Ten Novels Every U.S. Christian Should Read

September 4, 2014

People are into books right now. That's #Awesome. There is, in the wake of the #IceBucketChallenge, a "list your top ten most influential/favorite books" #bookchallenge floating around social media (e.g. Facebook) right now. There are blogs, like Justin Taylor's "Between Two Worlds" at The Gospel Coalition, that are running a series on "novels every Christian should consider reading." As a bibliophile, I'm all for it. O masses, read on!

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

— Dr. Seuss

So, mixing Justin Taylor's "novels every Christian should consider reading" with the "top ten influential books" list I put forward my, "Top Ten List of Novels that every U.S. (and, to be honest, specifically white, middle class) Christian Should Read."

Why this list?

Our top ten lists and choices of novels often reinforce our own philosophies and voices. This isn't horrible per se, but when we only we read what we like or what confirms our biases we are never challenged to think beyond our current worldview. That can be dangerous. One of my favorite aspects of the top ten lists people are posting on Facebook is that many of the novels they list came from their high school or college reading lists. There's a reason for this, someone told you to read this book because they thought it might challenge you. At its best, literature cracks us open, challenges us, and provokes us to discover and be confronted by strange new worlds or by deconstructing comfortable, familiar ones.

Therefore, This list is predominated by what some call "subaltern" voices, or "the little voices of history." These voices are post-colonial and come from often marginalized authors or, at the least, are written from their perspective. Basically, this list presents pieces of fiction that should shake up and disturb comfortable, middle-class, suburban, caucasian, Christians...not to mention many others. We need this if we wish to continue to interact with the new power centers of Christianity in the "the Global South" (Africa, Asia, and Latin America). We have to face that we are not the hegemonic power we once were and deconstruct our neocolonial thought patterns, ministry actions, academic exercises, methodologies, and mission emphases -- no matter how well intentioned. These novels will help us to see from this perspective, albeit limitedly. They are meant to humble us.

TEN NOVELS EVERY U.S. CHRISTIAN SHOULD READ:

1. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison -- This is the story of a young, naïve African-American man in the U.S. South who explores his own black identity and racism through experiences in college, with the Communist Party, through riots, and under the streets of Harlem. There, in darkness and solitude he finally begins to understand himself -- his invisibility, and his identity. Why read it? Invisible Man challenges us to consider marginal, invisible, voices and confronts us to consider stereotypes, racism, and subjugating and radicalizing social forces in the U.S. No surprise, I read it in a high school literature class. Thanks Mrs. Kelly.

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2. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck -- Told in traditional Chinese narrative style and written by the daughter of missionaries, this story amplifies traditional family life in a Chinese village before World War I. It follows the fortunes and pitfalls of a rural farmer and the slave of an opium-soaked merchant household who eventually come to own all they worked hard for. Why read it? This book has it all, exploring women's rights, family dynamics, class conflict, spiritual struggle, moral dilemmas, simplicity versus complexity and the pressures of the modern world.

3. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -- The Price family, missionaries from Georgia, head to the jungle of Africa to convert the masses. Only, it isn't that easy. Confronted with culture shock, mosquitos, snakes, political upheavals, malaria, and their own metaphysical conundrums and shocking family dynamics the experience breaks them apart -- physically, mentally, and spiritually. Why read it? If I taught a course on world missions, this book would be required. Themes of forgiveness, cultural hegemony, culture shock, colonialism, racism, and more are all packed into this little bundle of heart-wrenching reading. You won't like this book, but you will most certainly love it.

4. That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis -- A dystopian novel that wraps up Lewis' "Space Trilogy," That Hideous Strength features the battle between a sinister pseudo-scientific institute, the N.I.C.E., that plans to take over the world and is backed by demonic forces. Why read it? Ok, so this isn't a subaltern novel and it features Roman, Christian, and British philosophy and tropes, BUT it's still worth a read as it challenges our 21st-century's emphasis on scientific salvation, the divorcing of body and soul, and our tendency to permit Normal Nihilism in everyday life.

5. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad -- Heart of Darkness follows one man's hellish journey into the interior of Africa where he encounters corruption, brutality, hate, violence, and colonial hegemony at its most capitalistic and manipulative worst. Why read it? While this book should be read hand-in-hand with a transcript of Chinua Achebe's "An Image of Africa," (or, for that matter, his tomic novel Things Fall Apart) the story still stands alone as a Gordian expedition into what constitutes the forced binary between 'barbarian' and 'civilized,' attitudes on colonialism, and imperial racism. Plus, the character of Katz is super mysterious.

6. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo -- Oh sweet cream, this book is so good. It is a coming-of-age story of Darling, a Zimbabwean girl, who navigates her fragile and shifting world first as a ten year old in her home country and later as a teenager in the Midwest of the U.S. Why read it? Exploring themes of family, immigration, and cultural memory this book captures, "the uneasiness that accompanies a newcomer’s arrival in America, [and] illuminate[s] how the reinvention of the self in a new place confronts the protective memory of the way things were back home." (NYTimes' Uzodinma Iweala)

7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- Mixing magic and mundane realism, Rushdie invites the reader into India during the period of transition from British colonialism to Indian independence in order to open us up to how Western ideals have shaped, for good and ill, modern India. Why read it? This is quintessential post-colonial lit.. Using Hindu gods and magical realism, Rushdie speaks to the creative and destructive forces at work in the world and which seep into the unequal power relations between imperial forces and colonial minions, between East and West, and how this world is still shaped by centuries of colonial dominion.

8. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut -- John, who goes by Jonah, is researching a book on what elite Americans were doing the day the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima on the island of San Lorenzo -- a quaint little dictatorship in the Caribbean. Unbeknownst to him as he sets off, this research will lead him to meet a fated group of people, come across the religion of Bokononism, and, unfortunately usher in the end of the world. Why read it? Because it's Kurt F***in' Vonnegut, that's why. Ever since I read "Harrison Bergeron" and that changed my life (thanks again, Mrs. Kelly), I can't get enough of this curse-laden, dystopic, short-story, satirical mad man. But this book in particular really gets me. It's a novella about human stupidity and its many manifestations in the realms of politics, sexuality, cultural elitism, capitalism, and religion. If you read it and don't like it, that probably means you understood it.

9. The Bone People by Keri Hulme -- Technically a story about love, but also one about a woman locked away in a tower (go figure) the plot follows Kerewin Holmes, who is half Māori, half European (Pākehā), and her love interest and his son. Why read it? My best suggestion is to get drunk on New Zealand literature. Seriously, that place is stock-full of scintillating novels, poetry, and philosophy. Plus, their indigenous debates (between Māori and Pākehā) are some of the most robust, and constructive, in the world. Specifically, this book paints a picture of reconciliation between indigenous and Eurocentric powers that not only critiques colonial hegemony, but offers a pathway for both Māori and Pākehā to work together to achieve healing and unity for the future.

10. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez -- Another magical realist novel, this is the saga of seven generations of the Buendía family in Macondo in Latin America. There are massacres, marriages, major corporations, misfortunes, and migrations. It's the story of Latin American history centering around one family and one city. Why read it? It's dense, convoluted, and puzzling prose. Did I sell you yet? Every sentence, comma, and page turn mean something in this book. So it's not only an exercise in how to read a book, but it also initiates the reader into the soul, passion, and dashed dreams of many Latin Americans who fear that colonialism and corruption have fated them to a repeated history of could-have-been glory, lost love, and decay.

*Honorable Mention: Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell -- The first story in the Wallander detective series, the plot follows the bleak, cold, investigation of a bloody murder of two farmers in the countryside. The only clue to the brutal crime? The attackers may be 'foreign.' When this leaks out, racial hatred is unleashed. Why read it? A) It's entertaining. B) It's going to make you question whether you're a racist or not...and you probably are. But, as one of the characters says, what really counts, "is what you do with [your racism]."

This is my list. I could add more, I could change it up. For now, this is what it is. What would you add? What is your list? What are your thoughts? Share with me on the blog, via Facebook, or on Twitter with the hashtag #BookChallenge.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, finished in 1797.

Religion in hellholes, citadels, & tourist traps

September 2, 2014

Religion is everywhere. It’s in our hearts and in our hands. We see it in coffee shops and on college campuses, on street corners and in the local mall. Religion is everywhere.

It’s even found in deep sinkholes and picturesque beaches in Florida.

This last weekend was Labor Day weekend and my in-laws were in town. Our plan consisted of taking them to a couple of local highlights: the Devil’s Millhopper and St. Augustine. What I did not plan for was the unexpected religious “sightings” that we would find there and have the opportunity to reflect on. These case studies in religious sightings are not only engaging, but provide direction for you to discover religion in unexpected places or on vacation!

The shady sinkhole of The Devil's Millhopper and its waterfalls shelter eerie stories of demons, bones, and Indian princesses.

The Devil’s Millhopper is a local legend here in Gainesville and home to one of the most famous sinkholes in the state. Designated a National Natural Landmark and Florida State Park, the Devil’s Millhopper has been a curiosity enjoyed by tourists for over 100 years. It is not a large sinkhole, though it is an old one, formed in two stages about 10,000 and 1,000 years ago. It’s a pretty cool place, literally. The Devil’s Millhopper is not only interesting, but cooler at the bottom of its 236 steps because its basin is fed by at least twelve freshwater springs.

Researchers have unearthed a great deal of Florida’s natural history here, but it is the religious folklore surrounding the Millhopper that makes it peculiarly fascinating.

Along with shark’s teeth and fossil remains, there have been some pre-historic human remains discovered in the bottom of the sink. Thus, while the name “millhopper” comes from the comparison of the round-bottomed pit with the bowls millers use to grind grain, it was these remains that helped give rise to the Millhopper’s malevolent moniker and the rumor that the sinkhole was feeding dead bodies to the devil. Local UF students and

The Timucua, an American Indian people, whose territory included much of Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia made up of 35 chiefdoms, have an origin myth for the Devil’s Millhopper that explains much of the above mythos. The story goes:

“There was a beautiful Indian princess who lived in a village in present-day Gainesville. The Devil wanted to marry the princess, but she wanted nothing to do with him. So one day, he kidnapped her and ran. On hearing this, all the Indian braves were deeply saddened and began to chase the Devil and the Indian princess. As the braves began to get closer and closer, the Devil retreated to his portal — the sinkhole — and the braves fell in (in some stories, he created the sinkhole). They fought against the quicksand and the Devil, but seeing that they were going to lose the battle they fell into retreat. When they tried to climb out, the Devil turned them to stone (in some versions he ate them and spit up their bones, explaining the pre-historic remains). To this day, it is said, that the running water of the springs is the weeping tears of the Indian braves, shed for the beautiful princess who was taken below to the Devil’s abode.”

