Jesus Christ, Movie Star?

Think religion doesn’t matter at the movies? Think again. More specifically, think of the kerfuffle over the Church of England’s “Lord’s Prayer Commercial” and some of the UK’s biggest cinema chains denying the commercial ad space in its theaters.

As Reuters reported, “The 60-second ad, which shows a variety of Christians including a police officer, weight lifter and school children each saying one line of the prayer, had been due to be shown next month before screenings of the new Star Wars film ‘The Force Awakens.’” 

Not only was the Anglican church confused over the refusal, but social media and blogs erupted with robust conversations about the place of religious ads before movies, on television, and on radio. This scenario of scandal underscores the importance, and urgency, of considering the interaction of religion & pop-culture in its many, many, forms. 

That is why I am overwhelmingly excited to announce the release of Jesus Christ, Movie Star by Edward N. McNulty, in which I was humbled & honored to write the foreword. In that introductory statement I attempted to frame McNulty's work on Jesus and movies in the contemporary context of currents in religion & pop-culture. 

In the foreword I wrote that in a global culture, where internationalization occurs across, through, and in tension with various sites and conduits of ethnicity, technology, financial systems, media, ideological networks, and religions the images of Jesus not only matter to U.S. moviemakers, and consumers, but people throughout the world. Hence the importance to critically think through what depictions of Jesus mean — how they are represented, how they communicate, how they are interpreted, and how they reflect, critique, and interact with wider socio-cultural realities. 

This is even more pertinent because Jesus is such a popular movie star and it is helpful -- both theologically and from a religious studies perspective -- to consider him as such. As David Crumm of Read the Spirit wrote:

“ONLY ONE FIGURE rivals Sherlock Holmes and Santa Claus as the longest-running characters in world cinema. As veteran-faith-and-film writer Edward McNulty points out in his new book, that unique, history-spanning figure is Jesus Christ, Movie Star.”

McNulty’s exploration of Jesus-figures, faith, and film gets us started down a path to not only catch the great importance of Jesus’ story as it was, but also — crucially — how it is transported and transposed in our current culture. To that end, I invite you to explore more about the work or to purchase it at Amazon.com to engage heartily in discussion with those with whom you watch, react to, and examine faith and film.

An American Qur'an? Bringing the Muslim holy book to life in the U.S.

Having delved into Christianity with the Dante’s Divine Comedy series (Chronicle Books, 2006), artist Sandow Birk is now turning his attention to Islam in the book American Qur’an (Liveright, Nov.). In the book, one of PW's best books of 2015, Birk illustrates the Qur'an, using American life as the backdrop for the sacred writings—from the fields of Iowa to the beaches of Southern California. I had the opportunity to catch up with the graphic artist, who is not religious, to learn more about this nine-year project for publication with Publisher's Weekly. 

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A culture, not a costume

Along with ghouls and ghosts, bags of candy and ticker-tape versions of things that go bump in the night, this year's Halloween themed décor in grocery store aisles are intermixed with skulls. But these are not just your ordinary cranial bones. Instead, they are bedecked with flowers and glitter, bright golden colors and sombreros.

They are known as "sugar skulls" or calaveras and are associated with Dia de los Muertos, or "Day of the Dead. Dia de los Muertos is a hemispheric American holiday celebrated near the end of October or the beginning of November, with the official celebrations taking place on November 1 and 2 by people in Mexico, Guatemala, the United States, and some other South American nations. 

But what are the deeper meanings behind the costumes and the wall-hangings? Is there something more happening here than Halloween furnishings and golden color schemes? Are calaveras a significant aspect of Mexican culture or just a another costume? 

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“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. 

One celebrant I talked to said, “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.”

The ubiquitous symbols of the Day of the Dead — calaveras, elaborate artistic representations of a dead aristocratic woman (La Catrina) and flowers such as marigolds — not only ordain altars in homes and cemeteries, but now find their way into museums, menus, suburban jack-o-lanterns, art shows, clothing, and Hollywood runways.

“For me El Dia de los Muertos brings my family together to remember and celebrate the life of those past” said Aida Hernandez, a Houston-area Spanish teacher. “To us it is a very spiritual time and not just about the decorations or food.”

Traditionally, the Hispanic holiday is a time for families, neighborhoods and whole towns to come together to remember and celebrate the life of their ancestors, both young and old, and to make offerings (ofrendas) to the deceased. The celebrations are many and varied, but they often include elaborate processionals, graveyard ceremonies, skulls, stories of those passed and parties to celebrate the continuum between life and death.

Influenced by the Roman Catholic celebration of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days the holiday has its roots in Mayan and Aztec customs and beliefs. The modern manifestation of the Day of the Dead is an amalgamation of various cultural influences both North and South of the border. As MSNBC’s Alyx Kaczuwka reported:

The pre-Hispanic, Mayan and Aztec roots of the Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, date back at least 3,000 years. Traditionally associated with Mexico, its celebration has also found its way around the world, often blending in local cultural influences with the ancient traditions.

What is really fascinating is how the Day of the Dead is not only an alleviating institution for indigenous and Spanish speaking cultures in the Americas, but also now for el Norte in the co-opting of the holiday’s symbols in U.S. pop culture. Whereas the mestiza/o — mixed race — or Indian community of the Americas originally took the initiative in developing these meaningful mixes as a way to reclaim a sense of agency in a cultural milieu that demeaned their social standing and stripped them of power, now non-Latina/o Americans are embracing the symbology of the celebration as a way to give material voice to the new mestizaje being created in the crucible of contemporary, trans-local, American culture.

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As reported by the Associated Press: In the last decade or so, this traditional Latin American holiday with indigenous roots has spread throughout the U.S. along with migration from Mexico and other countries where it is observed. Not only are U.S.-born Latinos adopting the Day of the Dead, but various underground and artistic non-Latino groups have begun to mark the Nov. 1-2 holidays through colorful celebrations, parades, exhibits and even bike rides and mixed martial arts fights.  

However, this co-option and adaptation of this traditionally Mexican holiday is not without its misunderstandings and misappropriations. On Facebook, my friend Paola recently shared the following post speaking to her heart and her passion for this holiday. To best understand what the symbols mean, without just dressing up in a costume that seems chic and "authentic," please read her first-hand account below: 

“I love Texas and in particular the Houston area because it has a rich mix of culture — you can literally find everything here!

Lately, I have seen grocery stores and some party stores carrying what in Mexico is known as Dia de los Muertos or “Day of the Dead” decorations! I have to admit that I thought it was so cool that my local H-E-B or Kroger [two grocery stores in Texas] care enough to bring my culture to retail.

However as a dear friend of mine pointed out to me, this is not really bringing the Mexican culture to Texas if most of the people do not know what all this means. She is absolutely right! For example, one time I heard somebody saying that all those skeletons were part of a satanic ritual called “Santa Muerte” [though there is a tradition of belief and ritual surrounding “Santa Muerte” it is distinct from the practice of Dia de los Muertos]. I know that most of my friends here have an idea what “Dia de los muertos” is, but I would like to take some time to let you know a little more about it in my own words:

My ancestors believe that the most important journey for us begins after your soul departs from here, however that soul will have one more chance to come and visit its loved ones! Sometimes those souls will forget how to get back “home” so the family will lay a path of familiar things to guide the way (like flowers, favorite food or drinks, incense, candles and pictures). That my ancestors were able to continue doing this for their loved ones, even after the Spanish took so many of traditions away, is incredible!

The sugar skull tradition that seems to be popular right now comes from what we call a “Calavera” or “Catrina” (‘Dapper Skeleton’ or ‘Elegant Skull’), which made its first appearance in 1910 by a famous Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer name José Guadalupe Posada. The image depicts a female skeleton dressed only in a hat befitting the upper class outfit of a European of her time. She is offered as a satirical portrait of those Mexican natives who, Posada felt, were aspiring to adopt European aristocratic traditions in the pre-revolutionary era. Now does everyone dress and paint their faces like this? I would like to say yes, but the reality is no! Indeed, not everybody in Mexico is proud of being Mexican!

And that’s it, for me this is not just a costume, it is indicative of my culture — its vitality, its survival, its adaptation, its tradition. More than that, I believe that thanks to this tradition I was available to meet many of my relatives that passed away before or shortly after I was born and every time I help in my house to set the offering on the table or every time we went to visit their graves my family talks to us. As we remember funny little stories about them or my grandma will prepare their favorite meals, it is a great way to keep them alive.

So next time you are walking in your grocery aisle and found something “Dia de los muertos” related and you have no idea what is for now you will know a little bit more! #WeAreACulture #NotJustACostume”

— Paola

Our Man in Havana - Turkey, Islam, & a Mosque in Cuba

Did Muslims discover Cuba? Is Turkey going to get the chance to fund a mosque in Havana? Can the Castros warm to Islam as they open the doorway for other international relations? 

Recently, as part of a special focus on Turkey, I published a chapter in volume 16 of Critical Muslim, a quarterly magazine of ideas and issues showcasing ground breaking thinking on Islam and what it means to be a Muslim in a rapidly changing, interconnected world. 

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The aim of my chapter is to explore a recent attempt by Turkey’s political leadership to build a mosque in Havana in light of Turkish Islam’s re-emergence on the global scene. Specifically, it is a reflection on this effort’s aims of re-territorializing and re-inscribing Turkish Muslim symbols, as imagined by what I call the nation’s ‘alter-Islamist’ political leaders, on the Cuban landscape as part of a wider endeavor to position Turkey’s “brand” of Islam as a bridge between “West” and “East” (essentially conceived) contra Saudi Arabia in a “cold-war for Sunni hegemony.” In a globalized world it is not possible to consider “Islam in Turkey” in any isolated manner or from a solely national, or even regional, point-of-view. Instead, it is necessary to cast the subject into a greater globalized context with attendant theoretical and methodological considerations. This chapter is an attempt to do so. Therefore, this inquiry will help researchers and the interested public better understand lived and political Islam in Turkey in a global context, involved in a feedback loop with various interlocutors including not only the usual suspects (e.g. the E.U., U.S., Saudi Arabia), but nations typically on the periphery of critical considerations of Islam in Turkey (e.g. Cuba and other Latin American and Caribbean countries).

You can read the article HERE or pre-order a copy of the full text on Amazon. 

