The Crisis of Religious Authority of the Digital Generation and Its Implications for Islamic Religious Education in Schools

Hindri Caesar Tiara Konjin; Aidil Aidil; Muhammad Iqbal Rahman; Rizka Zahara

doi:10.71094/vkj.v4i1.415

Authors

Hindri Caesar Tiara Konjin Program Studi Pendidikan Guru Madrasah Ibtidaiyah, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, Indonesia
Aidil Program Studi PJJ Pendidikan Agama Islam, UIN Siber Syekh Nurjati Cirebon, Indonesia
Muhammad Iqbal Rahman Program Studi Pendidikan Agama Islam, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surabaya, Indonesia
Rizka Zahara Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Arab, UIN Sultanah Nahrasiyah, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71094/vkj.v4i1.415

Keywords:

Digital Religious Literacy, Religious Authority, Islamic Religious Education, Digital Generation, Generative Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The emergence of digital platforms from search engines and social media to religious podcasts and generative artificial intelligence has fundamentally altered how the digital generation acquires, verifies, and internalizes religious knowledge. This phenomenon gives rise to a crisis of religious authority among students, characterized by the erosion of recognition for Islamic Religious Education (PAI) teachers as legitimate primary sources of religious knowledge. This study aims to analyze the shift in religious authority within the digital generation, identify its contributing factors, examine its implications for PAI learning in schools, and formulate a model for reconstructing the role of PAI teachers responsive to the digital era. Employing a library research method with a qualitative approach and content analysis technique, this study reviews recent scholarly sources from 2020 to 2026. Findings indicate that a shift in religious authority has occurred from authority-based to algorithm-based learning; the religious authority crisis is not caused by a scarcity of religious information, but rather by an epistemologically unvalidated information flood; this crisis produces dual effects: expanding access to religious knowledge while undermining the quality of critical religious understanding; and reconstructing the role of PAI teachers from knowledge transmitters to digital religious literacy curators is an imperative. This article proposes the Digital Religious Literacy-Based Islamic Education (DRLIBIE) conceptual model as an operational framework for strengthening PAI in the digital age.

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