Controversy and Charity: The Disembodiment of Religion in Cyberspace

The paper explores the limitations and distortions of religious discussion on the Internet within the wider context of those ethical challenges posed by controversy and debate in cyberspace where. language that is no longer checked and verified by physical reality loses its very grounding.. In particular, it attempts to establish a series of critical connections between the emergence of polemical forms of 'feuilletonism' in the area of religious comment and the characteristic weightlessness of language which has become detached from the body, despite the latter's extension and intensification in the concrete social realisations found in specific faith communities.