YSAR Reminder and Repeat

Reminder and Repeat Post:

Here is the latest round of the Young Scholars in American Religion Program. As a current leader of the 2008-2010 group, I encourage everyone to apply, including those who applied for the last round. Those fortunate enough to be selected will have no more valuable professional opportunity. The deadline is mid-October, so pass the word!

Young Scholars in American Religion Program 2009-2011

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI announces a program for early career scholars in American Religion. Beginning in April 2009, a series of seminars devoted to the enhancement of teaching and research for younger scholars in American Religion will be offered in Indianapolis. The aims of all sessions of the program are to develop ideas and methods of instruction in a supportive workshop environment, stimulate scholarly research and writing, and create acommunity of scholars that will continue into the future.

For more information about the Center or the YSAR Program, please visit the Center's website.

Dates:
Session I: April 2-5, 2009
Session II: October 15-18, 2009
Session III: April 15-18, 2010
Session IV: October 14-17, 2010
Session V: April 28-May 1, 2011

Seminar Leaders:

W. Clark Gilpin is the Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Christianity and Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is a historian of Christianity who studies the cultural history of theology in England and America since the seventeenth century. Among his works is an intellectual biography of Roger Williams, the seventeenth-century advocate of religious liberty. A more recent book, A Preface to Theology, examines the history of American theological scholarship in terms of the theologian's responsibilities to a three-fold public in the churches, the academic community, and civil society.

Tracy Fessenden is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, specializing in western religious traditions, religion and literature, and American religious and cultural history. Her recent work focuses on religion, race, gender, and sexuality in American cultural history, on the relationship between religion and the secular in American public life, and on questions of religion and violence. She is author, most recently, of Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature.

Eligibility: Scholars eligible to apply are those who have launched their careers within the last seven years and who are working in asubfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood.Ten scholars will be selected, with the understanding that they will commit to the program for all dates. Each participant will be expected to produce a course syllabus, with justification of teaching approach, and a publishable research article. All costs for transportation, lodging, and meals for the seminars will be covered, and there is no application fee.To Apply: Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae with three letters of reference directly supporting their application to the program (do not send portfolios with generic reference letters) as well as a 500-word essay indicating 1) why they are interested in participating,and 2) their current and projected research and teaching interests. The deadline for applications is 15 October 2008. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to: Director, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI, Cavanaugh Hall 417425, University Boulevard, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

Religion in the News Spring 2008

Kelly Baker

The spring edition of Religion in the News is now available, and the topics of the issue include: Obama's impact on civil religion, a critique of the "On Faith" blog, and the fascination with the pope's fashion (and his position on academic freedom) on his recent visit to name a few.

Tyson Homosexual...Oh wait, Tyson Gay...

Art Remillard

[Author's note: Humble apologies for the previous title. While intended as a quirky title for a quirky story, it was instead thoughtless.]

Sometimes, my computer tries to outsmart me. For example, it will re-spell words that I had intended to mis-spell. But it has never changed the word "Gay" to "Homosexual." It seems I don't have the right software.

From the Washington Post, Mary Ann Akers, "the Sleuth," reports...

The American Family Association obviously didn't foresee the problems that might arise with its strict policy to always replace the word "gay" with "homosexual" on the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. The group's automated system for changing the forbidden word wound up publishing a story about a world-class sprinter named "Tyson Homosexual" who qualified this week for the Beijing Olympics.

The problem: Tyson's real last name is Gay. Therefore, OneNewsNow's reliable software changed the Associated Press story about Tyson Gay's amazing Olympic qualifying trial to read this way: "Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has. His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing."

Religious Roadtripping

Kelly Baker

In the summer of the staycation or a summer of piled up deadlines, journeying to the religious sites of Americana might not be our top priority. I already blogged on my deep desire to go the Holy Land Experience, but I thought I might highlight Timothy Beal's Roadside Religion:In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith (2005). Beal does a roadtrip to explore what he calls "outsider religion" in America, and he takes his family along for the ride. I have toyed with assigning this book to my Religions in the U.S. class to make them think about classifications like "mainstream" and "outsider" as well as to problematize visions of American religious history that focus on the immateriality of faith. The faith(s) Beal finds are decidedly material, creative (gardens, signs proclaiming the end of times, a massive recreation of the Ten Commandments, etc.), and evangelizing.

So, here's my review of the work from the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture:

Beal, Timothy K. Boston: Beacon Press, 2005. 216 pp., $14.00 (USD). ISBN: 0-8070-1063-4 (paper).

