In this episode of BBC Radio 4’s Beyond Belief, chaired by Dr Katie Edwards of the University of Sheffield, I was invited to share some of my thoughts as an anthropologist on religion’s move online during the Coronavirus pandemic. I ‘sat’ (virtually) alongside religious leaders Imam Abdullah Hassan, Swami Ambikanda Sawaswati, and Adrian Harris, Head of Digital at the Church of England.

The potential space for online communication and community offered by the Internet has always been used by religions. From the earliest days of USENET groups in the 1980s, spiritual and religious ideas were shared on sprawling text-based forums. New technologies brought new spaces. Not just forum boards but also virtual spaces where users could see ‘avatars’, digital representations of other players. Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games like World of Warcraft created their own religious lore full of gods and demons. But they also enabled online missionaries to form like-minded guilds to evangelise to other players about god IRL (In Real Life). Second Life offered more ways of appearing online in avatar form as well as the ability to hold online conferences in virtual spaces designed for that purpose. Some built their own islands inspired by their movement’s visions of the future. Minecraft’s pixellated blocks have also been used to create virtual spaces for communities. St Peter’s Basilica has been replicated many times already by Minecraft enthusiasts, down to the last marble Saint. And now the Vatican has its own Minecraft server. Social Media has provided other ways of interacting: live streaming on Facebook and YouTube, Instagram stories, and shared hashtags on Twitter that draw together conversations and allow for interaction. And amongst all this, new religious forms have appeared from the discussions that did not fit into the mainstream religions’ existing theologies, but which might find like minds online.

However it seems that, during this time of global Pandemic and lockdown, religions are moving online in higher numbers and utilising the potential of the technology with even greater enthusiasm. This is born out of a need to maintain community, of course. Although, there have been discussions from the outset about whether virtual community would ever be enough for religious believers. They are used to greeting their neighbours, interacting with them during rituals, and sharing a non-virtual space that has perhaps been in use for hundreds of years and comes with the weight of tradition and authority. Sometimes these conversations bear in mind that for some disadvantaged people, religion online has long been the only way they could share in that community. Sometimes they don’t.

Will we see a return to the dominance of the offline space with some online activities, or a rebalancing of priorities between the online and the offline options offered by religions? Will the new religious movements who’ve existed online all this time be treated as more legitimate than they have been previously? Will new people arriving online to ‘do’ religion for the first time be exposed to some of the more dangerous aspects of sharing and receiving ideas online? Will they be taken in by dubious ‘spiritual gurus’ offering fake COVID-19 cures? Will the algorithms behind the scenes on social media lead to misinformation and extremism? As with many other aspects of our current situation, it is hard to make predictions about what a post-lockdown world will look like, but this episode of Beyond Belief brought together some interesting perspectives and responses.