. Above all, this chapter argues that innovative use of social media and technologies gives Buddhists additional space and means to advance the ‘Sinicisation of Buddhism’ by

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reconstructing, implementing and innovating This-worldly Buddhism at both discursive and practical levels. Before proceeding to the next sections, we note that one broad context of this change is the influence of reformed Buddhist theology in Taiwan. After China’s Reform and Opening in 1979, exchanges in the area of Buddhism across the Taiwan Strait, namely between Mainland China and Taiwan, have been steadily increasing. Two preeminent Buddhist organisations from Taiwan, namely Fo Guang Shan, led by Master Hsing Yun, and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, led by Master Cheng Yen, have established branches in the Mainland. This-worldly Buddhism is a Buddhist school which emerged in China in the early 20th century and is shared by both sides of the Taiwan Strait. It advocates that Buddhism stems from the human world and is in the service of it. Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism has always been regarded, by academics and ordinary people alike, as a model case of the mutual complementarity between religion and modernity (Madsen 2007). Master Hsing Yun, the founder of the Fo Guang Shan, has systematically outlined the theological orientations of This-worldly Buddhism. He underscores the importance of globalisation of Taiwanese Buddhism and promoted Fo Guang Shan, an initially local Buddhist organisation, to become an international organisation. The now-globalised Fo Guang Shan Temple Network has integrated a gamut of activities in areas of education, culture, charity and religious teaching (Chandler 2002). The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation specialises in the alleviation of human suffering through charity initiatives around the world. It has established branches worldwide that involve four major areas of activities: philanthropy, medication, education and humanities. It encourages overseas volunteers to actively engage in charity practices guided by Buddhist theologies of compassion and relief (Huang 2003; Weller et al. 2017).

Methods To address the above issues, we adopt the methods of netnography and critical discourse analysis to observe socio-discursive interactions in digital spaces and how discourses of religiosity are socially constructed, taking shape in processes of interactions. From September 2017 to July 2018, we followed Buddhist media outlets in China’s online spaces, including the Sina Microblog (Sina Weibo, where the important Buddhist masters examined in this chapter have set up their primary social media accounts), and official websites of Buddhist organisations. These outlets, albeit by

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no means exhaustive of online interactions among Buddhist clergies and followers, are exemplary of the ‘internetisation’ and digitalisation of Buddhist religious activities. Well-known Buddhist social media accounts on Microblog – China’s most popular social media platform (with 372 million active users) – were chosen as the primary source of data. To represent This-worldly Buddhism in Taiwan, the official microblog accounts of Master Hsing Yun (leader of Fo Guang Shan) and the Tzu Chi Foundation were selected for detailed analysis. Two websites, i.e. the Fo Guang Shan Online Service1 and the global information network of the Tzu Chi Foundation2 have also been consulted. In terms of Buddhism in Mainland China, three sets of data were used. First, we followed closely the accounts of Master Xuecheng and Master Yancan. Xuecheng is the president of the Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA) and also the abbot of Longquan Monastery. This makes him the single most preeminent figure in Chinese Buddhism and the religion’s de facto spokesperson. Yancan is a Buddhist master who promotes the publicity of Buddhism through celebrity-like styles and approaches. His popularity is reflected by the fact that his Sina Microblog account has the largest number of followers among Buddhist clergies registered in Sina – an astounding total of 44 million followers, almost double of Taiwan’s population. Additional materials in support of the chapter come from the Sina Microblog accounts of the Information Centre of the Longquan Monastery (Longquan Monastery, presided by Master Xuecheng, is highly prestigious and renowned among Buddhist followers in China) and ‘Two Monks Qiang Qiang Qiang’ (A Buddhist talk show in Mainland China to which Master Yancan is frequently invited as a guest). We also consult information from the official website of CBA and the official website of Longquan Monastery,3 and the Sina account and website of Renjianfojiaowang (‘This-worldly Buddhism Web’),4 which is the flagship online platform of This-worldly Buddhism in China.

Media, digital technology The term ‘mediatisation’ refers to the sociocultural process in which an institution relies to a certain extent on media to sustain itself and flourish 1 2 3 4

see Fo Guang Shan Online Service (2014a) see Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (2011) see Long Quan (2009a) see This-worldly Buddhism (2015)

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(Hepp et al. 2015). The concept of mediatisation focuses on how media are associated with specific sociocultural changes at large. In the realm of religion, the mediatisation of religion has evolved with the development of communication technology, and modes of communication adopted by clergies and laymen have evolved from traditional media (e.g. books, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio) to digital media (e.g. the Internet, social media applications and digital videos). In the digital era, religion represents new forms and meanings, and digital media have become the most important means of the contemporary mediatisation of religion. As Campbell (2012b; 2013) has noted, exploring the link between religion and digital media can help us understand the profound sociocultural changes in the era of the Internet. The key question is to examine how digital media technology influences religious practice, community, identity and authority, and how it enables religion to articulate with modernity, commercialism and social progress in the secular world. Historically, undertakings and services of religious actors tended to be restricted to a local context. However, the ever-increasing online presence of religious practice and experience has challenged the modus operandi based on locality (Cheong et al. 2009b). Cheong et al. (2009a, 2014) note that studies on religious transnationalism tend to fail to address the role of new media in translocal and transnational processes. Nevertheless, the Internet has played an important role in promoting translocal and transnational connections, and mobilities of religions. Digital media have brought major changes to people’s ways of practicing religion. The development of media technology has integrated religious spirituality with people’s daily lives in new ways (Kong 2001; Busch 2010; Campbell et al. 2010a; Campbell 2013), and technologies have reconstructed time-space notions related to religion and religious experience (Tong and Kong 2000). For example, Helland (2007) showed that adherents of Hinduism and Buddhism are able to connect via the Internet to holy places in India and Tibet, participate in online religious ceremonies, and use the Internet to develop links between diasporic communities and their countries of origin. Cheong et al. (2009b) found that Singapore Protestant organisations used the Internet to combine many forms of visual data and maps to highlight the geographical features of sacred space and create new practices of communication. In this process, technology has become an important means of constructing a geographically decentred religious community, and provides a meeting place for believers from different geographical locations. In short, an increasing number of religious organisations are realising that digital media is an important tool for the dissemination of religious information, and that it can spread

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and expand the influence of religion at national and international levels (Wikle 2015). Social theory has a tradition of seeing mediatisation as a central feature of secularisation. Mediatisation is considered on par with other significant transformations in high modernity, including individualisation, urbanisation and globalisation (Hjarvard 2008; 2011). It is also highly interdependent with such processes. Hence, media are predicted to undermine religiosity, because the ‘disembodied’ experience of the Internet poses a contrast to traditional religious practices which mainly rely on embodied rituals and experiences – media are intuitively seen as spaces in which religion cannot survive or flourish (Campbell 2007; Kluver and Cheong 2007; Cheong et al. 2011b). Furthermore, it is argued that public media contents generally convey anti-religious or secular worldviews (Kluver and Cheong 2007; Cheong et al. 2009b). In contrast, another stream of research suggests that religious institutions and authorities are not marginalised by media and digital technology, but are instead being re-negotiated in the midst of mobile, decentred and just-in-time societies in an age shaped by media and digital technology. The development of media technology is conducive to more individualised pursuits of spirituality, and can diversify experiences associated with traditional religions (Hoover 2006; Campbell 2012a). In this process, the authority based off institutionalised religion may be eroded. Busch (2010) investigated E-sangha, a world-famous Buddhism information forum, and found that as E-sangha’s operation were not managed by religious leaders, the Buddhist discourse and narrative constructed in the E-sangha Forum may deviate from the ‘traditional’ form of Buddhism and ideology, thereby posing a threat to traditional offline Buddhist authority. Cheong et al. (2009a) revealed that the authority of Buddhist leaders is often eroded and subverted by the pluralistic knowledge afforded by the Internet. The study suggested that it is necessary for Singaporean Buddhist organisations to reconstruct their authority by connecting online and offline practices. Currently, a growing number of studies see media technology as a set of new opportunities and conditions for religion rather than just constraints (Hoover and Clark 2002; Hoover 2006; Morgan 2013). ‘Digital religion’ is defined as the space where technology and culture meet and where religion is constructed by digital media in new ways (Hoover 2012; Campbell 2013). On the one hand, digital religion does not exist as an independent realm, but dwells at the interface of online and offline activities. Studies have examined the close relationship between online religion and offline religions – media technology have bridged the online and offline worlds, rendering the boundary between the two increasingly blurry and complex (Cheong et al. 2011a;

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Campbell 2012a). Examining Buddhist activities and virtual Buddhism in a virtual space (Second Life), Connelly (2015) found that Internet Buddhist practice affects the doctrines of Buddhism as well as online/offline Buddhist practices. Traditional forms of Buddhism increasingly work in synergy with digital media technology to develop the faith and maintain the authority of Buddhist institutions (Cheong 2016). On the other hand, Kluver et al. (2007) underscored the coexistence and the mutually reinforcing relationship between technological modernisation and religion, whereby religious organisations take the initiative to integrate information technology (IT) into the practice of religion while legitimising digital media technology in religious discourses. In other words, technology has been endowed with spiritual significance (Campbell and Pastina 2010). In short, digital media technology is understood not only as a tool for promoting communication; theoretical works have adopted ideas such as ‘spiritualizing the Internet’ (Campbell 2005) and ‘religious/spiritual shaping of technology’ (Campbell 2010b; Cheong 2014b) to reveal that religious organisations and adherents not only use media and digital spaces as substitutes for embodied or emplaced practices, but they are an integral dimension to religion.

Digital landscape of ‘This-worldly Buddhism’ in an era of market transition In the post-reform era, Buddhist organisations on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are in close contact, and the Mainland Buddhist circles continuously learn from the teachings and practices of Taiwanese This-worldly Buddhism. First, Buddhism in China advocates that Buddhism should move towards the society and serve the society to adapt to the needs of China’s modernisation in the reform era. In the early 1980s, Puchu Zhao, the then-Chairman of Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA), began to gradually integrate the philosophy of This-worldly Buddhism into mainstream Buddhism practices, a philosophy originally promoted by Master Taixu, a reform-minded Chinese monk in the early 2oth century (Ji 2013). At the 30th anniversary conference of CBA in 1983, Puchu Zhao made it clear that CBA adhered to the active and progressive spirit of This-worldly Buddhism, and that the idea of ‘a pure land on earth’ was not in contradiction with the modernisation of socialist China.5 This is the historical context in which Buddhist circles in mainland China actively drew experiences from Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism. 5

see The Buddhist Association of China (2018a).

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In Taiwan, Fo Guang Shan has long adopted modern management and operation. It has benefited from technologically advanced display devices and modern media, such as TV, CDs, newspapers, magazines and the Internet, to increase its publicity and improve its approaches of public engagement. Additionally, Fo Guang Shan focuses on an internationalised development strategy and established higher education institutions (e.g. Buddhist universities and branch monasteries in Japan, India, Singapore and other countries) to train aspiring practitioners.6 After entering Mainland China, Fo Guang Shan established various projects, such as the preservation of Buddhist heritages, the establishment of cultural centres and libraries in major cities to serve believers and non-believers alike (Johnson 2017). On the other hand, the impact of Taiwan’s Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation on charity development in Mainland China has been profound. It was Tzu Chi that prompted the CBA to establish its own charitable organisations. In 2008, Tzu Chi was approved by the State Council to establish a foundation in the Mainland and became the first and only foundation at the national level established by an overseas non-profit organisation. Taking into consideration that political cooperation is the primary requirement from the Communist Party for all legitimate religious charities (Ji 2013), the charitable activities of overseas organisations must often cater to the policies and long-term goals of the state regime (McCarthy 2013). As an overseas organisation, Tzu Chi has maintained a cooperative relationship with the Chinese government. On the one hand, Tzu Chi provides charity services and addresses the inadequacy and inefficiency of the Chinese social welfare system. It has thus become a pillar of charity work in China. On the other hand, Tzu Chi has been considered an ally of the Communist Party United Front and has been helpful in fostering stable cross-strait relations (Laliberté 2012). Weller et al. (2017) interpreted this as a form of ‘limited good’ under an authoritarian regime, namely the provision of material welfare without political activism. Generally, the current model of Buddhism in Mainland China has a certain degree of similarity to and inheritance from Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism. The theological orientation of This-worldly Buddhism serves as the broader context to make sense of the proneness of Buddhist organisations and clergies in China to communicate through digital media. Currently, the total number of Chinese netizens has reached 751 million (China Internet Network Information Center 2018). Buddhist organisations, like many other organisations, must adapt to the rise of digital media so as to communicate with the outside world and attract more adherents in novel ways (Hjarvard 6 see Fo Guang Shan Temple Online Service (2014b).

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2011). ‘Buddhism + Internet’ and ‘New Media + Traditional Culture’ are seen as innovative and more effective ways of preaching by Buddhist circles in China. The kinds of digital media used by Buddhist actors is becoming increasingly diverse, from online forums, websites and QQ (an instant communication application in China) in the early periods to the current microblog, WeChat, and mobile application, and from monotonous textual dissemination to current multimedia animation, videos and derivative products. In this context, This-worldly Buddhism has advocated the use of digital media, primarily as a new avenue to spread Buddhist teachings. Media technology enables Buddhism to transcend the confinement of the locality to maximise the reach of its messages, and adapt to mobile and decentred modes of communication and interaction in a digital era. As some masters and Buddhism organisations opine in their Sina Weibo accounts: It is gratifying to see that the development of science and technology helps to promote the Dharma in the human world and guide people in the direction of the Dharma (Sina ID: Tzu Chi; September 2012). Various modern civilisations and technology have entered the monasteries as many monks have mobile phones and a great number of temples are now equipped with computers that are connected to the Internet. Through advanced modern technology, the Buddhist community has strengthened its connections with the other factions of society while enhancing and increasing communications with Buddhist communities in other countries and regions (Sina ID: Renjianfojiaowang; May 2015). Buddhism has been disseminated for more than two thousand years and has always kept pace with the times. Buddhist culture is not only traditional but brand new. In this new media era, Buddhism cannot be spread by a master circumscribed in the temple, expounding the scriptures of Dharma. It needs to adapt to the new world and actively respond to the times to convey the Buddha’s spirit of compassion and divine intervention to all sentient beings so that Buddhism can move forward and enrich ourselves with the connotation of the times and make the wisdom of Buddhism benefit all beings to the greatest extent possible by using the popularity and influence of new media (Sina ID: Master Yancan; October 2015).

Here, we discuss the selective and reconstructive ways in which This-worldly Buddhism has been learnt and adopted in China. Under China’s authoritarian

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political system, different religions show varying degrees of participation in new media and thus demonstrate different styles of the use of social media. On Sina Microblog, Buddhism enjoys special advantages that are denied to other religions, while ‘Western’ religions (e.g. Catholicism and Protestantism) are severely censored (Sun 2011; Zhang 2017). However, this privilege also sets limits to the proper discourses that can be propagated online. In other words, on digital media, the discourses expressed by China’s Buddhist leaders (e.g. Master Xuecheng) must be in line with those of the state. At a conference on Chinese religious affairs, President Xi Jinping expressed, ‘We should attach importance to the issues of Internet religion, vigourously promote the party’s ideas, guidelines and policies on religion, and spread positive opinions’ (Xinhua News Agency 2016). The political construction of Buddhism by the Chinese government has consistently influenced the discourse of Buddhism and the way in which it has been presented (Ji 2011). The revival of Buddhism in Mainland China reflects what has been referred to as a selective renaissance (Chau 2005; Laliberté 2015). This-worldly Buddhism must adapt to the political and nationalist discourses endorsed by the Chinese state, though, as we will discuss later, the government’s influence is somehow diluted online, and Buddhist groups are empowered to become more autonomous. The mission statement of the Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA), quoted below, explains the need for striking a balance between state mandate and Buddhists’ quest of strengthening their engagement with the wider world: Facing the new era, CBA will continue to unite and lead Buddhists of all nationalities in the three major languages of the country, hold high the banner of loving the country and Buddhism, adhere to the Buddha’s true intent of this-worldliness, carry forward the fine traditions of Buddhism, practice the ideal of ‘This-worldly Buddhism’, strive to chart new territory of Buddhism’s Sinicisation while attaching importance to the unique advantages of Buddhism’s internationality, uphold Buddhism’s spirit of compassion, peace-loving, and perfecting the Middle Way, exert the positive role of Buddhism as a spiritual bridge and cultural tie to consolidate and carry forward the traditional relationships with Buddhists in various regions and countries, strengthen friendly communications and cooperation, and actively participate in the activities of international Buddhist organisations and religious peace organisations, as well as world religions and civilised dialogues, making Buddhism’s due contribution in wisdom and effort to promote the construction of the ‘Belt and Road’ and the community of common destiny (Li, 2018).

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In contrast, Master Hsing Yun’s narratives and those found on Tzu Chi’s official blog do not emphasise the steering role of the state; instead, they attach more importance to the universal values and humanistic care of This-worldly Buddhism, such as liberal democracy, environmentalism, global philanthropy and youth drug control. In general, the ideas of Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism emphasise innate faith and social responsibility, reconciling modern society’s need for reform, progress and moral universalism with Buddhist discourses (Pacey 2005). As the following quote illustrates: In the Pure Land, we must be equal and free. For example, democratic political elections are based on equality; the fact that civil rights are respected represents equality. So-called freedom is not to infringe upon the survival of others, not to infringe on the ownership of others, and not to infringe on the causes of others. Only with freedom and equality can the true meaning of the pure land be realised (Sina ID: Master Hsing Yun; May 2013).

Nevertheless, Mainland Buddhist actors also draw from theological reform in Taiwan in important ways, even though the actual practices to implement new theological orientations are adapted according to local needs. In Fo Guang Shan’s ideology, Buddhist values and the market economy have a mutually beneficial relationship (Chandler 2001). Mainland Buddhism has echoed this view. With the maturation of China’s market economy in the reform era, the development model of This-worldly Buddhism in Mainland Buddhist circles appears to have traces of the ‘capitalist Buddhist spirit’ advocated by Master Hsing Yun, namely the pursuit of the mutual compatibility and even complementarity between Buddhism and the market economy. The Mainland Chinese government has realised the need to control religious activities and to incorporate religion into the logic of economic development (Fällman 2010; Goossaert and Palmer 2011; Chau 2011). Thus, Buddhist cultural capital is levied for economic and political purposes, making This-worldly Buddhism in Mainland China highly instrumentalised (Ji 2011). The orientation towards commercialisation and secularisation demonstrated in Buddhist media on the Sina microblog reveal a bigger picture of contemporary China’s religious revival and development (Zhang 2017). CBA not only recognises Buddhism as a culture in theory but also presents Buddhism as a culture in practice. For example, it refers to Buddhist culture as an ‘intangible cultural heritage’. Through this ‘creative camouflage’ strategy, it aims to obtain greater legitimacy for Buddhism (Chau 2011; Laliberté 2011). Buddhist leaders have realised that by promoting Buddhism in the framework of ‘traditional culture’, they are able to spread Buddhism more effectively and legitimately.

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Thus, on the official microblogs of Masters Xuecheng and Yancan, Buddhism is often emphasised as an important part of ‘the splendid Chinese traditional culture’. In their blogging and active participation in seminars on Buddhism and culture, ‘Buddhism’ is always highlighted as a part of Chinese traditional culture: What is the spirit of Buddhism? Compassion, altruism, egolessness and wisdom. What is the power of eternal life? Eliminating the self, engaging and integrating, achieving together, participating together, sharing with others, willingness to cooperate with this era, willingness to cooperate with this world, willingness to cooperate with life and willingness to integrate into this lively life: these are the driving force and source of the vitality and eternity of traditional culture (Sina ID: Master Yancan; April 2018).

The Buddhist cultural tourism economy, including the development of Buddhist tourist attractions, the large-scale construction of religious buildings and the commercialisation of Buddhist culture, has become an important direction for Buddhism in Mainland China. In this process, digital media religious cultures into forms that are suitable for commercialisation (Poon et al. 2012). Promotions for Buddhist tourist attractions have been actively conducted using digital media through websites, WeChat public accounts and off icial microblog accounts in which Buddhism bloggers actively promote various Buddhist festivals (e.g. Buddha’s Birthday Festival, Vesak Day), Buddhist cultural attractions and souvenirs by posting, commenting and webcasting. If the emerging ‘faith industry’ has created substantial cultural and economic capital, and the logic of capitalist market economy has gradually taken over the other-worldly orientation of Buddhism (Qian 2017; Zhang 2017), social media are undoubtedly important venues for Buddhists organisations and clergies to promote this transition. In a different scenario, which is reminiscent of works undertaken by Buddhism in Taiwan as well (Madsen 2007), Buddhism in Mainland Chinese intervenes to curb the moral crisis that has prevailed in a society undergoing rapid economic development and social transformation (Leung 2002). Buddhism provides moral and spiritual guidance for those who feel anxiety and worry in relation to the abrupt market transformation, and it relieves their insecurity in secular life. Digital media allow believers to experience major changes in their modes of practicing religion, and the development of media technology has integrated religious spirituality into followers’ daily lives in new ways (Busch 2010; Campbell et al. 2010a; Campbell 2013).

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On the Sina microblog, Buddhism bloggers and their followers engage in active interactions in which followers ask questions on the official blogs of Master Yancan and Master Xuecheng. There are also online ceremonies, such as asking for blessings on the Master’s account and showing obeisance to the Master. The key topics of the official blog site of Master Hsing Yun include ‘Quotations of Master Hsing Yun on This-worldly Buddhism’ and ‘Life’s refuelling station’, which focus on the integration of Buddhism and life, and provide guidance on how to cope with stress in life, how to interpret success and how to be nice to people. Master Yancan is an important representative of those advocating the practice of Buddhism in daily life. For example, in one episode of the online programme ‘Two Monks Qiang Qiang Qiang’ (a Buddhist talk show programme) in which Master Yancan participated, the topic of the discussion was ‘Youngsters, why don’t you work overtime?’. Master Yancan argued that it is inevitable to work overtime, and no matter your occupation, you need to work hard instead of going too easy on yourself during these times. Such narratives emphasised by official discourse cater to the centrality of development, rationalising capitalist exploitation. At the same time, the Internet has become an important means of building religious communities through the social media accounts of key religious figures. In these online Buddhist communities, believers can share their thoughts about practicing Buddhism, exchange opinions on Buddhist issues and organise meditation. Online religion, as a new cultural and social niche, has taken over many of the cultural and social functions of institutionalised religion, opening up new spaces for spiritual guidance, rituals and community identity (Hjarvard 2011). To summarise, in the post-reform era, Buddhist circles in mainland China have drawn on and learnt from Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism in terms of Buddhist concepts and practices, and the cross-strait knowledge transfer has affected the development of Buddhism in Mainland China. At the same time, the CCP has maintained institutional and ideological control over faith, and has emphasised that religion should adapt to the country’s development priority (Leung 2005; Qu 2011). In this context, digital media have become important tools for China’s Buddhist community to build an authoritative discourse of This-worldly Buddhism.

Reconciliation between techno-rationality and religiosity Beijing’s Longquan Monastery offers an important example of mainland Chinese Buddhists practicing the concept of This-worldly Buddhism. The

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monastery is highly prestigious and well-known on Chinese digital media and has been highly regarded by the State Administration for Religious Affairs of China and CBA. Master Xuecheng,7 the incumbent President of the CBA, is also the abbot of the monastery. He adheres to This-worldly Buddhism of Master Taixu and Puchu Zhao, and has been committed to making Buddhism better adapted to the secular society and the service of all sentient beings. He has consistently emphasised that preaching should reflect new trends of communication in the Internet era, and called on Buddhists not to seclude themselves, but to be sensitive to the bitterness and unhappiness of people in the modern era, thus making Buddhism a harmonious pure land for people who are ‘busy, blind and lost’ (Long Quan 2009b) in their mundane life. The Longquan Monastery, which was vigourously innovated by Master Xuecheng, serves as a window into the integration of This-worldly Buddhism and technology. Master Xuecheng implemented a new model of monastic management for Longquan Monastery in which the Buddhist sangha is managed by traditional rules, but the missionary work is run in accordance with modern organisation. Above all, Longquan Monastery adopts a highly entrepreneurial, growthoriented model with a sharp focus on enhancing the influence of the monastery. Therefore, in terms of Buddhist teaching, Longquan Monastery advocates the use of methods that appeal to people leading a highly technologised modern life, and digital media have become an important channel of proselytising Buddhist teaching utilised by Longquan Monastery. Master Xuecheng emphasises the incorporation of technologies into Buddhists’ engagement with the public, although in his and other Buddhist masters’ rhetoric, advanced technology and modern science have interchangeable meanings and connotations, namely modernity, progress and new means to know, learn and explore: Buddhism is ancient and traditional, but Buddhists are modern. Buddhists and Buddhism should welcome and accept all advanced sciences and use modern means to spread Buddhism in a way that people in the modern era like to see and hear (Sina ID: Master Xuecheng; October 2015).

Longquan Monastery has opened seventeen accounts (each in a different language) for Master Xuecheng on the Sina microblog, extending the 7 The meeting accepted the resignation of Xuecheng from the presidency, executive directorship, and directorship of Chinese Buddhist Association (see The Buddhist Association of China 2018b). (Note: In the MeToo movement in China, Master Xuecheng was accused of sexually abusing female disciples).

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international reach of the monastery. At the same time, it has established an official website (Long Quan 2009b), a WeChat public account (Voice of Longquan), and an electronic database of Buddhist archives operated by the Longquan Monastery Information Centre, a unique component of the monastery (Cheong et al. 2012; Campbell 2013). Overall, the Longquan Monastery model prioritises preaching through the Internet. The materials discussed thus far have been centred on media and technology as new venues of preaching. But Master Xuecheng and Longquan Monastery also emphasise that religion and spirituality can make up an integral dimension of people’s technology-mediated experiences and foster creativity in technological use. In 2015, the emergence of Xian’Er, the Robot Monk, a humanoid robot jointly developed by scientists and entrepreneurs in a project coordinated by Longquan Monastery, heralded the concept of ‘Internet + artificial intelligence + Buddhism’. It has greatly added to the fame and reputation of Longquan Monastery on social media: ‘Robot Monk’ is the product of the combination of Buddhism and technology. Science and technology are neutral, and it can be beneficial to humankind when people’s hearts are kind and beautiful, but it can be harmful and damaging when people’s minds are evil. Buddhists should not reject science but rather embrace it and make good use of technology for more beneficial causes (Sina ID: Master Xuecheng; March 2016).

Longquan Monastery has actively promoted the image of Xian’Er, the Robot Monk. It has established the Longquan Animation Production Centre, which incorporates Xian’Er as the main character in art forms such as comics, animation, mini-film, music and derivative products. The purpose of such artistic and creative production is to incorporate Buddhist teachings, state discourses and discussions on the latest social issues into new media forms and popular cultures. Furthermore, Xian’Er has been brought to various occasions, such as artificial intelligence (AI) conferences and tech-fairs (e.g. the 2018 TechCrunch: International Innovation Summit; the Xworld Conference: Future Evolution, etc.). The emergence of Xian’Er has signalled the move towards the application of AI technologies at Longquan Monastery. Master Xuecheng once noted, ‘Xian Er’ the Robot Monk, which epitomises the richness of Buddhist cultures and meanings, directs to a path leading to spiritual awakening for the upcoming era of artificial intelligence (Sina ID: Master Xuecheng; March 2016).

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In an even more radical move, Longquan Monastery has established an AI and IT centre with an organisational structure consisting of a general affairs department, a research and development department, an operations and maintenance department, an AI research department, and the ‘Xian’Er’ Robot Monk department. In social media, Longquan Monastery has given a lot of publicity to their use of AI technology to annotate the 大藏经 dazangjin (‘Chinese Buddhist Canon’). In collaboration with professional teams from universities and enterprises, the Monastery applied an array of technologies, such as machine learning and deep learning, to develop an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) approach to analyse texts and achieve higher recognition accuracy (Sina ID: Master Xuecheng; July 2018). Meanwhile, the monastery pays considerable attention to recruiting believers from the IT and AI fields, and volunteers from the IT industry. These volunteers are all actively involved in the application of digital technology in the monastery. They are involved in animation production, the maintenance of the official website of ‘Longquan Voice’ and the development of Xian’Er. A compelling approach to market the Buddhist religion is to associate spirituality with aspiration and creativity in the development of technology. Thus, the Longquan Monastery Information Centre regularly holds AI meditation camps and IT meditation camps with unique themes, such as ‘AI · Enlightenment’ and ‘Geeks of Longquan: a wonderful encounter between mind and science’ (Sina ID: Longquan Information Centre). Longquan Monastery reprinted an article entitled ‘China’s Tech-Savvy, Burned-Out and Spiritually Adrift, Turn to Buddhism’ (Hernández 2016), originally published by the New York Times, on its Sina microblog and WeChat public account. It has emphasised that Buddhism can provide positive guidance for IT workers who are ‘burnt out, spiritually adrift and longing for change’ (Sina ID: Longquan Information Centre; September, 2016). On its official website ‘Voice of Longquan’, a column is dedicated to the topic of ‘Religion and Science’. The collection of articles focuses on the issue of ‘compatibility between science and religion’, and attempt to deconstruct this binary from the perspectives of philosophy, sociology and physics, emphasising the dialectical unity of ‘religion and science’. The main content of the column includes the following: (1) lectures by famous scientists on the connection between Buddhism and science (e.g. Buddhism from the perspective of scientists: Professor Zongguang Pan’s personal experience of following Buddhism; discussions on genetic modification between Longping Yuan and Buddhist masters; dialogue between Master Yinshun and a Nobel laureate), and (2) the argument that the interpretations of some problems by Buddhism and science are indeed consistent with

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each other (e.g. new discoveries in space physics and Buddhism; meditation and cognitive neuroscience; quantum consciousness: the confluence of modern science and Buddhism). Although Longquan Monastery is also involved in activities such as charity, education, culture and meditation, similar to Taiwanese Buddhist organisations, it is unique in advocating the integration of Buddhism and technology as a core concept in its theological orientation. Jones (2011a) argued that the state’s efforts have enabled the religion to adapt to modern society, and the efforts have been the most important factor in the contemporary Chinese Buddhist landscape. Under the indoctrination of the overwhelming ideologies of modernity, progress and science, unique ways of packaging Buddhism and Buddhist practice as well as defending Buddhism have been created, and many converts have moved in the direction of the intelligentisation and rationalisation of Buddhist practice. This view corresponds to the unique model of ‘This-worldly Buddhism’ at Longquan Monastery. Indeed, the logic of scientism has been gradually intertwined with the social reality of Buddhism as well (Xie et al. 2017), which has prompted Buddhist followers to frequently voice doubts to Buddhism bloggers (Master Xuecheng, Master Yancan) on the Sina microblog. Two examples are as follows: Dear Master, at the bottom of my heart, I believe in science, but I have been always awed by Buddhism and trust it. How should I deal with such a contradiction? (Sina ID: Aiyaaiya yaobugai; September 2016). I have been following Buddhism for more than three years and want to convert. But my parents cannot understand me and always hail the development and progress of technology and the greatness of science while vigourously opposing superstitions and religion. According to Buddhism, filial piety is always in first place, so should I be obedient to my parents and not convert before they are gone? (Sina ID: Tang – Song – Yuan – Ming-Qing; June 2017.)

Buddhist followers often need to use digital media to present a Buddhist identity (e.g. building online Buddhist communities, sharing their understanding of Buddhism, participating in online religious activities and religious services), and the Internet has become an important way for people to learn about Buddhism and build Buddhist communities (Jones 2011b). Digital media provide a space for believers to have a religious identity, increasing the possibility for them to practice religion outside of an institutional context, and enabling them to seek meaning in everyday life and

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negotiate their religious identity (Busch 2010). At the same time, in the face of modern scientism, they often must seek the authoritative opinions of Buddhist leaders to negotiate their Buddhist identity and resolve their inner doubts. Chinese Buddhist leaders have established a discourse that emphasises the compatibility between science and Buddhism, and they have attempted to guide people to accept the discourses of This-worldly Buddhism in a manner that sounds more scientific. Buddhism and science have different missions. What science faces is always an unknown field, and the eternal responsibility and mission of scientists are to explore new phenomena and discover new rules. In Buddhism, the Buddha has already proved the truth of the universe and described it in detail in the Buddhist scriptures. Modern science addresses both material and spiritual aspects with a special focus on the material world, while Buddhism also takes into consideration the material and spiritual aspects but with focus on the spiritual world (Sina ID: Master Xuecheng; May 2017). The understanding of modern science of the universe is getting increasingly closer to the teachings of the Buddha; although Pure Land approaches seem superstitious, they are actually not in contradiction to modern science (Sina ID: Renjianfojianwang; February 2017).

The process of spiritualising the Internet in Buddhism in Mainland China involves the construction of a more scientific discourse of This-worldly Buddhism. Jones (2011a) noted that atheism has spurred some people to find it necessary to defend Buddhist identity and form a strategy for that defence. In this context, Mainland Chinese Buddhists’ expression on digital media often separate Buddhism from religion and superstition, emphasising that Buddhism is not superstitious and all the more not religious. My thinking is that whenever the Buddha is mentioned, we will intuitively think about Buddhism as a religion, but I personally think it is inappropriate and we should refer to it as the study of Buddhism. This is a science field, not a purely imaginary religion. Only by staying away from superstition can all beings be saved (Sina ID: Suibianshanren 86; October 2017).

The discourses and practices of This-worldly Buddhism in Mainland China are increasingly inclined to highlight the rational principles of Buddhism and to link Buddhism to the institutions that are valued in the secular world, such as education, charity and science. This may be explained as one of the

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enduring effects of atheism and modern rationalism in China. In the case of Longquan Monastery, the monastery has actively organised exchange visits to universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and to Internet enterprises such as Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu. It also has actively participated in conferences and seminars on ‘This-worldly Buddhism and the Internet’, advocating the notion that This-worldly Buddhism must conform to development of the time. The conference was themed ‘This-worldly Buddhism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and the Future Society’. It focused on how ‘This-worldly Buddhism’ can shine with its wisdom in the artificial intelligence era and respond to the technological innovations, challenges and opportunities triggered by artificial intelligence, and utilise intelligent technology to enhance the teaching and philanthropy levels of ‘This-worldly Buddhism’ and to contribute our wisdom and experience to the construction of ‘the pure land of humanity’ (The Buddhist Association of China 2018c). In short, the Longquan Monastery model is another form of the development and reconstruction of This-worldly Buddhism vis-à-vis the modernist impetus of progress and science. On the one hand, the monastery corresponds to the theoretical framework of the ‘spiritual shaping of technology’ and ‘spiritualising the Internet’, and Buddhist circles in Mainland China must give legitimacy to the digitisation and mediatisation of religious practice. On the other hand, as Jones (2011a) has argued, discourses of modern rationality have already been internalised by many Buddhists and Buddhist leaders. From the perspective of Ji (2011), the costs of the flourishing of Buddhism in contemporary Chinese society are likely to erode the religious foundation of Buddhism, and the complexity of the Buddhist transformation in the post-reform era should not be masked by the optimistic discourse of a ‘Buddhist renaissance’. From another perspective, we do not endorse the view that secular modernity dilutes religiosity. With a highly secularised outlook, Longquan Monastery has reconstructed religious values, morality and its worldview through selective learning from secular values, and ‘religious leaders reinforce the position of faith in the cultural landscape of modernity by carefully managing and navigating the secular-religious interface’ (Qian and Kong 2018, p. 160).