— Adapted from Florida State Parks Authority

St. Augustine is a little slice of historical paradise on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Nicknamed “the Ancient City” it is the oldest existent, and continuously occupied European colonial city in the U.S., founded by the Spanish in 1565.

Contested by the Spanish, British, and Americans over the centuries, St. Augustine bears the religious marks of all these influences:

Memorial Presbyterian Church, built by Henry Flagler for his northern elite religionistas.

Nombre de Dios (Name of God) is a Spanish mission station with a distinguishing 204ft cross that was run by Jesuits and Franciscans during the Spanish area and saw some success in reaching out to Mocama and Agua Dulce peoples, both part of the aforementioned Timucua group.
There are significant churches including the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine (another National Historical Landmark, finished in 1797 after a period of Spanish revival following British rule); Trinity Church of St. Augustine (the oldest Protestant church in Florida with beautiful stained glass); and the Henry Flagler-era churches Grace United Methodist Memorial Presbyterian, and Ancient City Baptist (all built ornately to cater to the northern elite Flagler, a partner of John D. Rockefeller’s, attracted to St. Augustine).
The most obvious landmark in St. Augustine, however, is Castillo San Marcos, a strategic fort for the Spanish, British, and Americans, which is home to the oldest chapel in the U.S. — St. Mark’s, in one of the theaters of the fortification.

The altar of St. Mark's Chapel in Castillo San Marcos, St. Augustine, FL.

With all this religious history, it might be easy to miss the subaltern voices of St. Augustine, the religious history of social groups who are socially, politically, and geographically outside of the dominant power structure of the colony (the Spanish, British, and American powers).

The Timucua are not the only people to feature in the religious, or native, history of Florida. Nor are the infamous Seminoles. And, unfortunately, if the story of the Devil and the Indian princess is only myth, there are far more diabolical stories about American Indians in the Sunshine State. Only, in these stories the Indians were thrown into hellholes in forts by U.S. soldiers.

An inscription of the Kiowa Sun Dance, engraved here my imprisoned Plains American Indians under U.S. forces at Castillo San Marcos, St. Augustine, FL.

The casement immediately adjacent to St. Mark’s chapel at Castillo San Marcos is a nondescript coquina-walled room where several displays explain the American Indian history of the space. It is a disheartening room to experience, as U.S. forces imprisoned American Indians who resisted replacement and subjugation under the advance of American new-colonial forces. Imprisoned next to the citadel’s chapel, trapped in their own “Devil’s Millhopper,” these Kiowa and Southern Cheyenne men etched the dreams of their freedom into the walls even as they became a tourist trap to northerners vacationing in St. Augustine, including missionaries and teachers who tried to “help” them assimilate by teaching the prisoners English, Christianity, and other elements of “American” culture.

A representation of the inscription above.

Their religious graffiti featured the Kiowa Sun Dance — outlawed by the U.S. government. The Sun Dance was the premier religious ceremony for the Kiowas, similar to other plains Indian People. Typically, it was performed annually during the summer, and provided a time for ceremonial and religious celebration and supplication. It was also a socio-cultural re-union providing an opportunity for the sharing of news, healing, and self-renewal among kin.

Engraving this into the walls, and performing it in the courtyard of the Castillo San Marcos, acted as a form of protest against their imprisonment and subjugation — especially since the Sun Dance was an agonizing ordeal for those who performed it and it in some way mirrored the torment of the imprisoned plains Indians.

Then there is the Huguenot Cemetery, which recalls the slaughter of Huguenots in St. John — French Calvinists who fled to Florida to escape persecution in France — just 26 miles North of St. Augustine.

These tragic testaments can make it seem as if the subaltern stories form St. Augustine are solely sad ones, but this is not always the case.

Tourists traipsing down St. George Street are so easily drawn to the restaurants and shops there that it is easy to walk past the National Greek Orthodox Shrine of St. Photios without noticing it.

The chapel, featuring Byzantine-style gold-leaf highlighted frescoes, at the Greek Orthodox National Shrine of St. Photios, St. Augustine, FL.

The shrine is unique in the Western Hemisphere with its dozens of Byzantine frescoes, beautifully highlighted with gold leaf. Surrounded by the subdued sounds of chants used in the Greek Orthodox Church and a coolness that is a strange departure from the outside temperature, the visitor experience includes a walk down a candle-lit corridor to a beautiful grotto.

But what is it doing in St. Augustine? According to the documentary video in the chapel, St. Augustine is Greek-Americans’ ‘Plymouth Rock.’ Forced out by poverty and land-locked farming scenarios from their Mediterranean home, the first Greeks to arrive in the New World came by ship to St. Augustine in 1768. From here, they traveled south to work as indentured servants at an indigo plantation. While they suffered there, they remember St. Augustine fondly and have enshrined it in their national psyche naming the chapel after St. Photios the Great, a 9th-century patriarch of Constantinople, the seat of power and nationalism for the Greek Orthodox.

This beautiful shrine is open to the public, but very few enjoy its splendors or explore its history. The same goes for the Kiowa engraving or the Huguenot cemetery. Missing these subaltern sites means failing to see the whole story of a place, a time, and a people.

What can you do to make sure you don’t miss the story? Open your eyes to the wonderful world of religious sightings, study up a little beforehand, and go spiritual site-seeing.

You’ll be surprised what you find.

