Oprah: Spirituality, Mediation, and Consumption

Paul Harvey

Recently we posted a bit to point to you an interview with our favorite professor from Yale, Kathryn Lofton, on her new book Oprah: Gospel of an Icon.

Time for some more reading/discussion on the work, courtesy of two deeply probing pieces on the book posted at Immanent frame. First, David Morgan's "Spirituality, Mediation, and Consumption" notes that Kathryn Lofton’s fascinating study demonstrates that Oprah is not aping religion as a way of selling her product but conducting a practice of self-culture that appeals to many precisely because they believe it lifts them above their circumstances to reveal possibilities they had not imagined. Oprah’s genious is for achieving a coincidence of self-care, commoditization, mass-mediation, and entertainment. If that’s not modern religion, I don’t know what is.

Then you can move on to Deirdre English, "Will Oprah Winfrey Save Us All,"

There should be more to come in this series of posts.

Update: Salon has posted an interview with K. Lofton in which the author expresses some of the main ideas of her book in very accessible answers, and connects Oprah to a tradition of female preachers with ambiguous lives. Here's a little taste:

"I connect her to two figures -- George Whitefield, a prominent 18th century minister, and Charles Finney, a 19th century minister -- who weren't merely interested in spreading the gospel but also eliciting conversion. There's an idea that a gospel is true if the purveyor is willing to talk about how it's made. Oprah does that every time she does a show about "Oprah without makeup" or a confession about her weight gain -- this is her showing the strings of her own construction."

"The other tradition I connect her to is the emergence of women as evangelical preachers, who always had to be conscious that they were being somewhat insurrectionist to the Word by even being out in the public. Oprah tries to appeal to an audience that wants to see a successful and capable woman without being too perfect. She can't be too obnoxious in the face of the conservative domestic idea that we still have for women. So Oprah isn't married nor does she have children because if she had those things and was also trying to be Oprah, her audience would be uncomfortable. That she is free to minister only to them and is not responsible to a domestic life actually puts her in a long line of preachers with similarly ambiguous lives."

Adapting to the Changing Landscapes of American Metaphysical Religion

By way of introduction, John L. Crow is a graduate student in American religious history at Florida State University, and he is now an official contributor to our blog. His interests lie in New Thought, Theosophy, western esotericism, and Buddhism in the west, and of course, he attends the happening alma mater (the Florida State Seminoles) of the assistant editor and some of our contributors. Please welcome his thoughts on Theosophy and Courtney Bender's The New Metaphysicals!--Kelly

By John L. Crow

I was recently reading the newest edition of Quest, the journal of the Theosophical Society in America. In it, Robert Ellwood, muses about the future of the society in an essay entitled, “Theosophy after the Baby Boomers.” In the essay he notes that the membership of the society has decreased from a high of 8,520 in 1927 to the current 3,546. These few members struggle to maintain the financial weight of the society’s properties and infrastructure. Ellwood posits that at some point if the organization can no longer continue in its existing form it may shift to an educational foundation using diverse media to deliver its lessons. He also points to the way the internet will be central to this future.

While Ellwood is clearly excited about the possibilities, there are many scholars who are faced with the conundrum of how to study religion when its institutional forms are quickly diminishing as its seemingly non-institutional forms are on the rise. This and Ellwood’s essay made me think of Courtney Bender’s recent sociological study on metaphysical religion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, The New Metaphysicals (Chicago, 2010). Bender points out that those who claim to be “spiritual but not religious” are no less involved with various institutions, but instead create what she calls a “symbiotic and connected relationship” with various religious and non-religious organizations. Constructing alternative social and organizational structures, these Metaphysicals use cooperative institutions to further their practices and community building. One of the institutions in Cambridge that Bender cites is the Boston chapter of the Theosophical Society.

Yet, Bender’s study is limited to a very particular place. As one of my colleagues asked, “How do we apply Bender’s study outside the heritage of William James?” I have been thinking about this and a perfect site to attempt this application is just a twenty-minute commuter train ride outside of Boston, in Salem, Massachusetts. Most are aware of Salem’s long history, especially its infamous trials in the 1690s. Today, in connection with this witchcraft legacy, Salem is one of the largest sites of metaphysical religion. It might be called the Northeastern Mecca of Wicca and neopaganism. We can certainly build on Bender’s insights, applying them to Salem, but we would have to be attentive to significant differences. Still, in noting these differences, we open up an opportunity to use her ideas throughout America.

First, we must understand, like Bender, that “Metaphysicals” is a wide-encompassing label for people who challenge existing boundaries between secular and religious. This flexibility allows us to see how what would previously be seen as a secular institution or means of communication could be incorporated in a larger spiritual network. Next we have to be aware of the diversity of individuals in that network. Bender focused specifically on white middle-class Metaphysicals. In Salem we would see a different set of Metaphysicals. People involved with Wicca and neopaganism are often in the working classes or are in the lower strata of the middle class, and more diverse racially. Still there are traditionally religious organizations in these networks. So while there is no Swedenborgian Church, nor a Theosophical Society, to meet at in Salem, other organizations fill in the gaps, both national and local. One of the most important is the Unitarian Church. Bender does not address Unitarianism to a great extent. One might guess that this is because the Unitarian Universalist headquarters are on Beacon Hill, near Boston Common, not near Cambridge. However, all over the nation Unitarian Churches host chapters of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS). We should include existing metaphysical institutions such as Unity Churches and other New Thought groups. In areas where the density of Metaphysicals interested in group formation is dense enough, they often form local institutions, renting commercial spaces or meeting in individual’s homes. Salem has numerous examples of these kinds of groups. Being aware of these kinds of institutions allow us to include the various and wide-ranging religious traditions that form the symbiotic relationships of which Bender speaks.