Conclusion Against the economic, cultural and political transformation effectuated by the reform, learning and re-appropriation of the practices and discourses

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of Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism by Buddhist circles in Mainland China have promised a lively existence for Buddhism. In this way, Buddhism in Mainland China has finally succeeded in obtaining legitimate expression and has gradually expanded its social influence (Ji 2012; 2013). In this context, digital media have become an important tool for the Buddhist community to construct mainstream, socially resilient discourses of Buddhism. Under the aegis of state secularism, the mainland Chinese Buddhist community has emphasised the recursive relationships between Buddhism on the one hand, and secular modernity and scientific/technological development of the time on the other hand. The digital landscape of This-worldly Buddhism in Mainland China is a central locus in which newly invented discourses are enacted and performed. This study examines the relationship between religion and digital media based on the epistemology that religion and secularity are mutually structured (Tse 2014). As demonstrated by the case study, digital media is an important means for the engagement of Buddhism, having promoted the cause of Buddhism in Mainland China. However, digital media does not exist solely as a tool for spreading Buddhism. The marriage of Buddhism and digital technologies epitomises a new form of Buddhism that has adapted to Chinese society in the reform era. The new expression of Buddhism meets both societal needs and state ideologies. A series of flexible ‘strategies’ (i.e. Buddhism as a traditional culture, Buddhism as a venue of philanthropy, Buddhism through digital media, and Buddhism read through the lens of science) have responded to changes in Chinese society in the reform era and reinforced the role of This-worldly Buddhism as the dominant theological orientation among Chinese Buddhist schools. Some scholars believe that digital media contribute to public debates. Online democratisation has shown the potential for the media to play a supervisory role in Chinese society and to promote the growth of Chinese civil society (Yang 2003). At the same time, religion can be used as an important catalyst for political participation and civic engagement (Scheufele et al. 2003; Fader 2015). Carrette (2005) notes that there is no unique field called ‘religion’ that is independent of the social, political and economic world. In different political and social contexts, religion has different development concepts, ethics and value logics, and thus presents essentially different digital landscapes. The concept and practice of This-worldly Buddhism vary in different political contexts (Weller et al. 2017). The development of Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism is rooted in a quickly maturing civil society, enabling it to participate in social activities that advocate for social reform and the empowerment of vulnerable groups (Huang 2009; Yao 2012).

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Compared with Taiwan, This-worldly Buddhism in Mainland China is not simply an initiative germinating from the civil society but bears important considerations of the state. Thus, when speaking about This-worldly engagement, Buddhist circles in Mainland China must often consider the issue from the standpoint of the state. Through the introduction, reinterpretation and practice of the concepts of Taiwan’s This-worldly Buddhism, Buddhism in Mainland China has adapted to the need for modernisation, social harmony and stability of China in the post-reform era. The close integration between This-worldly Buddhism and digital media in Mainland China has provided new spaces and conditions for the development of Buddhism. Nevertheless, the control of Buddhism by state ideology has constrained the ways in which an online discursive space is shaped, as this chapter has demonstrated.

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Yao, Y. (2012) Taiwan’s Tzu Chi as Engaged Buddhism: Origins, Organization, Appeal and Social Impact, Leiden: Global Oriental/Brill. Zhang, Y. (2017) ‘Digital Religion in China: A Comparative Perspective on Buddhism and Christianity’s Online Publics in Sina Weibo’, Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture, 6(1), pp. 44-67.

About the authors Han Zhang is currently a research assistant at The University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation (HKU-SIRI) and will soon join HKU Department of Geography as a PhD student. His research interests mainly focus on geographies of religion in urban China and indigenous development in Tibet. Junxi Qian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong. His recent research investigates urban public space, indigenous development and religious changes in the context of reform-era China.

5.

Forging Chinese Christian Digital Fellowship: Social Media and Transnational Connectivity Francis Lim and Sng Bee Bee

Abstract The chapter addresses two main questions: ‘Why do Chinese Christians seek to establish transnational connections through religion?’ and ‘How are these connections established?’ It first discusses how the ubiquity of mobile social media has enabled Chinese Christians to use social media for religious communication. This is followed by an examination the Christian concept of fellowship as the key to understanding the formation of transnational Christian networks via social media. Two processes in social media, namely, media mixing and intercontextuality, facilitate the integration of the ‘religious’ into Christian users’ daily lives. In this sense, Chinese Christian transnational fellowship in social media is also about the practice of everyday religion. The chapter also examines some limitations of the use of social media for building fellowship, particularly with reference to China’s political environment and Internet regulatory regime. Keywords: Chinese Christianity, social media, internet, transnational fellowship, everyday religion

Introduction One of the most remarkable social trends in China in recent years is the explosion of mobile internet and social media usage. This can be seen by the widespread use of the micro-blog platform Weibo, the mobile chat app WeChat and video sharing site Tudou, among many others. In 2017, WeChat alone has around 494 million individual users in China, and hit

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch05

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one billion user accounts worldwide (Yuan 2018). In addition to its social messaging function, WeChat is also a popular platform for e-commerce, mobile payments and blogs. Existing research on the internet and social media in China tend to focus on government regulation and censorship, popular culture and state-society relations (e.g. Tai 2006; Sun 2010; Yang 2015; Negro 2017; Han 2018). In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly attention on religion and media in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In this chapter, we want to contribute to existing research on Chinese religion and social media by examining how mobile internet and social media can facilitate a sense of togetherness in the formation of an online religious community (e.g. Ho 2017; Huang 2017). In relation to the substantive concerns of this volume, our chapter addresses two main questions: ‘Why do Chinese Christians seek to establish transnational connections through religion?’ and ‘How are these connections established?’ To answer these questions, we rely primarily on data we have collected from semi-structured interviews and online observations which were conducted as part of a larger research project on Christianity and social change in China. Our interviews and fieldwork were conducted between 2013 and 2017. Our informants comprised 45 Chinese Christians based in mainland China (Chengdu, Kunming, Shenzhen and Wenzhou), Hong Kong and Singapore. Respondents in mainland China and Singapore were all mainland Chinese, while respondents in Hong Kong are ethnic Chinese. Respondents from the mainland consisted of lay Christians and members of the clergy belonging to both officially recognised and independent Catholic and Protestant churches. We found our informants through snowball sampling, starting with the Chinese Christians we know personally. We joined a number of Christian groups on various social media platforms (e.g. QQ, WeChat and Facebook) in order to engage in online participant observation. The political sensitivity of the topic meant that we had to establish high levels of trust with our informants and ensure strict confidentiality. The Chinese Christians agreed to us joining their groups in social media as one of us is a Christian and has been involved in teaching the mainland Chinese Christians in a theological college and church in Singapore. Another of us was introduced by personal acquaintances in the Catholic and Protestant circles in mainland China and Hong Kong to the Catholic and Protestant clerical informants in these two places. The chapter is organised as follows: first, we briefly discuss the development of mobile social media in the context of China and highlight how its increasing popularity among ordinary Chinese people lends itself to conceptualisation as part of Chinese popular culture. Given its ubiquity,

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Chinese Christians are also using social media (especially mobile chat applications) for religious communication, such as the sharing of bible passages and videos with Christian content, personal reflections on religious and social events, prayers and pastoral care. Next, we examine the Christian concept of fellowship in a community as the key to understanding the formation of transnational Christian networks via social media. We then analyse how transnational Christian fellowship may be established in social media, by looking at the two processes of media mixing and intercontextuality, which are features in social media that allow for the integration of the ‘religious’ into Christian users’ daily lives. In this sense, Chinese Christian transnational fellowship in social media is also about the practice of everyday religion. Finally, we discuss some limitations of the use of social media for building fellowship, particularly with reference to China’s political environment and regulatory regime on internet and social media usage.

Social media as popular culture in China According to the latest figures, released in 2018 by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), there were 880 million internet users in China. Around 90% of these users access the internet using mobile devices; and WeChat by the technology group, Tencent, which is the most widely used mobile app. The widespread use of mobile internet has taken place in tandem with the state’s strict surveillance and censorship regimes. This has significantly affected the ways Chinese Christians in the mainland and the diaspora use mobile social media for religious communications, as shown in our analysis below. China’s banning of global social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and denial of access to many foreign websites have also resulted in the rapid growth of Chinese firms which are offering similar services such WeChat, Tudou and Weibo. Some years ago, Helland (2000) proposed a widely discussed distinction between ‘religion online’ and ‘online religion’. The former refers to information about religion that is accessible via computer-mediated networks. In China, many Christian organisations, both official and unofficial ones, have their own websites with information about their activities and various aspects of the Christian faith, such as key beliefs, history, evangelism, links with other Christian groups outside China and so on. Such examples include 中国基督教网站 zhongguojidujiaowangzhan (‘The Protestant Churches in China’), 信德网 xindewang (‘Faith Weekly’) and 福音时报 fuyinshibao (‘Gospel Times’). The last site, 福音时报 fuyinshibao (‘Gospel Times’), allows

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readers to share its articles and videos via 56 social networking sites. Some independent churches even have their own regular online publications (e.g. Aiyan, Xinghua). ‘Online religion’, on the other hand, refers to the various ways in which religious faith is practiced over these networks. Nowadays, this distinction increasingly breaks down as most websites offer believers both information and opportunities to practice their faith, such as the sharing of Bible passages and prayers in forums, watching of video streams of sermons, engaging in debates over theological or pastoral matters and plugging into translocal and transnational networks of Christian communities via hyperlinks. The hugely popular video sharing site Youku has many videos and programmes with Christian themes, such as 每日一 歌 meiriyige (‘the Daily Song’), and they form an integral part of Christian spiritual cultivation. The interactivity on the internet allows its user to form online religious communities, where members share information, hold debates, provide mutual support, plan activities, etc. (Brasher 2004; Campbell 2010; Dawson and Cowan 2004; Han and Kamaludeen 2016; Lim 2009). In an interview with the online Christian Times, a Protestant preacher of a church in Guangzhou province noted that: In this Information Age, whoever seizes the opportunities of the internet shall have the right to speak. Whether you like it or not, or whether you are used to it, you will have to adapt, as the internet is the language of this generation! The utilisation of this means of communication is the challenge we face in spreading the Gospel and in building the Church; it is also the path that we need to take.

One of our interviewees, Paul, was a leader of a prayer group that comprised software engineers working in an engineering firm in Shenzhen. He was studying theology in Singapore at the time of our interview. For him, social media has enabled him and other Christians in China to receive and watch videos of sermons conducted by preachers in Indonesia. According to him, these sermons were particularly popular with university students in China and were shared widely in campuses. Wen was a woman in her early twenties, who was working in a factory in Singapore at the time of our interview. Her experience typifies the Chinese Christian transnational connectivity that has been made possible by the global reach of mobile internet and social media. Here, she shared her baptism experience: I posted the pictures of my baptism on QQ and everyone was able to view it as I did not set any restrictions to it. Many of my classmates asked me,

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‘What are you doing?’, because there was a certificate to show for it. I told them that I had been baptised. Then they asked me why do I need to be baptised? What is baptism? I told them that it’s a process for becoming a Christian. They then asked me why I believe in Christianity; you are a Chinese and you still believe in it? Two days after I saw the comment, I told them that whatever it is, this is my choice and they have to respect that. After that my friend explained to me that she said that because she hoped that I can bring her into Christianity as well.

In contrast with the Chinese Christians residing in China who use WeChat, Weibo and QQ, Chinese Christians residing abroad who wish to establish and connect to religious networks in China use a range of Chinese and foreign social media tools. For example, they may use Facebook and WhatsApp when communicating with friends and fellow Christians overseas, and switch to WeChat and Weibo when communicating with people in China. Situated in the Chinese diaspora, they are the people whom Gomes (2018) characterises as the ‘polylingual polymedia’ users. Therefore, as we shall see in the examples below, the Chinese Christians’ choices of social media are partly contingent on their locations of residence. Those who reside in the mainland would use Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat, Weibo and QQ, while those who do not reside in the mainland would, in addition, utilise more global platforms such as Facebook. As we demonstrate below, the usage of different kinds of social networking sites in response to China’s regulatory regime can impact the formation of online Christian communities.

Christianity as lived religion: Creating transnational fellowship online In this chapter we consider media and religion as deeply embedded in Chinese culture (White 2007). As religion is woven tightly in the fabric of culture, namely, norms, patterns of behaviour, beliefs and material practices of a social group. Religion can be understood as a distinct social institution or an integral aspect of believers’ mundane preoccupations and daily lives (Schielke and Debevec 2012). In a sociological approach, the recent shift to focus on ‘everyday’ or ‘lived’ religion has meant that scholars are looking beyond the dogmatic and institutional aspects of religion. There has been a sharpening of focus among researchers on how believers practise religion as they go about their everyday life. Believers practise religion in their daily

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lives in their own ways, often without paying much attention to what the institutional religion might say regarding dogmas and orthodoxy (Ammerman 2013; McGuire 2008). In other words, from the perspective of lived religion, people may ignore institutionally constructed boundaries that separate social life into distinct domains. This attention on lived religion recognises the embeddedness of religious actors in culture. At the same time, the religious actors are co-creators of the same culture. In this chapter, through the concept of lived religion and social media as popular culture, we wish to examine how Chinese Christians construct, negate, question, transcend or reinforce institutionally defined social domains such as ‘religion’, ‘the secular’ and ‘politics’ as they create transitional religious networks. First, we need to ask: why do Christians seek to establish transnational connections through religion? Some chapters in this volume have provided useful discussions of the notion of ‘community’ from various theoretical perspectives. In addition to these, we think it is necessary to also include the religious perspective to gain insights into the meaning religious practitioners themselves attribute to the notion of ‘community’. In this regard, we need to understand the Christian perspective on community, specifically how it is underpinned by the notion of fellowship. For Christians, the experience and meaning of ‘community’ is underpinned by the concept of ekklesia (‘the called-out ones’), the Greek word that is usually translated as ‘the church’ (Bible Study Tools 2014). Thus, for Christians, the ‘community’ first and foremost comprises God’s people, which form the universal Church. The bonds of this community of God’s people are forged through koinonia (‘fellowship’) (Lohfink 1984). The concept of fellowship, as understood in the context of an ecclesiastic community of God’s people, is elaborated in Biblical passages, such as Acts 2:42, ‘And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship (koinonia), to the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (emphasis added). In short, a Christian community comprises people who seek God through forging a mutually supportive relationship with one another in both material, spiritual and social terms. Furthermore, for Christians, salvation ‘is the work of God in creating covenant community’ (Kraus 1993, p. 32, emphasis added). From this perspective of community and salvation, Jesus is seen calling his followers out of the ‘old Israel’ into the ‘new Israel’, which is a new community of believers (ibid.). The Body of Christ, the Church, is fundamentally constituted by a community of believers. In such ‘covenant communities’, the believers discussed their understanding of scriptures, shared meals together, as well as celebrated rituals such as Passover. In this biblical sense, Christians gathered to share about their lives and provide mutual support to one another to sustain their

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faith. Thus, for many Christians, a community allows fellow believers to account to one another and strengthen each other’s faith, so that they are less likely to fall into sin and be distracted from the path of faith. In this age of the internet and social media, a Christian community is constituted not only through physical co-presence, as has been understood in the past. Crucially, it can also be formed and complemented by what Madianou (2016) calls ‘ambient co-presence’, namely, constant presence of fellow Christians on social media on one’s mobile digital devices who may be readily accessible even if they are geographically apart. Similarly, in his contribution to this volume, Woods (Chapter 1) explains how digital communities may span geographical distances and can be formed with people who are like-minded and share similar interests, beliefs and values, even if the bonds between them may be sporadic and temporary. In the context of contemporary China, scholars of religion have noted that the decline of public morality in society has motivated many Chinese to turn to religion, including Christianity, to seek out new foundations of morality (e.g. Zhuo 2000; Liang 2014; Kuah-Pearce 2014; Weller and Wu 2017). Consequently, Chinese Christian communities become even more socially significant for its members as it is the trusted space in which they can cultivate morality through the practice of fellowship. We have discussed why establishing and practising fellowship is important for Christians, which in principle is not limited by geographical or cultural boundaries. In the following section, we will examine how transnational fellowship is created in social media. We analyse two main ways in which transnational fellowship may be established among Chinese Christians in social media, namely, media mixing and intercontextuality. In the context of this chapter, the Chinese Christians’ use and mixing of media types refers to their online sharing, embedding and mutual referencing of various religious media files such as religious texts, pictures, videos and audio recordings. This process may facilitate the integration of religious practices and rituals in the daily lives of Chinese Christians in different geographical locations, thus creating fellowship among them as they access and use social media for everyday communication needs. For example, the Facebook post below show the sharing of an audio file, together with imputation of the text, ‘God is too wise to be mistaken’, to encourage the members to reflect on the spiritual value of self-reflection and meditation: As seen in Fig. 5.1 above, the song had been sung earlier in the morning during a church worship service in a Chinese congregation in Singapore which comprised many Mainland Chinese members. The post served firstly

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Figure 5.1. Mixing of media types. (Source: Author’s Own)

to remind Facebook members of what they had learnt in church the day before, and secondly, to transport the experience of worship encountered earlier into the followers’ daily lives. Digitally networked Christians use social media to share media files such as videos of popular preachers and link them to other media files such as religious texts, individual reflections, pictures and audio files. Susan, who works as an IT specialist in Shenzhen, attributes the immense popularity and appeal of mobile social media apps such as Weixin (‘WeChat’ in Chinese) to its features, which allow for users to express feelings and emotions via the video function: Our office has created a group, too. Yes, it’s the few of us Christians. We often socialise online in that group […] The main thing about Weixin is that it is convenient. It has appealed to a weakness in men: men don’t like to type! Weixin has a voice function for communication […] We can have a full video chat. And with WiFi, we can see each other face to face to chat. It’s the video that I feel have successfully overcome many men’s weakness, their laziness. And for women to express their feelings. For example, they can naturally post any feelings, with pictures and even videos [emphasis added].

By posting and mutually referencing different media files on social media, Chinese Christians in China and elsewhere are able to create, disseminate and interpret religious content and encourage those who have received these media files to engage in religious practices in their daily lives. At the same

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time, they become participants in mutual encouragement and monitoring. Believers could access these media files and choose to respond to them at convenient times such as during commutes, while being at home, waiting for trains, standing in a queue and so on. In the process, they are establishing, maintaining or consolidating religious networks. These networks link Chinese Christians in different localities. May, a young woman from China working in a factory in Singapore, shared with us how she was able to participate in religious rituals and activities online by accessing and interacting with multiple media files on Facebook which were uploaded by her church when she was unable to attend services: Because we are constantly on Facebook, we can check it the moment we are on our phones. I have also added a group from church on Facebook, and there are people who post content there every day. If they feel that a certain song is nice and suggest that this song can bring consolation or praise to others, they will post it directly there and share it with others to listen. I can view on my mobile phone everyday on what others have posted, and click into the link to view the contents.

Therefore, mixing different media types in social media communications enables religious practices, such as prayers, bible sharing, meditation, preaching and worship to be become more integrated into the daily lives and settings of the believers. These practices are no longer confined to the specifically demarcated ‘religious’ space such as a physical church building and specific delineated times of ‘religious’ services. As Jacob, an IT professional based in Singapore, articulates: I think that gospel is not a specif ic scenario which is only limited to the churches. Gospel should be the everyday life, a world-view, and it is affecting your every move, it also gets further reflections from your each and every action. So, I can talk about playing basketball with you, and I can also talk about songs with you. Moreover, all of them can reflect some of the basic qualities in our beliefs, which can help us to reflect on. Do our faiths exist only in churches, a fixed location, on Sunday?

Another way Chinese Christians create transnational fellowship on social media is through intercontextuality. In interactional sociolinguistics, intercontextuality refers to ‘the social construction of relationships among events and contexts’ (Bloome et al. 2009, p. 319). In practice, intercontextuality involves the social media user’s efforts at connecting a set of events

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happening in different times and places. This connecting of events in turn needs to be recognised by others on the same social network as meaningful and consequential from a religious perspective. For example, following the deadly Ya’an earthquake in Sichuan province in April 2013 that killed around 200 people, Christian netizens flooded Weibo, with posts to express their views and interpretations on the disaster from a Christian perspective. One post quoted a passage from Revelation 16:15 (‘See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, not going about naked and exposed to shame’) to exhort the readers to be ‘awake [as] the time of our Lord’s return is near!’ (Chinese Church Voices 2013) In another example, the Facebook post below (Fig. 5.2) shows how a believer wished to integrate prayers into her attempts at learning origami: In the post above, the user talked about her prayer, sleep and origami, all in one post. From this, we can see how prayer was integrated into her daily activities (such as sleep and handicraft) and formed an important part of her identity as a Christian. Such posts often elicit messages of encouragement and affirmation from fellow Christians. Her engagement in prayer in the midst of mundane activities also imbued these activities with a deeper spiritual meaning. As this example illustrates, intercontextuality in social media allows the communication of religious practices like prayer, reflection and worship singing to take place in the same space as Chinese Christians’ daily activities such as cooking, eating, studying, going on retreats and moving house. Intercontextuality facilitates the weaving of the ‘religious’ into the daily lives of Christians who are part of an online social network. Conceptually and practically, intercontextuality on social media allows Chinese Christian users to fuse the local with the global, the secular with the religious, and the mundane with the transcendental. Intercontextuality can also be observed in the crossing of private and public domains in conversations on social media. For example, praying and sharing about the bible in public can occur concurrently with enquiry about exchange of social greetings. Intercontextuality on social media may also enable Christian users to connect seemingly non-religious and religious topics, in accordance with their judgement of appropriateness and suitability. Elaine, from Wenzhou shared Christian materials on social media so that others may read and understand more about Christianity: The Weixin platform was handled by me previously, the basic source of information that I get was from the people I know and the preachers, as well as the spiritual journals that they wrote, and I would put this information on Weixin. I would update every day, and also, as there

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Figure 5.2. Intercontextuality: Prayers and Origami. (Source: Author’s Own)

are non-believers in our followers and audience, we would also input information regarding things like solutions to solve family or work problems [emphasis added].

The widespread adoption of mobile internet technology and the ubiquity of messaging applications in China have also influenced the ways in which Christian workers communicate with one another and their non-Christian colleagues. Some of our informants considered social media an important tool for spreading Christian messages to colleagues. One informant used the phrase, 渗透法 shentoufa (‘subtle infiltration’) to describe the preferred method: I will be subtle on Weixin and not to proclaim that I am a Christian in an outright manner […] This kind of influence, it’s a little by little, and slowly seeps into your consciousness. Then, you will ask me one day, you believe in this, right? And when you ask about the story of Jesus, I can then tell you loudly His story.

This method of subtle evangelism is possible on WeChat because the Christians can connect with their contacts who often comprised non-Christians through

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their postings in social media. Lily, a teacher in Kunming, described from her personal experience how this subtle evangelism could work on WeChat: There are also non-believers that are hidden somewhere in the group. One of them is actually a Buddhist. I feel that it is alright and it is actually very good. We can try to influence him with what we are doing. He might be thinking, ‘let’s see how long you all can last with this, it might just be a one-time thing for a short whole’. But in fact, we are going to do this for ten over years. I do not know when he will convert and believe in God, but I will pray for him.

Another informant revealed that her colleagues had read her newsfeed of her Christian activities. Similarly, she had read about her colleagues’ activities which were related to their Buddhist faith: Every time I visit the church group, I will only see content that has been posted by the church people, I think it’s alright as we are all from the same religion. We view the same things and discuss the same issues. However, when I return to my own newsfeed, there are many different activities there. Some of my friends are Buddhists, and there was once a friend asked me if there are any benefits after believing in Christ, has anything happened, etc.? I told her that at least I am not doing any bad deed and I know what I am doing is good although others might not know about it.

In spite of government intense surveillance and control of the internet in China, the online communications of Chinese Christians connect them with the global Christian community. The transnational networks enable the international Christian community to form solidarity in fellowship with the Chinese Christians who may be facing challenging circumstances such as official censorship and demolition of churches in Wenzhou. Below is a post on WeChat on the demolition of churches by the Zhejiang government. This could be accessed, read, commented upon and further circulated by Chinese Christians in and outside of the country who use the application which highlights the solidarity in fellowship. This fellowship is enabled by social media of Chinese Christians in the face of government crackdown. The above example (Fig. 5.3) is an illustration of how Christian fellowship can be created through the use of Social Media, bring together Christians within and outside China to focus on a common cause and foster Christian fellowship. Through the local and global connections forged via digital networks – even with draconian government internet control – the concerns and issues in China such as poverty, official corruption, social injustice,

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Figure 5.3. Transnational fellowship and solidarity on WeChat. (Source: Author’s Own)

environmental pollution, sexual harassment and political tensions can become shared concerns of Christian community outside China. This can be seen in numerous occasions where news from mainland China is picked up on and circulated via various social network sites used by Christians in both China and overseas, thus becoming internationalised. For example, ChinaAid,1 a Christian group based in the United States, monitors and publicises the plights of Christians in China through various media channels, including social media such as WeChat and Weibo. In another recent example, following the authorities’ detention of pastor Wang Yi, leader of the independent Spring Rain congregation in the city of Chengdu, his open letter was posted on and circulated via Facebook by his followers. His detention and China’s repressive actions on Christianity attracted international scrutiny. Given the tremendous opportunities provided by social media to create Christian fellowship, by connecting believers in China and overseas, it is not surprising that the Chinese Christian clergy are increasingly embracing technology in their pastoral work. This means that the church members in China can now contact their clergy more easily on their smartphones and computers. The clergy can potentially reach and influence their flocks in a more direct and immediate way, resulting in the formation of Christian ‘portable communities’ (Chayko 2008). Father Andrew, a Catholic priest belonging to the off icial Catholic Patriotic Church, is an active user of WeChat and QQ. It is through these two social media platforms that enables him to reach out to parishioners and other acquaintances, who are on his 1

see ChinaAid Association (2019)

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WeChat and QQ. In our interview, Father Andrew explained how new media technology has impacted his pastoral work: With regards to QQ, others may contact me over spiritual cultivation matters. In this situation, I can give some help, and the outcomes are usually good. That’s because this person knows me, knows I’m able to help resolve his problems, and is looking for someone to talk to.

Each day, Father Andrew would post some of his bible reflections on WeChat. Many of these posts would elicit responses and stimulate further discussions. In response to a particular post on 26 February 2014, an acquaintance wrote that, ‘I often follow Father’s reflections, a few words will provide clear guidance to a troubled soul’. To this, Father Andrew replied: ‘Thanks for your encouragement. Let’s journey together in God’s Kingdom’. In addition, the priest also conducted catechism via WeChat by uploading excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on his page (Fig. 5.4 and Fig 5.5). In Fig. 5.6 and Fig. 5.7 below, the two screenshots were taken from another Catholic priest’s WeChat page. The one on the left shows the subjects and topics of the posts, like ‘put away from other people’s faults and liberate your mind’; ‘2017 Summer Camp: get to know God in everyday life, enjoy the holidays together’; and ‘San Mao’s [a late popular author] 20 most poignant quotes’. The post on 13 June 2017 is about how one can get to know a person’s character through their debt payment. For Pastor Leung, who provided pastoral care in a Protestant primary school in Hong Kong, the internet and social media as a communications tool could be integrated into his work. For instance, he once visited an exhibition on the Mississippi river and realised he could draw his congregation’s attention to the biblical significance of some of the exhibition material: After I visited the exhibition, I shared with my students on the internet and the link between it and the Bible. It was an interactive experience as they could reply to what I have posted and added pictures to indicate which part of the Bible it was referring to. All these were conducted on Facebook.

Limitations of social media for Chinese Christian fellowship As we have seen from the discussion above, intercontextuality was made possible through the posting of different media types in social media that facilitated the discussion of spiritual matters, and encouraged Chinese

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Figure 5.4 and Figure 5.5. Reflections on Bible passage and teaching of catechism. (Source: Author’s Own)

Figure 5.6 and Figure 5.7. Commentary on society and morality. (Source: Author’s Own)

Christians to practice religion in their daily lives. This is especially significant as Chinese Christians are thus able to broaden their religious practices in a political system that seeks to restrict their religious practices in the confines of the church and in the current repressive state actions against independent

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Christian churches. At the same time, we also need to be aware of the limitations of digital media in establishing transnational Chinese Christian fellowship. One of the limitations of social media highlighted by some of our informants concern its potentially individualising effects. It is feared that social media may cause Christians to engage in religious activities as individuals, and avoid face-to-face community interactions. It can also become a major distraction for Christians. For Pastor Leung, the heightened emotional state generated by Christians gathering at the same time and physical space to engage in common activities is an essential element of fellowship: If we do our prayers alone using the internet, we will not reap from the church. Liberation is what we get from churches, and then we share it with others and encourage one another based on the teachings and our own experience and actions […] Thus, I do not agree on worshipping over the internet, unless the person is ill or overseas. People must gather together to feel the emotions and atmosphere of the group. There are some people who might be lying down on their bed and worship through their iPad […] Overdoing it will cause us to lose our main intentions of using these social media, which is to spread God’s teaching and not spend time looking at all these social media [emphasis added].

The importance of face-to-face communication is also acknowledged by another Hong Kong based clergy, Pastor Tse. He stressed that Christian pastoral work cannot be adequately carried out via the internet and social media apps. Instead, a ‘personal touch’ of face-to-face communication, is needed, as we see in the example of Jesus: I believe in face-to-face communication, I believe in personal touch by their own voices. That means I use my phone to comfort or to give a prayer to each other, to my friends, to my brothers and sisters. But not through the words in the computer […] Just like for this interview, you need to get a flight from your country to come here for face-to-face interview. So as a pastor to all the Christians all over the world, it’s the same thing, we need to help the sick, help the poor face-to-face. Have the physical touch. That means you can’t use the telephone or the Facebook or the iPhone to go to the hospital to give a sick person to have physical appearance, to have a prayer, to have a touch, to comfort their sorrow […] just like Jesus in the gospel. He walks by his own legs, so I think as a pastor, I think we need to follow the steps of Jesus. That means we can do the work by our own hands, our own feet [emphasis added].

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As the above quote shows, for many Chinese Christian clergy it is imperative not to be overly reliant on social media for religious communication and practice. Taking Jesus as the model, the emphasis is on the necessary toils of meeting people, responding to their needs by being physically present, and if necessary, to endure suffering like Jesus did. We have discussed previously how Christian social media groups users may shift between explicitly ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’ issues, for example, arranging meetings for social activities, gossiping about friends, commenting on current affairs, etc. However, the Chinese Christian users we spoke with treated one domain with great caution – politics. The current Chinese political leadership under ‘core leader’ Xi Jinping regards online criticism and mobilisation as posing a severe threat to its authority. Xi’s fear has unleashed a wide ranging and intensive crackdown on the internet and social media usage with draconian regulations, intensive surveillance and censorship, shutting down of blogs, the jailing dissidents and bloggers, and even banning certain words such as ‘civil society’. In all our interviews conducted with mainland Chinese Christians, it is very evident that they were highly cautious about the kinds of information they communicated on social media. As Marolt notes (2011, pp. 60-61), Chinese users of the Internet ‘are not interested in contesting the control of the Chinese state over Chinese society’ and are more likely to find ways to avoid state surveillance and control in order to pursue their activities uninterrupted by the authorities. When probed, all our informants expressed a strong aversion to ‘sensitive’ topics when using social media or participating in online forums. They are cognizant, that authorities, such as the Public Security Bureau, are monitoring all forms of communications, online and offline. They avoid discussing matters that could attract the attention of the authorities, for example, visiting foreign Christian missionaries, preachers and speakers, Chinese politics and the Communist Party, Sino-Vatican relations, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and human rights. A few of our informants who were members of house churches told us that officials from the local Religious Affairs Bureau and Public Security had visited their churches after finding out about visits by foreign preachers. As recounted by a Protestant leader of an independent church in Chengdu, who spoke on the extent of the surveillance: Previously there was a professor from America who came here for a church sharing. It was then when the police came. The police were informed beforehand about such events. If they want to find you, it is actually a simple task for them. If they want to stop such events from happening, they can simply make use of this information to do so […] They are afraid

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that religion and foreign political power will come into play and influence the stability of local politics.

When asked if publicity for events involving foreign visitors is ever done via social media, the same pastor was emphatic in his answer: Oh, we cannot do it like this. We cannot even say we invited so and so here to give a speech. Most of the information is shared during discussions when fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ come together for ‘learning’.

Jacob, the leader of the group of Chinese factory workers based in Singapore took great care to avoid discussing political issues with Christian acquain­ tances from the mainland. He strongly felt that, as a Christian, it would be ‘more effective’ if he demonstrated Christian values such as kindness in everyday life, rather than protest about public issues on social media. He felt a personal responsibility to protect Chinese Christians in China by not implicating them in discussions of controversial issues on social media. According to him, many of those who discussed religion and social issues explicitly on social media were based overseas and hence outside the immediate reach of the Chinese authorities: If someone really needs to post any sensitive remarks, for example […] religion and politics, then regardless of what social network he uses, all will be under surveillance. Technically no one is able to escape from the censor. People who talk about religious things on Sina blog, I have a feeling that most of them who dare to talk about religion openly are out of the country. They are either migrants or visiting scholars […] In fact, some of these people may post some irresponsible remarks. It is because he is not worried about his speech […] his speech is likely to pose threats to a number of vulnerable domestic groups.

As the quotes above suggest, Christian users’ communication on social media not only has the potential to create transnational fellowship; it is also an implicit negotiation with the party-state (c.f. Vala and Huang 2017). Though Chinese Christians may overtly voice their discontent and anger towards public injustice like the food security issues and corruption problems, they are simultaneously highly cautious. They do not want to be seen as resisting the authorities as members of specific church groups. In our interview, Father Andrew, the priest from the off icial China Catholic Patriotic Church, remarked that the party-state wanted to make

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Christianity a 鸟笼式的宗教 niaolongshidezongjiao (‘bird-cage religion’), likening Christianity in China to a caged bird: practising the religion in a 宗教界 zongjiaojie (‘state-defined religious domain’) that does not spill over into the social and political. As a result, Father Andrew and many Christians that he knew tried to focus solely on ‘spreading the Gospel, reflections of the faith and Bible passages’ on social networking sites, while avoiding sensitive social and political issues. I think the more ‘sensitive issues’ today, from the perspective of religion, would probably be China-Vatican relation, this involves the appointment of the bishops, and also the Taiwan issue, and so on. Also, you have to see who is discussing these issues. If you ask experts based in Hong Kong, this is not realistic. If you ask Ye Xiaowen [former head of the Religious Bureau], then it might not be a problem […] In this present context of pluralism, boundaries are still present […] For me, it’s just about spreading the Gospel, bible reflection, faith reflection and such matters […] On bird-cage kind of matters, the more you write, the better!

While Chinese Christians may blur institutional boundaries and practise intercontextuality when establishing fellowship on social media, they tend to reinforce or avoid disrupting the political boundary set by the party-state. Given that social media has become an important part of Chinese popular culture, Chinese Christians were able to participate in online fellowship while, at the same time, avoid being overtly political.

Conclusion In this chapter, we explored two main questions: First, why do Chinese Christians seek to establish transnational connections through religion? Second, how are these connections established? We argue that the key to answer the first question is to understand the importance of creating and participating in a Christian community or fellowship. Members of different religious faiths are creating connections and communities on the internet and social media for different theological, social, cultural and political reasons. For the case of Chinese Christians, we focus on the imperative to establish transnational connections on social media that derives from Christian soteriology: the idea that the practice of one’s salvation is expressed partly through believers gathering in fellowship to form the Church as the Body of Christ. With respect to the second question

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of how Chinese Christians create and sustain transnational fellowship, we highlight how this is achieved through the key processes of media mixing and intercontextuality. Social media have enabled the Christians in China and elsewhere to form online fellowships, and connect the sacred and the everyday on a scale that would not have been possible in the physical confines of a church. Furthermore, in their online fellowships, the Chinese Christians in the mainland and diaspora discuss different aspects of their lives such as religious practices, activities related to daily lives and work, and weave together these different facets as part of their meaning making process. This chapter shows how the Chinese Christians’ conversations about prayer and meditation on the bible were often interwoven with talks about their professional work; global news events; socialising; observations of daily happenings, cooking, eating, studying, going on retreats, moving house and other seemingly mundane matters. This reinforces their belief that their faith is an integral part of their everyday life and overarching identity. At the individual level, this fusing of religion with daily activities often blurs or ignores the institutional distinction between the ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’, and is facilitated by the practices of media mixing and intercontextuality. While the respondents in our study overwhelmingly embrace the advantages provided by social media in their effort to establish Christian fellowships that often involves transnational networks, many also acknowledge that ideal Christian fellowship should entail face-to-face interactions and physical presence. As social media usage for religious purposes is becoming more common among Chinese Christians, the boundaries that define their groupings take on a more fluid and shifting nature. Even as social media are recognised by Chinese Christians as important tools for fellowship, our informants, especially the clergy, discerned that online fellowships complement and do not replace face-to-face interactions among the believers. Furthermore, even as religious symbols and discourses have the capacity to transcend different domains in the online environment (Herbert 2011, p. 633), the boundary of political domain set by the Chinese government remains generally respected and unchallenged by our informants. This is mainly due to widespread perception among our informants of the ruling Communist Party’s online surveillance and crackdown on dissent. As can be seen from our study, the transnational religious encounters and networks in both face-to-face and digital contexts can give rise to tensions on the part of national authorities. Concurrently, it also leads to collaborations and enhancement of faith on the part of the believers. In the age of the internet and the rapid social adoption of social media in China

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and elsewhere, Christian fellowships increasingly rely on such transborder connectivity and interactions to ignite dynamism in believers’ religious practices as well as render credibility to their religious belief. While China’s authorities may be fearful of the political implications of such transnational and transborder connectivity, the flows and exchange of religious ideas and values via social networking sites have enabled Chinese Christians in and outside China to create communities of fellowship which are fundamental to their expression of faith and forging of religious identity.

