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. 

Five Ways to Combat Ministry Burnout

As many of you know, I started my service as an ordained Lutheran pastor in June. While I am nowhere near "burnout" I have been challenged, and comforted, in my early days as a minister by reading That Their Work May be a Joy: Understanding and Coping with the Challenges of Pastoral Ministry by personal friend/mentor Kurt Fredrickson and his colleague Cameron Lee. 

Reflecting on their work and hearing news from friends and family from around the world of professional ministry I wrote a post this week on FIVE WAYS that congregations can avoid seeing their pastors and leaders burnout before they are able to bless the community. 

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.

Humility and Courage in Education

Yesterday I tweeted/posted a #morningprayer, which I have been known to do on occasion. The prayer went like this:

“A #morningprayer for the start of school: Let all instruction, training, & learning constantly be permeated by humility & courage. Amen.”

Many of you liked it, some of you retweeted it, and a couple of people asked me what it means, or what it looks like, to be have our learning and teaching be humble and courageous. Good questions class.

Humility in education

For me, education is all about humility. It's about being a constant learner whether you are in the student's seat or at the teacher's desk. This perspective comes from two quotes:

1) The first is posted on my bulletin board hanging over my desk and stares me in the face as I type, read, and zone out. It is: 

“The purpose of THINKING is not to gain knowledge, but to LEARN to consider the world in light of our irremediable ignorance.”

— Paul Ricoeur

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Didn't believe me? There's that quote, right where I promised it would be. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

Write that one down folks. I find that the more I learn the more I don't know. For those of us in academia that is a crushing burden that causes us to question our validity and authenticity as we publish articles, teach classes, and bat around titles like "expert" or "doctor." Scary. I know. Such a realization should prove a catalyst for all of us to never put the books down, to ask questions and listen and learn as much as we talk and teach. It should also keep us humble. 

2) That quote is put in context by one of my favorite proverbs:

“Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance...”

— Proverbs 1:5

Put that in your arrogant little pipe and smoke it. Double back on that proverb for a moment and realize what is being said -- that the wise (a.k.a. those who already know a whole bunch) hear and increase their learning; that those who get it go back to school. This is even more powerful when put in the context of the verse before, which refers to the young and the naive. We are never to old to learn, never to wise to absorb new things, and never too young to teach. For profs and instructors this means leaning in to what you will learn together with your students. For students, this means gleaning wisdom from those who have gone before you even though you think you know it all. For those of us who are educational elites, it means listening to those who are not adorned with official letters or degrees and may be considered peripheral to society.

Wisdom comes from many sources, the question is whether we are humble enough to hear it. 

Now what about courage? 

In light of the lecture on humility, what does it mean to have courage in education and instruction? It means diving head-first into a liberal, progressive, and challenging education in the classroom and in the world. 

There are constant pressures for you to conform to the process of education. To fit the mold of the model student. While there is a time and place to submit to authorities and maintain the aforementioned humility, there is also a time and a place to push the boundaries, to question the curriculum, and to boldly take hold of the world through education. 

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If you haven't read any Vonnegut, you need to. Like right now. Start your "night school" with a collection of his short stories or one of his novels. You won't regret it. 

When I was in 9th grade I was at that point. I was tired of school, spoiled with my suburban education, and was a little brat. Enter Mrs. Mary Starr Kelly and Kurt Vonnegut's tale of Harrison Bergeron. The story is a classic about conformity and breaking the mold. After we finished the short story we all had to write essays. Being a pompous little punk I penned a fairly unseemly little essay about how having 30-odd freshmen write an essay on a short story about conformity, wherein we would be judged by a rubric of compliance, was tantamount to nonsense (though, I may have used stronger language). Mrs. Kelly not only gave me an "A" on the assignment, she made me her TA and I was seated at the teacher's desk from then on. She took over my academic schedule and placed me in AP classes and as her TA for the next two years in AP European History and AP World History. I wouldn't be on the educational trajectory I am on today if it wasn't for Mrs. Kelly. 

While the kudos go to Mrs. Kelly for that brilliant intervention and dishing-up of a piece of humble pie to a student sorely in need of it, she has constantly taught me to be courageous in my learning -- to write that essay, to teach classes on European history as a sophomore, and grade essays on Islam and world religions written by my classmates.  

