Religious Education and Information Technology: Challenges and Problems

Abstract. With advances in information technology, the velocity of information production on the global level has expanded as well. This acceleration has led to the delegitimizing of knowledge, the equating of information with knowledge, and the giving of predominance to information rather than knowledge. This advance has created epistemological challenges for the process of religious education. At the same time, the growth of the internet has created a “rhizomatic space” possessing new methodological characteristics that create problems for religious education. Information technology generates a “hypertextual learning space,” which weakens the place of traditional texts in the learning process, particularly in a traditional religious education process. This hypertextual development is especially problematic for religious education in conservative or fundamentalist traditions. This article analyzes the epistemological, methodological, and contextual problems and challenges posed by information technology for traditional religious education processes.