Keeping faith while scrolling the feed

Rivers split into tributaries, snaking around mountains and levees – deep and shallow, narrow and wide – adapting to the terrain, yet all the while fed by the same source, remaining a part of the same river. Languages do something similar: they morph, branch into dialects that are shaped by climate, trade routes, and harvest patterns. Language bends to accommodate the land that holds it. Religious practices are also influenced by local interpretations.

Religion scholar Karen Armstrong argues in A History of God that each generation has to create the image of God that works for it. Religious beliefs, habits, and practices have to continuously evolve to adjust to the changing historical, cultural, and social contexts. This results in a patchwork quilt of legitimate ways to pray, to eat, to dress, and to fall in love. Behaviour adapts to the land and its people – this is normal, not a deviation.

Take, for example, the eve of Shab-e-Barat, the Night of Forgiveness, an important religious observance for many Muslims. In Türkiye, these nights are associated with freshly baked simit shared among family members, relatives, and neighbours. In Bangladesh, trays of halua are a common sight. And in parts of Iran, the practice is to distribute nazri food to the needy. Some fast on this night, while others visit the graves of their loved ones. Some recite naʿat in public gatherings. These are all recognisably Islamic practices, culturally shaped by mountains, markets, and histories of migration.

Similarly, Ashkenazi Jewish families from Central and Eastern Europe avoid kitniyot—foods such as rice, lentils, beans, peas, and corn—during Passover, while Sephardic families from Spain and the Middle East do not. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians hold one of the strictest fasting calendars on earth, while other Christians fast much less. And the langar served inside a Sikh gurdwara anywhere in the world will echo the local harvest.

For most of history, these differences were quiet facts of life. The same global religion sat comfortably beside local habits and practices. But that world is changing. As the internet collapses distance between places, all the localised habits and practices from around the world are being shoved together on the same screen, having to hold up against a level of visibility that many have not experienced before.

Today, we can follow a preacher in Cairo before breakfast and another in London after dinner. There are microphones inside prayer halls, cameras broadcasting sermons, listeners for every podcast. Different practices that never used to meet are now competing for space on the same screen. The internet did not invent these differences, but it has collapsed distance and made them unavoidable. This – I will argue – is hugely consequential.

Directives are distant words, but content is emotions

It started with an innocuous 20-second clip in April 2024: a priest in Chicago offering his blessings to a newly married same-sex couple. Online, it detonated. Catholics and others shared and reposted the video with both praise and outrage; clergy from around the world argued about exactly what has been and can be “blessed” – some accepted it, while many remained confused. To many, this was finally a reform in the right direction; to others, a complete contradiction of scripture. As the debate raged on and the situation spiralled out of control, in May 2024 the priest publicly apologised for his actions to diffuse the situation, to little success.

Pope Francis himself stepped in, defending the Vatican’s guidance that such blessings are prayers for people, not an endorsement or redefinition of marriage. This did not diffuse the situation either. Some Catholic bishops outright refused to accept the Pope’s position, saying they would not be implementing the practice.

What this phenomenon reveals, more than anything, is the power of the screen to amplify the visibility of local practices in ways that create conflict, friction, and anxiety. When the declaration (Fiducia supplicans) that non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples were acceptable was issued by the Pope in December 2023, many local churches simply carried on. Where it was appropriate, the Church allowed for non-ritual blessings, while where it was not – especially across Africa, where such a gesture would cause “confusion” – the Church did not offer this blessing. Practice adapted to local norms.

Visibility and literalism

Greater visibility has real benefits for societies: it links diasporas, surfaces hidden oppressions, protects minorities, and lets good ideas travel. But there is also a cost.

Across kitchens and living rooms and prayer halls and playgrounds, people are waking up to discover that their ways of doing things are not as universal as they had thought. Once you start to see multiple versions of practising your faith that are different from yours, the “we” inside “this is how we do things” begins to shrink.

Communities need to agree on common rules for how to live together, educate the young, distribute resources, what to mourn and what to celebrate, and even how to punish rule-breakers. Over generations, villages and communities have quietly solved these local problems through trial-and-error and consensus. Local, cultural practices are not random distributions of charming quirks and foibles; they are what have worked for a people, in a place and a time. But all these old settlements are now being re-litigated online, in public forums.

A custom that grew out of the soil is difficult to explain to teenagers who find a global community inside their phone. It must now compete with another twenty foreign alternatives. All feel true at the core. All differ in ways that matter. A simple question follows: which way is the right way?

The tempting answer to this conundrum is literalism: a strictly literal and plain reading of scripture, eschewing localised or metaphorical interpretations. Since everyone holds the same text, literalism appears to be the fairest tool to coordinate globally without the need to resort to clan, custom, or colonial history. In this respect, literalism has a genuine scaling advantage.

Literalism also fits well into the current social-media landscape. A short clip that says “the scripture says you must (not) do this” will garner more engagement than an hour-long deliberation on the nuances of a commandment. The first is easier to view, to share, and to wield successfully during an argument. This is not an attack on literalism. It is a description of why it is so visible in our feeds.

A celebration that separates

There is no pre-determined date on which Eid al-Fitr is celebrated by Muslims around the world. If the crescent moon is sighted on the 29th day of the lunar month of Ramadan, then Eid will be on the 30th day. If no moon is sighted, Eid is pushed back by a day.

The sighting of the crescent moon therefore takes on great significance – religious, cultural, practical, and of course, celebratory. In many communities, sighting is conducted through organised networks of observers; overcast conditions, cloud cover, and similar factors all play a role in the result. This practice is common in the Indian subcontinent, as well as in Morocco, Oman, and Iran. Other communities align their Eid date with Saudi Arabia, following the Kingdom’s decision as a global marker. This group includes the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Egypt. A third approach, used in Türkiye, is to rely on astronomical calculations, where dates are set in advance by Diyanet, the religious authority, rather than on last-minute sightings. Across North America and Europe, all three methods are used by different communities.

