DOI: https://doi.org/10.36719/2663-4619/127/101-107
Aliya Mursalova 
Azerbaijan Institute of Theology
Baku, Azerbaijan
PhD in Philosophy
aliyatagiyeva@yahoo.com
Digital Pedagogy and Religious Education: Integration of Technologies, Ethics and Development Perspectives
Abstract
Digital technology has changed the way people approach religious education. Where it used to be all about face-to-face teaching, sacred texts, and personal mentorship, now you see everything from VR and AI to online platforms and gamified lessons in the mix. These tools open doors: you get more ways to customize learning, keep students interested, and reach people who couldn’t access this kind of education before. But there’s a catch-things get a lot more superficial if you’re not careful, and the real challenge is holding onto the heart and ethics of religious practice as technology keeps evolving.
The field’s still figuring this out, honestly. There’s not a ton of research on how to keep religious education both innovative and ethically grounded at the same time. Some recent work does stand out, like C. Papakostas’s study on AI in religious classrooms (2025), M. Rahman’s exploration of VR in Islamic schools (2023), the “Religious Education” VR report (2024), C. Redecker’s work on digital skills (2017), and materials from the “SpringerBriefs in Digital Pedagogy” (2023). I drew on these, plus a mix of articles, to put together an analysis. The approach was mostly qualitative and comparative-combing through academic papers, taking a critical look at real-life examples, and bringing together ideas from both education and theology.
And what shows up again and again? When teachers blend digital tools thoughtfully into religious education, students get more motivated, they think deeper, and more people can access religious knowledge. But tech can't stand in for real-life practice or personal mentorship. So hybrid models-mixing traditional and digital methods-matter a lot. You need an interdisciplinary perspective and clear ethical guidelines. If you do it right, digital pedagogy can make religious education more open, interactive, and mindful of core values-ready for the demands of the 21st century.
Keywords: religious education, artificial intelligence, hybrid learning, digital technology, ethics, integration