How I… engage with faith on social media

Engagement, likes, views and follows have become an everyday vernacular for most. Willingly or not, you probably know the meaning behind these terms; and perhaps even try to play the numbers game yourself. No doubt your students are a part of this world, too. So much so, that phones and other devices have taken to adopting “wellbeing” monitors, in order to keep your eyes safe and focused away from the screen (every now and then).

As educators of RE, we are more acutely aware of using terms such as wellbeing, mindfulness and so forth. We will immediately make the links and jumps to dharma and ahimsa, and how yoga has had its own wash and rinse through popularism. However; who is to say that these terms, amongst many other extremely important terms, can’t have a relationship with social media?

I, for one, have found myself swirling down the rabbit hole of tiktok only to find myself faced with religious connotations, iconography and debate all in the space of 30 seconds.

Hear me out. As a preface, religion at its core is a set of belief systems and rituals followed by a number of people. If I were to present it in a modern context, it might look something like the following:

The profile: Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama to friends)

The followers: Buddhists (376 million)

Likes: Probably over the follower count – Buddha makes a guest appearance in every quotable ornament available.

Engagement: I’d imagine a line graph where the trend over time increases as it expands from South Asia, to the rest of the world.

If Buddha were to have a social media account in present day, there’s also no forgetting the amount of trolling he would receive; on top of the heated comment section under all of his posts. And that’s just it. Even with all of the followers, discussions and viral posts; how is one to fact check this all? It’s rather like one of life’s big questions: who IS God?

Having said that, the relationship between user and the internet has become a distinguished yet also important link. The rise of the Social Media Imams, Pastors and Yogis has transcended trendy to genuine normality. Believers and non-believers alike follow these individuals for daily, usually 30 second doses of inspiration, foods for thought and sometimes even comedy. With the on-the-go lifestyle many have no choice but to adopt, the instant gratification of a duaa on your fyp (for you page), or a quick yogic stretch reminder may actually play into your rounded and organised daily routine. There’s always a but though, isn’t there.

How is this impacting the perspectives of our students, as well as non-students of RE?

Well firstly, they’re viewing it. Some even actively engaging and creating their content for the world to see. More exposure to RE, great! However, fact checking, references and reliable sources go straight out of the window. It’s based on cultural experiences, shared languages and lived experiences. More so, it transcends the language barrier, dismantling the idea that regardless of background, we can’t understand one another. Can this help us as teachers, though? In my opinion, yes. It’s a bridge to forming a relationship with students based on something they are familiar with; on top of the fact that it is a part of their learning. On face value, it might just appear to be a clip of a popular song laced with some imagery here and there, but truly creators have exceeded expectations and used knowledge of worldviews and religions in clever, and funny ways.

Now of course, it won’t all be prudentially appropriate; however, what you may find is your students fact checking it themselves, critiquing or even evaluating the effectiveness of these clips.

Take these as examples:

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMefQe99N/

Have your students gained a sound enough understanding of the old testament to see the humour in this one?

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMefxc4Y1/

As we encourage debate and discussion, ultimately every worldview, at its core, believes they are the right path. Even if they do have shared commonalities.

Faith is often personal, embedding within it religion and spirituality. Thus, the binary of a mobile phone, also a personal device holds the same structure of expression as that of personal faith. Prayer times could be observed by a religious person in private, and accompanying scripture shared publicly via an Instagram story. This act invites other people to partake of a private experience and make meaning of it for themselves, and can it infiltrate the classroom? I don’t see why not.

So the next time you scroll past a mantra on TikTok, the user uploading it probably had personal intentions behind it, too.