In addition to these religious institutions, there are commercial ones. This is where the boundaries really become porous. As mentioned above, Salem hosts numerous metaphysical bookstores. Bender mentions Seven Stars Bookshop in Cambridge and how it, along with other places like grocery stores, yoga studios, and health fairs, creates a network of commercial institutions that supply Metaphysicals with the goods and services they consume in the practice of their spirituality. In addition to these types of commercial enterprises, Salem offers us the opportunity to delve one level deeper to see the institutions that supply these independent companies. Salem is home to the national headquarters of Azure Green, one of the largest distributors of spiritual and occult products in the world. Housed in a building that includes a multi-story glass pyramid, Azure Green supplies the majority of the material sold by independent metaphysical bookshops. Combined with New Leaf Distributing, the nation’s largest metaphysical book and media distributor located just outside of Atlanta, these two companies homogenize the goods each store has to offer the metaphysical community. Thus, while the inside of the Bodhi Tree in Los Angeles may differ from Magus Books in Minneapolis, the majority of the books and goods sold in each are identical. Nevertheless, these stores also supply meeting spaces for discussion groups, tarot card readings, or ritual practice. Thus, while they are a commercial enterprise, they routinely house individual and group spiritual practices. Even non-metaphysical bookstores often house discussion groups for Metaphysicals. The now struggling Border’s Bookstores are host to a variety of Metaphysicals who use their stores and their coffee shops as meeting spaces.

A final example worth mentioning is the internet. While not of central focus to Bender’s study, the internet is probably the most important place that Metaphysicals use to build and coordinate their communities. Here certain websites become significant “institutions” for information exchange, community discussion, and meeting coordination. While some are organized by tradition, such as WitchVox, which allows pagans worldwide to meet and exchange messages and files, others are organized by geographic location, such as Meetup, which is used for people to create affinity groups and then meet in the non-virtual world. On this website one can find local yoga, astrology, or alternative health groups.

The differences between various metaphysical traditions are collapsing just as quickly as are the distinctions between religious and secular institutions that many religion scholars study. The boundaries between New Age practice, neopaganism, and yoga, for instance, are quite porous, as are the designations between what is and what is not religious. The “spiritual but not religious,” as Bender correctly notes, still depend on various institutions to maintain their practices and communities, but they do so in unusual ways. Ellwood is correct when he writes that people “active in religious or other larger meaning-giving organizations, are happier and healthier than solitaries or those who know only casual and informal relationships.” Yet how these solidarities manifest will continue to evolve and change in unexpected ways. As our field continues to grapple with these changes, it will be interesting to see how our methods attempt to capture these networks and communities. Ellwood ends his essay about the future of the Theosophical Society noting that it is “exciting to have the privilege of living in such times of change and challenge.” I think the same can be said for our field too!

After Pluralism

Paul Harvey

For those (looking in the mirror here) inclined to refer to "pluralism" a little too easily as an unqualified good, standing apart from history, here's an important new work calling for attention to the concept, and to what come after what was supposed to be the end of history: Courtney Bender and Pamela Klassen, ed., After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagement. It's an edited collection of essays from across nations and disciplines, and features some top-flight folks in American religious studies; Table of Contents is here, excerpt of the book is here. Winnifred Sullivan is featured in the work, discussing de facto "naturalized" religious establishments and the law; Tracy Leavelle and Michael McNally weigh in with contributions on the complexities and perils of pluralism and Native American "religious freedom." A brief excerpt from the intro suggests some of the challenges the book takes on:

The details of European and North American cases reveal greater complexity and complication, if not contradictions, in the formations of pluralism. In the United States, for example, a secular state that is presumed to neither encourage nor discourage religious identity unites some variants of religious plurality as admissible under law while excluding other religious groups as insufficiently tolerant. At the same time, the idioms of tolerance, multicultural or religious celebrations, simultaneously depoliticize and depublicize particular religious interests. In the face of these normative paths to “religious” recognition, scholars must acknowledge and inquire further into the processes by which gaining religious recognition in the United States requires that groups take a seat at a multireligious table. The stories told in this volume call attention to a growing recognition that the varying cultures of religious pluralism in which we live are always directed toward and galvanized by multiple fields of knowledge and power.

American Buddhism as a Way of Life

Paul Harvey

A couple of new books of note, with short reviews from Choice:

1) American Buddhism as a Way of Life

2) Fundamentalism and Education in the Scopes Era: God, Darwin, and the Roots of America's Culture Wars

I'll put the Choice reviews up as separate posts. First, for American Buddhism:

American Buddhism as a way of life, ed. by Gary Storhoff and John Whalen-Bridge. SUNY Press, 2010. 217p index afp; ISBN 9781438430935, $75.00; ISBN 9781438430942 pbk, $24.95. Reviewed in 2011jan CHOICE.

This useful series of essays focuses on ways Buddhism has been transmitted to the US in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Beginning with an analysis of the influence of pivotal Buddhist teachers Alan Watts and D. T. Suzuki, this book proceeds to evaluate some basic elements of the fusion of the many forms of Buddhism into American culture, along with the pivotal tensions created by that fusion. One of the most valuable features of these discussions is the selection of such a wide range of examples illustrating a central point: that in spite of the apparent conflict in basic categories (e.g., Buddhism's emphasis on no self, impermanence, and interdependence versus the American culture of individualism, self-reliance, privacy, and self-promotion), large numbers of Americans, though not formally "Buddhists," have been profoundly influenced by Buddhism, while Buddhism has in turn demonstrated that it can adjust to American culture. The result is an original, representative, and thoroughly informative look at "American Buddhism" introducing itself into and becoming an accepted part of American life. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. -- J. M. Boyle, formerly, Dowling College

Spiritual Envy: Religion on NPR

Paul Harvey

More about the excellent religion programming on NPR (and why it enrages our local conservative congressman), which I blogged about previously, in my article on Religion Dispatches today. Public television, I think, does not do so good a job on this (just an impression; I'm happy to be proven wrong on that point).

And while you're checking at this piece, also check out Lisa Webster's companion interview, "Michael Krasny's Agnostic Quest," also at Religion Dispatches. The long-time host of KQED's (in San Franciso) Forum, which I used to listen to while avoiding writing my dissertation, Krasny talks about his new book Spiritual Envy, how Judaism tends to be tied into agnosticism, and what he's learned from years of interviewing thousands of people on a million different subjects.

Holy Jumpers, Batman!

Paul Harvey

One more review of interest from Choice for you. For whatever reason, I had never heard of (or maybe I just forgot about) the Metropolitan Church Association, but they seem to fit into the kinds of cantankerous enthusiasts that Randall wrote about so memorably in his book The Fire Spreads. Anyway, perhaps some of you will want to check out this fun-looking book, below:

Kostlevy, William. Holy jumpers: evangelicals and radicals in Progressive Era America. Oxford, 2010. 240p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780195377842, $65.00. Reviewed in 2010dec CHOICE.

