The Passion of Justin Bieber, Surf Church, & other Recent #FaithGoesPop Sightings

April 2, 2015

The goal of #FaithGoesPop is to pay attention to, sight, and comment on the many ways that religion and pop culture cross paths, intermesh, and come into conflict. The hope is that our exploration of "Faith Pop" would be broad enough to include the ways religion is re-appropriated in popular culture and how popular culture is re-allocated by religious actors and entities. To do this successfully I called on many of you to sight your "Faith Pop" and let me know when you saw #FaithGoesPop via Facebook, Twitter, & e-mail.

You've done very well.

We've got a fresh new harvest of #FaithGoesPop sightings ranging from water bottles to the passion of Justin Bieber, from soul food seders to surf church and everything in between. Lez get started.

All the way from California Alex W. sent me a pic of "Noah Water: California Spring Water." Yes, they went there.

Noah's Water, flooding your thirst since the Deluvian age.

You know, because nothing screams "clever marketing" louder than a Hebrew Torah narrative about Ha Shem (G-d) wiping humans, animals, and (possibly?) unicorns off the face of the earth with torrential downpours and water spouts from the pits of hell? (See Genesis 6-9) And if that isn't ironic enough, they call it "Noah's Water," because, you know, after spending 40 days and nights floating on a world of water all that Noah wants is a tall, cool, glass of spring water. Yeah right. I'd imagine that every time Noah drank a glass of water after the Genesis flood he suffered from a serious case of PTSD. "Flood your thirst." Brilliant tagline. About as good as a tagline for red paint that reads, "Passover Proof" or these tasteless salt and pepper shakers featuring Lot and his wife. Nice touch by catching the sheer terror of Lot's wife with her arms raised in a running pose.

"What's going on here?!" you ask. Irony. Pure, Gen X-er & Millennial proof irony. As Brett McCracken of RELEVANT magazine notes:

“It’s no secret: Our generation—letʼs very roughly say those of us currently between college age and 40—is very, very ironic. That is, we look at the world, especially pop culture, through a highly sarcastic, “youʼve got to be joking, right?” lens. More self-aware and media savvy than ever, we are a growing class of ironists who speak in terms of pastiche, Internet bits and pop culture bites, film quotes and song lyrics, and “oh no she didnʼt!” tabloid tomfoolery. We look the stupidity of culture in the face and kiss it...”

— Brett McCracken, RELEVANT Magazine

McCracken reflects that irony has become a defense mechanism for the savvy generations that grew up in a society where earnestness failed and consumer capitalism ran rampant. Irony is a way to strip the forces of global capitalism and normal nihilism from their inevitable and quasi divine force. How? To make sure nothing is sacred and everything is ridiculous. I can't quite complain. I'm part of this generation. I swallow pastiche & appreciate sardonicism with the best of them. But I must say, with Noah's Water we may have outdone ourselves.

*FYI, our last #FaithGoesPop compendium featured an H20 bottle as well. There is something in the water folks.

Now, from water to beer. Ben C. out in California shared a photo of a "Holy Hefeweizen" that he had the honor of blessing before it was tapped for the St. Patrick season at a local SoCal brewery.

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 11.55.59 AM.png

Of course, religious quaffs are nothing new. Sages across the ages have not only enjoyed a drink or two, but brewed a few (or hundreds) of gallons as well and there are even deities of the sacred draughts. If you were tempted, like I am, to give thanks for the saintly suds from above, you could turn to Silenus, Greek god of beer, or Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess who slakes the thirst of the world with the fruit of her bounteous hops. Here in the Americas, you could magnify the Mexica deity Tezcatzontecatl, god of drunkenness. Perhaps, with a swig of ale you could proclaim the accolades of Mbaba Mwana Waresa, the Zulu god credited with brewing the first beer in creation. To learn more about the storied history of religion & beer, check out

Staying at the table for our #FaithGoesPop sightings I came across a "Soul Food Seder" in the most recent edition of Sunset Magazine.

Sunset shares the story of chef Tanya Holland (again, in California) who runs Oakland's Brown Sugar Kitchen who makes a case for the best soul food west of the Mississippi. For years, she's wanted to host a seder. Married Phil Surkis, who is Jewish, the pair invited friends and family over for a "soul food seder" that harmonized African American and Jewish culture, recipes, and rituals. The result? North African styled haroseth symbolizing the mortar the Hebrews were forced to make bricks from in Egypt; Creole Matzo-ball Soup; & flourless chocolate pecan cake. This remix on a rather traditional table setting and menu is the quintessence of cultural hybridity. Fusing her African American roots and Jewish husband's background on one level and redeeming history (using North African recipe elements for foods representing the liberating meal of a people once enslaved there) on another, Holland created a "third-space" out the post-colonial pieces that make up her mélange family story. The result? A table full of fellowship, stories, and a recipe for the future of religion and culture.

Next, another merger. This time: surf church.

Photo from The Los Angeles Times story on Pepperdine's surf chapels. — Photo from *The Los Angeles Times* story on Pepperdine's surf chapels.

It seems we can't get away from California (I promise, the next sighting won't be from the Left Coast). But I can't say no to my mom, who sighted this one and sent it my way. Out at Pepperdine University, students are given the opportunity to attend "Surf Chapel." The Los Angeles Times reported, "First they listen to Bible passages and break up into small groups to share emotional highs and lows. Then many of them don wetsuits, grab boards from a Pepperdine recreation department truck and hit the waves." The surfer's service is led by former Navy-man and current business professor Rob Shearer who "carries his surfboard and his New American Standard Bible and wades into the sacred realm of the outdoors, where he expounds the merits of religious belief and community building" every Wednesday with Pepperdine undergrads.

Surfing and religion have a wavy history. Pepperdine profs aren't alone in taking to the waves to surf the spirit. Indeed, Dr. Bron Taylor (University of Florida) reflected in Surfing magazine and elsewhere that "soul surfers" who testify to the "physical, psychological, and spiritual" benefits of surfing constitute their own "new religious movement" which prescribes a reverence for nature's "transformative, healing, and sacred" powers.

Like the close-calls and cuts of surfers contending for the same break it seems "soul surfers" and those "surfing for the Savior" may compete to catch the same spiritual swell.

kay, I promised. No more California. Let's head to Brazil and move from "surfing the spirits" to "slaying in the Spirit."

Celso F. sighted this gem of a graphic image illustrating a Pare de Sufrir warrior cutting down an effigy of a mai de santo (lit. "mother of saint") the Candomble religion of Brazil. Vitor Teixeira, a South American political humorist and illustrator often takes his pen-and-ink out on the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG, or Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus), also known as Pare de Sufrir (lit. "stop suffering"). Here, he makes clear the theological bent of the 8 million member strong neo-Pentecostal megachurch, which is planting churches in places as diverse as Houston, TX and London, England. With an emphasis on Spirit-fueled healing of the body, prophecy, baptism in the Holy Spirit, glossolalia (speaking in tongues), and eternal salvation the UCKG sees itself as a bulwark against satanic influences in poverty, crime, and competing religions. Thus, the church trains their followers to be "warriors" to fight against Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomble and Umbanda (see the 2005 book Orixás, Caboclos e Guias: Deuses ou Demônios? by founding pastor Edir Macedo).

The conflict, and the embodied, pneumatic, and apocalyptic essence of UCKG highlights the triumphant, and even dominionist, theology of some new global Pentecostalisms. While not representative of all Pentecostals, the UCKG makes explicit the swelling numbers of those Spirit-filled evangelicals who aim to "raise champions and take territories" for the Lord relying on a worldview that sees the spiritual manifest in city blocks, and visceral contestations over human bodies. In their view, the spiritual is all pervasive and everything material is a potential vessel of divine power -- nefarious or benevolent. Everything is spiritual. Thus, the Spirit of God must be called upon to fight and cure physical enemies and realities -- social, political, economic, and religious.

Speaking of spiritual battles, let's talk about "The Passion of Justin Bieber."

You can't un-do seeing this photo. It's burned in your memory for-ev-er [insert "Sandlot" voiceover here]. — You can't un-do seeing this photo. It's burned in your memory *for-ev-er* [insert "Sandlot" voiceover here].

Andrew R. sent me a link to a Jezebel story wherein the author highlights the parallels between Jesus Christ's passion during #HolyWeek and the recent roasting of everyone's favorite popstar to hate -- Justin Bieber. Other than the expected, but nonetheless lame, jokes about "believers" and "Beliebers" the roast featured a long list of B-list celebs taking the mickey out of Bieber in a thinly veiled attempt to resurrect his career.

While the author makes it clear that, in reality, "apart from their scant biographical similarities" JB and JC have nothing in common it seems we've come full circle in our exploration of #FaithGoesPop. We started with irony. We end with irony. What could be more satirical than a parallel comparison of the passion narrative of a man many consider divine with a man many consider a boy?

The answer? Noah Water, that's what.

Conclusion

As you can see folks, religion is everywhere. Not only does it serve as a launching point for caustic humor, but despite the prophecies of secular theorists who foresaw the decline of religion in the 21st-century the world is a seemingly very sacred place. At home altars and in public processions of faith, from breweries to Biebers, religion helps us to make meaning of popular culture. Religion, what Dr. Anthony Pinn of Rice University sums up as "the quest for complex subjectivity" involves our search to answer the fundamental questions of our existence and invest life -- in all its material pop culture glory -- with significant, transcendent, meaning.

Keep your eyes peeled friends. You shouldn't have to look too hard. #FaithGoesPop is everywhere.

Hip-Hop Hijabis, Mos Def, & Muslim Rap Music Culture

March 31, 2015

The Roots, the band accompanying Jimmy Fallon every night on The Tonight Show, are known for their neo-soul infused hip-hop beats and a jazzy, eclectic, approach to their own original music and every song they cover. On their first commercially successful album Things Fall Apart, from the song, "The Spark," the lyrics rhyme:

“Might act up, but I still can pass dawa
I’m usin’ new ways to try to reach these better days
Instead of tryin’ to take you under I just make you wonder
I still fast, make salaat, and pay zakat
I didn’t make Hajj yet, but that’s my next project
Livin’ two lives, one of turn and one with true lies
Keeping up hope knowing he’s answering to my du’as.”

— The Roots, "The Spark" -- Things Fall Apart

Dawa, salaat, zakat, Hajj, and du'a. This is the language of Islam. Why is it in a Roots song you ask? Roots leader and co-founder Tariq "Black Thought" Luqman Trotter belongs to The Nation of Gods and Earths (a.k.a. "The Five-Percent Nation") founded by former Nation of Islam member Clarence 13X and a major influence in the hip-hop scene in NYC and beyond. Malik B., who left the group over a decade ago, is a Sunni Muslim.

The Muslim influence in The Roots music is evident, but it is not unique. Hip-hop giants such as Mos Def, Q-Tip, Nas, Wu Tang Clan, and Erik B and Raqim have have all featured rhymes infused with Islamic terms and themes. Some of them are faithful Sunnis, Five-percenters, or members of the Nation. You could add to this list of notable Muslim rap mavens the up-and-coming UK duo, "Poetic Pilgrimage."

*Follow @kchitwood for more on religion & culture.

Featured in the Al Jazeera documentary "Witness: Hip Hop Hijabis," Muneera Rashida and Sukina Abdul Noor are Poetic Pilgrimage, the UK's first female Muslim hip-hop duo. Featured in this documentary is "their personal, spiritual and physical journey" as they tour diverse communities in the UK and in Morocco. The documentary illustrates how their music, and public performance, is not fully accepted in the Muslim community (some view women performing at all as haram or "sinful"). At the same time, the women are able to ride the ups-and-downs, the beats and drops, to discover new things about their Muslim practice and beliefs, their feminist sensibilities, & their Jamaican roots.

Sukina gave voice to how hip-hop helps her articulate her faith. She said of the music project that her and Muneera share, "[w]e are searching for something that is ours, that is authentically Islam.” The women of Poetic Pilgrimage are not alone on this journey. Mos Def, who reigned over the underground rap scene in the 1990s and is one of the most influential emcees of the last two decades is a devout Sunni Muslim. He repeatedly spits his aqidah (creed) on the tracks he writes and produces.

As point of fact, in the song "Wahid" Mos Def flips the egotism and self-aggrandization ubiquitous in hip-hop to point the finger away from the rap artist who is "the one," to aim the finger skyward and direct the minds of those listening to "the Only One" in the sense of the Muslim declaration of faith -- the shahada (Al-Wahid is one of the 99 names of Allah -- God).

His lyrics, bookended by the adhan -- call to prayer -- go like this:

“When...all...is...said...and...done...there’s...only...one....Fret not ghetto world guess what
God is on your side the devil is a lie
The Empire holds all the gold and the guns
But when all is said and done there’s only...ONE.”

— Mos Def, "Wahid"

Mos Def is not alone. Common, rhyming with Cee-Lo in "One Day It'll All Make Sense," sang:

“Koran and the Bible, to me they all vital
And got truth within ‘em, gotta read them boys
You just can’t skim ‘em, different branches of belief
But one root that stem ‘em, but people of the venom try to trim ‘em
And use religion as an emblem
When it should be a natural way of life
Who am I or they to say to whom you pray ain’t right,
That’s who got you doin right and got you this far,
Whether you say “in Jesus name” or “Al hum du’Allah””

— Common, "One Day It'll All Make Sense"

Hip-hop helps many give voice to their faith, Islamic or otherwise. H. Samy Alim in his essay "A New Research Agenda: Exploring the Transglobal Hip Hop Umma," (in Muslim Networks: From Hajj to Hip Hop eds. Miriam Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence) went so far as to make the point that the “transglobal hip hop umma” functions as a borderless network of Muslim faithful that provides a lyrical embodiment of the oral history and force of Islam in which the metrical and rhapsodical flows parallel the poetic recitation of the Qur'an.

Hamza and Suliman Perez, as featured in "New Muslim Cool."

Yet, beyond a shared expressive element hip-hop provides an active vehicle for social protest as part of the "transglobal Islamic underground." Drawing on a history of giving voice to the faith in elegaic prose and poetry, Muslim hip-hop artists now engage in lyrical activism by studying Islam, applying it to their lives, and sharing & spreading their views to build an Islamic "class" consciousness focused on explicitly Islamic notions of piety, justice, and peace. Muneera and Sukina form an active part of this "transglobal Islamic underground" as they seek to combine faith and feminism. Indeed, they attempt to demarcate the boundaries between putting on a show for pleasure and a showcase for pondering the faith. Bemoaning the performance act of the game Muneera exclaimed, "it's not supposed to be entertainment, it's supposed to make you think." For the "hip-hop hijabis" rap music becomes not only a vehicle for their expression of Islam, but also a way to confront, and tackle, the issues pertinent to them as Muslim women: modesty and stagecraft, sexuality and solemnity.