[1] Timothy Beal does something that I have always yearned to do; he packs his loved ones in a motor home and travels the country to examine what he calls “roadside religion,” allowing me to live vicariously through his encounter with the land of religious kitsch in his fascinating work. Beal’s family traverses the American countryside to explore Holy Land USA, the Holy Land Experience, a recreation of Noah’s ark, biblical mini-golf, Precious Moments Inspiration Park, a miniature grotto, a cabinet of rosaries, and multiple gardens devoted to crosses and messages about salvation and damnation. This roadside approach to American religion uncovers the novelty and complexity of religion in America, and adds to the already colourful landscape of “mainstream” religions in the United States. Beal classifies these material expressions of faith as “outsider religion,” which he derives from understandings of “outsider art” as art by the untrained. Thus, outsider religion becomes his term for those untrained in the realms of theology or denominational doctrine. He wants to present the marginality of the creators as well as their creativity and devotion. “Paradoxically,” he writes, “it is precisely in their marginality that they open avenues for exploring themes and issues that are central to American religious life, such as pilgrimage, the nostalgia for lost origins, the desire to create sacred time and space, creativity as religious devotion, apocalypticism, spectacle, exile, and the relation between religious vision and social marginality” (7).

[2] Roadside Religion is Beal’s documentation of various religious spaces and the people who inhabit them—which he mostly accomplishes with empathy and tact—and the reader is a tag-along in motor home as he makes stops at these exotic yet mundane places. Beal also interrogates the nostalgia that is part and parcel of creating these spaces, and the attempts by various creators to get to something original and real, even while using artifice. At Holy Land USA, the author presents the park as a pilgrimage that moves pilgrims through the biblical story in a natural setting. He is a bit more conflicted at the Holy Land Experience; the park seems like a religious Disneyland, and is conveniently located in Orlando. Moreover, Beals feels ambivalent about the subtext of the religious amusement park. He writes, “Beneath the explicit aim of giving guests a glimpse of life during biblical times is a far more zealous ideological interest in promoting a very specific biblical theology of the end of times” (63). He dislikes the Holy Land Experience because it appears to uplift Christian Zionism, and seems more ideological than experiential. What is fascinating about Beal’s work is that he seems to appreciate some sites more because of their authenticity as opposed to their ideology. He is most critical of sites that are created by organizations rather than individuals; he feels more at home in Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens than at the Disney-similar Holy Land Experience. Throughout the descriptions of journeys to golf courses, a proposed site for the new Noah’s ark, and even the Precious Moments Chapel, this work is really about highlighting the religious experiences of individuals in gardens, sculptures, or miniaturized grottoes.

[3] As a result, this work was interesting to me as an American religious historian as well as someone who dabbles in ethnographic method. Roadside Religion demonstrates how exotic religious expression can be on American soil. I have toyed with the idea of providing it to my “Religion in the U.S.” classes as a conversation starter for how diverse religion can be at the individual level; it would also be a good primer in how fascinating popular religion is as a field of study. What proved most interesting and thought provoking was a comment that Beal makes early on in his work about his daughter’s perception of what religious studies scholars actually do. He writes, “My daughter, Sophie, recently told me what she thinks of my work as a religion scholar. She said it seems like what I like to do is make creepy things interesting” (12). The creepy things with which Beal enchants the reader are the careful and caring analyses of the various religious peoples he encounters. Beal wants his informants to be taken seriously in their unique practices and experiences, and he opens up their worldviews for the reader to see and understand. His renderings present these folks as they see themselves, which is good ethnographic praxis. He shows that practices that appear as absurd are really not absurd at all, but committed expressions of faith.

[4] Yet, questions remain: Are his informants really outsiders? Does the term “outsider religion” help or hinder this study? I would agree that these folks cannot be placed firmly in the mainstream, but some of their practices might. Signs made of scrap wood and metal with messages of damnation and repentance remind me of paid, roadside advertisements in my local Florida. Gardens with religious iconography and signage remind me of previous neighbours, whose front lawn was covered with a decent-sized statue of the Virgin Mary, a permanent Nativity scene, and angels of all sizes including one firmly planted in bird fountain. Are the outsiders he documents more committed to their cause than my neighbours? Or are these elements of the materiality of religious experience hiding under our noses? Beal’s informants produce more elaborate material presentations of religious belief, but I think some who we could classify as part of the mainstream practice their faith in a similar way. Beal’s informants might be marginalized, but people come to play biblical rounds of golf and see the largest Ten Commandments. This terminology limits the study. Beal’s informants show the strange and often appealing renderings of religious faith and practice, and the term “outsider religion” limits his larger presentation of these people and their understandings of religion.