Based on extensive archival research, Holy Jumpers presents a significant study of the Metropolitan Church Association (MCA; "Burning Bush"), a radical faction of the holiness movement. Kostlevy (Tabor College) balances the MCA's utopian vision with its fanaticism and disruptive strategies, revealing a story of conflict in pursuit of harmony. Rejecting the conservatism of the National Holiness Association, the MCA embraced a faith for the new world of the 20th century that included holiness, communalism, premillennialism, and faith healing. Kostlevy commendably situates the MCA within other radical expressions of the Progressive Era, including populism and the Industrial Workers of the World. Known for their demonstrative worship characterized by extreme physical exercises, MCA adherents fostered divisions within families and communities, and frequently provoked violence and legal action. Using modern media with sensational content, the MCA censured and rejected almost all other denominations. Most importantly, the MCA played a decisive role in the Azusa Street Revival of 1906-1909 and the emergence of Pentecostalism. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. -- B. W. Hamilton, Northeastern Seminary

Seneca Possessed

Paul Harvey

From Choice, a quick hit review of a new book that should be of interest to many:

Dennis, Matthew. Seneca possessed: Indians, witchcraft, and power in the early American republic. Pennsylvania, 2010. 313p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780812242263, $45.00. Reviewed in 2010nov CHOICE.

This fascinating study examines how the Senecas struggled to maintain their community, autonomy, and land between 1780 and 1825. Dennis begins by describing the dangerous chaos that shook western New York in the wake of the Revolutionary War. He then analyzes the message and effects of the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, including connections to the Second Great Awakening, and provides a nuanced view of how witch hunting before, during, and after served as "a unified defense of Seneca integrity and sovereignty." Next, the author examines the connections that the tribe developed with Quaker missionaries, who proved useful partly by providing needed technology and education and partly by acting as a "firebreak" against other, less compliant missionaries, but mostly by supporting the Senecas in their fight against efforts by the Ogden Land Company and the State of New York to take their land and autonomy. The book seems disjointed because of the separate Handsome Lake and Quaker-focused sections, but that is outweighed by its analysis of Seneca social and cultural change and continuity, and its examination of the connections between the tribe and the surrounding US culture. Summing Up:Recommended. All levels/libraries. -- D. R. Mandell, Truman State University

God in America Alongside the Myth of American Religous Freedom

Paul Harvey

I'm working up a more coherent response to the God in America series, and hope to have that up soon. Over at Killling the Buddha, Nathan Schneider is live-blogging the series (last part is tonight), with Stephen Prothero (a major commentator on the series) and others joining in the fun, so check that out if you want to chat about the show while watching it.

For those of you (I'm talking to you pesky scholars here, especially, but others will be interested) annoyed at something of fundamental importance missing in the series, or of the treatment given to some individual or episode, make sure to check out the full website accompanying the series. It's full of detail, and presents a more complex and satisfying narrative than is possible in a documentary that, of necessity, has to distill and narrate in very broad strokes. For those of you wanting to use clips from the film for class, the author interviews, background stories, and further narrative provided in the "study guide" available at the website will be indispensable in enriching students' understanding. As some have noted here, this is basically a series about religion and public life (that's the subtitle to the series, in fact), but it could certainly be used as a springboard to lead students to explore other avenues of religious expression (music, art, interior experiences, religion and the body, and numerous others) that the film does not attempt to cover at the same level it devotes to the "intersections" of religion and public life.

As it happens, I'm watching the series while having just finished David Sehat's forthcoming book (out this January from Oxford) The Myth of American Religious Freedom, and Sarah Barringer Gordon's The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America. If God in America is basically a story of religious liberty and freedom and their effects on religion in public life (and is at times, as John Fea writes below, a pretty Whiggish version of that story), Sehat's and Gordon's books taken together tell a story of the coercive nature of what Sehat calls the "moral establishment," and the struggles of religious dissenters (including in David's book the abolitionists, Stanton and early feminists, Mormons, progressive intellectuals, and others; and in Gordon's book everyone from the Jehovah's Witnesses to Elijah Muhammad to Beverely LaHaye and the Concerned Women of America to gay religious activists arguing on behalf of same-sex marriage) to articulate a fundamentally different vision of freedom than that establishment wanted to allow. Taken together, both of them present a kind of intellectual and social history of how people dealt with the abstract concept of religious freedom from the Founders down to the 2000s. They are both dealing with a basic contrast in what Gordon calls legal (or "technical") constitutionalism versus popular constitutionalism, and with the broad forces that have fundamentally altered constitutional "regimes" in different periods of American history. I hope in the future to post here an author interview with Sehat, and further thoughts of my own on the social history of what "religious freedom" has meant in American history, a subject I aim to write a book about one of these days.

I've blogged a bit before about Gordon's work, which is out and available from Harvard (having now read the book, I commend it to you wholeheartedly; apart from the intellectual content, it's really a fun read, and to say that it covers a "big tent" of fascinating and often ornery and cantankerous characters is putting it mildly).

As for Sehat's book, he's been producing a series of blog posts over at U.S. Intellectual History, where he outlines and develops some of his themes. His posts are a real intellectual treat, so check them out as a preview of the book; here's a brief description from Oxford:

In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom , Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

It's been a fascinating exercise comparing and contrasting the vision presented in these two wonderful books alongside the (mostly) more optimistic story spun out in the film. It's sort of an exercise in narrative and counter-narrative. More on that in the coming days.

Moorish Body Builder and Blood Purifier: From New Contributor Emily Clark!

Welcome to our new contributor Emily Clark! Emily is no stranger here, having tried her hand at a little blogging about the 5th anniversary of Katrina. Emily Clark is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion at Florida State University and the current managing editor for the Journal of Southern Religion. Her interests lie in the intersections of race, religion, and everyday life in the American South, particularly in the lives of women in New Orleans.

“Contains No Harmful Drugs”

by Emily Clark

Amassing pieces of material culture from American religion is a hobby of mine. My older sister collects thimbles from various times and places, while I prefer to build a more quirky and eclectic collection. I own a pack of “After the Rapture” mints aimed “for those of us not going anywhere,” and I gaze upon my officemate’s “Buddy Christ” from the movie Dogma with jealousy. While writing a paper last spring semester on the Moorish Science Temple’s Moorish Manufacturing Corporation, my curiosity about the curative and therapeutic products increasingly grew. Though Noble Drew Ali founded the MMC in 1927 and the products largely disappeared after his death, I found a temple in Brooklyn that still sold his teas and tonics. About two weeks ago, my purchase arrived.