The Christian Cross, Texan Identity, & "Tex-ianity"

August 28, 2014

Texas is Texas, that’s for sure, and even the Christian cross has come to reflect the peculiar qualities that elicit fierce loyalty and identity from locals and both fascination and aversion from outsiders. But what makes Texas, “Texas?” And, consequently what makes Texans ingrain their culture in their crosses? Texans garner these attitudes and convictions from a history of rugged independence and a pride of their roots formed on ranches and fields that bring forth cotton, cattle, oil, politicians and football stars. There is an unwavering devotion to the Texan way of life, to what Randolph B. Campbell has called “personal liberty, rampant individualism, and admiration for the superrich.”

Although in general, the cross is a symbol of suffering and an icon of redemption and victory through pain and death, in Texas, the cross serves as a symbol of freedom, ingenuity, rough-and-tumble independence and strength.

What's it like to 'be both?' An interview with interfaith family pioneer, researcher, Susan Katz Miller

August 26, 2014

Every day, Americans interact with an increasing number of people from different faiths. With Mormon neighbors, Hindu co-workers, and non-religious friends, it is unsurprising to see a growing number of interfaith marriages in the United States. Indeed, Naomi Schaeffer Riley reported that just less than half (42%) of marriages in the U.S. are interfaith ones. Regardless of geographic location, sex, educational status, or income level interfaith marriages are on the rise.

Susan Katz Miller's book Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family -- a book that famed author, and interfaith pioneer, Reza Aslan called, "a gorgeous and inspiring testament to the power of love...." -- was written with this growing demographic, and their families, in mind.

*Pick up the NEW paperback copy of Being Both on pre-order (Oct. 21)

It also speaks to those who are in mono-religious, or non-religious, relationships. For those who married within their own faith group Being Both introduces another world often judged, and nudged to the margins, by monochromatic religious insiders who look down upon interfaith unions. Odds are, however, that even if you married someone from your own religion, you are related to, or know, someone from an interfaith background and you may be interested in the dynamics at work or wondering how you might best bless your loved ones in an appropriate, and knowledgable, way. Miller's book is an easy opportunity to apperceive the blessings, and challenges, presented to interfaith families. For religious leaders, such as pastors, imams, rabbis, etc. it challenges them to consider a "pastoral theology" for interfaith families. For academics, it presents areas for further research. While Miller conducted her own survey, she suggests the field is ripe for more in-depth quantitative and qualitative study.

Miller speaks from her own interfaith experience and thus maintains a positive tone throughout. The interfaith maven covers a wide breadth of concerns from interfaith family communities to coming of age ceremonies for interfaith children and their eventual religious outlook during adulthood. The book focuses specifically on Jewish-Christian relationships and is limited in scope when it comes to other mixed marriages with people from Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, non-religious, or other religious backgrounds. However, as Miller notes, she eagerly awaits the publication of other titles that explore the many varieties of interfaith families.

I had the opportunity to ask Miller some follow-up questions about religious fluidity, furthering the interfaith family conversation, and the future of interfaith communities in the U.S. Her answers are worth a long look:

*For more on religion & culture, follow Ken on Twitter

You wrote, “[C]hildren, whether or not they are interfaith children, go out into this world and make their own religious choices.” That freaks some people out, why don't you think people should be scared?

Americans are switching denominations and religions at a significant rate, and leaving behind formal affiliation to become “spiritual but not religious,” according to Pew Research. That is the reality of our current flexible and fluid religious landscape, in a country with freedom of religious affiliation. If you want your children to have a particular religious identity, your best strategy is to raise them with that singular identity. So if both parents agree that they want to raise the child in that religion, fine, go for it. But if you have two religions represented in the family, or one religion and one secular worldview, my point is that you cannot simply ignore the second worldview. This child grows up knowing and loving people with two different sets of practices, two belief systems. I believe that this gives them a certain proclivity for universalism, bridge-building, and peacemaking, which I see as an advantage in life, and good for the world. Our complex world is now interconnected by media and internet, shrinking rapidly in terms of our ability to interact in real time. Children who span the traditional cultural, ethnic, racial and religious boundaries have a head start in becoming the cultural translators and diplomats who can help us to make this complex world a peaceful one.

What’s been the reception of the book?

This has been a year filled with exhilarating conversations. I have spoken to rooms packed with parents, with college students, with interfaith dialogue groups, and to a room filled with almost 50 rabbis. I’m in dialogue with ministers and priests, Muslims and Hindus. I would love to visit every seminary in America, because clergy need to be prepared for pastoral counseling of the growing segment of interfaith families. And college chaplains, in particular, are looking for tools to help support students with complex religious identities, or in complex religious relationships. I can help provide those tools. Most of all, I am heartened by the fact that Jewish communities are beginning to reconsider the strategy of ignoring the 25% of intermarried Jewish parents raising children “partly Jewish and partly something else.” These are not families rejecting Judaism: they are families who want to stay connected. For instance, this year the venerable Jewish Daily Forward invited me to be on a roster of experts for their new interfaith families advice column, alongside more conservative viewpoints.

How can someone who is not involved in an interfaith relationship better interact with interfaith communities and create an environment that does not marginalize them?

I would say, try to see that human beings, all of us, have complex religious identities. None of us fit easily into single-label boxes. Even if you strongly identify as, say, Presbyterian, you may or may not agree on various religious beliefs or practices with your neighbor in the pew. Each of us constructs our own religious and spiritual (or humanist) identities out of our family backgrounds, our encounters with the natural world, with literature and religious texts, with other people. People from interfaith families are no different in this regard. We simple start out with a broader range of family influences.

What is the first step for families who are interfaith who want to be more pro-active?