These differing methods do not just create different calendars; they create real friction and conflict within communities. Friends and families around the world – and sometimes in the same city – find themselves celebrating on different dates, raising fiery debates about which way is the “proper” way (sometimes turning violent), marring what should otherwise be a day of joyous celebration, reflection, and unity.

In the pre-internet age, these different practices rarely met. Now, they are algorithmically lumped together. A lack of global agreement here sometimes makes followers anxiously question the legitimacy of their community’s practices and seek clarity. The scripture is shared, but the histories of the people and the places are different. With a borderless feed, these differences now sit side by side, demanding a coordinated solution.

Does your feed feel harsher?

So, if it feels like fundamentalism is on the rise, part of this feeling has to do with who is holding the microphone and what their incentives are in blurring the gap between literalism and fundamentalism. Literalism scales; fundamentalism compels. This is an important distinction.

A literalist keeps a strict fast. A fundamentalist pressures restaurants to close, or shames and harasses those who eat. A literalist dresses with careful adherence to the code. A fundamentalist looks to have this code imposed in schools and workplaces. A literalist avoids certain foods; a fundamentalist pushes for bans. A literalist believes that the earth is young; a fundamentalist petitions to have evolution removed from textbooks.

Most literalists are peaceful neighbours, good friends, and helpful colleagues. Violence requires other ingredients: a weak court system, a corrupt police force, parties that benefit from escalation, or economic shocks that make identity feel like the most important thing.

If the feed feels harsher and the world less tolerant, greater visibility and literalism may be a conduit, but not a cause. According to Heidi Campbell (2012), while platforms have shone a bright spotlight on local habits – encouraging uptake, scrutiny, and even denunciation from a wider audience – offline identities and authorities still shape what becomes visible in the first place.

A few loud accounts can look like a trend. Being quiet begins to appear like a disappearing middle. The father who uses his Eid bonus to buy new clothes for his children and celebrates all their birthdays – which many preachers consider improper – does not post a thread about it. A family that prefers a quiet evening of prayer and reflection, away from screens, does not either. They simply live. The person who wants to police the behaviour of both posts ten times a day. Your feed is not a count of people; it is a count of posts.

There is documented evidence that religious nationalism is on the rise around the world. Politicians and other agenda-driven actors have capitalised on this. Clear lines help campaigns. Naming enemies makes easy fixes sound plausible. Melding scripture with national identity, rewarding the policing of boundaries, shifting focus from solving daily problems to the safeguarding of sacred rites – all help claw into the voter base.

The wide appeal of literalism in this age of receding boundaries is being co-opted by the harsher sentiments of fundamentalism and boundary policing.

It is important to clarify that all this is not the internet’s fault. This dynamic has always existed. Transnational linkages were pressuring and reshaping local practices decades before there was a smartphone in every hand. What the phone has done is to amplify and turbocharge this same dynamic.

What can we do?

There is undoubtedly a policy solution that can be offered – one that tackles the weakening of institutions, the impunity of social media platforms, and the irresponsible conduct of many political actors. But at a more micro level, what can we, the people, do in our rooms and homes and workplaces and prayer halls?

First, name what has changed, and insist that it is ok regardless. We can see one another’s practices up close. The temptation to look for a unified and definitive answer has grown with that visibility. Literalism provides such certainty in a way that local compromise never can. It is neat and scalable. It feels incorruptible. The answer to neat is not to hide the differences; it is to make context visible at the same scale. As Talal Asad has argued in Genealogies of Religion and Formation of the Secular, even “literal” practices are never outside socio-economic and legal institutional settings: practices are constantly negotiated with law, institutions, and place.

For example, the traditional practice around Zakat al-Fitr is to make donations to the poor measured as a weight of staple grains. However, many contemporary Muslim scholars allow equivalent cash donations in places where money serves the poor better. Similarly, in places where open-air wood pyres are illegal, Hindu families use electric or gas crematoria. Local practices do not emerge as intentional corruptions of sacred texts, but to address local challenges. Over time, the challenge may become difficult to see, making the adaptation look arbitrary. They are not.

Second, find ways to let the “local” coexist with the “universal.” Let local quirks keep their places in kitchens, courtyards, and town centres. Teach how these practices have emerged from climate, regimes, and language. The more people know about the history of a practice, the less arbitrary it will feel when set against another. More practically, encourage inter- and intra-faith visits, shared study groups, and service days. Reward discussions and deliberation, not debate. This will not censor belief; it will encourage local understanding and cohesion.

Third, counter the pull of the fiery certainty that algorithms reward. Make long-form discussions accessible, refrain from consuming or sharing media without context, discuss the patchwork openly, and expose the fact that there is pedigree in both the local, the far-away, and the universality of scripture. We cannot rely on the platforms to fix this, but nor should we think ourselves powerless.

Diversity is old, visibility is new

We used to be sorted into faith by geography. Now, sorting is done by online echo chambers and nebulous algorithms. A teenager in Dhaka may feel a greater affinity with a channel based in Birmingham or a priest from Paris than with the elders in his own family. This can widen sympathy across borders, which is good. It can also weaken local bonds if online factions treat neighbours as rivals. Our task is to keep the patchwork visible without tearing apart the fabric.

Ahsan Senan is a PhD student in Applied Economics, focusing on behavioral and development economics in Oregon State University. His interests lay in people, the communities that they build, and the bonds that bind them. He can be reached at ahsan.senan@gmail.com.

Send your articles for Slow Reads to slowreads@thedailystar.net. Check out our submission guidelines for details.