Having ordered the Moorish Body-Builder and Blood Purifier with no online description, I was eager to see what exactly I had bought. Containing “No Harmful Drugs,” the label informs the consumer that Noble Drew Ali developed this particular tea to alleviate “rheumatism, lung trouble, run down constitution, indigestion, and loss of manhood.” For the consumption of men, women, and children, the tea is made with “the purest natural herbs.” Inside the box, the loose tea was packaged in a zip-lock sandwich bag. Curious enough, considering their proscription of alcohol, the suggested dose is “one wine glass full, twice daily.” In the maintenance of their bodily purity and good health, MST followers were willing to appropriate non-Moorish tools, from glassware to advertising forums. Advertisements for MMC Products could be found in late 1920s editions of the MST’s newspaper Moorish Guide and in the secular newspaper the Chicago Defender, next to notices for local fortune-tellers, “Mystic Arabian Oil,” and “Oriental Magic Loadstones.”

Though largely overlooked in the historiography on the MST, the products of the MMC offer another method of exploring the Temple’s early days and the everyday life of its adherents. In Edward Curtis’ chapter on the MST in his recent co-edited volume The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religion, he briefly calls attention to the similarities between southern African American traditions of Conjure and the material culture products of the MMC. This proposal is historically plausible and compelling; though, Curtis does not take this idea further. In terms of form, function, and context, a familial resemblance exists between the practices of root-work and Noble Drew Ali’s products. By means of religious knowledge, both attempt to heal black bodies through engagement of both the physical body and spiritual identity. Noble Drew Ali’s vision for “a clean and pure nation” had a material and corporeal grounding in the men, women, and children composing the Moorish race. In the MST’s material culture and theology, the body, spirit, and race impact and influence one other.

The Soul Destroying Poison of the East; or, Why I'll Assume the Savasana Posture while Watching Mad Men

Paul Harvey

I’ve been meaning to get back to doing some yoga, something I did in years past, as a supplement to my normal exercise diet of web-surfing, Netflix-watching, fantasy-football-playing, and martini-glass-lifting. Every time I think of doing so, however, the same chilling thought comes to mind: what will Matt Sutton say? All the trash talk sure to come my way via my gmail from said Sutton should I announce my resumption of yoga as my spiritual discipline and complaining about how I can’t even hold the “Warrior Pose” for more than five seconds, pins me to my chair.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m lazy and would rather just stick to my normal exercise diet, as described above. I report, you decide.

Yoga, and the nexus of yoga with religion, physical fitness, commerce, and sex in America has received much attention lately, probably due to the appearance of a number of recent books detailing the history of the yoga

phenomenon. In this week’s New York Times Book Review (which, startlingly, actually had a number of well-written and engaging reviews which dealt at length and seriously with the subject matter at hand by people who knew something about the subject beforehand -- if only this would be more the norm), Pankaj Mishra reviews Stefanie Syman’s The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, and Robert Love’s The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America. Barbara Spindel also has a nice review of both works together here. Love focuses more on Pierre Bernard, described by Mishra as “one of the first of many indefatigable charlatans who popularized yoga.” Read the reviews for more fascinating detail on yoga’s Elmer Gantry.

Syman’s work follows a broader track, beginning with the influence of Indian philosophy on the Transcendentalists:

Both Emerson and Thoreau admired the “Bhagavad-Gita”; Emerson’s Oversoul resembles the Brahman, the all-inclusive, all-pervading Self of the Upanishads. However, neither Emerson nor Thoreau knew much about the physical-fitness side of yoga. The earliest Indian vendors of spirituality, like Swami Vivekananda, who lectured on Hinduism at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, looked down on the asanas, or poses, of hatha yoga as a defective path to yoga’s goal: the union of the individual self with the divine Self.

Syman then follows the appearance of Indian religious figures at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893, the struggles of yoga teachers and practitioners through the era of immigration restriction, and finally to the post-1945 recovery of yoga in America and its explosion with the counterculture and intense commercialization afterwards.

The story may appear to be a familiar one: the marketing of yet another religious tradition, and its watering down into a convenient calorie-burner for people on the go. Or at least for people who can tune out and turn off long enough to do so.

That’s certainly part of it, but Mishra points out that religious traditions, no matter how ancient, are always more mixed up than this, and that contemporary Americans were hardly the first to bring together religion, exercise, commerce, and sex:

The image of incorrigibly individualist and materialist Americans rummaging through ancient cultures in search of eternal youth, beauty and self-gratification has long provoked scorn. “Yoga in Mayfair or Fifth Avenue,” Carl Jung sternly declared, “is a spiritual fake.” But such a fetish of the “authentic” assumes that people in the country of yoga’s origin have upheld a timeless and unchanging yoga rather than practicing what Wendy Doniger, the distinguished historian of Hinduism, calls the world’s greatest “have your rice cake and eat it” religion.

It was in India that the tradition of Tantrism first exalted the human body as the source of this-worldly liberation. The generation of semi-Westernized Indians who brought about the renaissance of yoga in the early 20th century were themselves syncretists, combining ideas from both East and West. Even the physical aspects that dominate yoga today are partly reimports from the West. T. Krishnamacharya (the South Indian teacher of Indra Devi), B. K. S. Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois borrowed from gymnastic postures introduced to India by British colonialists.

Reading all this may be just enough to get me back into the bikram studio just down the street (everyone, promise not to tell Sutton). For now, it’s time to assume the savasana (corpse) posture on my lounger, take the first previous sip of an appropriately dry martini, and fire up some Mad Men. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

A Man Vs. Wild Kind of Christianity

By Michael J. Altman

Jesus didn't tap, but he did like to go hang out in the wilderness.  So does Bear Grylls.  Grylls is the star of Man Vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel.  If you haven't seen it, the basic idea is simple.  Take a witty, fit, and good-looking guy with an accent, give him a pair of cargo pants and a stick of gum, then drop him off in the middle of nowhere and watch him try not to die while cameras document it.  It's awesome.  Really.