A couple getting married starts from a shared platform of love and respect, and ideally they have had deep conversations and have a shared position on the religious and spiritual life of their family going forward. Unfortunately, often it is the extended family, who may have less intimate experience with people from other religions, who put on pressure about the wedding, about the education and identity of future children, etc. Everyone in this situation needs to work hard to continue to encounter each other out of a place of love, rather than fear and defensiveness. Ideally, rather than a retreat to avoiding each other, spend time with extended family, sharing holiday celebrations and religious rituals without pressuring anyone to convert or to choose a particular pathway for the children.

What are the greatest promises, and challenges, facing interfaith families at the present moment?

As interfaith families, we represent the extraordinary religious freedom and ability to bridge social boundaries in America today. This is both a promise and a challenge. My own experience, as part of a happy three-generation family, is tremendously positive. The challenge is mainly in explaining my happiness to people, mainly baby boomers and older people, who tell me “you can’t do that.” I find that young people, Millennials and in particular the newer “Generation Z,” often come from complex family backgrounds, and have a more intuitive understanding of religious complexity.

Some may counter, “isn’t saying someone is “interfaith” like starting a new religion all its own valuing pluralism and tolerance, worshipping some polytheistic amalgamation of gods? Isn’t saying something is ‘both’ just some trumped up form of ‘buffet style religion?’” Respond.

Interfaith is not a religion: there is no specific interfaith theology, or required set of practices. Interfaith is a state of being that results from marriage into, or birth into, an extended interfaith family. The communities that have grown up to support interfaith families provide a way to stay connected to both religions, to teach children the history and texts of both, and to allow them the opportunity to experience religious rituals, when they may or may not be welcomed or feel comfortable in more traditional houses of worship. These communities also provide a place where families can experience their interfaith status as positive, rather than feeling marginalized.

Your book focuses predominately on Jewish-Christian interfaith families. You say you look forward to the books to be written from other interfaith combinations, but you wrote, “each religious recombination creates unique challenges and unique synergies.” Talk a little more about that.

I did interview interfaith couples including Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist practices, so in that chapter of my book you get a glimpse of some of the ways these interfaith families work. What stays the same is the essential role of respect, educating each other and sharing in ritual together, and working to maintain positive relationships with extended family. I can recommend three books that have been published already. The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks on a Mormon and Jewish family, Saffron Cross by J. Dana Trent on a Hindu and Christian family, and a new book, In Faith and In Doubt by Dale McGowan, on Christian and secular humanist families.

What’s the next step in the field of researching interfaith families and interfaith communities?

My book was the first to survey and interview interfaith children raised with intentional interfaith educations. I think the results are tantalizing, and largely reassuring in terms of refuting the idea that interfaith children raised with “both” will be confused. But I am really hoping that academics now follow up with larger and longer studies on the spiritual and religious journeys of these children.

For many readers, this is their first experience with the concept of an interfaith community. Break down an interfaith community’s core vision, purpose in three points:

An interfaith families community:

What does a Jewish-Christian family do in December -- when both Christmas and Hanukkah are celebrated? The answer can nurture children towards greater religious appreciation later in life.

Provides a “third space” in which neither spouse is a “guest,” and couples can deepen their knowledge of and respect for both religions.
Provides an interfaith education for interfaith children, so that they can study the histories, texts, beliefs and practices of both family religions in a program staffed with a Jewish and a Christian teacher in each classroom.
Provides a space for interfaith families to celebrate holidays together, talk about their experiences, and nurture children who feel positive about being part of an interfaith family.

You talk about the promise of religious "interfaith identity and practice" for individuals, the pitfalls for religious institutions. Expand on that.

Many American religious institutions are struggling to maintain membership and affiliation, in an era when people are choosing to be spiritual but not religious, or choosing to be neither. Ideally, families raising children with intentional interfaith education would be able to affiliate with two religious institutions, for instance a synagogue and a church, in addition to an interfaith families community, rather than feeling that they are welcome in none. It is really up to these religious institutions to decide whether or not they are willing to accept children who are being educated about both family religions. When these families are welcomed, the couple benefits, the children benefit, and the institution benefits both in terms of getting bodies into the pews, and in terms of bringing the reality of our interfaith 21st century world into the conversation.

*For more on religion & culture, follow Ken on Twitter

"Black Jesus" premiered on Adult Swim August 7th, 2014 - just three days before peaceful protests and riots broke out in Ferguson, MO over the shooting of Michael Brown

Jesus in strange places: ‘Black Jesus’ & understanding religion & race on the margins

August 21, 2014

Every once and a while Jesus shows up in strange places.

The first time I saw Jesus appear in a peculiar place was as an adolescent at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) thanks to my friend Birghapati, a Hare Krishna. Upon discovering I was a Christian, Birghapati opened up the book The Hidden Glory of India to share with me how Jesus, after surviving his crucifixion, traveled to India, learned under a guru, and taught there for several years. The section on “the lost years of Jesus in India” was only two pages, but in that short chapter was an entire universe of problems, possibilities, and peculiarities for me to fathom.

Encountering Jesus in a strange place thrust me into a world of healthy, albeit challenging, questions, which in turn spurred my personal spiritual progress and taught me much about religion at the margins. Your own experience of Jesus in a strange place could prompt your own discovery or, if contemplated in a community, a group’s grasping of the nature, and reality, of Jesus — even as he appears in strange places.

