Religious Authenticity

My entry this week has to do with religious authenticity. Most religions we have in our culture are deeply rooted in history and tradition, authenticating the legitimacy of their rules and regulations when it comes to how people practice them. This notion spans a wide variety of aspects of the way people live their lives, and the internet is no different. The internet can be a very volatile and wide open space that can be exploited to fulfill any desire; so when it comes to religion, the internet can be a challenging area for religious leaders to influence the way their followers interact with it. In my opinion, because of the lack of formal religious based law, religious leaders of all religions use their culture, tradition, and apparent authority to merely influence the behavior of their followers. That being said, religious-minded people tend to treat the "rules" of their faith to dictate every aspect of their lives, including online interactions. People tend to project their beliefs online, and some even exaggerate them. The problem therein lies in accountability. When someone is online, there isn't anyone to regulate what they say or do, so it is easy for someone to be either an exaggerated version of themselves or even someone else entirely. It isn't hard for someone to take the ideas and belief system they learned from their offline interactions with religion, and use the web as an amplifier. The contemporary rise in the influence of the internet has had a tremendous impact on the offline aspects of religion. The internet and how to interact with it is something totally new to religious leaders and it is definitely changing how people interact with religion in their daily lives. I think the offline and online contexts are definitely in a blended state. It is becoming difficult to draw the line between what is okay for people involved with religion to do online, and what isn't. There seems to be a ton of overlap between the two, judging from what I've seen specifically in the online RPGs where someone can make an avatar and legitimately practice whatever religion they want without actually ever practicing in real life. But then comes the problem of who has the right to legitimize online religious activities. The case of online vs offline religious authority proves to be a challenging one.

Religious Authority

      This week's post has to do with authority and how my topic relates to religious authority. My topic, arguing the legitimacy and appropriateness of religion's place in politics, tends to be less concerned with religious authority in terms of physical hierarchy or religious texts and their interpretation. That being said, when referring to authority in the realm of ideology and/or structure, religion's place in politics begins to be a little more relevant.
      When it comes to structure, an interesting dynamic arises in that, in the American constitution, in the first amendment, there is clearly a precedent of separation of church and state, but when you take a look at contemporary politics, religion, especially in terms of campaigns, religion seems to make a huge impression on politics. Many times a politician or hopeful politician will both use their religious affiliation to leverage their legitimacy and gain the support of people who would otherwise be a little more unbiased, and to also use the religion and beliefs of their opposition to gain an edge support wise. In my opinion, this recent development in religious interference in political discussion and propogation is a direct violation of separation of church and state, yet it seems so ingrained in our culture that it doesn't seem to be talked about all that often.
      In terms of the ideology definition of authority in religion, I think the most important aspect to focus on in terms of religion in politics is the sense of shared identity. To be more specific, the sense of shared identity is essential to any campaign for public office. In order to put together any successful campaign, it is important to align oneself with different communities of people to reach as many voters as possible. Some of the largest communities we have in America are religious, so naturally it would make sense to adjust a campaign scheme to make sure to play on religious cultural cues in order to gain the vote of that community. The alignment of a certain politicians religious identity with a community of people can be a key to creating the idea of shared identity between the targeted religious community and the political hopeful.