Grylls recently did an interview with Relevant, an evangelical magazine for "savvy, spiritual, 20somethings."  In contrast to Art's post about macho Christianity, the Grylls story offers a different sort of male Christian role model.  Grylls describes his faith as simple and thinks of his relationship with God as a feeling of being "home" or being "held."  As the story puts it:

“What does it mean? It’s about being strengthened. It’s about having a backbone run through you from the Person who made you. It’s about being able to climb the biggest mountains in the world with the Person who made them. 

”When it comes to faith, life and survival, Grylls isn’t one to complicate things. Overthinking, overanalyzing ... it’s the stuff that gets you killed.

Grylls' view of the Christian life, like Billy Sunday and other macho men of God, emphasizes simplicity.  It doesn't require much thought to hit the sawdust trail, nor does it overthinking help you catch a wild rabbit.  Real Christian men just react.  Real Christian men also have strength.  But Gryll's strength isn't the Billy Sunday or Jason David Frank brand.  Rather, it's more Henry David Thoreau or Thomas Merton.  It's about personal achievement and self-realization.  It's about climbing mountains, fording rivers, and fishing instead of overpowering the world for Christ.  It's about survival instead of conquest.

This simplicity of faith in Jesus stands in stark contrast to "religion."

“I remember having one moment when some really good friends turned their back on me in a really nasty way,” Grylls says. “And I remember praying a simple prayer up a tree one evening and saying, ‘God, if you’re like I knew you as a kid, would you be that friend again?’ And it was no more complicated than that. And actually the amazing thing is that all God asks is that we sort of open the door and He’ll do the rest. So often we kinda hide behind our yearning for love and acceptance with loads of complicated theological questions, and actually once that’s stripped away what we really are is just somebody who wants to have that relationship with your Father.”

Grylls says there was something comforting about realizing Jesus wasn’t all about religion—that Jesus was, in fact, “the least religious person you’ll meet.”

“Jesus never said, ‘I’ve come so you can feel smart and proper and smiley and religious,’” Grylls says.  “[Faith] is about finding life and joy and peace."

This split between Jesus and religion fascinates me.  In the early 19th century American Christians tended to think of "religion" in terms of "true Religion" (Christianity) and the rest--usually four groups (Muslims, Jews, and Pagans/Heathens).  By the early 20th century "religion" was a category within which Christianity fell alongside another ten to half-dozen religions (suddenly we have Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto etc.)  Now, in the early 21st century I hear more and more (usually evangelical) Christians claiming that Jesus wasn't religious at all--in fact true Christianity isn't about religion--it's about a relationship with Jesus.  I'm not spiritual, or religious, I'm with Jesus.

So, this kinder gentler masculine Christianity emphasizes simplicity, a personal realization, and a personal relationship with Jesus.  But at the end of the article, there's one more piece added to the puzzle.  Grylls is a family man.

His family consists of his wife, Shara, who he met while training to climb Mt. Everest, and his three sons, Jesse, Marmaduke and Huckleberry—the last of which was born this past year on their houseboat....Grylls also points to their shared faith as a critical element in their marriage. “We’ve been married almost 10 years, and that’s been a great glue to our family, actually. I look back now and I think it’d be really hard without that faith together—that sustained us.

We've suddenly taken a turn toward a Promise Keepers rally.  This is the final section of the story and, I think, it acts a landing spot for the 20something reader.  Here's where it's all headed--a monogamous marriage with another Christian and a house full of kids with names that are original yet still somewhat suburban in flavor.  A real Christian man is a father, and not in that Hank Hill kind of way, more like that guy you see in the park with the toddler in the hiking backpack eating a Clif Bar (full disclosure: I am that guy in the park).

I've been riffing on various sections of the story because  I do they point to some interesting confluences in today's young Christian circles.  A simple, individualized, family-friendly, good-looking, anti-"religion", Christian-Nature spirituality is quite appealing.  Jim Wallace and Russell Moore point this out in some ways. The Emergent church movement and figures like Rob Bell (who has a video where he's the guy with the hiking backpack) and Don Miller also appeal to this young conservative Christian demographic.  The whole Gryll's article is a stream with flows from Transcendentalism, Evangelicalism, Promise Keepers, muscular Christianity, and Graham's "Make a decision for Christ today" revivalism.  CNN's Belief Blog, however, saw a whole different set of religious ancestors for Grylls in their post about the story:

The Bible is full of prophets having visions while they’re wandering alone in the deserts. John the Baptist didn’t eat yak eyeballs but he did eat locusts. The Prophet Mohammed received his revelation in a mountain cave. The Buddha received enlightenment under a bodhi tree.

As I see it, Gryll's is just another example of confluence or "combinativeness," as Cathy Albanese would put it, in American religion and American Christianity.  This is a confluence that isn't necessarily fully thought out or self-selected.   I don't think Grylls went out and thought about becoming this sort of masculine Christian, nor do I think Relevant sought to portray him this way.  This isn't Sheila-ism.  It's something more organic and more accidental. It's like religious run-off making its way into a creek of spirituality and carrying all sorts of cultural flotsam with it.  What to call it, though? Perhaps Bear-ism?

Constructing Religion in the SC Governor's Race

By Michael J. Altman

This is a cross-post from my nameless other blog.

For me, religion will always be constructed in South Carolina.  As an undergraduate at the College of Charleston I became fascinated with the category or "religion" and began the long road toward a career studying it.  Now, I look back to the Palmetto state again and see the ways the current race for governor is reconstructing Christianity and religion.  Peter Hambly has written a great piece probing into the role Nikki Haley's religious identity is playing in the race.  In the wake of being slurred a "raghead" by state senator Jake Knotts, Haley has pushed into a primary runoff that many believe she will win.

Haley is a second generation Indian-American whose parents are Sikh, who self-identifies as a Christian, grew up in South Carolina, and even picked up a Southern accent along the way.  It's the tension between all of these layers of her identity that is beginning to draw curiosity and interest.  As Hambly notes, Haley attends both Methodist and Sikh services, especially with her parents and extended family.  This inter-religious practice is leaving some evangelicals in South Carolina uneasy:

Ray Popham, pastor of Oasis Church International in Aiken, said Haley's religion is a "big topic" among his congregants, who have posted notes about her religion on Facebook and have lately approached  him for advice about the governor's race.

