Digitalizing Religious Education in Global Perspectives

Dear Colleague,

“You don't go online – you live online” is the slogan used by a major Internet provider in Germany. This highlights how digitality is no longer limited to a specific space, but rather shapes our everyday lives. Religion, as something that is of fundamental importance to human beings (Paul Tillich), has become part of digitality, and digitality has become part of religion(s). Religious education, moreover, addresses the topic of digitality from various perspectives.

The first perspective is digitality itself as a subject of research, education, and observation. This perspective involves an ontology of digitality with structures that verge on the transcendent. In addition, it focuses on the accompanying transformation of religion, religiosity, and spirituality as the resulting consequences for anthropology and culture. In particular, current developments surrounding AI as a separate entity have significantly changed and accelerated the discourse from this perspective.

A second perspective views digitality as a space in which action unfolds. Religious education looks at digital spaces both as spaces in which religion is presented, lived, questioned, and practiced and as educational spaces in which children, young people, and adults learn about religion and are exposed to information and disinformation.

Closely related to this is the question of the interdependence of digital and analog spaces, the digital and analog worlds, and digitality and a digitized world.

A third perspective focuses primarily on the mediality of the digital. Here, religious education deals with digital media as tools for information, knowledge transfer, communication, and entertainment. In this context, the focus is primarily on digital media in educational contexts.

In our Special Issue, “Digitalizing Religious Education in Global Perspectives,” we invite submissions from these different perspectives, which may also be combined. We would like to structure the submissions into three groups based on the following three fields of action in religious education:

1. The Digital as a Field of Action: Religion in the Digital Realm;
2. Religious Education and Church Practice as Classic Fields of Action: Religious Education Processes in the Context of Digitalization;
3. Higher Education: What Role does Digitalization Play in Theological Courses?

Contributions should be approximately 5,000 words in length and make a significant contribution to R.E. research. Reprints or pure translations will not be considered.

Please submit your contributions by 31 August 2026.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor or to the Assistant Editor Chelsey Chen (chelsey.chen@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring their proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Britta Baumert
Prof. Dr. Christine Wenona Hoffmann
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-blind 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.

• digital religious education
• digitality and religion
• digital transformation of religious education