ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the potential contributory factors to the outcomes of the research. It notes the increase of therapeutic verses across time and intensity of engagement and asks whether this increase relates to sociological shifts such as those proposed by Abby Day and Christian Smith, amongst others, or by media ecology shifts, especially as proposed by Stig Hjarvard’s ‘mediatization of religion’ thesis. The chapter includes a detailed look at faith development among young people in order to tease out Smith’s proposals about moralistic therapeutic deism (MTD) and its cognates, and to explore some reasons why other scholars, such as Ruth Perrin, have not noted MTD in their own ethnographic work. The section on media ecology includes a review of Timothy Hutchings’s work on Bible apps as persuasive technology and on the role of ‘verse of the day’ processes within such apps. The chapter concludes that it is not possible to determine whether the proposed shifts in Bible engagement are associated specifically with media ecology or MTD or performative belief. It is more likely that the affordances of digital culture, sociological shifts in contemporary expressions of faith and the general ethos of social media all contribute to the shift.
