Religion and Ethical Boundaries of Digitalization Practices in Africa

As the digital revolution continues to emerge as a new culture, digital experiences, particularly in the Global South, present critical questions relating to digital ethics. Scholarly studies on digital ethics often emphasize the self and professional management of ethical concerns in the digital space. What is often neglected is a critical examination of approaches that define and govern the importance of digital ethics. This paper focuses on how ethical questions emerge within the context of the digitization and digitalization of religious practices among the prophetic churches in Africa. In Africa, the digitization efforts of the prophetic churches generally focus on digitizing healing practices and religious testimonies. This is done through the online circulation of healing miracles and religious testimonies on various digital and social media platforms and outlets. There is no question that stories of healing miracles and/or religious testimonies always have a happy ending. Nevertheless, the digital circulation of one’s dark past and its possible impact on one’s privacy, personal and social information and security remains a concern as it raises many ethical questions. For example, how do we justify the online circulation of personal and religious experiences? To whom does a personal story of spiritual experience belong? In what ways is the privacy of an individual believer protected when his/her personal story is circulated online? Building on my previous works, I intend to interrogate the ethical boundaries and normative framework of digitization and digitalization in the context of prophetic churches and religious practices in Africa. In addition, through a critical interrogation of how digital ethnography is applied as a methodological approach in the study of online religious practices, the paper intends to outline embedded ethical concerns in digitization and digitalization practices, particularly among African prophetic churches.