*UPDATE: The first publicly mosque is now open in Havana. Sponsored by Saudi dollars with input from several other Muslim majority nations (including Turkey's Diyanet) it is located at Calle Oficío, No. 18 on the corners of Obrapía & Obispo. It was opened in 2016.  

Profiling Kanye West's Pastor

Recently I sat down with Pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr., known to many as "Kanye West's pastor." 

Wilkerson Jr. burst into the limelight as the hottest holy man around when he officiated the wedding between Kanye West and Kim Kardashian last year. Today, Wilkerson and his wife DawnCheré have a new book; Sandcastle Kings: Meeting Jesus in a Spiritually Bankrupt World (Thomas Nelson, Nov.); a new reality TV show on Oxygen, Rich in Faith; and a new church, VOUS Church, in downtown Miami. 

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With all the lights, cameras, fast cars, and pop stars, some critics complain that Wilkerson is all cover and no content. Despite the celebrity profile and media attention, the 31-year-old pastor insists that his work is not all style, no substance. “The book, the show, the speaking, the preaching—it’s all growing out of my heart as a pastor of a local church where people can find a place to belong,” he told PW.

Yet, the people he feels called to work with are not your run-of-the-mill church folk. Where some ministry leaders might head to third-world countries, Wilkerson believes his mission is elsewhere.

TE AROHA O ATUA MO TE TANGATA - The Love of God for the People

This guest post is from Rev. Mark Whitfield, the Pīhopa o te Hāhi Rūtana o Aotearoa, the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of New Zealand. Not only is he a personal friend, but he is a mentor in ministry and a leader who I am fascinated with for his attempts at being a pioneering bricoleur among Lutheran-Christians in New Zealand.  

In his own words, Whitfield is, "keen for members of te Hā Rūtana o Aotearoa (the Lutheran Church of New Zealand) to acknowledge the beautiful language of our indigenous people" or "the Māori." More than language, Whitfield is also ambitious to integrate Māori language and culture into the rituals and practices of the Lutheran church. 

This post is an example of one of his efforts and is posted here as a case of cultural/religious bricolage, trans-creation, and hybridity between Māori custom and meanings & Lutheran pākehā (people of European descent) rituals and culture -- merging the rāpaki, or "Māori kilt," and the alb, stole, and liturgical vestments of a Lutheran bishop. 

His motivation stems not only from the ethnic make-up of the LCNZ, which includes Māori, Pākehā, and other immigrant groups including Chinese, Polynesian immigrants, and more, but also from New Zealand's history. For most of Aotearoa's history, the two primary cultures, Māori and Pākehā, have existed in tension. Conflict and confrontation often prove more common than collaboration. Whitfield is, in many ways, trying to navigate this tension and build bridges between multiple cultures as part of one church. 

The shoulder cloaks, or rāpaki, were the principal clothing of the Māori and were woven harakeke worn from waist to knee or sometimes placed upon the shoulders. They are made of a woven base (kaupapa) and hung with tags (hukahuka). I will let Rev. Whitfield tell the rest of this story of "the love of God for the people" in his own words: 

Kia tau ki a koutou te atawhai me te rangimarie o te Atua!

願 父 神 所 賜 的 恩 惠 和 平 安 與 你 們 同 在

Grace and peace to you from God!

Shortly after the Church asked me to be Bishop in June 2011, my dear friend Jude Nelson (Te Punga) from Palmerston North told me that she had been called by God to make a Māori cloak for me to wear, especially for formal occasions.

At various times during the past 4 years Jude has updated me on her progress, and each time we have spoken about this, I have felt quite moved at this gesture of love and appreciation for me.

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Rev. Mark Whitfield leading liturgy with the Rapaki at the LCA Convention & Synod (PHOTO: Tim Wiebusch)

On Sunday afternoon, 27th September, during a short and beautiful rite including song, scripture, prayer and blessing at John and Jude’s home at Bunnythorpe near Palmerston North, Jude gave me the Rapaki (cloak worn around the shoulder) she had made. It is called Te Aroha o Atua mo te Tangata (The Love of God for the People).

I was deeply moved as I received this gift from Jude, who has been an almost life-long friend and as Pastor Rodger Russ, John, Jude, their daughter Rachel and our youngest daughter Charlotte prayed with me. These are the words that Jude spoke to me as she presented me with the Rapaki: 

“This Rapaki (short cloak worn around the shoulders) has been made for you and it is given to acknowledge your contribution to and love for the Lutheran Church of New Zealand.

It is named “Te Aroha O Atua mo te Tangata” meaning “The love of God for the People.”

The free swinging portion of the cloak depicts a piano or organ keyboard and speaks to your love for music and acknowledges your God-given gift. The pokini (rolled hard lowest portion of the cloak) have been etched with thirteen stripes; these represent Christ and his disciples. There are seven almost hidden triple pokini which allude to the Creation and depicts the Triune nature of God. The pokini will clap together as you move creating more music in your life.

The Taniko (finger twined) is a very old pattern found in S.M. Mead’s book “Te Whatu Taniko.” The colours are chosen to show the darkness of our sin contrasting with the pure and holy whiteness of God. The red stitches are the sacrificed blood of the Lamb that flows from the cross.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:4-5

There are thirteen white stitches in each pattern. These are also the colours of my Kapa Haka group from my childhood “Mawaihakona” Māori Club in Upper Hutt.

Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:11-12”

— With aroha, Jude Te Punga Nelson, Te Atiawa, 26th September 2015

I wore this for the first time in public as Pīhopa o te Hāhi Rūtana o Aotearoa, the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of New Zealand, during the Opening Worship Service for the General Convention of Synod of the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) in Brisbane.

I will be honoured to wear this beautiful cloak as your servant-leader, and to be reminded each time I wear it, of my call to the ministry of God’s grace and love; the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tēnā koe, Jude; thank you.

Islam en Español: Narratives of Reversion among Latina/o Muslims

Once upon a time, I wrote a master's thesis with Concordia University Irvine. Now, I am in a PhD program continuing my study of Latina/o Muslims in the U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean. I am interested in the ways in which Latina/o Muslims come to take the shahadah and how they shape, and are shaped by, Islam via local Muslim communities and transnational connections. 

This paper, published in the University of Waikato's Islamic Studies Review, is a result of my master's research and explores the narratives and pathways to conversion that Latina/o Muslims take to Islam. It also reveals a bit more about their demographics, their organizations, and their sentiment. 

I humbly submit this work to wider scrutiny, scholarly critique, and feedback from the Latina/o Muslim community that has been so helpful and hospitable as I've conducted research. 

Are paranormal experiences "real?"

The alien abduction. The specter in the basement. The creature under the bed. The numinous feeling in the face of nature or thoughts of eternal, external, and effervescent consciousness. 

Real? Not real? What do you think? 

In a recent interview with Jeffrey J. Kripal, the Religious Studies Project talked with the man who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University about his recent works Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (Chicago, 2011) and Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (Chicago, 2010).

In these works, Kripal shared how participation in what we call “the sacred” is a critical element that undergirds religious understanding and activity. From his perspective, human consciousness qualifies, as well as anything else, as “the sacred” itself, and must therefore be addressed and wrestled with by any self-respecting student of religion.

Particularly, Kripal argued that generally marginalized authors who have attempted to theorize the paranormal be treated as central to the religious project, even though their work deals with marvels deemed outside both mainstream scientific and/or religious parameters.

I had the opportunity to respond to Kripal from an ethnographic point of view and, in the midst of this response, to share my own paranormal experience. Enjoy the rest of the article and join the conversation by clicking below: 

Middle East Conflict: What is Mine to Do?

*This is a guest post from Michal. Together with her friend Sondos the pair post on the site MissUnderstanding: Two Faiths, One Friendship. The blog is, "a space where Michal and Sondos will post their reflections — independently and jointly — on what it means to be a practicing Christian and practicing Muslim while building a foundation of mutual respect and understanding." Reading through their reflections, their honest musings, and personal lessons is refreshing. It challenges individuals on all sides -- believing or not, liberal or conservative -- to consider what it means to build relationships across religious and social boundaries to find something beautiful and more fulfilling than what the popular, but misplaced, "us v. them" divides often do. 

That theme is a regular motif on this site. Thus, I invited Michal to repost a guest blog for this site, in which she talks about "what is ours to do?" when we see/hear disparaging news from the Middle East, which is unfortunately so relevant amidst news from Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, and elsewhere. Thank you Michal. 

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Michal and Sondos of MissUnderstanding.co

Watching the news about the Middle East each day is overwhelming, to say the least. Muslims and Christians (and many other groups!) face death, loss of family and friends, property and dignity. The suffering and pain is indescribable. Several close friends in the region are doing very brave work providing in medical, educational and spiritual help wherever they can. The work is overwhelming, but they push on and make a difference. I am very inspired by them.

So much so that I have strongly contemplating leaving my life in the US to join them. I especially wanted to help refugee kids like in the picture above that I used for a research project on Syrian children. Part of that desire was coming out of a growing love in my heart and another was coming out of guilt. I felt bad for my comfortable life in the West and wanted to do what my friends did in the Middle East.

However, upon praying and investigating it further, I did not get confirmation from God that it was my time to go. It is clear that He has work for me to do here in the West right now. Still, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed and unsure what I needed to do with the strong urge to want to do something.

I shared my feeling of helplessness with my friends in the region and they assured me that I could definitely help. Here are three things they suggested:

First off, they asked for prayer. God can do things we think are impossible! A second would be to get educated. They advised me to read from different sources about what is going on and seek to get a first-hand account from people that are living in the region. Lastly would be to support organizations that do great work in the area. Many of them are extremely underfunded. I prefer to focus on organizations that do not only help their own faith community, but anyone and everyone that is in need.

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One such organization is Preemptive Love. They provide heart-surgeries, refugee relief and business development for Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, Pakistanis and on and on. My favorite part is that they have wonderful stories of Muslims and Christians working together for peace and healing, stories that are often not heard in mainstream media. 

The funny thing is that these hopeful stories encourage me in my work of peacemaking in the US. If Muslims and Christians can make peace with each other right in ISIS’s backyard, what is stopping us?

We cannot all go to the Middle East and help out, although I pray many will and I can go one day as well. However, we are all shaped uniquely and can all help in a small, yet still very significant way. It starts with one courageous prayer a mentor of mine taught me to pray… we ask God: "What is mine to do?"

Pop Francis...no that's not a typo

On Tuesday September 22, 2015 his eminence Pope Francis arrives in Washington D.C. after some time in Cuba. That's when TONS of people are going to freak. The hell. Out.