 "She claims to be a Christian but also attends a Sikh temple and was married in a Sikh ceremony, so a lot of people can't figure how you can claim both," Popham told CNN. "I think she needs to be straight      up with people, if she is both. If she believes that you can be both, then she should say that up front."

Tony Beam, the interim pastor of Mount Creek Baptist church in Greenville, hosts a radio show called "Christian Worldview Today." He recently posed a question to his listeners: Is Nikki Haley being           honest about her faith?

Beam said several callers were not sure if Haley had completely abandoned her Sikh beliefs.

What immediately jumps out to me in the midst of this kerfuffle is that there are various understandings of what counts as religion and as Christianity flying around.  For most conservative evangelicals their religious identity centers around belief.  The belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus is what makes one a Christian.  Yes, there are other things that make one an evangelical Christian but they tend to center around correct belief.  It's all about orthodoxy.  But what about other religious cultures?  This focus on right belief--on an orthodox religion--doesn't translate across cultures.  The Sikhism of Nikki Haley's family is more about orthopraxy.  That is, it is about correct practice.  You do things because they are what you do.  To be Sikh is to do the things a Sikh does first and foremost.

Indian religions have sometimes struggled to adapt to an American religious landscape that emphasizes meaning and belief over ritual and practice.  As a white guy visiting Hindu temples in North Carolina I've often noticed how practitioners there felt the need to try and explain their religious practices to me, mostly through references to Christian symbols and meanings, when such explanations wouldn't happen in India.

I really have no interest in deciding whether or not Haley is a good Methodist or a good Sikh, or whether she's religious at all.  What these questions about Haley's religiosity point out, however, is the ways our public definitions of religion are generally shallow and Christian at bottom.  They are about what one believes first, and what one does only matters insofar as it can be grounded in doctrine or explanation.  The problem with focusing on right belief is that you can never be sure.  It is impossible to really know what someone believes and so there are always anxieties and questions of authenticity.  That's what lies behind much of this discussion of Haley's religion.  Is she authentic?  I don't know nor do I think that it is an important question.   I'm more interested in what gets lost in translation between Anglo-American Christian notions of orthodoxy and Indian forms of orthopraxy.

The New American Ganges: Hinduism and Health in American Religious History

Today's post comes from our newest contributor to the blog, Michael J. Altman! Michael is a Ph.D. student in American Religious Culture at Emory University, where he researches the American encounter with Hinduism, and more broadly constructions of the category of the sacred in American religious history. Michael's first post, below, concerns the connections made in the 19th century between Asian religions and the spread of disease, versus more contemporary conceptions of the connections of Asian religions and health. Welcome to Michael! You can also follow Michael on Twitter: @MichaelJAltman.

Cholera, India, and Religious Epidemiology in America

Michael J. Altman

Today is the end of the Kumbh Mela—a Hindu festival held every three years—which means millions of Hindus are bathing in the Ganges river at the City of Haridwar to cleanse themselves of their wrong doing in order to achieve moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirth). What does this have to do with religion in America? Or American history, even?

Glad you asked.

I recently came across a handful of articles in the Chicago Medical Examiner, and a few other medical journals from the late nineteenth century which argued that this same ritual bathing at Haridwar would lead to a cholera outbreak in the United States.

As one 1868 article from John C. Peters, M.D. of New York puts it:

“There is a great nursery of cholera in the northern part of Hindostan, at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains, viz., at HURDWAR, where the thrice sacred Ganges emerges from the mountains…The largest of all the Hindoo festivals and fairs is held at Hurdwar every year…but every twelfth year, which is particularly holy, as man as 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 of devotees and traders are often crowded together…As a matter of course, cholera is often brought to Hurdwar; often originates there; and is frequently carried away from it.”

The article then goes on to explore how various 19^th century epidemics of cholera began at Haridwar and then spread to Europe. While many of the explanations focus on trade routes, a lot of them also focus on religious practices as the spreading disease. Hindu pilgrims spread the disease throughout the subcontinent and then Muslim pilgrims spread it across Russia and the Near East. As the story goes, it then spreads to southern Europe, then to Western Europe and then possibly to the United States.

The relationship between Hinduism, Islam, and southern (Catholic) Europe to the spread of cholera brings three points to mind regarding American religious history.

First, the connection between “superstitious” or “heathen” religious practice and disease highlights the relationship on the other hand between Christianity and rational Western medicine. All of the writers in these journals doctors and Protestants and the two are intimately connected.

Second, the spread of disease tracks along a religious/cultural/ethnic hierarchy from the lowest, “heathen India,” through the Muslim Middle East and Catholic Italy to Christian Europe to the highest, democratic and Protestant America, that reflects the ethnological theory of the period. At this point in American history, non-Christian religions were not only encountered through a missionary lens but also through this pseudo-scientific, ethnic, and racial lens as well. Furthermore, this religiously flavored epidemiology is another way of thinking through the connection Thomas Nast makes in his cartoon “The New American Ganges” between Catholic ritual and Indian religion.

,

Finally, these articles provide the background against which later nineteenth century encounters with Asian religions in America would occur. Vivekananda and members of the Brahmo Samaj could have moderate success at the World’s Parliament of Religions because their Hinduism looked nothing like this ritualized, disease spreading, “superstition.”

A century later, Asian religions would provide resources for new forms of spiritual and religious healing. That move from disease to health reveals a lot about the success of the turn of the twentieth century Indian gurus like Vivekananda and his 1960s progeny. Now, ideas about health and Hinduism in America tend more toward ideas about Transcendental Meditation than communicable diseases like cholera.

The View from Pachgatgoch (or, Why Moravians are Still Sexy)

Linford D. Fisher

Moravians are about as exotic as early American history can ever hope to be. And, seemingly, I cannot stop writing about them. Officially, they are not part of my research agenda, but books about them mysteriously appear on my shelves, squeeze their way onto my course reading lists, and land in my mailbox for possible review. This past January, once again, I found myself immersed in the world of early American Moravians as I picked my way through the 1300 hundred pages that comprise one of the most recent publications related to Moravians in early America: an enormous two-volume translation of the German diaries of the Moravian mission in Pachgatgoch, Connecticut, translated and edited by husband and wife team William A. Starna and Corinna Dally-Starna, titled, Gideon’s People: Being a Chronicle of an American Indian Community in Colonial Connecticut and the Moravian Missionaries Who Served There (2009). The diaries span from 1747 through 1763, even though the mission officially started in 1743 and was maintained on and off until 1770. My official evaluation of the volumes will be forthcoming in the New England Quarterly later this year, but the diaries themselves prompted more reflection that I could possibly fit into a book review, so I thought I’d share some of the overflow here.