With the proliferation of new media sources (television shows, podcasts, webpages, social media sites), Jesus pops up everywhere and millions of people see him, or hear about him, in a relatively short period of time. He appears on hospital windows, spaghetti dinners, in Middle Eastern dreams, and in newly syndicated TV shows like “Black Jesus” — a scripted comedy on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” from “The Boondocks” creator Aaron McGruder.

Each time Jesus materializes there is undoubtedly controversy concerning orthodoxy and who has the authority to adjudicate Jesus’ authentic appearances and presence. But, what if instead of immediately denouncing these outlier apparitions of Jesus, we all took the opportunity to ask a few relevant questions?

To get a grasp of what I’m going for here (and before you immediately denounce me as a heretic), let’s look at the case of “Black Jesus.” The comedy show centers on a black Jesus Christ living in contemporary Compton. His mission is to spread a gospel of kindness in “the hood” with his modern-day disciples. In the first episode, Jesus gets busted for smoking pot, only to escape being charged by transforming the marijuana into garden salad (playing off Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine in John 2: 1-11, no doubt).

It is easy to see how many Christians could be offended by such a portrayal of their Messiah. Likewise, many African-Americans may be affronted by the stereotypes that are thrust onto a “black Jesus” who, instead of being a rousing Messiah, proves “a lazy, unemployable drug-user.” Indeed, choruses of complaint have been raised by both constituencies in the wake of the show’s recent release.

*For more on religion and culture, follow Ken on Twitter

At the same time, there are commentators and cultural pundits who are laying blasphemy and bigotry aside to ask “what can we learn from ‘Black Jesus’?” Chandra Johnson wrote in The Deseret News National:

After the collective denunciation among faith groups of Adult Swim's new show "Black Jesus," which spawned a handful of Change.org petitions, some are trying to glean deeper meaning from the show.

Now, how does this question, and others that must precede, and proceed from, it help us learn more about Jesus and religion at the margins? Here are five questions that can prompt a healthy discussion when Jesus shows up in an unexpected place:

1. Where (and when)?

The first question(s) to ask is “where does this come from?” and, subsequently, “when did this appearance first happen?” The social locatedness of a spiritual encounter is paramount in understanding what such an appearance can reveal about the people experiencing it and concerning the experience itself.

Take, for example, the various manifestations of the Virgin Mary (La Virgen) in indigenous contexts across Latin America. In Guadalupe, she co-mingles indigenous heritage with Catholic religion and becomes the symbol of a new mestizaje — a new world Mexican religious and cultural identity. Then in San Juan, she bridges and permeates borders between national identities, civil rights entities, multicultural institutions and various ethnicities. Wherever La Virgen appears, she is speaking to the culture’s need to bridge the traditional and the contemporary and to give birth to something new, salvific, and powerful, yet tender.

So what does it mean when “Black Jesus” shows up on Adult Swim? Perhaps we would best first ask “when?” This “Black Jesus” is not the first black Jesus. He comes at the end of a long line of artistic depictions of Jesus influenced by culture, political, and theological circumstances. Jesus has been depicted as black — either as African or African American — for centuries. Notably, the “Black Christ” movement helped identify Jesus’ suffering with the struggle of African Americans in the U.S. who were fighting for equality and acceptance in their own nation. Wherever Jesus has appeared as “black” he has been viewed as associating, identifying, and commiserating with those who feel oppressed because of the color of their skin.

2. Who (and when again)?

What does this mean, then, when “Black Jesus” is introduced to the Adult Swim audience? What is the significance of those to whom Jesus now appears? What does this tell us?

Adult Swim’s audience is not predominately “black.” In fact, its typical viewers’ ethnic make up is almost two-thirds “white” (62%), with a third “black” (27%), and otherwise Hispanic or “Other” (11%).

Perhaps this “Black Jesus” is introducing the concept of the “Black Christ” as liberator to an audience who is generally, or wholly, unfamiliar with this liberating figure of the marginalized and downtrodden. Or, possibly, its being used as a comedic foil and is seeking to be offensive for offense’ (and ratings’) sake.

3. Why?

And this unveils the important question of “why this ‘Black Jesus?’” Aaron McGruder is no rank-and-file comedian solely seeking laughs and high marks. He is a social commentator who formerly used his characters on “The Boondocks” to speak to pertinent issues in politics and culture. He did so with a young African-American voice, “one that never backed down with his satire in the face of criticism and one that showed we weren’t just a materialistic, money-hungry generation…” but one that cared about the political and social issues of the nation, and world, at large.

Conceivably, McGruder and the Adult Swim team are not only making Jesus funny, and cool, for their white, hipster-fied, demographic, they are also introducing a distinctly “black” voiced Jesus into the “wide world of white” to peel back the surface and expose the nitty-gritty, real-world, issues that the African-American population in the U.S. deals with on a daily basis.

4. What?

This leads to the central question that those who seek to grow from their encounter with “Black Jesus” are asking — “what can we learn from this show?”

Comedy, especially when it is offensive, pushes boundaries of what is acceptable in society in order to transgress the current cultural order and be a trailblazer for change.

As The Deseret News National shared,

minister Christopher House took a different tact entirely on The Huffington Post, saying the show was an opportunity for Christian reflection. ‘Identification precedes personal, spiritual and social salvation,’ House wrote. ‘Rather than simply dismissing the show as being blasphemous, maybe we should continue to watch with an awareness of contemporary issues and a strong sense of irony. To do so would ask us to consider what then does it mean to have a black Jesus living and moving in impoverished black spaces?’

