https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to social media en https://religiondispatches.org/2025/07/18/terminally-online-trump-administration-uses-social-media-frame-its-anti-immigrant-agenda Black helicopters roll over the tarmac. From off screen we hear a voice with a generic Southern accent casually intone: “Here’s a Bible verse I think about sometimes, many times. It goes…” The images flashing on the screen settle on… Fri, 18 Jul 2025 05:44:46 EDT Annika Brockschmidt, Thomas Lecaque dbf60c8e-bac5-4487-b1e3-f0f5319dc153 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/10/25/do-they-even-read-bible-why-exposing-white-evangelical-hypocrisy-dead-end Almost every day I run across some version of this Twitter interaction: Original Tweet: Bible/Jesus/God says Comment: Haven’t you read ? Christians who purport to love the Bible never seem to read it! Examples of this phenomenon abound. If you’re… Tue, 25 Oct 2022 03:07:31 EDT Cavan Concannon 214e93d9-aefb-4fb3-8ba2-c73c0c71d3ab https://religiondispatches.org/2022/03/07/same-toxic-christian-right-theology-supports-both-online-bullying-i-experienced-and In late February, I went through an episode of online bullying that made me feel more dehumanized than I ever had since coming out as a transgender woman, leading to several days of heightened depressive symptoms and low productivity. The… Mon, 07 Mar 2022 04:28:16 EST Chrissy Stroop eec3237e-963f-4475-b28e-ac8862aea1ca https://religiondispatches.org/2021/05/07/what-facebook-unwittingly-reveals-its-ban-lifesitenews-covid-misinformation Facebook’s ban of LifeSiteNews a notoriously ultraconservative website that regularly spreads disinformation about abortion — for its COVID violations — puts into sharp relief the tolerance of misogyny and violence against women on Facebook and in our culture more broadly… Fri, 07 May 2021 01:12:01 EDT Rebecca Todd Peters fdab027d-6057-4e57-94c3-ea324f7b1c0f https://religiondispatches.org/2017/06/21/meeting-minds-and-computers-what-are-costs-using-technology-merge-humans-machines Facebook and Elon Musk have recently announced ventures that could transform what it means to be human. The potential is enormous—but so are the risks. Wed, 21 Jun 2017 04:07:12 EDT Jeremy Lent 1cbca7a7-6430-47a5-a42b-51bec3a71111 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/06/07/meeting-bridge-fr-james-martins-ministry-lgbt-catholics-becomes-book A few years ago, the idea of a “celebrity Jesuit” would have puzzled most Americans. That was not only before the election of the first Jesuit pope, but also before Fr. James Martin began appearing on The Colbert Report, and… Wed, 07 Jun 2017 04:00:12 EDT Kaya Oakes 1f0ee5a4-94a3-484e-b479-4ff22f084f42 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/05/25/exvangelical-podcast-safe-space-those-living-leaving-or-coming-terms-evangelicalism In June 2015, I asserted here on RD that “we need to listen to the voices of those who have been harmed by the fundamentalist tendencies in evangelicalism,” and that “we need to center the voices of LGBTQ youth, such… Thu, 25 May 2017 01:26:21 EDT Chrissy Stroop 8587f344-ded5-4b43-8458-88c3b8417976 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/11/06/reason-worry-anti-semitism-scholar-opens-trump-misogyny-and-future-anti-judaism David Nirenberg, historian of Judaism, spoke with RD about Twitter, Trump, and the parallels between anti-Semitism and misogyny. Sun, 06 Nov 2016 06:00:30 EST Michael Schulson 4ca01bb0-e052-43d1-8e29-57ad4b160f45 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/07/13/when-auschwitz-becomes-poke-stop Last week we watched death on our smartphones. We witnessed the light drain out of Philando Castile’s eyes and we knew that the stillness of Alton Sterling’s body after the bullets were fired was that of death. We watched. On… Wed, 13 Jul 2016 02:26:43 EDT Karen E. Park f83b6fb9-d2fe-4481-b3d0-bf460d747b72 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/31/cafeteria-christianity-age-social-media-whats-old-new-again When people ask questions like “ Why do we pick and choose our religious beliefs?” they usually don’t mean “we” but “they.” This is because within such a question, there is often an implied criticism of “religion”—however defined—that has not… Tue, 31 May 2016 06:03:39 EDT Kate Blanchard dc5aaff8-96a2-464a-85c8-8df68c3605f3 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/03/23/digital-discipline-five-questions-relent2016 A campaign launched by Baltimore-based Lutheran pastor and Slate Project co-founder Jason Chesnut, #ReLent2016 reinvents Lent as a “digital discipline.” Each week of #ReLent2016 has a different theme—repent, relinquish, rediscover, reconnect. And so far, the #ReLent2016 tag has made more… Wed, 23 Mar 2016 01:22:18 EDT Anita Little 81cd12bb-c913-40c4-8d6d-37bb6d9d648d https://religiondispatches.org/2016/02/03/11-best-realclergybios-tweets Over the weekend, the #realclergybios hashtag spread like Gospel on Twitter, with countless pastors and seminarians shelling out hard truths about everything from doubting one’s vocation to fighting for the church’s solvency to—if you’re a woman or non-white pastor—dealing with… Wed, 03 Feb 2016 01:46:26 EST Anita Little f757bb91-a514-40a0-a229-21f51031e3f2 