From Radical Communalism to Virtual Community

Abstract

The emergence of digital and internet technologies has created new spaces for religious engagement and introduced alternative venues for community-building, identity construction, and religious practice for marginalized new religions. Ethnographic research on the Family International’s reconfiguration as an online community, subsequent to a sweeping reorganization introduced in 2010 referred to as “the Reboot,” explores the role its integration of digital media and virtual spaces played in the renegotiation of the movement’s religious identity and community. The movement’s journey to networked community affords insights into transformative ways that religious culture may be reconstituted through digital engagement, and the challenges new religious movements face in retaining community boundaries and distinctive identity within the interconnected and increasingly globalized context of today’s digitized world.