Being Virtually Real?

Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet has just launched it's third issue under the theme "Being Virtually Real? Virtual Worlds from a Cultural Studies' Perspective". This is the only journal dedicated to issues of religion and the internet and in previous issues they have covered topic of theory and methodology related to studies of religion online and on religious rituals on the internet. In the current issue I would especially commend to you "The Church of Fools: Virtual Ritual and Material Faith" by Randy Kluver & Yanli Chen, a detailed investigation of one of the first experiment in doing Church in a virtual environment as well as "Rituals and Pixels. Experiments in Online Church" by Simon Jenkins who provides an autoethnography of his experience in this online worship experiment. A number of other interesting articles can also be found on religion in Second Life, Technoshamanism and spirituality in video gaming.