She also pushed me to "go to night school." So much of education these days requires certain readings and rubrics. This is fine and good, but we should never settle for reading simply what we are assigned. Instead, we should continue to learn at home even when we aren't doing "homework." Check the bibliography of a good book, follow the footnotes, and trace the genealogical history of an excellent work to extend your learning beyond what is required. Don't conform to the contours of the educational stream you're on, paddle to the side, dock, and explore the world around you. Be adventurous in your learning and you'll never be the same. 

That's what it means to be humble and courageous in our learning and our teaching. And that is still my prayer as students and teachers from preschool to post-doc start their terms this week. Go get it. 

Peace. 

Mu shu pork & my Muslim neighbor

This message starts with "mu shu" pork & ends with pig races. One story reveals hospitality and friendship. The other hostility and ill feeling. In between, it's about why Christians must take the steps to build relationships with our Muslim neighbors, what basis that has in Scripture, and how  fostering a posture of friendly, conversational, and cooperative engagement with Muslims is absolutely central to the work of the church in this historical moment. 

Thanks to CrossPoint Community Church, MAS Katy, and my friends for the opportunity to speak, share these stories, and be a part of such an important conversation. 

John Oliver and the disciples of the new digital religions

All hail Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption and blessings be upon its anointed Megareverend John Oliver. Yes, indeed, the host of Last Week Tonight on HBO, is now the head of a brand spankin' new religion. According to Brian Pellot of Religion News Service: 

“The HBO satirist launched a tax-exempt church Sunday night to criticize the Internal Revenue Service’s hands-off approach to televangelist fraudsters who promise prosperity, at a price. ”

Oliver joins a long list of parody religions, "antibelief systems," and "authentic fakes" like Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Church of the Almighty Dollar, Disciples of the New Dawn, and the Discount House of Worship in registering a scathing satire of established religions in an effort to critique or call into question the proposed abuses, miscues, and false claims of religion. 

While new media and communications technologies (such as the internets, Web 2.0, and social media) are conduits for conventional religions and institutions, they are also fertile ground for the growth of fresh, fabricated, and "fake" religions. In a culture replete with parody, satire, snark, and irony are we the least bit surprised? But here's the deal: 

“even fakelore or fake religion, although invented, mobilized, and deployed by frauds, can produce real effects in the real world.”

— David Chidester, Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture

Not only do they parallel accepted religions in their rhetoric and form, their medium of communication and other characteristics such as founders and creeds, myths and symbols, rituals and proclamations, but they also force us to call into question our very notions of religious identity and authenticity. 

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One of the more offensive DOTND parody posts. 

Take, for example, the Disciples of the New Dawn. While John Oliver is clear in his purpose and parody, the Disciples of the New Dawn (DOTND) -- what I believe to be a parody internet religion -- is subtle and sly. DOTND, supposedly led by the enigmatic Father Patrick Oliver Embry, uses social media to infuriate the masses with its provocative posts and offputting memes on topics as diverse as condemning C-sections and burning pagans and steampunks alive. 

Like The Onion-like parody news articles that make their rounds on social media being purported as real reports, so too DOTND have been attacked for their insolent assertions and offensive opprobrium by people who swear they are real. Multiple Change.org petitions were set-up to get the DOTND Facebook page taken down. And they worked. Five times. DOTND's Facebook page is now in its sixth version, having existed in one form or another since 2013. 

While DOTND has not made their forgery public knowledge there is evidence that they are a bona fide "authentic fake." Even so, so powerful has the DOTND parody been, and real its effects, that it now has its own parody page -- Disciples of the New Lawn -- which is regularly attacked for its "offensive beliefs and statements" even though it's a fake of a fake. 

Why are parody religions and digital fakes so compelling, and in some cases, so convincing? First, their brand of sharp wit and snark are par for the course and increasingly popular among Millennials and their ilk who thrive on the culture of irony. Second, they are a product of digital media. The Interwebs are more than a platform for cat videos and vague Facebook posts. The fact is that the World Wide Web changes how we interact with the world, connect with others, and learn, sort through, and judge the veracity of information. In the world of Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia, the former Englightenment ideals of authenticity and authority are often called into question or undermined entirely.

In the age of the internet, Tweeters can break news faster than CNN. Websites can hold governments accountable. Fake religions can "raise the problem of religious authenticity even when they are obviously fake, because they present themselves as real religion." (Chidester, 192) In the face of the internet -- for all its good and ill -- the traditional tests of what is real and what is hoax are subverted and the lines between authentic and counterfeit are blurred. 