[5] Despite this, Beal’s Roadside Religion was an interesting venue into an often-occluded piece of America’s religious landscape, and I would recommend the book for undergraduates, anyone interested in a religious road trip, and scholars of American religious history who would like to show the diversity and materiality of religious practice.

"In the Beginning...": Teaching American Religious History

By Phillip Luke Sinitiere

One of the current threads over at H-World is about sharing teaching strategies and best practices in the classroom: what teachers and professors do on the first day of class to introduce world history.

Some have a class discussion to define world history; others use string to illustrate human history and the scope of universal time. Some even give geography/map assignments as a way to introduce the breadth of world history.


The H-World thread thus prompts this query: What do you do on the first day of class to introduce American religious history? What strategies work best? Why? And these questions are for students, too: what first day assignments or activities have you found most interesting and intriguing in American religious history classes?


In the past I've posed the question, "When you think about religion in America, what comes to mind and why?" The answers are always interesting, and usually prompt engaging discussion.

I've also brought up the question of religious (il)literacy, passing out Stephen Prothero's 2005 Christian Science Monitor article, "A Nation of Religious Illiterates" (a very short, concise version of the larger argument in Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know-and Doesn't) for students to read and discuss. (You may also want to show Prothero's interview on The Daily Show from March 2007; it is just under 7 minutes.) I followed this discussion (for last summer's class) by giving students the 15-question religious literacy quiz from the Appendix of Prothero's book. While I don't formally grade this quiz, I do discuss the answers with students-again an occasion for lively conversation.

To engage discussion, I might ask questions such as: Why does Prothero make this argument and what evidence does he cite? What exactly is religious literacy, and why does it matter? As for the quiz, I ask students to think about what religions and/or religious practices do not appear on it, and why they think this is the case? I also ask them to propose one or two questions they think should be added to the quiz (and why).

A Teachable Moment: Sally Quinn's Communion Snafu

Kelly Baker

Just last week, I passed out guidelines for ethnographic projects to my students. This project is basically a field visit to a religious site of which they are unfamiliar, and because of this unfamiliarity, I spend much time on etiquette. Channeling my best imitation of an authoritative and slightly parental voice, I emphatically command, "You all are guests, and I expect you to be on your best behavior." This is followed by threats about how I don't want future students banned from particular religious sites because of the behavior of my current students. Despite my best efforts, some of my students still manage to do inappropriate things, but usually these actions are not traumatic for the students or the religious community.

This is why I was so surprised by the Sally Quinn's decision to take communion at Tim Russert's funeral. Russert was Catholic, and Quinn is not. Quinn is the co-founder of the "On Faith" blog co-hosted by the Washington Post and Newsweek, and frankly, I would think she should know better. The controversy over her decision has been more about her reaction to the experience. She wrote:

Last Wednesday at Tim's funeral mass at Trinity Church in Georgetown... communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith" and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I'm so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it. After I began "On Faith," Tim started calling me "Sister Sal" instead of "Miss Sal. (For the full text, click here.)

At Slate, Melinda Henneberger, a Catholic, wrote about that Quinn's description:

This reads a little too much like a restaurant review for my comfort; Christ Almighty: Tangy Yet Nauseating? And good as he was, we don't really take Communion to feel closer to Tim Russert.

Not surprisingly, the Catholic League, headed by William Donohue, reacted quite vehemently to Quinn's commentary about being "nauseated." After being lambasted for her choice, Quinn used a "WWJD?" defense by suggesting inclusion should be more important than formal rules about ritual. She, additionally, claimed to pluralist in her response to various religions.

What proved fascinating to me about the whole ordeal is Quinn's lack of understanding of Catholic communion. Supporter of pluralism or not, she overlooked (perhaps, ignored) that for Catholics communion contains the actual presence of Christ. At America, James Martin, S.J., noted the importance of this ritual for Catholics as well as incredulity at Quinn's lack of knowledge:

Catholics believe in the "real presence," the actual presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist: the bread and the wine. It is a central element of our faith, and reception of Communion is something that a Catholic does not do lightly. Which is something of an understatement. "First Holy Communion" is an important passage to adulthood; and even afterwards adults are asked to approach Communion reverently and without being conscious of any grave sin. Catholics also know that the very word "Communion" means that you are in "communion" with the rest of the Catholic church, and accept its beliefs.