Part of this protestation is by proclaiming their racial and/or ethnic identity alongside their religious character. Whether it be Poetic Pilgrimage expressing their Africanity through Muslim infused tunes or Hamza and Suliman Perez from "New Muslim Cool" embodying their Puerto Rican identity, Islamic faith, and street smarts in fresh-pressed lyrics for youth in Pittsburgh, rap becomes a way for worlds to merge for many Muslim musicians. Attempting to forge an identity as "quadruple minorities" Latino Muslims like Hamza and Suliman Perez use hip-hop as a conduit for the imaginative work of identity construction, crafting a hybrid identity that is local to their city-streets yet connected to the global umma, one that is both Latina/o and Muslim, one that is both soulful in its beats and spiritually infused in its lyrics.

James Samuel Logan wrote for Sightings from the University of Chicago's Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion of how rap is central to the African-American's struggle following #Ferguson and other "terrorizing deaths" of blacks in U.S. city-streets and bayou backwaters. He wrote, "Hip Hop artists offer an important, costly and often unsanitized embrace of Black subaltern 'otherness,' an embrace which cyphers problematically-yet-hopefully toward justice and love in this particular place and circumstance of time." This force of hip-hop is most evident in the burgeoning Muslim rap scene that emerged out of NYC in the 1970s and 80s alongside the Nation of Islam and the Five Percent Nation's materializing influence.

Even so, on the borderland between hip-hop and culture, in the streets of struggle and subaltern dissent there can be tension and bloodshed. In attempting to forge a musical and spiritual fusion of faith and hip-hop heritage there can be conflict.

As Mette Reitzel, the "Hip-Hop Hijabis" filmmaker, reflected, the merging of rap music and Muslim sensibilities is not utopian. She said:

“By inhabiting the intersection between cultures whose values on the surface seem so conflicting, Poetic Pilgrimage challenge a plethora of dearly held convictions from all sides of the cultural spectrum. Many Western feminists believe that promoting women’s rights from within an Islamic framework is a futile exercise, while in the eyes of some Muslims, female musicians are hell-bound. Within the Afro-Caribbean community, a Muslim convert may be considered a “sell-out”, while cynical music industry insiders suspect that their conversion is merely a clever marketing ploy in a saturated market.”

— Mette Reitzel, Al Jazeera

Poetic Pilgrimage performing live on stage.

In addition, some wonder whether the expressive, and sometimes profane and/or salacious subject matters and language of hip-hop are conducive to faith-filled utterances. Yet, speaking to critics of the more chauvinistic, secular, and sacrilegious sensibilities found within hip-hop music and culture, Anthony Pinn (teaching RELiX "Religion and Hip Hop Culture") wrote in his essay "Making a World with a Beat:"

The sexism expressed by Saint Paul and other biblical figures and the homophobia that marks both testaments have not resulted in a huge theological backlash requiring the destruction of the Bible as a viable sacred text. The same hermeneutic of multiple meanings may extend to rap lyrics and their creators. This is not to say that that these artists should not be accountable, or should not be critiqued with regard to behavior and opinions. It simply means that we should recognize the often problematic relationship between theological pronouncements and arguments, and practice that plagues the history of religion in and outside hip-hop culture.

Finally, hip hop can serve as a means of rebellion in a negative sense, in the form of what is popularly known as "radicalization." Multiple reports and articles have drawn connections, if only tangential, between rap and the "radicalization" of jihadi activists. Whether rap as recruiting tool or hip-hop serving as a "gateway drug to future terrorism" there are some interlocutors who worry that rap music may serve as a precursor for terrorist violence. Although not proposing that everyone who listens to hip-hop will become "radicalized," commentators fear that rap may create a culture of "grievance" and pushing back against a perceived system of oppression.

Most definitely, there is much left to study in the intersection and remixing of Islam and hip-hop. Whether it be the music of Mos Def, the journey of Poetic Pilgrimage, or the tensions that exist between faith and lurid lyrics this emerging field of research is ripe. Specifically, it is an important gateway to understanding how hip hop is giving voice not only to Muslims, but other faithful as well. Furthermore, it sheds light on how hip hop, and its community, in a sense, provides it's own spirituality and religious community. More than anything, this field of research helps refocus ideas about what it means to be Muslim in the contemporary global scene (i.e. they are not just terrorists and "radicals"). It helps provide a picture of Islam broadly conceived that not only includes hijabs and Hajj, but hip-hop in all its vibrancy as well.

*To learn more, I highly suggest Hisham Aidi's Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture or Anthony Pinn's Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music.

*Follow @kchitwood for more on religion & culture.

Religion sightings in the Grand Canyon

March 11, 2015

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.

With that in mind, whenever and wherever I travel I keep my iPhone on the ready, prepared to snap pictures of religious sightings as I come across them. This is what I call "spiritual sightseeing" and it can not only enrich your trips, but also your knowledge of religion and the place you are visiting.

Spiritual sightseeing involves touring experiences that open a traveler to the spiritual significance of a particular site, area or culture. Richard Ross, a travel blogger, said, "spiritual sightseeing involves experiencing a sense of internal emotion by touring a place with spiritual significance."

It is not only for serious pilgrims or participants in packaged tours in far-off locales. It can be incorporated into any itinerary in any location. And it's not just about big cathedrals or packaged spiritual "experiences." Some of my favorite spiritual sightseeing moments have been impromptu and intimate.

Recently, I was traveling in Arizona and visited the Grand Canyon. Here are a few highlights from my spiritual sightseeing shots:

1. The Café that doubles as Bahá'í meeting place

On our way to the Grand Canyon the group I was with stopped in Flagstaff for a little nectar of the gods -- coffee. Enjoying a delicious Café Viennese at Macy's European Coffee House my spiritual spidey-sense started to perk up. Suddenly, I saw spirituality everywhere. A Buddhist mandala -- a sacred geometric figure used for meditation -- behind the espresso machine; a Trinity symbol chalked onto a writing board in the men's room (yes, you read that right); and these words scribbled on the menu: "the Earth is one country and mankind its citizens."

This is a quote from the Bahá'u'lláh (aka "the Báb") the founder and final messenger of the Bahá'í Faith, a monotheistic religion that emphasizes the spiritual unity of humankind and views religious history as an unfolding revelation of God through a series of divine messengers, each of whom established their religion contextualized for the people and their capacity to understand God at that time. This list of messengers includes the Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and others.

As I chatted with my barista, I discovered that Macy's Coffeehouse doubles as the local Bahá'í meeting room in Flagstaff. Soon, the spiritual sights were everywhere -- a portrait of the Báb, a poster of Bahá'í teachings, pictures of Bahá'í temples around the world. Who knew that in ordering a latté I would soon get a lesson in the flexibility and fluidity of Bahá'í faith in a snowy college-town in Northern Arizona? The lesson I learned? Bahá'ís are often persecuted, and have been from the beginning of their movement. There are relatively few temples throughout the world (the most famous being the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India), and Bahá'ís are used to be fluid. Nowhere is this more the case than in Flagstaff where a long with a shot of espresso you can get a shot of religious literacy.

2. Navajo sandpaintings

Everywhere you go in Northern Arizona you will find "American Indian" or "Native American" kitsch. This isn't to denigrate the valuable art of Native American tribes in the Southwest, or elsewhere, but it is to call into question the commodification and co-opting of sacred symbols of indigenous religion for our economic and spiritual consumption. In the buffet-style spiritual marketplace of 21st-century America we often get overly excited by "authentic" indigenous religious artifacts and primitivize the living people who make them by purchasing them for our enjoyment. While they are beautiful, symbolic, and may be meaningful we must be reticent to consume another's culture and force them to conform their practice and material culture to our desires.

With that said, these "spiritual souvenirs" can be helpful entrées into understanding aspects of indigenous religion. Take "Navajo sandpaintings" for example. On the back of each sand painting, also called "dry paintings," is written: "according to the Navajo religion the universe is a very delicately balanced thing. If this balance is upset, some disaster -- usually an illness -- will follow. To restore the balance and harmony means performing one of many Navajo chants or ways. These complex ceremonies involve the use of herbs, prayers, songs, and sandpaintings. The sandpainting is done in a careful and sacred manner, according to the ancient knowledge of the art."

A sandpainting depicting the Zuni bear "fetish," a guardian spirit.

Indeed, sandpainting is a highly stylized and symbolic ritual among Navajo that involves trickling small amounts of crushed rock, pollen, or other dry materials into a design. That sandpaintings act as a sacred pathways, or "places where the gods come and go" in the Navajo language. They are used in curing ceremonies in which the gods' help is requested for harvests and healing.

The figures in sand paintings are symbolic representations of a story in Navajo mythology. They depict objects like the sacred mountains where the gods live, or legendary visions, or they illustrate dances or chants performed in rituals. For the Navajo, the sandpainting is not a work of art or a souvenir to be saved. Instead, it is a living, affective, and sacred entity that empowers the patient to transform his or her self (mind, body, and soul) via dynamic mythic symbols that re-create the chantway odyssey of the myth's main protagonist, causing those events to be re-lived in the present.

Sandpaintings are not unique to the Navajo. Tibetan Buddhists, Pueblo, Australian Aboringals, and others use sandpaintings, albeit in different ways, during religious ceremonies or as means of meditation (some mandalas, mentioned above, are done with sand implying the impermanence of even beautiful art and mindful meditation). Some Latin Americans use sandpaintings in certain Christian rituals, including the levantada de la cruz (lifting of the cross) a sandpainting ceremony completed by godparents of the recently deceased or as part of El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) rituals in cemeteries or at home altars in Mexico.

3. Psalms at the Canyon

What would be a religious sightseeing tour without a bit of controversy? With headlines like the Los Angeles Times' "Religion and Geology Collide at the Grand Canyon" one tiny little plaque has raised quite a stink in the past. Donated in the 1960s by a Protestant religious order called the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, the Grand Canyon plaques were removed in 2003 only to be returned in 2004. They still adorn National Park Service locations along the canyon to this day. At issue for Christians is an acknowledgement of God as creator in the majesty of one of the deepest and widest canyons in the world. At issue for others is the separation of church and state.

Of course, the NPS does not only deal with plaques at the Grand Canyon. There is a chapel at Yosemite NP, a cross in the Mojave, a Buddhist stupa in Albuquerque, and a Russian Orthodox Chapel at Sitka. Indeed, several National Historic Sites are religious sites as well, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church. In fact, at the same location where one plaque is displayed -- the Watchtower at the Grand Canyon -- the verse was overshadowed (literally and figuratively) by strong Hopi religious symbology.

4. Hopi legends & symbols at the Watchtower

The Watchtower at Desert View is an architectural wonder built near the eastern gateway of the South Rim by Mary Colter -- 20th-century American architect and designer. The Watchtower design integrates Hopi building themes and religious symbols including a depiction of the Snake Legend -- the story of the Hopi's first navigation of the Grand Canyon.

There are religious symbols everywhere inside the Watchtower, illustrating harvest images, divine icons, and spiritual tokens. One notable example is that of Muyingwa, god of germination. The design elements are purposeful and powerful. Since the Watchtower is based on the design of a Hopi ceremonial kiva -- a room used for religious rituals often associated with kachina (spirit beings of the Pueblo peoples) belief systems -- and Hopi religion and art are intimately and intricately intertwined, the multitude of manifest religious representations is no surprise.

Fred Kabotie, who painted the murals inside the Watchtower, said that his paintings were faithful to Hopi renderings over the centuries and that they are still imbued with sacred power. A beautiful photographic representation and explanation of most of the paintings is available HERE.

5. A fox, a mission, & an upside down cross

One particular image of Kabotie's has struck, intrigued, and stumped me. Near the entrance/exit of the stylized kiva I noticed a circular painting that featured four primary symbols: a stylized fox hovering at the top, a hung feather (real), what looks like a mission façade, and an upside down cross. I am still in the midst of researching the meaning of this symbol, tracking down an expert in Hopi symbology or anyone who knows more about Kabotie's art, but what follows are my inclinations and musings on the meaning of the symbol. They can only be taken as speculative, nothing more. I will let you know if I'm anywhere near being correct in the future...

First, what do the symbols mean on their own? The fox could symbolize a clan of the Hopi, a particular kachina, or particularly a trickster spirit being. Feathers mean many things to various Native American nations. They can represent strength, honor, fidelity, trust, or the power of the Creator depending on their source, context, and usage. Not much can be said about the specific meaning of this particular feather as of yet. The mission is an interesting inclusion in the piece. Mission façade's have no specific meaning in Hopi art, but what is known is that the Hopi were highly resistant to Franciscan and general Catholic mission efforts in the American Southwest. Indeed, the Hopi combatted Catholic religion both openly and subtly. The upside down cross is the symbol that initially piqued my interest. The cross in Hopi symbology is representative of the earth's forces, but here could be related directly to the mission and the attempted evangelization of the Hopi people during, and after, Spanish settlement. Interestingly, any figure depicted upside down typically implied that figure's death.

Taking all of this into consideration it is my estimation that this painting is a subversive critique of Christian evangelism among the Hopi. Perhaps Kabotie merged these various symbols to simultaneously affirm the strength of Hopi religion in the face of hegemonic Christianizing forces and undermine the missionization of his people at the hands of foreign powers. Depicting a trickster deity and showing the "death" of the missions and their message (the upside down cross), Kabotie may have been portraying his, and his people's, well-known resistance against the Christian message. Again, I must restate my original caveat -- these conclusions are conjectural, at best.

Conclusion

Did you learn anything new with this spiritual sightseeing guide to the Grand Canyon and parts of Northern Arizona? I hope you did.

I also hope you won't miss an opportunity to do some religious sightseeing the next time you are traveling. Next week I will be posting spiritual sightings, and sites, from my walking tour of Nashville, TN and I encourage you to check out my reflections on potholes and castles in St. Augustine, FL. If you're interested in building your own spiritual sightseeing adventure, check out this intro HERE.

Biblical chocolate, Buddha bars, & sugar skull bottles: recent #FaithGoesPop sightings

February 26, 2015

Over at my blog Faith Goes Pop with Read the Spirit, I invited readers to show me their "faith pop" by using the hashtag #FaithGoesPop on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.).

