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