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Han, S. and Kamaludeen M.N. (2016) Digital Culture and Religion in Asia, London and New York: Routledge. Helland, C. (2000) ‘Online-Religion/Religion-Online and Virtual Communities’, in Hadden, J.K. and Cowan, D.E. (eds.), Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises, New York: JAI Press, pp. 205-223. Herbert, D.E.J. (2011) ‘Theorizing Religion and Media in Contemporary Societies: An Account of Religious “Publicization”‘, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 14(6), pp. 626-648. Ho, W.Y. (2017) ‘Digital Islam across the Greater China: Connecting Virtual Ummah to the Chinese-Speaking Muslim Netizens’, in Travagnin, S. (eds.), Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, New York: Routledge, pp. 187-202. Huang, W. (2017) ‘WeChat Together about Buddha: The Construction of Sacred Space and Religious Community in Shanghai through Social Media’, in Travagnin, S. (eds.), Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, New York: Routledge, pp. 110-128. Kraus, N.C. (1993) The Community of the Spirit, Ontario: Herald Press. Kuah-Pearce, K.E. (2014) ‘Understanding Suffering and Giving Compassion: The Reach of Socially Engaged Buddhism into China’, Anthropology Med., 21(1), pp. 27-42. Liang, Y. (2014) ‘Morality, Gift and Market: Communal Temple Restoration in Southwest China’, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 15(5), pp. 414-432. Lim, F.K.G. (2009) Mediating Piety: Technology and Religion in Contemporary Asia. Leiden: Brill. Lohfink, G. (1984) Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith, Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Madianou, M. (2016) ‘Ambient Co-Presence: Transnational Family Practices in Polymedia Environments’, Global Networks, 16(2), pp. 183-201. Marolt, P. (2011) ‘Grassroots Agency in a Civil Sphere? Rethinking Internet Control in China’, in Herold, D.K. and Marolt, P. (eds.), Online Society in China: Creating, Celebrating and Instrumentalising the Online Carnival, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 53-68. McGuire, M.B. (2008) Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life, New York: Oxford University Press. Negro, G. (2017) The Internet in China: From Infrastructure to a Nascent Civil Society, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Schielke, S. and Debevec, L. (2012) Ordinary Lives and Grand Schemes: An Anthropology of Everyday Religion, New York: Berghahn Books. Sun, H. (2010) Internet Policy in China: A Field Study of Internet Cafés, Lanham: Lexington Books.

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Tai, Z. (2006) The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society, New York and London: Routledge. Vala, C. and Huang, J. (2017) ‘Three High-Prof ile Protestant Microbloggers in Contemporary China: Expanding Public Discourse or Burrowing into Religious Niches on Weibo?’, in Travagnin, S. (eds.), Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, New York: Routledge, pp. 167-186. Weller, R.P. and Wu, K. (2017) ‘On the Boundaries between Good and Evil: Constructing Multiple Moralities in China’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 76(1), pp. 47-67. White, R.A. (2007) ‘The Media, Culture and Religion Perspective: Discovering a Theory and Methodology for Studying Media and Religion’, Communication Research Trends, 26(1), pp.3-24. Yang, G. (2015) China’s Contested Internet, Denmark: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press. Yuan, Y. (2018) ‘China’s WeChat Hits 1bn User Accounts Worldwide’, Financial Times, 5 March [Online], Available at https://www.ft.com/content/8940f2d02059-11e8-a895-1ba1f72c2c11 (Accessed: 4 October 2019). Zhuo, X. (2000) ‘Religion and Morality in Contemporary China’, Irish Theological Quarterly 65(1), pp. 65-71.

About the authors Francis Lim is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University. His research interests revolve around religion and tourism in Asia. He has conducted fieldwork in Nepal, Singapore and China. His forthcoming book examines how Christians seek to transform China through the workplace, social media and community development work. Sng Bee Bee graduated with a Doctorate in Education, Leicester University, UK, Masters of Arts, National University of Singapore, and Bachelor of Arts, University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests are: Educational Change, English Language Teaching and Religion and Social Media.

6. The Global Appeal of Digital Pastors: A Comparative Case Study of Joseph Prince, and Brian and Bobbie Houston Catherine Gomes and Jonathan Y. Tan

Abstract Digital technology has facilitated new ways for pastors and the faithful to congregate. No longer are congregations limited to physical and temporal boundaries with sermons streamed live, or as podcasts for viewing anywhere and anytime. Moreover, the visibility of pastors in their churches giving charismatic sermons and surrounded by musical performers in front of huge and sometimes emotional crowds are slick theatrical productions that not only maintain spiritual manna for church members near and far, but also appealing to new converts. This chapter investigates the transnational and cross-cultural appeal of the prosperity gospel movement’s Asia-Pacific stars – Brian and Bobbie Houston (Hillsong Church) and Joseph Prince (Joseph Prince Ministries, New Creation Church and Grace Ministries) on their culturally diverse and ethnically pluralistic global congregations. Keywords: digital, online, megachurch, pastors

Introduction In the past few years of incidentally observing the religious practices of our social media contacts, we were struck by the changing nature of rituals and behaviours by our Christian Facebook friends. While both of us were raised and schooled in Catholicism at a time when fellowship only took place when the faithful congregated in real time and in a specific physical space (i.e. face-to-face at an allotted time in a church), what we are seeing

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch06

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now are different religious Christian practices which are not limited to temporal or spatial confines. Here we saw Facebook friends document their spiritual experience through posts and photographs which were alien to the experiences we had as practicing Catholics. What we witnessed was a new kind of Christian worship – as personified by the increasingly popular megachurches – where people could be part of a Christian community and receive weekly devotional messages by just tuning into live or downloaded broadcasts anywhere in the world, and at any time, so long as there was available and reliable WiFi. The digital revolution in other words, has not only disrupted Christian worship but has also created contemporary brands of Christianity which embraced digital technology to evangelise and shepherd large, growing and physically distant congregations. In this chapter we explore the intersections of Christian outreach and the digital space by looking at Brian and Bobbie Houston of Hillsong Church and Joseph Prince of New Creation Church – the increasingly popular preachers of the prosperity gospel. Brian and Bobbie Houston and Joseph Prince make use of digital media technology – with a strong emphasis on the visual – to sell their messages of salvation through success and selfimprovement that consciously cross ethnic and national lines. Through a visual digital display of church and personal wealth and glamour, the pop star preaching Houstons and Prince promote social-economic mobility as vital to Christian tenet. Hence in order to understand the pop star appeal of the Houstons and Prince, we employ digital ethnography (Pink et al. 2015), where we do content analyses of websites and social media platforms of Brian and Bobbie Houston, Joseph Prince and their respective churches Hillsong and New Creation. Digital ethnography as Pink et al. note (2015, p. 1) ‘outlines an approach to doing ethnography in a contemporary world […] [and] […] invites researchers to consider how we live and research in a digital, material and sensory environment’ because we do not live in ‘a static world or environment’. In addition, Pink and her colleagues go on further to explain that digital ethnography: Explores the consequences of the presence of digital media in shaping the techniques and processes through which we practice ethnography, and accounts for how the digital, methodological, practical and theoretical dimensions of ethnographic research are increasingly intertwined (ibid.).

We use digital ethnography as a method because digital media is part of everyday life. Digital media has also become prevalent in the Christian churches, particularly those which we showcase in this chapter. While

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websites are now a necessary way for organisations to communicate their business and purpose, social media is dominating the communication relationships between organisations and their publics. Hence to unpack the appeal of the Houstons and Prince, we need to understand the churches which they built.

The changing face of Christianity: Megachurches and their megapastors First emerging in the United States in the 1970s and experiencing tremendous growth from the 1980s onwards in North America and across the globe in Africa, Asia and Australia, the megachurch movement seeks to provide a one-stop venue where every need and desire of a person or family, from faith to community support, could be met. Within the contemporary North American socio-cultural context, the rise of megachurches parallels the rise of capitalism, the triumph of profit-making and massive economic growth during this period. This economic development emerged as a result of the social and economic policies of Ronald Reagan, which has resulted in the rise of mega shopping malls and massive superstores like Wal-Mart that seek to provide a one-stop destination for every desire and need. In this regard, megachurches represent the ‘Walmartisation’ of Christianity, i.e. building on the same goals of supersized growth to transform Christianity from traditional church structures and denominations to one-size-fits-all supersized behemoths of Christian communities where every need – spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical could be met and fulfilled (Thumma and Travis 2007). Within the broader history of Christianity’s evolution, megachurches represent an unprecedented transformation of Christianity. From traditional small-sized neighbourhood or local churches that belong to various denominations to one-size-fits-all supersized communities that are led by charismatic pastors who, by virtue of the emotional pull of their personal charisma and ‘cool’ factor, have been able to amass a large following of Christians who share their vision of church communities that seek to fulfil every facet of a believer’s life. To attract and retain believers, worship services at megachurches emphasise the emotional aspects, i.e. high degrees of emotional energy and psychological high, which in turn reinforce feelings of belonging and commitment. Not surprisingly, megachurches’ worship services are highly emotional and experienced events for their congregants, with their staged and choreographed performances by Oprah-like charismatic pastors with live praise bands, big screens, as well as special effects

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lighting and sound inside vast cavernous spaces. These megachurch worship spaces serve not only to accommodate their huge congregations, but also to create the spectacular effect of vastness as part of their branding. Post-World War II North America has seen the increasing fragmentation of traditional extended familial and familiar social structures of society as a result of the rapid growth of internal migration of Americans in search of job opportunities away from their families that is fuelled by the interstate highway system, affordable automobiles and cheap gas. In turn, the ubiquity of the automobile has led to the rise of sprawling suburbs and exurbs where many young nuclear families have settled. While traditional Catholic and mainline Protestant churches in urban city cores across the United States are struggling or closing, the proliferation of megachurches in suburbs and exurbs provide an alluring sense of community and an attractive framework of communal and spiritual support for both individuals and typical American nuclear families who are far away from their traditional extended familial networks. Wuthnow (1976) and Ellingson (2007) note that traditional mainline churches often struggle to adapt and change to meet the massive population shifts away from urban centres to suburbs, and more recently, exurbs. By contrast, megachurches and their pastors view the massive population shift to the suburbs and exurbs, as well as their consumerist worldview as opportunities for expansion and growth. Berger suggests that the complexity, diversity and pluralism within contemporary society has encouraged the growth of religions that offer a sense of certainty, stability and existential hope (Berger 1998). This would describe the megachurch and the role it plays in shaping the identities of the young nuclear families who have flocked in droves to megachurches. Roof (1993) thinks that an increasingly secularised education system and increasing cultural and religious pluralism have opened the door for megachurches, which are adept at identifying, meeting and at times growing the spiritual needs, personal interests and cultural tastes of this younger demographic while their mainstream counterparts are unable to do so. Within the all-encompassing communal and spiritual framework that megachurches offer, these individuals or families could feel at home and experience a sense of belonging to large communities of like-minded fellow Christians that are able to provide for all their spiritual and physical needs and growth under one roof. In North America, megachurches are often located in suburbs and exurbs because the availability of cheap real estate for extensive automobile parking, making them easily accessible to the young nuclear families in these suburbs and exurbs, who comprise their major demographic. Megachurches are also

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attractive to young nuclear families because they not only offer energetic and upbeat Sunday worship services, but also ancillary services for all kinds of therapeutic needs, including support groups for all kinds of needs, childcare, educational classes for both spiritual and physical growth, and other community building exercises (Thumma and Travis 2007). Specifically, Thumma and Travis (ibid.) assert that megachurches are successful because they are able to meet the needs of their congregants, including professionalism, quality experiences and interactions, a sense of identity, contemporary and entertainment worship, choice and opportunities to participate in various communal activities to express their Christian commitment. It also helps that the young and charismatic pastors of these suburban and exurban megachurches are hip, contemporary and able to identify with the young nuclear families who flock to these megachurches, as the case studies of Hillsong and New Creation Church show. By contrast, the older leadership demographic of Catholic and mainline Protestant congregations have been slow to adapt and respond to the challenges and needs of these young nuclear families who now comprise the bulk of megachurch congregants in North America. Not surprisingly, megachurches in North America are also characterised by their homogeneity in terms of social class, economic status and racialethnic identity, with white wealthy and middle-class Americans being overrepresented, and racial, social and economic minorities being underrepresented (Bird and Thumma 2011). Studies conducted in North America (Bird and Thumma 2011; Thumma and Travis 2007) indicate that one defining characteristic of megachurches in North America is the fact that the majority of megachurch membership are well educated and wealthy. Because the general megachurch membership is economically well off to begin with, megachurches have been able to leverage this aspect of their membership to raise large sums of money from their membership to finance their growth and further increase in size. In other words, megachurches represent the triumph of the American lifestyle of growth and success as a defining mark of successful churches. Megachurches that are able to provide for their members’ lifestyles and needs experience continued growth, which in turn attracts more members who are desirous of such affirmation in their lives.

Megachurches and the prosperity gospel in Australia and Singapore: The case of Hillsong and New Creation Australia and Singapore are both countries with similar histories as settler societies. In many respects, the rise of megachurches like Hillsong and New

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Creation, the largest megachurches in Australia and Singapore respectively, parallels the rise of megachurches in another settler region – North America. What sets megachurches like Hillsong and New Creation apart from their Catholic and mainline Protestant counterparts in Australia and Singapore is not merely huge numbers but also the megachurches’ near complete reliance on capitalism’s language of business growth and marketing strategies in its operational structure and day-to-day operations. This can be seen in the savvy use of social media outreach and other digital campaigns, all of which seek to generate further growth in a virtuous cycle of cumulative growth. In addition, supersized growth as a key performance indicator of the megachurches’ success is central to the identity construction of megachurches and the continuing validity of the theology of prosperity gospel that undergirds the worldview and ethos of these megachurches. The prosperity gospel that emerges from the strategic blending of the Christian gospel with capitalism and its business and marketplace-centric emphasis on material success is alluring to the growing middle class in Australia and Singapore. It should come as no surprise that young, upwardly mobile, affluent and aspirational Australians and Singaporeans are attracted to megachurches in droves. This is driven by Australian and Singaporean Christians seeking a self-centric Christianity that would empower their personal material and spiritual growth. Thus, the Australian sociologist of religion, Marion Maddox (2012) speaks of megachurches as ‘growth churches’ with an intense focus on increasing their market presence and utilising the key performance indicator of material success as evidence of divine blessings of their growth strategy and spiritual development. Although Maddox (2012) is focusing on the growth of Hillsong here, her assessment generally holds true for the growth of megachurches in Singapore, as we shall see below. This in turn generates a self-perpetuating cycle of growth that depends on the ability of the megachurches’ pastors to attract and retain an ever-increasing number of new members to maintain this cycle of growth and justify the validity of the megachurches’ prosperity gospel for their members’ own economic prosperity. However, this prosperity gospel is as far removed as one can get from the social gospel and liberation theologies of historic mainline Protestant and Catholic churches that focuses on addressing the ills of social injustice. The rise of megachurches and its underlying evangelical Christian worldview in Singapore also mirror similar trends in North America and Australia. According to the Singaporean sociologist Terence Chong (2016), the emergence of megachurches in Singapore is tied to the rise of a specific socio-economic class: the ‘English only’ socio-economic class. He notes that Singaporean Christians in the 1980s were ‘certainly the best educated, with

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an overrepresentation of its number in upper secondary and tertiary education, and also the most economically well off, with overrepresentation in terms of the number living in ‘bungalows, semi-detached and terrace houses’ and ‘private flats’, and ‘almost half of all Christians’ said that ‘they were “literate” in “English only”‘ (Chong 2016, p. 98). Unlike earlier generations of Singaporean Christians, many of whom hailed from the lower classes, many of these socially and economically upwardly mobile Singaporean Christians are converts to Evangelical Christianity, which took root and experienced tremendous growth in Singapore from the 1980s onwards (Goh 2010). In particular, Evangelical Christianity is attractive to a large number of Singaporeans because of its emphasis on black and white moral clarity that not only integrates well with the Singapore government’s emphasis on morality, but also the traditional Confucian underpinnings of moralethical conduct and self-cultivation that continues to undergird the wider Singaporean society (Chong 2011). Hence, the groundwork for the rise of megachurches in Singapore was laid by the socio-economic policies of the Singapore government in the 1980s that birthed and nurtured the middle class, the emphasis on meritocracy and self-improvement and the triumph of capitalism and the market forces. In many respects, megachurches in Singapore take their cues from their North American and Australian counterparts in terms of theological worldviews and emphasis on emotional and affective worship styles. This have given rise to the centrality of charismatic pastors, rock concert-style worship in massive auditoriums and an emphasis on popular culture, consumerist ethos, self-growth and business marketing that seeks unfettered growth to reinforce its image of success among Singapore megachurches like New Creation and City Harvest Church. Like their North American and Australian counterparts, Singaporean megachurches blend Evangelical and Pentecostal worldviews, emphasising absolutist moral clarity clad with biblical injunctions in a world filled with shades of grey, the primacy of ecstatic worship experiences and personal, material and spiritual growth. In doing so, they draw on contemporary digital marketing, branding and consumerist strategies to nurture their growth. Not surprisingly, the ‘English only’ middle class Singaporeans, with their familiarity with popular culture, rock concerts, shopping malls and social-economic mobility, are thoroughly at home in megachurches. This sense of familiarity has steered the growth of megachurches in Singapore, as Terence Chong (2016, p. 100) explains: Quantifiable criteria such as numerical and financial growth were more likely to be taken by megachurch Christians as signs of divine blessing

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and personal faithfulness. Echoing capitalist logic, the time, energy, and indeed finances that megachurch Christians invest in doing ‘God’s work’ will be multiplied, in turn, as blessings. Reinforcing this is the myth of meritocracy, which justifies material blessings for hard work. In correlating the material with the spiritual, one is able to measure the immeasurable, perfect for younger professionals who desire a linear and progressional gauge of their journey with God. Finally, many of these young Singaporean Christians not only find a brand of spirituality and theology that is familiar to the ethos of post-industrial Singapore but also cultural empathy with those of similar backgrounds undergoing the same class transitions, suggesting that the Singapore megachurch shares ‘elective affinity’ with the aspirations of young, upwardly mobile Singaporeans.

Hillsong: Corporate marketing and communication media and in the digital age Hillsong Church is a megachurch touted by the media (McKinnon 2016) as one of the fastest growing churches in the world, and one which has revolutionised religion in Australia. Hillsong Church, according to its website, is a contemporary Pentecostal church and member of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC) (Hillsong 2019a). The ACC which is made up of close to 1100 churches has more than 250,000 worshippers across Australia (ibid.). Founded by New Zealand-born Brian and Bobbie Houston in Sydney in 1983, Hillsong was originally called Hills Christian Life Centre but had a name change in 1999 (Hicks 2012). From its humble beginnings worshiping in a school hall with 45 people, the church in Sydney today claims to have a weekly congregation of 30,000 – the largest religious congregation in Australia (Hillsong 2019b) who aspire to Hillsong’s self-help vision (Hillsong 2019c): To reach and influence the world by building a large Christ-centered, Bible-based church, changing mindsets and empowering people to lead and impact in every sphere of life.

This vision is constantly reiterated online, for instance in media bites gleaned from sermons. An example of this is a post on the Hillsong Facebook page. In a 30-second media bite published on 10 January 2018, Brian Houston (2018a) says:

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We say living large […] I want to start the year by inspiring you and challenging you to lift your thinking, to lift your spirit and to believe this year that you’re going to live large [emphasis added].

The post received 11,000 views, 1100 reactions (likes, hearts and wows) and 179 shares. Undoubtedly, people – congregation, believers and possibly doubters and trolls – are engaging with Brian Houston through a simple, short yet visual capture of one of his weekly sermons. Hillsong, however, is more than just a single church. Rather, it claims to be ‘a contemporary Christian church, a global movement positioned at the intersection of Christianity and culture’ (see Hillsong 2019d) whose ‘services resemble popular television shows; its members are young, hip and upwardly mobile’ (Maddox 2013, p. 109). According to its website, Hillsong’s founder Brian Houston: Has launched churches located in some of the world’s most influential cities, three record labels, a film and television platform, multiple worldwide conferences and an international college. Each week, Hillsong’s music is sung by an estimated 50 million people in 60 languages, and Houston’s sermons are broadcast around the globe. In June 2016, Hillsong launched a global, 24-hour channel in partnership with Trinity Broadcasting Network, providing access to the worship and ministry to millions of viewers around the world. Through Hillsong’s college, conferences, podcasts, broadcasting and publishing, Houston trains and equips tens of thousands of Christian leaders and encourages countless others in their daily faith.

Hillsong’s flagship church may be in Sydney but it has franchises in every city in Australia as well as in several locations around the world: Bali, Buenous Aires, Copenhagen, France, Germany, Israel, Kiev, Los Angeles, Moscow, Netherlands, New York City, Norway, Phoenix, Portugal, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Moreover, the church claims to support a weekly online global audience of 112,000 worshipers worldwide (Hillsong 2019d). Additionally, the Church is an up and coming religious organisation among North American celebrities. While the Church of Scientology is synonymous with Tom Cruise and John Travolta and Kabbalah with Madonna, Ashton Kushner and Lindsay Lohan, Hillsong has become the spiritual outlet for Canadian singer and songwriter Justin Bieber. So profound is Hillsong’s impact on Bieber that celebrity news outlets are reporting that ‘Justin cancelled the tour because of “religious enlightenment”, claiming he “rededicated his life to Christ”’ and

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that Hillsong’s New York pastor ‘Carl Lentz is essentially a second father to the singer’ with ‘Justin’s Instagram […] actually flooded with photos of him and Carl’ (Gray 2017). This report not only shows us that Hillsong has the celebrity endorsement of one of the biggest pop singers of his generation, but also as a brand that appears in mainstream pop culture news. Surely combined, this is the kind of coveted incidental advertising that serves its purpose as soft evangelicalism. The Hillsong Church brand is personified by two interrelated elements: marketing and music. While the church has been marred by some serious scandals such as the abuse of young boys by Brian’s father Fran and the obsession with money (Brian wrote a book called You Need More Money in 1999 linking wealth accumulation with Christian tradition), Hillsong continues to attract new members. Writing for Mumbrella,1 an online publication dedicated to discussing ‘everything under Australia’s media and marketing umbrella’, journalist Robin Hicks (2012) writes: Hillsong is one of Australia’s few global brands. It is one of the most powerful Australian youth brands. And it is the fastest growing church in a country where religion is in decline.

Hillsong’s marketing genius is seen in its ability to harness digital technology in its outreach and messaging. In other words, it does not only depend on its high energy and youth-oriented weekend services which start from Fridays through to Sundays, but also on its ability to capture these services for distribution through images and video online. Hillsong’s homepage (see Hillsong 2019e) and ‘Music’ webpage (see Hillsong 2019f) for instance are examples of Hillsong’s version of youthful and hip Christianity whose popularity is visualised by packed services (see 2019e). By focusing on music (and the guitar as a prominent instrument), as demonstrated in the openly available images of their services online (see Hillsong 2019e; 2019f), Hillsong exudes a sense of contemporariness, accessibility, energy, religious progressiveness and youth which (young) people are able to identify with. Instead of having resemblance to a church worship, their services are akin to rock concerts. In doing so, Hillsong makes their brand of Christianity attractively relevant and modern, as emphasised in various pages on its website (see Hillsong 2019d; 2019e) – Hillsong’s packed auditorium of worshippers. Hillsong allows worshippers the avenue of worshipping through the media such as through its Hillsong Channel NOW which is also available through 1

see Mumbrella (2019)

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the Hillsong App for a price, free online devotional reflections located on Brian Houston’s website (2018b) and its trademark Team Box. The Hillsong Team Box (HillsongTeamBox 2019) ‘is a special selection of resources for the whole family including inspiring music, devotionals, apparel, downloads, books, encouraging messages and more – delivered to your door each month!’. Hillsong markets Team Box as: Our desire is to create a greater connection with people just like you who want to be a part of what God is doing around the world. We want to enrich your life with practical tools, powerful messages, fun apparel to wear and resources to share (HillsongTeamBox 2019).

However the key to Hillsong’s marketing success – the energy and lifeblood of the church, so to speak – is its music. Hicks (2012) quoting Australian brand expert Richard Sauerman, for instance, explains: Music is what helps make Hillsong relevant and accessible to young people […] It is the main thing that lifts Hillsong above other older, dustier religions.

Hillsong services are theatrical productions which are heavily peppered with lively Christian pop music performances in between sermons and available through various offline (e.g. CDs and DVDs) and online (e.g. downloads and YouTube channel) outlets. Hillsong’s brand of music is channelled through its main three musical groups: Hillsong Worship which has produced 24 albums containing more than 275 songs; Hillsong United led by Brian and Bobbie’s son Joel is a United States-based band which was named the 2016 Top Christian Artist at the Billboard Music Awards; and Young and Free, Hillsong’s youth ministry. Hillsong’s existence, much less its success however, is the brainchild of its founders – Co-Senior Pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston.

Brian and Bobbie Houston: The image of perfection and wealth Brian and Bobbie Houston are undoubtedly the face, inspiration, motivation and engine behind the success of Hillsong. A rags to riches story, the Houstons built themselves a global Christian empire of worship based on a Charismatic cult of personality after moving to Australia from New Zealand in 1978. Brian was born in Auckland in 1954 to Salvation Army officers Frank

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and Hazel, who joined and became pastors in an Assemblies of God church near Wellington (Bp-Relate 2016). Brian met his future wife Bobbie (born in 1957 also in Auckland) in New Zealand and married in 1977 (Bp-Relate 2016). Moreover, Bobbie who is biracial – her mother of Scottish descent and her father Pacific Islander (Joy 2007) – champions diversity through her Colour Sisterhood Movement and Conferences. The webpages dedicated to the Colour Sisterhood and Colour Conferences often, if not always, emphasise national and ethnic diversity. Meanwhile, Bobbie’s ‘Colour’ brand is their sisterhood outreach aimed at all women no matter their circumstance, ethnicity or nationality. The website explains that Colour Sisterhood is a movement which is: A company of down to earth, everyday women who desire to make a difference and make the world a better place. It is a foundation seeking to place value upon humanity – a story of unity & alliance (Hillsong 2014).

The Colour Sisterhood Declaration states: I Am Sisterhood is a declaration. A declaration that is bold and strong, quiet and confident. A declaration about value and identity, purpose and mission. It is a declaration intentional in reach and embrace. It transcends culture and creed, age and status, prejudice and preference […] (ibid.)

The Website’s page is filled with pictures of young ethnically diverse women (see Hillsong 2014). Reminiscent of the United Colours of Benneton advertisements, such evangelical campaigns, like the earlier discussion on music, feature the Hillsong Church as attractive, youthful and contemporary. The Colour Sisterhood movement statement and declaration (including the visualisation of the sisterhood [see Hillsong 2015]) are not only incredibly inclusive in its promotion of female empowerment but seems refreshingly modern when compared to older Christian denominations such as Catholicism, which emphasises visible maleness through patriarchal domination and control. What further aids the attractiveness of Hillsong is its ability to feature a bevy of beautiful and young women in their ‘I am sisterhood declaration’ website banner (see Hillsong 2014) who seem to be from diverse ethnicities. The image the Houstons give is one of perfection where they are a goodlooking, hip (Brian rides a Harley Davidson) and healthy couple (Brian is

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known to do push-ups in the middle of sermons) with a loving and supportive family made up of sons Joel and Ben, daughter Laura, their spouses and grandchildren. Brian and Bobbie document their happiness and popularity through the promotion of their version of a Jesus-centric lifestyle (e.g. helping the less fortunate such as through Hillsong’s Greenlight initiative to help homeless people in London by helping them with medical care). By image, we do not mean figuratively but literally since Brian, Bobbie and the family they preside over have a strong (digital) media presence with their lives – at work and at play – documented. The Hillsong owned and sanctioned media (e.g. television station) as well as various online and social media platforms with open accounts such as Brian Houston’s personal Instagram (see brianchouston 2019) not only show Brian, Bobbie and their family at work (e.g. giving sermons) but also glimpses into their private family lives (e.g. intimate moments with family). Even Brian and Bobbie’s primary school-going granddaughter has an open Instagram account. However, the media have documented the lavish lifestyle which Brian and Bobbie live. In 2015, the media reported that in the previous year, Hillsong brought in $80 million from its followers in Australia alone and over $100 million internationally, tax-free (Snow 2015). Earlier in 2010, The Daily Telegraph (Shand 2010) provided a snapshot of Brian and Bobbie’s lavish lifestyle: Property deals that have earned Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie $1.4 million. The Houstons are still tenants of waterfront properties at Bondi Beach and the Hawkesbury River that they sold to LMI [Leadership Ministries]. A $1 million, fringe benefits tax-free expense account each year for five people, including the Houstons. The use of vehicles worth more than $120,000. Fully funded overseas tours where Brian Houston can earn $US20,000 a speech in ‘love offerings’ on the preaching circuit.

While such documenting of their wealth has led to the Houstons going public documenting and defending their finances (Hillsong 2010), the suspicion of benefitting from the tax-free income brought in by congregation has not affected the church in attracting new converts (see Hillsong 2010). In its 2016 Annual Report, Hillsong claimed that their ‘[w]eekly church attendance grew by 5% to 37,384 people’ and their ‘[w]eekly attendance at our youth and children’s programs grew to 7968 from 7439’ (Hillsong 2019b).

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While the Houston’s Hillsong church attracts young and upwardly mobile worshippers (Maddox 2013, p. 109), their version of Christianity is still deeply conservative. In 2017 for instance, Brian Houston publicly urged his congregation to vote against the Australian same sex marriage postal plebiscite declaring: ‘I believe God’s word is clear that marriage is between a man and a woman’ (Hillsong 2017). Likewise, despite Brian and Bobbie being co-Senior Pastors and the leaders of the Hillsong Church worldwide, the distribution of work and image which the Houstons give is highly gendered. For instance Brian is the principal face of Hillsong where sermons available for viewing that are made by him has a stronger online and social media presence than Bobbie. While both have their own Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages with hundreds of thousands of followers each, Brian has his own personal website (see Houston 2018b) which he uses to market his books and features devotional prayers while Bobbie’s online website is an extension of the Hillsong webpage (see Hillsong 2019g). Additionally, the projects Bobbie leads are specifically girl and woman centric where she encourages and promotes stereotypes such as teaching girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen to look pretty in the Hillsong six week Shine course (Maddox 2013, p. 111). In a video podcast in 2017, Bobbie took on a more serious tone dedicating a prayer during that year’s Colour Sisterhood Conference, a movement to promote ‘womanhood’ to ‘barren women’ (Hillsong Teaching 2019). This theme is incredibly unsettling because the idea behind it is that if a couple who desire for children but the woman (and note, not the man) is barren, praying for a child is the key anecdote to solving this medical issue. Bobbie issues weekly podcasts of her praying for barren women to be fulfilled with children. While Bobbie Houston’s Colour Sisterhood statement and declaration, as discussed earlier, promote a surface-like female empowerment, a conference dedicated to barren women shifts the reproductive blame squarely on a woman’s shoulders, thus ironically makes the female disempowered rather than empowered. A barren woman, in other words, is also not perfect because of her inability to reproduce. A barren woman, in other words, is unlike Bobbie Houston who herself has three grown-up children with Brian. The Colour Sisterhood in actuality promotes conventionally conservative rather than progressive ideas about women, much like the way New Creation Church’s elevation of womanhood. Wendy, the wife of Joseph Prince who we will discuss shortly, is described on the Joseph Prince Ministries (2019a) website as: A devoted wife to Pastor Prince and a loving mother to Jessica Shayna and Justin David, Wendy Prince epitomises the virtuous woman mentioned in

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Proverbs 31. She is a constant source of love and support to Joseph, and has committed herself to bringing Jessica and Justin up in the ways of the Lord.

While Wendy Prince takes more of a supportive role in her husband’s ministry unlike Bobbie Houston who as an arguably equal partnership in Hillsong, both women’s worth (and in the case of Bobbie, an active campaign) is defined by their reproductive abilities and committed mothering capabilities.

Glamour, fame and wealth: New Creation Church New Creation Church is a non-denominational church based in Singapore and a member of the National Council of Churches of Singapore. While it was formed by a small group of Singaporeans, which included Joseph Prince, Henry Yeo, David Yeow and Jack Ho, it is Prince who is almost exclusively associated with the church and associated with its rise. This is because New Creation Church’s brand is exclusively tied with Prince himself. As the church’s website proclaims: A founding member of New Creation Church, Joseph initially served as an elder and associate pastor. However, his unanimous appointment as senior pastor in 1990 marked a turning point in the history of the church, which started experiencing phenomenal growth. Under Joseph’s leadership, the church congregation has grown by more than a hundredfold – from about 150 to more than 31,000 attendees. He currently serves as the senior pastor of the church on a voluntary basis (New Creation Church 2019d).

While New Creation Church had humble beginnings with its original venue being a flat in a government subsidised Housing Development Board (HDB) apartment block, it now boasts a SGD$500 million performing arts centre as its main venue. The Star Performing Arts Centre seats 5000 people and has an amphitheatre which accommodates an additional 300 worshipers. It was built and is managed by Rock Productions, the business arm of New Creation Church. The venue also incorporates a shopping mall called The Star Vista which is owned and managed by CapitaLand Mall Asia (Zaccheus 2016). The church is made up of members who have contributed to the financial strength of the organisation as this excerpt from a report in The Straits Times shows: In a 2012 tax document obtained by The Sunday Times, the organisation said its daily broadcast could reach 680 million households globally. And

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in that financial year alone, the organisation listed a revenue of US$27.6 million, most of which came from ‘contributions and grants’. Of that amount, US$21.2 million was spent on the broadcasts. […] Still, the church has been a fund-raising powerhouse, collecting $21 million in donations in a single day in 2010. This broke its own one-day records of $19 million in 2009 and about $18 million in 2008 (Feng 2014).

Loyal worshippers not only convene at the Star venue for Sunday services but also in other venues in different locations throughout Singapore where services are simultaneously broadcast. These include the Shine Auditorium, Marina Bay Sands Ballrooms, Cathay Cineplex Causeway Point, Shaw Theatres Seletar, Golden Village Grand (Great World City) and Golden Village Yishun. Shaw Theatres is a movie-theatre chain and Golden Village is a Cineplex chain in Singapore. While attendance for churchgoers to the Star venue is free entry, worshippers need to use an online booking form in order to reserve a seat for themselves. While services are in English, which are often conducted by Prince, one of the other pastors or by visiting pastors, the church conducts services in Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese at the Marina Bay Sands Ballrooms venue. The church also uses new media to reach out to its flock. As reported by The Straits Times, the church reaches 680 million households worldwide through its daily broadcasts. These broadcasts take place on various cable television (e.g. Daystar Television Network and Christian Television Network), radio (e.g. KMOA 89.7 FM [American Samoa]) and online, for instance through the church’s various social media outlets such as YouTube2 which has 13,793 subscribers, its Facebook page3 with 149,328 followers and its Twitter account with 17,700 followers. 4 The church’s followers use the social media platforms to express their faith and loyalty to the church. For example, on its YouTube channel, comments to videos often look like the following from a worshipper:5 Thank you LORD JESUS for New Creation Church So blessed with each wordings […] oh how beautiful savior we have in Jesus! 2 see New Creation Church (2019a) 3 see New Creation Church (2019b) 4 see New Creation Church (2019c) 5 This is a response to a YouTube video titled Jermaine Leong, New Creation Worship: Finished (see New Creation Church 2015)

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I love New Creation Worship. They have such a true and sweet spirit. You can feel the anointing in their singing. all because of Jesus, we are thoroughly blessed! Hallelujah. I bless the glorious king who gave you this amazing song. Let there be abundance of his grace on your ministry and your service to the holy church of the world

New Creation Church’s open official Facebook page (New Creation Church 2019b) is no different with commenters expressing their faith and positive impressions of the church. An example of such a post is one showing a response of a quote from the bible dated 31 March 2019 at 11 am: May He grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed (Psalm 20:4, NLT). The post received 1400 reactions (‘likes’ and ‘loves’), 136 shares and 159 comments. The comments which are featured often express faith by praising the Holy Trinity (God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ) particularly with favours done towards them. The first post for instance praises God and Jesus while expressing generic thanks. The second post is more specific about what the commenter is thankful for: business class (airline) tickets. While the church is becoming increasingly popular with its admittance now averaging a Sunday attendance of 33,000 worshippers (New Creation Church 2019d), it accords its success to its larger than life Senior Pastor Joseph Prince. Prince, as the church’s website explains, is: The author of best sellers with spiritually positivist self-help titles such as The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (2013), Destined To Reign (2007), and Unmerited Favor: Your Supernatural Advantage for a Successful Life (2011), Pastor Prince is also a highly sought-after conference speaker. He has impacted church leaders worldwide by preaching the unadulterated gospel of Jesus with boldness. He is known for teaching God’s Word in a fresh, practical and revelatory way that always unveils Jesus. His humorous, dynamic and engaging style of preaching has also endeared him to a wide spectrum of viewers who tune in to his daily television programme. His broadcast currently reaches millions of homes across North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Israel on both secular and Christian networks (New Creation Church 2019d).