Over the last couple weeks, people have been sending in some fascinating examples of the interplay between faith in pop culture. Before I share with you some of the coolest "Faith Pop" that's been sent in, be sure to share your own sightings with the hash-tag #FaithGoesPop. Here's a quick sampling of recent glimpses into the intersection of religion and popular culture:

On Pinterest, Tina Johnson shared with me her son's mini-water bottle from Nestle sporting a skull on the back. At first, she was a bit freaked, but then she looked it up. She figured out that the skull was a calavera, or sugar skull, associated with El Dia de los Muertos -- "the Day of the Dead" -- and was part of a Halloween series put out by Nestle. "Calavera" is the Spanish word for skull, but calaveras in the context of the Day of the Dead bear extra significance. You see them all around Mexico -- in poetry and graffiti murals, on shirts and jewelry, in ancient Mexica (Aztec) carvings and modern sculpture on the city streets. They crop up particularly in Autumn as many Mexicans prep for the Day of the Dead celebrations around November 1. According to one celebrant I talked to, "Calaveras remind us to celebrate life, to appreciate that even death is sacred, is alive. 'La Muerte' is inevitable, it is a right of passage, it is a place and moment to be experienced now and in the future. The dead are never gone and we should never neglect them. The inevitable, our fate or whatever you call it, cannot be avoided, it must be embraced and danced with. It can even be sweet." Hence the sugar in the skull. Hence the

On Facebook, Sarah "Moxy"Moczygemba shared her sighting of the "Bible Bar." While you may've seen Ezekiel 4:9 bread or cereal, or even TestaMINTS (audible groan), have you ever dug into a "Bible Bar" and enjoyed the seven foods of Deuteronomy 8:8? Are you a sinner like me and have no idea what foods are mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8? Don't even know where Deuteronomy is? Have no fear, I'm here to help. In leading his people to the "promised land" out of slavery in Egypt and wandering in the desert God instructs the people through Moses to keep his commandments. His promise is that he will take them to, "a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey." (Deut. 8:8) Wowzers! You mean you've got wheat, barley, wine, figs, pomegranate, olives, and honey in that "Bible Bar" of yours? Stop being such a diva, drop the Snickers, and give me a bit of scrumptious Promised Land goodness. Thanks for sharing the sighting Moxy!

Also on Facebook, Daniel “The Truth” DeHoyos took a picture of his notes for a new Bible study series he is doing with his youth group called, "God and Cinema." He pulled out some interesting "meta-themes" to discuss. What would you add?

Speaking of movies, Brian Clark responded to my request about sharing your favorite angel and demon sightings in movies, books, or other pop culture. He mentioned Frank Peretti's "awesome written description" in This Present Darkness in which, "Ashton is just a typical small town. But when a skeptical reporter and a pastor begin to compare notes, they suddenly find themselves fighting a hideous plot to subjugate the townspeople -- and eventually the entire human race....a fascinating glimpse into the unseen world of spiritual warfare where angels of good and evil battle." Great spotting Brian!

Via Twitter, Jonathan Brandenburg sent me notice of the "fastest selling Playmobil toy of all time" -- Martin Luther. Wait....wha?! Yep, you heard that right. The old 16th-century rebel monk and Protestant reformer not only posted 95 theses, but posted huge first-quarter sales figures for Playmobil who, according to Newsweek, is just as shocked as everyone else. The toy looks pretty sweet, you know if you're a total Reformation nerd...or Lutheran. Newsweek describes it, "The plastic toy, complete with a quill, German-language bible and cheery grin, was produced for the German and Nuremberg tourist boards and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, as Germany gears up to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017." That 500th anniversary is a pretty big deal and might be a magisterial reason for Lutheran nerd-dom to rise up to purchase toys, go on Luther tours, and sport "Luther is my homeboy" hats like nobody's business. Forget Pope Francis it's time for the "Luther effect," let's purchase and protest like it was 1517.

Finally, Sandy Richards sent me a note about sighting the "Buddha Lounge" -- a swanky little dive bar on San Francisco's Chinatown's main thoroughfare -- in the latest edition of Sunset magazine. This isn't the only Buddha bar sighting as of late. Recently, I was in Ft. Lauderdale Florida enjoying some "Maple Bacon Coffee Porter" (yes, heavenly) at the Funky Buddha Brewery. It seems the sage of samsara is now the patron saint of suds for many.

As you can readily see #FaithGoesPop can be discovered anywhere and everywhere. From coffee shops to Chinatowns, from grocery stores to Toys 'R' Us there's "faith pop" waiting to be discovered. So go forth, find it, and send it to me via the #FaithGoesPop hash-tag.

Until next time, peace out faith goes pop-ers, I'm going to go have a Buddha beer...or two.

Angels, Demons & Pop Culture

February 15, 2015

I remember the first "demon" I came across in a film. More accurately, it was a poltergeist. Thought not technically a demonic force the actions of this pesky little spirit were demonic enough. You see, I grew up in the town of Poltergeist, the movie. I used to ride my bike past the poltergeist house in Simi Valley, CA. Each time, images of TVs flicking on by themselves, possessed clowns, and bodies emerging from the front lawn would creep into my mind.

The "Poltergeist House" in Simi Valley, CA where I grew up. What wonderful, horrifying, childhood memories.

Shudder.

Then, there were the angels. John Travolta as Michael, the post-modern angel-human romance of Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life, or the kickass, androgynous, Tilda Swinton Gabriel in Constantine. No matter the angel movie, I have always preferred them to pop-culture demons (though Paul Bettany's angel in Legion may be an exception).

Tilda Swinton as an androgynous angel in "Constantine" with co-star Keanu Reaves.

Any way you cut it, our culture has a seeming fascination with angels and demons in pop culture -- particularly film. Over on the front page for Read the Spirit we are featuring an interview with Greg Garrett in which he talks about his new book Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination. This book, as RTS chief David Crumm shares, covers the "entire cosmos...from Heaven to Hell—including visits with angels and demons, comic book super heroes, TV stars, great authors and even strange characters in video games—all in 200 pages!"

Check out the interview, but also be sure to share your favorite angel (and demon) sightings in pop culture on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest with the hash-tag #FaithGoesPop and we'll include them in a post later this week!

Has video killed the religion star? An interview with Dr. Stewart Hoover on religion & media

February 12, 2015

It doesn't take a PhD to see that religion and the media often intersect, intermesh, and play off one another. Whether it's a commercial about cell phone charging starring God as the protagonist (read "#SuperBowl religion") or how al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (ISIS) uses social media to advance its cause through digital propaganda, religion & digital media are constantly in conversation as forces in the globalized world.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

While it may not take a PhD to recognize this interchange of religion & media, it may take one to navigate its ins and outs and properly apperceive its many nodes and nuances. Last month (January) I had the honor of meeting Dr. Stewart Hoover of the University of Colorado Boulder at the University of Florida's "Religion & Culture in a Digital Age" conference.

Dr. Hoover is Professor of Media Studies and adjoint of Religious Studies at UCB. He is the founder/director of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture and his research interests focuses on the media audience and reception studies. He utilizes approaches founded in the fields of cultural studies, anthropology, and qualitative sociology. He is well-known for his work theorizing and explaining media and religion, particularly the phenomenon of televangelism and also, more recently, religion journalism.

What follows is my interview with Dr. Hoover talking about his current interests, getting a broad survey of the field, and also some discussion of what opportunities this area of study might offer both the serious academic looking for a topic to dive into (ah hem, grad students) and the arm-chair religious student attempting to apperceive the dual forces of religion and media in the 21st-century.

What got you interested in studying the intersection of, and interplay between, religion and media?

I’ve always been interested in media and in culture. I grew up in a small town with a diverse ethnic and religious culture, and was I think conscious from a young age of how cultures define people and vice versa. Since it was a small, rural, community, I also became interested in how metropolitan cultures condition peripheral ones and how those at the peripheries negotiate their relations with the wider world. And, religion was an important element of these processes, and has only grown in prominence in the years since thee 1979 revolution in Iran, the rise of Evangelical politics in the US, the growth of global Pentecostalism, and then of course 9/11.

And, of course, at the time I was starting out, there were few of us doing this, so it was a way of having a voice and a project.

What are you interested in at the moment or working on right now?

Dr. Stewart Hoover is Professor of Media Studies and adjoint Religious Studies professor at University of Colorado Boulder.

We have a research project underway with colleagues abroad which is a comparative analysis of media ambivalence in daily life. A lot of ambivalence is religiously-based, but we find fascinating layers and embrications in the ways media cultures work into the lives of our informants.

I’m also developing work in the media and religious authority, and in connection with that, on the history of Establishmeent or Ecumenical Protestantism in relation to media and media culture.

How relevant is this discussion and why do people, in academia and at the popular level, need to be thinking about it?

It is very relevant. Academic and other discourse lags way behind in understanding the extent to which contemporary culture is inflected with religion, with near-religion, with anti-religion, and with spiritualities of various valences and the extent to which you cannot understand this without attending to media cultures. So, across a range of fields, we have an incomplete scholarly project as a result of this neglect.

You wrote, “It has been argued that the media are today the most credible sources of social and cultural information, setting the agenda and the context for much of what we think and know about reality. Religion, which addresses itself to such questions, must be expressed and experienced differently as a result” and intimated that religion and media compete for the central constructive roles in the formation of social solidarity. Explain this:

It is simply that the media must be taken for granted. They are ubiquitous and definitive. They are where we spend our time, they are what we attend to, they are what we talk about with each other, they are thee common language and common cultures today. To exist today, institutions and cultures and communities must increasingly exist in thee media. Media languages set the agenda of what we talk about, the terms of those conversations, and they traffic in, and influence the broad public consensus where such a thing exists. Religions, to the extent they are public (and they are increasingly so) must submit themselves to the demands of the mediated cultural marketplace.

Religion and media can collide, but they can also combine and crossover each other at times. Talk a bit about the sometimes positive, and negative, senses of the interaction between religion and media.

Dr. Hoover's book Religion in the Media Age is an excellent expansion of the topics covered in this blog. Find it HERE. — Dr. Hoover's book *Religion in the Media Age* is an excellent expansion of the topics covered in this blog. Find it HERE.

I think that religion and media do, in fact, enhance one another. The most fundamental way this is true is that the media sphere today is a primary sphere for the generation of religious symbols, discourses, communities, affinities, etc. this is even so for the established and historic confessional faaiths, but is more so of course for emergent traditions, discourses, communities, and subgroups. Media culture is producing or generating religion today, more than ever before, and that is not so much a collision or even an interaction between “media” and “religion” as it is an entirely new space of generation. This is most obvious in digital media, where my colleagues and I have been theorizing about emergent “third spaces of digital religion.”

You mentioned that it is important to situate the study of religion and media in its historical context. How do we avoid the allure of the “newness” of such a subject?

Through intellectual rigor and discipline. Good histories demonstrate the utility of not being caught up in the present. We need to attend to and listen to those.

Most people would have a familiarity with Macluhan’s “the medium is the message.” You take a more meaning-based approach. Why this is preferred over a medium approach?

Among the several problems (for me) with “medium theory” are two primary ones. First, as it is applied, it is over-general. Its claims are not specific enough and thee kinds of “effects” or implications it proposes are hard to specify and attribute to media, mediation, etc. A second problem is one of scale, medium theories tend to look on too grand a level, and fail to helpfully describe what is happening in spheres of actual, historically-embedded practice. They also often stumble into a kind of class-based “taste” arguments, where the kinds of meanings and functions attributed are judged in nearly moral terms. I’ve always found it much more enlightening to do field research on what people actually do with media, and build theory “up” or “out” from there. That allows us to see the many ways that media and mediation are integrated and layered into the fabric of lived lives, and to see that media “affects” of the kinds suggested by medium theorists are often too grand.

What is the relevance of the “globalization” or “transnationalism” discussion in the realm of religion and media studies?

This would be a treatise if I actually answered it. I’ll just say that it is more obvious all the time that we must look at things in a global context. Not only do media enable religious and cultural transnationalisms of a variety of kinds. A global view provides powerful insights into the meanings and functions of mediated religion in many local contexts.

What religion, in your opinion, is the most mediated? If you don’t feel you can answer this, why not?

Wow. Lots of pretenders. My favorite to look at now, because it is so complex, is neo-Pentecostalism. But is it the “most” I don’t know…

What BIG question or area of study would you recommend a young scholar or interested individual go out and tackle in this field?

History, history, history……that is, take on historiography and historicism in relation to thee range of phenomena that seem to present themselves ever and always in media and religion.

That, and authority, and the ways that structures of authority condition or determine or afford our understandings of these important questions

Thank you Dr. Hoover for your time and consideration and being part of the conversation here at www.kenchitwood.com!

Nintendo's Power Glove & the Hand of God: Religion & Culture in the Digital Age

February 4, 2015

Over the last decade the study of religion has expanded its multidisciplinary reach by looking to see the ways in which religion and culture intersect with media and digital technology. Questions range from "How is religion represented in the media?" to "How are religious organizations using media and technology to promote their faiths" to more ambitious questions about the role media plays in shaping, and perhaps deputizing the role of, religion.

As Dr. Stewart Hoover wrote in Religion in the Media Age, “It has been argued that the media are today the most credible sources of social and cultural information, setting the agenda and the context for much of what we think and know about reality. Religion, which addresses itself to such questions, must be expressed and experienced differently as a result.” So too must the study of religion. Increasingly, individual and communal religious actors are engaging with media religiously or encountering religion through various forms of digital media.

The University of Florida's religion department is interdisciplinary in nature. In approaching religion, the program  encourages students to draw on work in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. — The University of Florida's religion department is interdisciplinary in nature. In approaching religion, the program encourages students to draw on work in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

However, we would be naïve to posit that it is only the forces of media that impact religion and not vice-versa. As the twenty-first century comes of age, religion continues to prove a potent local, regional, and global force that is shaping the way we interact with, view, and create media. Indeed, both media and religion compete for the central constructive roles in the formation of social solidarity and thus, studies merging the two streams of cultural production are necessary and beneficial to understand religion, and/or media, in the digital age. Hence, the purpose and pertinence of the Graduate Student Conference "Religion and Culture in the Digital Age" held January 24, 2015 at the University of Florida.

The conference sought to bring together graduate students from diverse academic backgrounds and scholars who conduct research in the digital humanities. The daylong event included three panels and a roundtable with Dr. David Morgan (Duke University), Dr. Stewart Hoover (University of Colorado at Boulder), Dr. Dragan Kujundzic (University of Florida - Jewish Studies), and Dr. Sid Dobrin (University of Florida - English).

The papers presented at the conference, and the topics covered, were diverse and wide-ranging. What follows is a short overview of each panel and the roundtable talk, covering highlights and the most pressing issues and/or questions that emerged from each.

