Yogyakarta, May 8th 2020 – Center for Digital Society (CfDS) held another digital future discussion (DIFUSSION) #23 with the title Digital Preaching: A New Way to Spread Peacefulness. In this occasion, CfDS presented two speakers, they were Nafilah Safitri from AIS Nusantara and Yohanes Tri Atmaja, CEO of The Messenjah. This event was moderated by Fedryno Geza Ramadha, the Social Media Manager Event of CfDS. This discussion was aired through YouTube Live Streaming, from 03.00 p.m. until 04.30 p.m.
The digital preaching itself commonly known by the public in the spread of religious information such as digital sermons or digital preaching. In this case, there was a shift in disseminating religious information, from the conventional method to utilize the digital platforms, especially social media.
Yohanes, or used to be called as Yoyo, said that digital preaching can be interpreted as a means of disseminating religious information using digital platform. He said that, the Christians people have been using this method from a long time. Since the 90’s, sermon activities through television have been quite massive. But, along with the development and the rise of social media, those activities were adjusted and utilized the rise of social media.
As a graduate of Theological Science and the Bible School, Yoyo established a kind of spiritual class group named The Messenjah. This organisation was established from 2001 but began to develop even bigger in 2007/2008. The activities that The Messenjah did was selling things with spiritual words, such as t-shirt. Other than that, this organisation also conducted social activities such as providing scholarships since 2010 and sharing activities with the people in need.
The second speakers, Nafilah Safitri also said that digital preaching has long been used in preaching activities in Islam. It can be seen through the kultum program in television, the sermons, and other activities that initially began with the use of radio and television. With the rapid of technological growth, those activities were shifted by utilizing the social media. This thing was the background of the establishment of AIS Nusantara in 2016, which is the Pesantren’s (Boarding School) Instagram Admins Community. One of the activities that conducted by AIS Nusantara was digital literacy. This activity focused on the spread of peaceful Islamic values with the aim of countering negative narrations about Islam, such as Islamophobia and the issue of Islam as a terrorist teaching. Besides that, AIS Nusantara actively visit the pesantrens and gave various trainings related to digitalization for the students in the pesantrens, such as graphic design training.
The utilizing of social media in digital preaching got positive responses from various groups, this was conveyed both by Yoyo and Nafila. Even so, according to Yoyo, the conventional ways to disseminate the religious information must still be done. This takes into account that spiritual needs are not only limited to material things, but direct emotional touches are also needed.
In the middle of the discussion, both of the speakers talked about the strategies of their communities in delivering the messages of peace. In this case, AIS Nusantara spread the messages of peace by bringing the light contents that easily accepted by the public. This was not without consideration that religious talk are not always about serious issues. But, the religious talk itself is inseparable from our daily lives activities. Meanwhile The Messenjah focused on delivering contents related to peaceful messages. Yoyo said that diversity is the reality of life, the peaceful messages are not something that can be forced. Those peaceful messages will arise when they realized about who they are.
In the closing of the discussion, both of the speakers said that, although digital preaching made it easier to disseminate the religious informations, it still needs to be balanced with the ability to filter the news. It aimed to obtain messages and religious informations that are valid and can be justified.