Digital contours of the black church in North America and community online

This chapter discusses some of the recurring conversations in digital Black religious communities. They center on critique of the Black Church/Black Church practices and practitioners of digital tools (usually with a specific concern), quantitative and qualitative research informed by critical race studies, and Black technology/Afro-futurism studies. It then seeks to gather these sometimes divergent concerns into a central stream of thought to understand the digital contours of the Black Church (and Black religion more broadly) and its communities online more aptly. The author argues that Digital Black Religion studies are uniquely situated for a discussion of communities online. Communities built for reasons of exclusion represent a particular ethos and are often guided by an ethic of care (for those excluded) and critique (of the Black Church). In particular, online communities perform the act of community with this ethic in mind. The study of Digital Black religion is informed by this same ethic. Even further, Digital Black Religion studies is described as one of the various online communities taken up in the chapter. A case is made for greater engagement with African American religious studies within digital religion studies, and the chapter closes with a few notes on and insights into some of the major gaps in the current study of Black communities online and future trajectories for Digital Black Religion studies.