Some people already are. Especially in Philly, where Pope Francis will be spending the final two days of his whirlwind tour of the U.S., which will include rides through Central Park, face time with President and Michelle Obama, a speech at the UN, and a nap or two. 

Evidence of #Popemania is everywhere in the City of Poperly...I mean...Brotherly Love. There are Pope tee-shirts, papal bobbleheads, & Francis themed beer events all over Philadelphia. For those with an eye for sighting significant moments in religion & culture (as are all of us here at the site) the question is: what's going on here?

The answer: for those purchasing all this papal kitsch, these items are visible and tangible representations of their innermost commitments, whatever those commitments may be, Catholic or not, Christian or otherwise. It doesn't take faith to take a piece of Francis home with you.  

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All this Pope Francis bric-a-brac stands in a long line of "Jesus Junk" and other examples of material Christianity. Peruse through any Christian bookstore, or a lot of Hot Topics, and you'll soon find jewelry, art, lunch boxes, shirts, hats, and all types of Christian kitsch featuring Jesus + some clever co-option of pop culture from Testamints to breaking-chains magic tricks (for reals...I've got photographic proof -->). 

While critics from within the faithful decry such products as trivial and an exchange of profit for piety, the Bible Bars and Jesus toys remain surprisingly popular. For the everyday evangelical, these items permit them to bridge the private and the public, church life and everyday life, living life between, and among, sacred sodalities and profane populations. For them, Jesus Junk isn't junk at all -- it's a means to live their Christian faith "out loud" and to reflect the interweaving of their faith with politics, pop culture, and economics. 

Although these items may be less than refined and in many ways profane that which is sacred, most Christians don't critically think about these things. Indeed, for them, identifying themselves as Christian and doing Christianity in word and deed, shirt and Holy Spirit Snuggie™ is the real deal. These religious objects offer many an immediacy of contact that is personal, physical, and easily perceivable. For the "Christian kitsch" faithful, it simply means more than creeds; it says more than confessions. 

But what about Pope Francis? Here, the matter seems a bit different. There are Catholics and non-Catholics, Christians and agnostics, cueing up to get hold of Pope Francis gear. If this marketable material Christian kitsch is meant for the faithful to wear, touch, and see their innermost convictions, what does it mean when an agnostic into Zen Buddhism is sporting a, "The Pope is my Homeboy" bro tank? 

While he has his detractors from conservative and liberal circles alike, overall Francis is "the feel good Pope." His rhetoric and actions on the environment, international relations, justice movements, and compassion to the poor appeal to a broad audience. Not to mention his sheer Weberian-charisma factor. Basically, Francis is cool. He's hip. He appeals to people regardless of their faith tradition because he speaks to values that people of multiple faiths, and no faith, hold in common. 

Thus, the papal souvenirs do allow people -- Catholic or agnostic, Protestant or Muslim -- a way to identify themselves with the “Francis Effect,” without all those pesky religious trappings or conundrums of being Catholic, and yet still give visible, physical, representation of their convictions about compassion and justice, the environment and international relations.

Yet, as Archbishop Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said at the recent Religion Newswriters Association conference, "to understand Pope Francis you must wrestle with his theology, not just political and social tangents." Perhaps, along with all this pop-culture hubbub surrounding the Pope's visit, people who might associate themselves with the Pope with a beer and a slice of pizza (see slideshow below) will finally get to wrestle with more than the feeling of Pope Francis and more with the philosophy of the man who leads the largest religious institution in the world. Perhaps then he will be less a homeboy and more of a holistic spiritual and physical leader. In the meantime...on to the Papal Toast!

10 BEST POP FRANCIS SIGHTINGS 

Pope Toaster

Jealous of all those Marian apparitions? Rig your own miracle with a Pope Francis burn on your morning toast. 

The Pope is my Homeboy

A throwback to "Jesus is my Homeboy" paraphernalia, this updated version tosses Jesus to the side like and replaces him with the hipper Pope Freezy. 

Pope Mozarella

This one is just plain cheezy. Ay-yo!

Pope Cookies

Dip them in milk and the milk is made into wine! 

Papel Paper Dolls

Page 14 is a bit risquee, but we will let you figure that one out on your own! 

Pope Pizza

He picked one up in Naples, but what about Philly! C'mon!

Pope Francis Beer

This one speaks to my heart. Thank God for Philadelphia Brewing Co. and their saintly suds. 

Pope Bobbleheads

These are by far the most popular item around (next to the plush toy). I saw one that I'm pretty sure is an old Rudy Giuliani bobblehead that was converted...get it? Converted!

Pope Dog

The folks at Underdogs in Philly have two papal themed hot dogs, spicy and sweet. 

Pope Plush Doll

For when you just want to cuddle with the Pope, but want to help him maintain his celibacy. 

Single-serving Spirituality: Airport chapels & American religion

"Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I have ever met,” said Edward Norton’s “everyman” character to Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden in the film Fight Club. He was referring to the “single-serving” portions given to you on flights and using it to refer to a "friend" you meet once, for example on a plane, and never see again.

Perhaps, by extension, airport chapels could be thought of as “single-serving sanctuaries” built for “single-serving devotion.” Or, maybe there is more to airport chapels and their role in U.S. spirituality than we at first give them credit for. 

Around 65 years ago the first airport chapel opened in Boston’s Logan Airport — Our Lady of the Airport. Now, as PewResearch Center reported, “more than half of the nation’s busiest airports have dedicated chapels, and many of these facilities offer a variety of worship services for different faith traditions.” Whence, thousands of fliers facing crises, nervous about the journey, or seeking solace, intercession, or sleep find their way in, and into, these “single-serving sanctuaries.”

Far from the dismissive language of “single-serving” slang, airport chapels provide a template for exploring major trends in American religion. Their popularity, and their place in our religious landscape, exhibit the pluralistic, plastic, and transnational characteristics that typify U.S. spirituality today. 

Interfaith space

While some airports provide facilities for specific religious groups, the majority of airport chapels are interfaith spaces. And, unlike specifically dedicated churches, chapels, synagogues, or masjids these interfaith spaces require a form that functions for various theologies, practices, and religious material. 

Walk into Houston Hobby’s airport chapel near baggage claim and you’ll find a nondescript “tree of life” stained glass backlit by halogens and a small kneeling altar backed by about 16 plush chairs in rows of four. There’s a small bookshelf with Bibles in various languages, some Qur’ans, and a Tanakh. Sitting on top are rosaries and a folded musallah — or prayer rug. 

As Courtney Bender of Columbia University noted, “multi-faith modernist spaces” such as airport chapels “are poised at the nexus of two often countervailing ideals”: a desire to design space that anyone could recognize and experience as “sacred” and to accommodate the multiple and specific bodies, actions, and materials that people using the space require to pray as they know how. 

This dialectic, she wrote, could perhaps preclude the emergence of “a new kind of prayer” that could resonate with the modern manner in which many people believe, think, act, and move in their private lives, homes, and places of ritual devotion. 

It follows that these interfaith spaces could stand at the vanguard of a new type of ritual religious space that is ever more defined by the fluid, smorgasbordian, and pluralistic landscape of American religion. A religion that not only shapes belief, but bodies and spaces such as chapels in contested and common places such as airports. 

Plastic faith

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Orlando Airport's spiritual smorgasboard of pamphlets (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood).

As can be deduced from the above, airport chapels are not passive places, but well-used active centers for religious and spiritual expression, respite, and need. Rather than being a sideshow in American religion, they might be perceived as one of its red-hot centers exhibiting the plastic religion that evermore defines U.S. faithways. 

Just ask the airport chaplains that serve to meet the spiritual needs of travelers and airport employees. Scott McCartney, who interviewed several airport chaplains for a spot on NPR, said:

“…they counsel people through the stress of flying in daily living…encountering a chaplain on the way is part of that ministry of outreach. They do plenty of practical things, giving people directions, helping them when they run out of money, even lobbying on their behalf with airlines. When people get stuck or stranded, airport chaplains know the managers for the different airlines at the airport and can help them find accommodations or maybe get a cheap fare to get home.”

Airport chapels, and by extension airport chaplains, serve the many needs of the wayward traveler. They are quintessential examples of America’s plastic spirituality, characterized by malleable and moldable religious material — beliefs, bodies, substance and spaces — that can be shaped into myriad forms by multiple actors. 

Personally, I’m an airport sleeper. Rather than renting a hotel room for a few hours I’ll often find a shady spot in an airport to lay my head for the night or on a long layover. If an airport has a chapel, that’s the first place I’ll look for a quiet place to stretch out. Sleeping in the back-row of one airport chapel I was surprised at how little rest I received — there were so many people coming in and out for prayer, repose, and personal time. I witnessed salat and singing, meditation and one man making origami. 

We all found “home” — if only for a moment — in the airport chapel through various means, moments, materials, and bodily positions. And again, rather than this being peripheral to our religious experience, it evermore defines how we approach religion and spirituality in a world in constant flux. 

Religion on the move

Which brings me to the final point: that religion is often defined by movement of people, ideas, and materials across national boundaries and global “scapes” of politics, economics, technologies,  geographies, and ideologies.

Orlando International’s airport chapel exemplifies this characteristic. Sitting betwixt and between the constantly moving monorails that transport travelers back-and-forth from hub to terminal, the chapel is often overlooked. I get the opportunity to travel out of Orlando frequently. Often, I will take a moment to grab a coffee and observe the comings-and-goings of travelers who take a moment in the chapel. 

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St. George's Interfaith Airport Chapel, Heathrow, London (Wikimedia Commons). 

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of Puerto Ricans and I’ve talked to a few. They stop for a moment to thank God, bless Mary, and pray that their journeys would start/end well. Frequently, they are less concerned about the air travel and more so about migration and moving for the sake of work in the midst of the Enchanted Isle’s flailing economy. Some are coming to the U.S. for work, some are heading home to help others, many criss-cross the Caribbean to live lives in both places and make ends meet. They, like the chapel they seek solace in, must now live betwixt-and-between multiple places and people. Not only do they take their religion with them, but it shapes the journey they take.  

If they make their way to the altar in the chapel they will find a prayer card provided by Father Bob Susann that includes a “Prayer for Travelers.” If airport chapels testify to the smorgasbord faith of Americans that is plastic and on the move, then this prayer becomes a common oration as religious travelers of all sorts pray for safety heading for their many destinations, accompaniments of consolation and encouragement, patience and deep respect for all those with whom they travel, and finally an invocation to finally, when the journey is ended, to arrive at home — even if that may be in the space of a “single-serving sanctuary.”