Therefore, it is probably not too much to expect that the co-founder of a prestigious online blog about religion run by two of the nation's premier journals, would understand something about the most basic practices of the Catholic church. Most intelligent people know a few facts about the Catholic church: this is one of them. And even if one doesn't know this, one would know to act with great care when in the midst of a worshiping community not your own. (For example, I am always exceedingly careful not to offend anyone's sensibilities when in a synagogue, a mosque or a Christian church or meeting place not affiliated with the Catholic church.) An essential element of respect for another religious tradition is approaching their holy places, people and ceremonies with sense of reverence, even awe.

That's why the words "transubstantiation notwithstanding" are difficult to hear. If one knows enough about Catholicism to mention "transubstantiation" then one should also know that the word "notwithstanding" makes little sense in that context.

Martin's uplifting of respect for religious spaces and peoples is not only necessary to prevent offense, but it is also about good manners. My students laugh at my focus on etiquette for their projects. I regale them with tales of past students and their snafus, but I also make it quite clear that sacred space should be approached thoughtfully and carefully. So hopefully, they leave my classroom prepared for encounters with those who are religiously different and with a sense that they should be on their best behavior because these are sacred spaces. I am still scratching my head at Quinn's actions, and in my next class, her actions will be a prime example of how not to interact with other religious peoples.

Blum on This Republic Of Suffering

Kelly Baker

Contributing editor Ed Blum reviewed Drew Faust's This Republic of Suffering for the Christian Century. In this insightful review, Blum lauds Faust's exploration of "death dealing" as well as the moral unpreparedness of soldiers, both North and South, to kill. However, Blum claims that Faust explores the emotions and hand-wringing of white Americans while playing less attention to the institution of slavery and its impact on visions of death (and life). Blum writes:

There is much to applaud in Faust's study, but there are a few elements that may disturb readers. Faust's work embodies a recent and troubling trend in new studies not only of the Civil War, but also of the civil rights era in the 20th century. Attention has shifted from the historical role and centrality of African Americans during these climactic moments to the feelings and experiences of whites. Although Faust focuses some attention on the meaning of death for enslaved and free blacks in the mid-19th century, that aspect of her work lacks the nuance of her reading of white responses.Examples of this trend include historian Harry Stout's "moral history" of the Civil War, Upon the Altar of the Nation (2006), a work equal to Faust's in innovation, brilliance and scope. Stout not only brackets the morality of slavery, he also downplays the ethical implications of interracial interaction in the fields of education and religion in the Civil War South.

As for the civil rights era, Matthew Lassiter's much-heralded The Silent Majority examines the rise of new conservatism in the 1960s Sunbelt. Throughout his narrative, moderate whites take center stage in the struggles against the protectors of racial segregation. The overfocus on whites leads Lassiter to patently misleading claims like: "The grassroots open-school movements led by middle-class white parents from the cities and suburbs defeated the massive resistance program of the region's political leadership." It was, of course, the African-American teachers and lawyers and the students who braved stone-throwing and death threats who did the most to defeat the archsegregationists—or at least their role was just as important as that of middle-class white suburbanites.

Perhaps it seemed to Faust that if she made slavery a central element of the Civil War, death would no longer fit as the dominant theme. Although slavery was a status of "social death," as Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson pointed out many years ago, during the Civil War almost 4 million slaves became civically alive with emancipation. They achieved freedom through mobility (by walking away from plantations, often heading to Union lines) and through military service. According to pioneering African-American historian W. E. B. Du Bois (in Black Reconstruction), for freed slaves the war was defined by new life, not suffering:

This was the coming of the Lord. This was the fulfillment of prophecy and legend. It was the Golden Dawn, after chains of a thousand years. It was everything miraculous and perfect and promising. For the first time in their life, they could travel; they could see; they could change the dead level of their labor; they could talk to friends and sit at sundown and in moonlight, listening and imparting wonder-tales. They could hunt in the swamps, and fish in the rivers. And above all, they could stand up and assert themselves. They need not fear the patrol; they need not even cringe before a white face, and touch their hats.

It is the failure to see life amid death that most detracts from This Republic of Suffering. Any quick look at the imagery and rhetoric of the Civil War shows an obsession with life and newness. In 1860, the Republican Party was imagined as a newborn baby of American liberty; in November 1863, in his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln claimed that the war brought a "new birth of freedom." After the Confederate surrender one African-American minister proclaimed in Washington, D.C., on the Fourth of July, "We come to the National Capital—our Capital—with new hopes, new prospects, new joys, in view of the future and past of the people." Even white supremacists have crafted the war as one of new life. America's first major motion picture, Birth of a Nation (1915), is the story of how the Ku Klux Klan remade the United States during and after the Civil War.