To understand the appeal of New Creation Church, we need to look at their larger than life Senior Pastor Joseph Prince, who is the face of the church.

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The glamourous Prince Joseph Prince’s success as a pastor is not only confined to New Creation Church. This success is despite him not having much or any formal training in theology. While his roots as a pastor may have started there, Prince has been consciously developing his brand for mass appeal. We see this in his reconstruction of his identity (e.g. through his name change), his dominance on digital media and his founding of another new church based on his brand of Christianity, which he brands ‘the Grace Revolution’ outside his base of Singapore. All the while, Prince uses visual cues that integrate wealth and glamour with his teachings of Christianity. Prince was born Xenonamandar Jegahusiee Singh but later changed his name to the Anglicised Joseph Prince. While critics of Prince point out that the name change may have been because ‘Joseph Prince’ is easier to remember and more significantly it is reminiscent of Joseph, the Hebrew Prince of Egypt (e.g. Goddall 2013) in Genesis 42:6-8, Prince’s neutralising of his name to erase his biracial heritage (Sikh father and ethnic Chinese mother) may have made him more palatable particularly to ethnic Chinese Singaporeans. Three quarters of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese and proselytising would be more effective in terms of mass appeal. Increasing this appeal further is Prince’s marriage to an ethnic Chinese Singaporean. Having an Anglicised name perhaps also allowed Prince to appeal to an international audience outside of Asia. He states on his website: Joseph has also seen doors open supernaturally for his broadcast program, which currently reaches millions of homes across North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Israel on both secular and Christian networks (Joseph Prince Ministries 2019b).

A name change, however, is not the only way in which Prince appeals to his congregation. Recognising the power of digital media, Prince dominates cable television and the internet, where broadcast television is also finding a home. Currently, he is featured prominently on the New Creation Church official website and its social media platforms (e.g. Facebook and Twitter). Prince also has a personal website named Joseph Prince Ministries,6 a comprehensive collection of Prince’s teachings which take the form of podcasts of his prayers and sermons. This website has an online store where the faithful can purchase his books and his DVDs, some of which have 6 see Joseph Prince Ministries (2019c)

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fixed prices or prices based on the purchaser’s preference. Prince also has a YouTube channel7 which has 262,430 subscribers, a public Facebook profile with 3,828,881 followers and a Twitter account with an estimated 389,000 followers. While Prince may have a large media profile, the image he conveys is always controlled, where he and his family always look slick and glamourous and what he says officially points to the intersectionality between wealth and religiosity. Doing so, Prince creates an unbreakable link between his brand of Christianity, which marries wealth and faith seamlessly together. A Google Image search of Joseph Prince, for instance, reveals professionally taken images of him preaching or portraitures in a studio. Always well-groomed, the portraitures depict him as having a friendly demeanour while the action shots of him preaching present a commanding albeit friendly figure. The images of Prince in Google Images no doubt convey a financially successful man. This success is evident in media reports that he is one of the world’s richest pastors (Singh 2014). While New Creation Church has stated that he had stopped drawing a salary from them since 2009 (Carmichael 2017; Singh 2014), his wealth could well easily be made from the selling of his merchandise (at least 20 books, including special editions and translations, as well as DVDs) and from speaking arrangements. His book, The Power Of Right Believing, 100 Days of Right Believing, for instance, was No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list under the advice and ‘how to’ section (Feng 2014). The image of wealth and success, however, is drawn from Prince’s interpretation of Christian teachings, which he names ‘The Grace Revolution’. On his website he explains that God spoke to him directly, while he was on a holiday in the Swiss Alps, and that his calling was to spread The Grace Revolution (Joseph Prince Ministries 2019b): If you don’t preach pure, unadulterated grace, people’s lives will never be gloriously blessed and gloriously transformed. This one statement that God made to Joseph Prince in 1997 completely transformed the way Joseph preached and taught the gospel. And thus began the Grace Revolution. Joseph had been holidaying with his wife Wendy in the Swiss Alps and there, amid the majestic landscape, God told him that he had not been 7

see Joseph Prince Online (2019)

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preaching grace, and gave him the mandate to preach grace – pure and unadulterated. This meant preaching about God’s grace without attempting to balance, or mix, it with the law. Desiring to see his congregation liberated, empowered and blessed by the Lord, Joseph fully embraced the mandate from God and has not looked back since.

The passage above reveals two things: 1) that he is chosen by God to facilitate this ‘divine’ message of The Grace Revolution, and 2) that Prince is a wealthy and successful man as manifested by his choice of holiday locations. Prince claims that God spoke to him in 1997 when the Swiss Alps would have been – whether real or imagined – considered a luxury holiday by Singaporeans or anyone travelling internationally from outside Europe. God speaking to Prince in, as Prince himself states, a ‘majestic landscape’ gives the impression that God approves of this luxurious, if not opulent, lifestyle. Prince’s The Grace Revolution has resulted in the New Creation Church growing from 2000 members in 1997 to 31,000 at present, but has also increased his transnational mobility where he has preached his liturgy in Israel, Norway, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and in various part of Asia (Joseph Prince Ministries 2017). Moreover, he has found fame and wealth through the communication of The Grace Revolution (books, DVDs, television, radio and internet broadcasts, and speaking engagements), resulting in his social and religiosity cache increasing due to his association with fellow well-known pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen. In 2014, Prince opened The Grace Revolution Church in Texas whose beliefs are identical to that of New Creation Church but who are not financially supported by the Singapore church. On their website, Grace Revolution Church (2019) proclaims proudly: A Church you can call home. No matter where you are in life or what you’ve been through, you’ll see your life transformed from the inside out when you encounter our beautiful Lord Jesus. Join us – we’d love to have you!

Although Grace Revolution Church has its own local church leadership team of United States-based pastors, the principal Sunday morning service at 10:30 features video-streaming of Prince’s Sunday services at New Creation in Singapore. While there are no published numbers of the membership of Grace Revolution Church, it appears from their website and Facebook group that this emergent daughter congregation is doing well. This is not surprising as Prince chose to start a new congregation in Texas, which has among the highest concentrations of Christians generally, and Evangelical Christians

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in particular. According to Pew Research Center (2019), 77% of adults in Texas claim to be Christian with Evangelical Christians (31%), Catholics (23%), Mainline Protestants (13%) and Historically Black Protestant (6%) making the bulk of the faithful.

Communicating the message through the visual Communicating messages through elaborate theatrical productions has been the focus of culture theorists such as Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer (trans. Cunningham 1972) whose work has been used to explain the way messages are conveyed to mass audiences. They warn that commercial productions are tools for indoctrination of the masses, the same can be said for in-house productions made for unstoppable and sometimes viral broadcasting online through social media. Early audience theory, for instance, promoted a ‘hypodermic’ model which suggested that audiences were passive and influenced by the power of the message in texts (Morley 1980). Meanwhile others such as Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hazel Gaudet and Robert K. Merton (1944) argue that audiences were not influenced directly by the media. Rather, media messages were filtered through ‘opinion leaders’ before flowing to the ‘less active sections of the population’ (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944, p. 14). In Encoding, Decoding, Hall (1973) for instance states that communication is a complex structure between broadcaster/producer, text and audience. He explains that there is a symbiotic communication flow between broadcasters and audiences where broadcasters encode their productions with messages within a framework of knowledge familiar to audiences (ibid.). Moreover, these messages are constructed within the cultural framework of the audiences. Audiences thus find enjoyment in these productions because they recognise the messages in them (Hall 1973). In the case of the Houstons and Prince, their messages of self-improvement to attain happiness and closeness to Christ through the attainment of wealth, glamour and good health is displayed through highly stylised and controlled visuals online, particularly on their church and individual websites and social media platforms. The messages of success of the self becomes universal in the sense that they cross ethnic, cultural and national lines. Additionally these messages are made even more potent and convincing since they are embodied by the very individuals who preach them. In her work on glamour in cinema, for instance, Gomes (2008) notes that the reason why audiences are enamoured with glamourous stars because they see themselves in them. In other words,

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audiences identify with the rags to riches stories of the stars they adore because they see the wealth and glamour as attainable. At the same time, digital media are made for the world of dazzling spectacle and special effects that megachurch pastors use to enchant and attract their followers as consumers of the prosperity gospel. Digital media is ultimately oriented toward consumption and instant gratification. It inspires, differentiates, captivates and enchants its consumers. Its principal appeal lies in its ability to make its consumers feel as if they are in charge, forgetting for a moment that digital media platforms are, in reality, strategic marketing to specific niche audiences like themselves. Moreover, digital media further facilitates the connection between spirituality on the one hand, with materialism and consumption on the other. In a real sense, congregational members often live vicariously through the glamourous lives of their digital pastors as digital stars, following their digital pastors’ every move on various social media platforms and imitating their moves as a means of achieving their own material success. As a result, we see the prominent role that the digital platform plays in enabling these digital superstar pastors to influence and shape the identity constructions and spiritual formation of their followers. Hence, digital media becomes the theological medium that promotes a theology of personal fulfilment and success, synthesising faithfulness and mobility for the followers of these digital pastors, enabling them to integrate their faith, as shaped by their digital pastors’ prosperity gospel with their own quest for material success and wealth consumption. For these megachurch members, the glitzy and glamourous material success of their digital superstar pastors as splashed across the various digital platforms becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy of their digital pastors’ divinely sanctioned evidence of divine favour and spiritual development, which in turn becomes inspiration for them to aspire and imitate. More significantly, digital pastors represent the commodification of Christianity, in which spirituality becomes commodified as ‘Spirituality, Inc.’ that can be marketed digitally and globally, as the New Creation and Hillsong examples discussed above illustrate. Our examples illustrate digital pastors as savvy, astute and dynamic marketers of the prosperity gospel in hyper consumerist societies, integrating materialism and spirituality. The success of their ability to convey the socio-economic power of the prosperity gospel to empower their followers that faith and obedience would lead to material blessings in the form of wealth and success makes it possible for their followers to justify ostentatious consumption and unfettered wealth acquisition without any ethical or moral compunctions arising from issues

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of economic and wealth inequalities that traditional Catholic and mainline Protestant churches have sought to address through the social gospel or liberation theologies.

Conclusion Megachurches like Hillsong in Australia and New Creation in Singapore represent a turn in Christianity away from a counter-cultural religious faith that challenges its members to live out the gospel ideals to care for the underprivileged towards a personalist and entrepreneurial religious faith, that seeks to fulfil their members’ quest for socio-economic mobility, accumulation of wealth and attainment of upward social class. Indeed, the principal attraction of megachurches for the emerging middle class in Australia and Singapore lies in their appeal to the young and aspirational middle class Australians’ and Singaporeans’ sense of agency for the quest for upward mobility within a meritocratic and achievement-oriented culture promoted by entrepreneurial ethos and achievement-oriented worldview of global capitalism. At the same time, the prosperity gospel that drives Hillsong and New Creation and their theological and organisational innovations is rooted in the paradoxical secularisation of Christianity, marking the triumph of capitalism and market forces as shaping the future of Christianity and Christian churches. Indeed, capitalism’s faith in the ‘invisible’ hand of market forces has reshaped the interpretation of the Christian Gospel and led to the promotion of a Christian faith that dwells on personal growth and empowerment rather than societal transformation. This chapter’s focus on Hillsong’s and New Creation’s strategic use of digital media by their digitally-savvy pastors reveal how digital media are blurring the lines between secular and sacred. Indeed, Hillsong and New Creation are poster children for how megachurches, unlike their Catholic and mainline Protestant counterparts, have been quick to harness the power of new digital media platforms as new means of reaching out to and connecting with members of their congregations. In one sense, digital pastors as digital stars are not much different from YouTube and Instagram superstars with their legions of followers who live their lives vicariously through these online superstars. This explains why Hillsong and New Creation congregants, unlike their traditional Catholic and mainline Protestant counterparts, are not critical of the ostentatious lifestyles of their ultra-wealthy digital pastors. Digital pastors, like other social media digital superstars, legitimise

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the aspirational ethos of their followers and affirm their followers’ desire to mimic their glitz, glamour and success, which in turn legitimise the prosperity gospel, recruiting more followers and bringing in more income to the megachurches. In turn, this also enables the megachurch members to affirm their own upwardly mobile aspirations to climb up the socioeconomic ladder and announce their own material success to their families, friends, neighbours and co-workers. The case studies of Hillsong and New Creation reveal the ease by which digital pastors make use of various digital platforms to accentuate their upbeat and inspirational message of the prosperity gospel. These pastors convey charisma and charming personalities that digital platforms emphasise and accentuate. Clearly, the digital pastors’ appeal to the members of their flocks lie in their charismatic personas and ability to appeal to their members’ sense of agency, and provide a sense of empowerment in an achievement oriented culture shaped by capitalism and consumerism. Moreover, digital pastors often blur the line between the secular and sacred, synthesising digital technology and evangelical theology, thereby accentuating the personalist and consumerist ethos of the prosperity gospel. The digital platforms often enable these digital pastors to portray a glitzy and glamourous lifestyle and exude success, wealth and prosperity that their flocks aspire to emulate and imitate in a mimetic fashion. Indeed, the success of digital pastors’ often rests on their ability to inspire their respective flocks to personal agency, empowerment and achievement using their online narratives on various digital media platforms. Hence, we end up with a paradoxical situation where, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ prophetically critiquing and challenging the socioeconomic inequalities that are caused by capitalism and market forces, one finds that capitalism and market forces are shaping how the Gospel is understood and appropriated by the members of Hillsong and New Creation. It is a twist of irony that the Christian Gospel is not shaping how Hillsong and New Creation members respond to the contemporary Australian and Singaporean realities of increasing socio-economic inequalities. Rather, digital savvy pastors of Hillsong and New Creation have completely negated the prophetic critique of the Christian Gospel and continues to deliver the prosperity gospel. One thus finds themselves in a situation where the values and discourses of capitalism, instead, shape the way the Christian Gospel is interpreted, understood and lived out by the members of Hillsong and New Creation.

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References Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1972) ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’, extracted from Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming. New York: The Seabury Press, pp. 120-167. Berger, P.L. (1998) ‘Protestantism and the Quest for Certainty’, The Christian Century, 115(23), pp. 782-796. Bird, W. and Thumma, S. (2011) ‘A New Decade of Megachurches: 2011 Profile of Large Attendance Churches in the United States’, Hartford Institute for Religious Research [online], Available at http://www.hartfordinstitute.org/megachurch/ New-Decade-of-Megachurches-2011Profile.pdf (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Bp-Relate. (2016) Biography of Brian Houston [Online], Available at: https://www. believersportal.com/biography-brian-houston/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Brianchouston. (2019) Instagram [Online], Available at https://www.instagram. com/brianchouston/?hl=en (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Carmichael, C. (2017). Top 10 Richest Pastors in the World – 2018 List Updated [Online], Available at http://www.gazettereview.com/2016/02/richest-pastors-in-world/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Chong, T. (2011) ‘Filling the Moral Void: The Christian Right in Singapore’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 41(4), pp. 566-583. Chong, T. (2016) ‘The Church and State in Singapore’, in Lim, J. and Lee, T. (eds.), Singapore: Negotiating State and Society, 1965-2015, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 94-109. Ellingson, S. (2007) The Megachurch and Mainline: Remaking Religious Tradition in the Twenty-First Century, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Feng, Z. (2014) ‘Singapore Pastor Joseph Prince Goes Worldwide’, The Straits Times, 28 October [Online], Available at http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ singapore-pastor-joseph-prince-goes-worldwide (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Goddall, L. (2013) ‘The Fresh Prince – Destined to Ruin’, Christian Witness Ministries Fellowship, 11 January [Online], Available at https://www.cwmf.org.au/cetfmagazines/the-fresh-prince (Assessed: 7 October 2019). Goh, D.P.S. (2010) ‘State and Social Christianity in Postcolonial Singapore’, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 25(1), pp. 54-89. Gomes, C. (2008). ‘The Era of Lustrous Screen Sirens Lives on, Thousands of Miles from Hollywood: The Cross-Cultural Reception of Chinese Martial Arts Cinema’s Sword-Wielding Actresses’, Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History, 1, pp. 70-93. Grace Revolution Church. (2019) Home [Online], Available at: https://www.gracerev. org/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019).

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Gray, M. (2017). ‘In Hillsong we Trust: Beiber’s Not Alone – Stars who Attend Hillsong Church Services’, Wonderwall, 28 July [Online], Available at https:// www.wonderwall.com/news/biebers-not-alone-stars-who-attend-hillsongchurch-services-3008652.gallery (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hall, S. (1973) ‘Encoding and Decoding in Television Discourse’, ePapers Repository [Online], Available at: http://www.epapers.bham.ac.uk/2962/1/Hall,_1973,_Encoding_and_Decoding_in_the_Television_Discourse.pdf (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hicks, R. (2012). ‘Hillsong – Australia’s Most Powerful Brand’, Mumbrella [Online], 26 July, Available at https://www.mumbrella.com.au/hillsong-australias-mostpowerful-brand-104506 (Accessed: 7 October 2019). HillsongTeamBox. (2019) Homepage [Online], Available at https://www.hillsongteambox.com/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2010) ‘Bobbie’s and My Finances – A Letter from Brian Houston’, Media Releases [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/mediareleases/bobbies-and-my-f inances-a-letter-from-brian-houston/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2014) ‘I am Sisterhood Declaration’, Colour [Online], Available at https:// www.hillsong.com/colour/blog/2014/05/i-am-sisterhood-declaration/#.XYx9w0YzbIV (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2017) ‘Statement from Pastor Brian Houston, Senior Pastor, Hillsong Church Re: Australian Same Sex Marriage Postal Plebiscite’, Media Releases [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/media-releases/australiansame-sex-marriage-postal-plebiscite/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019a) What We Believe [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/ what-we-believe/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019b) ‘2018 Annual Report’, Hillsong Annual Report Australia [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/policies/annual-report-australia/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019c) Vision [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/vision/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019d) Hillsong Church Fact Sheet [Online], Available at https://www. hillsong.com/fact-sheet/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019e) Jesus [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/jesus/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019f) Music [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/music/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Hillsong. (2019g) Bobbie Houston [Online], Available at https://www.hillsong.com/ bobbiehouston/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019).

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Hillsong Teaching (2019) ‘If Not you, then Who? By Donna Crouch’, Hillsong Teaching [Online], Available at https://www.teaching.hillsongstore.com/videos/18-03-17if-not-you-then-who-donna-crouch-10am (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Houston, B. (2018a) ‘2018 – Here we Come!’, Brian Houston Facebook Videos [Online], Available at https://www.facebook.com/pastorbrianhouston/videos/1763640263694315/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Houston, B. (2018b) Brian Houston: Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church [Online], Available at https://www.brianchouston.com/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Joseph Prince Ministries. (2019a) About: Joseph & Wendy Prince [Online], Available at https://www.josephprince.org/about/joseph-wendy-prince (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Joseph Prince Ministries. (2019b) About: The Ministry [Online], Available at http:// www.josephprince.org/about/the-ministry (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Joseph Prince Ministries. (2019c) Home [Online], Available at http://www.josephprince.org/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Joseph Prince Online. (2019) ‘Joseph Prince Online’, Joseph Prince Online YouTube Channel [Online], Available at https://www.youtube.com/user/ JosephPrinceOnline(Accessed: 7 October 2019). Joy. (2007) ‘Bobbie Houston: My Story’, Joy!: Real Life, Real People, Real Christianity, July Issue [Online], Available at http://www.joymag.co.za/article.php?id=76 (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Lazarsfeld, P.F., Berelson, B. and Gaudet, H. (1944) The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign, New York: Columbia University Press. Maddox, M. (2012) ‘“In the Goofy Parking Lot”: Growth Churches as a Novel Religious Form for Late Capitalism’, Social Compass, 59(2), pp. 146-158. Maddox, M. (2013) ‘Prosper, Consume and be Saved’, Critical Research on Religion, 1(1), pp. 108-115. McKinnon, L. (2016) ‘Inside Story: Brian and Bobbie Houston’, YouTube, 11 February [Online], Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggvC4mdP1hA (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Morley, D. (1980). The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Decoding, London: British Film Institute. Mumbrella. (2019) About Mumbrella [Online], Available at https://www.mumbrella. com.au/about (Accessed: 7 October 2019). New Creation Church. (2015) ‘Jermaine Leong, New Creation Worship: Finished’, New Creation Church YouTube Channel [Online], Available at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=A8M73dUPSjo (Accessed: 7 October 2019). New Creation Church. (2019b). New Creation Church Facebook Page [Online], Available at https://www.facebook.com/nccsg/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019).

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New Creation Church. (2019bc) New Creation Church Twitter [Online], Available at https://twitter.com/nccsg?lang=en (Accessed: 7 October 2019). New Creation Church. (2019d) About Us: Who We Are [Online], Available at: https:// www.newcreation.org.sg/about-us/#who-we-are (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Pew Research Center. (2019) ‘Adults in Texas: Religious Composition of Adults in Texas’, Pew Research Center: Religion & Public Life [Online], Available at https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/ (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T. and Tacchi, J. (2015) ‘Ethnography in a Digital World’, in Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T. and Tacchi, J. (eds.), Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice, London: SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 1-18. Prince, J. (2007) Destined to Reign: The Secret to Effortless Success, Wholeness and Victorious Living, Tulsa: Harrison House. Prince, J. (2011) Unmerited Favor: Your Supernatural Advantage for a Successful Life, Florida: Charisma Media. Prince, J. (2013) The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt & Addiction, New York City: Faith Words. Roof, W. (1993) A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation, San Francisco: HarperCollins. Shand, A. (2010) ‘Taxpayers Support Lavish Hillsong Lifestyle’, The Daily Telegraph, 25 June [Online], Available at https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/taxpayerssupport-lavish-hillsong-lifestyle/news-story/25af3a860c70628c874389e90d33 917b (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Singh, B. (2014) ‘Pastors Rich List: Who the Top 9 are and How they Rose to Prominence’, The Straits Times, 25 October [Online], Available at http://www. straitstimes.com/world/africa/pastors-rich-list-who-the-top-9-are-and-howthey-rose-to-prominence (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Snow, D. (2015) ‘Inside the Hillsong Church’s Money-Making Machine’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November [Online], Available at http://www.smh.com. au/good-weekend/inside-the-hillsong-churchs-moneymaking-machine20151026-gkip53.html (Accessed: 7 October 2019). Thumma, S. and Travis, D. (2007) Beyond Megachurch Myths: What we Can Learn from America’s Largest Churches, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Wuthnow, R. (1976) ‘Recent Patterns of Secularization: A Problem of Generations?’, American Sociological Review, 41(5), pp. 850-867. Zaccheus, M. (2016) ‘New Creation Church’s $500m Centre Fully Paid for’, The Straits Times, 28 February [Online], Available at http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ new-creation-churchs-500m-centre-fully-paid-for (Accessed: 7 October 2019).

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About the authors Catherine Gomes is an Associate Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Her work contributes to the understanding of the evolving migration, mobility and digital media nexus. She is a specialist on the Asia-Pacific with Australia and Singapore being significant fieldwork sites. She has authored and edited 7 books. Jonathan Y. Tan is Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies and affiliated faculty in the Chinese, Ethnic Studies, Asian Studies, and International Studies programmes at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. His research and scholarship focus on Asian and Asian American Christianity, World Christianity, Migration Studies and Interreligious Studies.

7.

The ‘Open Letter to the Evangelical Church’ and its Discontents: The Online Politics of Asian American Evangelicals, 2013-2016 Justin K.H. Tse Abstract Recent treatments of Asian American evangelicals tend to focus on a shift of attention from their identity-based attempts to found autonomous congregations to online self-publications. I evaluate this new trend by considering two episodes in Asian American evangelical self-publication: the ‘open letter to the evangelical church’ in 2013 and the Killjoy Prophets initiative from 2014-2016 when their leader Suey Park disappeared from the Internet. I argue that while Asian American evangelical online selfpublication is intended to reform evangelicalism, its discursive nature leads to debates among Asian American evangelicals about whether the cyber-discourse about them is adequately representational. This sobering analysis demonstrates that the identitarian claims of Asian American evangelicalism are not transcended by cyberspace, but are exacerbated by it. Keywords: cyberspace, Asian American, evangelicalism, reform

Introduction The cover story of the special issue of Christianity Today on Asian American evangelicals in October 2014 is the Asian American evangelical writer Helen Lee’s ‘Silent No More’. The title’s reference to ‘silence’ is a call-back to one of Lee’s previous article, ‘Silent Exodus’, a widely cited piece that she published in 1996 in the same magazine. The term ‘silent exodus’ comes

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch07

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from Los Angeles Times writer Doreen Carvajal’s 1994 exploration of the tendency for second-generation Korean American evangelical Protestants to plant English-speaking congregations distinct from their first-generation mother churches in Los Angeles’s Koreatown. Lee’s 1996 piece generalised the phenomenon to ‘Asian Americans’ more broadly, featuring how Asians across ethnic groups who worship within the doctrinally conservative and historically Anglo-American networks of ‘evangelicalism’ were seeking autonomy in congregations of their own. As the theologian Jonathan Tran (2010) notes, the term ‘Asian American evangelical’ has become identified with this generational search for congregational autonomy, for a linguistic and ethnic coherence around which the practices of evangelical faith – Scripture reading, gospel preaching, personal prayer, corporate fellowship – can revolve (Tse 2018). Indeed, sociologists of religion have observed that the formulation ‘Asian American Christian’ is not only normatively evangelical, but also a reference to a new ethno-religious group that conceives of ‘Christian’ as almost central to ‘Asian American’ ethnic self-identification, which in turn serves as the basis for communities founded on a common identity (Busto 1999; Alumkal 2003; Jeung 2005; Kim 2006; Kim 2010). Lee (1996) described this phenomenon as ‘silent’: the congregations were quietly formed without raising a public fuss, relegating their activities to a private sphere. Lee’s 2014 sequel to her 1996 classic came on the heels of a provocation, one that suggests that ‘Asian American evangelicalism’ is itself morphing, emerging from private congregationalism to public voicing. The piece references Asian American Christians United’s ‘open letter to the evangelical church’, published in 2013,1 on the site NextGenerAsian as evidence that something in Asian American evangelicalism is changing. Lee frames the open letter as the culmination of online publications by Asian Americans protesting the tendencies of Anglo-American publishing companies to render Asian Americans as ‘perpetual foreigners’, a classic term from Asian American studies that describes the persistent perception of Asians living in the United States as always from somewhere else besides America (Chan 1991). Her interlocutors agree: she interviews the sociologist of religion Jerry Park, InterVarsity author Kathy Khang, and the pastoral theologians Ken Fong and Daniel Lee, and they concur that the online letter was a highly visible attempt to call attention to the presence of Asian Americans within evangelical networks who were offended by the casual racism of their coreligionists. The shift between 1996 and 2014, in other words, was a digital one, moving from the physical but private gatherings of identity-based 1

see Park (2013)

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congregational autonomy to the reformation of the networks of evangelicalism on cyberspace. Asian American evangelicals, the argument went, were no longer concerned solely about their own identitarian concerns in the confines of their congregations. Lee declared that they were ‘silent no more’, moving out from private worshipping spaces to the worlds of cyber-publics in an attempt to change the ideology of evangelicalism writ large on issues of race and orientalism through the public space of the Internet. At issue, then, is the presumption that Asian American evangelicals who are self-publishing their own writings in online space are poised to alter the ideological makeup of evangelicalism. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate this bold and celebratory claim, especially in light of Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron’s (1995) classic critique of cyber-cultures for being places that may seem free but actually are dominated by the loudest voices, reinforcing the hegemonic normativities of bourgeois white male power to the point that the presumed equality of cyberspace gives way to the circulation of ideologies that border on fascism. The publicness of online publics, in other words, tend to be undermined by their libertarianism: you can publish, but you may not be heard – or worse, you might be trolled for not abiding by the very orthodox hegemonies you are trying to change (Herrera 2014; Phillips 2015; Phillips and Milner 2017). The task, as I see it, is thus to investigate how public the Asian American evangelical self-publications really are. My emphasis will therefore be on one particular form of online publication, the blog, in which open letters and public commentary in essay form can be self-published and subsequently circulated. I am therefore less interested in forms of social media, such as the more recent creation of Facebook groups such as Progressive Asian American Christian and the Christian iterations of ‘subtle Asian traits’, as the status of their publicness is often under question because of privacy concerns (Silverman 2016). Indeed, my own participation in those social media spaces, even as someone who does not identify with or worship within the networks of Asian American evangelicalism, would render my reporting on them ethically suspect (Hine 2000, 2015; Boellstorff et al. 2012). Instead, my focus will be on self-published Asian American evangelical blogs and open letters that are said to be reforming evangelicalism. Can online self-publication, I ask, actually alter the ideological formations of evangelicalism? What new conceptions of evangelical space have actually been imagined by public online interventions beginning with the open letter? What have these digital engagements actually produced? I argue that Asian American evangelical digital discourse ends up being just that – a discourse – that produces contention over whether or not these

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self-publishing endeavours at evangelical reformation actually speak for all Asian Americans who are evangelicals. In other words, the attempt may be to reform evangelicalism from its orientalism; the result tends to be a contest over whether the rhetoric of intervention adequately represents the sentiments of all Asian American evangelicals. I will use two episodes to draw out this argument. The first will be the open letter itself in 2013, located within the history of the nine years of online self-publication that led up to it, only to result in debate among Asian American evangelicals about whether it adequately represented them. The second episode focuses on one particular strand of disagreement with the open letter led by the erstwhile Twitter activist Suey Park and the blog essays of an online women-of-color collective that she co-founded, the Killjoy Prophets, that was particularly active from 2014-2016, until Park’s disappearance from the Internet under mysterious circumstances.

Online self-publication to reform evangelicalism: The ‘open letter to the evangelical church’ as reformational strategy On 12 October 2013, the site NextGenerAsian Christian2 published the ‘Open Letter to the Evangelical Church’ issued by ‘Asian American Christians United’ as an attempt to reform evangelicalism so that they would not be seen as perpetual foreigners anymore. ‘The North American evangelical church’ is the network that they name as the circuits in which Asian Americans, including and especially the ones participating in it, are cast as the perpetual ‘oriental’ other. They claim that current initiatives in the reformation of evangelicalism ‘in the area of racial harmony’ have largely been reduced ‘efforts’ at the ‘understanding and pursuit of racial reconciliation’ tended to have ‘largely been reduced to black-white relations, or they have resulted in tokenism, in which organisations or events allocate an appropriate number of spots to include voices of colour and mistakenly believe that is all that is required’. They contrast this to their vision of what an evangelical ‘church’ should be, conceived not only as the local congregation, but the network of organisations that represent ‘North American Christians’: We have imagined and hoped for such a different future for the church, one in which racial harmony would not be an illusion, but a tangible 2

see Asian American Christians United (2013)

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reality. However, as a number of incidents in recent years demonstrate, the evangelical church is still far from understanding what it truly means to be an agent of racial reconciliation. In particular, the Asian American segment of the church continues to be misunderstood, misrepresented and misjudged.

The stage is therefore set: evangelicalism is problematic, and an online letter will be the next step in reforming it. In publishing it, the letter-writers also reveal their imaginaries of why this cyber-reformation is so urgent. The main vision is that of a racially diverse evangelicalism that is not just representative of the American ‘black-white’ binary, but also includes Asian Americans as a part, a ‘segment’. The purpose of this inclusive vision of ‘racial harmony’ is so that the church as such can be an ‘agent of racial reconciliation’ in the world outside of it, as that is where racial disharmony still persists. That the church is not able to even get its own proverbial act together negates this ultimate mission. A digitally self-published open letter will open the door to ecclesial salvation. Detailing the ways in which the ‘evangelical church’ has failed to consider the ‘Asian American segment’ in the midst of ‘North American Christians’, the letter-writers outline a history of online Asian American evangelical self-publication in attempts to reform evangelicalism. The timeline includes both a longer nine-year series of events beginning with the 2004 publication of Vacation Bible School curriculum titled ‘Rickshaw Rally’, as well as problems in evangelicalism that had been raised ‘within just the past month alone’. It is the latter that provoked the letter. On 23 September 2013, the Southern Californian evangelical megachurch preacher Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church, posted on his public Facebook page a Chinese propaganda poster of a Red Guard from the Cultural Revolution with the caption, ‘The typical attitude of Saddleback staff as they go to work each day’. As the religion journalist Sarah Pulliam Bailey (2013) noted at the time, the timing for a reference to China was odd, as it was precisely the next week that Saddleback would launch its Hong Kong campus, though Warren never connected the two. By all accounts, Warren intended the post to be funny in an off-hand way, oblivious to how Asian American evangelicals with family history in China and the surrounding regions that had experienced geopolitical conflict related to communism might have their memories of traumatic war triggered by this image. Trouble began as comments rolled in on his post about the insensitivity of his post. One memorable one asked whether Warren really thought of his

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staff ‘as a group of youngsters who stormed through their lives, destroying people and culture without restraint’. Warren responded in a comment: People often miss irony on the Internet. It’s a joke people! If you take this seriously, you really shouldn’t be following me! Did you know that, using Hebrew ironic humor, Jesus inserted several laugh lines – jokes – in the Sermon on the Mount? The self-righteous missed them all while the disciples were undoubtedly giggling!

As the Seattle pastor Eugene Cho (2013) noted shortly as the contentiousness escalated from that point, three ‘articulate posts about why that photo was offensive and painful’ were quickly published, mostly as efforts to point out orientalising tendencies within evangelicalism so that it could be reformed. The first was written by Sam Tsang (2013), who at that time was still Associate Professor of New Testament at Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary but had freshly moved to the suburbs of Seattle where he had started a blog titled ‘Engage the Pews’ as a way of commenting on contemporary culture as a homiletic exercise. Described by Cho (2013) as ‘one of the best and thorough (and pastoral) explanation’ of the situation, Tsang implored Warren to ‘imagine […] the Chinese in your congregation both here in the U.S. and in Hong Kong’: Do you know what narrative is behind this picture you just posted? Has any Red Guard ever raped your mother? How about having your joints dislocated and quartered by horses? Oh, this is a great one. How about having your arms hung up in an awkward position until they’re dislocated while being beaten merciless with all sorts of torturous devices? How about being made to stand near naked in freezing temperature outside? If Mr. Warren is trying depict the Great Leap forward by Mao, does he know that more than 40 million Chinese died in that campaign? I can go and on but I won’t belabor my point. From the above images, Mr. Warren needs to think about just the Chinese descent members of his church. Why did they immigrate to the U.S.? They did to get away from that image you just put up, Mr. Warren! You just reminded all of them the nightmare they left behind and for what? For a joke on Monday? I know your intent is not to make light of suffering but the effect of your post has done exactly that, because you have no idea (Tsang 2013).

