This site’s sort of interesting: open source theology | collaborative theology for the emerging church. I wish it was more general than just about Christianity though. Still interesting though. While it’s not perfect, I like the software analogy a lot of religious and cultural systems. I also want to look around more to see if anybody is writing about “hacking” religions and story-systems. Also, I’d like to do something that sort of spoofs “Pimp My Ride” but does it as “Pimp My Religion” where you take a tired old beat up religion that’s boring, and you add a bunch of bodywork, a nice paint job, kickin’ speakers and a PlayStation in the back. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I’ll come back to this topic.

UPDATE!

Looks like the wily Douglas Rushkoff has been hitting this open-source religion idea. The site is currently down right now, but it’s called Open-Source Judaism. Also, here is an excerpted section of his book, “Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism”

By publishing software along with its source code, open source developers encourage one another to correct each other’s mistakes, and improve upon each other’s work. Rather than competing, they collaborate. They don’t hide the way their programs work. As a result, everyone is invited to change the underlying code, and the software can evolve with the benefit of multiple points of view.

A renaissance in religion, too, would demand that we dig deep into the very code of our myths and faiths, and then re-experience them in the context of full modernity. It will require us to assume, at least temporarily, that nothing at all is too sacred to be questioned, re-interpreted, and modified. But in doing so, we will be enabled to bring religion through its current crisis and into its next phase of expression. And, ironically perhaps, we’ll be engaging ourselves in one of Judaism’s most time-honored traditions.

An open source religion would work the same way as open source software development: it is not kept secret or mysterious at all. Everyone contributes to the codes we use to comprehend our place in the universe. We allow our religion to evolve based on the active participation of its people. We internalize and engineer holy laws and ideas as adults, rather than following them by rote, as children. We come to realize that the writings and ideas of Judaism, at least, are not set in stone, but invitations to inquire, challenge, and evolve. Together, as a community, we define Judaism as the ongoing resolution of our individual sensibilities.

Of course, I don’t think this is necessarily specific to Judaism. I think it’s really just a clever marketing ploy on his part. An attempt to launch a “media virus” as per one of his earlier books by that name. Basically, if I remember correctly, the premise is to fuse together two concepts in order to piggyback new signals into the media-stream on them. Something like that.

UPDATE!

A fella named Josh just turned me on to another example of this kind of thinking, a website called the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn. Thanks man!