Given the smorgasbord of options available to the individual religious consumer today and the competing claims of the commercialized religious marketplace these "authentic fakes" force us to question the very basis of traditional religious identities and claims in the first place. At the same time, they also re-enchant the world as they think, act, and feel like "real" religions. In this sense they are "hyper-real religions," in the words of Adam Possamai, that often take on more meaning and relevance to individuals because they are more related to the experience of the isolated and independent religious consumer. 

“Apparently advancing a universal religious claim, this assertion radically personalizes religious identity, because anyone, wherever he or she might be, whatever he or she might believe, feel, do, or experience, is the author of authentic religion.”

— David Chidester, 211

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Parody religions abound on the internet. Here are three: Symbols of parody religions from left to right: the Invisible Pink Unicorn; the Flying Spaghetti Monster; and Russell's teapot. (PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons)

Just as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's parody news became more real and relevant for Millennials than traditional news sources, so too are parody religions like FSM, DOTND, and even perhaps John Oliver's Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption being anointed as more authentic in their religious sensibilities than established religions and spiritual institutions.  

Rather than dismissing these "authentic fakes" then, it is important for us to pay attention to why they are so viral and apropos. Why are their sarcastic statements and stances so spellbinding? What critiques are they leveling? How are these censures speaking to the real religious needs of their "followers" and digital disciples? What does it mean for a religion to be "real" and "authentic" in the (post)modern world? 

Furthermore, as Chidester concludes, we cannot discount them as "fake religions" with no real-world religious effect, "because they are doing real religious work in a medium of communication in which anything, even religion, seems possible." The only question left is whether we who care about religious identities, literacy, and claims of legitimacy will listen to, and learn from, these "authentic fakes" as well. 

Is that a cult? - Things You Missed in Religion Class Episode 2.0

Jonestown. Aum Shinrikyo. The Manson Family. Raëlism. The Church of Scientology. Heaven’s Gate. The Branch Davidians. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormon church). Lutherans. Are these cults? 

Or are they religions? Or are they sects? Or are they denominations? Or are they something else? 

Sometimes, people ask me, “Hey Ken, is that a cult?” Although the people asking usually have an answer in mind already it's an invitation to an important discussion on what we call a "cult" and what we call a "religion" and what the real differences are between them. 

Watch below and learn. Also, be sure to send your questions to Ken for the next video or tweet/post them using the hash-tag #MissedInReligion.

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...

Faith Goes Pop Round-Up: Was Jaws Jewish?

Was Jaws Jewish? 

That's right, to pop off on this Faith Goes Pop round-up I'll start with a sighting of an opinion piece from film critic and academic Nathan Abrams of Bangor University who made the claim that the film Jaws, which celebrated its 40th anniversary back in June, was really all about the Jews (see the piece in The Jewish Chronicle HERE). 

Not only was it directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Richard Dreyfus (both Jewish), but there was substantial Jewish input (from Jewish scuba experts and extras) and inspiration (the shark was nicknamed "Bruce" after Spielberg's favorite lawyer). More than that, Abrams makes the argument that the triangle-finned protagonist represented the misunderstood and maligned Jew whose representation in the film, "taps into age-old fears of the Jew as predatory, lusting after gentile women and the blood of young Christian children." 

While at times Abrams' analysis may seem a bit too forced he brings up salient points that seem to show there is some credence to his thesis. At the very least, Abrams forces us to look beyond the sheen of summer blockbusters and popular films to read the subtext. Often, you'll find faith-filled themes lurking behind some of your favorite flicks. 

Who knows, maybe AntMan is about atheists and the establishment or maybe Mission Impossible 5: Rogue Nation is about Messianic return. At the very least, we often see people read onto films their own religious meanings and themes. Just take a look at the various "movie Bible studies" that seem to be popular at evangelical Christian churches during the summer. 

Also, you'll never see A Clockwork Orange the same again after you know that most of it was a not-so-subtle critique of atheist Stanley Kubrick's view of religion (specifically Christianity) or the religious intimations at work in Blade Runner or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.   

*You might also like "Christian television as the new digital cathedrals." 

Jim Gaffigan is Catholic & wants to throw a Bible in a trash-bag. Welcome to the 21st-century. 

Lovable comedian & father-figure Jim Gaffigan also made a splash this summer with the premier of his new show "The Jim Gaffigan Show." 

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PHOTO: Care of "Jim Gaffigan Show"

The entire first episode swirls around his juggling act between his "Shi'ite Catholic" wife, his own Catholic faith, popular culture, and mainstream media. And as Kimberly Winston of Religion News Service wrote, "Jokes about somebody's religious beliefs are often...duds." 