Panel 1: The Creation of Sacrality and the Role of the Audience (Commentator: Dr. Terje Østebø)

At the fear of being partial to my own paper, I will start with the other two panelists. Cristina Ruiz-Poveda Vera (University of Florida) presented about the role of the audience in transcendental spiritual films, discussing films like Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World" (2007) and Don Hertzfeldt's "The Meaning of Life" (2005). Entitled, "Film as Temple" the presentation artfully explored the ways in which spiritual movies can often move the viewer beyond themselves much like sacred texts and ritual.

Alfredo Garcia (Princeton University) presented the results of a sociological study entitled, "Tolerance in an Age of Social Media: An Experimental Design Examining Muslims and Mosques in the United States," in which he and a co-author found that having a Muslim friend, or even interacting with Muslims on social media, did not significantly alter attitudes about the building of mosques in the U.S.

Trying to let the bow-tie do the talking for me.

Honored to share alongside these two scholars, my paper presented the findings of my two-month long ethnographic experiment as a participant-observer on the "Latino Muslim Facebook Group." Latina/o Muslims in the United States are quadruple minorities (Latina/o and Muslim in the U.S., Latina/o in the Muslim community, Muslim in the Latina/o community). As such, Latina/o Muslims seek to create their own identity and supportive community. While national para-mosque organizations and local entities create some sense of shared identity, new media, specifically social media, play an increasingly important role in constructing a cohesive Latina/o Muslim community and creating causeways for greater inclusion in the global umma. By liking one another’s posts (the most common form of interaction on the page), Latina/o Muslims are doing more than having fun on social media. They are intimately, and actively, engaged with creating a hybrid community, crafting a worldview on the borderlands between the digital and real, between being Muslim and Latina/o, and shaping a Latina/o Muslim identity that will be applied online and in the “real” world.

The discussion following this panel revolved around questions of methodology in the digital humanities and whether or not there is such a thing as an "ethnography" of a digital sociality.

Panel 2: Digitized Hinduism (Commentator: Dr. Phillip Green)

Yael Lazar presents on "digital darshan" as Bhakti Mamtora, Nick Collins, and Dr. Phillip Green look on.

Following this discussion and some refreshments provided by Harvest Thyme Café, Yael Lazar (Duke University) presented her paper examining the use of the internet and its shaping of Hindus, and Hinduism, through the practice of "digital darshan." Darshan, (Sanskrit: "auspicious viewing") is the beholding of a deity, guru, or sacred object (esp. in image form). The devotion is perceived as reciprocal in some traditions and the idea is that the viewer will receive a divine blessing. Some Hindus are taking to the internet to perform darshan and receive their blessings digitally, though the potency of such a practice is contested.

Bhakti Mamtora (University of Florida) examined the websites, social media sites, and mobile apps of Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, known as BAPS, a major Swaminarayan organization. She argued that through sleek designs and highly visual and interactive elements, which introduced immediate and personal experiences (e.g. "Daily Satsang"), BAPS is able to help craft technologies that aid individuals in their spiritual endeavors and contribute to the formation of a global tradition. Mamtora emphasized how this area of Hindu culture and practice, in addition to Lazar's study, needs more focused research and necessitates a focus on practice to understand the multiple levels of meaning that individuals ascribe to online practices as active social agents in community construction in a digital landscape.

She argued that through sleek designs and highly visual and interactive element, which introduced immediate and personal experiences (e.g. “Daily Satsang”), BAPS is able to craft technologies that aid individuals in their spiritual endeavors and contribute to the formation of a global tradition.

Nick Collins (University of Florida) rounded out the panel by talking about the "digital super nature" available to Buddhist practitioners experiencing the anomic experience of a fractal mind and self. He called the various media online and the networks of connections available to practitioners as an "invisible school" offering an opportunity to enter into the Vedic mind. He wrote, "In the contemporary digitally mediated cultural landscape, the traditional lineage lines, forms, and structures of cultural systems, including religious traditions, have become 'cut loose' from their (prior) cultural bodies and aggregately integrated into a single, all inclusive spatial-temporal environment, a discarnate, nonlocal, and ever-present now represented by the interconnected digital media landscape."

He closed by emphasizing the importance for the scholar of such a tradition to "enter into experiential contact with such practices" and "Be a Weirdo" in both society and academia.

Panel 3: The Mediazation of Myth and Learning (Commentator: Dr. Robert Kawashima)

The final panel of the day focused on Christian traditions. Chris Fouche (University of Florida) talked about the potential promises and pitfalls for seminaries and other theological institutions offering distance education while at the same time seeking to form deep Christian community. Using Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Finkenwalde seminary project as a litmus test of sorts, Fouche recommended hybrid models for online/offline theological education and underlined just how difficult online education is in the creation of authentic community.

Michael Knippa brings McLuhan into the digital age, arguing the Bible might be seen differently now since "the medium is the message."

Michael Knippa (Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) discussed the transformation of interpretation and meaning of biblical texts due to their various media: scrolls, codices, amulets, collections, book form, and digital representations. Pulling on the theory of Marshall McLuhan ("the medium is the message") he argued that in the shift from print to digital we can't pretend that the digitization of the Bible will not have an impact on its reception and its message. He offered that digitized Bibles will transform our methods & theories of interpretation, perhaps more mythologically. Only time will tell.

From the up the road in religious studies land, Carson Bay (Florida State University) examined various Christian reactions to the film Noah released last summer (2014). He discussed the film's platform and whether or not it was perceived as legitimizing or delegitimizing certain narratives in the Bible. Regardless of various negative lines on the reception of Noah among Christians, evangelicals used the movie as culturally-relevant tool for proselytization, with attendant theological corrections (e.g. with 'the Watchers' and Noah's abortive mania).

The discussion following this panel was the most lively of the day as the discussion centered around McLuhan's theoretical system and whether or not it was viable. As Dr. Hoover mentioned, these young scholars were entering into a very long, and historical, discussion about media and religion. That was where he, and others, would begin during the roundtable discussion that rounded off the day.

Roundtable Discussion (Moderator: Dr. Manuel Vásquez)

Featuring four scholars each with their own unique, and significant, contributions of the field of religion and digital humanities, the roundtable discussion was the highlight of the conference.

David Morgan's major interests are the history of religious visual and print culture and American religious and cultural history. He opened by reminding students that this area of study "is not always about being sexy, it's about contextualizing the new to give it historical depth." He further offered that it is healthy and helpful to "bring a hermeneutics of suspicion to media studies and the investigation of religion and material culture in the digital age." Speaking to earlier discussions about ethnography in the digital age he underlined the need for hybrid methods. He said, "There's no 'pure' digital ethnography. We have to develop the tools to track people between both online and offline worlds."

Dr. Manuel Vásquez, Dr. David Morgan, and Dr. Dragan Kujundzic listen as Dr. Sid Dobrin presents his angle on religion, interpretation, and the digital age.

Echoing Morgan, Stewart Hoover, Professor of Media Studies and founder/director of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, underlined that while "the 'digital age' is different, we must view religion and media through an historical lens...looking at the issues our research presents over time." Furthermore, he talked about how he is not interested in studying the media on the screen people are viewing, but watching the people who are watching the media. Beyond this ethnographic perspective, he encouraged researchers in this area to think cosmopolitan-ly. He closed stating, "religious transnationalism, globalization, and the like must be considered in our study of religion & digital media."

Kujundzic and Dobrin each added their own perspectives, with the former focusing on the post-modern lens and the study of religion and media and the latter bringing his perspective from literature studies to the consideration of religion in print media, film, music, and digital media.

Feeling as if they had drank water from a firehose all day long, the participants and presenters retired to the Keene Faculty Center for a reception to interact and continue the discussion.

As wine glasses clinked and the conversation circled back to the various topics presented throughout the day the general conclusion was that the day was a success. Not only were the papers and topics scintillating and interesting, each in their own regard, but the atmosphere of the conference was prosperous in that it brought together core academics and new scholars to discuss an apposite interdisciplinary field that is of special interest to anyone concerned with religion, digital media, or the intersection and intermeshing of the two in the 21st-century and beyond.

Special thanks to Dr. Manuel Vásquez, Dr. David Hackett, Dr. Terje Østebø, Dr. Phillip Green, and Dr. Robert Kuwushima for their support of the conference. Thank you also to the conference's graduate student organizers Prea Persaud, Jason Purvis, and Caroline Reed for their efforts in making this first annual grad conference with #UFreligion a major triumph and contribution to the fields of religious studies and digital humanities.

The best of #SuperBowl religion sightings

February 2, 2015

A snoozer of a first half. A metaphysical drama of miracles in the second. Whether a Patriots fan, Seahawks supporter, or somewhere in between, you have to admit that was one heck of a Super Bowl.

Then there were the ads. Yawn. For the most part. Except when Nationwide had a kid come back from the dead. What a buzz kill Nationwide. As one tweeter aptly explained, after all those dad oriented, tear-jerking, heart-string-pulling commercials it was the psychiatrist's industry that had the best marketing at the Super Bowl.

What about religion? In some television markets, Scientology released its annual ad, this time entitled, "The Age of Answers." But there were other, more subtle and less evangelistic religious sightings during the Super Bowl and I was there on the front lines, at the edge of my seat, with beer and buffalo wing in hand to faithfully report on all the religion at Super Bowl XLIX.

*Read "Scientology at the Super Bowl" from Sightings

To be fair, I warned everyone:

So then, the tweets and Facebook posts rolled on. Here are the top tweets of the night:

Beginning and End, Alpha and Omega

It was Terminator Genisys who not only gave us a glimpse of some apocalyptic future, but also gave a shout out to back in the day. And I mean way back in the day. Like at the beginning. With over 600 impressions on Twitter and a few comments on the book of faces the Hebrew hash-tag was a hit.

Then Mophie, a battery phone case company, made a big splash by pulling in a major star for their TV spot -- God himself.

Their line, "when your cell phone dies, all hell breaks loose." Even the creator of the cosmos has some issues, as they said, "when your cell phone dies, God knows what can happen."

The Dude Abides

If you didn't know it yet, the Dude came out with an ambient drone album meant to help you fall asleep. It's also meant to boost Squarespace web platforms (FYI, this is a Squarespace site, full disclosure -- it's awesome). In his ad last night, the Dude played a Tibetan Buddhist Singing Bowl (a.k.a. a rin, or suzu, gong) to help lull us to sleep. Yes, the Dude abidezzzzzzzzzz.

Not to be left out of the Asian religion market, Katy Perry flashed her Sanskrit tattoo during her awesome half-time show (fyi, Christ Matthews flashed his cross tattoo after his late first-half TD too). How is Perry's mantra a religious sighting? Sanskrit, while used outside of religious contexts, is a highly ceremonial language used in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Here, Perry co-opts the idea of the 'mantra' and the spiritual script to undergird what could be called a "life motto" with more spiritual significance.

Not only was Perry's show a hit, she lit up my Twitter and Facebook when I shared her civil religious shout-out "God Bless America" and earlier posted an interview of hers that talked about her religious upbringing and her first CD...which if you didn't know, was a Christian music album. Wha?!

The BIG One

It was the catch heard round the living room. No, not the bobbling miracle at the three yard line for the Seahawks (almost a legend), I'm talking about the game-winning interception by Patriots #21 Malcolm Butler.

Along with a bit of snark...

I posted this, with over 1,200 impressions, 15 shares/retweets, etc. It was the talk of the #SuperBowl #religion evening!

Call me a "religion nerd," like CBS's @lizkineke did, a "crazy religious nut" like my buddy Pat did on FB, or "the Neil deGrasse Tyson of religion" like @LinkChef (btw, best. compliment. ever), but the fact of the matter is that my point was well proved last night.

Religion is everywhere.

On the field. In the commercials. In our homes or in our hearts. #FaithGoesPop

*Follow Ken for more religion, culture, and "faith pop."

*Check out www.FaithGoesPop.com w/ Read the Spirit magazine

According to Pew Research, "The Japanese flag, for example, includes a hinomaru, or rising sun – representative of Shinto spiritual roots within the former Japanese empire."

The central emblem is the Aztec pictogram for Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, the center of the Mexica (Aztec) empire. The eagle symbolizes the sun and is a representation of the victorious god Huitzilopochtli, who "bowed" to the Mexica and their power. The snake may represent the figure Quetzalcoatl, who was traced back to Teotihuacan and was the mythical establisher of state authority and power in Mesoamerica. The cactus (tenoch) is emblematic of Tenochtitlan and thus the entire symbology represents the divine establishment of the Mexica in their capital city, Tenochtitlan (lit., "the place of the cactus").

The flag of Bhutan draws from the Durkpa Tibetan Buddhist tradition and features Druk, the Thunder Dragon. Druk, it is believed, divinely approved the establishment of Bhutanese Buddhism with a clap of thunder.

While arguments have been made that the sun in the center of the flag is an example of the European motif of the "sun in splendor," Diego Abad de Santillán, and others, have argued that the "Sun of May" is a representation of the Incan deity Inti.

The Union Jack of Great Britain, as well as its descendant flags throughout the commonwealth, "make reference to three Christian patron saints: the patron saint of England, represented by the red cross of Saint George, the patron saint of Ireland, represented by the red saltire of Saint Patrick, and the patron saint of Scotland, represented by the saltire of Saint Andrew." (Wikipedia)

Also called Taekkuk (referring to the Yin and Yang halves of the circle in the center of the flag) the Korean flag exudes balance and harmony.

The red and blue circle in the center is called 'Taeguk', the origin of all things in the universe. The central thought is perfect harmony and balance: A continuous movement within the sphere of infinity, resulting in one unit. The blue part of 'Taeguk' is called 'Eum' or in Chinese, Yin, and represents all negative aspects of the balance while the red part is called 'Yang' and describes all the positive apects. The circle itself represents unity - bringing together the negative and the positive, while the Yin and Yang represent the duality. Examples of duality are heaven and hell, fire and water, life and death, good and evil, or night and day

The four trigrams at the corners (called 'Kwe' in Korean) also represent the concept of opposites and balance.

Whereas Saudi Arabia's flag is explicit, the Iranian flag is more cryptic in its symbology. The central emblem is a highly stylized composite of various Islamic elements: a geometrically symmetric form of the word Allah and overlapping parts of the phrase lā ʾilāha ʾillà l-Lāh, (There is no God Except Allah), forming a monogram in the form of a tulip it consists of four crescents and a line.

