Michael Toy

PhD Candidate in Study of Religion

Supervisors: Associate Professor Geoff Troughton and Dr Philip Fountain

Digital Religion in Aotearoa: Minority Theologies of Flourishing

The digital world both extends and enacts new technological forms of hegemony, exerting tendrils of control, oppression, and power in diffuse and diverse ways contingent on social, cultural, and relational configurations. By exploring the experiences of minority populations, one gains a clearer image of the structures of power inherent in digitality. I employ Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming minor’ to frame the relationship between the hegemonic, normative major and the ‘minor’ theologies that emerge in response to conditions of digitality. This thesis narrates the ways that three groups of minority Christians—queer, Indigenous Māori, and migrant Samoans—speak back to majority formations in an ongoing negotiation. These minor theologies are formed in reaction, subversion, and conciliation to the promises and perils of digitality.

Michael originally hails from Texas, though now he and his Kiwi partner, Nadine, call Wellington home. He majored in Media Studies and minored in Computer Science at Wheaton College in Illinois and received an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. When away from his desk, he can be found training for his next running road race or searching for the best noodles in Wellington.