An Open Letter to Kim Davis

*This is a guest post from Megan Geiger, an Apostolic Pentecostal who shares her perspective with Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky court clerk who defied a U.S. Federal Court order requiring the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She has been the center of a serious controversy for the last two weeks. 

Dear Sis. Davis,

Before I say anything else, I want to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that your life has come under such intense scrutiny. I’m sorry that your every word, and those of your husband, have become fodder for memes and tweets, that your picture is on every news feed across the country, and that your past has been brought forward for the world to see. I’m sorry that your work place, which I’m sure is full of people who you care about, routines with which you are comfortable, and actions that are familiar and fulfilling, has become a battleground. I’m sorry that you are experiencing the trial of imprisonment, which is painful for any human. I genuinely wish you were not going through this unsightly mess. I genuinely hope this situation will work out in the best way that it can for you.

However, I need to tell you something that may hurt you, and which will certainly make your many supporters question my motives and my spirit. I’m a believer in the same way that you are, and so what I’m about to say may seem confusing, or contradictory, or spiteful. At best, many will regard me as a young person under the influence of the liberal culture by which I am surrounded. At worst, they will say that I’m under the influence of Satan.I’ll leave it to you to decide. 

I am an Apostolic Pentecostal. And I do not stand with you. 

Many have said that what you are doing is brave, and I agree—it takes strength to face prison in defense of a worthy cause. The problem is, I don’t believe your cause to be worthy. 

When you accepted a position in our nation’s government, you no doubt took an oath of loyalty, or of submission to a certain set of rules.Your position requires you to submit to not just the written laws of our nation, but to the spirit that guides them, to the bureaucracy that manages them, and to the men and women who establish them. When you were given a desk and a nameplate, you were given a commission by this government, to serve and to follow. You made that choice.

I know that when you chose to become a clerk, you probably never foresaw the conflict in which you are now embedded. Even as the stirrings of Pro-LGBTQ legislation began to rise, you probably put your trust in the Lord and rested in the hope that our government would never allow the Christian principle of heterosexual marriage to pass out of its law books. You could not have seen this coming, and you certainly could not have stopped it.

Here is the issue: you pledged your allegiance and service to a non-Christian government. You are the servant of a non-Christian public. And that was your choice. 

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Kim Davis has courted controversy over her refusal to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Not only that, but she has made many fellow Apostolic Pentecostals uncomfortable with the way she represents their faith in the public sphere. (Photo: Wikimedia)

The United States may have been founded by a group of Protestants, but it is no longer a nation governed by Christian principles. In fact, if we take Biblical prophecy seriously, it never will be. As Christians,we have the burden and the blessing of being a light of holiness in an ever-darkening world, and as we draw closer to His coming, we will continue to stand out more and more as symbols of his purity and goodness. However, the Bible does not guarantee us that our government will stand with us.

We call ourselves Apostolic, which means that we are called to live like the first century church. The first century church existed in a time when it was illegal to be a Christian, when worshiping Christ meant the high likelihood of a painful, early death. Early Christians endured in the midst of a government that not only despised their culture and practices, but one that literally sought to destroy them. 

As of yet, our government has not begun to persecute us in the same way. We are still free to worship openly, to choose our candidates and our political positions based on our interpretations of His Word. We are free, as Christians, to assert that marriage is between one man and one woman and to encourage others to see the same truth. 

But you, Sister, are not free to disobey the master to whom you pledged allegiance. At least, you can't do that and expect to stay in your desk. You have the right to believe what we believe as a citizen of the United States. But as our nation’s public servant, you do not have the right to sever your oath of allegiance because of your beliefs. Your roles as a Christian and a servant of our government are no longer compatible, and as you know, it's impossible for a man to serve two different masters. 

My heart is broken about this, not just because of your discomfort and anxiety. I am broken because you have become the face of Apostolic Pentecostalism all over this country, and you are now being used by the World as a symbol of homophobia, ignorance, and hate. I don't believe you to be guilty of any of those things, but I have to say that your choice to loudly rebel against your employer has caused us a few problems. 

I look like you. I have uncut hair and a long skirt. I worship with the same fervor. I feel the same Spirit. And now when I try to reach out to gay students on my campus, to liberal-minded young people, to non-Christians, they will not see my face. They will not hear my message of Christ’s love, of his forgiveness, of his everlasting mercy. They will not see me.

Instead they will look at my hair and my skirt and they will see a stereotype. They will avoid our church because they will expect it to be full of homophobia, and ignorance, and hate. They will put up barriers. They will build walls. 

What you have done, Sister, is brave. But I question whether it is wise, and I fear the consequences.

I send you my prayers. I send you my hope for comfort, and for peace. I send you my deep and sincere apologies for what you must be feeling. But I do not send you my support. 

May our Savior give you favor with judges, a sentence that is not debilitating, and a lifetime of peace after this storm. 

In Christ,

Megan Geiger

ISIS's Inherent Atheism

Slamming sledgehammers. Toppling statues. Decimated artifacts. Detonating charges that flash in an instant, but destroy centuries of history. The images coming out of Palmyra, Syria, Mosul, Iraq, and other locations in the Levant viscerally illustrate how al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, IS, Daesh) is destroying shrines, statues, and sundry other artifacts as they establish their version of a caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Reports and live video have flooded in over the past few months showing so-called Islamic State (IS) militants wrenching artifacts from museum walls, imploding sacred shrines and churches, and reducing historic effigies to rubble.

The most recent reports declare that the militants destroyed a UNESCO world heritage site & temple at Palmyra. While scholars and curators have come forth to attest that the some of these relics are replicas and that many more precious artifacts are hidden (indeed, an 82 year old curator was killed for keeping this information secret), there is still a potent sense of lost history and heritage in what some have termed, “horrific acts of vandalism” being perpetrated by IS. 

The question is WHY? Could it be that underlying ISIS's destruction of temples and statues is a strain of doubt -- wondering if there is a God out there at all? 

The Conversation is an online portal for in-depth journalism & analysis, which works with academics and journalists to provide evidence-based, ethical, and responsible information. 

Our Values - Promoting Civil Dialogue on American Values

What are American values? How do they shape the way we view movies, television, landscapes, cityscapes, and our fellow humans? 

Dr. Wayne Baker of Michigan State University created the sites Our Values to provide a place to explore the many ways that American (in the U.S. sense of the term) values shape our world and how many different people shape American values. 

This week he invited me to write his daily blog. In this series you will find explorations of digital religion, religious sightings in Philadelphia, and more. Check out OurValues and/or subscribe for the series this week as FaithGoesPop takes over to talk about the impact of faith on culture and vice versa.

Religion is everywhere, we just need to know where to look for it

“…anything can be sacralized through the work of religious interpretation, ritualization, and negotiation.”

— David Chidester, Authentic Fakes (120)

At FaithGoesPop.com we like to riff on altars to JJ Watt, the intersection of faith and film, and when comedians get all "religiousy." Yet, the #FaithGoesPop project is deeper than identifying and briefly commenting on surface phenomena. Beyond superficial sightings, #FaithGoesPop is about understanding how religion & culture interact with, challenge, confront, come into conflict with, and change one another. 

At another level, #FaithGoesPop is about understanding how religion is at work in the world. Indeed, it is my contention that if we are to understand religion in the world today we must take a look at the interaction, interplay, and intermeshing that goes on between religion and pop culture.  

The definition of "religion" is a slippery beast. Trying to grasp the essence of what "religion" is proves difficult and nigh impossible. Just ask the umpteen theoreticians and countless grad students who have toiled over pinning down just what "religion" is all about and how we can define it. Is it about beliefs of embodied ritual? Is it about crossing & dwelling or more material aspects? Is it about an "encounter with the numinous" or some "collective effervescence?"

Whatever your response is to these classic and contemporary prompts that emerge from the greatest minds in religious theory we all feel like we know religion when we see it. We all feel that we can grasp what is religious and secular, public and private, by the way it functions or the tenets it holds to and professes. But do we?

Too often today, our conceptions of what religion is and is not are wrapped up in the official "-isms" of world religion theory or some misguided notion that religion is about official organizations or some form of faith in the supernatural. This has led many to believe, errantly, that religion is on the decline in our world. That our cosmos is becoming demystified and desacralized. But that just isn't the case.

First, because the world's "great" religions are not necessarily declining in adherents, just shifting their geography. Second, because we have to free ourselves from institutional conceptions of "religion" in order to understand the way #religion is at work in our world today. It turns out that we have to free up our conception of "religion" in order to understand its prolific and fluid nature. We have to, in the words of Eric Michael Mazur and Kate McCarthy, look for "god in the details." 

Today, religion is on the move via migration and communication. Religion is unbounded from its institutional frameworks and the colonial project of naming and claiming “the great world’s religions.” Religion is being fought over and contended in public spaces and in private domains. It is pouring over traditional boundaries and settling in new places. Religion is popping up in pop culture and settling in strange places. Religion is part of what we call "sacred" as well as what we construct as "secular." Religion is at once obvious and obscure. Religion is mutant and hybrid, multifarious and huge. Religion is everywhere we look and in places we haven't even thought to glance at. 

Quickly, I hope you are appreciating just how hard it is to understand how religion is at work in our world today. But that's why #FaithGoesPop exists -- to help us see the ways that religion is at work in pop culture and how the interaction between these two seemingly disparate realms (religion and pop culture) is part of the ever-evolving religious landscape of the world we live in. 

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Gone are the days of one individual adhering to one faith. While there may be holdouts I argue that most of us in the globalized, modern, and heterogeneous world today are hybrid religious creatures who have put together our own hodge-podge religious and spiritual outlook. Instead of strolling up to the counter of religious options a la the McDonald's menu and choosing the #1 Catholic Club Sandwich or the #2 Big Islam or the #5 Buddhism Burger we now saunter up to a  Chipotle-style religious smorgasbord that allows us mix-and-match, pick and choose what we like, when we like, how we like it. It can be large or small. Spicy or savory. On whatever tortilla you'd like. Indeed, there is no more menu to choose from. You're required to "have it your way" and you can trust it. After all, Chipotle's motto is "food with integrity." Although you don't really know the source, you're told the source is trustworthy and that whatever you choose is honest-to-god good for you. 