This flag uses the most recognized symbol of Jewish identity and wider community -- the Star of David. Still, the earliest Jewish usage of the symbol was inherited from medieval Arabic literature and Kabbalists who used the symbol for talismanic properties in amulets (segulot) where it was known as the Seal of Solomon.

The central symbol in the Indian flag is the Ashoka Chakra, itself a depiction of the dharmachakra; represented with 24 spokes. According to Wikipedia, "When Buddha achieved nirvana (Nibbana) at Gaya, he came to Sarnath on the outskirts of Varanasi. There he found his five disciples (panch vargiya Bhikshu) Ashwajeet, Mahanaam, Kaundinya, Bhadrak and Kashyap, who had earlier abandoned him. He preached his first sermon to them, thereby promulgating the Dharmachakra. This is the motif taken up by Ashoka and portrayed on top of his pillars."

According to the Slovak government, "The double silver cross allegedly symbolizes the tradition of St. Benedict, St. Cyril and St. Methodius, but in reality this is a Christian symbol for older resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was used in Byzantine Empire since the 9th century."

The Arabic inscription on the flag, written in the calligraphic Thuluth script, is the shahada or Islamic declaration of faith:

لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا الله مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ الله

lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh, muhammadun rasūlu-llāh

There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.[1]

The shahada in the Saudi flag, with individual words highlighted in different colours. Word order shown by colour key at bottom. (Read from right to left)

The green of the flag represents Islam and the sword stands for the House of Saud. (Credit, Wikipedia)

Why 1/3 of Countries Have Religious Symbols on National Flags

January 28, 2015

Yes, you read that right. According to Pew Research, 64 nations around the world fly "national flags that include religious symbols."

Pew further clarified the flags according to the religions they represent:

“Of the 64 countries in this category, about half have Christian symbols (48%) and about a third include Islamic religious symbols (33%), with imagery on flags from the world’s two largest religious groups appearing across several regions.”

— Pew Research

And if the number of religious standards flapping in the wind is a surprise for you, that's nothing compared to national anthems which contain religious themes. Upwards of 126 different nations have explicitly religious titles, themes, lyrics, or metaphors embedded in their official state song. That's somewhere between 64-66% of nations (depending on your worldwide count, ranging from 189-196 sovereign countries).

So much for the separation of church and state.

While different nations have different notions of the separation of church and state and others make no distinction nor erect any partition between the two, many (if not most) countries have some imperative to differentiate between the role, expression, or function of religion and state respectively. Still, this is a tricky issue seeing as religion continues to play a role, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the formation of many a nation-state -- not to mention "national identity."

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

Indeed, there are varying degrees of delineation between "church" and "state" depending on the legal parameters and constitutional mandates that speak to the appropriate relationship between religion and politics in each respective nation. While there may be laws governing the separation, there are varying degrees of distance wherein religion and state function as two independent bodies or wherein pluralism is tolerated, but there is still an official state religion (a la in the United Kingdom). In addition to being known as "separation of church and state," the idea is encapsulated by other concepts such as secularism, disestablishment, religious liberty, pluralism, or constitutional tolerance. Essentially, the idea of "separation of church and state" is fluid, and thus slippery, to comprehend and apply.

Beyond this nebulous concept of "separation," why do so many countries appeal to religious symbology in elements for their national imagery and imaginary?

It seems to me that mixing religious symbols with state power is still, despite the augury of the prophets of secularization, a viable option for nation-states and institutions to offer a relative degree of control to their leadership in a world ever more chaotic because of economic, political, and social instability and time-space compression due to the forces of globalization. “The use of a simple symbol in a film, a book or an advertisement says far more than any wordy explanation ever could” wrote Adele Nozedar in The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols, “Signs and symbols, our invention of them and understanding of them, transcend the barriers of written language and are the very heart of our existence as human beings.” Thus, symbols are powerful. And religious symbols even more so as it reaches beyond this temporal realm into eternity. Thus, if a nation or leader is looking for an anchor to unify and stabilize her people, religious symbols seem a robust option.

Indeed, these religio-political symbols might be said to offer what David Morgan calls a “web of communication," giving the nation an almost iconic status. Morgan talks about the "sacred gaze," which denotes any way of seeing that invests its object—an image, a person, a time, a place—with spiritual significance. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Morgan investigates how viewers incorporate and attend to religious symbols and images and how that encounter furnishes a social, intellectual, and perceptual construction of reality. Essentially, Morgan argues that religious symbols -- be they Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise -- are not to be viewed in isolation. Rather, they must be seen within their social contexts, which includes more than theological ideas, but devotional attitudes and practices, everyday rituals, personal testimonies, and "the sacred space of the home." Building on this proposition, it would be fair to say that these symbols in the flags are powerful regulators of human passions and perspectives on others, especially in the context of nation-states.

Basically, these flag symbols not only solidify an independent group identity, but attempt to create a political or national identity that cuts across urban centers, rural villages, regions, or states. In countries where religious pluralism dominates, or there are significant religious minorities, this may mean that these flags cut across religious boundaries as well, in order to regulate not only institutional relationships but personal and familial ones as well. These religious symbols are able to do so, because they are attached to a symbol of massive power -- the national flag -- which produces a sense of awe, enormity, and transcendent grandeur that in turn provides a shared reference point for members of a community with similar, or in some cases dissimilar, world views. While religious minorities may contest the symbology, the symbol is able to -- because of cultural, social, economic, or religious context -- unite enough of the nation to provide a mainstay for shared civic character.

Even countries without explicit religious symbol rely on the same potency of shared imagery. In the U.S., our flag may be bereft of religious images, but the waving Stars and Stripes resplendent in the wind has been known to evoke iconic ecstasies and rapturous emotions in the patriotic members of the U.S.'s civil religious. Has it not? While the U.S. flag doesn’t employ an explicitly religious symbol it is still imbued with attendant symbolical meaning and religious effect.

According to Emile Durkheim’s definition, religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices which unite individuals in to one moral community. While Durkheim may certainly be critiqued, the sociality that religion provides cannot be denied. If the role of politics and state institutions is to establish its hegemony over a people and have the same people accept that state's authority as normative for their lives, both individual and communal, then religion, as a cultural phenomenon, becomes a primary tool wherein to establish said community and suffuse its compliance to state-craft with divine intimations. Religion is the soothsayer of the magic of state.

As such, a religious symbol in a flag is used to great effect as a sibyl of state authority. Hence, why so many nations around the world employ such images even today in what is supposed to be an every more globalized, pluralistic, and secularized modern world.

*For more on religion and politics, you may want to read "Is Kim Jong-un a god? 'The Interview' and the Juche idea."

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

Is Kim Jong-un a god? "The Interview" & the Juche Idea

January 27, 2015

Last weekend (January 24 ,2015) the controversial comedy, "The Interview," starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, and Randall Park was released to Netflix.

The movie, which seemingly upset the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) for its portrayal of Kim Jong-un, its "supreme leader," was streamed millions of times over the weekend, with mixed reviews on social media. “The Interview” was originally intended for normal, wide release in theaters worldwide, but Sony Studios scrapped that plan subsequent to the nation’s biggest theater chains pulling out due to terror threats, supposedly from the hackers who infiltrated the studio in late November, 2014. Still, Sony has been able to make up at least $40 million after limited release, digital downloads, and now an undisclosed deal from Netflix.

The question I'm asking is how "The Interview" helps peel back the film on a little known religio-political current active in the world today -- the Juche idea.

The plot of the films revolves around the characters Rogen and Franco play as pop-cultur turned political journalists who are coached to assassinate Kim Jong-un (Park) after booking an interview with him.

Near the climax of the film, the people's propaganda minister Sook Yung Park joins the conspiracy but contests the assassination opting instead to de-deify the young North Korean leader. She says, "people think he is a god. We must make them see he is not a god."

According to Adherents.com, Juche is the 10th largest religion in the world, with 19 million followers. It is ranked right behind Sikhism in terms of size (23 million), right ahead of "Spiritism" (15 million) and Judaism (14 million).

But what is it? Can we even call it a religion? Why haven't I heard of this? Are there any Juche temples in my town?

Also known as "Kimilsungism," Juche is the only state-recognized ideology in the DPRK. Christianity, Buddhism, and all other religions are not permitted in North Korea -- only Juche is allowed.

“Juche began in the 1950s and is the official philosophy promulgated by the North Korean government and educational system. Its promoters describe Juche as simply a secular, ethical philosophy and not a religion. But, from a sociological viewpoint Juche is clearly a religion, and in many ways is even more overtly religious than Soviet-era Communism or Chinese Maoism.”

— Adherents.com

Typically translated as "self-reliance," it is a religio-political argument formed by Kim Il-sung which postulates that the Korean masses are the masters of the country's development. For two decades, from 1950s-70s, Kim and other party theorists such as Hwang Jang-yop as built on this Idea to justify the government's policies and its actions. Among these are its Third-world-oriented political and military independence and economic self-sufficiency.

Juche was first referenced as a North Korean ideology in a speech delivered by Kim Il-sung on December 28, 1955 -- "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work." In it, Kim Il-sung stated, "To make revolution in Korea we must know Korean history and geography as well as the customs of the Korean people. Only then is it possible to educate our people in a way that suits them and to inspire them an ardent love for their native place and their motherland." In this way, Kim Il-sung was establishing a metaphysics of "Being" for North Koreans that entailed a place-bound sense of geopolitics, destiny, revolution, and the cosmos, which was intensely nationalistic.

Hwang Jang-yop, Kim's chief ideologue, re-discovered Kim's speech at the time when Kim sought to build on the twin pillars of a cult of personality and his own version of Marxist-Leninism into a North Korean creed. Drawing on Marxist-Leninist principles Juche espouses state atheism, to the detriment of all other religions. At the same time, the cult of personality developed into a mythology that the supreme leader of the DPRK was indeed a god -- the divine imprimatur on the Juche idea.

In 1982, Kim Jong-Il, Kim Il-sung's son, produced a treatise On the Juche Idea, in which he stated:

“The Juche idea is the precious fruit of the leader’s profound, widespread ideological and theoretical activities, and its creation is the most brilliant of his revolutionary achievements. By creating the great Juche idea, the leader opened up a new road leading to victory in the revolution before the working class and the masses of the people, and brought about a historic turn in the fulfillment of the revolutionary cause of the people....The Juche idea represents an invariable guiding idea of the Korean revolution and a great revolutionary banner of our time. At present, we are confronted with the honorable task of modeling the whole society on the Juche idea.”

— Kim Jong Il

Juche, in this formulation, is a sort of reactionary modernism, founded in Marxist-Leninist ideas of geo-politics and Confucian ideals of hierarchy that added an emphasis on the power of a Korean mythos mixed up with blood, soil, race, destiny, and place seeking to mobilize the Korean people to be self-sufficient and perhaps sublime national achievement. Juche is the cosmos-constructing and identity founding mythos of the North Korean people and their "republic" that undergirds the charisma of authority established by Kim Il-sung and disseminated by mass media, propaganda, and other elements of state control, which molds a human leader into a heroic, and in this case, worshipful icon with unquestioned authority and wisdom.

But, is it a religion or a secular political philosophy? Adherents.com shares this reasoning:

“it has so many adherents, is so influential in their lives, and is so different from any other religious system, that including it on this list may be necessary in order to accurately reflect the total world religious economy.”

— Adherents.com

While those at Adherents.com attempt to establish Juche as a religion in order to include it in their religion rankings, I am more prone to say the answer is yes -- Juche is both a religious ideology and a political philosophy.

Religion has often been utilized as an element, and sometimes a prime one, in the magic of state craft. In this instance, Kim Il-sung and his philosophical followers developed a distinctly Korean, heretically Communist, atheistic ideology that supplanted all other religions and ideas for the sake of establishing the Korean state. It is an ideology with rituals, community building elements, ideas of sacredness and profanity, cosmological consequence, and an ability to guard against chaos and questions of identity for the Korean people in conception and the political elite in reality. It is a totalizing ideology that, at the very least, functions as a religion if it is not a religion in and of itself.

Interestingly enough, Juche has established some centers in other countries as well. There are centers, reportedly, in Australia, Japan, Europe, New York, and India. Established in Paris in 2003, the European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche believes that by studying "the Juche idea" the people of Europe might also be enabled to "consider everything centering on human beings" and to "solve things and matters arising in all the human affairs...relying on the efforts the people themselves." Divorced from its Korean context, Juche is meant to be a Third-World ideology, advancing that developing countries should be permitted to do so independently and be treated as equals in global politics rather than as subordinate to foreign powers and the world's elite nation-states and regions.

If you are critical of such an idea, you may be met with a rejoinder from the successor of this ideology -- Kim Jong-un -- who, in "The Interview" befriends Dave Skylark (Franco) and picks up on some of the latter's philosophy. To all those who hate on Juche, he might reply, "you hate us cause you ain't us."

*To learn more about Juche as an ideology, you can read Kim Jong Il's On the Juche Idea or JUCHE: A Christian Study of North Korea's State Religion, written by Thomas J. Belke from an evangelical Christian perspective.

*For a soundtrack to the Juche, check out this unique Bandcamp album.

Religious Beertroversy over Gandhi Bot

January 7, 2015

*This post originally appeared at Faith Goes Pop

Who knew beer cans could be so contentious? There were the PBR cans that make up the Festivus Poles in Deerfield Beach, FL and at the Capitol building in Tallahassee. Now, it's the cans of Gandhi-Bot, a double India Pale Ale (DIPA) from New England Brewing Company.

The cans of the frothy refreshment bear an image of the revered Indian pacifist leader that is robotic in its iconography and apparently highly offensive to some of his advocates in India. It is true that The Mahatma avoided alcohol. As reported by Patch.com, Rajan Zed, leader of the Reno, NV based Universal Society of Hinduism, said, "peace icon Mahatma Gandhi abhorred drinking. Selling beer named after him was highly damaging to his legacy and hurt the feelings of Indo-Americans and Indians." Feelings of anger are so high that a lawsuit was filed in India.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

Despite the brewing company's apology and claim that this beer was meant to honor the peace maker with its aromatic flavor, vegetarian ingredients, and aim to be "an ideal aid for self-purification and the seeking of truth and love," some Indo-Pak grocers in Connecticut aren't stocking the brew, while some liquor stores refuse to pull it from the shelves.

This is not the first time beer has caused such controversy, nor the first time that religious sensibilities were at play. In 2013 a skirmish was brewing in Asheville, NC at the release of another IPA called "Shiva" -- referring to the popular Hindu deity also known as "the Destroyer" or "the Transformer." In this instance, it was Zed again who found the suds "highly inappropriate."