To see how relevant, and important, that question, and “Black Jesus,” can be, look no further than #Ferguson. McGruder could not have foreseen the future, but the timing of the release of “Black Jesus” could likewise not have come at a more (in)convenient time. As our nation wrestles with racial stereotypes and spills blood and sparks fires on the streets of St. Louis, “Black Jesus” no longer seems a laughing matter, but one of serious contemporary import. That “Black Jesus” is on view on a network that appeals predominately to “Whites” might be the most consequential element of this manifestation.

5. How?

But how can all of this even be possible? How can it be the case that Jesus can be morphed, co-opted, reshaped, and re-cast in so many cultural, religious, and political molds?

Without delving into the debate about the veracity of the various ethnic and cultural portrayals of Jesus throughout the ages, this latest likeness of Christ testifies to the continually potent, and potentially problematic, “translation principle” proposed and popularized by Lamin Sanneh.

In his book Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture and several other essays and works, Yale scholar Sanneh expounded upon the idea that “translation” is embedded in the Christian message, and particularly the life and ministry of Jesus. From a missionary perspective, “Christianity is recognizable only in the embodied idioms and values of the cultures in which we find it,” Sanneh wrote in Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective. There is much potential here, as the “the receiving culture [becomes] the decisive destination of God’s salvific promise….” However, there is also inherent danger, as “mission as translation” commits to a bold and radical step that may lead to the “muddying of the waters” and leave Jesus at the mercy of various “cultural makeovers.” This leads to contested theories of who, and what, Jesus was and is.

Ever since he was born, the masses have argued over who Jesus is and who he claimed to be. There are many contemporary voices that make the claim to authenticity in a religiously, ethnically, and culturally diverse world. Who has the claim to say that their Jesus is the correct Jesus? Who doesn’t have that authority? Is “Black Jesus” an authentic Jesus? These are good questions to wrestle with in your community.

As the debate rages on what can be gleaned are the following points:

Taking a step back to ask hard questions about “Black Jesus” allows for us to learn more about how people view Jesus and what is inherently “translatable” about him.
It also permits us the opportunity to view religion from the margins and associate with religious, and cultural, “others” whose ethnic, social, or political locus may be wholly unfamiliar to us.
Finally, we can use these above questions and guidelines to ask similar questions of other spiritual experiences and manifestations. When the Virgin Mary appears on toast, Krishna becomes a superhero, the Buddha is found in the butcher shop, or the Qur’an is hung on the wall for an art installation we can ask the significance of where this has shown up; to whom it appeared; why to them, in this place, at this time; what does it mean; and how is this even possible.

Perhaps these points will not lead us to “truth,” but instead to a deeper understanding of the multifaceted and complex ways that people experience the sacred mystically, sacramentally, and prophetically in a media-rich and multi-religious world. Often, these experiences are not “authentic” in that they conform to the orthodox code, but they are authentic insofar as they are experienced. So that begs the question of why they are experienced and what that means for the religion for which they bear the most consequence.

In this instance, “Black Jesus” has appeared and we have experienced the phenomenon. What does this tell us about Jesus? What does this tell us about "us?" What can we learn, and apply, from this manifestation whether it be authentic or heretical, comedic or blasphemous?

*For more on religion and culture, follow Ken on Twitter

Invoking Dumbledore when tragedy strikes: Dealing with death through postmodern parables

August 14, 2014

In a society that is increasingly post-religious and secular, how do we cope with senseless tragedy and death? Who do we invoke to assuage our anguish? In some cases we still might cling to the concept of God or seek the salvific intervention of some compassionate saint or bodhisattva. Other times, we may look to canonized characters from the realm of fantasy fiction.

On July 9th, 2014 Stephen and Katie Stay, along with four of their five children, were murdered in their Houston-area home. Their daughter Cassidy, 15, was the sole survivor who, according to family, police, and media, “heroically” called 911 and gave details to authorities that led to the capture of the suspect just minutes later.

Certainly, what happened to the Stay family was an absurd tragedy. In the wake of such senseless slaughter neighbors, family, friends, international authors and celebrities, and the nation as a whole rallied around Cassidy. A gathering was held to raise support for her as she coped with losing her family. Religious invocations and undercurrents were omnipresent at the event, which is understandable given the otherworldly nature of tragedy and the family’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. “LDS” or “Mormon Church”).

Stay’s grandfather, Roger Lyons, spoke at the memorial before Cassidy and mentioned the support of their LDS church and community and clinging “to the hope of life.” He then invoked his faith’s founder — Joseph Smith — alluding to his persecution, trials, and contemplation of “the sting of death” and the baptism of the dead, and quoted him:

“now what do we hear in the Gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness, a voice of mercy from heaven, and a voice of truth out of the earth. Glad tidings for the dead. A voice of gladness for the living and the dead. Glad tidings of great joy. Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage brethren, and on, on, to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Let the mountains shout for joy and all ye valleys cry aloud and let all the sons of God shout for joy!”

— Doctrine & Covenants 128:19ff

When Cassidy stood to speak, she did not quote The Book of Mormon, The Bible, or any other sacred text of the LDS church, but instead she invoked Albus Dumbledore, the revered and sagely headmaster from Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

— Cassidy Stay, quoting Albus Dumbledore

While not downplaying these horrible circumstances and extending compassion, without judgment, to Ms. Stay and her family, this episode invites consideration of the role of myth in the 21st-century West. This post is a consideration of how in the wake of catastrophe, and in dealing with death, in a religiously pluralistic culture, we not only look to traditional spiritual sources for solace, but also to “post-modern parables” and modern, “profane,” myths such as Harry Potter.