And so, we ask Pastor Google, Sheikh Ibn Yahoo, or Guru Bing our most pressing religious questions and we assemble a plate full of faith-food that shapes our bodies and minds with its mystical miscellany. We don't even look to the traditional sources anymore and we can find our religious or "spiritual" inspiration from television shows and YouTube channels, podcasts and pulpits, the Pope and pop culture. Meanwhile, on our plate of religious perspectives the astrology sauce mixes in with the Hindu helpings and the Kabbalah crunchy rolls and we dig in whenever we need a spoonful of spirituality for the day. 

What I hope you're starting to see is that the lines between public and private religion, between what is religious and what is not, between "religion" and "spirituality" or the "sacred" and the "secular" aren't as clear as we once thought they were.

In fact, I argue that the space between -- the borderlands and boundaries we constructed -- are blurring and that the friction, tension, and mixing that is occurring there is where religion is at its most vibrant today, for good and for ill. 

Whether religion is co-opting pop culture or pop culture is using religion to its ends; whether pop culture is found in religion or religion in pop culture; or whether religion is transforming into pop culture or pop culture is morphing into religion we are witnessing a shift in the nature of religion that, while not unprecedented, is profound and portentous. 

A few weeks ago I shared this with students in a summer "World Religions" course at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL. Their instructor Prof. Kerri Blumenthal did a wonderful job of helping these students navigate the world of religions throughout the semester. One of the ways she expanded their views was by inviting in guest speakers with their own perspectives and areas of expertise. When I came into the class I taught them about #FaithGoesPop, covering the content in this blog post. (You can find the Prezi HERE)

The students took to the lecture and grabbed hold of the concept that religion is unbounded and often to be found in the borderlands between the public and private, the explicitly religious and the unapologetically popular. One said that "religion is all around us" and said we need to widen our view of what religion is or where it can be found to not only understand religious culture but to tolerate and respect it. Another student reflected that "religion and pop culture surround us every day" and that the lines are blurred in the 21st-century when technology and social media can so easily mix-in with "something as ancient as religion." All of this is to say, as one student rightly remarked, that "we have to see religion from different perspectives" in order to "analyze the interplay between religion and pop culture." 

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Hence, www.FaithGoesPop.com. Hence why I need your help to sight #FaithGoesPop. That's why I need all my social media sociologists and entertainment-news ethnographers to be on the lookout. Not only is it fun to find #FaithGoesPop, but as we've seen, it's also about understanding religion in our world today. 

*So what do you think? Is religion unbounded? Is it at work in our world in ways we may not immediately recognize as "religious?" Do we need to be on the look out for more #FaithGoesPop? Share your comments, thoughts, and questions below...

Inscribing pilgrimage on my body - a pilgrim's tale of religious body art

Apparently, getting tattoed on your chest is one of the more painful spots one can get a tattoo. When I buzzed the “call up” button with the name “Razzouk” sketched in Sharpie above it in one of the winding alleyways of the suq in the Old City of Jerusalem I didn’t know that little tidbit. What I did know was that I was about to be in contact with a seven-century old tattooing tradition. 

Indeed, for nearly 700 years tattooing has been the profession and the prestige of the Razzouk family. I finally found the parlor by asking a jeweler near the Jaffa Gate, “I’m looking for a tattoo artist, do you know…?” Before I could finish my sentence, the jeweler said, “You mean the Razzouks?” Their name and notoriety preceded my rendezvous with history. 

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The Razzouk home is located on one of the crowded, bustling, streets of the Old City in Jerusalem. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

After a circuitous and, at times, comical scavenger hunt for the Razzouk family home running up and down the winding streets of Jerusalem’s Old City I finally shook hands with the capable and charismatic Wassim Razzouk in the baby-blue ceilinged and confined space of his family’s home, which doubles as a pilgrimage tattoo parlor. In contrast to the bustling passageways of the Old City, the Razzouk home is tranquil and quiet, with only the whir of the electric needle and my bated breath to interrupt the calm.

Yes, I held my breath throughout the process. Not only did I not want to rattle the rock-solid hand of Razzouk as he etched a sacred design over my heart, but I felt the weight of history upon my chest as well. After all, in this moment I was inscribing a mix of faith, physical journeys and spiritual intimations onto my body with ink, flesh, and blood. I was not alone. Not only because my wife was there or Wassim and I would talk motorcycles and traditions during the process, but because thousands of pilgrims stood before me and the traditions of myriad religious personages wove their way into my tattoo as well. 

A Coptic Christian family, the Razzouks originated in Egypt. However, in the 18th-century an ancestor came on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As Anton Razzouk, the family’s elder statesman, recalls, “the business can be traced back to a Coptic ancestor who traveled by camel and donkey from Egypt to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage about 300 years ago and decided to remain.”

His name was Jersuis and he was a Coptic priest. He brought the tattooing art he had learned from his forefathers to Palestine and later to Jerusalem around 1750. 

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Wassim Razzouk carries on a tradition that is centuries old. Here, his father's tools and work desk are featured with respect in a corner of the current parlor. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

In the Coptic tradition (and also among other Eastern Christian communities — Ethiopian, Armenian, Syrian, Maronite, Kildanian, etc.) tattooing serves as a marker of Christian identity. Historically, small crosses tattooed on the inside of the right wrist were given to Coptic Christians (some as early as 40 days old) and granted religious peregrines access to sacred sites across Christendom.

Designs of pilgrimage tattoos have ranged from that of the Annunciation (for virgins, apparently) to the classic Coptic cross and images of Christ in his passion. In the past, the Razzouks and other artists used olive and cedar wood blocks to stencil the designs on before commencing the tattoos. The blocks were important in allowing for rapid work during busy seasons (e.g. Easter). The Razzouk family has had as many as 200 different tattoo designs over the years. Several of these wooden stamps remain in the Razzouk family and are said to have been used to tattoo the likes of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, King George V and King Edward VII of England. Their designs are various and many contain dates to mark the year of pilgrimage. The oldest design block bears the date “1749;” the tattoo I received can be dated back to the 17th-century.

Pilgrimage tattoos also include designs that signify where the pilgrim had journeyed to, which sacred sites she had visited. This was not only inscribing one’s spiritual journey in ink and blood, but one’s physical pathway through the Holy Land. Simultaneously, tattoos among Christians in the Middle East could be maps, keys, and testimonies.

As time wore on European devotees who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land would get Christian symbols or scenes inked onto their bodies to remember and commemorate the experience. In 1680, Lutheran theologian Johannes Lundius spoke of Christians who made pilgrimages to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and made marks on their bodies “because of the special sacred awe associated with the place and because of the desire to prove that they had been there.” 

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The author's tattoo design representing his journey to Jerusalem (the Jerusalem Cross in the center), Bethlehem (the star), and Nazareth (where the "Three Kings" visited Jesus and his family). 

Many tattooed pilgrims over the last 300 years undoubtedly came to the Razzouk family in the Old City of Jerusalem, but there were other tattoo artists who would perform the service on the cobblestoned streets or in passageways between churches and shrines. 

Now, the Razzouks stand alone as the sole tattoo artists in the Old City; but they are not alone in the tradition of religious tattooing, which is still prevalent the world over. Across the globe, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, New Agers, Pagans, Druids, Jews and other religious adherents get tattoos to represent their religion.

From Judeo-Christian symbols to Pentagrams to Buddhist mandalas, many religious adherents choose to proclaim some aspect of their faith or practice through body art. Though the symbols may fade with time, or cause a commotion today, they are ultimately simple and yet strong expressions of personal devotion. In a recent article by Miliann Kang and Katherine Jones in the e-zine New Tattoo Sub-Culture they share:

“The tattoo speaks to the ongoing, complex need for humans to express themselves through the appearance of their bodies. The tattooed body serves as a canvas to record the struggles between conformity and resistance, power and victimization, individualism and group membership. These struggles motivate both radical and mundane forms of tattooing. The popularity of tattoos attests to their power as vehicles for self-expression, commemoration, community building, and social commentary. At the same time, the tattoo’s messages are limited by misinterpretation and the stigma that still attaches to tattooed people.”

Without entering into a full-fledged discussion of religious aesthetics and meaningful religious iconography, religious tattoos serve as powerful vehicles for self-expression and whether they are beautiful or boring, contentious or cool, they act as an interpretive tool for people to understand religion, their own or others'. All religious art serves a dual purpose as a hermeneutic of a theological truth (for the artist, or the inked) and as a window through which outside observers interpret a religion and its adherents. In the end, religious tattoos, just like a Christian fresco or an artistically scribed Qu’ran, serve as interpretive vehicles through which humans give voice to their religious devotion and allow others to apprehend religious truth through art.

*    *    *

Just a few years ago it seemed that the family line of Razzouk tattoo artists would finally come to an end. The tradition had been passed from father to son for ages, but when Anton Razzouk came to retirement his son Wassim was not initially interested. 

“I was young and more into motorcycles than family,” Wassim told me, “then I realized what I was giving up and that I did not want the centuries old story to end with me.” He then expressed interest to his father that he wanted to apprentice under him. From the moment he took over a tattoo midway through because his father's eyes were tired, Wassim has never looked back. 

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Wassim Razzouk in his tattoo parlor and family home. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

Now, using a few rooms of the original family house where his ancestors tattooed the faithful of the world, Wassim feels compelled to pass on the tradition. While he is a man of many ventures (even a possible motorcycle shop lies in his future) he knows his son will take up the sacred work of pilgrimage body art. When I ask if his son will learn, Wassim said, “of course.” While the lines of pilgrims wanting tattoos has died down and the path of the future is as uncertain as the unassuming location of this tiny parlor in Old Jerusalem the tradition will live on, carved into the unwritten laws of the Razzouk family and its forebears. 

As he wraps up his work on my chest, Wassim comments to me, “you have the skin for tattoos.” This is good news, I plan on getting more in addition to the two I have already, both of places (Israel and Palestine, California, respectively) and symbols of the land, its meaning in my life, and my journey in, and through, them. 

I look at the finished project and for a moment the room is still and silent. It is a solemn second in time.  As I sit looking in the mirror I soundlessly reflect on the fact that I have now imbedded this journey — both of faith and of pilgrimage — onto my body and joined thousands of pilgrims past, present, and future. 

