Key Trends in the Transformation of Religious Consciousness in the Digital Society

The paper is devoted to the issue of identifying the main trends in the transformation of religious consciousness under the influence of digital modernization of modern society. The methodological basis of the study is constructionalism which allows us to understand religious consciousness as a construct that is transformed under the influence of digital technologies. The paper also relies on the theory of “compensation of the negative consequences of modernization” by G. Lubbe, in which religion is a way of compensating for the erosion of identity in the global world, as well as the loss of stable semantic guidelines in a world of accelerated obsolescence of experience. The paper determines that religious consciousness is polarized during the identified transformations which include “direct”, “instrumental” and “functional” changes. This polarization is expressed in the fact that the growth of liberalization, rationalization and pluralization of religious consciousness and the simultaneous reaction to these processes in society lead to an increase in the value of conservation, fundamentalist ideas in the religious consciousness of a digital society. Based on this, it is concluded that the growth of religious fundamentalism is directly related to the intensity of the negative consequence growth of digitalization, globalization, acceleration and rationalization of the life of society as a whole, as well as in the same direct connection with the intensity of modernization of religion itself.