Ninkasi, Mesopotamian goddess of the brew (we won't hold it against her that she drinks her beer with a straw).

Not ready for a full dive into Brewskianity? Why not try the myriad religious themed brews available on the shelves? There are Catholic beers such as Frankiscaner or Augustiner. There is even an entire style with monkish origins -- the Trappist Ale. The saintly suds of St. Arnold Brewing Co. in Houston, TX are sacrosanct to many as it is the oldest craft brewery in the Bayou City and named after the revered Bishop of Mainz who provided enough beer for all his faithful followers at his funeral.

Protestants may flock to purchase Luther Bier and in the spirit of the great reformer, exclaim, "Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!”

For those who honor Ha Shem through strict Kosher diets can turn to Schmaltz Brewery who pump out barrels, kegs, and bottles of "the chosen beers" of He'brews including: Hop Manna IPA, the tempting Origin Pomegranate Ale, and Jewbelation.

The Four Noble Tasters at Funky Buddha Brewery in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

There are even options for the Buddhist beer enthusiast, although the Buddha guarded against drinking too much ale. In Cambodia you can enjoy a beer named after the Angkor Wat monastery. Closer to home, head on down to Ft. Lauderdale, FL and enjoy some sips from Funky Buddha Brewery who produce the Maple Bacon Coffee Porter or their Missionary Blonde (awkward). Can't decide, get a sampling of a few beers and try the Four Noble Taster like I did over the winter break.

What began as a trickle with Gandhi Bot and Shiva IPA quickly turns into a flood of religiously themed beers. Craft brewing continues to grow in the U.S. and elsewhere (New Zealand, Europe, etc.) and with each new recipe comes the challenge to come up with a unique, catchy, name for the brew. Historically, divinity has never been far from the draughts with multiple cultures appealing to the gods to give thanks for, or ask for blessing on, their beers. With that in mind, I would not be surprised if more cans cause controversy. Indeed, it's happened before with the Mormon community and Wasatch Brewing's Polygamy Porter.

My hope is this -- that individuals and communities that are quick to be offended by religious representations on beer cans and bottles may turn their thoughts away from drunken revelry and instead appreciate the social, and even spiritual, intimations of a potentially pious pint. Perhaps instead of lawsuits and "beertroversies" we can instead sit down and imitate President Barack Obama's "beer diplomacy" and enjoy a cold one as we talk about our religious beliefs, practices, and differences.

Cheers to that.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

2014's Religion & Culture Top Stories & Awards

December 18, 2014

It’s that time of year when we produce our top lists of news stories and notables from the past year, reflecting on the most “intriguing people” of the year and counting down the best and worst of what was 2014. In the spirit of these lists and the soon-to-be-upon-us movie awards season, when awards are given to various people for all types of achievements, both marvelous and nefarious, these are the official 5th Annual Religion & Culture News Awards featuring the moments and individuals that gave shape to the religious landscape of 2014:

*Interested in 2013, 2012, 2011 or 2010’s lists?

Top Religion News Story of the Year – ISIS

Each year the Religion Newswriters Association, a consortium of religion newsies & commentators from across the U.S., vote on the top religion story of the year. I, along with them, decided that the self-styled Islamic State's reign of terror in Iraq and Syria was the top story of the year. Driving out the Iraqi army from Mosul and exiling ancient Christian communities, Yazidis and other religious minorities on threat of death, the United Nations, Christians and many Muslim groups strongly condemned their actions -- including the videotaped beheadings of American journalist James Foley and other hostages as inhumane and un-Islamic.

Read Ken's stories covering this event:

Five Facts You Need to Know about Iraq, ISIS, and its Religious Minorities (featured on Haven Today radio)
The Lonely Jihadi: Why do Westerners join ISIS? (featured in Sojourners' Magazine)
The One Time an ISIS Supporter Talked to me on Twitter

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

Most Encouraging Religious Moment – #IllRideWithYou

If the top story is a contentious and disheartening, there were also encouraging moments in the news this year. Indeed, there were many. My friends at Deseret News National compiled a list of the "11 of our most inspiring stories of 2014" and I've got my own top three "Most Encouraging Religious Moments":

1. In the wake of the hostage situation at a Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Sydney's central business district Anti-Muslim sentiment flared. here were fears that Australian Muslims could become the targets of racially motivated retaliatory attacks. A social media campaign condemning Islamophobia under the hashtag #illridewithyou then took off. Australian Twitter users, sparked by TV content editor Tessa Kum's tweet of solidarity, offered to accompany Muslims wearing religious clothes on public transport as a gesture of support, all while communicating using the hashtag #illridewithyou.

2. As TIME magazine made clear with its choice of Person of the Year being the Ebola Fighters, Ebola was a major crisis this year. At the center of the response were health-care workers, many of them faith-based, who successfully remained at their West African posts as the Ebola epidemic spread. The treatment of American medical missionaries Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol gained wide attention.

3. And finally, faith-based groups help lead peaceful protests against racial injustice in the Ferguson, Mo., shooting case amidst violent outbursts after the police officer involved is not indicted. Protests also break out after a New York grand jury does not indict a police officer in another case of an unarmed black man dying in an altercation with white police officers.

*Read about Black Jesus and finding Jesus at the margins

Most Contentious Religious Event – Israel-Palestine Conflict

A cascading deterioration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict includes the kidnappings and murders of Israeli and Palestinian civilians (including a deadly attack on rabbis praying in a synagogue and the death of a Palestinian minister), an Israel-Hamas war that leaves more than 2,000 dead, and tensions over Temple Mount access and the Al-Aqsa mosque make the conflict in "the Holy Land" the most contentious religious event of the year. Even so, I am headed to Israel/Jordan in May and I invite you to come along to listen, learn, and make the journey with me.

Best Picture – The Lunchbox

Last year was a tough call for these awards...there just weren't many options as Hollywood avoided spiritual movies like the plague. Well, that's probably because in 2014 they unleashed a locust torrent's worth of biblical, spiritually-themed movies. So much so that this year was anecdotally referred to as "The Year of the Biblical Movie!" So how to choose just one?

There was "Son of God" from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, "God's Not Dead," which took evangelical churches and youth groups by storm, "Noah" and the controversy of its fanciful tale and atheist director Darren Aronofsky (of "Black Swan" fame), and the white-washed version of Moses, Aaron, the Hebrew people, and the Pharaoh of Egypt in "Exodus - Gods and Kings." Add to this already notable list Nicholas Cage's "Left Behind" remake, "The Identical," Sony pictures' "Heaven is For Real" starring Greg Kinnear, the African film "Timbuktu" about Islamic fundamentalists in Mali and you've got major contenders for this award.

My top pick? "The Lunchbox." While my favorite movie growing up was "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston, I couldn't quite go with "Exodus: Gods and Kings" and while "Noah" was good, it wasn't great. "The Lunchbox" is an extraordinary Indian movie about love, loss, and yearning that features the opening up of three main characters -- a Muslim, a Hindu, and a Catholic - in passion and friendship. More than one critic saw in this story about food culture and love another Indian tale -- that of interfaith relationships in a country too often marred with religious tension and violence. It deserves the award, and your time...go watch it.

Top Five Books in Religion

I'm a self-professed bibliophile and a religion book reviewer for Publisher's Weekly, so you'll have to permit me to list a few again. Here are the top 5 religion books worth your while for page-turning interest if you haven't read them already:

. Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture by Hisham D. Aidi. I first ran into Aidi during my research on Latina/o Muslims in the U.S. He was writing about "the new hip-hop umma" and I was hooked. This book is a "bracing, fascinating, and utterly timely exploration of music, race, and cultural identity," in which "Aidi examines young European and American Muslims and their search for what he calls, 'a nonracist utopia.'"

2. America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation by American religion scholar Grant Wacker. More than a biography, this is an "appraisal of the roles Graham, the great [American] evangelist, played during his career which began during the late 1930s and extended through his last crusade in 2005."

3. The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage by Rob and Kristen Bell. While Dave Harvey of the Gospel Coalition wrote, "if a mob amassed to burn Christian books, The Zimzum of Love would not be at risk" this is still a spiritual/psychological/mystical/scientific look at marriage and the connection between two human beings by an evangelical, albeit liberal, pastor in league with the spiritual powerhouse Oprah. It cannot be ignored. Read the FULL REVIEW here.

4. The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God by Peter Watson. In this, "Watson offers a history of atheist to show that the topic du jour does in fact have a heritage. His tour of modern thought in a variety of disciplines offers exhilarating and unexpected connections."

5. That Religion in Which All Men Agree: Freemasonry in American Culture by David G. Hackett. I'm partial, Dr. Hackett is my faculty mentor in the University of Florida's PhD program in religion. Still, this book is a powerful study that weaves the story of Freemasonry into the narrative of American religious history in which Hackett argues that from the 1730s through the early twentieth century the religious worlds of an evolving American social order broadly appropriated the beliefs and initiatory practices of this all-male society.

Most Entertaining Intersection of Religion & Culture – The Pope's Magazine

In 2013 Pope Francis was the most interesting man in the world. Suitably, he soon graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and now - he has his own glossy. The magazine is titled Il Mio Papa (My Pope) hit newsstands with a 69-page first edition of photos of the pope, his life story, and his mission in the Vatican. Pope Francis found it "offensive." Hear more from NPR here.

Best New Religion - Yeezianity

Yes, the First Church of Kanye West. For realz. As HuffPost reported, "The 36-year-old rapper has in fact inspired a new religion called Yeezianity, in which followers believe "that the one who calls himself Yeezus is a divine being who has been sent by God to usher in a New Age of humanity," according to the official website."

Effectively, throw Yeezus (Kanye West) in for Jesus in Christianity and voila, you have your own new religion. There are also the new religions' Five Commandments:

1. All things created must be for the good of all.
2. No human being’s right to express themselves must ever be repressed.
3. Money is unnecessary except as a means of exchange.
4. Man possesses the power to create everything he wants and needs.
5. All human suffering exists to stimulate the creative powers of Man.

Runner-up: Remember the movie "10 Things I Hate About You"? Remember actor Andrew Keegan playing Joey Donner? Maybe, maybe not. Like you, Keegan has moved on...to start his own New Age religion -- Full Circle. He told VICE magazine, Full Circle is "advanced spiritualism." He extrapolated, "Synchronicity. Time. That's what it's all about....Whatever, the past, some other time. It's a circle; in the center is now. That's what it's about." Okay Joey, maybe it was all that "nose spray" you talked about in "10 Things I Hate..."

Most Awkward Religious Moment – Monster Drink Satanism

Closely related to the "new religion" category is this little gem, wherein a woman explains how Monster energy drink is actually the mark of the beast -- 666 -- a portent of the anti-Christ and the impending apocalypse. Awkward.

Most Outspoken Atheist(s) – Frank Schaeffer

Son of renowned Christian author and theologian Francis Schaeffer, Frank Scaeffer is no new news. He is a gregarious and outspoken atheist who "believes in faith." But this year he got embroiled in a tit-for-tat with Christianity Today and evangelical leader Ed Stetzer over a story about Bart Campolo, son of famed Christian leaders Tony and Peggy Campolo, leaving the Christian faith. On top of all this, Frank came out with a new self-published book this year, titled Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace.

En Memoriam

To those notable religious figures who lost their lives this year, we wish you, and your loved ones, peace:

Rev. Dr. Myles Monroe -- Minister and motivational speaker

Fred Phelps -- Founder of Westboro Baptist Church

Jamie Coots -- Snake-handling preacher

Sheikh Salim Bakari Mwarangi -- Kenyan Muslim cleric

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

Satanic snake symbols, spaghetti monsters, & the "War on Christmas"

December 17, 2014

Satanists are erecting a holiday display in Michigan. Atheists are plopping down piles of spaghetti and assembling poles of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans in the Florida State Capitol Building. Non-theists have planted goddess Trees of Knowledge — replete with humanist books and pagan sentiments — in Philadelphia and Las Vegas.

As Chris Farley’s character in Tommy Boy famously asked, “Richard, what’s happening?”

Indeed, it’s that time of year again. The Holiday season is upon us, and with it comes classic Yuletide traditions such as eggnog, carols, the lighting of menorahs, decorating a Christmas tree, building a Festivus pole, and fighting one another for public space to display our holiday, or un-holiday, symbols.

But why?

*Follow Ken for more #FaithGoesPop

Katie Aston, a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths University in London researching atheist aesthetics and material cultures, suggests that non-religious symbols, taken at face value as a joke, may serve similar purposes to explicitly religious images.

“The visual in a non-religious worldview, is of great importance,” Aston said, “it forms a vehicle for a number of ideas which either express or support the practice of a non-religious life and on occasion outwardly reject the religious images offered.”

The latter might very well be the case with the Flying Spaghetti Monster tree decoration, a snake wrapped around the Satanic cross, the Festivus pole — inspired by the popular show Seinfeld — and a number of other well-known non-theist symbols.

Take for example the “Darwin Fish.” Often found on the back of cars in mock comparison to the ICTHYS fish found on the bumpers of Christians, the Darwinian alternative is intended to promote evolution and to show unequivocally that the owner of the vehicle is not Christian, not a creationist and perhaps does not believe in a deity.It might be said that the symbol’s strength is found in its resemblance to a common Christian sign.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster tree-toppers are an increasingly popular choice among non-theists looking to assert their non-religious identity, literally, on top of pre-existing traditions.

Similarly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a parodic deity meant to challenge Christian beliefs in God, is placed on top of the tree instead of an angel or a “Bethlehem star” pointing to Jesus’ nativity. The Festivus pole sits aside an elaborate nativity posted by the Florida Prayer Network. The snake-enwrapped Satanic cross shares public space with a menorah.

These non-religious symbols use Judeo-Christian images or icons and replace them with their own to establish a contra-identity.

At times this re-branding, as it were, can prove provocative.

The annual American Atheist “Christ-myth” billboard campaign plays on commonly known Christian symbols and challenges their veracity. Furthermore, the billboard campaign itself is overtly evangelistic and along with its British counterpart, the atheist bus ad campaign, are taken straight from the page of proselytizing believers.

So why do non-theists convert otherwise religious icons into secular symbols? For many reasons including impact, identity construction, ritual symbology, & societal symbolism and power.

“The use of a simple symbol in a film, a book or an advertisement says far more than any wordy explanation ever could” wrote Adele Nozedar in The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols, “Signs and symbols, our invention of them and understanding of them, transcend the barriers of written language and are the very heart of our existence as human beings.”