Tsang (2013) frames his blogging as a process of reformation, then: Warren may only be guilty of ignorance about the trauma of Chinese geopolitics,

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but because being ignorant may still cause psychic pain to those who look to him for evangelical leadership, Warren needs to change. Tsang continues with the stakes of reform: Warren is planting a church in Hong Kong, and he needs to realise that what is funny in Anglo-American evangelicalism is not as humourous in a local context where the historical trauma of the Cultural Revolution is intimately connected to contemporary Hong Kong politics. ‘HK has been dealing with China’s dominance since 1997’, Tsang (2013) writes, pre-dating but ominously foreshadowed the tone of the 2014 Umbrella Movement. ‘It would not be too harsh to call what China is doing cultural rape. Every holiday, the People’s Liberation Army bring their tanks and armor personnel carriers across for a show of force to demonstrate that they can easily turn HK into another Tiananmen like they did on bloody 4 June 1989. As I’m blogging today, the PLA has sent its four high power destroyers to practice in the harbor of HK accompanied by the Chinese marine vessels to practice landing’. The function of Tsang’s blog, in other words, is to point out Warren’s geopolitical blindspots; His objective in selfpublication is to change his view of Chinese politics away from one centred on an Anglo-American world so that a global sense of evangelicalism can emerge. The Asian American InterVarsity staff worker Kathy Khang, the second author on Cho’s (2013) recommendation list, resonated with Tsang’s (2013) comments, though her vision of reformation focused more on racial inclusivity than evangelical globalisation. In a post entitled ‘Dear Pastor Rick Warren, I Think You Don’t Get It’, Khang (2013a) posted a poster of the Hitler Youth and asked Warren whether he found that ‘funny’. The ‘racial implication’, Khang (ibid.) then wrote, was that perhaps Warren found the Red Guard image ‘easy to use’, either because he did not have any staff who were Chinese or maybe he had ‘someone of Chinese descent on your staff and he/she didn’t think it was a big deal’. The suggestion, in turn, is that it takes a blog, a self-publication in online public space, to point out the shortcomings of Warren’s institutional location when it comes to racial integration. The third of Cho’s (2013) recommended posts, one by Chinglican at Table on the group blog ‘A Christian Thing’ (which I have since revealed on my current blog at Patheos Catholic was actually me, though I wrote anonymously at the time), situated the contentiousness in the trajectory of Asian American online protests since 2004, the very history that the open letter also locates itself as positioning cyber-publication as the method to evangelical reformation. Titled ‘It would not be funny if I said that Rick Warren was the “Rick” in “Rickshaw Rally”‘, Chinglican (2013) pointed out that ‘this is not the first Asian American challenge to orientalisation in American

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evangelicalism’. Recounting a story that is also in Soong-Chan Rah’s (2008) Next Evangelicalism, Chinglican (2013) outlined the tale of how the Southern Baptist Convention’s book outlet, Lifeway Christian Publishers, published a set of Vacation Bible School curriculum (a summer church programme for children to learn the Bible) that featured imagery from the popular 1990s movie series ‘Karate Kid’ as well as chopsticks, rickshaws, fortune cookies and kimonos, all designed to create an exotic parallel universe to America that would compose an imaginary Bible school classroom. Asian American evangelicals, led by Rah and the blogger Angry Asian Man, quickly put up a Yahoo GeoCities site titled ‘Reconsidering Rickshaw Rally’ (2004) to contest the publication of this curriculum, urging its readers to send individual letters detailing how they were ‘appalled at the racial injustice that is being perpetrated by Lifeway’ through ‘use of stereotypical music, images and themes’ that ‘shows an insensitivity and blatant disregard for the unique range of culture found in the Asian community’. The possible preponderance of self-publication, in other words, is positioned against institutional evangelical publishing. ‘To consider that this racist material may be the first exposure for many young children’, they continued, ‘is a chilling and disturbing thought’, and therefore the curriculum should be ‘immediately pulled from Lifeway Resources’ in order for the ideology of evangelicalism not to be cast as normatively racist. The site then follows the back-and-forth of the saga, including a news report from EthicsDaily on 24 November 2004, as well as an update on 9 December detailing how ‘Lifeway has now resorted to misrepresentation in their desire to protect the Rickshaw Rally curriculum’ with public statements saying that for ‘every concern raised by an Asian American, we are receiving dozens of positive responses from Asian Americans that tell us we are fulfilling our intent to lift up another culture and share the message of hope for all people in Jesus Christ’. The online self-publishing campaign at the time resulted in LifeWay stonewalling the Asian American writers; the curriculum was not formally removed from sale until the publication of the open letter in 2013. But as both Chinglican and the open letter detail, what ‘Reconsidering Rickshaw Rally’ did do was to catalyse a series of online self-published writing protests about evangelical publishing over the next nine years whenever white evangelicals used orientalising imagery. ‘From VBS curriculum’, the open letter reads, first referencing ‘Rickshaw Rally’, ‘to youth skits, to general Christian trade books, Asians have been caricatured, mocked or otherwise treated as foreigners outside the typical accepted realm of white evangelicalism’. The second of the two examples is also found in Rah’s Next Evangelicalism (2008), where he speaks of an incident in 2007

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where the evangelical publisher Zondervan’s teen outlet Youth Specialties published a book titled Skits That Teach. One skit featured a Chinese delivery person named ‘Mee Maw’, which Rah (2008, p. 204) recounts giving him ‘flashbacks’ of his ‘experience with the Southern Baptist Convention and the Rickshaw Rally VBS Curriculum’. After a series of email exchanges, Youth Specialties issued an apology and pulled the book. Yet in 2009 – a year after Rah’s book detailing the Mee Maw case – Zondervan was at it again, this time publishing a book by Jud Wilhite and Mike Foster titled Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership. Resembling in tone Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’ movie couplet where the plot revolves around a collective named the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, Wilhite and Foster cast common moral failures and temptations as cartoonish Asian foes to be fought off with martial arts. The text is also replete with random and meaningless Chinese characters, as well as a killer named ‘Zi Qi Qi Ren’, who is described as a ‘funky Chinese word’ instead of as a ‘disease’. This time, Eugene Cho and Kathy Khang took the lead in calling for the removal of this book from Chinese publishing, this time using regular blog posts to demonstrate that the portrayal of Asians as exotic as best and evil at worst was offensive and to keep the pressure on Zondervan. It worked, Zondervan pulled the book, and Cho (2009) wrote on his blog that he had done all of this work because, ‘We are part of the larger body of Christ. We are your sisters and brothers and while Asian-Americans are not a monolithic group, many of us shared our pain and hurt over the presentation and marketing (not the content) of the book and curriculum’. Khang also echoed the campaign with a post on how her involvement in blogging about Deadly Viper elicited heartfelt apologies from white evangelicals who came to understand their own cultural insensitivity. ‘If Deadly Viper needs any more examples of leadership and character’, she wrote, ‘take note. This should be one of them’. Poetically, Wilhite and Foster rebranded themselves the People of the Second Chance, both asserting their claim to evangelicalism while implying that their apology should be taken as part of a growing process of understanding that requires forgiveness. Structurally, Asian American evangelicals had established a strategy for reformation: racist publications in Anglo-American evangelicalism should be opposed by blogging campaigns, positioning online self-publication against evangelical publishing houses. The stage was set, then, for the open letter in 2013, in terms of the usage of Internet self-publishing to dispute orientalising imagery in white evangelical publications, the formulation of evangelicalism writ large as the ‘church’ and the ‘Body of Christ’ that had failed to be inclusive toward Asian Americans,

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and the problem of insincere apologies from white evangelicals who might say they are sorry for their racism and then turn around and do it again. Rick Warren apologised for his Red Guard post by removing it and offering the words, ‘If you were hurt, upset, offended, or distressed by my insensitivity I am truly sorry’ (Khang 2013b). Khang (ibid.) responded: There is no ‘if’. I am hurt, upset, offended, and distressed, not just because ‘an’ image was posted, but that Warren posted the image of a Red Guard soldier as a joke, because people pointed out the disconcerting nature of posting such an image and then Warren then told us to get over it, alluded to how the self-righteous didn’t get Jesus’ jokes but Jesus’ disciples did, and then erased any proof of his public missteps and his followers’ mean-spirited comments that appeared to go unmoderated.

Indeed, Khang (ibid.) offered another example – again, positioning online self-publication against evangelical hegemon – of apologies should be made. Reviewing her original post, she found that she used the word ‘Red Army’ to describe ‘Red Guard’, but instead of deleting ‘Army’ and replacing with ‘Guard’, she put in strikethroughs through the former, keeping the record consistent while offering correction. Saddleback, on the other hand, did not seem to follow suit. On 8 October – less than two weeks after Warren’s conditional apology – the megachurch played host to the church-planting conference Exponential. According to a record kept by Khang (2013c), Rev. Christine Lee, incidentally the first Korean American woman in the United States to be ordained an Episcopal priest, had voiced to the conference organisers her concerns about a skit using Asian accents and kung fu moves, and when her concerns were disregarded, she tweeted about it, saying that she had had a ‘Kathy Khang moment’ – a realisation that by making her objections to evangelical orientalisation public through Twitter, she was participating in the campaigns of self-publication herself. In light of this second offence at the same site within two weeks, Khang collaborated with Helen Lee, the same author who had written ‘Silent exodus’ and later wrote ‘Silent no more’ in Christianity Today, to write the ‘open letter to the evangelical church’ and had it published on NextGenerAsian Christian, with a list of 82 original signatories, the crystallisation of nine years of this self-publishing strategy against evangelical institutional hegemonies (see Khang 2013c). As perhaps the most comprehensive statement of how Asian American evangelical online writers viewed white evangelicalism, the open letter outlines both the theology of the Asian American evangelicals about the

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church, following that vision with a call for action. Their ecclesial vision is broad, going beyond evangelicalism: ‘Take a moment to notice the breadth and the depth of the individuals who have assented that they, too, are tired of continuing racial insensitivity in the church’ (Asian American Christians United 2013). With mainline pastors and theologians who would hardly be considered evangelical such as Bruce Reyes-Chow, Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan, Wonhee Anne Joh and Rita Nakashima Brock, the list is capacious indeed; in parentheses, the writers note this fact and observe that ‘subtle and blatant forms of racist actions are prevalent through the entirety of the body of Christ regardless of theological or ecclesiastical tradition’ and therefore the letter ‘reflects this desire of Asian Americans both within and outside the evangelical tradition to strive for racial harmony in the church’ (ibid.). The church, then, transcends the networks of evangelicalism, but the focus of the reformational intervention remains evangelical. ‘And embrace the truth’, they say, after pointing out the inclusiveness of the letter, ‘the evangelical church in America needs a reality check to honestly assess how it relates with its Asian American family members’ (ibid.). The church, then, is conceived as family: ‘We highly value the concept of family, and it deeply distresses us when our non-Asian brothers and sisters do not seem to recognise or embrace that we are called to be one united body’ (ibid.). Speaking through the medium of online self-publication to white evangelicals whom they accuse of denying them their place as fellow family members, the authors argue that this familial phenomenon encompasses ‘your churches, your communities, your workplaces’ and therefore the actions of any of these organisations whenever ‘you marginalize, ostracize, or demean us through careless and ignorance in print, video, or any other medium, you are doing more than just ruffling the feathers of a small group of online activists’ (ibid.). Each individual evangelical organisation thus has the capacity to address the public, and it is this faculty that networks them as the ‘Body of Christ’ insofar as they are barometers of the state of ‘the very cause of Christ’ in whether they maintain or bridge ‘fissures within the church’ as a ‘reconciled body’ (ibid.). The relationship between online self-publication and the church, then, lies in the capacity of the individual organisations of evangelicalism to network by publishing in a way that tells of the state of the ‘Body of Christ’. Over the nine years from Rickshaw Rally in 2004 to the open letter in 2013, the Internet operated for Asian American evangelicals as a space of selfpublication, mobilised to contest hegemonic evangelical publishers who published in more institutionally official venues, such as in educational curricula, institutional theological programmes, magazine periodicals

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and organisational hiring cultures. It is precisely those venues at which the self-publication strategy takes aim. The open letter demands attentiveness to Asian American theological programmes at Seattle Pacific University, Fuller Seminary, and the Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity. It calls for special issues of Christianity Today, which is how the October 2014 issue featuring Lee’s ‘Silent no more’ was published. It asks for a place at the table by hiring Asian Americans at mission agencies, publishing houses and educational institutions. In this way, it is the various publishing institutions of evangelicalism – publishers, conferences and schools – that are being said to exclude Asian Americans in the publishing practices that are equated with doing harm to the larger ‘Body of Christ’. Self-publication on the Internet is the strategy for rectifying the wrongs done to that broader family, a cyber-pathway into institutional inclusion. The problem, however, is that it was also in cyberspace that other Asian American evangelicals contested this strategy of online self-publication for failing to represent the identities of all Asian American evangelicals. In a forum curated by Grace Hsiao Hanford,3 some Asian American evangelicals took issue with the open letter on the very grounds that it would harm the church, not heal it, though each of them prefaced their critiques by saying that they recognised the pain behind the words. Tommy Dyo (2014), the National Executive Director of Cru’s Epic Movement (a ministry for Asian Americans in the organisation that used to be named Campus Crusade for Christ), said, for example, that ‘there were some statements and wording that did not reflect my personal stance and that were originally delivered in a harsh tone that could have reduced my ability to be heard and lead change’. Likewise, the Fuller Theological Seminary student Daniel Lowe (2014) spoke about his feelings of affection toward a white Baptist church that hosted his childhood Chinese congregation and therefore that the his ‘experience indicates that the divide among Asian American Christians about racial harmony is greater than the divide with white evangelicals’. So too, a Chinese American pastor anonymised as ‘Bob’ (2014) observed, ‘while you can mandate laws, behavior and action, it is very hard to change people’s hearts or motives’, while an Asian American ‘intercessor’ pseudonym as ‘Jo’ asked the writers to ‘next time, be less forceful’ because ‘shoving our frustrations down their throats won’t help them understand’ (Jo 2014). Taken together, these critics argue that it is the tone of the letter, as well as its claim to speak for ‘Asian American Christians United’ (Lowe 2014), that might harm the ‘Body of Christ’. What they are challenging, then, is 3

see Asian American Christian Org (2015)

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not the concept of the church that is evoked in the letter; indeed, they are in remarkable agreement that it is constituted as a network of publication. However, they are saying that the result of the self-publication is not just an Asian American evangelical intervention into the publishing institutions of evangelicalism through the geographies of cyberspace; the engagement relies on a cyber-representation of Asian American evangelicals, and it is with that discursive formation that they feel uncomfortable. It is in this vein of accidental representational discomfort that a more sustained form of criticism that radically undermined this notion of church, heralded by the Twitter activist Suey Park and a group calling themselves the Killjoy Prophets. It is to their critique and ultimate demise that I now turn.

Fashioning ‘women of color’ in #NotYourAsianSidekick: Suey Park, the Killjoy Prophets, and the Internet as evangelical callout space On 6 July 2014, a manifesto appeared on the personal website and blog of the Twitter superstar Suey Park titled ‘Killjoy Prophets, Asian Americans, and Racial Reconciliation’. Authored by Park, the indigenous scholar-activist Emily Rice, and the Presbyterian minister Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort, the statement directly critiqued the Asian American ‘open letter to the evangelical church’ for its minimisation of ‘anti-black racism’. ‘For example’, they wrote, ‘the line “efforts have been reduced to black-white relations” implies that because blackness is visible it has been more seriously addressed than anti-Asian racism. This could not be less true. Black hypervisibility causes increased violence against black bodies on both an interpersonal and state level’ (Park et al. 2014). The problem with the open letter, they continued, is that ‘it seems more advantageous for Asian Americans to gain proximity to whiteness in order to access resources, while simultaneously distancing themselves from blackness’ such that ‘prioritizing white approval or integration above addressing black suffering is itself a self-serving strategy, lacking the ability to absolve racism from its roots’ (Park et el. 2014). In other words, the ‘you’ addressed by the open letter were normatively white evangelicals and the organisations whose publication practices composed the ‘Body of Christ’ suggested to Park, Rice and Kim-Kort, as well as to a collective that they announced themselves as being, that Asian American evangelicals were cozying up to the structures of white supremacy as an avenue to advocate for their own racial recognition within evangelicalism. To constitute themselves as distinct from the open letter, these manifesto authors operationalised

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the concept of the ‘feminist killjoy’ from Sara Ahmed’s Promise of Happiness (2010) as ‘one who points to racism or sexism and therefore interrupts the surface level happiness by causing disruption, but also points to possibility’ (Park et al. 2014). Drawing from their own experiences of marginalisation and solidarity with black and indigenous communities, they named themselves the Killjoy Prophets, who ‘believe in centering voices of most marginalized rather than seeking acceptance from whiteness’. They described themselves as ‘focusing on women of color feminist politics’ with ‘the possibility for hope in radical transformation’; the prophetic dimension lay in them ‘fighting for justice from within the margins rather than aiming to get a seat at the table’ (Park et al. 2014). That this critique of the open letter appeared on Park’s website suggested that yet another new Asian American evangelical online self-publishing configuration was coming together, at least in some part joining Park’s Internet notoriety at the time to the project of virtually overhauling evangelicalism. On 15 December 2013, Park’s tweet, ‘#NotYourAsianSidekick because I’d rather base build with fellow Asian Americans than rely on allies, who have a history of being absent’, had trended its hashtag all over the world as a rallying cry for Asian American women feeling sidelined and accessorised in a number of spaces: Asian American, feminist, academic, activist and all the rest (Kim 2013). The radical writer Yasmin Nair (2016) has conducted perhaps one of the most incisive, thorough, and critical reviews of Park’s work. Based on an archive of Park’s tweets, Nair dates Park’s emergence onto Twitter to 2009, whereupon she ‘became the uncrowned queen of “hashtivism”, defined (and sometimes dismissed) as online activism which rallies Twitter users around causes with the use of participatory hashtags’. In terms of her ‘reign, which lasted till the end of 2015’, Nair calls it ‘an astonishingly long one’, considering that ‘Internet celebrity is notorious for being short – entire careers can take off, flounder and disappear in a matter of days’. For Nair (2016), as well as for a number of online commentators, Park may have ‘previously become famous as the woman behind #NotYourAsianSidekick, but she is most well-known as the creator of the hashtag #CancelColbert’. On 27 March 2014, she challenged a public f igure, the comedian Stephen Colbert and his satirical Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report, where he played the character of a right-wing commentator. His show’s Twitter handle retweeted out of context a joke that had been on the previous night’s episode, where they made fun of Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins who had created a community foundation named the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. ‘I am willing to show the Asian community I care

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by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever’, Colbert had said the night before, and his social media team tweeted it the next day without context, with ‘#Asian’ as the hashtag. Park responded: ‘The Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals has decided to call for #CancelColbert. Trend it’. It did trend, with tens of thousands of tweets for and against (Kang 2014), and even Colbert himself satirically used the hashtag: ‘#CancelColbert – I agree! Just saw @ColbertReport tweet. I share your rage. Who is that, though? I’m @StephenAtHome’ (StephenatHome 2014). As Park’s centrality in the vortex of #CancelColbert gained her both celebrity-status popularity on the Internet as well as notable critics – that is, as her self-publishing practices challenged mainstream liberal hegemons – she opted for a re-invention of herself as an online evangelical voice, also through the spaces of cyber-publication. Nair (2016) traces this process to the summer of 2015, when Park re-emerged on Instagram as a lifestyle guru after a New Republic article authored by Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig (2015) in May enabled her to rebrand as an evangelical who was penitent for her social media antics, resurrected in Nair’s words as ‘Saint Suey’. The existence of the Killjoy Prophets one year before, however, suggests that the shift took place in the summer of 2014. As Nair (2016) records, the way that Park narrates the ensuing months after #CancelColbert featured stories of being ‘doxxed’ (her address revealed to the public), receiving death threats, escaping stalkers and even experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder after being followed by what she claims to have been a sniper, the veracity of which Nair calls into question (one seldom knows, Nair points out, that one is being followed by a sniper), as well as her claims to be marginalised when she voluntarily revealed her address to be one of the most expensive buildings in Chicago. The emergence of the Killjoy Prophets in 2014, then, lays out the path for Park’s resurfacing after #CancelColbert. Suey Park’s rebranding in this sense was not so much about seeking a new religious purity as ‘Saint Suey’, but as moving from her cyber-critique of activist spaces and popular culture to the self-publication of criticism regarding white evangelicalism, and Asian American involvement in it through the open letter, through the women-of-color posture that she started in #NotYourAsianSidekick. Indeed, shortly after co-founding the Killjoy Prophets in July 2014, Park trended a new hashtag, #NotMyChristianLeader with the tweet ‘When you only engage people who flatter you and your work, you have become the very thing you seek to dismantle’, dedicating this new Twitter campaign to calling out Christian clergy and intellectuals accused of exclusionary practices directed toward women of colour and queer bodies (McDonald 2014).

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At least in the Killjoy Prophets manifesto on Park’s website, there is remarkable continuity between Park’s secular cyber-escapades from her #CancelColbert days and her online critique of evangelicalism, which seeks to reconstitute it along what she conceived as women-of-color lines. The document explicitly calls attention to #NotYourAsianSidekick as a women-of-color hashtag with a racial justice agenda that is broader than the open letter’s call to reconcile evangelicalism with Asian American identity. ‘Rather than framing women of color as simply non-white’, they write, ‘we remember women of color being created as a political identity’, which has the implication – in the words of Loretta Ross – that one has been ‘lifted […] out of that basic identity into another political being and another space’. ‘Instead of letting our identity inform our politics’, they argue that #NotYourAsianSidekick means, ‘women of color feminism means letting our politics inform our identity’. The open letter’s ‘call to “go beyond the Black/White binary”‘ is in this sense the support of a politics with an identity, and citing the Native studies scholar Andrea Smith, the manifesto calls such an approach ‘multiculturalist’ and insufficient in dismantling white supremacy and its legacies of ‘slavery, genocide and Orientalism’. In this interpretation, #NotYourAsianSidekick is more than an assertion that the marginalisation of Asians, especially women, in activist, media and evangelical spaces, is not simply an attempt to advocate for representation. It is an attempt to build solidarity through cyber-publication to dismantle the conditions that result in such processes of marginality. From this online manifesto, the Killjoy Prophets banded together in an attempt to dismantle what they came to call ‘dudebro Christianity’, hegemonic versions of Christian ideology that centred the white patriarchy that they saw as leading to the marginalisation of groups as diverse as women of colour, indigenous peoples and black people. In August, another hashtag, #NotMyChristianLeader, began to trend, beginning with Park’s tweet, ‘When you only engage people who flatter you and your work, you have become the very thing you seek to dismantle’ (McDonald 2014). Following the women-of-color logic behind #NotYourAsianSidekick, the tweet takes on the gap between representation and labour, pointing out the chasm between what the Killjoy Prophets claim are the celebrity ‘dudebros’ who, in the words of the collective’s Rod T. Rod, take credit for the work of people-of-color who enable their churches to operate on lands stolen from indigenous peoples (Killjoy Prophets 2014). By October 2014, a second part to the Killjoy Prophets manifesto appeared on Mihee Kim-Kort’s blog, again co-authored by Kim-Kort, Park and Rice,

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this time detailing Kim-Kort’s treatment as a Korean American woman within white evangelicalism as someone who was usefully tokenised to show that evangelical spaces were diverse (Kim-Kort et al. 2014). In December 2014, Park posted the audio of a conversation that she had had with me, titled ‘Open Letter Meets the Killjoy Prophets’, in which Park rehearsed all the charges that had been raised against the representational politics of the open letter (Park et al. 2014), and I attempted to show that they were not a zero-sum game because starting with Asian American identity was still a good place from which to understand one’s place in the larger structures of evangelical colonisation. The truth, in other words, is that Park et al. (2014) had a great deal in common with the strategies of Asian American evangelical self-publication; what was at issue for her was ideology, that evangelicalism should not be reformed to be more inclusive, but to be a space that centred a women-of-color positionality. But there is remarkable methodological agreement with the open letter writers that she denounces: self-publication is positioned over against evangelical institutional publishing. The problem that emerged was also similar: Suey Park and the Killjoy Prophets had to become the online representations of women-of-color evangelicals. It is arguably with that ‘killjoy’ mentality that the demise of the Killjoy Prophets came to be wrapped around the exposure of three persons in 2015 who worked as activist women of colour within their collectivities, but had in fact self-fashioned themselves into such roles and seemed to have claimed the very celebrity that they accused others of taking. The f irst was Rachel Dolezal, the president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) who was exposed as a white woman pretending to be black, in June 2015, with a media circus erupting around her over the course of the year (Brubaker 2016). The second circulated around one of Suey Park’s mentors Andrea Smith, in which she was accused on an indigenous student’s blog in July 2015 – a month after the allegations against Dolezal – that she had faked her identification with the Cherokee Nation. This scandal was less of a popular culture scandal and more of a minor hubbub in academia; that very month, Smith (2015) posted on her blog to say that her identification with the Cherokee is more based on her activist work against domestic violence for indigenous women and is not dependent on her enrolment in the nation. But the third was perhaps the most devastating, and it was for Suey Park herself. Nair (2016) has produced one of the most comprehensive reports on Park’s self-fashioning tendencies, especially in Bruenig’s (2015) Christian profile of a repentant ‘Saint Suey’ who now was re-positioning

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herself as a lifestyle photographer and blogger while capitalising on what she confessed were her mistakes on social media on a national tour with one of her former nemeses during #CancelColbert, Arthur Chu. It was over the course of this reporting, Nair (2016) said, that Suey Park accomplished her greatest self-fashioning feat yet: ‘On December 1, I wrote to Park with fact-checking questions about some of the details in the Bruenig piece. Less than 48 hours later, Park deleted or put into abeyance her entire internet presence’. As the Killjoy Prophet who trended #NotYourAsianSidekick and #NotMyChristianLeader, Suey Park herself had been outed as one who claims celebrity among her followers on the very space where she had called others out: the Internet.

Conclusion: Asian American evangelicals on the Internet What, then, of the Internet as a hopeful space from which Asian American evangelicals can reform evangelicalism as a theological network in which they have a place? Like a number of scholars and commentators raining on the online parade of celebratory optimism about cyber-liberation, the stories told in this chapter have been less than hopeful. The hubbub about the Asian American open letter to the evangelical church, itself the product of nine years of online activism, suggests that cyberspace publicity may have offered a creative network of sites by which to force changes within evangelical culture. But as Linda Herrera (2014) has also shown about occupy movements trying to make use of the Internet to fuel their physical occupations against social injustice and authoritarianism, online culture is a place where movements also go to fragment amidst infighting and debate. Agreeing with the critique of Internet libertarianism long ago launched by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (1995), Jacob Silverman (2016) also points out that the free-for-all feel of the Internet masks its intentional design to re-entrench the norms of white supremacy and capitalist entrepreneurial selfhood. Indeed, as Whitney Phillips (2016) has shown, the space of the Internet makes it easy for trolls to summon mobs based on dubious news (see also Phillips and Milner 2017). Provocatively, Suey Park could be seen as an example of this phenomenon: fashioning herself as a social media celebrity, her embrace of a women-of-colour ethos, regardless of her personal material circumstances, enabled her to further divide an already fragmented and fraught conversation about Asian American evangelicals and the possibility of reforming evangelicalism.

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Further study on Asian American evangelicals in online spaces would probably require even more attention to the emerging conventions of ‘virtual ethnography’ and the shifting norms of public and private as posts are made in quasi-public spaces, such as Facebook groups (Hine 2000; Boellstorff et al. 2012). Launched by the Korean American ministers Lydia Shiu and Liz Lee to combat what Lee (2017) described as the loneliness of progressive Asian American Christians in both immigrant and white evangelical congregations, the Facebook group Progressive Asian American Christian boasts well over 5000 members and is a site in which both news about evangelical reinforcements of social injustice are shared alongside deeply personal confessions, sometimes sexual in nature. Certainly, the group has also developed a national conference, a scholarship programme, and even a ‘Statement on God’s Justice’ (2018) written to affirm social justice activism and the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons into Christian spaces over against the popular preacher John MacArthur’s statements against both of those aff irmations. But at the heart of Progressive Asian American Christian is not so much these public postings, but the deeply personal Facebook group itself. Moreover, with the emergence of ‘subtle Asian Christian’ and ‘subtle Asian Christian dating’ as spinoffs from the widely popular 2018 Facebook groups ‘subtle Asian traits’ and ‘subtle Asian dating’, the sincerity of the various posts all have to be discerned, as per Phillips’s (2016) warning that what is posted on the normatively libertarian Internet sometimes is the work of trolls whose entertainment lies in driving readers to take jokes far too seriously. The episode of the Asian American open letter to the evangelical church reveals these very problems in the telling of its own story. With Asian American evangelicals having conceptualised the Internet as a space to reform the networks of evangelicalism – themselves conceptualised alternatively as ‘the church’, the ‘Body of Christ’, a network of institutions of publication, and activist collectives – the narrative in this chapter has unfolded what perhaps might ultimately be described as layer upon layer of overdetermination in the quest to overcome the conditions Busto (2014) describes as evangelical colonisation. And yet, maybe in the final analysis, that hope – liberation from the public cultures of evangelicalism as normatively white and patriarchal – is not dead. It is just that the Internet is probably not the space where the decisive confrontations with this infrastructural formation will occur.

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References Ahmed, S. (2010) The Promise of Happiness, Durham: Duke University Press. Alumkal, A.W. (2003) Asian American Evangelical Churches: Race, Ethnicity, and Assimilation in the Second Generation, New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC. Asian American Christian Org. (2015) About [Online], Available at https://www. asianamericanchristian.org/2013/10/01/how-will-we-do-this/ (Accessed: 19 October 2019). Bailey, S. P. (2013) ‘Rick Warren Gets Backlash from Asian American Christians for Posting Photo’ Religion News Service, 25 September [Online], Available at https://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/25/rick-warren-gets-backlash-asianamerican-christians-posting-photo/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Barbrook, R. and Cameron, A. (1995) ‘The Californian Ideology’, The Hypermedia Research Centre [Online], Available at http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theorycalifornianideology-main.html (Accessed 30 April 2019). Bob. (2014) ‘Both Sides Lack Awareness’, AsianAmericanChristian.Org, 28 January [Online], Available at https://asianamericanchristian.org/2014/01/28/bob-bothsides-lacked-awareness-open-letter/ (Accessed 19 October 2019). Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C. and Taylor, T.L. (2012) Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brubaker, R. (2016) Trans: Gender and Race in An Age of Unsettled Identities, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Bruenig, E. (2015) ‘Why Won’t Twitter Forgive Suey Park: From Trending to Torment and Back Again’, The New Republic, 20 May [Online], Available at https://www. newrepublic.com/article/121861/suey-parkof-cancelcolbert-fame-has-stoppedfighting-twitter (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Busto, R.V. (1999) ‘The Gospel According to the Model Minority?: Hazarding an Interpretation of Asian American Evangelical College Students’, in Yoo, D. (eds.), New Spiritual Homes; Religion and Asian Americans, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 169-187. Busto, R. (2014) ‘The Gospel According to Rice: The Next Asian American Christianity’, Amerasia Journal, 40(1), pp. 59-79. Chan, S. (1991) Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. Boston: Twayne Publishers. Chinglican at Table. (2013) ‘It Would Not Be Funny if I Said that Rick Warren Was the “Rick” in “Rickshaw Rally”‘, A Christian Thing: Occasional Thoughts on Contemporary Christianities and Culture, 24 September [Online], Available at https://achristianthing.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/it-would-not-befunny-if-i-said-that-rick-warren-was-the-rick-in-rickshaw-rally/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019).

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Cho, E. (2009) ‘Zondervan’s Statement, Apology, and Actions Regarding Deadly Vipers,’ Eugene Cho, 19 November [Online], Available at https://eugenecho. com/2009/11/19/zondervan-pulls-deadly-vipers-from-stores/ (Accessed: 15 October 2019). Cho, E. (2013) ‘What we Can Learn from Rick Warren, People’s Liberation Army, Humility, Listening, and Cultural Sensitivity’, Eugene Cho, 25 September [Online], Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20160413195430/https://eugenecho. com/2013/09/25/this-is-a-post-about-rick-warren-peoples-liberation-armyhumility-listening-and-cultural-sensitivity/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Dyo, T. (2014) ‘Tommy Dyo: Relevant, but I Could Not Sign’, Asian American Christian Org, 28 January [Online], Available at https://asianamericanchristian.org/2014/01/28/tommy-dyo-relevant-but-i-couldnot-sign-open-letter/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Herrera, L. (2014) Revolution in the Age of Social Media: The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet, New York: Verso. Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography, London: Sage. Hine, C. (2015) Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied, and Everyday. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Jeung, R. (2005) Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Jo. (2014) ‘Overly Forceful, yet Resonant’, Asian American Christian Org, 28 January [Online], Available at https://www.asianamericanchristian.org/2014/01/28/ jo-overly-forceful-yet-resonate/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Khang, K. (2013a) ‘Dear Pastor Rick Warren, I Think you Don’t Get it’, Kathy Khang: Writer, Speaker, Coffee Drinker, 24 September [Online], Available at http://www. kathykhang.com/2013/09/24/dear-pastor-rick-warren-i-think-you-dont-get-it/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Khang, K. (2013b) ‘I Emailed Pastor Rick Warren & There Is No ‘If’, Kathy Khang: Writer, Speaker, Coffee Drinker, 26 September [Online], Available at http://www. kathykhang.com/2013/09/26/i-emailed-pastor-rick-warren-there-is-no-if/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Khang, K. (2013c) ‘The Open Letter, How we Got Here & Where we Hope to Go’, Kathy Khang: Writer, Speaker, Coffee Drinker, 21 October [Online], Available at http://www.kathykhang.com/2013/10/21/the-open-letter-how-we-got-herewhere-we-hope-to-go/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Kim, R.Y. (2006) God’s New Whiz Kids? Korean American Evangelicals on Campus, New York: New York University Press. Kim, S. (2010) A Faith of Our Own: Second-Generation Spirituality in Korean American Churches, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

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Kim, Y. (2013) ‘#NotYourAsianSidekick is a Civil Rights Movement for Asian American Women’, The Guardian, 17 December [Online], Available at https:// www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/17/not-your-asian-sidekickasian-women-feminism (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Kim-Kort, M., Park, S. and Rice, E. (2014) ‘Killjoy Prophets, Asian America, Evangelicalism (Part 2)’, Mihee Kim-Kort, 28 October [Online], Available at http:// miheekimkort.com/2014/10/28/killjoy-prophets-asian-america-evangelicalismpart-2/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Lee, D.J. (2014) ‘Asian Americans: Silent No More – Asian America Christians are Growing in Influence and Audience. Will they be Embraced by their Larger Church Family?’, Christianity Today, 58(8), pp. 38-47. Lee, D.J. (2016) Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism, Boston: Beacon Press. Lee, H. (1996) ‘Silent Exodus: Can the East Asian Church in America Reverse the Flight of its Next Generation?’, Christianity Today, 40(9), pp. 50-53. Lin, L. (2017) ‘The Loneliness of the Progressive Asian American Christian’, The Salt Collective [Online], Available at http://thesaltcollective.org/lonelinessprogressive-asian-american-christian/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Lowe, D. (2014) ‘Daniel Lowe: It Does Not Speak for me’, Asian American Christian Org, 28 January [Online], Available at https://asianamericanchristian. org/2014/01/28/daniel-lowe-open-letter-did-not-speak-for-me/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). McDonald, S.N. (2014) ‘With #NotMyChristianLeader, Suey Park Takes on Organized Religion’, The Washington Post: Democracy Dies in Darkness, 6 August [Online], Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/ wp/2014/08/06/with-notmychristianleader-suey-park-takes-on-organizedreligion/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1369064a64be (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Nair, Y. (2016) ‘Suey Park and the Afterlife of Twitter’, Yasmin Nair: Writer, Academic, Activist, Commentator, 4 April [Online], Available at https://www.yasminnair. net/content/suey-park-and-afterlife-twitter-0 (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Park, D. (2013) ‘An Open Letter from the Asian American Community to the Evangelical Church’, NextGener.Asian Church Blog, 13 October [Online], Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20131223140054/http://nextgenerasianchurch. com/2013/10/13/an-open-letter-to-the-evangelical-church-from-the-asianamerican-community/ (Accessed 30 April 2019). Park, S., Rice, E. and Kim-Kort, M. (2014) ‘Killjoy Prophets, Asian Americans, and Racial Reconciliation (Part 1)’, Suey Park, 6 July [Online], Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20150115122755/http://sueypark.com/2014/07/06/ killjoy-prophets-asian-americans-and-racial-reconciliation-part-1/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019).

