Postdigital Theologies: Technology, Belief, and Practice (Postdigital Science and Education) - Softcover

Maggi Savin-Baden is Professor of Higher Education Research at the University of Worcester, UK. She has researched and evaluated staff and student experience of learning for over 20 years and gained funding in this area (Leverhulme Trust, JISC, Higher Education Academy, MoD). Maggi has a strong publication record of over 60 research publications and 21 books which reflect her research interests on the impact of innovative learning, digital fluency, cyber-influence, pedagogical agents, qualitative research methods, and problem-based learning. In her spare time, she runs, bakes, climbs, does triathlons and has recently taken up wild swimming. 

John Reader has degrees from Oxford (MA), Manchester (MPhil), and Wales, Bangor (PhD). A retired parish priest of over 40 years in ministry he is also a Senior Research Fellow of the William Temple Foundation; Honorary Senior Lecturer for the School of Education, University of Worcester, and Senior Tutor for the Christian Rural and Environmental Studies course based at Ripon College Cuddesdon. He has published 6 solo books and co-authored a further 6, plus 6 William Temple Foundation Tracts and various chapters and articles. His role with the William Temple Foundation includes curating the Ethical Futures Network which has met at Trinity College, Oxford. John’s recent publications include A Philosophy of Christian Materialism (with Baker and James) and Theology and New Materialism. 

This book is about the relationships between technologies and the content of religious belief and practice. A number of models are now starting to emerge, but each of these depends on the theological or philosophical framework within which the debate is set. At at the same time, there are dilemmas operating at different ends of the spectrum. For example, at one end there is a tendency towards subsuming the digital within the divine, and at the other an instrumental stance relating to how technology is deployed. Either of these stances could be said to ignore rather than acknowledge that the human itself is being changed as a result of the interactions with the digital.  

The book explores the following areas:  

 · Where is God to be found or present in the postdigital condition?  
· What are the implications of the postdigital condition for spirituality and indeed for the activity of God through the Holy Spirit?  
· How do concepts of transhumanism or posthumanism effect understandings of the incarnation?  
· Does the doctrine of the Trinity need revisiting in the light of the digital as medium of relationship?  
· Does Creation now include the postdigital?   
· What of the Kingdom of God now that the kingdom of the Tech giants is so powerful all-consuming?