And so, these secular symbols and icons of the non-religious communicate what it means to be an atheist, agnostic, or Satanist — especially in contradistinction to Judeo-Christian identities who have long held sway over America’s public religious symbology. Defiant and often juxtaposed to classic religious symbols these symbols not only challenge religious institution and identities, but begin to build their own.

“While atheism is the absence of religion, it is not only a negative category” said Aston, “the atheist identity culture generates images which reference both the negative worldview and the positive/existent worldview of rationalism, scientific empiricism and humanism.”

These positive symbols, rather than drawing on established religious images, are creative instead of ironic, meaningful on their own instead of mocking. They tell us what non-theists are, in lieu of only what they are not.

Secular Solstice observances are increasingly popular, writes Religion News Service's Kimberly Winston. "It’s a common ritual in religious observances this time of year: Light a candle against the darkness, the winter, the uncertainty of the wo… — Secular Solstice observances are increasingly popular, writes Religion News Service's Kimberly Winston. "It’s a common ritual in religious observances this time of year: Light a candle against the darkness, the winter, the uncertainty of the world. But a newly minted observance called Secular Solstice adds its own spin. Those lighting the candles are nonbelievers — humanists, atheists, skeptics and other freethinkers — and the candles represent no unseen divinity, but the actions and intentions of those who light them to make the world a better place."

Anthropologist Victor Turner proposed that symbols are the basic molecules from which the meanings of religious rituals are constructed. Just look to the use of the light/darkness dichotomy in the Secular Solstice observances. Likewise, Clifford Geertz infamously defined religion as "a system of symbols" used by mortals to define, and refine, the universe and ameliorate chaos. Mary Douglas posited that symbols help reinforce, or deconstruct opposing, social structures in order to inform people of their place in the world. Similarly, Aston said, “images used in ‘non-religious’ realms, can produce a similar sense of awe, a sense of the enormity of which we cannot know and a material, shared reference point for members of a community with similar world views.”

And, because societies are often pluralistic, when there are multiple religions, or even non-religions, in a region, symbols are employed to rally people to a religion’s cause or mark a clear distinction between two groups in an effort to establish one worldview’s dominance over the other.

As Tasha Brandstatter of Demand Media wrote, “The Virgin of Guadalupe is a classic example of the former case. Originally a Catholic religious symbol, she allegedly appeared to an Aztec man in 1521 dressed in indigenous clothing. Since then, she has served to unite the people of Mexico in both a secular and religious sense. An example of the latter case is the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, where a veritable war of symbols between Islam, Christianity and paganism has played out ever since its construction in the 6th century.”

The Tree of Knowledge in Las Vegas bears pagan, humanist, & feminist symbols and has the official imprimatur from Teller of Penn and Teller fame.

Thus, whether it’s the American Atheist’s atom, Carl Sagan’s “pale blue dot” imagery, a Festivus pole, H.P. Lovecraft's dreaded elder deity Cthulhu gracing holiday cards, a Teller endorsed goddess Tree of Knowledge, or an angel falling into hellfire, these are all examples of “positive” non-religious icons that clarify the universe, eliminate philosophical tensions, deconstruct existing social structures, build new ones, and attempt to reclaim public space for a new non-religious populace trying to assert its dominance over pre-existing “systems of symbols” — religions such as Judaism or Christianity.

Looking to the future, we should not expect that this war of the worldviews, this battle over billboards, this conflict over “Christmas time” (or is it Yuletide, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice?) will abate. Indeed, it will intensify. Christians will continue to fight back and contest the co-option of public space and popular culture (see Kirk Cameron's new film "Saving Christmas"). Why? Because, as we’ve seen, symbols are vitally important and can help one religion, or non-religion, hold sway over culture and even the entire cosmos.

Indeed, the battle cry, “Festivus for the rest of us!” is not just a bit of ironic holiday humor or a contestation over the separation of church-and-state — it’s a reworking of the universe, a re-founding of public and private identity, and a resurrection of a robust non-religious reality in the U.S.

So, er, Happy Holidays…

*Follow Ken on Twitter for more on religion & culture

Hanukkah It Off - Jewish A Capella Group Parodies Taylor Swifts "Shake It Off"

December 16, 2014

It's December. This means two things: 1) There will be parodies of popular pop songs to celebrate the holiday season. 2) Hanukkah is here.

And, as we all know, Hanukkah is a time to bust out your dreidels, gobble up the gelt, & parody a Taylor Swift song.

That's right, the Jewish a cappella group Six13 invite us all to "throw our latkes in the air" and released a Hanukkah song playing off the endlessly parodied Taylor Swift sensation, "Shake It Off."

Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, starts today (December 16).

The eight-day holiday celebrates and commemorates the unforeseen Maccabees' victory over the Syrians in the second century B.C.E. The Maccabees were a first and second-century B.C.E. Jewish family dynasty that brought about a restoration of Jewish family, religious, and political life in the wake of centuries of imperial occupation. Hanukkah itself is a remembrance of the "eight crazy nights" when the limited oil in the temple lit a menorah for eight nights - a sign of G-d's presence and favor. There are dreidels, gelt (chocolate coins), latkes, and more traditions that help modern-day Hebrews celebrate Hanukkah. Watching the video above is just a taste of how Jews, quite literally when it comes to Hanukkah, had to fight for their right to party.

*Read the original post at #FaithGoesPop

A foreigner at the table: migrating through the Velija

December 9, 2014

I am a foreigner at this table. A sojourner making my way through a labyrinth of strange foods and unfamiliar custom.

It is Christmas Eve — a traditional time for traditional foods like hot cocoa, cranberry sauce, and cookies…certainly not a “Christmas” carp. And yet, it is carp we eat, at least for now. Besides the carp we will dine on kapusta (sauerkraut or cabbage), “baby Jesus food” (oatmeal or Cream of Wheat), hay rolls, pirohy (pirogies), stuffed prunes, and bitter vegetables. While there are cookies and sweets awaiting at the end of this strange feast — flaky pockets of poppy seed and cherry Solo jam (kolacky), a spiced nut roll (orechovnik), and zazvorniky ginger cookies — they are not your typical Christmas sweet course.

Yes, there is much to come. For now, we begin humbly. At the head of the table, Paul passes the oplatky shipped in from Slovakia and imprinted with saintly images of Jesus, Mary, magi, shepherds, stables, and a single star. The light wafer touches everyone’s hands, passed around the table with respect and reverence, attended by silent smiles and centuries of meaning making. Finally, it reaches me — the newcomer, the outsider, the foreigner. Once everyone has oplatky in their hands Paul invites us to don the mass-like bread with a dollop of honey. Many of us do, to help the wafer make its way past the roof of our mouth where it strives to stick. Then, the blessing. Paul prays for family, friends, with thanksgiving, and for blessing. Amen. Veselé Vionece! Merry Christmas!

For second and third generation Slovaks and other West Slavic people (Czechs, Poles, some Russians, etc.) in the U.S., the velija — a representative meal of remembrance of the nativity narrative of Jesus of Nazareth and his parents Joseph and Mary — is a staple of Christmas festivities. Deviating from the customary “American” holiday meal, the velija is a tradition still celebrated by select Slovaks and Czechs as a connection to the “home country,” their childhood memories, and an homage to the ethnic identity forged in urban enclaves in Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, New York, and Pittsburgh in the beginning of the 20th-century.

“When I am preparing the meal, it is my connection to everyone who has gone before me,” said Treena Rowan, a Slovak connected to the Czech Center and Museum in Houston, Texas. “Everyone in the old country still makes the meal and so do I, we are connected this way,” she said.

Akin to the didactic nature of the Jewish Seder meal, the velija is a representative feast, literally a Christmas “vigil,” with each portion symbolizing a part of the Christmas narrative and the life of Jesus. While traditions in different households vary, there are a few staple selections. Before the meal begins, many families place hay on, or under, the table to remember the manger and leave an extra place at the table for a traveling stranger or deceased relative. After prayers and blessings, the eldest person in the household, or the father of the family, passes around oplatky, a communion-like wafer imprinted with images from the Nativity topped with honey. “This symbolizes the sweetness of Christ and Christmas,” said Rowan, “the pictures look like little postcards from the original Christmas.”

Following the oplatky and making the sign of the cross with honey on the forehead, the family starts in on other courses including kapusta (a sauerkraut and mushroom soup), representing the bitterness of Christ’s suffering, pirohy dumplings filled with sauerkraut, potato, cheese or lekvar (prunes) and carp. While carp is not readily available in the U.S., many families still eat fish, betraying the meal’s Catholic intonations connected to that church’s traditions of fasting during the season of Advent (the 40 days prior to Christmas, a time of reflection, anticipation, expectation, and hope). The whole meal is accompanied with wine, for luck and in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice. At the close of the meal, families enjoy kolacky, strudels filled with poppyseed, nuts or fruit filling and wrapped in such a way as to hearken back to the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. There are also nut rolls and bobalky, stuffed dough balls, to eat while children sing kolady, or Christmas carols. Zazvornikys may be served with coffee or tea as the family and friend settle in, but that is an American addition, where coffee is king.

While the traditions may vary from house-to-house, or from culture-to-culture, every family who keeps the velija shares the same sentiments. Linda Steinbart (nee Gereg), a third generation Slovak, celebrates the velija every year as she has done her entire life. She reflected, “This meal was handed down from my Grandma Cepela, to my mom, and now I carry on the traditional meal. It was and continues to be a time of bonding with family on Christmas Eve.”

It is with Linda and her family that I celebrated my first velija, but not my last. I married into this seriously Slovak family, wedding Linda’s daughter Elizabeth. Or, in Slovak transliteration, Elszebet. She hopes that, as a transplant, I not only appreciate the tradition, but carry it on in our family for years to come. So potent is their Slovak bloodline that despite my European mutt heritage (English, German, Norwegian, and Scottish) our own children would still be half-Slovak.

Steinbart intimates that it is our obligation to institute the velija in our own family. Being the only member of her family who continues to put on the velija, she believes the tradition is dying off. She said that the addition of spouses, grandchildren and relocation has all changed the meal and dampened the desire to learn about the family’s Slovak heritage or celebrate the traditional Christmas Eve meal. This has led to difficulties in finding rare items like the imprinted oplatky. “Our main source, a Catholic Church in Chicago, closed,” she said, “before computers it took hours of research and networking to locate sources for oplatky.”

Even though the meal changed and the tradition is waning, she makes the effort each year, “When mom died the tradition become less important, but I could not let go of the warm memories and to this day I bring extended family into our home to share this wonderful meal.” She prays that her children will carry on the Slovak tradition.

In Houston, a young woman by the name of Julie Marencic, a fourth generation Slovak, cooks pirohy and passes the oplatky each year in her household as well. Having since been married and moved to Houston for work and study, my wife and I celebrate the velija with Julie and her husband Andy, their children Paul and Elyse. Just as we passed the oplatky with family in Phoenix, we now share in the meaning of the meal with these friends become family because of our shared Slovak heritage. Asked whether the tradition is dying off, Marencic replied, “I am fortunate to be married to someone who has similar traditions to my family.” For Marencic and all those who maintain the velija, it is the only way they can imagine celebrating the sacred winter holidays.

“Something about going through the old ways, your body, your mind and your heart respond to it. There is something in the DNA that says, ‘this is how you celebrate Christmas,’” said Treena Rowan. For those with Slovak heritage, the velija and other Slavic Christmas traditions may be the only thing that connects them to their ancestral roots. For that reason alone, it is worth the effort to resurrect long-established recipes and to put on the meal for family and friends.

Mary-Ellen Fillo, a popular radio personality, said, “I never celebrate the Slovak side of my heritage except on Christmas Eve.” She said, “As distanced as I am from my ancestors, there is a peace to celebrating roots, even for one night. And there is comfort in having family around you and sharing in something that is personal and warm as you remember what the evening is all about.”

As some Slovaks move away from the velija and others pine for what is lost in cultural transmission, this foreigner has migrated through this meal. Rootless in heritage, without any strong Christmas traditions other than what popular culture and Coca-Cola has given me, I have moved into the Slovak world, and fellowshipping with a new family and yoking myself with new friends, through the meal.

This year, I am no longer a stranger. My wife bakes the kolackys and zazvornikys, Julie rolls the orechnovik, and Andy and I fight over the last of the lekvar — the stuffed prunes. The wrestling gets more playfully forceful as the wine continues to flow. I hide the hay for the children to discover and beam with pride over the zazvorniky stars that I myself rolled out to bake. But, significantly, I no longer sit at the right of Paul, my father-in-law, but instead I open the oplatky and pass it around. I am the one who speaks the blessing and explains the meaning of the courses. To my right is Paul, Andy's young son. As the oplatky rests in his hands he novicely looks to me with a quizzical look. I grab the honey, place some on the wafer bearing the theotokos — the image of Mary, “the mother of God” — and, as a migrant into an imagined Slovak-American community, pass on a tradition that transports those at table through time and space — to Slovakia, Chicago, and Bethlehem.

Coke Can Nativity at #FaithGoesPop

December 5, 2014

Heather Choate Davis, author and cultural commentator, shared this photo on her Facebook page. She posted it with the words “Nativity scene meets culture.”

Clearly, this is prime #FaithGoesPop territory.

While at first glance it may seem someone was just being clever with Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke campaign, perhaps there are deeper intimations behind this ShareaCoke nativity.

*See more at my blog with Read the Spirit - #FaithGoesPop and send me more #FaithGoesPop by using the aforementioned hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Being an Apostolic fashionista

December 2, 2014

*A guest post from Megan Geiger.

Thank God for winter.

Summer in Florida is not the easiest time to be Apostolic. With temperatures in the high 90’s and enough humidity to make the mosquitoes grumpy, the daily task of choosing an outfit becomes something of a test of ingenuity.

As an Apostolic Pentecostal, I belong to a group of believers that adheres to standards of dress that promote modesty, based on scriptural interpretations of covering with a little Bible belt flavor and fashion thrown in. That means that my body is covered from my knees to my neck to the middle of my bicep in every season, no matter the heat index.

Today’s fashion world and shopping scene present some challenges to the Apostolic girl looking for modest clothing. Outfits are often feats of layering, pieced together from store-bought articles that would be considered immodest by themselves. Knee-length pencil skirts are often too tight to be worn alone, but are perfect for lengthening the hem of a cocktail dress that only falls to mid-thigh, sleeveless tops are only wearable under jackets or as a way to raise the neckline of another shirt, and thin, long-sleeved undershirts are worth their weight in platinum as all-purpose coverage under sleeveless dresses, tank-tops, and sheer materials. On any given day an Apostolic girl may leave her house wearing two or three tops and multiple skirts (never pants, by the way, as those are considered to be “the apparel of a man”).

