Document details

Online Catholic Communities: Community, Authority, and Religious Individualization

Milton: Routledge (2018), viii, 141 pp.

Contains index

Series: Routledge Studies in Religion and Digital Culture

ISBN 978-1-138-05975-7

"Using the top three online forums used by Polish Catholics as a case study, this project explores the formation of these online communities. It then looks at the alternative authority structures that emerge online and how these lead to an individualised form of religious engagement that can develop independently of mainstream doctrine. Through highlighting how religious discourse in Poland is appropriated and creatively modified by users in fulfilling their own spiritual needs, this work reveals the constant interplay between online and offline religious contexts." (Publisher description)
1 Understanding the relationship between religious individualisation, community, and authority online, 11
2 Online communities as a process, 35
3 Formation of religious authority, 58
4 Symbolic boundaries of online communities, 95
The permanence of community? Concluding remarks, 129