Sacred Connections: The Rhetoric of African American Religion and the Digital Age
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2027 | Viewed by 31
Editors
Interests: African American rhetoric; religion; Black church studies; popular culture; media studies
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Sacred Connections: The Rhetoric of African American Religion and the Digital Age is an interdisciplinary edited Special Issue that examines the enduring and evolving significance of religion in Black life at the intersection of digital culture, emerging technology, and social transformation. The Special Issue advances a central scholarly claim: African American religious rhetoric has not merely adapted to the digital age but has become one of its most critical and prophetic voices—offering frameworks for justice, dignity, community, and moral reasoning that dominant technological discourses have yet to reckon with. Religion has never been peripheral to Black public life. From the antebellum hush harbor to the Civil Rights mass meeting, from the mosque to the digital sanctuary, African American faith traditions have served as sites of resistance, meaning-making, cultural production, and collective identity. In the twenty-first century, these traditions increasingly unfold across digital platforms—through livestreamed worship, social media activism, podcast ministries, and online communities—while simultaneously confronting new challenges posed by artificial intelligence, algorithmic surveillance, digital inequality, and the commodification of sacred culture. This Special Issue examines these developments not as departures from tradition but as continuations of a long and dynamic rhetorical history. We invite scholars to submit original research for inclusion in Sacred Connections: The Rhetoric of African American Religion and the Digital Age, an interdisciplinary Special Issue devoted to examining the enduring and evolving significance of religion in Black life. Scholars contributing to this volume will engage the complex, diverse, and contested terrain of African American religious life as it intersects with contemporary social, political, cultural, and technological contexts. The Special Issue is grounded in the conviction that the digital age does not merely offer new tools for religious expression; it also raises new ethical, political, and theological questions—about truth, equity, human dignity, and collective belonging—to which African American religious thought has distinctive and urgent contributions to make.
Dr. Solomon W. Cochren
Dr. Christopher A. House
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- religion
- African American religion
- African American studies
- rhetoric
- technology
- digital media
- cultural studies
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