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Spirituality for the Twenty First Century

I had the good fortune to catch up with my good friend Barry Taylor today in London as he passed through. He has always inspired me, ever since we met at an event at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. This time in our explorations over a coffee, we explored the issue of spirituality coming out of a digital and technological age. Some know that I am considering starting a PhD in this area, and I was really encouraged to hear that others are pashed up about it as well. In fact, Barry, who is always miles ahead of my thinking, has already written a book on it, which I have ordered – which looks at the whole issue of spirituality being driven by deep things within contemporary culture. It is called Entertainment Theology. I am still reflecting on the conversation, how spirituality has become the new religion, and yet, we don’t really know yet what people mean by spirituality. It is still emerging.

I am hoping that in my book tour of the States and Canada in June, that I will be dropping in to LA to do some work with Barry, as it is always a pleasure

POSTED 03.05.08 BY: admin | Comments (9)

9 Responses to “Spirituality for the Twenty First Century”

  1. On May 3rd, 2008 at 7:00 am Michael Radcliffe said:

    That sounds realy interesting. I think it’s probably why I’ve never liked the term “spirituality”, as its become a bit of a “catch all” term that is very pick-and-mix.It’s great as starting point for talking to people, but as a modus operandi, it can fall very much in the realms of entertainment.I’ll be interested to see how this conversation develops – let us know.

  2. On May 3rd, 2008 at 8:48 am Nic said:

    Totally agree Ian— bang-on! I think the notion of ‘digital spirituality’ or quantum faith is fascinating. Digitality, if that is a word, has effected us all, postmodernity and pervasive media go hand in hand— each one informing the other. Theology inevitably will be influenced by mash-up, recombinant culture. I think this is one of the many trajectories that ‘alt worship’ could take— applying an evolutionary model to theology and growing it collaboratively.On HG, I keep wanting to post on the question: will my fridge go to heaven? As more and more objects (spimes) carry data shadows and bio-engineering continues to advance our landscape is only going to get more intelligent and hybridized. On paper you can interface anything with anything else, you just need a good UI. How will theology engage with this ‘denser now’, the weave of sentient landscapes? We need a new theology that deals with emerging agency. Which brings me back to the fridge question. Does mission become irrelevant in a scenario where your technology is more ‘human’ and more intelligent than you are? Will we continue to privilege a few ‘meat space’ inhabitants, or will we be inviting our new bio-digital friends to alpha? A situation where there is no difference between our machines and our selves exists. It kind of reveals the arbitrariness of our contemporary dualistic categories, culture-nature, subject-object, human-animal, Christian-non Christian. We need a new theology of multiplicity.This conversation echoes Kes’s question at the beginning of the year about 21st century theology and faith. I think a ‘qbit’ faith can be explored and birthed by engagement on two key fronts. The first is through collaboration and co-creation, which of course, you are already doing— the second, is engagement with pervasive media. More importantly, the two need to be brought together via collectives experimenting with new technologies and realities.If this all sounds too far fetched, Science fiction and theology are both speculative projects!-) Great conversation Ian, I think its really exciting.

  3. On May 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm carey said:

    Sorry Nic, you’ve completely lost me there! HG, UI & qbit – eh?

  4. On May 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 pm Nic said:

    Sorry, my fault. HG is HauntedGeographies. A qubit or qbit is a quantum bit. Currently bits register as either a 1 or a zero. A qbit has the ability to register 1 and 0 at the same time— very slippery indeed. It lies at the heart of the quantum-computing dream. A UI is a user interface, the thing that connects errant and diverse metasystems. Apologies again, its been my world for six months, gone a little stir crazy.BTW, I always think you can describe Pete Rollins project as ‘qbit faith’— oscillating and vibratory. I’m not sure he’d agree though.

  5. On May 4th, 2008 at 10:19 pm Ian said:

    Good to see my post has kicked off a response…Blimey Nic – you have obviously been thinking about this a bit, I think you are way ahead of me. I was thinking more along the lines of Techgnosis or experience of the hyper-real – of a new form of transcendence driven by technology as a form of new mysticism. I need to read Barry Taylors book – following on from Eric’s Techgnosis and Caputo’s On Religion…

  6. On May 5th, 2008 at 7:45 am Nic said:

    Yea, Techgnosis is a great book— inspiring and digestible. I love his term ‘de-regulating’ reality! This whole territory fascinates me, whether it’s a return to, twin track, medieval notions of reality or artificial intelligence. It all falls into the wider field of technology and spirituality. For me, this is a classic haunted geography, something that moves into the area of ‘hauntology’. How design, spirituality (for want of a better word) and Communication spaces operate and relate to each other. Explorations of ‘Digital Place’ might be just one example of this. There are so many aspects to this conversation. I’ve always thought that alt-worship’s greatest legacy was its comfortableness with technology. This conversation is a natural extension of the AW project— its digital sensibility.Nice one Ian.

  7. On May 5th, 2008 at 9:13 pm Ian said:

    That’s interesting – never heard of the word hautology before. So are you approaching this as a new sensibility, or something more physical – you used the word ‘place’. Is it technology driving new perceptions or are we talking about new forms of reality… still thinking it all throughIan

  8. On May 6th, 2008 at 8:18 am Nic said:

    I’ll get back to you on those questions. ‘Hauntology’ is from Derrida, he’s playing with the spectral nature of ontology.

  9. On May 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm Nic said:

    On reflection, I see a ‘digital sensibility’ as both, a mixture of idealism and realism. That’s why I’m skeptical of straight object-subject dualities— it’s other or thirdplace.Also, I’m not sure if its possible to untangle technology, perception and species of reality. They all effect each other.Henri Lefebvre is really useful for exploring these new spaces, he talks about a trialectic of space— constant movements across the real and imagined.Sorry, like you, not really thought a lot of this through. It’s an exciting space.