Rhizomatic religious belonging in times of the fourth industrial revolution

Abstract

Digital innovations are increasingly impacting our lives. While ‘offline’ religious practices and material religious culture had already been culminating in hybrid forms of religious belonging, such as rhizomatic religious belonging, technological innovations, and the digitalization of the immanent frame in which we engage in religious cultures complicates this picture even more. In this article, I will argue in favor of the conceptual frame of rhizomatic belonging to understand the negotiation of religious diversity in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I argue that a post-human religion is emerging, which, instead of being fragmented, individualized, or generally ‘lost’, is a transformation towards a new form of belonging, in which care, community, and play are elements. These post-human assemblages of rhizomatic religious belonging emerge at the intersection of digital culture and ‘offline’ material life. TikTok and Instagram become powerful tools for ‘Generation Z’ to explore new networks of religious connections. Digital dimensions of religion, such as the live streaming of the death wake of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, and the development of artificial intelligence as vicarious religious actors are expressions of new forms of religious constellations that are strongly impacting the affective and phenomenological experiences of religious belonging. I will conclude that ‘belonging’ in the digital age is fundamental in understanding the challenges of our times and our communities because it elicits sentiments of ‘feeling at home’ in a dynamic world in crisis.