Theology, Religious Education,
and Digital Transformation
Authority, Knowledge, and Normative Interpretation
A scholarly response to digital transformation
Digital transformation represents a profound epistemological and pedagogical shift that fundamentally challenges established forms of religious education across diverse religious traditions. In digital environments, religious knowledge circulates beyond institutional control, mediated by algorithms, platform logics, and fragmented publics. As a result, traditional concepts of authority, authenticity, and transmission are increasingly destabilized.
Within many theological and religious contexts, these developments raise fundamental questions concerning the transformation of religious knowledge and its authorization. Classical modes of teaching, interpretation, and transmission — historically embedded in scholarly, clerical, or institutional traditions — are increasingly challenged by digitally mediated forms of immediacy, personalization, and decontextualization.
The expansion of online religious platforms and the growing presence of religious actors on social media have led to a reconfiguration of normative authority across religious communities. Practices of guidance, interpretation, and theological mediation, traditionally connected to recognized scholarly competence and institutional structures, are now partially displaced into decentralized digital arenas. In these spaces, visibility, accessibility, emotional resonance, and algorithmic amplification increasingly shape the reception and legitimacy of religious interpretations.
This transformation intensifies existing tensions between continuity and reform, tradition and innovation, institutional authority and individualized interpretation. At the same time, it raises broader questions about how theological reflection, ethical reasoning, and religious hermeneutics can be sustained under conditions of fragmented and accelerated knowledge circulation.
Religious education is therefore confronted with central tensions: between established traditions and rapidly evolving digital cultures, between communal authority and individualized belief formation, and between normative frameworks and digital pluralization. Learners are no longer merely passive recipients of religious knowledge, but active producers and negotiators of religious meaning within environments that simultaneously enable participation while also fostering superficiality, polarization, misinformation, and new forms of radicalization.
TREDT 2027 aims to critically examine these ambivalences and explore how religious education and theology can respond constructively to the challenges of digital transformation within pluralistic societies.
Sixteen lines of inquiry
We invite contributions across the full range of theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical dimensions of religious knowledge in the digital age.
Erosion of Religious Authority in Digital Spaces
How decentralized participation and alternative sources of legitimacy destabilize established forms of religious authority.
Fragmentation and Pluralization of Religious Knowledge
Online platforms enabling competing interpretations and challenging traditional hierarchies of normative orientation.
Algorithmic Shaping of Religious Discourse
How platform logics influence the visibility, circulation, and framing of religious content — and shape epistemic power.
Digital Environments and Radicalization Dynamics
How digitally mediated spaces amplify simplified and emotionally charged narratives, contributing to polarization.
Transformation of Religious Identity Formation
New forms of religious self-representation, belonging, and the dynamics of visibility, conformity, and contestation.
Pedagogical Challenges in Digital Religious Education
Responding to changing modes of knowledge production, learner agency, and the tension between depth and immediacy.
Ethical Implications of AI and Digital Technologies
Bias, responsibility, and the delegation of interpretive authority to artificial intelligence in religious contexts.
Changing Roles of Teachers and Religious Authorities
How educators and religious scholars redefine their roles amid digitally empowered learners and decentralized knowledge.
Digital Inequality, Exclusion, and Access
Uneven access to digital resources shapes participation and reinforces — or transforms — social inequalities.
Interreligious Dialogue under Digital Conditions
Digital platforms create new spaces for exchange while fostering conflict, misunderstanding, and selective engagement.
Transformation of Fatwā Practices
Digitalization reconfigures authorization, accessibility, and the relationship between scholars and audiences.
Algorithmic Amplification vs. Scholarly Authority
Visibility shaped by platform dynamics rather than scholarly criteria — tensions between popularity and expertise.
Emergence of "Digital ʿUlamāʾ"
New actors gain religious authority through digital presence, challenging classical models of scholarly formation.
Transformation of Fiqh Reasoning in Digital Contexts
How rapid-response demands pressure traditional deliberation, contextualization, and methodological rigor in legal reasoning.
Decontextualization of Qurʾānic Interpretation (taʾwīl)
Digital media often detach scriptural interpretation from scholarly and historical contexts, raising hermeneutical concerns.
Authority, Charisma, and Performativity in Social Media Ecosystems
Religious authority increasingly operates through performative practices, affective communication, and charismatic self-presentation within digital publics — reshaping the relationship between speaker, audience, and message.
A six-institution collaboration
TREDT 2027 is a joint initiative of six leading academic institutions across Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Submit your contribution to TREDT 2027
We welcome scholarly contributions across theology, religious education, sociology, digital studies, and adjacent disciplines.