Empirical Theology as Theological Netnography: Methodological Considerations

It is clear that the role of the internet is ubiquitous in everyday life. With smart phones almost everyone can access the internet 24/7 and use it for emails, social network activity, searching for information and navigation when driving a car to a new destination. It is also the case that the online world intersects directly with and is embedded in the off-line world of our everyday lives. Almost all forms of religion have this intersection and function with it as a matter of course. For Christians this has meant that ecclesial dimensions of spiritual life have also been taken online, or that the online dimensions have intersected with the everyday ecclesial life of most if not all Christians. The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated how easily it was for most church congregations to arrange for services to be live-streamed online, supported by social media. Indeed, these new types of services attracted many visitors during the various lockdowns and a number of regular church-goers decided that they preferred the online world to the concrete one they were previously familiar. These recent changes in religious life invite reflection from the perspective of empirical theology. In particular, it may be asked how might an empirical approach to theology develop in relation to virtual ethnography or netnography? There is an emerging body of methodological literature that embraces the study of online or digital communities, otherwise known as netnography (Boellstorff et al, 2012; Hine, 2000, 2015; Kozinets, 2013, 2020; Pink et al, 2016), but, so far, there is a very limited application of empirical studies from a theological perspective (although see Hutchings, 2017; Sutinen and Cooper, 2021). Therefore, this paper explores the question: is there a distinctly empirical-theological approach to netnography? This question will be addressed in this exploratory paper and a methodological proposal suggested as part of the discussion.