That begs the question - why would the "Hot-Pocket comedian" dive into such a hot topic for his debut episode? Winston asked for my perspective on the show because of the work we are doing here at #FaithGoesPop. Here's an excerpt from her excellent story:

Ken Chitwood, a scholar who writes about religion and popular culture, said Jim Gaffigan’s comedic inner voice is key to what is new and different about this show in terms of religion — it presents a TV family that is simultaneously sacred and secular, funny and poignant.

“They are not this super holy, sanctimonious family,” Chitwood said. “They kind of hold their Catholicism lightly (in terms of humor). They are able to show Jim as this new kind of Catholic —  he is mainstream, he is funny and he is friends with Chris Rock.”

Brewtherans, Presbeertyerians, & EpiscoPaleAleians?

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PHOTO: Care of RJ Grunewald and www.rjgrune.com 

Beer is one of my things. Apparently, I'm not alone. One of the major trends in the U.S. right now (or indeed, the world over) is an artisanal shift toward craft beer production and consumption. Part of this is due to the consumer's need to feel authentic and local in their constant competition with the international, imitated, and invisible hand of the market. Part of it is also because this beer is damn good. But another part of it is, well, religious. 

Many different religious interactions and intersections are part of the craft beer craze going on right now. There are beer hymn sings in the U.K., Oregon, and Colorado, brewery Bible studies, "Theo-pubs," beer-troversies over religious symbolism, and explicitly religious themed beer production lines. Which brings us to ask -- what's with all this "craft-brewed" religion?

Certainly, there are lots of different angles to take and I've taken a few of them. Check out the following to learn more about beer & religion throughout history, about how beer and religion are interacting today, & how I think you can pour beer to the glory of God as a Brewtheran...I mean Lutheran...pastor:

• Pouring beer to the glory of God
• Religious beertroversies 
• Patron saints of beer

Gospel roller skating and religion on the move

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RKHPL on Parallel Bible snapped this image of a "Gospel Roller Skating" rink in Philly. I came to discover that "Gospel roller skating" isn't all that uncommon as skate-enthusiasts with a hankerin' for Gospel music can hop, or skate, down to their local rink for a fusion of the two fine arts. 

It's also a perfect example of what David Chidester calls the "haptics of the heart" -- the embodied, tactile, and physical tactics of moving that animate religious belief in the U.S. in a modern world. In his formulation, the free movement of roller skating to Gospel music and making known the Messiah through the movement of the body on the floor is a way of freedom of religion amidst a modern world of pressure from all sides. Held, bound, and burdened in place in the past new religious movements are just that -- movements -- seeking to embody themselves in new physical practices that liberate body and spirit. In this instance, such liberation seems to be achieved through roller-skating across the slick-top and sliding to the soulful rhythms of Gospel music. 

More #FaithGoesPop sightings? 

Remember, be sure to share your #FaithGoesPop sightings on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest or just send them to me here at www.FaithGoesPop.com. 

Next week, I'm back to share my experiences teaching & talking "Faith Goes Pop" with some community college students in Florida. 

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. 

A 'Radical' Response to Islamophobia

If you know me at all, you know that I love Muslims. 

Really, with all my heart. And not in some kumbayá-lets-all-get-along or orientalist-fascinated-with-the-middle-east-dancing-around-in-a-fez type of way. 

I love Muslims because many of them I count as friends -- from Amman, Jordan to Miami, U.S.A. from Rakai, Uganda to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and everywhere in between. My Muslims friends have shown me immense hospitality in their homes, forgiveness when I offer them pork when we are eating out, and insight into their social situations in my many years of conversations, meals, and moments of exchange with them. 

That's why I'm fed up with Islamophobia.

It's time for a 'radical' response to the irrational fear that too often grips our fascinations, is broadcasted on our televisions, and pushed from our pulpits. 

I know. I know. 'Islamophobia' is a charged word. There are problems with using such labels. And yes, we need to love those we deem, 'Islamophobic' as well. And I do. At least I try. 

But in the face of constant vitriol being thrown at my Muslim friends and a natural proclivity for 'us' to turn against 'them' (whoever the 'them' in vogue might be) I am proposing a 'radical' response to Islamophobia. 

Sojourners Magazine was kind enough to carry my piece where I lay out the WHY, the WHAT, and the HOW of the necessity of a Christian response to Islamophobia. For this week and this week only you can get behind their paywall and read the full essay. Seriously, go check it out. 

