Heart and Soul

If you ask Cosmo the robot what faith he is, what does he answer? We’ll find out when we bring together young digital media users of different faiths to meet him at MediaCityUK at Salford in the UK. Sophia Smith-Galer has been exploring how digital technology is changing the ways we worship and her guests will give their thoughts on what she’s found during our #ReligionintheDigitalAge series, and what they think about the future of faith and technology. Presented by Sophia Smith-Galer Produced by Julia Paul

Worshippers are gathering for a church service led by Pastor D.J Soto in Virginia in the USA. Many of them are at home or even in other countries. For DJ, this church is important for worshippers unable to attend a physical church, such as the disabled, the ostracised and the persecuted. VR technology is also teaching future generations about religious tolerance. Every year Jews and Holocaust survivors from across the world make a pilgrimage to Auschwitz in Poland. Alongside them is Karen Jungblut, director of research and documentation, from the Shoah Foundation, based at the University of Southern California, its mission to preserve the first-person accounts of 50,000 Holocaust survivors and other witnesses began with videotape. Now it's using 360 filming to capture the testimony of survivors in the landscape where it happened. Worship is often about the icons of your faith – and in Leicester in the UK we meet Sikh students as they encounter some of their religion’s most important artefacts for the first time – thanks to a VR headset, as a way of engaging young Sikhs and teaching non-Sikhs about the religion. But can immersing yourself get too, well, real? Hussein Kesvani, a Shi’a Muslim journalist who writes about the online experience of British Muslims, joins us to experience a virtual reality app that allows the user to relive the battle of Karbala, an instrumental moment in the Muslim faith. Is this visualisation a step too far? Presented by Sophia Smith-Galer Produced by Julia Paul

Digital journalist Sophia Smith-Galer hears from young faith influencers using social media to spread the word and meets an ex-Muslim who can talk online about losing her faith, but hasn’t told her family. Do you want to leave the evangelical church? There’s a subreddit for that. Do you want to find a practising Muslim spouse? Well, there are, at least,10 Facebook groups for that. For millions of us, social media is subverting the traditional ways we find like-minded people around the world. In faith terms, this can be taboo-breaking and revolutionary for those unable to meet others in person, but the internet also provides corners for the most conservative, hardline believers to amass. In New York, a group of celebrants of the Latin-American Brujerie are using their massive online presence to practise their spirituality. While in Texas a Tik-Tok star is making sure Hinduism isn’t forgotten But as Sophia finds out in this second part of its digital season, if social media is about finding your online tribe – that might also mean leaving your offline one. One young student tells us about her experience of losing her faith in Islam. She hasn’t told her family, but she’s using Discord and a subreddit group to help her cope. Presenter: Sophia Smith–Galer Producer: Julia Paul (Image credit: Getty Images)

There are thousands of religious apps offering to help you worship in the right way. In the first of a new season exploring the digital world and the spiritual world, Sophia Smith Galer considers whether they’re a quick convenience, or a legitimate means of getting closer to your God, and asks if they are all really as pious as they seem? Search iTunes, Google Play or the App Store and you will find thousands of apps offering to help you practise your religion. And as our smart phones become more and more essential to daily life, millions of us are downloading. But is this just convenience? Or a new way of practising our faith? In the US, the ‘OneTable’ app aims to bring young Jews without their own religious community, to celebrate the Friday night ritual of Shabbat. The app connects them with others in their area and it’s currently reaching up to 100,000 participants in 185 cities across the states. But for Orthodox Jews, using new technology is strictly forbidden. In the UK, in the last year, the Church of England’s prayer apps were accessed more than five million times. But the church is incredibly worried as actual attendance is still falling. But can using religion apps be a spiritual experience in itself? Independent developer Rohan Gunatillake, the Buddhist founder of mindfulness app Buddhify, says he’s not looking for people to convert – he’s just happy if the app helps them. Many major faiths have invested millions in religious apps to help them engage with young people who they feel are turning their backs on going to organised services. But is it always clear to users when a religious organisation is funding an app? And security research has also shown that overall, Bible apps have more malware than gambling apps! Heart and Soul investigates whether some religion apps are stealing your data rather than cleansing your soul. Presented by Sophia Smith Galer Produced by Julia Paul (Photo credit: Getty Images)

Not many countries can boast of having a state Oracle. Tibet can, although the medium for their principal oracle – the Nechung – lives exiled from his native land in North India. Cambridge anthropologist and broadcaster David Sneath travels to Dharamsala to meet the medium of the present State Oracle of Tibet and explore the history and meaning of this remarkable institution. He examines the function and practice of an oracle in the 21st Century and considers how important his presence is for Tibetans in exile. Who is this powerful spirit, also known as Dorje Drakden, who takes over the body of the medium during trance? The function of the Nechung is to help protect the Buddha’s teachings and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The Nechung also helps advise the exiled Tibetan administration. The present medium for the oracle goes by the name of Ven Thupten Ngodrup – known to all Tibetans as Kuten-la. He was born in Tibet in 1958 and became a monk at the age of 12. He fled Tibet into exile following the Chinese invasion of Tibet. David meets the medium in his beautiful monastery and describes the ritual of trance. ‘Consulting the Oracle’ looks at the history of the Nechung State Oracle and considers its uncertain future. It examines the ancient relationship between the oracle and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. (Photo:The medium of the present State Oracle of Tibet Ven Thupten Ngodrup, or Kuten-la to Tibetans (Centre)