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/20/ten-religion-stories-went-mostly-missing-2015 Once again, RD’s editors have asked me to think about stories at the intersection of religion and culture that mainstream journalism passes over or treats inadequately. It takes a sour disposition to do this, and I’m pleased to say that… Sun, 20 Dec 2015 09:31:35 EST Peter Laarman 14ddebc8-5fd4-4d01-ba54-d7ce38e0a47a https://religiondispatches.org/2015/11/19/twitter-doing-enough-remove-extremist-content-ex-employee-weighs As a former (veteran, even) employee of Twitter, I am used to people expressing shock and confusion at the need for “just a website” to employ so many people, or a genuine wonder if we all sit around and Tweet… Thu, 19 Nov 2015 12:12:45 EST Sofi Hersher ff5135a9-85f4-4f24-ae1f-954428491790 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/11/09/citizen-speech-age-data-or-why-im-transcribing-my-tweets-cuneiform Social media has made possible a new global distribution of cognitive ephemera. We are tweeting 6,000 times per second—and most of it is garbage. And while social media has facilitated powerful forms of speech that might otherwise be stifled, it… Mon, 09 Nov 2015 04:34:19 EST Andrew Aghapour d7373fbf-d7bd-4811-bcaf-56c2f9f24c72 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/06/24/sacred-and-dead-operator-can-you-help-me Trying to check out her number, trying to run down her line. Operator said that’s priv’ledged information, And it ain’t no business of mine. It’s floodin’ down in Texas, poles are out in Utah, Gotta find a private line. ~… Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:28:36 EDT Maren Haynes d4eec391-602a-45fd-871c-376e631f82d2 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/04/06/3-takeaways-easter2015 Easter is the most Rocky-like story in the Christian canon. There’s blood, a sudden reversal, and finally a moment of triumph. Every time the story seems to end, some miracle prolongs the action. Which is why, when they were looking… Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:09:23 EDT Michael Schulson 70233108-259b-48cd-9cc4-0440330bf60f https://religiondispatches.org/2014/08/06/talking-justice-twitter-we-are-breaking-down-barriers “As a Muslim Bangladeshi, social media has transported me across the world…” Wed, 06 Aug 2014 02:31:41 EDT Arafat Kabir eec424a5-ac70-48e3-b4a9-c97ec9c57070 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/09/25/russia-it-now-crime-insult-someones-religious-feelings The protection of religious believers’ feelings has been enshrined in the Russian Civil Code for quite some time, but making it a criminal offense to insult the feelings of religious believers could bring with it much harsher penalties. Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:07:57 EDT Chrissy Stroop 79475d56-9fc1-4929-b860-ace88175c3d3 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/09/24/sikh-prof-attacked-heels-new-study It’s all about the turban. Tue, 24 Sep 2013 04:09:02 EDT Rob Shryock 2e09dd0c-64da-48d4-82be-1ebb471888d5 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/18/prayforboston-prayer-meme So far as I can tell, nothing in our language or in our collective practice, digital or otherwise, holds space for such moments of spiritual pause, however secularized that spirituality might be. Thu, 18 Apr 2013 05:04:54 EDT Elizabeth Drescher 60f35304-dd2e-4983-a027-571efceec5fc https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/08/marriage-equality-no-more-word-games How do I make sure that my contribution to the discussion of marriage equality properly accounts for my Christian faith? Instead of having the discussion in a vacuum, where words and ideas can be analyzed outside of experience, I make sure that my analysis runs directly through experience, and most importantly, through the experience of the suffering. Relative to this discussion, there is no more appropriate voice to include than that of the LGBT community, those whose experience has been objectified in “our” discussions of “their” rights. Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:33:25 EDT William Myatt 7bb95c79-e561-4582-8275-265f7e3d4ca5 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/03/13/papal-prayer-machine With Twitter, there is just the right mix of calculable dissemination and mystery. You know who has retweeted or favorited your prayer, but what of the followers of the followers of the followers who follow you who did not retweet or favorite but may have read and been affected by your prayer? Wed, 13 Mar 2013 07:16:47 EDT Peter Manseau afe7dd1a-5cac-4d06-a2b7-26132a2225e6 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/02/13/pope-tweeted-retirement Perhaps it wasn’t just the pope’s health that sent him into retirement, but his consternation at our increasingly networked lives. Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:33:18 EST Rachel Wagner fe1749a1-fe79-4dc0-b7a8-769b55f85637 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/01/29/internet-not-killing-organized-religion The theory that access to the internet will be the undoing of organized religion has resurfaced. But do the data show anything like this? Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:33:17 EST Elizabeth Drescher 5ea63fbd-b01e-4afb-8eba-649187d40af1