The world is clearly becoming more spiritual than religious. In an increasingly more inter-connected, information saturated society where the natural human ideals of freedom and pluralism are becoming central to the tenants of governance across the globe, identities are becoming more and more fluid. Faith just like social media profiles has become the corner stone of 21st century identity and this post-modern social order has created a conscience against the institutional nature of religion. The beauty and success of social media platforms, is the freedom, ease, volatility and mutation of expression and ideas which circulate the online ether – change and re-change with time. In this world – the institutional framework of religion – is finding itself cornered in fewer and fewer undemocratic societal settings — be it a country, a community or a family unit.
When Rupert Murdoch bought the social networking site MySpace for $580 million in 2005 to expand his media empire to cyberspace, he tested his model of content commoditization and regulation. MySpace soon tanked and Murdoch was forced to offload the site for less than half the money he had spent. This in my opinion is the future of religion, signs of which are already evident across the world. Those who consider faith to the inextricably linked to identity, are likely to cut the institutional middle men and rituals, to achieve a personalized and subjective relationship with a higher power. On the other hand, those who live in a system where institutional faith or singular ideologies are entrenched in the political system – are likely to be attracted to ‘unorganized’ faith narratives with the ‘self’ at the center – like Zen, Buddhism, Shintoism and Hinduism amongst others. The simple social evolution of mankind in an environment of expressional freedom and volatile organization is working to make faith a more salient tie-up of just Man and God – high on self-symbolism, but a gradual loss of focus on regiments, lineage or attendance at places of worship.
Earlier, religious sites like churches, temples and mosques used to be the prime centers of social and intellectual authority. With the advent of cyberspace and the liberation of opinion – intellectual authority has become more and more fractured, and so has man’s ability to understand God. In that scenario, faith will gradually mold and re-mold around core humanist beliefs, re-enforced by widely accepted social justice norms – yet expression will become highly subjective down to the very individual. 21st century piety will be completely disconnected from a traditional line of faith diktats. Social groups who have traditionally been kept away from certain faith systems will find themselves in not only a more favorable environment, but will have the opportunity, even the legitimacy to negotiate and re-negotiate their concept of god and religion. Even as there is already a fledgling yet sustained movement towards spiritual plurality, traditionalists and extremists are hitting back with seclusion, persecution politics, paranoia and even violence. But they have already lost the ideological battle. Their role is already being seen as medieval and outdated, a hindrance to more universal and individualistic spiritual identities, where there are no pre-requisite rules or parameters to adopt faith.
One of the passages in the Gospel of Saint Thomas, a Coptic Christian text with the words of Jesus says — “The Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up
the stone, and you will find Me”. This is the core belief of every faith, even if some are clearer than others. We are shifting, although not harmoniously, to adopt these tenets in our spiritual experience and become the sole negotiators of our relationship with a higher power. The progress is natural, and reflects our basic human trait to seek ideological liberation.