"Closer to God": Meanings of Reading in Recent Conversion Narratives within Christianity and Islam
In this article, we explore three understandings of religious reading to illustrate the diversity of information use in religious contexts. "Informative" refers to information acquisition; "formative" concerns the learning of practical behaviors; while "transformative"...
| Veröffentlicht in: | Journal of religious and theological information |
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| VerfasserInnen: | ; |
| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Routledge
[2015]
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| In: |
Journal of religious and theological information
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| RelBib Classification: | AA Religionswissenschaft AG Religiöses Leben; materielle Religion BJ Islam CB Christliche Existenz; Spiritualität RA Praktische Theologie ZG Medienwissenschaft; Digitalität; Kommunikationswissenschaft |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
spiritual information use
B Reading B Islam B Christianity B Religious Conversion |
| Online Zugang: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Zusammenfassung: | In this article, we explore three understandings of religious reading to illustrate the diversity of information use in religious contexts. "Informative" refers to information acquisition; "formative" concerns the learning of practical behaviors; while "transformative" points to spiritual growth, rich identity formation, and deep self-understanding. We provide instantiations of these notions among recent converts to various branches of Christianity and Islam and explore similarities between these traditions through analysis of published conversion narratives in Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christianity and of select data gathered through interviews with Muslim converts in the Toronto area. Our discussion builds upon Buckland's notion of theological information and engages with Kari's understanding of informational uses of spiritual information. We assume a hermeneutic concept of reading, according to which religious texts propose models of humanity, which readers are invited to assess and possibly assimilate. Our research contributes to existing Information and Communication Studies scholarship on the normative or prescriptive aspects of religious reading practices, congregational belief formation, and knowledge production and control in the wake of new media. |
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| ISSN: | 1528-6924 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious and theological information
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/10477845.2015.1085784 |