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Phillips, W. (2015) This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, Boston: MIT Press. Phillips, W. and Ryan M.M. (2017) The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism Online, Cambridge: Polity. Prophets, K. (2014) ‘Progressive Brands, Sexism & DudeBro Politics: #CloseGamerGate’, Emerging Voices: Riding a New Wave of Emergence, 26 October [Online], Available at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/emergentvillage/2014/10/progressive-brands-sexism-dudebro-politics-closegamergate/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Rah, S. (2008) The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity, DuPage County: InterVarsity Press. Silverman, J. (2016) Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection, New York: Harper Collins. Smith, A. (2015) ‘My Statement on the Current Media Controversy’, Andrea Smith’s Blog: The 18 Year Plan to End Global Oppression, 9 July [Online], Available at https://andrea366.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/my-statement-on-the-currentmedia-controversy/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Statement on God’s Justice. (2018) Statement on God’s Justice [Online], Available at https://www.statementongodsjustice.com/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). StephenAtHome. (2014) Twitter, 27 March [Online], Available at https://twitter. com/StephenAtHome/status/449396208533270529 (Accessed: 15 October 2019). Tran, J. (2010) ‘Why Asian-American Christianity Has No Future: The Over Against, Leaving Behind, and Separation From of Asian American Christian Identity’, SANACS: Society of Asian North American Christian Studies, 2, pp. 13-36. Tsang, S. (2013) ‘Rick Warren, Cultural Sensitivity, and Mission’, Engage the Pews, 23 September [Online], Available at https://engagethepews.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/ rick-warren-cultural-sensitivity-and-mission/ (Accessed: 30 April 2019). Tse, J.K.H. (2018) ‘Spiritual Propositions: The American Evangelical Intelligentsia and the Supernatural Order, in Bartolini, N., MacKian, S. and Pile, S. (eds.), Spaces of Spirituality, London: Routledge, pp. 25-36.

About the author Justin K.H. Tse is an Assistant Professor of Humanities (Education) in Singapore Management University’s Office of Core Curriculum and the School of Social Sciences. He is lead editor of Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (Palgrave, 2016, with Jonathan Y. Tan) and is working on a book manuscript entitled The Secular in a Sheet of Scattered Sand: Cantonese Protestants and Postsecular Publics on the Pacific Rim (in preliminary agreement, University of Notre Dame Press).

8. Preacher Playlist: Reception and Curation of Celebrity Pastorsin the Korean Diaspora Hyemin Na

Abstract Korean megachurches use digital media to distribute religious content across transnational boundaries. Megachurches upload sermons, live­ stream worship services and publicise events on websites, mobile apps and social media platforms. Studying the reception side reveals a fuller picture of how religious content circulates and how it is interpreted, curated and used. This chapter provides insights into how KoreanAmerican Christian women in the U.S. incorporate religious digital media produced in South Korea into their everyday lives. The study finds that Korean-American women 1) gather knowledge of popular pastors and develop expertise on their preaching styles, 2) diagnose their own spiritual needs as well as those of others, and access religious digital media content in order to address these needs, and 3) use online religious content to curate daily routines that adhere to their conceptions of a faithful life. The women exercise a form of spiritual authority as curates of digital media content. Keywords: Digital Media, Korean Christianity, Transnational Audience, Diaspora, Digital Religion, Asian American Religions, Korean American

Introduction A single Sunday sermon at Woori Church, a fast-growing megachurch in a satellite city of Seoul, totals 32,741 view counts on the church’s website and

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch08

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an additional 77,000 on the church’s YouTube channel.1 Church membership, however, is around 20,000 (Lee 2012). Besides the church members, who else watches these sermons? This chapter provides preliminary insights into how digital media users in the Korean diaspora, and in particular Korean Christian women in the U.S., incorporate religious content produced by churches in Korea into their daily lives. The women I interviewed for this study curate spiritual experiences by accessing content produced and digitally disseminated by churches in Korea. I use the word ‘curate’ as both noun and verb to frame the activities of the Korean women. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a curate as ‘one entrusted with the cure of souls; a spiritual pastor’ (Oxford English Dictionary 2018 curate entry). To curate means ‘to act as a curator of a museum, exhibits, etc., to look after and preserve’. Both senses of the word have roots in the word ‘cure’, which can mean ‘care, heed or heal’ (Online Etymology Dictionary 2018 cure entry). In this chapter I outline the ways these women 1) gather knowledge of popular pastors and develop expertise on their preaching styles, 2) diagnose their own spiritual needs as well as those of others, and access religious digital media content in order to address these needs, and 3) use online religious content to curate daily routines that adhere to their conceptions of a faithful life. I suggest that these women exercise spiritual authority as digital curates, and that studying their daily curatorial practices will supplement our understanding of how the nameless ‘audience’ utilises transnationally circulating religious content in everyday life.

Transnational networks of globalised religion The continuing evolution of globalisation and correlating developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) both necessitates and enables transnational preacher-audience relationships. In its broadest sense, globalisation refers to the increased interconnectedness among people and places. Religion continues to act as an integral dimension in the processes of globalisation (Roudometof 2000). Anthropologist Thomas Csordas observes: ‘Insofar as religion is a cultural component of any social system, religious developments must accompany the development of a planetarised social system that includes a global economic order, global communications, and global population movements and diasporas’ (Csordas 1

see Woori Church (2019)

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2007). The globalisation of religion takes place in distinct locales through the activities of transnational actors (Roudometof 2016). Transnational approaches concretise the constellation of social ties that wax and wane in the lives of transnational actors. Those who traverse borders remain embedded in relational networks cultivated in the places of their origin, and these connections exert influence in shaping transnational communities in host contexts. Even as transnational actors retain connections in sending countries, the transition to new environments and the correlating shifts in socio-political relations also prompt adaptations in religious practice on both individual and institutional levels (Warner and Wittner 1998). Digital technology enables transnational actors to continue their religious commitments in ways familiar to them as they adjust to new contexts. Individuals use digital technology to access a host of religious content in their native language and to continue their affiliation with religious institutions from the places of their origin. Religious institutions cultivate their online presence to publicise their community, to disseminate the message of their faith, to provide information and teaching for their own members and to produce new converts. The incorporation of ICTs expands the boundaries of a congregation from a physical location to the Web, and extends the circle of influence to include a broader audience (Omotayo 2016). These digitally mediated activities create, strengthen and retain transnational networks among religious institutions and transnational actors.

Preaching audience and their practices The ease of digital mobile access among transnational actors facilitates new modes of engagement among preachers and their audiences. Digital users avail themselves to Sunday pulpit activities across differing time zones, outside of the congregational context. If in the past the sermon-preacher acted upon the audience-congregation-listener, mobile digital technology enables the audience to incorporate the sermon into their immediate and often private surroundings. This work builds on previous literature that addresses what happens to sermons once they are preached, what people do as they listen and what they say about this particular experience. The Listening to Listener Project exemplifies a turn to the listener (Allen and Mulligan 2009). The large scale study utilises Aristotelian categories of rhetoric to understand what

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listeners say or value about sermons and the preacher. Gaarden and Lorensen (2013) find that listeners construct meaning as the sermon triggers other thoughts, enter into a contemplative mode or critically analyse the message and internally disagree. However, studies like this and others centre the preacher-listener encounter in a worship setting (see Allen 2014; Mulligan and Ronald 2005; Rietveld 2013). What kind of a life does a sermon lead beyond the preaching moment? Other studies that incorporate anthropological methodologies focus on the mediation of preaching beyond communal worship. These approaches often also include substantial analysis of the material and cultural particularities of a sermon’s circuit. Charles Hirschkind (2006) details the production of an Islamic counterpublic through the circulation of audiocassette sermons in major Middle East cities. Hirschkind (ibid., p. 2) illuminates the ‘effect on the human sensorium, on the affects, sensibilities and perceptual habits’ that audiocassette sermons produce among their audience. Walton’s (2009) work on black megachurch preachers provides a counternarrative to assumptions that televangelism is a white phenomenon, and suggests that black viewers use televangelist ministries to envision themselves thriving in a just world. This compares to motivations for listening among Conservative, rural, white viewers of televangelism, which includes nostalgia and longing to regain entry in the mainstream (Alexander 1994). Marla Frederick provides ethnographic treatment of how female audiences in Jamaica and the Caribbean interpret the messages of black and female American televangelists to empower personal uplift (Frederick 2015). The current study builds on extant literature to focus on listening practices that transnational actors have cultivated with the affordances of digital technology. Nick Couldry (2004) advocates a new paradigm for media research that ‘sees media not as text or production economy, but first and foremost as practice’ (original emphasis). Other practice-oriented approaches to media studies seek to demystify the new media and contextualise its adaption in everyday life (Silverstone 1994; Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002; Hoover et al. 2004). Influenced by Bourdieu (1977), these approaches understand that practices in and of themselves reveal insights regarding the socio-historical context. As digital technologies allow for mobile and asynchronous engagement with religious content online, a focus on practice captures the variety of ways audiences incorporate preaching into their daily lives. This study shows how a transnational audience of Korean migrant women in the U.S. engages preaching and other correlating religious content through digital media.

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Korean Protestant Christianity and its U.S. churches Christianity, like all religions, travel (Mandaville 2001; Robbins 2004). U.S. missionaries first introduced Protestant forms of Christianity in the late 1800s as the 500-year Joseon dynasty began the final phase of its decline. Protestant churches in Korea experienced remarkable growth in number and size: ‘[s]ince the early 1960s, when South Korea’s Protestants scarcely topped the one million mark, the number of Protestant Christians increased faster than in any other country, more than doubling every decade’ (Kim 2000). According to a 2015 census, the religious makeup in South Korea shifted from its historically Buddhist roots (15.5%) to Christianity (27.6%) (Korean Statistical Information Service, 2017). The growth of Christianity in Korea occurred within expanding sociopolitical circuits that Korean migrants created between Korea and the U.S. From the earliest Korean labourers who arrived on the shores of Hawaiʻi in the early 1900s to the waves of immigrants after the 1965 Immigration Act, Protestant Christianity played a central role in the lives of Korean transnational communities in the U.S. (Yoo 2010; Pyong and Jung 2002). According to the Pew Research Center (2017), the Korean population in the U.S. totals 1.8 million in 2015 and represents the largest population of South Koreans outside of South Korea. One can gauge the significance of the Korean immigrant church in the U.S. when we compare that 29% of Koreans in South Korea identify as Christian, while 71% of Korean Americans identify as Christian (Connor 2014). The Korean immigrant church preserves elements of Korean culture and reproduces particular characteristics of Korean Christianity (Pyong 2010). Neo-Confucian ideals of societal relationships based on hierarchical models of king-subject, father-child, teacher-student and husband-wife, continue to structure organisations and set behavioural scripts for individuals. A Neo-Confucian familism that views the patriarch-centred family as a fundamental social unit saturates immigrant church culture: ‘the church is viewed as a broad extension of one’s family, where the pastor is “father” to his followers’ (Bégin and Shin 2015). Preaching symbolises the pastor’s authority as the patriarch of the church family, and the sermonic moment marks the apex of the conventional Korean Protestant worship service (Park 2007). Recent ICT developments have enabled Korean Christians in the U.S. to easily access worship services and sermons from Korea. Korean sermons continue to circulate through CDs, the radio and select TV stations in major cities with significant Korean populations, the internet and widespread

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use of mobile phones shifted the range and regularity of religious media access in everyday life. In the process, preachers who would otherwise enjoy a geographically-bound exposure among Korean Christians retained significant popularity abroad. The availability of online Christian content in the Korean-language – primarily sermons, worship services, but later diversified to include devotionals, Bible studies, lectures and music – point to a proliferating Christian media industry in Korea anchored in megachurches. Beginning in the 1980s and onward, elite and well-educated Christians in Korea congregated to constitute megachurches, most of which pursued ambitious and expensive building projects in the newly gentrified areas south of the Han River (Jang 2014). The largest church in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church, is located in Seoul with a weekly attendance of 480,000 members.2 Many other churches in Korea follow the lead of Yoido Full Gospel Church, if it is not in the aspect of scale, then most certainly in an operational logic of growth: ‘[i]n 1993 nearly half of the world’s 50 largest churches were in Korea’ (Bégin and Shin 2015, p. 2327). These large churches leverage their sheer numbers and accumulation of resources to ‘establish media networks, and assemble large groups of people to disseminate innovative ideas’ (ibid.). As a megachurch researcher observes, Korean churches were ‘among the first to create satellite venues that used television cameras and large screens to convey the teaching part of the worship service’ (Bird 2015). Korean megachurches such as Yoido Full Gospel Church and Onnuri Church also pioneered multi-site organisations, and media technologies play a pivotal role in cultivating a sense of communal intimacy among congregants scattered not just locally within Korea but transnationally across the globe (Lehto 2017). These global flagship churches and other large churches in South Korea incorporate digital media in a way that reflects the broader socio-cultural embrace of ICTs (Han 2015). Most large churches cultivate an online presence by way of websites, social media activities and even church-specific mobile applications. These churches stream worship services, upload weekly bulletins and provide videos of the latest sermons by their pastors. Korean transnational communities take advantage of digital technologies to sustain relational ties with their country of origin (Yong 2015; 2016; 2017; Kim 2018). Given the importance of Protestant Christianity in Korean transnational communities and the proliferation of religious content, this study of Korean-American Christian women contributes to discussions of how transnational actors, in particular women, practice religious media consumption in their daily lives. 2

see Leadership Network (2019)

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Korean megachurch pastors: Transnational celebrities What kinds of digitally circulating religious content do Christian Korean American women use? Like any audience, they access a plethora of choices produced by a variety of religious entities. However, the audience often creates personal canons from a broader pool of popular picks. Just as Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, each representing complex ecclesial genealogies, have become household names in their U.S. contexts and beyond, Korea has also its own canons of celebrity pastors. These pastors often also act as the face of the large congregations they lead; their names and the names of the churches co-constitute a brand image. As the ‘megachurch capital of the world’, Korea offers its transnational audience a vast array of religious content produced by megachurches and their celebrity pastors (Kim 2017, p. 15). Michael Bégin and Caleb Kwang-Eung Shin, in their survey of the Korean megachurch phenomenon, outline the history of megachurches into four generations (Bégin and Shin 2015). The first generation churches – such as Saemoonan Church, Chungdong First Church, Youndong Church, and Yongnak Presbyterian Church – consist of the more traditional congregations that, due to their location within the historic downtown of Seoul, experienced unprecedented growth amidst a population influx during the post-war urbanisation of the 1960s. If congregational expansion came naturally as a result of population density for first generation megachurches, growth crystallised as an institutional orientation for the churches that came after (Hong 2003). The largest church in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church, introduced above, represents the second generation of megachurches. The megachurches and pastors that the interviewees of this study highlighted as most popular can be categorised somewhere between the third and fourth generation of the megachurch phenomenon. The third generation megachurches consist of large congregations formed in the southern half of Seoul, below the Han River. This area developed as the centre of wealth and prestige. Large churches such as Sarang, Somang and Onnuri distinguished themselves from previous congregations by bringing together the charismatic spirituality of extant Protestantism with middle-class respectability. Onnuri, in particular, adapted the contemporary praise and worship genre from the U.S. in its services, thereafter rendering instruments such as the guitar and drums commonplace additions in Korean sanctuaries. Pastors of these third generation churches seek to project an image that counters traditional hierarchical notions of the pastor-as-charismatic-leader. As many of the third generation churches fell from public grace with ongoing scandals involving

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abuse of power and collusion with political elites, the more recently founded megachurches seek to emphasise the approachability of their leaders. Bégin and Shin’s (2015) classification of the Korean megachurch phenomenon follows the ongoing expansion of Seoul and ensuing housing development projects spearheaded by the government. As people, money and gentrification flowed from within the four traditional gates guarding the ancient borders of Seoul (first generation) to the broader Kangbuk/North River area (second generation), congregations also experienced growth accordingly. The third generation churches not only include the congregations founded in the Kangnam/South River region, but also encompass the current popular megachurch brands that developed in the new bed towns beyond Seoul. It is no accident that the three trending churches according to the interviewees of this chapter – Good Shepherd Church, Wooridle Church and Woori Church – can be found in one of these new surburbs. Each congregation, ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 on its membership rolls, exhibit a mix of congregants from mostly the middle to upper-middle classes. The pastors, eloquent speakers, dressed in suits, preach from 30 to 40 minutes on large stages. They mostly speak on topics that relate to the cultivation of the inner-self and serving the common good even while avoiding explicit political statements. The worship services and the sermon in particular, constitute the main offerings of religious content that the megachurches upload online. These megachurches employ dozens if not hundreds of clergy and staff that run the numerous programmes designed meet the needs of the community. The buffet of worship services vary in style, featuring traditional organ and choir worship services to drums and guitar beats: the media content reflect this diversity of selection. The churches stream these services on multiple media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube as well as church websites, all easily accessible by any media device of choice. Congregants not only meet on Sundays but throughout the week, from early morning services at 5am to evening services at 9pm. Small group leaders send daily words of comfort and Bible verses to online chatrooms in KakaoTalk, a popular Korean messaging platform. These churches leverage their resources to hire their own bands who often write original songs, record CDs and make mp3s available for download. Whoever desires, there is no limit to feeling plugged in.

Christian Korean American women and the question of agency Gender highlights issues of agency in the nexus of religion/media and provides a better way to analyse how ‘various constellations of media

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technology, institutional and cultural practice, and individual actions come together in particular situations’ (Lövheim 2015, p. 19). Women use media to amplify their voices online and as a way to express their religious commitments (Rivka 2017). Women navigate gender-specific boundaries established by religious norms and in so doing cultivate their sense of self (Nilan 2012). Korean-American women, too, avail themselves to digital technology for a variety of reasons as they adjust to new living contexts: they accumulate knowledge in order to navigate the social institutions of their host country, seek medical information, exchange information and foster emotional support systems through online forums (Oh 2016; Park and Park 2014; Kim and Yoon 2012; Lee 2013). As important an institution the church is for the Korean transnational community, there is a lacuna in current literatures regarding the religious aspects of digital use among Korean women. Research on the intersection of religion and media through the lens of practice would enrich the discourse regarding women’s agency in Korean Christianity. Research shows how women evangelists propelled the rapid spread of Christianity in Korea by moving through the private sectors of society traditionally reserved for women (Strawn 2012). Certain studies conclude that despite providing women the means to cope with personal challenges in an oppressive domestic life, contemporary Korean churches end up redomesticating women into structures of Confucian patriarchy (Chong 2006; 2008). This view emphasises the pervasive structure of Confucian familism even as some other studies highlight how Korean women in Korean American immigrant churches leverage overlooked practices, such as silence and absence, to subvert male authority (Kim 1997). How does the introduction of digital media technologies and the ease of access to a host of religious content from Korea impact Korean immigrant women’s religious lives in the U.S.?

Method In order to understand how Korean transnational women in the U.S. utilise digital media as a form of religious practice, I deployed qualitative methods to conduct semi-structured interviews with seven Korean women (Glesne and Peshkin 1992; Lamont and Swidler 2014). The seven women represented a wide variety of official roles found in Korean Protestant Churches: jipsa (‘deaconess’), gwonsa (‘senior deaconess’), samo (‘pastor’s wife’), jeondosa (‘pastor-in-training’) and pastor. I contacted these interviewees by snowball

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sampling. These seven women attend four different churches in the suburbs of a large metropolitan area in the U.S. with a significant Korean population. Of the four churches, three are Korean immigrant churches – one Methodist church, two Presbyterian churches and the last is a white Baptist Church. The women are aged between 30s and 50s. Two interviewees were single, and the remaining five were married with children. The interviewee set includes stay-at-home moms and employees of businesses and staff/clergy at churches. The interviewees also exhibited a range of legal status. Although I did not ask everyone, due to the sensitive nature of the question, I am aware through conversations outside of the interviews that some have obtained U.S. citizenship status, while others reside in the U.S. under visas. I met the women individually at a location of their preference, including local coffee shops, restaurants, homes and churches. One interview was conducted over the phone to accommodate the interviewee’s schedule. The interview lengths averaged 60 minutes, with the longest interview lasting more than a couple of hours. The interviews answered the following research questions: (1) What does this selection of Korean women do with digital media? (Ammerman 2014); (2) What do digital producers say about the use of digital media for religious purposes? (Tilly 2006). In the semi-structured interviews I asked why and how the women accessed religious content from Korea, in addition to asking them to briefly share about their faith journey. The interviews were conducted in Korean. The interviews were transcribed, and I translated any quotes that appear in the reflection segment.

Data analysis 1)

Interviewees gather religious knowledge and develop expertise through religious digital media content

The women exhibited knowledge of who the popular preachers were and the churches which were trending in Korea. The women collectively mentioned preachers Lee Chan Soo (Woori Church), Yoo Ki Sung (Good Shepherd Church) and Kim Yang Jae (Wooridle Church). The women knew about the respective churches that these preachers served, even though they had never attended these churches in person prior to their immigration to the U.S. When I asked how these women came to know about these preachers, they responded that they had heard from others or came across their sermons while surfing the net. The women benefitted from unofficial forms of communication – what would be classified as ‘gossip’ and ‘rumour’ – to

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find out more about the influential religious leaders in Korea. Most of the interviewees were able to tell me the distinguishing traits of these preachers. For instance, Lim explains: When I was pregnant, for an entire year I listened to Pastor Kim Yang Jae. Pastor Kim Yang Jae is a female pastor […] there was a lot [in her sermons] that matched well with what I was going through in my life […] she uses her life as testimony. She has a lot of testimonies.

Lim continues: ‘Pastor Yoo Ki Sung is Bible centred. He preaches that the solution to everything is Jesus’. According to Lim, Pastor Yoo often repeats the same question: ‘If you were Jesus what would you do?’. Lim adds: The Pastor from Bundang Woori Church [Lee Chan Soo] […] he was in the U.S. but then went to Korea […] he preaches ‘God, you see me. God thank you for using someone as frail as me’. So from him I learn that God protects a weak person such as me. God uses the different traits of these pastors to teach me. In jest, Lim remarks, ‘Malsseumeul gollameogeun geojyo’ (‘I cherry-picked the Word I like’).

Another interviewee classified the preachers and their distinctive traits according to accents and intonations. Sunwoo categorised the preaching as follows: ‘Pastor Lee Chan Soo’s accent is strong [indicating that he is not from Seoul]’, while ‘Pastor Yoo Ki Sung is more gentle, and he preaches softly’. Sunwoo suggested that depending on the listener’s mood, there are certain styles of speech that can be unpleasant to hear: ‘deutgi silheun sori’ (‘sounds that one dislikes’). Thanks to digital technology, listeners can select the vocal qualities that they prefer: ‘Jagi wonhaneun geoseul chajeul su issda’ (‘One can find what one wants’). Curation requires expertise. Redaction presupposes knowledge. In their own way, the women I interviewed exhibited not just familiarity with Korean preaching but developed taxonomies according to categories of classification: moral standing of the preacher (integrity); sermon content and predominant themes that distinguish each preacher; preaching style that comes with physical idiosyncrasies, such as vocal intonation and accents. Neither can we conflate their curatorial process with a consumer logic dependent on mere popularity (quantified by clicks and views) or entertainment value. The women take into consideration the boundaries of orthodoxy and cull

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for sermons advocating eedan (‘heretical teachings’). The women not only curate the preacher playlist for personal use, but they also send sermons that have gone through internal filters to those in their social network, such as KakaoTalk, a popular mobile instant messaging application. The women exercise agency as gatekeepers in the circulation of content. 2)

Interviewees diagnose and address needs through religious digital media content

The women exercise authority as digital curates as they diagnose needs and use digital media content to meet those needs. Roh shared that she was dissatisfied with the regular offering of preaching content in the churches she attended: ‘I access the topics not dealt with in-depth in churches – such as praying, the gifts of the Spirit, the things I am curious about –through [online] media’. Roh attended charismatic churches in the U.S., but she learnt that these churches have their own challenges. She now attends a ‘regular church’ and resolves her need for charismatic spiritual encounters through digital media. When she is home, she attends live streaming of worship services at charismatic churches in Korea, singing along to the songs and praying as the worship leader prompts. I had asked how her young daughter feels about the charismatic worship and Roh explained that her daughter was used to it. Many of the women used online religious experiences to address their relational needs as well. They use KakaoTalk to send their favourite sermon quotes or Biblical verses to friends, family and acquaintances. They also send links to particularly good lectures given by pastors to those they think may be interested. In one case, Park, who sings in the choir, sends the URL of the worship service recorded by her church so that her mother in Korea can watch her sing. Park, in turn, watches the live streaming service of the megachurch that her mother attends in Korea. Park explains that once in a while, the camera catches her mother, who is always found seated in the front row. The mother and daughter pair use digital media meant to capture preaching and other moments of the worship service to see one another in their ‘daily life’. She explains that catching a glimpse of her mother seated at the front addresses an aspect of longing that cannot be satiated through face-time or texting. The needs that the women address through accessing sermons and other digitally mediated religious content spill beyond the borders of what preachers may conventionally define as the purpose of preaching. Bae shared that her friend, also a Korean Christian woman in the U.S., watches sermons to see how the top preachers in Korea dress. Bae’s friend references the

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sartorial choices of popular pastors as she makes her own selections on dressing her professor husband. Park, who works at an office affiliated with a well-known Korean preacher, explained that one of her tasks include posting replies on social platforms whenever the preacher uploads sermon videos or one of his writings. She is a sermon listener, but her responses fulfil a job requirement. The women act as digital curates as they shift the telos of a sermon. They discern what needs to be done – whether that is exercising bourgeois fashion sense, completing a work task, meeting a yearning to see a loved one in their natural environment – and meet those needs, even if those needs may have never been imagined by the preacher or the preacher’s media production team. 3)

Interviewees order daily life through religious digital media content

Finally, the women incorporate digital media in their daily routines to curate their conceptions of the faithful life. Park uses the fifteen-minute early morning prayer service provided by Onnuri Church to start her day with her daughter. She lets it play as she cooks breakfast and helps her daughter get ready for school. Park ends her days by listening to sermons by Pastor Joh Jeong Min as she falls asleep. Sunwoo enjoys listening to her favourite preachers: ‘I would listen to them on Sunday mornings [while getting ready for service] as I put on my makeup’. She uses devotional content provided by large churches in Korea to hold evening Quiet Time sessions with her children. Jeung listens to the songs of Scott Brenner, an American migrant to Korea and who pastors the Lord’s Church. Jeung says she sets Christian music on loop on YouTube as background music as she performs household chores. Many of the women listen to sermons while commuting to work or driving to run errands. Lim shared that when she worked long twelve to sixteen hour shifts at a Korean bakery, sermons were always on play in the background. From early morning prayer services, mid-day driving, while completing domestic chores, while at work and in the closing of the day as they fall asleep, the women I interviewed used YouTube videos, smart phone apps, church websites and KakaoTalk to listen, watch, link and forward sermons and lectures by Korean pastors. Often these sermons served as background noise as they went about their business; sometimes, the women would concentrate and listen well. The women accessed digital media content to structure and supplement their faith practices in the mundane. The women appeared to use digital media to set the tone for their daily routines, to create an aura that frames seemingly secular activities.

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Conclusion This chapter provided preliminary insights into how Korean immigrant women use digital media to access religious content – primarily sermons and worship services – produced by megachurches in Korea. I suggested that the women exercise a form of spiritual authority by curating routines of faith for themselves and for their families. They develop expertise on the kinds of religious content available online and the means to access them. The women used online and offline sources to gather knowledge about the popular pastors in Korea, acquainted themselves with the respective preaching styles of each pastor, and deployed this expertise to curate a playlist – a repertoire – that suited their preference. The women tapped into this knowledge regarding pastors, their preaching styles and the various digital content provided by their churches in order to address spiritual needs that local immigrant churches could not meet. They used online messaging apps to extend the reach of particular sermons by sharing it to people in their social networks. They would also punctuate particular activities throughout their day by listening to sermons or worship music. They used digital religious content to create a spiritual ambience, a backdrop, to their daily routines and domestic work. Counter to assumptions about the inevitability of immigrant assimilation into the host country, current research complicates theories regarding incorporation processes by showing how Korean American women retain enduring cultural and social ties with the sending country through their digital media practices (Son 2015). In fact, the affordances of ICTs foster a digital diaspora in which transnational actors experience a sense of belonging in digitally cultivated communities beyond traditional national identities (Lee 2017). It is important not to overlook the religious dimensions of digital use among transnational actors, and how these practices culminate to more complicated cultural identities. Many of the interviewees felt that they were part of multiple congregations, which ultimately constituted a global sense of church. The embodied acts of digital use based on the constant – including real-time – access of church events (preaching, worship) in the sending country create new sense of place as well (Kong 2001). In the Korean church the head pastor acts as a symbolic marker of identity for the congregation. It would be interesting to further study how the regular engagement with other pastors complicates the authority of the local church pastor. The reflections from the women remind us that digital religion is an everyday event that is incorporated into the routines and living spaces

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of transnational actors. These women use the online content provided by churches and preachers to curate their immigrant experiences. Even as they attend church, the women utilise the array of preaching styles, content and modes of access, to attend to their souls, satiate curious minds and provide rhythm for their bodies as they go about their daily lives.

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Rietveld, D. (2013) ‘A Survey of the Phenomenological Research of Listening to Preaching’, Homiletic, 38(2), pp. 30-47. Rivka, N.S. (2017) ‘Negotiating Agency: Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Women’s Responses to the Internet’, New Media & Society, 19(1), pp. 81-95. Robbins, J. (2004) ‘The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, pp. 117-143. Roudometof, V. (2000) ‘Transnationalism and Globalization: The Greek Orthodox Diaspora between Orthodox Universalism and Transnational Nationalism’, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 9(3), pp. 361-397. Roudometof, V. (2016) ‘Globalization’ in Yamane, D. (eds.), Handbook of Religion and Society, Cham: Springer, pp. 505-524. Silverstone, R. (1994) Television and Everyday Life, London and New York: Routledge. Son, J. (2015) ‘Immigrant Incorporation, Technology, and Transnationalism among Korean American Women’, Journal of International Migration and Integration, 16(2), pp. 377-395. Strawn, L. (2012) ‘Korean Bible Women’s Success: Using the “Anbang” Network and the Religious Authority of the Mudang’, Journal of Korean Religions, 3(1), pp. 117-149. Tilly, C. (2006) Why?, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Walton, J.L. (2009) Watch This!: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism. New York: New York University Press. Warner, R.S. and Wittner, J.G. (1998) Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Wellman, B. and Haythornthwaite, C. (2002) The Internet in Everyday Life, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Woori Church. (2019) Internet Broadcasting: Sermon [Online], Available at http:// www.woorichurch.org/bwoori/tv/index.asp?sub_page=Y&menu=11 (Accessed: 12 January 2019). Yoo, D. (2010) Contentious Spirits: Religion in Korean American History, 1903-1945, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Yoon, K. (2015) ‘The Cultural Appropriation of Smartphones in Korean Transnational Families’, in Lim, S.S. (eds.), Mobile Communication and the Family, Springer [Online], pp. 93-108, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-7441-3. Yoon, K. (2016) ‘The Media Practice of “KaTalk” in the Face of Facebook: Young Koreans’ Use of Mobile App Platforms in a Transnational Context’, Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 30(2), pp. 217-232. Yoon, K. (2017) ‘Korean Migrants’ Use of the Internet in Canada’, Journal of International Migration and Integration, 18(2), pp. 547-562.

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About the author Hyemin Na is a doctoral candidate in Religion at Emory University. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine how religious communities represent social difference. Her dissertation analyses how megachurches in the U.S. and Korea visualise progress. Her research has been supported by the Korea Foundation, Fulbright and the Lilly Foundation.

9. Virtual Rohingya: Ethno-Religious Populism in the Asia Pacific Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir

Abstract Scholars and media observers have documented the devastating effect of religious rhetoric within Myanmar in contributing to the Rohingya crisis. Much of this takes place within the realm of digital media. As a result, discourses on the Rohingya crisis are often decentred from ones of citizenship, the economic value of the region, state-society relations and class conflict within the region, to one that revolves almost entirely on the emotionally-charged dispute over ethno-religious identity. This chapter analyses the competing virtual discourses in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Australia as social activists make the case for the acceptance and integration of the Rohingya into their own respective communities. This is set against an age characterised by populism and the rise of far-right politics. Keywords: Rohingya, Muslims, religion, social media

Introduction It is a complicated time to be a refugee and to be a Muslim refugee at that. The cries of the Rohingya, who many have called ‘the most persecuted minority in the world’, and their humanitarian pleas have been sabotaged by the upsurge of populist politics in the U.S., Europe and Asia over the last decade which has witnessed the rise of far-right politics. Often, the resistance and support for the refugees get embroiled with issues of religious pride and are entangled with the ethnoreligious conflict in the home countries. As of 2013, there are approximately 1.2 million Muslims in the contested Rakhine region of Myanmar. About a million Rohingya Muslims have fled

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_ch09

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to seek refuge in neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and with some even headed to Australia to escape persecution – evoking intense reactions in these host countries. This humanitarian situation has frequently been framed in ethnocentric terms. In Myanmar itself, it is positioned as a battle between Islamic terrorists and fearmongering monks. Even among countries that are deliberating whether to receive the Rohingya refugees, religion continues to be the dominant rallying cry – from the need to defend or expel Islam to the contamination of a Buddhist or a Christian way of life. These discourses play themselves out, in their most explicit form in digital media (Han and Kamaludeen 2016), although there have been attempts at muting the Rohingya point of view with Bangladesh, for example, imposing a blanket mobile phone ban on its Rohingya refugees as videos depicting their extreme conditions continue to go viral. As a result, discourses on the Rohingya crisis are often decentred from ones of citizenship (Kipgen 2013; Cheesman 2017; Holliday 2014), the economic value of the region, state-society relations and class conflict within the region, to one that revolves almost entirely on the emotionally-charged dispute over ethno-religious identity. This chapter analyses the competing virtual discourses in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Australia as social activists make the case for the acceptance and integration of the Rohingya diaspora into their own respective communities.

‘We must keep Myanmar Buddhist’ It is important that we begin by tracing the online discourses that emanate from Myanmar itself. An important development in Myanmar over the last decade has been the tidal wave change of access to digital technology. For example, the entry of mobile telephones and smartphones has made a drastic change to how people in Myanmar relate to each other and the rest of the world (Krisneepaiboon 2017). As recently as 2010, the high cost of owning a mobile telephone places it out of reach for most people, with only North Korea having fewer mobile phones per capita. In 2010, Myanmar only had 130,000 heavily policed internet users. By 2017, the cost of a SIM card plummeted from USD 3000 to USD 1 and the softening of the censorship regulations also led to 30 million Burmese turning to Facebook. A combination of a drastic cut in the cost of the SIM card and international service providers entering the market saw the usage of mobile phones surge to about 80% in 2016 (Lee 2016). Mobile telephones often ‘come preloaded with Facebook and some mobile phone plans do not count time on Facebook toward the

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plan’s minutes’ and ‘virtually every news source in Myanmar can now be accessed via Facebook’ (Fink 2018a). Coupled with this newfound access to digital technology was an information liberalisation that came with the newly semi-elected government in 2010 after almost five decades of authoritarian rule. In 2011, Myanmar lifted sanctions on exile media and threw out its pre-publication press censorship a year later. Limited laws passing the freedom of association, speech and assembly within certain confines were passed. These followed the government’s earlier decisions to relax its monitoring of YouTube, Skype and Yahoo, giving the people access to both international news and social media platforms. Ronan Lee (2016) argues that the democratic transition, neo-liberal reforms and opening up of the media has allowed personalities like Ashin Wirathu to exploit the space. The digital rallying calls emanating from Myanmar that fuelled the crisis are often couched in terms of ethnoreligious pride. A leading protagonist of the crisis, Wirathu’s flaming of inter-religious tension predates his entry into the digital space. In 2003, when the country was under military rule, he was given 25 years jail for fuelling hatred against the Muslim minorities but was pardoned nine years later. He has since used the recent relaxing of the country’s media censorship regulations to devastating effect. The BBC reported that ‘as government rules relaxed, he (Wirathu) became more active on social media […] spread his message by posting his sermons on YouTube and on Facebook where he currently has more than 37,000 followers’ (2015). Dubbing himself as the ‘Burmese Bin Laden’ and deemed ‘the Face of Buddhist Terror’ on the cover of Times magazine, Wirathu is particularly active on social media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook (Farzana 2017; Smith 2018). His sermons take on an overt anti-Muslim diatribe, blaming Muslims for communal tensions, alleging forced conversions of Buddhist women and claiming that the country will be overrun by Muslims due to the group’s high birth rates although Muslims only make up 5% of the population. Among Wirathu’s many scandalous statements, would be: [Muslims] are breeding so fast, and they are stealing our women, raping them […] They would like to occupy our country, but I won’t let them. We must keep Myanmar Buddhist. We are being raped in every town, being sexually harassed in every town, being ganged up on and bullied in every town. In every town, there is a crude and savage Muslim majority (Siddiqui 2016).