This is not just a tattoo, I think, but a history, a community, a place, and a people. This is more than ink, it is part of how I make my way through this world in thought and deed, with ritual, and embodied movement. The good news is that I am meant for this journey and I am not alone. 

*Special thanks to Wassim Razzouk for the tattoo, to my in-laws Paul and Linda, and to my wife who accompanied me on the journey to find the Razzouk home in the Old City. 

The Spiritual Howcast: Islam 101

Matt Popovits is a pretty cool dude. He's a church planter, preacher extraordinaire, and a teacher who takes culture seriously. He's also asking, and tackling, some of the most real, difficult, and talked about questions in his podcast/videocast show "The Spiritual Howcast." 

This week Matt and I talked about "Understanding Islam." The 8-minute program takes you through some basics & introduces you to the world of Islam. More than anything else, it's a primer on how you can get to know Muslims beyond the headlines, the books, and the tracts and instead get to know the people of an "other" faith. 

Take a listen...

...or, if you're a real religion nerd like me, you can read the entire transcript of my responses below:

1. What are the origins of the Islamic faith? What does the word "Islam" mean?

First, a note about Islam. There is no single, monolithic, “Muslim world.” While we can speak of there being one “Islam” there are many “Muslim worlds” and/or “worldviews.” As Talal Asad said, “Islam is a discursive tradition” that emerges from multiple perspectives and discourses across its global 1.5 billion member population, often determined by local political, social, and cultural contexts which produce diverse communities of mystics, extremists, nominal Muslims, progressives, and more. 

So, what I’m saying here represents the vast majority of Muslims, but there may be some, or even many, who would take me to task on these statements or interpretations. 

With that said, it is generally agreed that Islam emerged out of the 7th century Middle East when Muhammad, the prophet, sought to introduce an uncompromising monotheism and belief in the one God’s revelation in the Arabian peninsula’s pluralistic and polytheistic tribal milieu.

Muhammad, influenced by Christians and Jews he met as part of the caravan trade, began to speak of his own revelatory experiences — which became the Qur’an — and began to teach of God’s long line of prophets, an ethical responsibility and accountability based on God’s revealed word, and a coming day of judgement. 

This message undercut the social, cultural, and political establishment of the day and Muhammad was run out of town, from Mecca to a town to the north called Medina. This sojourn is known as the hijra, or migration, of Muhammad and his followers. It was in Medina that the Muslim community was eventually founded and the term “Islam” initially used to describe the movement. The word “Islam” comes from the Arabic root “aslama,” which means “submission.” Particularly to God. 

2. In the Christian faith one is saved through the work of Christ on behalf of mankind. How is one "saved" in Islam? What is the "big idea" of the Islamic faith?

That’s a great question, but, really it’s a bit misguided to talk about “salvation” when it comes to studying other religions beyond Christianity. Each religion has different goals, different problems, different leaders, different texts and discussions. 

Of course, our tendency, as Christians, in studying world religions is to familiarize the “other” and the “strange” by making comparisons to our own theology and practice. It’s natural, it’s the oldest trick in the travelers trade. But, too readily familiarizing can obscure just as much as it reveals. 

What I’m trying to say is this — is “salvation” the right term for Islam? Is that the goal? I think your “big idea” terminology is a better way to go about this question. The big idea in Islam goes back to the root of the word itself — submission, or perhaps, “surrender.”

Islam, according to the Qur’an — its revealed holy text — and the Hadith — the traditions and teachings of the prophet Muhammad, is the “straight” or “right” path to surrendering themselves in all ways to Allah — the one true God. They do this through right practices such as prayer and alms, right beliefs such as in angels and the proper prophets, right living such as through the law, or Shariah, and right rituals such as fasting and the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. 

3. What, in your opinion, is one of the most common misperceptions that Americans, in particular Christians, have in regard to their Islamic neighbors?

Our viewpoint of Muslims is still largely driven by an inherited and compounded “orientalism,” or viewpoint that neatly, but errantly, divides the world up into “East” and “West” (orient and occident) as if one is civilized (the West) and the other uncivilized (the East). This is an artificial boundary we’ve created and it was laid out on the basis of the concept of creating a “them” to define an “us.” 

Part of this orientalist perspective on the world that artificially divides up God’s creation is to define the “Orient” and particularly the “Muslim world” as non-Western, premodern, and savage. 

We think of Muslims and our thoughts immediately turn to billionaires, bombers, and belly dancers. We dream up images, and consume them on TV, of horrors, harems, and turbaned horndogs. Meanwhile, we picture ourselves as middle class, peaceable, and respectable. 

The truth is that Muslims come in all shapes and sizes. They are rich and poor, peaceable and ready to anger (sometimes for good reason), male and female, liberal and conservative. 

We may think that all Muslims are “out to get us” with shariah, terror, or their lies, but in truth if you pursue relationships with Muslims you find they are some of the most hospitable people in the world, well-reasoned in their faith, and ready to enjoy your company and kindness. 

4. What benefit is there from a person of one faith taking the time learn about a different faith?

I always like to quote Max Müller, for all his faults, who said, "The person who knows only one religion, knows none.”

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Learning about another faith, and more importantly, forming friendships with people of different religions is SO important and vital in a world torn apart by misconceptions, forced divisions, and violence. 

While education and instruction are good, ending undue negative opinions and actions against Muslims — Islamophobia — will also require relationships, interaction, and experiential exchange between U.S. Christians and Muslim Americans. Not only are Christians compelled to do something by the commands of Scripture and the example of Jesus, but we are liberated to do so as well.  For followers of Christ, our identity is not wrapped up in our culture, our creed, our country, or our carefully constructed conception of the “religious other.” Instead, our identity is founded in Christ, and Christ alone. Indeed, it is an essential aspect of Christian faith that we, who were once far off — strangers, aliens, and outsiders — have now been brought near in Jesus. As the apostle Paul put it, “the dividing wall of hostility” has been broken down in Christ, “who is our peace” (Ephesians 2:11-22).

This message is immensely liberating. We, who are no longer defined by our animosity to God and our alienation from his family, likewise no longer need to identify ourselves by our opposition to the other. We are no longer enslaved to cultural constructions of antipathy such as Islamophobia. 

So we can look to the example of Jesus and pursue a course of hospitality, collaboration, and faithfulness with our Muslim neighbors and friends rather than worrying about security and/or persecution. 

A pilgrim's progress - an ethnographic perspective on evangelical Holy Land tours

“Casting our eyes to the right, lo! like a flash of lightning the oft-mentioned and oft-to-be-mentioned holy city of Jerusalem shone forth...the pilgrim, or stranger who had never seen Jerusalem could not but...beheld with our eyes the long-desired holy city, we straightaway dismounted from our asses and greeted the holy city, bowing our faces to the earth.”

— Felix Fabri, German pilgrim, 1480

As holy as Holy Land pilgrimages are, they are also, concomitantly, very human affairs. The humans who make these journeys make meaning of them as well. They move through these spaces with bodies that have sore feet, smell the incense, bump into fellow pilgrims, and get sunburnt on an archaeological dig. They craft their own narratives and share their own perspectives through photos and stories. There is also, on every trip, conflict and miscommunication. Indeed, as important as the holy sites of a pilgrimage are, equally so are the human sites which seek, explore, and interact with them. 

I recently accompanied a group of evangelical Lutherans on a Holy Land tour with the group Educon Travel (read about their "7 Principles of Christian Travel"). Along the way I enjoyed participating, leading devotions and studies, and also observing the group as we "walked where Jesus walked."

To assist my understanding of the human phenomenon of pilgrimage to the Holy Land I read two books: R. D. Kernohan's The Road to Zion: Travelers to Palestine and the Land of Israel for historical perspective and Hillary Kaell's (Assistant Professor of Religion at Concordia University Montreal), Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage for an ethnographic lens. 

Pilgrimage to the "Holy Land" has a long history. The first recorded pilgrim to the Holy Land was a bishop named Mileto, who hailed from Sardis in Asia Minor. His journey occurred around 160 C.E. and Christian historian Eusebius, writing in the 4th-century, shared that Bishop Mileto visited those locales “where the Scriptures had been preached and fulfilled." Others such as the anonymous Bordeaux Pilgrim, the excitable Egeria (a.k.a. Etheria), the Roman widow Paula, and German friar Felix Fabri left journals that recount their adventures and experiences in the footsteps of the Bible. 

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Journeying through the "Holy Land" -- shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims of all stripes -- some pilgrims struggle with the encounter with variant rituals, beliefs, and bodily practices. Others join in. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

Yet, it wasn't until after the end of the Six Day War that the throngs of modern pilgrims began to flock to Israel and Palestine. Kernohan shares that "one result of the Israeli conquest was a decisive victory in the battle for pilgrims and tourists. Probably more Christian visitors have come to the Holy Land in the [latter half of the 20th-century] than at any other time in history." (149)

Indeed, since the 1950s, millions of U.S. Christians have traveled to the Holy Land to visit places in Israel and the Palestinian territories associated with Jesus’s life and death. Millions of others come from Africa and Asia, Russia and Europe, Latin America and Oceania. 

Questions abound? Why do they come/go? Why do they come in such numbers? How do they react to the encounter with other religions and customs there? What's the cost -- financially, personally, culturally, politically? How do they interpret the trip before, during, and after? How do they cope with the dissonance between dream and reality? How do they seek out "the holy thing behind the seemingly holy place?" (Kernohand, 154) How do they wrestle with the juxtaposition of sanctity and commercialism in simultaneity? How do they collate through politics and particular personages who are want to share their opinion on Palestinians and Israelis and Muslims and Americans and more? What links are there between home and away, pilgrimage and every day life? 

Considering why the influx today, Kaell chose to analyze how the growth of mass-market evangelical pilgrimages emerged out of changes in U.S. Christian theology and culture over the last sixty or so years, including the growth of the small group movement, the development of an entire industry of Christian leisure travel, and changes in Jewish-Christian relations.  

Essentially, Kaell boils all the questions above into one -- what does it mean for 21st-century U.S. Christians to return to "the source" - in her words "walk where Jesus walked" - in the context of their everyday faith? 

Kaell drew on five years of participant observation and interviews with pilgrims before, during, and after their pilgrimages. She tracked Catholics and evangelicals, but for the purposes of this blog we will focus on her findings about evangelicals. 