A solution to this problem of overdressing would be to revert to making our own clothing, sewing modest pieces from a single piece of fabric and leaving the layers for the snowbirds. But for us, an essential part of living our Christian walk “in the world but not of the world” is looking modestly stylish, approachable, and even attractive. It simply won’t do to just walk away from modern fashion and resort to homemade gingham shifts; there’s a great feeling of accomplishment that comes with taking a “worldly” aesthetic and turning it into something holy, and even haute.

That’s not to say that our style choices allow us to blend in. On the contrary, we’re supposed to stick out; as evangelicals with a world to save, the way we style our bodies is sometimes our greatest missionary resource, opening doors for non-threatening conversations with strangers. A big part of that is the hair.

Oh, the hair.

Based on several verses, 1 Corinthians 11 adjures women to enter sacred spaces with their heads covered and also say that long hair is a glory for females. The majority of Apostolic women choose to leave their hair uncut. While hair length depends largely on genetics and diet, many women sport tresses that fall well past their waists, some with locks that drag the ground, a living rebuttal to the myth that split ends prevent growth. For many of us, our hair is a canvas for artistic expression, a marker of our identity.

And let me tell you, we’ve gotten good at fixin’ it.

Anyone who believes that hair teasing died with the 1980’s has never set foot in an Apostolic rally or convention. While the days of using mini cereal boxes and paper towel rolls as structural aids to support massive beehive ‘dos are gone, big hair has never fallen out of vogue completely. Each stylist has her own set of tools and tricks to use in sculpting her Sunday silhouette. Even loyalty to particular brands of hairspray, mousse, bobby pins, clips, and volumizing products is fierce. At important events, like national conferences, women can expect to spend anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour on their hairdos, rendering striking results. Styles vary from couture, asymmetrical constructions of spirals and braids to slightly more tame arrangements that resemble something from a wedding magazine or a prom picture. Even the most ornate styles are tested before service to make sure they will stay in place throughout the vigorous worship that accompanies Pentecostal devotion; bobby pins make mean shrapnel if flung with enough speed during a good “shout song.” However, it’s expected that we’ll all leave service looking a little rough, since worship isn’t about looking pretty and the hair and clothes are less about looking good and more about being a part of the community.

To be honest, a well-layered outfit and a well-coiffed hairdo has little to do with piety and more to do with identity. It would be easy to adhere to our standards of modesty without bothering so much with fashion, and some ladies do choose to stick to more low-maintenance styles. Still, for plenty of young women, experiments in Apostolic fashion are a way to stay separated from ‘the World’ while remaining tied in to a larger community of practitioners. It’s a marker of belonging, and a common aesthetic that we can be proud of, despite feeling different in the context of mainstream American culture.

All of us Apostolic girls have at some point lived the following scenario: a familiar silhouette catches my eye in a crowded mall or at a theme park. The woman walking towards me is wearing a skirt that falls well past her knee, a long-sleeved shirt, and a contrasting camisole that covers her chest nearly to her collarbone, despite the heat of the day. I quickly check her wrists and ears for jewelry; there is none. Another covert sweep confirms that she isn’t wearing any noticeable makeup. A slightly too-ornate bun at the back of her neck seals the deal; she’s one of us. If our eyes meet, we exchange a quick smile and perhaps a small wave.

Maybe it’s a sign of solidarity, of letting each other know that we’re not alone in the struggle to be different from the norm. Or maybe it’s just an appreciation of something in others that we see in ourselves. The Pentecostal “Namaste.”

Either way, it’s assurance for each of us that our culture is being preserved and promoted, and that our distinctiveness has neither been swallowed up by worldly fashions nor succumbed to dowdiness. It reminds us that our bodies are the billboards of our faith. Even during long-sleeved Florida summers, it’s something we prize.

*Thanks to Megan Geiger for her guest post. Megan is a fellow graduate student at University of Florida and received her B.A. in Spanish with a dual minor in Anthropology and English Literature from the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, where she was chosen as the Stan and Renee Wimberly Scholar for the class of 2014. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the changes in the social discourses present in an archive of sermons from a Pentecostal church, and she aims to continue in that vein of research during her time in the Master’s program. Her other research interests include Pentecostalism and immigration, Pentecostalism in Latin America, American religious history, and the role of women in Christian fundamentalism. She is an active member of the United Pentecostal Church, International.

*This post is also available at Faith Goes Pop with Read the Spirit and Sacred Duty with Houston Belief.

An Epically Sacred Thanksgiving

November 25, 2014

In the U.S., Thanksgiving is a sacred meal. It can also be an EPIC meal.

At least for this not-so-Jewish, Jewish guy named Harley Morenstein.

Harley is the ring leader of the internet sensation turned FYI reality TV show, "Epic Meal Time." The goal with Epic Meal Time? Craft extremely high-calorie meals, preferably with an over abundance of meat products, especially bacon. Epic Meal Time has taken on just about every challenge, from a Christmas meat house to a fast-food lasagna. What about Thanksgiving you ask?

Their menu from a couple years ago include a turkey, duck, chicken, cornish hen, quail amalgamation wrapped in bacon and placed inside a roasted pig (that's a bird inside a bird inside a bird inside a bird inside a bird inside a pig, for those wondering) with bacon croissant stuffing. It rang in around 80,000 calories. This year, they made a "Maize Dog" appetizer that involved duck and venison sausage (aka "Pilgrim Meat Log") deep fried in corn batter. Voila, instead of a "corn dog," you got a "maize dog." Happy Epic Thanksgiving.

In the process of creating such beautiful Thanksgiving mash-up meals, the boys did do some homework about the menu at the first Thanksgiving. Which raises the question — just what did the first Thanksgiving meal include?

Robert Tracy McKenzie, in his veil lifting work The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History, shatters a lot of misconceptions about what the first Thanksgiving was really all about.

*Read Stephanie Fenton's history-packed article on Thanksgiving traditions HERE.

One of McKenzie's contributions to setting the Thanksgiving record straight, and tenderizing some sacred cows (perhaps sacred turkeys) along the way, is when he goes over the menu that first Thanksgiving.

McKenzie wrote, "almost nothing we associate with a traditional Thanksgiving meal would have been on the menu." While wild turkey was perhaps on the menu, most likely duck, goose, and venison got on there too. On the side the Pilgrims may have added fish, mussels, and clams from the frothy seas and the traditional Thanksgiving eel fresh caught from local tributaries. Trimmings would have included Indian corn (succotash mashed), collard greens, parsnips, turnips, carrots, onions, spinach, and cabbage. Sadly, there would have been no sweet potatoes (and certainly no marshmallows or brown sugar), no cranberry sauce, and (aghast!) no pumpkin pie.

Thus, as McKenzie concluded, those striving for tradition these days should serve turnips and eels this Thanksgiving. I guarantee you Martha Stewart will not have a recipe for "Mom's Favorite Thanksgiving Eel."

What McKenzie did not talk about was the very sacred nature of some of these foods for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, including the Wampanoag. Too often, the story of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 is told solely from the Pilgrim's point of view, and when the Wampanoag are included, it is usually in a brief or distorted way.

While we may appreciate how Thanksgiving came to a founding story in America's conception of its manifest divine history and of the American civil religion, what of the sacred intimations of that 1621 meal "facing east from Indian country?" (Richter, 2001)

For the indigenous peoples of the Americas, cosmology came from the ground up. Cosmogonies and sacred myths were marked in the ground and various tribes understood their people as emerging from the earth. Concomitantly the indigenous peoples of the Americas shared a common philosophy that respected nature and its cycle (as hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists this makes sense), believed in using and respecting the bounty of land and sea so that it was "preserved for the seventh generation of the unborn," and held to giving thanks to the spirits for everything they were able to farm, collect, and hunt.

No wonder then that many foods became sacred to indigenous people of the Americas. As the peoples harvested corn, beans, squash, avocados, cotton, and chilies each of these plant were believed to be "imbued with sacred powers and came to play important roles in the mythology, calendar, ritual, costumes, ancestor worship, and performances" of many indigenous religions (Carrasco, 2014). In North America, the foods considered sacred were animal foods, rich in fat. According to Beverly Hungry Wolf, pemmican made with berries “was used by the Horns Society for their sacred meal of communion.” Boiled tongue was an ancient delicacy, served as the food of communion at the Sun Dance. A blood soup, made from a mixture of blood and corn flour cooked in broth, was used as a sacred meal during the nighttime Holy Smoke ceremonies and bear fat was central to strength for warriors before battle.

Most likely you won't be serving blood soup, bear, turnip, eel or sacred beans this Thanksgiving. Still, many of the foods on your plate have been considered sacred at one time or another. Here is a breakdown of the sacred nature of your Thanksgiving fare. So, as you give thanks, to whatever god, power, or person you prefer, remember just how sacred and epic of a meal you are about to enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey

Not only do some Native American tribes view the turkey as a symbol of abundance and fertility, but wild turkeys were sacrificial guests of honor in fertility and thanksgiving ceremonies. To this day, Creek tribes still practice the turkey dance during its annual fire festivals. Down south, the turkey was thought to be sacred to ancient Mexican cultures. Aztecs, Mayans, and Toltecs viewed the turkey as a "jeweled bird" and also referred to it as the "Great Xolotl." Elsewhere, in South Africa, turkeys are used in sanghoma ceremonies.

Stuffing (apples)

Beyond being associated with 'the Forbidden Fruit' of the Garden of Eden (most likely a pomegranate, by the way), the apple has long represented eternal life, resurrection, and reproduction. From the Romans to the Druids to modern day pagans, apples are thought to be a regenerative source of spiritual power and able to ward off evil spirits and demons.

Deviled Eggs

Haven't you wondered where the "Deviled" name came from? Yes, these are sinfully delicious (at least when my mom makes them), but they are known as "Deviled" because the word "devil" came to be applied to spicy, highly seasoned, dishes and foods starting in 1786. The spiciness was associated with the heat of hell and some people took this so seriously that at some church potlucks in the Midwest U.S. these devilish delicacies are renamed "angel eggs." It just doesn't have the same ring, does it?

Corn

To the native tribes of the Eastern and Southwestern U.S., "corn was the all-nourishing sacred food, the subject of innumerable legends, and the central theme of many rituals." (Erdoes and Ortiz, 1984) The Penobscot people have a revered story of "the Corn Mother" and the Hopi say, "Moing'iima makes corn, everything grows on his body."

In Mesoamerica, natives compared the creation of human life with the creation of corn. Indeed, the Maya believed that the human body was composed of white and yellow corn.

Sweet potato

Although this sweet delicacy was not at the original Thanksgiving and was not introduced to North America until much later, the sweet potato (known as kumara) is an important food in the cosmology of the Maori people of New Zealand (Aotearoa). It is believed that the umara was originally cultivated in the sky by the star Whanui or the god Maru, cousin of Maui. Carefully revered by the Maori because of its sacred genesis, there were ceremonies and rites to be observed if the kumara gods (stone statues set by tuber plots) were to watch over the crop and care for it.

Pumpkin Pie

While the flaky pie crust may be heavenly and the whip cream a sweet delight, pumpkin is a sacred food for many. It is used as a sacred offering to Oshun in Santeria and other Yoruba derived practices of the Caribbean and Latin America. It is said that pumpkin seeds, because of their "waste not" nature are considered a delicacy by the Orisha who reigns over love, intimacy, beauty, marriage, wealth, and diplomacy. Sometimes you may even see pumpkins set at shrines dedicated to Our Lady of Charity, who represents Oshun in Santeria infused Catholicism in the Caribbean.

Of course, you may have also heard of the divine intimations and religious symbolism behind Linus' unwavering devotion to The Great Pumpkin in the peanuts special.

Cranberry sauce

Beyond being protected as "sacrosanct" on my Thanksgiving tales, cranberries (associated with crane birds) represented fidelity in China and Japan. Yet, it is the Hartung people of North America and a small, but faithful band, of "Cranlog" devotees who show the most reverence to this sacred Thanksgiving tradition. As one devotee sang, "Hark, the heavens open and sing the joys of Cranlog!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

*Follow Ken for more on religion, food, culture, and #FaithGoesPop

Stripper Spirituality

November 20, 2014

Ever wondered what spirituality is like for a stripper? Maybe, maybe not. But I am still willing to bet you'd be interested in the ins and outs of "stripper theology."

In my newest post at #FaithGoesPop, I explore what theology and lived religion looks like for strippers. Drawing from both public comments, and an interview, with three strippers, past and present, who reflected on their work in New Orleans and Orange County, CA I relate stripper theology, as such, to a wider trend in American religion.

Read more here or follow me @kchitwood for more #FaithGoesPop

This is what you get when you mix Ylvis with Gangnam Style

November 18, 2014

Seriously, there is nothing religious about this at all, but I'm pretty sure this video is going to gain a cult following really quick.

There simply are not words to describe what happens in this video, but your life will never be the same after this.

Enjoy?

Check out the interview, but also be sure to share your favorite angel (and demon) sightings in pop culture on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest with the hash-tag #FaithGoesPop and we'll include them in a post later this week!

What got you interested in studying the intersection of, and interplay between, religion and media?

What are you interested in at the moment or working on right now?

How relevant is this discussion and why do people, in academia and at the popular level, need to be thinking about it?

You mentioned that it is important to situate the study of religion and media in its historical context. How do we avoid the allure of the “newness” of such a subject?

What is the relevance of the “globalization” or “transnationalism” discussion in the realm of religion and media studies?

What BIG question or area of study would you recommend a young scholar or interested individual go out and tackle in this field?

Panel 1: The Creation of Sacrality and the Role of the Audience (Commentator: Dr. Terje Østebø)

Panel 2: Digitized Hinduism (Commentator: Dr. Phillip Green)

Panel 3: The Mediazation of Myth and Learning (Commentator: Dr. Robert Kawashima)

Roundtable Discussion (Moderator: Dr. Manuel Vásquez)

Beginning and End, Alpha and Omega

The Dude Abides

The BIG One

Top Religion News Story of the Year – ISIS

Most Encouraging Religious Moment – #IllRideWithYou

Most Contentious Religious Event – Israel-Palestine Conflict

Best Picture – The Lunchbox

Top Five Books in Religion

Most Entertaining Intersection of Religion & Culture – The Pope's Magazine

Best New Religion - Yeezianity

Most Awkward Religious Moment – Monster Drink Satanism

Most Outspoken Atheist(s) – Frank Schaeffer

Top Posts from KenChitwood.com

En Memoriam

Fresh Tweets