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In mid-2014, Wirathu reposted a rumour on Facebook about two Muslim shopkeepers raping a fellow worker who was Buddhist. The story turned out to be fake, but it did not stop violence from erupting (Fink 2018b). Wirathu also called for a boycott of Muslim businesses in a 2013 YouTube video, claiming, ‘Your purchases spent in their shops will benef it the enemy […] So do business with only shops with 969 signs’. ‘969’ is a counter-religious movement led by Wirathu that some claimed has the support of the establishment and is a reaction to the 786 signs that are often displayed by Muslim businessmen. Attacks against the economic capital of the Rohingya is especially devastating given the already impoverished and vulnerable conditions of the community. The World Bank estimates about 78% of Rohingya households as living below the poverty line. The issue of social class, and its conflation with ethnoreligious pride, is undoubtedly an important one (Wolf 2015). In Time’s cover story on ‘the Face of Buddhist Terror’ it is mentioned that: It would be easy to dismiss Wirathu as an uneducated outlier with little doctrinal basis for his bigotry, one of eight children who ended up in a monastery because his parents wanted one less mouth to feed. But Wirathu is charismatic and powerful, and his message resonates. Among the country’s majority Bamar – or Burman – ethnic group, as well as across Buddhist parts of Asia, there’s a vague sense that their religion is under siege (Laignee 2018).

In truth, these sentiments such as the paranoia of Muslim birth rates and conversion to Islam through a strategy of love jihad1 are not novel and have found voice in nearby India under the Hindu nationalist regime BJP, for example. Wirathu has also found staunch support in Sri Lanka, a country where the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese account for 70% of the 21 million population. The controversial monk has also been awarded a peace award from a university in majority Buddhist Thailand. These fears of losing one’s ethnic identity becomes more profound in the Rakhine. Although Buddhists make up 88% of Myanmar, in the Rakhine State, the Rohingyas make up approximately 30% and Rakhine Buddhists 60% of the local population. Although Buddhists constitute a majority in Sittwe, the state’s 1 Love jihad, an idea popularised in India, refers to the alleged strategy of Muslim men who attempt to convert non-Muslim women to Islam by making the women fall in love with them. This moral panic has been a source of ethnic tensions, at times, leading to fatal outcomes.

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capital, Rohingyas are the majority in Buthidaung and Maungdaw, which also saw much bloodshed. Besides personalities like Wirathu, the establishment is complicit in fanning the paranoia against the Rohingyas, through various contradictory actions. A Washington post article referred to a fourteen point Facebook post by the military’s commander-in-chief who has over two million followers, which discussed the outcome of an internal inquiry that absolved the military of any wrongdoing (Gowen and Bearak 2017). In the post, he used the pejorative term ‘Bengali’ 41 times to refer to the Rohingya and the phrase ‘Bengali terrorists’ nineteen times (ibid.). The post has since been deleted. Less than five months later, the army announced that seven soldiers were sentenced to a decade in prison for participating in a massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslim men. However, two months later, the commander-in-chief exonerated the army (Naing and Aung 2018). The difficulty in making the military accountable for their actions is exemplified by the arrests of two Reuters journalists who were investigating the case, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, for having contravened the country’s Official Secrets Act. The military’s version was that the ten Rohingya men were part of a militant group who had laid siege on security officials. This was contradicted by both Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhist witnesses who testified to the Reuters journalists that the men were picked from hundreds who were seeking refuge at a beach, and that there was no large scale attack by rebels on security officials.2 Fink (2018a) argues that top Burmese officials have yet to disrupt the Buddhist nationalist narrative nor provided an alternative to this. She contends that the military gains from the perception that it is defending a Buddhist nation, and the new government is unwilling to risk losing the electorate by sending a message that is not popular with the majority. The Rohingya crisis also demonstrates the complexity of navigating issues of citizenship and governance in the digital age. Where state-society relations are at its formative stage, post military rule in Myanmar, one sees new spaces for ‘civil’ interactions and alternative figures of ‘authority’ churning out narratives that range from reality to rumour. This is exacerbated by the fact that despite a sharp rise in internet connectivity, digital literacy remains low. Therefore, much disinformation is disseminated, unchecked and consumed uncritically. 2 In 2018, Reuters won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Rohingya crisis. In what is widely perceived as a watershed case and a litmus test for Southeast Asian democracy, the two Myanmar journalists were sentenced to seven years in prison for breaching state secrets. For their part, in the expose, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were bestowed the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism by the international community.

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One of these problematic ‘spaces’ would be Facebook. In the article ‘(f)ake news on Facebook fans the flames of hate against the Rohingya in Burma’, Washington Post’s bureau chief Annie Gowen and Max Bearak (2017) detailed how, besides Wirathu, another Buddhist nationalist monk Thu Seikta mobilised a rally at the US Embassy in Rangoon against the use of the word Rohingya, and then provoked volunteers to intimidate Muslim businesses in the area. Huish and Balazo (2018), academics from Dalhousie University, argued that Facebook is fuelling a genocide against the Rohingya, calling the online atmosphere one of virtual coercive, likening the influence of the radio in fuelling genocide in the 1990s to the role of Facebook in contemporary times. For many people in Myanmar’s fledgling economy, ‘Facebook is the internet’ (Stecklow 2018). It’s the sole site many access online and where people mainly get their daily updates and news. Huish and Balazo (2018) further argue that the propaganda and spread of misinformation or what has been termed as ‘fake news’ these days serve the interests of the military and preys on the ill-informed in Myanmar’s fledgling digital space. These theatrics play out poetically in a recent series of event. In 2017, the state sanctioned the Ma Ba Tha, the ultranationalist organisation that Wirathu belonged to and barred him from preaching for a year. As a result, Wirathu ramped up his social media activism by increasing his online presence, causing his account to be blocked for a month. In response, Wirathu claimed that ‘Facebook is occupied by the Muslims’. In 2018, Facebook, under pressure for its role in the violence (Specia and Mozur 2017) belatedly deactivated Wirathu’s account with analysts arguing that online vitriol usually spikes before bloodshed ensues. Social activists on the ground remained somewhat skeptical with Thet Swe Win, a Yangon-based interfaith activist, lamenting that ‘[t]hey remove his account but not his videos, and his religious hate speeches, they are still on Facebook and his followers are spreading it’ (Laignee 2018). In these actions of barring, sanctioning, silencing, etc., little can be said to have benefited the Rohingyas. As Huish and Balazo (2018) wrote, ‘Facebook’s virtual coercive is one of division, competing realities and a lack of mutual acceptance. In Facebook’s virtual coercive, fiction is reality and lies can validate’. The UN Human Rights Commissioner in acknowledging that Facebook was a ‘huge part of public, civil and private life in Myanmar, used both by citizens and government’, claims that it had ‘substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and conflict within the public […] Ultra-nationalist Buddhists, through their own pages were inciting violence against Rohingya and other ethnic minorities’. The news production with regard to the Rohingya issue is compounded by a number of critical issues which make the situation rather unique and

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exalt the importance of digital media. Firstly, the intervention of the military junta ensures that it is difficult for foreign correspondents and journalists to move around the country. There are many instances of journalists who are blocked from reporting by way of intimidation, arrests, attacks or by simply imposing bureaucratic and logistical road blocks as means of deterrence. According to Amnesty International (2015), ‘Journalists are well aware of what “red lines” they cannot cross – mainly stories relating to the military, extremist Buddhist nationalism and the plight of the Rohingya minority – and often shy away from covering these issues’. Hence, what results is self-censorship. Secondly, news production is changing in today’s day and age. Many international news agencies have downsized their bureaus significantly and have come to rely heavily on freelancers and what has been called ‘parachute journalists’ and fixers (Brooten and Verbruggen 2017). To counter the external reporting of their community, there has been a flood of Rohingya social activists, both based locally and overseas, who have entered the digital space to lend their own narrative to the ensuing conflict. The most powerful Rohingya media platform, the Rohingya Vision,3 is one founded by young Rohingyas hailing from different media backgrounds. A television and news network, Rohingya Vision is active on various social media platforms such as YouTube, 4 Facebook5 and Twitter.6 It is managed by a group of exiled Rohingyas based in Malaysia and relies on undercover citizen journalists to report events as they unfold on the inside. Since its establishment in 2012, it has about 150,000 subscribers and almost 60 million views since going on YouTube. The RVision, as Rohingya Vision is popularly known, broadcasts in several languages including Rohingya, Burmese, English and Arabic. Positioning itself as independent of any governmental, political or religious affiliations, the channel explicitly states its nine-fold agenda on its online platform: 1. To create a vivid Rohingya media through developing various media programmes 2. To bring awareness of the Rohingya crisis to the world 3. To promote the spirit of cooperation and coordination 4. To stop Rohingya from deviating to extremism 5. To promote peace and to pride on Rohingya’s Islamic identity 6. To train and develop Rohingyas in the media sector 3 4 5 6

see Rohingya Vision (2019a) see Rohingya Vision (2019b) see Rohingya Vision (2019c) see Rohingya Vision (2019d)

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7. To promote Rohingya genius and outstanding people 8. To promote Rohingya culture, history and civilisation among the Rohingya youth 9. To document Rohingya history and events Along with the state’s progressive reforms in 2010 that coincided with the eruption of ethnic violence, many Rohingya digital channels have also spawned on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Some of these include, the Rohingya Blogger (14,700 followers), Voice of Rohingya (21,300 followers) and Protect the Rohingya (12,300 followers). This is on top of influential Rohingya figures and activists who have a strong online following such as Ro Nay San Lwin, Tun Khin, Aung Aung and Soe Thu Moe, all who joined social media around the same time in light of the recent crisis. Some of these activists such as Ro Nay San Lwin who runs the popular Rohingya Blogger and Tun Khin who is the President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation are based in Europe while the latter two, Aung Aung and Soe Thu Moe, are from the tense precinct of Sittwe and the capital city of Yangon respectively. These developments, whilst promising, reinforce the quagmire of citizenship for the Rohingyas – that their reality can only be acknowledged in the digital space. The bigger tragedy lies in the fact that, part of the reason why the Rohingya issue has had a visible presence online especially in the West is due to the influential celebrities that have spoken out strongly on the issue. Ironically, many are former supporters of Aung Sang Suu Kyi but who have grown disillusioned with the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s denial of the tragedy (Paddock 2016; Ahluwalia and Toby 2018). Entertainment stars such as U2’s lead singer Bono, Cate Blanchett and a string of others have used their sizeable online presence not only to condemn Aung San’s silence on the atrocities, but to the extent of asking the Myanmar leader to resign. In fact, the two incarcerated journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, were represented by famous human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, wife of Hollywood icon George Clooney, which inevitably gave the Rohingya publicity and media attention. This theme of celebrities and the appropriation of popular culture is also reminiscent across the border in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Bangladesh is the country most affected by the displacement of Rohingya Muslims from their ethnic homeland in the Rakhine state – previously known as Arakan – due to its shared border (Rahman 2010; Ullah 2011). Since

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August 2017, 700,000 have crossed the border under extreme conditions. Many lives were sacrificed trying to cross the choppy waters of the Naf River in overcrowded boats which were already not in good condition to begin with. As of 24 May 2018, there are about 905,000 Rohingyas who are finding temporary shelter in Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh (OCHA7 n.d.). Many made the journey also in hope that they will be provided refuge in a Muslim majority country. After all, Bangladesh is a country of approximately 90% Muslims with a small minority of Hindus (8%), Buddhists (1%) and Christians (0.9%). However, Sheikh Hasina’s second reign as the Bangladesh Prime Minister since 2009 has seen a more rigorous recommitment to the secular values of the state. Secularism has been enshrined as one of the four basic principles of the country since the enactment of the 1972 constitution. It was removed five years later with a proclamation of ‘absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah’, only to have secularism reinstated a year into Sheikh Hasina’s second reign. In the same breath, Hasina came to power under the banner of a ‘Digital Bangladesh’ campaign, when she promised more democracy, human rights, transparency and accountability to the people as part of Vision 2021. With Hasina having taken a staunch secularist stance, removing many of her more conservative political competitors, at times with brute force, this might partially account for the lack of a defence of the Rohingya refugees on account of religious ideals and solidarity by major political leaders in Bangladesh. Hence, for a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim and is most affected by the crisis, this is in itself interesting. It at once demonstrates the success of the regime’s ideology and the coerciveness of its implementation. The ruling Awami League party has presented the Rohingyas with several harsh alternatives including repatriations, suggesting relocating the refugees to an uninhabitable island (Human Rights Watch 2017) and an overall refusal to acknowledge the Rohingyas as refugees as evident in some statements made by their officials. This stance is however challenged in the sphere of popular culture, with renowned Bangladeshi entertainment stars Rawnak Hasan and Saira Jahan demonstrating an overt solidarity with the Rohingya Muslims. In Sheikh Hasina’s second term, Jonmobhumi (‘Homeland’), a feature film directed by Prashun Rahman was released in August 2018. The movie was an innovative way of documenting the plight of the refugees and diversifying the digital space with a different way of engaging the public sphere. Rawnak, plays an ex-Rohingya refugee to Bangladesh who becomes a volunteer at a 7

OCHA stands for Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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refugee camp where he meets a young Rohingya lady played by Saira. The film was based on the existential crisis of the Rohingya and the difficulties they face in returning to their homeland. Rawnak released a media statement stating that: Every human has [the] right to live and to die in his own land, doesn’t matter whoever he is. The film is based on Rohingya people’s refugee life. The film is contextual for everyone in this world. Here the audiences can see a glance of refugee crisis all around the world. There is patriotism, there is love, there is also humanity (Arakan Television 2018).

The film is shot at Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar and the Naf River, tracing the precarious route taken by those who made the journey into the country. Although on the outset, this initiative might seem harmless, over the years, mediatised support or even somewhat favourable portrayal of Muslims have landed its protagonists in a lot of trouble. The Cox’s Bazar Rohingya camps have been a much politicised site. Internally, the Bangladeshi authorities have the challenging task of managing the influx of refugees on its soil, and the needs of its displaced citizens. Symbolically, it is also dragged into the region’s religious rivalries between the Muslims and Hindus when appropriated as an emblem of patriotism. UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Priyanka Chopra, a former Indian Bollywood star who has made a successful transition to Hollywood, was the victim of online abuse for her visit to the shelter and her support for the refugees. She was criticised online by many Hindu nationalist supporters of the ruling BJP regime in India, with one of the BJP leaders insisting that celebrities and public figures should not visit the Rohingya shelters as it gives a wrong message ‘Priyanka ji should not have gone there. These people (VIPs) should avoid going there. Rohingya Muslims should not live here and nor should those who sympathise with them’ (The Times of India 2018). The BJP leader then talked about the oft-cited moral panic of Rohingya murders of Hindus and their alleged humiliation of Hindu girls. In truth, this was not the only time the former Miss World was heavily criticised online. A month later in June 2018, she was forced to apologise after her character in the series Quantico was portrayed to be thwarting a Hindu terrorist in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Hindu nationalists were again up in arms with the Hindu Sena, releasing a statement for the public not only to boycott Priyanka’s works, but to lobby the government to revoke her citizenship and banish her from the country (Basu 2018). This episode with Chopra is captured in a Wall Street Journal article called ‘Fear

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of Islam Leads India to Snub Refugees’ (Dhume 2018). Just half a year before, the highest earning actress in Bollywood, Deepika Padukone, received death threats from the Hindu far right for ‘distorting’ the image of Padmini, a fabled medieval queen, by portraying her to be in love with a Muslim king. It is evident that the Rohingya refugee crisis is a lightning rod for the already festering religious tensions in the region. Nonetheless, the support of celebrity personalities is an important aspect in bringing more global awareness to the conflict. Popular culture is also the weapon of choice for many Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Poems and songs are used as a kind of weapon of the weak not only as a demonstration of resistance but also as collective memory. These taranas, at times accompanied with English subtitles, are uploaded onto YouTube, individual blogs and webpages like the Rohingya Radio online, and other digital news platforms such as the Kaladan Press Network (Farzana 2017). One of the most prominent media channels that is dedicated to the crisis is ‘Rohingya Television’ that is based in Dhaka. It joined YouTube in October 2015 and in less than three years, has hit almost 2.3 million views.8 The power of spoken art is harnessed by the refugees to form solidarities with the Rohingya diasporas and also to articulate their struggles to the international community.

Malaysia After Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Malaysia ranks fourth in receiving the most number of Rohingyas fleeing their homeland since the 1970s. Even though it did not sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, Malaysia has taken in refugees in general for decades. There are about 150,000 Rohingyas currently residing in various Malaysian states. A study showed that among almost two thirds of Rohingyas who decided to come to Malaysia perceived the country to be an Islamic state and hence will be more sympathetic to their predicament. Almost half thought that Malaysia could provide better work opportunities compared to Indonesia while approximately a third confided that their choice of destination was entirely made by smugglers who did not solicit their consent. A small minority agreed that the Thailand-Malaysia borders are relatively easier to negotiate with almost two thirds arriving this way (Khairi and Wahab 2018). Over the last few years, Malaysia’s political leaders have been lobbying the regional and 8

see Rohingya Television (2019)

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international communities to do more to address the humanitarian crisis. The Rohingya predicament is often cited as the latest example of the failure of the international system of global governance (Kingston 2015; Ahluwalia and Toby 2018). The rhetoric coming from a Muslim-majority Malaysia on the Rohingya issue often takes on an overt angle of religious responsibility. This perhaps reached its apex nearing Malaysia’s 2018 watershed elections. The ruling coalition party, which has ruled the country since independence in 1957, was under threat of losing power for the first time. The Barisan Nasional lost the popular vote for the first time in 2013. In an unprecedented gesture, then Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is much embattled in corruption scandals, joined hands with the opposition PAS party in a huge rally on the Rohingya called the ‘Himpunan Solidariti Ummah’ (Ummah Solidarity Gathering). Najib commented: I think we decided that on issues where we have a common stand and common position, especially on the question of the ummah, PAS and Umno can work together […] It does not mean we are in a coalition but the issue is one that is common ground between both parties, so definitely we can work together […] It’s too early to say anything. I believe politics is dynamic, but this isn’t an issue of politics, it is about universal values, Islam, and sanctity of life (Yunus and Shagar 2016).

Then in early 2018, senior PAS leaders attended an event to celebrate Najib sending an aid flotilla to Myanmar in aid of the Rohingya refugees. Actions like these reinforce how the Rohingya crisis is appropriated as a symbol of ethno-religious identity. With the state demonstrating political will and leadership in the Rohingya crisis, the resident Rohingya community in Malaysia is relatively active. For example, Malaysia is home of the head office of Arakan TV, a Rohingya news channel that broadcasts in Bangla language. The channel is one of the most recent additions to the pro-Rohingya media, launching only in end 2016 but already garnering about 50,000 subscribers and more than fifteen million views on YouTube. However, such activism is still subjected to ‘governance’ in the digital sphere. Ro Nay San Lwin, who runs the popular Rohingya Blogger, said, ‘My colleague based in Kuala Lumpur was posting very simple news [items] in English […] Those were removed by Facebook and his account was frozen for 72 hours’. Mohammad Anwar, a journalist for the Rohingya Blogger and a Rohingya activist based in Kuala Lumpur has deactivated his Facebook

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account and switched to Twitter, although the latter has a weaker following in Myanmar. He nonetheless relented after becoming exasperated with Facebook’s deleting of his posts on atrocities carried out by the military (Woodruff 2017). Similar stories like these extend theories like those by Huish and Balazo to one that is centred on an all-out propaganda war. Laura Haigh, Amnesty International’s Burma researcher remarked: We’ve had reports from a number of Rohingya activists that we know and work with who have had their Facebook and Twitter accounts or their posts being deleted…It’s actually unclear where this is coming from and why […] What we understand from these activists is the providers, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter, are receiving a large number of complaints about their posts. There are a range of posts being removed, and a lot of it from activists who are known to be reporting on the situation in the Rakhine state […] It’s all part of a propaganda war that’s going on behind the scenes here (BBC Trending 2017)

The overarching politicisation of religion in Malaysia however masks many realities on the ground. To be sure, there have been reports and studies that highlight the dire situation of the Rohingya in Malaysia (Arshad and Islam 2018) despite many of the refugees preferring to go to Malaysia, owing to the shared Muslim identity with the dominant ethnic Malays. Many made their way to Malaysia with the hope that their Islamic brethren will welcome them, but this illusion quickly faded. Avyanthi Azis (2014) argues that Rohingyas inherit their statelessness in their host country and much of the problems stem from a rigid conceptualisation of the ideal Malaysian citizen. Hence, despite sharing the same religion as the native Malays, Rohingyas do not possess either the economic or racial capital. Part of the problem facing the Rohingya is that many mistake them for Bangladeshis. Bangladeshi foreign workers are often portrayed negatively and associated with crime. The Rohingyas thus find themselves in a unique position where on the one hand, Islam is used as a rallying to offer protection to refugees in need, while on another, there exists a pervasive racism in their host country against those who arrive from the Indian subcontinent (Hoffstaedter 2017). Being deemed ethnic Bengalis is also traumatising for the Rohingyas as it accounts for their persecution in Myanmar to begin with. One of the most chronic obstacle is the lack of documentation of the refugees and their disqualification for formal residency status in the country. Hence, Rohingyas find it difficult to find work and even when they do, it exposes them to exploitation and abuse.

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On the other spectrum of these discriminatory practical realities would be the rallying by pro-Rohingya Malaysian activists, calling fellow Malaysians to act and assist. What is particularly unique about the situation in Malaysia is the degree of conflation between the struggles for Palestinian self-determination and the Rohingyan cause (Kamaludeen 2016a). These proclamations are made explicit by a major civil society group, Aman Palestin (‘Peace in Palestine’). Aman Palestin is an influential NGO with not only branches all over Malaysia but also overseas such as Indonesia and Australia. The group focuses on raising awareness of the Palestinian issue and also looks after the welfare of the Palestinian diaspora. The group, which has been in operation since 2004, has been making the case for the Rohingya in a series of online proclamations over the course of a year. 1. Etnik Rohingya di Arakan adalah ibarat rakyat Palestin Asia Tenggara. Kekejaman junta dan pemerintah Myanmar adalah seumpama regim zionis Israel.9 (‘Ethnic Rohingyans in Arakan are like the Palestinian people of Southeast Asia. The cruelty of the junta and the government of Myanmar is like the Zionist regime of Israel.’) (31 December 2016) 2. Keperitan dan kesangsaraan etnik Rohingya adalah disebabkan kezaliman regim Myanmar, mereka seumpama Zionis Israel yang menzalimi rakyat Palestin.10 (‘The hardship and ethnic persecution of the ethnic Rohingyans are due to the tyranny of Myanmar’s regime, they are like Israeli Zionists who are cruel to Palestinians.’) (13 March 2017) 3. Tragedi pembersihan etnik Rohingya adalah di antara bukti hipokrasi dunia Barat yang didalangi zionis antarabangsa.11 (‘The Rohingya ethnic cleansing tragedy is among the evidences of the hypocrisy of the western world led by the international Zionist.’) (7 September 2017)

This is also a strategy adopted by Myanmar Ethnic Rohingyas Human Rights Organisation Malaysia (MERHROM).12 Their online activism has seen other 9 see Aman Palestin Official (2016) 10 see Aman Palestin Official (2017a) 11 see Aman Palestin Official (2017b). Aman Palestin’s commentary in support of post by Prof Dr Zainur Rashid Zainuddin. 12 President of Merhrom, Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani, in 2014, released a statement calling for action by the International Criminal Court. ‘The Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organization Malaysia (MERHROM) would like to draw your attention in regards to the recent

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grassroots and varsity bodies organise events that highlight the similar plight of the Palestinian and Rohingya communities. For instance, 500 varsity students held the Solidariti Palestin dan Rohingya (‘Palestine and Rohingya Solidarity’) event (Noradila 2017). This event came after the launch of the ‘Tears of Muslim World’ campaign,13 which saw a collaboration between Aman Palestin Australia and WeMalaysia Australia. WeMalaysia is an open society of Malaysian students overseas with branches in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The event was attended by the Chairman of WeMalaysia Australia, who is also the President of the Griffith University Muslim Students Association (GUMSA). These collaborations not only demonstrate the strong religious narrative in the Malaysian scene but also a desire to awaken the region to the atrocities faced by their Muslim brethren. Not coincidentally, these aspirations were only possible in light of the political landscape in Malaysia that favours such endeavours. The alliances between Malaysian civil society groups with student organisations in Australia were not just borne out of the convenience of having Malaysian students in Australia. It is because, despite being a country where Muslims are a minority, the liberal nature of the Australian state allows for such collaborations to thrive and for social activism to transcend national boundaries.

Australia Australia is the only country that is perceived as a Western country that finds itself often directly implicated in the discussions about the Rohingya. Owing to its physical proximity to Myanmar, Rohingyas have attempted, over the years, to reach Australian waters by boat in order to seek asylum. Many risked their lives as they perceive Australia to be the ideal destination, guided by the belief that ‘Australia was not returning refugees’ and ‘Australia was accepting of refugees’ (McAuliffe and Jayasuriya 2016). This has inevitably evoked strong reactions to the extent that quite a significant attack on both Palestinians and Rohingyas by Israel and Myanmar during the beginning of the Holy month of Ramadhan. We strongly condemn such attacks as many innocent people have died especially children and women. We could not accept such act as it contradicts the International Laws and International Conventions. Both Palestinians and Rohingyas faced continuous Genocide since 1940-s. We experienced the same critical moment where we face continuous attack from both regime. Unfortunately the United Nations did not take any appropriate measures to stop the long standing Genocide that cause death to thousands of Palestinians and Rohingyas’ (see Gyles-McDonnough 2014; Merhrom 2014). 13 see Astro Awani (2017)

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part of post-September 11 Australian politics have been dominated by the issue of the so-called ‘boat people’. As a compromise, Australia made arrangements with Papua New Guinea in 2013 to settle most of the boat people offshore in detention centres causing the number of maritime migration to plummet drastically. In the years 2014 to 2015, the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection received 62,709 applications for its offshore programme. Only about a fifth of the applications were approved, placing 11,009 Rohingyas in its offshore programme, with 2747 others making it to Australia. The country’s chief immigration psychiatrist have likened the forceful detention to deliberate torture. In 2015, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott made the now famous comment, when responding to whether it is possible to resettle some of the refugees in Australia: Nope, nope, nope […] Australia will do absolutely nothing that gives any encouragement to anyone to think that they can get on a boat, that they can work with people smugglers to start a new life […] I’m sorry. If you want to start a new life, you come through the front door, not through the back door. Don’t think that getting on a leaky boat at the behest of a people smuggler is going to do you or your family any good. We are not going to do anything that will encourage people to get on boats. If we do the slightest thing to encourage people to get on the boats, this problem will get worse, not better (Medhora 2015).

Unlike Bangladesh and Malaysia, which scholars characterised as being authoritarian in nature, Australia is often lauded as a liberal democracy with a vibrant civil society (Kamaludeen 2016b). This ensures that participation in social causes are not limited to the community that is being directly afflicted but highly likely, involves the larger society as part of the debates. As such, groups like the Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia Inc. (BRCA), which was officially registered in 2000 by Rohingya residents, have been vocal on recent events. The BRCA documents the religious persecution of the Rohingyas such as the attacks on Muslim civilians and institutions in Myanmar, and the state’s complicit support of anti-Muslim propaganda that is pervasive in the country in the form of books, recorded speeches and laws that allow for the confiscation of land belonging to the Rohingya community. Other groups have also contributed to a larger discourse. While in Bangladesh and even Malaysia where it might appear as though the Rohingya issue is a concern only for Muslims, Australia has seen wide participation from a broad spectrum of the society including the far-right fringe groups who oppose Muslim immigration.

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In Australia, online debates about taking on refugees often descend into that of xenophobia especially when it involves Muslims. Groups such as the Reclaim Australia and Patriot Blue, who push for ‘Australia to be a Christian based society’, cross swords with human rights groups in cyberspace. A number of politicians like Pauline Hanson from the One Nation party, who aligns herself with outfits like Reclaim Australia, has rode on Islamophobic sentiments to sweep to power. Granted that there are issues surrounding social class and dissatisfaction with the entrenched elites but not unlike Trumpism and Brexit, for the far-right groups, discussions surrounding the Rohingya appeal for entry into Australian soil is set against a backdrop of a heightened sense of xenophobia amidst calls for isolationism. The vibrant nature of civil society in Australia ensures that there is some sort of push back to any dominant narrative. Online mobilisation at times translates into protest movements on the ground where things can turn ugly very fast as protestors clash with the police and with the opposite camp. In 2017, about 800 people, including Rohingya community leaders and representatives from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in Australia gathered at a protest organised by the Sydney Press and Media Council to document their discontent at what they feel is a muted response by the Australian government to the atrocities in Myanmar (Khan 2017; Slee 2017). CNN ran an article featuring self-proclaimed ex neo-Nazi, Neil Erikson, and his newly formed group, Patriot Blue, in an article called Australia’s Far Right Fighting for Attention (Fenton 2017). Running on an anti-Muslim diatribe, the common argument has been about creeping Islamisation of Australia through engineering a panic surrounding halalisation, jihad and shariah-isation of Australia. The case for assimilating refugees like the Rohingya are debunked by groups like Erikson’s that focus their attention in espousing a narrow form of nationalism which is fortified by strict immigration laws and a conflation of Islam with terrorism. ‘If we get more Islamic immigration we are going to get higher terrorism’, he said (CNN 2017). Together with United Patriots Front (UPF) leader Blair Cottrell and Chris Shortis, they have been found guilty of provoking hatred towards Muslims. In 2015, to protest the construction of a mosque, they released a video on Facebook where they were seen beheading a mannequin while shouting Allahu Akbar (‘God is great’). Erikson was well pleased to be charged, claiming that he had accumulated more than a hundred thousand followers before Facebook clamped down on him. Social media presents a fertile ground for groups who are both pro- and anti- Muslim migration to present their narratives. As the founder of the far-right group Reclaim Australia, Catherine Brennan, who organised her demonstrations on Facebook accedes, ‘Without

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social media we wouldn’t exist, it’s that simple […] We would never have grown to almost 90,000 people in two years’.

Conclusion The main reason for the ejection of the Rohingyas have been put down to their incompatibility with the mainly Buddhist population. Burmese groups like the Ma Ba Tha, who speaks of their divine origins, appropriates the religious divide to undermine the civilian leadership thriving in what some are increasingly calling an apartheid state (Wade 2017). Heads of the country have resisted seeing the Rohingyas as citizens, erasing them from the census, instead calling them Bengalis, placing blame for the plight of over a million refugees on the terror activities of Muslim militants. This is despite the United Nations and the United States calling the crisis as a genocide and an ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people. Azeem Ibrahim (2016) puts the Rohingya genocide down to a hostile dominant majority among the populace, the collusion of Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government and the lack of effective criticism from the international community. In this age of the rise of political religion – as seen in political Buddhism, political Islam, political Hinduism and political Christianity rearing their collective heads – the forced migration of the Rohingyas is entangled with religious competition in the receiver countries. In Malaysia, the waning ruling coalition of more than five decades jumped to the defence of the Rohingyas to proclaim themselves the defenders of Islam and Muslims by joining hands with their rivals from the Islamic party. In Australia, political leaders use the fear of foreigners, especially Muslims, and the threat of the boat people to galvanise support for their respective parties. White supremacist fringe groups see this as a licence to ramp up their Islamophobic rhetoric to defend an ambiguous code of Australian values to ring-fence their identity. Bangladesh finds themselves in the centre of attention as the global attention for the Rohingyas gradually shift to Cox’s Bazar. Ironically, Bangladesh has not seen as much of a defence of the Rohingyas by major groups along the lines of religious fervor. The digital sphere provides a ready, and at times new, platform for the most controversial of views to be articulated and acted upon. Many scholars have argued how social media in Myanmar plays a critical role in contributing to the Rohingya tragedy. This chapter extends this argument, by adopting both a transnational and localised perspective, to show how digital media is harnessed as a powerful tool in a spectrum of affected countries.

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About the author Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has authored five books including Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific and Digital Culture and Religion in Asia (with Sam Han). His book Representing Islam: Hip-Hop of the September 11 Generation (Fall 2020) is forthcoming with Indiana University Press.