First and foremost, reading through these diaries reminded me of the surprising religious and ethnic diversity of western Connecticut. Pachgatgoch was in many ways at the crossroads of empire and a place of multiple, overlapping religious regions and ethnicities. Runaway Africans and Indians along with Indian preachers from other parts of the colony drift in and out of Pachgatgoch. EuroAmericans (mostly English and Dutch), likewise, surface in the diaries as inquisitive visitors: Presbyterians, Anglicans, New Lights, Old Lights, Baptists, Separates, Quakers, seekers, and even the occasional Jew or two come to figure out the Moravians and—at times, even try to join them. Peering into the Pachgatgoch records is almost like peeking behind the curtain at a show or performance, or into the basement or attic of a host's house: you find some unexpected things that belie the official presentation. Whatever we might take to be the “center” of religious history in the colonies, these records serve as a warning against privileging too much the urban coastal centers.

Secondly, I was deeply impressed with the intensely intertwinedness of Indian and non-Native lives. Labor is of course the most familiar point of overlap (discussed below), but Indians also routinely cleared out of Pachgatgoch to party all night with their Anglo neighbors. The most frequently recurring (and railed against) example of this is the annual day of post-harvest thanksgiving in the colony. It was an “old custom” of the Indians, according to the Moravians, to go and celebrate late into the night with their “good friends” the white people. Joachim Sensemann let the Pachgatgoch know in no uncertain terms that he “would be pleased if they stayed nicely at home”—to no effect, of course. Not only were Indians out in colonial homes working (and boozing it up), in towns selling brooms, baskets, bowls, and spoons, but colonists were also constantly visiting the small Indian town. In addition to almost daily, more mundane visits by colonial neighbors, on at least two occasions the Anglo congregants of local English minister Cyrus Marsh came to the Moravians’ Sunday services at Pachgatgoch when Marsh was sick or out of town. By the late 1750s, non-Indian attendance at Moravian Indian services was so frequent that it prompted exasperation on the part of Moravian missionaries, who worked hard to shield the Pachgatgoch from outside influences. So ubiquitous were the colonists even on most weekdays that Moravian missionary Johann Mack reported with surprise in 1761 that he had not seen a “white” person for almost four days.

Thirdly, in reading these records, I was reminded of the politicized nature of Indian evangelism at the edges of empire. Not only were the Moravian missionaries arrested and placed on trial in Milford, Connecticut, in 1743 under deep suspicion of being Catholic spies trying to woo local Indians into a military alliance against New England Protestants, but they were subsequently banned from Connecticut for a full six years. Even after they returned, rumors circulated for the next decade that they were supplying the French with powder and shot. (I grappled with some of these issues in an NEQ essay from Sept. 2009.) Over time local colonists grew to accept the Moravians more and more, and even the minister of nearby Kent, Connecticut, cannot seem to forgive himself for not defending the Moravians when they were placed on trial (his excuse was that he had been temporarily swayed against the Moravians by Gilbert Tennent’s 1743 anti-Moravian tract, Some Account of the Principles of the Moravians).

Fourthly, I’ll admit to receiving new insight into the way that drunkenness actually functioned in Native communities. Everyone knows that the drunken Indian quickly became a colonial Indian stereotype; less often discussed are the ways in which drunken men (usually) not only offended EuroAmerican religious sensibilities but also brought tangible fear and physical danger to Indian families and communities. According to the Moravians, at least, drunken Indian men routinely got abusive enough that women and children fled into the woods overnight or to the Moravians’ houses to escape the violent outrages of their husbands, brothers, and sons. In short, drunkenness was a very real social threat for Indians themselves in this period; it was not just something missionaries denounced in fits of cultural arrogance. I knew this, of course, but somehow these records made this more tangible.

Fifthly, the centrality of free and unfree labor for Indians and Africans alike in this period cannot be overstated. My suspicions that debt and labor profoundly shaped much of Indian-African-colonist relations were confirmed by the stories in these volumes. Just one example of this was a colonist who was owed money by a Moravian Indian, marched into Pachgatgoch and, when he couldn’t find the Indian who owed him money, instead randomly kidnapped two Indian children and sold them for profit as servants/slaves.

Sixthly, and lastly, these records confirm, once again, the difficulty of any single group in bringing about the desired religious and cultural transformation in Indian communities. The last few years of the diaries drip with a familiar declension narrative in which the drinking, sexual promiscuity, and religious indifference of Natives spins out of control. The harder the Moravians try to reform specific cultural habits (not clothing Native children, for example), the less the Pachgatgoch respond. The curious thing is, of course, that many Pachgatgoch do continue as Moravian Indian Christians well past the official closing of the mission. Some move to Pennsylvania and some remain in New York and/or Connecticut, but the perceived failure of the Moravians does not always translate into a total abandonment of Christianity by the Pachgatgoch.

In short, the Moravians are still sexy for a reason. These volumes are well worth the hefty price you pay either by purchasing them or lugging them home from the library (plus, you’ll look cool and cutting-edge carrying anything with “Moravian” in the title). The issues raised are numerous and enlightening, and for that we owe Starna and Dally-Starna a big thanks.

Islam in America: An Interview with Jane Smith

Paul Harvey

As many of you know, Columbia University Press has an excellent series of books on religious denominations/traditions in America -- the Columbia Contemporary Traditions in America series. There are 12 volumes in the series to date, including Thomas Hamm's Quakerism in America, Sarah Pike's New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, Richard Seager's Buddhism in America, Bill Leonard Baptists in America, and several others.

Jane I. Smith's Islam in America, originally published several years ago, has been released now in a second edition; and of course the subject could hardly be more timely. Another good resource, linked to the photo above, is a Speaking of Faith program from 2006, "Hearing Muslim Voices Since 9/11."

