#religion: social media influencers of faith – Shepparton Interfaith Network

#religion. Videos with that tag have over 600 million views on Tik Tok, the popular video sharing app used mainly by teenagers. It’s clear that social media is changing how we express and explore faith. ABC Radio National interviews influences of digital religion.

Heidi Campbell is a Professor of Digital Religion from Texas A&M University. She explains to Meredith Lake how religious people use social media to build communities and to promote – or even subvert – mainstream expressions of their faith.

Then we meet three social media influencers of faith from around the world:

Rabbi Lee Weissman is a Jewish and interfaith educator based in the U.S. On Twitter, Rabbi Weissman goes by the handle @JihadiJew and has over 35,000 followers — most of them young Muslims. RN’s Mariam Chehab caught up with him and asked about the backstory behind his Twitter handle, and his interfaith work both online and in real life.

Rabbi Lee Weissman and Rev Hogberg, known as the vegan priest on Instagram.
Then we meet Muslim social influencer Yasmin Jay. Based in Sydney, Australia, Yasmin has over 140,000 followers on Instagram, where she generally posts about lifestyle and modest fashion. She spoke with RN’s Hong Jiang about balancing the tightrope between monetising one’s online identity, whilst remaining true to oneself.

Finally, we meet the vegan priest on Instagram Jennie Hogberg. Based in Sweden, Rev Hogberg is a minister in the evangelical Lutheran church. She opened up to RN’s Nadyat El Gawley about her journey from atheism to faith, and the conversations that she has with her online followers.