Brasher, Brenda E. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 2001. 194 pp., $24.95 (USD). ISBN: 0-7879-4579-X.
[1] As a marketing professor with an interest in religion
in general and with on-line religious delivery systems in particular,
I looked forward to writing a review of Brasher’s Give
Me That Online Religion. Based on my interests and the
title of the book, I had expected that what I would be reading would
be a book dealing with how religious institutions, including those
within various Protestant denominations in particular who regularly
use the internet as a proselytizing tool, are using the internet
and advancements in streaming video to enhance the manner in which
today’s evangelists reach their congregations. These
presuppositions were based solely on my particular interpretation
of the title. What I encountered, however, was a book that
was almost a primer on the philosophy of Internet use in the context
of religion and cyberspace regardless of one’s faith. This
was not all bad.
[2] In the eight chapters comprising the book, Brasher covers
a wide range of topics dealing with the growth and movement of electronic
religion, but not in the way one might think. In the broadest
sense. the chapters deal not with any one religious movement in
particular, as I had initially hoped, but with the entire scope
of online religion—where it has been, where it is going, and
its impact on religion in general. Brasher discusses a wide
variety of issues, including religion in cyberspace, (cyber)space
and sacred time, virtual pilgrimages, and (for the more philosophy-minded)
virtual prophets, existential doubt, and whether or not cyborgs
have souls. She states her intentions early, writing, “The
temple itself is gone. The heavy smell of flower and fruit
offerings has vanished. In sum, the transition from temple
to screen, a radical alteration of the sense stimulation integral
to Hindu worship has silently taken place. Consequently, the
religious experience itself has been altered” (4). This
is representative of the direction the book then takes, directing
the reader along a journey through religious cyberspace.
[3] Brasher’s chapter introductions provide the reader
with a clear sense of the breadth of the volume. One chapter
discusses what a profoundly different experience it is to interact
via computer with an online Hindu temple (“A Revolution in
the Making”). Another explores how religionists are
seeking ways to apply universal values such as good and evil to
virtual space (“Cyber-Virtue and Cyber-Vice”). A
third examines the first (now-seemingly prophetic) non-military
use of electronically linked computers for an impassioned discussion
between Star Trek fans (“Virtual Shrines and the Cult
of Celebrity”).
[4] Overall, Brenda Brasher has put together a highly readable book
that takes the reader through various dimensions of the online religion
phenomenon. Different readers will experience this work in different
ways; nonetheless, after reading it they will have difficulty
not identifying Brasher with the many influences the Internet has
had on our lives, on our ways of thinking, and more specifically, on
our experiences of religion—where it has been and, more importantly,
where it is going. Cited by the Christian Science Monitor as
one of the best books in religion in 2001, Give Me That Online
Religion is definitely a book for anyone even slightly interested
in the development of religion via new delivery systems. If
you are one of these people, then by all means read it.
Peter Maresco
Sacred Heart University
marescop@sacredheart.edu