What she discovered was that the pilgrimage is a hybrid harmony between holy and human, divine and mundane. The journey that pilgrims take, and the interpretations that they give to their experiences are tied to the ordinary, the everyday, and their roles, rituals, and realities at "home." Not only do pilgrims grapple with the tension between the material and the mystical, commodification and religious control, the home and the "Holy Land" during their journey, but also betwixt and between places like Apache Junction, AZ and the Arab Quarter in Jerusalem. 

“This book shows us how Holy Land pilgrimage is embedded in the everyday lives of pilgrims, before and after their trip. But it also does much more. We learn how the Holy Land occupies a powerful place in the American religious imagination, and examine what it means to be Protestant or Catholic in an age of contested modernity.”

— Simon Coleman, University of Toronto

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A pilgrim's feet caked in the mud from the Jordan River, near "Bethany Beyond the Jordan" where Jesus was said to have been baptized. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

I found Kaell's reflections to be eerily prescient. Frequently, as I read the book on the bus or in my room at night I would laugh out loud as I recollected a moment from the day that passed that proved a perfect illustration for a perspective that she offered. 

For example, Kaell was discussing how the "image of Israelis as American-style pioneers persists today, which, by contrast, means that Palestinians can be construed as dangerous 'Indian' interlopers." (Loc. 872) That day, I'd not only heard our tour guide refer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of "cowboys vs. Indians," but had heard one of my fellow travelers talk about Jordan as "the Wild West." 

To me, this not only illustrated how guides are "conscious of their unique opportunity to shape the group's outlook...therefore [spending] significant time promoting their political/theological ideologies" (Loc. 1002) but that "spiritual interest in Palestine, including the Christian interest in the tradition of pilgrimage, will [remain] one of the constant factors" in this ever-changing situation. (Kernohan, 158) Knowing that U.S. Christian perspectives matter in the Middle East -- both politically and poetically -- it is important therefore for groups of pilgrims to be intentional about their engagement with such issues, taking in both sides and hearing divers perspectives from Jews, Christians, and Muslims who live in that context every day. 

On that point, I was also drawn to the interstices of U.S. Christians' encounters with other religions. Christian pilgrims struggle with multiple religious "others" in the context of contested space in the "Holy Land." From the Orthodox jostling for their moment to grace the spot where Jesus was born to the Roman Catholics who booted us out of the wedding chapel at Cana to the adhan, or "Muslim call to prayer" rousing us to wake in the mornings, many pilgrims struggle with denominational and confessional fault lines. Mostly, pilgrims feel that their experience is the authentic one. After all, Muslims weren't here in Jesus' day -- why should they distract us now? Catholic and Orthodox Christians are all about rituals, I will stick with my private, personal, evangelical piety. Copts? I have no clue what to do with them. I feel for them as martyrs at the hands of ISIS, but I would condemn them as heretics if they got in my way. To be sure, evangelical pilgrims vie for space in the Old City and at the Church of the Holy Nativity and draw on centuries of battles to wrest control of the "Holy Land" from "infidels" (Muslims), "schismatics" (the Orthodox), and "legalists" (Catholics) to stake their claim.  

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Pilgrims jostle for photos and feelings with other Christians bumping their way to the place of Jesus' birth at the Church of the Holy Nativity. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

It was difficult, nigh impossible, to interject any grand opportunities to share my insight and background from, and in, religious studies during the trip. While there were those who asked sincere questions of Muslims and Druze, Copts and Zionist Jews I could barely get a word in before my inquirers interjected with their own perspectives and interpretations informed by their own news consumption, e-mail discussions, and experiences from home. Granted, I too was headstrong with my views and opinions as I listened to our tour guide woefully represent Muslims and express what was to me an errant perspective on the religion and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Just as my compatriots were not to be moved, I too remained recalcitrant. Negatively, this meant that divisions were doubled-down and fault lines morphed into fissures. Positively, for some, the trip came to exemplify and perhaps positively reinforce, recent shifts toward ecumenism and pluralism.

As Kaell noted, ne'er did we let this boil over into full blown conflict. This trip was far too expensive and important to let interfaith rivalries or political opinions ruin our time. After all, this is a "holy" trip...even though other humans are unfortunately on our buses, in Bethlehem, and in our bedrooms. 

Related to the point above about transporting our previous perspectives from home into our experience on the pilgrimage, Kaell concludes by discussing various dualities throughout the book - particularly those between domestic relationships at home and global experience traveling to and in the Holy Land. Insightfully, she shows how each pilgrimage derives its power and relevance from the interaction and tension between the two.

Just as their trip through Jesus' backyard is significantly shaped by their home life, so too upon their return the "Holy Land" is remembered, reordered, and reconstructed "according to the subjective interpretations and cultural expectations" of home. Likewise, pilgrims use their encounters and experiences in the "Holy Land" to decode their spiritual lives back in the U.S. They are forced to reimagine their spiritual struggles, feelings, and physical encounters in the context of the domus. In the interplay between before and after, over there and right here at home, both places are reinterpreted and reshaped. Pilgrims often find that just as they struggled to find the holy in the "Holy Land" -- as ruins disappointed, churches were too busy, and some experiences too commercialized for their liking -- so too they strive to find the holy at home. Just as the numinous evaded their reach in the places where Jesus was himself was they find it hard to brush up against him in their church, in their small group, or in their daily life. 

“...the Holy Land pilgrimage is not religious in spite of its commercial or touristic or global nature. It is powerful precisely because participants engage with defining characteristics of Christian modernity through the juxtaposition of these dualities: the dynamic tension between material evidence and transcendent divinity, the intersection of commoditization and religious authority, the interplay between domestic relationships and global experience. American Christians navigate these categorizations and ways of being every day, of course, but the intentional nature of “walking where Jesus walked” brings them into heightened relief. It is the extra-ordinary nature of this “trip of a lifetime” that makes it such a good experience to think with—for American Christians and for the scholars who study them.”

— Hillary Kaell

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Pilgrims struggle with commercialization and pluralism on their journey, juxtaposed against holy sites of Christian lore. They take this tension home with them. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

In this way, pilgrimage simply serves as the microcosm of the mundane, as a journey into the everyday, but in a far away place. As a parallel to the odyssey of lived piety at home it can often leave pilgrims more frustrated than illuminated. Yet, at its best, this voyage can turn us into regular religious site-seers who turn their senses to appreciate the divine intimations that percolate in the everyday. If truth be told, not only are pilgrimages of this sort an encounter with the divine, the religious "other," a potent political situation, or crotchety companions, these peregrinations are engagements with our own spiritual selves in relation to the world we live in -- near and far, local and global, at home and in the "Holy Land." 

With that said, this gives us an opportunity to learn that our world is evermore one of compressed space and time, where the global and the local interact and intermesh on regular occasions, and there may not be as much difference as we thought between home and the "Holy Land." On the negative side, we may be unhappy to discover that the divine evades us on our pilgrimage. From the glass-half-full perspective, we may find that the sacred, in all its multifarious manifestations, was waiting for us back at home.    

The Seven Principles of Christian Travel

For two weeks I traveled from Tel-Aviv Yafo, Israel to Madaba, Jordan; from Kiryat Shmona to Bethlehem, Palestine. As I sojourned in these places I listened and learned, I watched and weighed what I saw, tasted, heard, and walked around. Not only did I pay attention to the communities and locations I was visiting, but also the group -- the evangelical "Holy Land" tour -- with which I participated. 

Last week I started sharing perspectives and informed observations from my time in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. They are limited, to be sure. However, I want to take the time to focus on pertinent issues regarding these places and U.S. involvement and experience. To do so, I am inviting other informed and expert voices into the conversation. The blogs focus on two particular issues: politics & peace in the region and Christian travel and "Holy Land" tourism. 

*Read last weeks' posts on politics & religious freedom in Israel & reading the bible through Palestinian eyes. 

This week, we turn to reflecting on "Christian tourism" and "pilgrimage" in the "Holy Land." That's a lot of quotation marks, but that's because all of these terms need defining, reflection, critique, and nuance. Later on in the week, I will be sharing my reflections on evangelical Holy Land tours and pilgrimages, but first I invited our tour organizer and leader (and a good friend and mentor of mine) Rev. Richard Ross to share his intimate insight on Christian travel with us. His guest blog will help us begin to understand what Christian tourism is, why it happens, and who is involved. 

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Richard Ross, guest blogger and Christian travel aficionado. 

Richard is the founder and director of Educon Travel, which you will hear more about below. Over the years he has traveled around the world, meeting people and building relationships, immersing himself in a variety of cultures and ministry settings. Plus, he's a cool dude with a beard, a coffee drinking habit, jazz inclinations, and a motorcycle hobby that would make any hipster green with envy.

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

Below, Richard shares some of his influences as a professional traveler and entrepreneur and also some reflections on what it means to travel with Christian intentions and looking for divine intimations in holy sites and cultural experiences. Enjoy! 

After I graduated from high school my friend, John, and I went to Europe for three months. We’d been planning all year long for it, working odd jobs to raise money to go, studying the sites we might see, and dreaming. Every couple of weeks we’d go to the international terminal at SeaTac Airport (Seattle) and watch the flights come and go. Our enthusiasm was palatable. We could taste it. If you knew us, you could probably taste it too! We were so excited for the “Go!” We wanted to go to Europe, breaking free from our daily routines and experiencing the world.

We were not disappointed. We stayed in the cheapest hostels money could buy! I remember being in a sleeping bag on the rooftop of a youth hostel in Athens listening to young people like us play their guitars and flutes into the wee hours of the morning. And I remember lying on top of a 3-high bunk bed in a hostel in Venice listening to the water splash against the wall of our dorm room. And I remember sleeping on the trains we took from city to city in the night.

And the sites we saw were magnificent! Their histories predated my own country by hundreds of years, which was humbling. And the preservation of the sites by the countries we visited showed me the respect the people had for history, which instilled in me a respect and appreciation for the old things: history, art, architecture, language, culture, all of it.

One ah-ha experience I had as I traveled western Europe was my realization that no culture has it all sewn up. Each has something unique to offer the world. I ate food I would never have eaten in America (and it was delicious), I saw architecture and art that was unique to its own region (and it was beautiful), I experienced different ways of looking at the world through the eyes of friends I made along the way (and it was challenging), and I realized there is no “us and them,” but there’s only an “us.” My world got bigger on this journey, but at the same time it got much, much smaller as I came to understand the things I held in common with the people I met along the way. 