Throughout history, humans have composed, compiled, and communicated myths, stories, and parables to convey perceptions of deep and abiding truths concerning the human condition. In many societies, these myths were explicitly religious and part of the plausibility structure of a culture and its ethos that helped members of the community deal with anomy — or chaotic events and circumstances — such as death. Myths proved a powerful vehicle for dealing with cosmic questions and often shaped the lives and rituals of the people who told them or wrote them down for posterity. Indeed, in many ways, stories are part of what it means to be human and, especially, to be human in community.

In today’s world, myths are not always religious per se, but serve similar functions. While they may play off religious themes (we all remember studying the biblical references made in famous British and American literature classics we all read in high school), modern stories do not necessarily, or directly, invoke “the gods” in order to sneak past, or perchance to slay, the “watchful dragons” that C.S. Lewis referred to in discussing the power of fairy tales.

Reading, whether religious or secular, continues to play a central role in American religious practice and community building. Indeed, much of modern day literature is an attempt to provide formative stories to help explain the human condition and build community, albeit loosely, around contemporary fiction. Look no further than the cathedral of literary sodality — the book club.

Lamenting the fact that so many books are inherently depressive when it comes to the modern human condition and, in fact, disdainful of moral communities and spiritual institutions, Kristen D. Randle wrote this reflection, “the world seems to be going through some kind of accelerated social and moral entropy, a dissolving of the kind of cultural and moral bonds that make and keep a community.” She called for hopeful stories, particularly in the realm of young adult literature, that would beckon youth and children beyond death and decay and into life, and faith (although not explicitly religious or divine faith).

Enter Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling, who to her credit sent a letter “from Dumbledore” to Ms. Stay, crafted such a hopeful narrative when she penned the Potter series. Not only did this story invite readers into a fanciful world of magic and mystery, but it beckoned them to consider life, death, community, sacrifice, and the eternal battle between good and evil. Unabashedly, Rowling spun together Christian and post-modern spiritual themes to great effect. In the words of one commenter, in a post-Christian world Rowling re-articulated “the themes of religion in fresh and original ways” that are accessible to all, regardless of religious background. The series not only created fanfare, and garnered much economic success, but created community — replete with gatherings, pilgrimages, and rituals.

Effectively, albeit unintentionally, Rowling created a non-sectarian, non-institutional, secular-but-still-spiritual “little religion.” A “little religions” is what Mircea Eliade said modern humanity turns to as a “pseudo religion,” but with its concomitant symbols can still provide “a religious vision of the world” that enables the non-religious “modern man” to open up his individual experience to bear fruit in the universal. As Eliade wrote, “Whether modern man ‘kills’ time with a detective story or enters such a foreign temporal universe as is represented by any novel, reading projects him out of his personal duration and incorporates him into other rhythm, makes him live in another ‘history.’” These stories are the narratives of “camouflaged” religious myths.

The transcendence, resurrection, and corporate salvation we may no longer wish to find in institutional religion, we now seek in “post-modern parables” like Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, or The Hunger Games.

This is all very similar to the journey of a young man who used magical seer stones to discern hidden messages on golden plates in the hills of New York in the early 19th-century. Joseph Smith was uncertain about the religious choices of his day, the institutional offerings of access to the transcendent and the divine, and so he sought the magnificence of the spiritual world in his own visions and writings. So too, have generations of Mormons who followed his words and attempted to establish their own spiritual community — Zion — on earth.

When dealing with tragic events such as natural disasters, genocides, or family murders it seems our post-modern search is not limited to what is already available or offered by institutional religion and their attendant myths, stories, and parables. If we cannot find what we are looking for in these traditional sources, we increasingly invoke other stories, and their characters, such as Albus Dumbledore, to help us cope with the chaos of death.

*This blog entry does not wish to make any statements concerning Cassidy Stay's religion or convey any judgment on her experience. Instead, it seeks to use the anecdotal note from the memorial event and make comments related to general religious and spiritual culture in the U.S.

Works Referenced:

Barned-Smith, St. John. “Harry Potter author reaches out to survivor of Spring family shooting.” The Houston Chronicle, August 6, 2014, http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Stay-family-thanks-community-for-donations-says-5681733.php (accessed August 14, 2014).

Butler, John, Grant Wacker, and Randal Balmer. Religion in American Life: A Short History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Caldecott, Leonie. “Christian themes in Harry Potter: A wizard’s mission.” Christian Century (January 2008): 24-27.

Click2Houston. “Cassidy Stay, grandfather speak at Celebration of Life event.” http://www.click2houston.com/news/cassidy-stay-grandfather-speak-at-celebration-of-life-event/26923030 (accessed August 13, 2014).

Cunningham, Lawrence S. et. al. The Sacred Quest: An Invitation to the Study of Religion (2nd Edition). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.

Granger, John. “Harry Is Here to Stay.” Christianity Today (July 2011): 50-53

Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt Publishing Co., 1959.

Lewis, C. S. “Sometimes fairy stories may say best what's to be said.” New York Times. http://search.proquest.com/docview/113700480?accountid=9784 (accessed August 14, 2014).

Randle, Kristen D. “Young Adult Literature: Let It Be Hope.” The English Journal 90, no. 4 (March 2001): 125-130.

Ronald, Emily K. “More than ‘Alone with the Bible’: Reconceptualizing Religious Reading.” Sociology of Religion 73, no. 3 (February 2012): 323-344.