The new edition of Smith's text adds a focus on events affecting Islam in America since 9/11. Here's a brief description:

This richly textured, critically acclaimed portrait of American Muslims introduces the basic tenets of the Muslim faith, surveys the history of Islam in North America, and profiles the lifestyles, religious practices, and worldviews of Muslims in the United States. The volume focuses specifically on the difficulty of living faithfully and adhering to tradition while adapting to an American way of life and addresses the role of women in Muslim culture, the raising and education of children, appropriate dress and behavior, and incidences of prejudice and unfair treatment. The second edition of Islam in America features a new chapter on post-9/11 realities, which covers infringements on civil rights and profiling, participation in politics, transformations in Islamic law, pluralism and identity issues, foreign influences, anti-Islamic sentiment, intra-Islamic tensions, and the quest for a moderate Islam.

I'm very pleased today to feature an interview with the author of this work, Jane I. Smith, who is Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School. My thanks to Professor Smith for her excellent work and for her participation in this blog-interview.
_____________________________________________________________________

PH: How originally did you come to write the first edition of Islam in America?

JS: To be frank, a friend was offered the task by Columbia. She was overloaded, so asked if I would consider it. Since I had already taught much of the material that could be included in such a book it seemed to be not too daunting a task. As it turned out, of course, it did in fact take a lot of time. But I felt it was time very well spent, and in succeeding years I have drawn from the material in the book to illustrate points I wanted to make in other classes.

PH: What has changed from the first to the second edition?

JS: The most striking change came with the events of 9/11, the effects of that tragedy on American views of Islam, and the many ways in which Muslims have moved from the private to the public arena in America as they have tried to show that Islam is not a religion of violence. In the book I have highlighted the huge difference that that single morning has made for Muslims in America. Along with the aftershock of the horror and the ensuing increase in anti-Muslim prejudice have come some very good things as Muslims find ways to affirm Islam as a religion that they claim with great pride. While the American public has registered increasing concern about Islam, it is also true that a number of striking attempts have been made by non-Muslims to support their Muslim friends and bring them into open discussion of the commonalities that religious people in America share.

PH: What are the most important one or two things you think readers should know about Islam in America?

JS: The single most important fact, in my opinion, is that never at any place in the history of the world have there been so many different kinds of Muslims represented – racial/ethnically, nationally, culturally and in terms of sectarian affiliation. At the same time there is something that binds them together as Muslims. To define what constitutes that something is a continuing project for the different Muslim communities in America.

PH: How do you understand the association of Islam in America with recent acts of violence and to what decree do you think the media has influenced public response to Islam through its coverage of “spectacular” events such as the shooting at Fort Hood?

JS: Since 9/11 Muslims have been vehement in their denial that the Qur’an sanctions unfettered violence and have insisted on the essential peaceful nature of the scripture and the religion. Nonetheless, violent acts happen (and some are successfully thwarted) in the name of Islam with some regularity. One of the most helpful ways in which Muslims are addressing this issue is to return to the task of re-interpreting the Qur’an. Many are dissociating themselves with the exclusivist and punitive understandings of certain Qur’anic texts that have characterized medieval writings and continue to be influential today. Most Muslims insist that Americans must understand that radicalism represents only a tiny minority of Muslims, especially in this country. Nonetheless, since the first edition of Islam in America it seems that America itself has become a breeding ground for certain kinds of violent expressions of Islam, a development that should not be ignored. It is not the media and their presentations that I worry about as much as the thoughtless talking and blogging on the part of ill-informed people as well as the anti-Islamic literature being generated by some members of the Christian right.

PH: To what degree do you think Islam will change/adapt/evolve, if at all, to the competitive and pluralistic American environment?

JS: Muslims would argue, with some validity, that Islam itself never changes. They will be the first to admit, however, that Muslims do change and that Muslim communities have always found ways in which to adapt to new environments. The fact that many Muslims, especially women, have assumed roles of public responsibility and are both speaking and acting in ways that demonstrate what being Muslims means to them is a remarkable change. Muslims are participating in the political system of America, are finding new ways in which to conduct their financial business in light of Islamic legal restrictions, are constructing new schools and challenging the system of public education, and in many other ways are acting differently than they might have in the cultures in which they or their families originated. Some are even thinking not only of what it means to be Muslim in America, but what it means to be religious (together with Christians, Jews and others) in a society that defines itself as secular.

PH: Should Black Muslims be seen as one variant within the broader “family” of Islam, or as something different?

JS: First, I would recommend strongly that the term “Black Muslims” not be used as it connotes different things to different people. Initially it referred to the Nation of Islam. Then when in 1975 Elijah Muhammad’s son Wallace, later to be known as Warith Deen Mohammed, moved most of the members of the Nation into mainstream Sunni Islam the Nation remained as a very small group. Black Muslims was used by some to mean all African Americans who are Muslim, and by others to that small remnant of Nation members. Today the Nation of Islam is the group that until very recently was headed by Louis Farrakhan, and other African American Muslims have different kinds of identification. African American Muslims are Sunnis, Shi’ites, Sufis, orthodox, heterodox and most everything else. Therefore I would simply say that they are part of what makes up the totality of Islam in all of its racial-ethnic and cultural varieties.

PH: What are your thoughts about the future of Islam in America?

JS: Most indicators are that Islam will continue to grow in American soil, though not at the rate sometimes projected. Factors such as immigration, revitalization of urban communities, and conversion will certainly play a role. Demonization of Islam most probably will continue as a result of many different factors, including the politics of fear. But I don’t see that fear-mongering will threaten the continued existence, and growth, of the religion here. Efforts currently being put forth by many American Muslims to demonstrate their commitment to being full members of American society, with pride in their country, are paying off in terms of greater understanding and acceptance of the faith despite isolated threats. Americans in general struggle with what it means to be a multi-faith society, and Muslims struggle to define what a distinctive American Islam might really look like. But it seems clear that Islam is here to stay, and that “Blessed Ramadan” will probably come to sound as familiar as “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah.”

PH: What are some of the most important points that you, Yvonne Haddad, and Kathleen Moore made in your 2006 Muslim Women in America (Oxford)?

JS: In this book we tried to show the many ways in which Muslim women in America are contributing to the definition of American Islam, not only in their roles as wives and mothers but in the public realm. We looked at why some women choose to convert to Islam, the roles of women in the practice of the faith, how women participate in the public space in a great variety of roles, and Muslim women activists in academia and a variety of other professions. The main point of the book is that women are not the passive creatures often portrayed as being at the mercy of their husbands, but are full participants in Muslim religious life and in American society in general.