In college a few years later I went to the Holy Land on a study tour. My world again grew as it got smaller, but more importantly, for me as a Christian, I was able to set the stories to the places. At first my reason for going to Israel was the “Go!” But after I got there my perspective changed. Now it was about seeing the stories in the Bible through the eyes of those who wrote it, who lived it. And the Bible came alive for me in a new way when I saw things like the foundations of the ancient walls of Old City Jerusalem; the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the waters of the Jordan River. These and other sites brought to life 2,000 years of Bible history for me, and my faith was encouraged.

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PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

Since that time I’ve felt that visiting places of history is something that should not be thought of as a leisure activity or as something to do only after one has raised a family and retired. But it’s something that every person should do as a part of their experience of becoming human, growing in one’s understanding and appreciation of other people and their culture, history, art, and language. And visiting the Holy Land and other places of biblical importance (like Turkey, Greece, Italy, Egypt and Jordan), can play a huge part in a person growing as a Christian.

For me “Christian travel” is Christians on a pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is a very old word usually associated with particular religious traditions. However, I like to think of pilgrimage in broader terms, as something as simple as “the search,” the search for meaning, for depth, for a sense of connection as regards one’s faith. For instance, I wanted to connect with the call Moses got from God at Mt. Sinai. What was that like? What did Moses experience when he was on the mountain? So I led fellow pilgrims on an early morning climb up to the summit of Mt. Sinai, where we saw the sun rise and read the words of God to Moses from Exodus 3. It was a moving experience. And so it is when we visit the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized, or Mt. Gerizim where the blessings were read to Israel, or Antioch on the Orontes from which St. Paul launched his ministry. Christian travel and pilgrimage are about reflecting on the heart of God in the Bible and what this means for me.

The reason I started a new Christian travel organization was an accident. As a pastor I wanted to lead my church on a tour of the 7 Cities of the Revelation. I’d been on a Footsteps of St. Paul tour a couple of years earlier, one a friend had promoted. But I was very disappointed. The guides were sour, the hotels were in terrible locations, there were all kinds of additional fees we had not been warned about, and the selection of sites was sometimes disappointing. It was then that I realized that Christian tours are often organized by people who are not necessarily Christian or in tune with the whole point of a pilgrimage, that is, a transformative, life-changing experience, and they obviously did not understand that everything that happens on a tour makes a difference.

For over a year I searched for someone who could organize my tour the way I envisioned it: a 3-day educational retreat on the Island of Patmos followed by a tour of the ruins of the 7 Cities of the Revelation in Turkey. But no one could do it. No one. Well there was one, but his prices were out of this world! (Literally, as no one in my world would be able to afford his trip!) So I did it myself, and in the process I created a tour organization.

Educon Travel is the name of my organization. Our motto is, educational and economical Christian touring. I think Educon Travel is unique and fills a niche in the market of Christian travel. To my knowledge no one else offers tours which are rooted in an understanding of the power of educational and experience-based touring. I talked to a man whom I met at a site on a Footsteps of St. Paul tour. He was with another tour group. I asked him how it was going, and he said, “I don’t know yet. We’ve been touring for five days and I still don’t know what the point of it is.” If he’d been on our tour, he would have known!

The locations we organize our tours around all have something to do with the story of the Christian faith. My two favorite countries are Israel and Turkey. Greece, Italy, Egypt and Jordan follow close behind, but Israel, for example is where it all began. There are great archaeological sites and worship sites at every turn, and because it’s a very small country one can see and experience the land very easily and quickly. Turkey, called Asia Minor in the Bible, unarguably has the best biblical archaeological sites, in number and quality, to be found anywhere on the planet, dating from the Neolithic era to the Greeks, from the Romans to the Byzantines. In all of the countries we visit we always enjoy great hospitality, food, accommodations, and local, cultural entertainment.

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PHOTO: Ken Chitwood

When I organized my 7 Cities of the Revelation tour I evaluated a whole bunch of things that I thought might make a tour good or bad. I wondered why some sites were selected for a tour and others weren’t. I was frustrated with the added-on expenses for “special” excursions and with the lousy food I’d eaten at hotel buffets. I marveled at the hotel selection, often finding ourselves in shoddy, unwalkable neighborhoods. I thought about all of the grumpy tour guides I’d met. And I also questioned whether or not group touring had to be as tedious as what I’d experienced. This led me to write what I call the “7 Principles for Touring,” the building blocks for all of my future tours. Here they are:

1. Our tours are theme-based: We choose a theme which guides us as we create an itinerary for a tour, one which people will find personally gratifying in their minds and hearts.
2. With a carefully chosen theme and itinerary in hand, we craft an educational outline for the tour. For us it’s not enough to just see the sites, but we want to understand what happened in these places and what those events mean in our lives today.
3. Our prices are economical and up-front: Our goal is to give everyone, not just the “traveling class,” the opportunity for Christian travel. We keep prices low and we don’t surprise people with exorbitant fees for “special excursions.”
4. We handpick our guides: Believing that a guide can make or break a tour, we look for positive, personable, smart, energetic, guides who can add value to our tours.
5. We enjoy authentic local food, which is so much better than “American buffets” in hotels!
6. We stay in accommodations in interesting, walkable locations.
7. We create memorable WOW! experiences throughout our tours. If you’ve ever been on a bus tour for a week or two, you’ll immediately notice the difference. We do things like renew marriage vows in Cana, sing hymns in the theater in Ephesus, share the Lord’s Supper in the Dormition Abbey, have a dinner cruise on the Bosphorus Straight, learn Greek dance on the Island of Patmos, worship the Lord on Mt. Sinai, and many, many other things.

These principles are the things people talk about after a tour, the things that make a tour memorable. 

Sometimes a person asks me for advice about how to put together their own tour. I always point them to my 7 Principles, highlighting the importance of having a theme and creating an itinerary. After all, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you probably won’t find it! So I say, choose a theme. It could be something as simple as learning more about the missions of St. Paul, or something as deep as meeting God. With a theme, a Bible, and a focused itinerary a person will usually enjoy a tour that changes their life in some exciting ways.

Traveling in the Middle East, which is where most of the great biblical and church sites are, can be a challenge for Christians. For the majority populations are Jewish in Israel and Muslim everywhere else. So some cross-cultural sensitivities are always helpful. For example, my guides in Israel were a Zionist Jew, an Arab Muslim, and an Arab Christian. And they all had opinions! But I enjoyed absorbing everything they said, because for me that’s one of the best things about traveling abroad. Getting to know people in their own cultures, which are dramatically different from mine in a 100 different ways, makes me a better person in my heart, and mind, and spirit. And that’s a good thing. May you enjoy the same kind of enrichment in your pilgrimage.

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

Faith in the Face of Empire: Israel, Palestine, & a Conversation with Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb

Traveling through Israel & Palestine it is not difficult to find division. It is not hard to hear the antipathy. It is not tough to sense the tension. 

While there is much that is beautiful and awe-inspiring about “the Holy Land” there are also serious matters to consider when it comes to travelers from the U.S. who visit. Issues of politics and empire, rights and religion. 

The second post in my series on my recent trip to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan features the work of Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb — a writer, pastor, and the president of Dar al-Kalima University College in Bethlehem. Specifically, we will focus on his recent book Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes and I will share a short conversation between us to reflect on. 

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

Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes is a theo-political book that seeks to situate the current political and social crisis of Palestine in the longue durée of history. Thus, it spans a long range of ancient and contemporary Palestinian history in order to provide insight into not only Scripture but the current cultural and socio-political climate. Raheb is pointed in his analysis and rigorous in both his scriptural exegesis and cultural interpretation. He does well to call out misconceptions by those on the outside looking in, rallying both biblical text and historical precedent to make the point that one cannot understand the Bible nor the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without conceptualizing the long legacy of empire in Palestine and the peoples’ response to almost continuous occupation for 7,000 years. 

“This is a rarely heard perspective on the Bible, and Raheb’s writing is strongest when he explicates the words of Jesus with his political and historical perspective as a Palestinian as well as his spiritual perspective as a Christian.”

— Publishers Weekly

Certainly, the book emerges out of Raheb’s context and his heart, therefore it is most certainly biased, but it may be an angle you have not heard before, but should be careful to listen to above the din of spin that often swirls around the hostilities in Palestine. If one is to lean into what Raheb has to say, he offers up new ways of seeing  the world and changing our viewpoint, which may in turn lead to a change in our posture toward the contemporary conflict. It is a stirring invitation and a well-stated proposition of liberation from empire in light of the Gospel. 

'Prophetic imagination helps us see beyond the current realities, #Christian hope empowers us to put a new vision into action.' | @RahebM

— Ken Chitwood (@kchitwood) May 31, 2015

The book is short, but stimulating. If anything, it is too brief to fully explore his demanding revelations and it begs further wrestling and conversation. To that end, I invite you to read his book, use it for a small group or book club discussion, and wrestle with what he has to say. Also, check out this short interview with the esteemed Rev. Dr. Raheb below:

Since the book’s release, what kind of reception and reaction have you received for your perspective on religion and empire, Christianity and the situation in Palestine? 

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The reception of the book was, and continues to be, overwhelmingly positive. The book got a starred review with Publishers Weekly identifying it as a book of outstanding quality. It also made it on Amazon as a #1 best-seller in the category of “liberation theology” books and one of the best 10 best sellers among books on the Middle East. It has been translated into 7 languages and was discussed at all major schools in the U.S. And beyond, like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Chicago etc. Only Christians Zionists attacked the book. 

What would be the number one thing you would recommend that Christians from the U.S. (my primary audience) do in the face of empire? What about those who embark on “Holy Land pilgrimages?”

To listen to the voices of those who are crushed by the empire and by the Israeli occupation especially to the voices of Palestinian Christians visiting them and connecting when they embark on a pilgrimage. A true pilgrimage is not  "to run where Jesus walked", but rather to meet his followers there, God is not in the ruins, he is risen, and can be experienced among his community. 

Why must we turn our thoughts to re-evaluating “faith in the face of empire” at this historical moment?

The international community have been providing the hardware for Israel to continue its occupation of Palestine, while the seminaries were providing the software, a theological framework that gives a Divine overcoat over the human rights violations in Palestine. This needs to change now as to bring justice to the people in Palestine, Israel and the people in the Middle East. This will help the relations between the western world and the Islamic world and it will ease many tensions world wide.

*Listen to Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb speak at Yale Divinity School: