Emerging from a colloquium held as part of our 55th anniversary celebrations in April 2025, a new special issue gathers together papers by a range of scholars, including former Fellows Dr Steve Taylor and Dr Rathiulung Elias, on the theme of grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism.
The articles in this edition of Ecclesial Futures offer cutting-edge interdisciplinary research into grassroots and indigenous digital expressions of witness. Researching digital faith-based activism yields insights into theologies generated “on-the-ground,” the role of lay leadership in local Christian communities and the relationship between a local church and its ‘world’ or context. Focusing on digital activism by indigenous communities allows reflection on the place of local churches formed outside of Christendom. Hence, the focus of this special issue on digital activism intersects with the scope and focus of Ecclesial Futures as it investigates God’s mission in the world.
...the seven articles in this issue of Ecclesial Futures investigate digital activism as it embraces vulnerability and power imbalances in Christian witness. First, regarding theology generated “on-the-ground” in local contexts, the articles provide case studies from grassroots and indigenous contexts by non-Western Christians, including those from Africa, Hong Kong, Oceania, and tribal India. Second, the activism examined in the case studies is the work of lay people who use digital skills to bear witness on social media platforms. Historically, ecclesiology has centred worship, and contextualization has worked with liturgy. In this issue of Ecclesial Futures, we glimpse lay leaders using communicative skills honed in visual and digital environments to engage in public mission. Third, the content the activists create is local theologies, emerging not from traditional parish churches and denomina-tions but activist communities of prophetic praxis. The social media content offers windows into how these Christians understand God’s mission in a rapidly changing world. Fourth, several of the articles engage critically with the colonizing tendencies of modernity, including digital surveillance, climate justice and approaching online algorithms and digital platforms in dialogue with theological language of powers and principalities.
Read the full special issue free here, edited by Nigel Rooms and Steve Taylor (Open Access): https://ecclesialfutures.org/issue/view/2122/549