Afterword Robbie B. H. Goh

Digitised religions, physical practices and the ‘rich-poor’ divide As the essays in this collection argue, with reference to a range of useful examples, digitised religion can in many ways not only substitute for some older forms of religious practice, but also actually enhance religious experience. The nexus of digital media, religion and mobility can in fact create new religious identities, networks and communities, ones that are not substitutes for or second-order versions of physical religious experiences, but are their own unique forms and evolving religious possibilities. Digitised religion is inherently suited for religions to grow ‘bigger’ – reaching larger congregations (including across regions), offering diversified services (for example, in different languages) to appeal to diverse groups, linking individuals and groups into larger-scale global communities. At the same time, digitised religion is also inherently suited for religions to grow ‘smaller’ and more intimate at the level of the individual, offering more avenues for both individual expression (such as blogs) as well as reception (such as on-the-spot online spiritual counselling and advice). What it probably does less well is at the small group, inter-personal level, where it is both easier (compared to the level of the larger religious community) and more desirable to maintain some degree of face-to-face interaction. This transformative nature of digitised religion is not univalent, but brings with it a number of challenges. Digital media, in creating forums and platforms for the dissemination of religious views, can also foster the expression of dissenting views and controversy. In an open platform (such as on WordPress or Facebook, when privacy settings permit casual visitors to comment), there can even be a greater possibility of clashes within and across religious divides. ‘Online religion’ and ‘religion online’ (Helland 2000) both arguably foster a greater rapprochement between religion on the one hand, and secularism and consumerism on the other hand (in the intrusion of voices of non-adherents, or in the marketisation of religious media). In

Gomes, C., L. Kong and O. Woods, Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728935_aw

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other words, digital media enhances the conditions for a particular religious community to be influenced by that which is outside the community, even as it disseminates the influence of the community to the outside. Some of the aspects of digitised religion are clearly attractive to religious organisations and communities, and we can expect them to be on the ascendant. This is especially true of the aspects that help religions and religious communities transcend the limitations of time and space: online religious messages, chat groups, and mediatised events and gatherings, are the most obvious examples. Various forms of giving and receiving – not merely tithes, zakat (‘alms-giving in Islam’) and alms, but also spiritual blessings, atonements, indulgences – are also likely to be enhanced and accelerated moving forward. Technological advances such as facial recognition (when digital access involves video modes) or data algorithms also have the potential to customise individual religious experiences online to a far greater degree than the face-to-face capabilities of individual religious leaders. At the same time, however, it is well worth considering if there are counter forces which strongly mitigate against religious digitisation – in particular, those dealing with what we might term the investments of ‘place’ and ‘person’. Notwithstanding the rapid pace of religious mediatisation since about the middle of the twentieth century (and especially in the last 30 years or so), the special status of certain places and persons have remained largely intact; indeed, as Walsh (2007) observes of photography, reversing the argument of Walter Benjamin, the more reproduced an image, ‘the more important the original becomes’. We might say the same of certain places and persons: the age of Instagram pictures of touristic destinations has not resulted in the waning importance of the physical site, but rather its enhancement, as the recent deluge of visitors to the picturesque but small village of Halstatt in Austria suggests. Nor has the increasing mediatisation of film and TV celebrities – their images on video-on-demand or digital sites, social media accounts, and so on – reduced the physical importance of the celebrities, as witness the phenomena of fan stalking, celebrity sighting activities and long lines at live celebrity appearances. So is the case with some religious sites and persons. Well-established pilgrimage sites have not lost their appeal in an age of digitised religion, and have arguably become even more attractive because of media exposure and cheaper air travel. Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca (the Hajj) have just about doubled (from 1.2 million to 2.35 million) in the period 1997-2017 (Jones 2017). Pilgrimage sites in other religions – for example the sites associated with the Buddha in Bihar, India, or Catholic sites such as the Vatican and the Scala Sancta in Rome – continue to be highly popular with visitors even in the age of

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digitised religion. It may well be that there is an inherent spiritual attraction to such sites – variously called a ‘sacred centre’, an ‘axis mundi’, a site of ‘communitas’ or spiritual ‘authenticity’ – that make them unique for adherents of those religions (Eliade 1969; Turner and Turner 1978; MacCannell 1973). Contributing to the uniqueness of some religious sites are (relatively immobile) physical properties such as religious relics, the presence of a holy community, and physical practices such as touching, immersion or proximity to the sacred person or object. Many religious sites are associated with relics or burial sites of holy figures, and attract visitors based on the belief that spiritual merit or miraculous power comes from touching or at least being in close proximity to such sites. There are also religious practices that are strongly dependent on touch or similar physical practices, including the ‘laying on of hands’ in prayer in charismatic Protestant Christianity, the Christian sacraments of baptism or anointing with holy water, the touching of or pointing to the Kaaba during the Muslim Hajj (‘the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia), and others. While charismatic preachers may have powerful online presences, there is often still a strong desire to seek the presence (and often the touch) of such persons of religious charisma. While these religious attributes and practices pose challenges to digitised religion, this is not to say that they are insuperable. Religions have always been adaptable to social changes, and technology seems to promise the most avenues for adaptation, perhaps even for these site- and presence-dependent practices. Some (like the various senses of religious ‘communitas’ or ‘authenticity’) are probably more amenable to digital adaptation than others (the unique relics like burial sites, the physical presence of the charismatic leader). Even for the latter, developments in digitised religion will probably result in an increasing hybridisation of their status, as partly physical and partly digital entities. There is a really interesting area of practice-research in religious leaders, software and digital content developers, and scholars coming together to both discuss and enable the digitised religious practices of the future, from the perspectives of both technology and religious practices. Other areas requiring more immediate scholarly attention include the performativity or narratology of digitised religion, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of different religions in terms of digital adaptation. The ethnography of digitised religious practices does not sufficiently consider the performative and discursive practices of thriving practices, and account for the ways in which these practices are successful vis-à-vis others. Digitisation and mediatisation seem to exacerbate the division between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ religious organisations (whether in relation to other organisations in the same religion, or in other religions). In Protestant Christianity, this divide

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is marked along big ‘megachurch’ and small ‘traditional mainline church’ lines. This divide does not sufficiently account for the intentional digital propensity and adaptability of the former, including in performative aspects such as the spectacle and staging of the church service, the discursive and semantic aspects of the messaging, the performativity of the congregants as a whole, the discursive structure of online platforms (for small groups, prayer, social mission and other activities), and so on. The same kinds of dimensions, mutatis mutandis, could fruitfully be discussed in other religions, and even across religions. Since the hypermobility of religious identities is significantly shaped by digitisation, the factors which predispose to successful and scalable digitised practices will also shape religious hypermobility. The continuing evolution of digitised religion is very likely going to be characterised by growing unevenness. In a very real way, there will be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of this uneven development, at least in the sense of reach, influence, and prioritisation. Religious practices – and religious organisations – that do not adapt well to digitisation may well recede to the background. This will affect the overall contour and shape of each religion, as it shapes the future religious practices in each religion. March 2020

References Eliade, M. (1969) The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Helland, C. (2000) ‘Online-Religion/Religion-Online and Virtual Communities’, in Hadden, J.K. and Cowan, D.E. (eds.), Religion on the Internet: Research Prospects and Promises, New York: JAI Press, pp. 205-223. Jones, C.L. (2017) ‘The Number of Muslims Undertaking the Hajj has Doubled in 20 Years. How is Mecca Coping?’, CityMetric, 6 November [Online], Available at: https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/number-muslims-undertaking-hajjhas-doubled-20-years-how-mecca-coping-3454 (Accessed 29 February 2020). MacCannell, D. (1973) ‘Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings’, American Journal of Sociology, 79(3), pp. 589-603. Turner, V.W. and Turner, E. (1978) Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives, New York: Columbia University Press. Walsh, P. (2007) ‘Rise and Fall of the Post-Photographic Museum: Technology and the Transformation of Art’, in Cameron, F. and Kenderdine, S. (eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A Critical Discourse, Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 19-34.

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About the author Robbie B. H. Goh is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. He works on Christianity in Asia and the diaspora, Indian Anglophone Literature and Popular Culture. Recent books include Protestant Christianity in the Indian Diaspora (SUNY Press, 2018), and Language, Space and Cultural Play: Theorising Affect in the Semiotic Landscape (with Lionel Wee, Cambridge UP, 2020).

Index accents 188, 213 acceptance 21, 68, 192, 223, 224, 228 actors 19, 53, 54, 96, 99, 103, 105, 128, 205, 206, 208, 216, 217 actor-network theory, also ANT 53, 54 Adelaide 68, 70, 72, 78‒81, 89 Africa 151, 165, 166 Allah 87, 231 Aman Palestin Australia 236, 237 American 21, 24, 33, 52, 151‒153, 155, 157, 164, 177, 179‒183, 185‒197, 203, 206, 208‒211, 215, 216 See also Asian American, Korean American amphitheatre 163 Anglican 69, 81, 89 Anglicised 166 anthropology 73, 76 anti-Muslim 225, 238, 239 Arakan 230, 234, 236 Aristotelian 205 art 20, 65, 66, 68‒70, 72‒77, 84, 85, 89, 90, 109, 233 galleries 66 practice 65, 66, 76 artificial intelligence, also AI 109, 110 Asia 12, 13, 19, 21, 22, 29, 88, 151, 163, 166, 168, 223, 226 Asian 12, 13, 20‒22, 181, 186‒189, 191‒193, 197 Asian American 21, 179‒183, 185-197 Asian Christian 197 Asia-Pacific 23, 24, 149 atheist 55, 67, 69, 96 Auckland 159 Australia 12, 20, 21, 66‒70, 79, 81, 151, 153, 154, 156‒9, 161, 165, 166, 168, 171, 172, 223, 224, 236‒240 Australian 68, 72, 77, 79, 154‒156, 158, 159, 161, 162, 171, 172, 237‒240 Australian Christian Churches, also ACC 156 Austria 248 authenticity 18, 47‒53, 55, 61, 62, 249 authoritarian 96, 102, 103, 225, 238 Awami League party 231 Bangla 234 Bangladesh 21, 223, 224, 230, 231, 233, 234, 238, 240 Bangladesh Nationalist Party 239 Bangladeshi 231, 232, 235 Baptist Theological Seminary 184 Barisan Nasional 234 beliefs 52, 55, 56, 60, 66, 68, 69, 73‒76, 79, 88, 89, 90, 125, 127, 129, 131, 168 belonging 14, 15, 19, 27, 29‒31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 65‒70, 73‒75, 77, 80, 86, 88‒90, 124, 135, 151, 152, 216, 242

Bengali 227 Bible 32, 34‒36, 39, 40, 61, 88, 125, 126, 128, 131, 132, 136, 137, 141, 142, 156, 165, 183, 186, 208, 210, 213 Bible school 39, 182, 186, 203 biblical 55, 128, 136, 155, 214 biracial 160, 166, 170, 248 BJP 226, 232 black 155, 169, 182, 183, 191, 192, 194, 195, 206 blessing(s) 95, 107, 154‒156, 102, 170 blog(s) 21, 47‒56, 58‒62, 105, 107, 123, 124, 139, 140, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187, 194, 195,233, 247 blogger(s) 20, 47, 49‒51, 54, 62, 106, 107, 111, 139, 186, 196, 230, 234, blogging (-ed) 20, 47, 49‒51, 58, 62, 106, 184, 185, 187 bourgeois 181, 215 Brexit 239 Buddha 81, 103, 104, 106, 112, 248 Buddhism 20, 21, 95‒115, 240 Buddhist(s) 69, 89, 95‒98, 100, 102‒115, 134, 207, 224‒240, 146, 147, 227, 246‒251, 253, 263 Buenous Aires 157 Burma 29, 35‒37, 40, 43, 228, 235 Burmese 31‒33, 35‒38, 40, 42, 224, 225, 227, 229, 230, 238, 240 Cantonese 164 capitalism 151, 154, 155, 171, 172 capitalist 95, 105‒107, 156, 196, catechism 136, 137 Catholic(s) 33, 37, 49, 52, 67, 82, 124, 135, 136, 140, 152‒154, 171, 185, 248, 273 Catholicism 34, 53, 90, 111, 163, 175 charisma(-tic) 149, 151, 153, 155, 159, 172, 209, 214, 226, 249 charity 80, 97, 102, 111, 112 Chengdu 124, 134, 139 Chicago 193, children 30, 65‒73, 76‒78, 80, 89, 90, 139, 162, 171, 186, 212, 215, 226, 237 China 20, 29, 95‒98, 101‒108, 110, 112‒115, 123‒127, 129‒131, 133‒135, 140‒143, 183, 185 Mainland China 20, 95‒98, 101, 102, 104‒107, 112‒115, 124, 135 Chinese 20, 22, 34, 38, 39, 47, 49, 55, 82, 83, 95, 96, 98, 101, 102, 104‒108, 110‒112, 114, 123‒137, 139‒143, 166, 183‒185, 187, 190 Malaysian Chinese 20, 47, 49, 55 Chinese Buddhist Association, also CBA 98, 101, 102, 104, 105, 108, 110, 112, 113, 116, 117 Chinese Christian(s) 20, 123‒132, 134‒143, 144, 147, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 Christ 140, 147, 153, 155, 171, 172, 180, 185, 188, 204, 205, 207‒209, 216

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Christian(s) 20, 21, 27‒29, 31‒33, 35, 36, 38, 43, 48‒51, 55‒59, 61, 62, 67, 69, 84, 123‒143, 149‒160, 164‒169, 171, 172, 180‒183, 185, 186, 189, 190, 193‒195, 197, 203, 204, 207, 208, 210, 214, 215, 224, 231, 239, 249 Singaporean Christian 154‒156 Christian Television Network 180 Christianity 21, 27, 47‒49, 55, 56, 60, 62, 84, 123, 124, 127, 129, 132, 135, 141, 150, 151, 154, 155, 157, 158, 162, 166, 167, 170, 171, 145, 148, 154, 164, 165, 169, 171, 179, 188, 190, 194, 203, 207, 208, 211, 240, 249 Catholic(s, -ism) 33, 37, 49, 52, 67, 82, 83, 104, 124, 135, 136, 140, 149, 150, 152‒154, 160, 169, 171, 185, 248 Evangelical(s, -ism) 21, 54, 154, 155, 158, 160, 168, 172, 179‒197 Pentecostal 155, 156 Protestant(s, ism) 83, 99, 104, 124‒126, 136, 139, 152‒154, 169, 171, 180, 207‒209, 211, 249 Presbyterian 191, 209, 212 Christmas 12, 82, 85 Church(es) 13, 17, 21, 29, 32‒38, 41, 42, 47, 48, 50, 69, 71‒73, 77‒81, 89, 124‒126, 128‒132, 134‒142, 149‒153‒169, 171, 179, 180, 182‒191, 194, 196‒197, 203, 204, 207‒217, 250 Hillsong 21, 149, 150, 153, 154, 156‒163, 170‒172 Onnuri Church 208, 209, 215 Church of Scientology 157 Woori Church 203, 210, 212 churchgoers 50, 164 clergy(-ies) 27, 29, 32, 95, 96, 98, 99, 102, 106, 124, 135, 138, 139, 142, 183, 210, 212 Colour, 75, 76, 88, 89, 160, 162, 182, 193‒196 Conferences 160 Sisterhood 160, 162 Communication(s) 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 27, 28, 31‒33, 39, 41, 47, 48, 53, 60‒62, 67, 84, 99, 103, 104, 108, 123, 125, 126, 129‒132, 134, 136, 138‒140, 151, 156, 168, 169, 204, 212 Communist Party 102, 139, 142 community(ies) 11, 12, 15, 17‒21, 27‒33, 35‒43, 48, 52, 65‒70, 72‒74, 77‒81, 84, 86, 89, 90, 95, 99, 103, 104, 107, 111, 114, 124‒129, 134, 135, 138, 141, 143, 150‒153, 180, 183, 186, 189, 192, 205, 207, 208, 210, 211, 216, 223, 224, 226, 227, 229, 233, 234, 237‒239, 240, 247‒249 digital 30‒33, 35, 39‒42, 129 religious 11, 20, 28, 30, 43, 90, 95, 107, 126, 248 computer 56, 59, 61, 103, 125, 135, 138 concept(s) 14, 15, 51, 53, 99, 107, 109, 111, 114, 115, 123, 125, 128, 189, 191, 192 Confucian 155, 207, 211 congregation 17, 21, 32, 36, 40, 42, 129, 135, 149, 150, 152, 153, 156, 157, 161‒163, 166, 168, 171, 179‒182, 184, 190, 197, 205, 209, 210, 216, 247

consumer(s, -ist, ism) 17, 18, 33, 152, 155, 170, 172, 213 contemporary 11, 30, 75, 95, 99, 105, 111, 113, 129, 150‒153, 155‒157, 160, 184, 185, 209, 211, 228, 173 content 11, 12, 15, 17, 27, 29‒36, 39, 43, 48, 49, 61, 110, 125, 130, 131, 134, 150, 187, 203‒206, 208‒217, 249 Copenhagen 157 Cox’s Bazar 231, 232, 240 creative 19, 67, 68, 105, 109, 196, 214 Cultural Revolution 201, 202 Culture(s, -al) 11‒18, 30, 38, 51, 53‒55, 61, 65‒68, 71, 73‒76, 78, 79, 82‒86, 88‒90, 97, 100, 102, 103‒107, 109, 111, 113, 114, 124, 125, 127‒129, 141, 149, 152, 155‒158, 160, 169, 171, 172, 181, 183‒187, 190, 193, 195‒197, 204, 206‒208, 211, 216, 230, 231, 233 material 65‒66, 73‒76, 83‒86, 88‒90 popular 109, 124, 125, 128, 141, 155, 193, 195, 230, 231, 233 cyber 16, 179, 181, 183, 185, 190, 191, 193, 194 cyberspace 16, 21, 51, 53, 179, 181, 190, 191, 196, 239 democracy(-tic) 18, 105, 225, 227, 231, 238 Diaspora 15, 125, 127, 142, 203, 204, 216, 224, 233, 236 digital age 14, 19, 29, 156, 227 accessibility 38 content 11, 33‒35, 216, 249 communication 33, 53 community(-ies) 30‒33, 35, 39‒42, 129 connectivity 28, 37 curates 204, 214, 215 diaspora(s) 15, 216 disruption 28 domain 16, 28, 31, 33 era 99, 103 ethnography 92, 150, 164, 165 landscape 15, 96, 101, 114 marketing 21, 155 media 11‒21, 27, 29‒43, 53, 62, 67, 73, 95, 96, 99, 102‒104, 106‒108, 111, 112, 114, 115, 138, 150, 161, 166, 170‒172, 203, 204, 206, 208, 211, 212, 214‒216, 223, 224, 229, 240, 247, 248 pastor 21, 170‒172, 188 platforms 21, 40, 41, 170, 172 religion 12, 16, 17, 100, 203, 216 space 15, 18, 19, 22, 28‒30, 37‒39, 42, 96, 97, 101, 150, 225, 228‒231 technology(-ies) 15, 17, 21, 27‒30, 33, 95, 96, 98, 100, 110, 114, 149, 150, 158, 172, 205, 206, 208, 211, 213, 224, 225 digitalisation(/zation) 34, 98 digitally 11‒13, 15, 17, 27‒30, 34, 38, 43, 130, 170, 171, 183, 204, 205, 209, 214, 216

Index

digitised practices 250 religion(-ious) 15‒18, 247‒250 society(ies) 14, 15, 17, 19 discourse(s) 18, 66, 71, 84, 96, 97, 100, 101, 104, 105, 107, 109, 112‒114, 142, 172, 179, 181, 211, 223, 224, 238 diverse (-ity,-ify, -ified, -ifying) 12, 13, 20, 50, 100, 103, 149, 152, 160, 183, 194, 195, 208, 210, 231, 247 dogma(s, -tic) 78, 81, 84, 86, 89, 90, 127, 128 domestic 35‒38, 40, 42, 43, 140, 195, 211, 215, 216 Easter 82, 85 e-commerce 124 economy(-ic) 13, 38, 51, 96, 105, 106, 113, 114, 151, 153, 154, 170, 171, 204, 206, 223, 224, 226, 228, 235 education 97, 102, 111, 112, 152, 155 Eid 80, 82, 83 email(s) 48, 187 emotion(al) 48, 50, 59, 70, 76‒78, 90, 138, 149, 151, 155, 211 English 84, 85, 89, 154, 155, 164, 180, 204, 229, 233, 234 ethnic 66, 124, 150, 160, 166, 169, 180, 226, 228, 230, 235, 236, 240 ethnography(-ic) 53, 54, 66‒68, 73, 74, 150, 197, 206, 249 ethno-religious 180, 223‒226, 234, Europe 23, 165, 166, 168, 223, 230 Evangelical(ism), see under Christianity Facebook 15, 19, 31‒39, 124, 125, 127, 129, 130‒132, 135, 136, 138, 149, 150, 156, 162, 164‒168, 181, 183, 197, 210, 224‒228, 230, 234, 235, 239, 247 faith 12, 17‒22, 32, 34, 36, 48, 52, 54, 55, 57‒59, 65‒69, 73‒80, 83, 84, 88‒90, 101, 105‒107, 113, 125, 126, 129, 134, 141‒143, 151, 157, 164, 165, 167, 170, 171, 180, 205, 212, 215, 216, 231 family(ies) 22, 33, 36, 40, 41, 43, 47, 55‒58, 61, 66, 69,72, 73, 77, 81, 83‒86, 89, 133, 151‒153, 159, 161, 166, 167, 172, 183, 189, 190, 207, 214, 216, 238 nuclear 152, 153 extended 40, 58, 81 France 157 gender 84, 210 Genesis 166 genocide 194, 228, 237, 240 Geography(-ies) 16, 30, 66‒68, 70, 88, 90, 191 Germany 157 global 12, 13, 19, 22, 33, 86, 96, 98, 105, 125‒127, 132, 134, 142, 149, 157‒159, 171, 185, 204, 208, 216, 233, 234, 240, 247 God(-dess) 34, 40, 55, 57‒59, 61, 87, 88, 128, 129, 134, 136, 156, 159, 160, 165, 167, 168, 213, 239

255 Google 167 gospel 33, 125, 126, 131, 138, 141, 149, 150, 153, 154, 165, 167, 170‒172, 180, 208, 209 Greek Orthodox 69 Hebrew 166, 184 heritaging 47, 51, 52, 54, 59, 61, 62 Hindu(s) 67, 69, 72, 226, 231‒233, 240 Hinduism 21, 99, 240 historical 65, 66, 73, 74, 83, 86, 101, 185 Hokkien 164 Holy Trinity 165 home 13, 29, 32, 33, 37, 41, 48, 51, 52, 55‒59, 61, 77, 84, 131, 152, 155, 166, 168, 214, 223, 234 Hong Kong 124, 136, 138, 141, 183‒185 host 19, 28, 51, 52, 54, 60, 188, 205, 211, 216, 224, 235 human rights 139, 228, 230, 231, 236, 239 hypermobility 250 identitarian 179, 181 identity(-ies) 11, 12, 15, 28, 36, 47, 49‒55, 59, 61, 62, 65‒67, 69, 73, 84, 86, 89, 99, 107, 111, 112, 132, 142, 143, 152‒154, 160, 166, 170, 179, 180, 190, 194, 195, 216, 223, 224, 226, 229, 234, 235, 240, 247, 250 ideology 83, 100, 105, 115, 181, 186, 194, 195, 231 India 29, 99, 102, 226, 232, 233, 248 Indonesia 29, 87, 126, 224, 233, 236 information 11, 18, 28, 29, 36, 39, 47, 48, 65‒67, 75, 84, 98‒102, 109, 110, 125, 126, 132, 133, 139, 140, 204, 205, 207, 211, 225 integration 14, 21, 107, 108, 111, 115, 123, 125, 129, 185, 191, 223, 224 interfaith 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 73, 228 Internet 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 29, 47‒50, 52‒54, 56, 60, 62, 99‒104, 107‒109, 111-113, 123‒126, 129, 133, 134, 136, 138, 139, 141, 142, 166, 168, 179, 181, 182, 184, 187, 189‒193, 196, 197, 207, 224, 227, 228 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) 56 Islam 21, 85, 87, 224, 226, 233‒235, 239, 240, 248 Islamic 12, 79, 85, 86, 206, 224, 229, 233, 235, 239, 240, 249 Islamophobic 239, 240 Israel 128, 157, 165, 166, 168, 236, 237 Jesus 128, 133, 138, 139, 161, 164, 165, 168, 172, 184, 186, 188, 213 jihad 226, 239 Kaladan Press Network 233 Karate Kid 186 Kashmir 232 Kiev 157 Korean 36, 41, 42, 203, 204, 206‒216 Korean-American(s) 21, 180, 188, 185, 197, 203, 207‒211, 216 Kuala Lumpur 56, 57, 234

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Religion, Hypermobilit y and Digital Media in Global Asia

landscape(s) 12, 13, 15, 29, 48, 65, 85, 89, 96, 101, 111, 113, 114, 119, 167, 168, 237 livestream(ing) 37, 203, 223 local 50, 66, 67, 86, 96, 97, 98, 105, 132, 134, 139, 140, 151, 168, 182, 185, 212, 216, 226 London 68, 70, 85, 161 Longquan Monastery 98, 107‒111, 113 Los Angeles 157, 180 Malays 235 Malaysia 20, 21, 36, 47, 49, 54‒56, 62, 87, 223, 224, 229, 233‒238, 240 Malaysian 47, 49, 55, 59, 233, 235‒237 Malayasian Chinese 20, 47, 49, 55 Manchester 7, 68, 70, 71 Mandarin, 1648** marriage 61, 114, 162, 166 material culture(s) 65‒67, 73‒76, 83‒86, 89, 90 practices 67, 86, 127 world 65, 112 materialist 67, 74‒77, 89 Materiality 18, 48, 65, 66, 67, 84, 89, 90 media 11‒21, 27, 29‒43, 48, 50, 52, 53, 62, 67, 73, 95‒112, 114, 115, 123‒136, 138‒142, 149‒151, 154, 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 167, 169‒172, 181, 193‒196, 203, 204, 206, 208, 210‒212, 214‒216, 223‒225, 228‒230, 232‒234, 239, 240, 247, 248 digital, see media under digital above social 12, 13, 19, 31, 34, 36, 38, 48, 52, 95‒97, 99, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 123‒136, 138‒142, 149‒151, 154, 161, 162, 164, 166, 169‒171, 181, 193, 196, 203, 208, 223, 225, 228‒230, 239, 240, 248 technology(-ies) 48, 96, 99‒101, 103, 106, 136, 150, 208, 211 medication 104 megachurch(es) 150‒155, 171, 172, 203, 208‒210, 216, Melbourne 68, 70, 79‒83, 87, 88 metaphysical 83, 84, 89 microblog 97, 98, 103‒108, 110, 111 migrant(s) 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 27‒29, 31‒43, 48, 51, 52, 54, 59‒61, 77, 78, 140, 197, 206, 207, 211, 212, 215‒217 migration 12, 13, 19, 20, 27, 37, 43, 47‒49, 51, 52‒55, 58, 59, 61, 62, 68, 69, 152, 238‒240 mobile application (apps) 103, 125, 203, 208 payments 124 phone 36, 103, 131, 208, 224 mobility(ies) 11‒13, 15, 16, 21, 37, 38, 67, 96, 99, 150, 155, 168, 170, 171, 247 Moscow 157 Mosque(s) 69, 71‒73, 79, 80, 89, 239 music 33, 81, 109, 157‒160, 186, 208, 215, 216 Muslim 11, 21, 67, 69, 78‒82, 85, 87, 89, 223, 225-228, 231, 233‒235, 237‒240, 248, 249

mutatis mutandis 275 Myanmar 21, 35, 37, 223‒228, 230, 234‒240 Naf River 231, 232 national 13, 14, 65, 66, 96, 100, 102, 142, 150, 160, 163, 169, 190, 195‒197, 216, 237 neo-Confucian 155, 196, 207, 211 Netherlands 157, 158, 167 netnography 97 New York 110, 157, 158, 167, 172 New Zealand 20, 21,49, 54, 55, 57‒59, 156, 159, 160 NextGenerAsian 180, 182, 197, 199, 206 North America(n) 52, 151‒155, 157, 165, 166, 182, 183, 188 Norway 52, 157, 168 offline 16, 20, 27, 31, 33‒35, 39, 41, 43, 49, 50, 53, 54, 61, 100, 139, 159, 216 online 15, 16, 20, 21, 27, 28, 31, 35, 37, 41-42, 47‒55, 58, 61, 62, 97‒104, 107, 111, 114, 115, 124‒127, 129‒132, 134, 139, 141, 142, 149, 156‒159, 161, 162, 164, 166, 169, 171, 172, 179‒183, 185‒190, 192‒197, 203‒206, 208, 210, 211, 214, 216, 217, 224, 228‒230, 232, 233, 236, 239, 247‒250, 252, 253, 255, 256, 259, 260, 262, 272‒275 orientalism(-sation) 181, 182, 185, 188, 194 Pacific 190, Pacific Islander 160 Pagan(ism) 69, 81, 88, 89 Painting(s) 70, 71, 73 Pakistan 223 Palestine(-ian) 236, 237 Papua New Guinea 238 Parent(s) 20, 47, 49, 55‒58, 60‒62, 65‒69, 72, 77, 79‒81, 83, 89, 90, 111, 226 PAS party 234 Pastor(s) 21, 39, 43, 36, 38, 135, 136, 138, 140, 149, 151-155, 159, 160, 162‒168, 170‒172, 183‒185, 189, 190, 203, 204, 207‒211, 213‒216 People’s Liberation Army also PLA 185 philanthropy 97, 105, 113, 114 Phoenix 157 physical 13, 14, 17, 20, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 59, 67, 68, 78, 84, 85, 129, 131, 138, 142, 149, 151‒153, 180, 196, 205, 213, 237, 247‒249 platform(s), 12, 17, 29, 36, 40, 41, 42, 47‒49, 56, 60, 98, 123, 124, 127, 132, 135, 150, 157, 161, 164, 166, 169‒172, 203, 210, 215, 225, 229, 233,240, 247, 250 pluralistic 100, 149 political 15, 20, 48, 52, 55, 73, 83, 96, 102, 104, 105, 113, 114, 123‒125, 133, 135, 137, 139‒143, 194, 205, 210, 229, 231, 233, 234, 237, 240 Portugal 157

Index

practice(s) 11‒17, 20, 28, 31, 35, 36, 40, 41, 47, 48, 51‒56, 59, 61, 65‒67, 69‒71, 74‒76,79, 80, 83, 84, 86‒90, 96, 97, 99‒101, 104, 105, 107, 111‒115, 123, 125‒127, 129‒132, 137, 139, 141, 142, 143, 149, 150, 180, 185, 190, 191, 193, 204‒206, 208, 211, 215, 216, 247, 249, 250 prayer(s) 31, 40, 41, 67, 83, 87‒89, 125, 126, 128, 131‒133, 138, 142, 162, 166, 180, 215, 249, 250 preacher(s) 21, 22, 126, 130, 132, 139, 150, 183, 197, 203‒206, 208, 212‒215, 217, 249 preaching, 20, 21, 95, 103, 108, 109, 131, 150, 165, 167, 168, 180, 203‒207, 213, 214, 216, 217, 228 prophecy 170 Protestant(s) 83, 99, 124‒126, 136, 139, 152‒154, 169, 171, 207, 208, 211, 249 QQ 103, 124, 126, 127, 135, 136 racism 180, 188, 191, 192, 235 Rakhine 223, 226, 227, 230, 235 Ramadan/Ramzan 80, 82, 83, 87 Reclaim Australia 239 Red Guard 183‒185, 188 refugee(s) 13, 223, 224, 231-235, 237‒240 relationship(s) 13, 14, 19, 28, 35,48, 49, 51, 53‒58, 60, 65‒67, 69, 72, 75, 85‒87, 90, 95, 96, 100‒102, 104, 105, 114, 128, 131, 151, 189, 204, 207 religion(s) 11, 12, 15‒22, 27, 28, 30, 34‒36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 47,48, 50‒54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 65, 67‒79, 83‒90, 95‒97, 99‒101, 104‒107, 110‒112, 114, 123‒129, 134, 137, 140‒142, 152, 154, 156, 158, 159, 180, 183, 203‒205, 207, 210, 211, 216, 223, 224, 226, 235, 240, 247‒250 religious 11, 12, 16‒22, 27‒36, 39‒41, 47‒55, 57, 60‒62, 65‒69, 71‒77, 79, 81‒84, 86‒90, 95‒102, 104‒108, 111‒113, 123‒132, 137‒143, 149-150, 152, 156, 157, 158, 171, 203‒216, 223‒229, 231‒234, 237, 238, 240, 245, 247‒250 identity(-ies) 36, 47, 50, 52, 55, 67, 89, 111, 112, 143, 223, 224, 247, 250 institutions 49, 77, 100, 205, 53, 225 leaders 17, 21, 22, 48, 72, 100, 113, 213, 248, 249 Rickshaw Rally 183, 185‒187, 189 Rohingya(s) 21, 223, 224, 226‒240 Rome 248 salvation 128, 141, 150, 183 Salvation Army 159 San Francisco 157 Saudi Arabia 87, 233, 249 School(s) 39, 66‒73, 80‒82, 85, 90, 96, 114, 113, 114, 136, 156, 161, 183, 186, 190, 215 scientism 111, 112 scripture(s) 73, 103, 112, 128, 180, 183, 197 secular 20, 67, 84, 95, 99, 100, 106, 108, 112, 114, 128, 132, 165, 166, 171, 172, 194, 215, 231

257 Seoul 203, 208‒210, 213 sermon(s) 33, 41, 83, 126, 149, 156, 157, 159, 161, 162, 166, 184, 203‒208, 210, 212‒216, 225 Singapore 20, 21, 27‒29, 31, 32, 35‒37, 39, 40, 43, 99, 102, 124, 126, 129, 131, 140, 153‒155, 156, 163, 164, 166, 168, 171 Singaporean(s) 36, 41, 100, 154‒156, 166, 172 Sinhalese 226 smartphone(s) 28, 33, 135, 224, social 12‒15, 17‒19, 22, 28, 30‒31, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 48, 49, 51‒53, 61, 62, 65‒67, 70, 76, 81, 83‒86, 90, 95‒100, 102, 104‒107, 109‒111, 114, 115, 123, 118, 120, 123‒136, 138‒143, 149‒155, 161, 162, 164, 166, 168‒171, 181, 193, 196, 197, 203‒205, 207, 208, 211, 214‒216, 223‒226, 228‒230, 237‒240, 248‒250 media, see social under media above media apps 99, 130, 138 reality(-ies) 95, 111 theory 100 values 66, 90 social-economic, variant socioeconomic 66, 83, 150, 154, 155, 164, 171, 172, 188 socio-cultural, variant sociocultural 12, 13, 28, 54, 79, 98, 99, 151, 208 socio-discursive interactions 97 software 29, 126, 249 South Africa 157 South Korea 21, 29, 203, 207, 208 space 12, 14‒16, 18, 19, 22, 27, 28, 32, 33, 36‒39, 42, 43, 50, 71, 72, 78, 79, 99‒101, 111, 115, 129, 131, 132, 138, 149, 150, 181, 185, 189, 191, 194‒197, 225, 228, 229‒231, 248 Spain 157 spiritual 13, 19‒21, 30, 33, 47‒62, 96, 101, 104, 106, 107, 109, 112, 113, 126, 128, 129, 132, 136, 149, 150, 151‒157, 170, 203, 204, 214, 216, 247‒249 activity(-ies) 47, 51 authority 21, 48, 51, 203, 204, 216 beliefs 55 spirituality 47, 50, 76, 95, 96, 99, 100, 106, 109, 110, 156, 170, 209 structure(d) 19, 20, 40, 69, 78, 81, 83, 110, 114, 124, 154, 159, 169, 207, 211, 215, 250, 123, 134, 232, 233 suburbs 152, 184, 212 Sweden 157 Swiss Alps 167, 168 Switzerland 152 Sydney 68, 156, 157,157, 239 Taiwan 20, 97, 98, 101, 102, 105, 106, 115, 124, 139, 141 Taiwanese 19, 97, 101, 111 Taoist 13, 55, 56 technology(-ies), See technology under Media television 157, 161, 164‒166, 168, 208, 229, 232, 233 temporal 149, 150

258 

Religion, Hypermobilit y and Digital Media in Global Asia

terrorists(-ism) 224, 227, 239 text 43, 50, 56, 84, 129, 169, 187, 206 textual 49, 73, 74, 75, 83, 103 Thailand 224, 226, 233 The Daily Telegraph 161 the Grace Revolution 166‒168 the Holy Spirit 165 the United Kingdom, also, UK 20, 66, 157, 168 the United States also U.S. 21, 33, 135, 151, 152, 159, 168, 180, 184, 188, 203, 204, 206, 207, 209, 211‒214, 223, 237, 240 The World Bank 226 theologian(s) 180, 189 theological 47, 97, 102, 105, 111, 114, 124, 126, 141, 155, 170, 171, 184, 189, 190, 196 theology(-ies) 49, 55, 97, 126, 154, 156, 166, 170‒172, 188 theory(-ies) 53, 54, 100, 105, 169, 216, 235 theoretical 17, 50, 54, 65, 67, 101, 113, 128, 150 Tibet 99, 139 time 12‒14, 16, 19, 20, 22, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35‒38, 40, 43, 51, 55‒60, 68, 69, 75, 80, 82‒84, 86, 99, 100, 107, 109, 112‒114, 126, 128, 131, 132, 134, 138, 141, 149, 150, 156, 170, 171, 183‒187, 190, 192, 195, 205, 214‒216, 223, 224, 230, 232, 234, 247, 248 tradition(s) 51, 74, 75, 80, 81, 83, 84, 100, 158, 189 transnational 11‒14, 18‒21, 27, 30, 48, 62, 67, 96, 99, 123‒129, 131, 134, 135, 138, 140‒143, 149, 168, 203‒209, 211, 216, 217, 240 actors 205, 206, 208, 216, 217 audience 203, 206, 209 communities 205, 207, 208, 229 Trumpism 239 Tudou 123, 125 Twitter 125, 162, 164, 166, 167, 182, 188, 191‒193, 229, 230, 235, 252, 258 Tzu Chi 19, 97, 98, 102, 103, 105

Umbrella Movement 185 United Colours of Benneton 160 United Nations 237, 240 UNICEF 232 Human Rights 236, 228 United Patriots Front 239 Vatican 19, 141, 248 Viber 40, 41 visual 31, 65‒68, 73, 83, 99, 150, 157, 166, 169 virtual 21, 35, 48, 53, 59, 191, 197, 223, 224, 228 website(s) 47, 97, 98, 103, 106, 109, 110, 125, 126, 150, 151, 156‒158, 160, 162, 163, 165‒169, 191, 192, 194, 203, 208, 210, 215 webpage(s) 158, 160, 162, 223 WeChat 8, 39, 103, 109, 110, 123‒124, 125, 130, 133‒136 Weibo 97, 103, 123, 125, 127, 132, 135 Weixin 130, 132, 133 WeMalaysia 237, 260 western 12, 33, 79, 83, 104, 236, 237 white 77, 83, 84, 88, 127, 153, 155, 181‒182,186‒191, 193‒197, 206, 212, 240 workshop(s) 16, 65, 66, 68‒70, 72, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85 World Wide Web 19, 47 worship 22, 31‒33, 66, 69, 71, 74, 79, 80, 86, 88, 90, 129‒132, 138, 150‒153, 155, 157‒159, 164, 180, 181, 203, 206‒210, 214, 21637, writing 49, 54, 55, 59, 60, 62, 68, 158, 186 Xinjiang 139 Yangon 228, 230 young(-er, -ster) 33, 65, 67, 77, 79, 89, 131, 152‒154, 156‒160, 162, 171, 186, 214, 229, 232 YouTube 41, 125, 159, 164, 167, 171, 204, 210, 215, 225, 229, 230, 233, 234