Pronto. The world can't wait. Nor should you. 

Peace. 

-Ken 

Things You Missed in Religion Class

People ask me questions all the time.

They're sending me questions every day via text, e-mails, even carrier pigeons. Rather than just responding in private messages, I'd like to start having public conversations about our most burning religion and spirituality questions. 

So, I'm starting a new video/audio cast called, "Things You Missed in Religion Class." Watch this video to learn more: 

​All you need to do is send your questions to me with the subject line: 

Or you can send it to me via Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag:

My first video will be "Is that a cult?" 

What will my next video be about? 

Good question. 

Send me your own conundrums and we'll find out together. 

Peace. 

6 Steps to Connecting with "the Religious Other"

The other day I was driving down a road near Miami, FL looking for a mosque. I got lost. Like REALLY lost. Like 30 minutes-out-of-my-way-and-have-to-back-track-now-and-I'm-super-late-for-my-appointment lost. Even though I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and some Raybans, it was hard for me to keep my cool (rim shot!). 

Then I drove past an Eastern Orthodox Church. Then a menorah popped up on the right hand side of the road. Then there was a branch of a Brazilian Pentecostal church trying to evangelize the Americas. Then there was an herberia with statues and accessories for Santeria rituals. Once I took the time to calm down and open my eyes I could appreciate the drive (sort of) for en education in Miami's stunning religious diversity. 

The thing is -- Miami isn't alone in its spiritual miscellany. 

Religious pluralism is a fact in an ever more globalized, individualized, and post-modern society. The reality of religious pluralism, and its attendant ideology of tolerance, presupposes a serious shift for the "Christian Church" from a position of privilege to one of marginality among many.

-- How can we navigate such a shift? --

Christian apologist, evangelist, and teacher had me on his podcast "Re-Connect" to talk about my journal article "Building Bridges: Toward Constructing a Christian Foundation for Inter-Religious Relationships in the Shift from Religious Privilege to Spiritual Plurality," I wrote for Missio Apostolica last year. 

In the podcast we talk about my "six steps to encountering the religious other" and I go back-and-forth with Andy who has a more outspoken and assertive style. 

If you don't have time to listen to the whole episode, here's a synopsis. Basically my point is this -- given the religious pluralism we live in, it is necessary that faithful, missional, Christians reconsider their foundational theology concerning other religions and worldviews and begin constructing a revitalized and benevolent approach to the “religious other.”

This paper is an attempt to not only outline the facts, trends, and philosophy of religious pluralism, but also sketch a blueprint for a friendly, missionary, encounter with other religions founded on God’s Word a six-step process for better engaging with individuals from another religious point of view. It draws on the Scripture passages above and from my own experience as a ministry leader and interfaith activist over the last decade. The process is not meant to be comprehensive, but a sketched blueprint for your own constructive efforts as an individual or, as I suggest, as a congregation. 

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. 

Silence in the face of crises

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven….a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”

— Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 7b (ESV)

In our live-tweeting, news breaking, first-to-be blogging culture it can prove a hard environment to cultivate silence and solitude. No greater is this the case than when there is some sort of crisis — real or perceived — or when we are faced with a momentous opportunity.

Often, leaders in the church are hasty to speak up and speak out on major issues in our church, our city, or our country. We are quick to condemn the things we disagree with or are uncomfortable with and swift to support those decisions or occasions where our values are seemingly upheld or enacted.

Yet, we leaders would do well to contemplate the words of the author of Ecclesiastes above and Catholic contemplative Henri Nouwen who said, “As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words…but silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.”

At Ramadan, a call for a female voice to recite the Qur'an

To many non-Muslims, Ramadan is about fasting, and later, feasting. But Muslims know Ramadan as the month of the Quran, a time when the sacred scripture is recited, read and rehearsed.

Many Muslims attempt to listen to the Quran in its entirety during the month of fasting, either by attending evening prayers called “tarawih,” or more frequently by listening to CDs, podcasts, and online software programs such as QuranExplorer.com.

But searching for a recitation from a female “qariah” or reciter, Jerusha Lamptey, assistant professor of Islam and ministry at Union Theological Seminary, found none.

So she launched #AddAFemaleReciter campaign on Twitter, directing her efforts at the popular QuranExplorer.com site and other Quran recitation apps urging them to add women reciters. So far, her online petition has received more than175 signatures.

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: