Beck's Long Goodbye

Kelly Baker



On this past Thursday night, Glenn Beck said goodbye to Fox News and television sets, and hello to GBTV, his internet news channel. Here's a recap of the last show involving Jon Stewart, Hitler, and God. Over at Religion Dispatches, I editorialize about his departure, his legacy of history-making, and his brand of nationalism. Here's a glimpse:

Much of the coverage concludes that Beck is, at best, “bonkers.” Alex Pareene of Salon.com, however, realizes that perhaps this is not “some sort of victory”; that leaving Fox is not the end of Beck, but rather that his legacy might not be as a talking head but as an amateur historian, the creator of Beck University, with a clear, and popular, articulation of nation. The tagline for BU promises, “learn history as it really happened” with David Barton responsible for courses labeled Faith 101, 102, and 103, in which students can (of course) learn about the faith of the Founding Fathers.

Beck’s mantle of telling history like it really “was” is packaged, glossy, and consumed. Yet this mantle, or even legacy, does not solely belong to him. The struggle to reclaim the nation, or “restore honor,” began long before he, the John Birch Society, Joseph McCarthy and the like joined it in the mid-twentieth century. Americans, from the Reconstruction Klan in the 1860s, the Know Nothings of the 1890s to the second Klan of the 1910s and 1920s, to home-grown Christian fascists of the 1930s, sought to protect a nation in peril from any perceived threat, be it Catholic, Jew, African American, or Communist.

How Oprah Became a Messiah: Prophet and Profit

Paul Harvey

As Oprah departs, to much media coverage, let us turn once more to our contributor Kathryn Lofton for a summing up of "What is Oprah"?

K. Lofton's book Oprah: Gospel of an Icon, has engendered a lengthy, multi-part, fascinating set of responses from numerous other scholars at Immanent Frame, and on the occasion of Oprah's departure from the network airwaves, Lofton's reflections on her career and meaning in the context of American religious history can be found at CNN Belief Blog, in the Los Angeles Times, in the New York Daily News, and in the Washington Post. Over at Killing the Buddha, Nathan Schneider also provides these links as well as a link to his own interview with Lofton, and gives his own thoughts, here.

Perhaps the easiest place to connect in to all this discussion is at the piece at the CNN Belief Blog, where our valued colleague writes:

As she departs from her ritual slot, there will be a vacuum for some. Yet if history has taught us anything, it is that the void will not be left gaping for long. “The false messiah is as old as the hope for the true Messiah,” wrote Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig. “He is the changing form of this changeless hope.”

Oprah represented humanity’s ceaseless interest in spiritual responses to personal problems. We now live in her world: one of first-person confessions, required makeovers, and spiritual consumption.

The measure of her consequence will be not in whether or not she mattered to you, but whether the world you occupy looks more like hers than you know.

Rapture Ready (Or Not)

Kelly Baker

While Paul, Chris, and Emily review excellent books in American religious history, I have spent a couple of days basking in the news coverage of the impending Rapture, at least according to the octogenarian Harold Camping and his Family Radio. As many of you likely know (thanks to Emily and Charity or the deluge of media coverage), Camping has proclaimed that the God’s Judgment signaled by the Rapture, the “catching” or “snatching up” of righteous Christians, will occur this Saturday, May 21, 2011. This is not the minister’s first calculation for the beginning of the end (1994), and it will likely not be his last. The beauty of millennialism is not in its rigidity but its malleability and adaptability. Camping fits securely into a long line of doomsday prophets, millennial visionaries, and according to the less gracious, religious hucksters who prey on people’s fears, money, and naiveté. Huckster or not, I don’t really care. Rather, I do care about what Camping’s media-frenzied stint says about the pervasiveness of millennial fervor in North America and the popularity of the vengeful fantasies of judgment that inundate apocalyptic belief, practice, and products.

As someone with an ongoing scholarly obsession with the apocalypse, consumption, and materiality, I am surely following my bliss this week with each mention, web click, Facebook status update, and journalistic attempt to understand the appeal of Camping and his billboard/caravan campaigns. The coverage of the impending Rapture runs the gamut of pet care services for the dogs, cats, and iguanas of the Raptured to Richard Dawkins’ grumpy commentary about said press coverage to Killing the Buddha’s Apocalypse Week 2011 to Salon’s explanation of Camping’s mathematical equations and dating of the end. The coverage ranges from somewhat sympathetic to downright hostile. Some admirably tie Camping a larger history of millennialism in North America, while others declare him a false prophet outright.

In August, I have an article coming out on rapture readiness (seems a little late considering the climate now), in which I document two other sources of Rapture information and practice, the prophecy work of Tim LaHaye and RaptureReady.com to document how the Rapture emerges as not only rhetorical and absent but also material and present. Why, for instance, is there such a thing as rapture practice or rapture pranking?

LaHaye is the co-author of the Left Behind books and avid author of prophecy books including one aptly titled The Rapture, and I have blogged about him before. In the competitive market of prophecy knowledge, LaHaye and the team at RaptureReady.com all deride Camping’s dating of the end. LaHaye notes that Camping has been wrong before and further proclaims:

You can be sure the rapture will not occur when anyone sets a date because God wants us all to live every day as though Christ could come today. A great motto for daily living is PERHAPS TODAY. For one day it will happen and we don't know when, but we don't want you to be left behind!

LaHaye’s reaction to Camping is not really surprising since they have competing visions of the Rapture for Christian consumption. Even RaptureReady.com, the self-proclaimed most visited (Christian) prophecy site on the web, provides a fascinating take down of this particular dating of the Rapture (“we can’t possibly know the date” is the usual refrain). Moreover, the founder Todd Strandberg writes:

In a dubious way, Camping is helping to set the stage for the Rapture. His failed predictions are helping to create the element of apathy that Jesus warned about. I read a report this week that said America is on track to have its most costly year ever for natural disasters. If people knew the Bible, they would understand the likely root cause of these disasters.

Strandberg designed the site to provide Christians, and those who might become Christians, with all the tools they need to become rapture “ready,” which includes belief in God, commitment to Jesus, and righteous action and living. RaptureReady.com houses information on biblical prophecy, readiness, and survival tips for the Tribulation period for those who are unlucky enough to be left behind.

While Camping might appear less credible if the 21^st comes and goes without the Rapture, LaHaye and Strandberg will continue to plug along prophesying an almost-but-not-yet end. I can’t help but wonder whether Camping’s ministry has aided in the sale of the Left Behind series or the web traffic to RaptureReady.com, which posted record-breaking site visits earlier this year. While prophets of doomsday come and go, the idea and artifacts of apocalypse remain. Perhaps, the larger lesson for May 21^st is the fervent wish for the end cannot be tamped down by disappointment or lack but reinvented in another form for another (or a remarkably similar) set of consumers. Rapture or not, just remember the Mayans and the zombies are lurking around the corner for their respective turns at the end.

Judgment Day Approaches... Again

by Charity Carney

This past weekend my husband and I took a much-needed respite before the onslaught of finals week to see a WILCO show (a rockin’ one I might add) in Denton, TX. We drove four hours through the Piney Woods of East Texas up into the DFW area for a little taste of civilization before spending the bulk of our summer cooped up in tiny Nacogdoches. As >we approached the metroplex, I saw evidence of the new apocalyptic fad that has thrown their millenarian lot and quite a few bucks in with Harold Camping, who has predicted that the Rapture will occur next Saturday (May 21). On the side of the road with about a dozen ads of Fergie selling Cherry Dr. Pepper (apparently it’s” smooth,” like her), the group has peppered in its own billboards declaring that the world will end this Saturday and urging passersby to prepare for Judgment Day. There is an excellent user friendly Salon article on the group and its beliefs (anti-orthodoxy/organized religion and End Times theology), which is especially good at describing the principle beliefs behind the Rapture and the way in which Camping has determined the date:

Camping and his affiliates present at least three explanations -- what he refers to as "infallible, absolute proofs" -- for May 21 being the day.

• It's the anniversary of Noah's Flood: A great deal of effort has been made by biblical literalists over the years to identify the exact chronology of the events dictated in the Old Testament. Some scholars, including Camping, adhere to the theory that the Biblical Flood took place on May 21 in the year 4,990 B.C. Then, in Genesis, God told Noah seven days before the Flood to warn people of the impending cataclysm. And Camping posits that this figure, seven days, holds greater significance than meets the eye. According to the biblical passage 2 Peter 3:8, "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Therefore, argues Camping, Rapture should occur 7,000 years after the Flood. And the 7,000th anniversary of the biblical deluge, by his math, falls on May 21, 2011.
• It's the anniversary of Creation ... sort of: Another piece of evidence -- explained by Family Radio affiliate eBibleFellowship -- suggests that the world began in 11,013 B.C., and its 13,000th anniversary came and went in 1988. During that year, apparently on May 21, the end of the "church age" came to pass. Then, a 23-year time of "tribulation" began, during which Satan claimed dominion over all the world's churches. (Camping also supports this notion. He claims that the number "23" -- far from just being a poorly received Jim Carrey film -- also represents "destruction" in biblical symbology.) The end of this particular period of cosmological strife is said to fall on May 21, 2011.
• Divine Numerology: This elaborate line of reasoning first argues that Jesus Christ was killed on April 1 in the year 33 A.D. Using that date, the crucifixion would have occurred exactly 1,978 years and 51 days -- or 722,500 days -- before May 21, 2011. It turns out that 722,500 is also the product of an equation -- (5 x 10 x 17)^2 -- that includes three different numbers of significance, according to Camping. Five means "atonement." Ten indicates "completeness."And 17 signifies "heaven." Thus: Armageddon.

What happens if this Saturday passes with no major supernatural incident? Well, I guess they’ll just have to follow the Millerite example and do some recalculating…

But what’s really interesting about the group is that it taps into some of the themes recently discussed on this blog by writers like Kelly Baker, Paul Harvey, and Randall Stephens. That is, this group like many others has turned to commodification and mass marketing in order to advance their beliefs. While they are tapped into American religious traditions in many ways (disavowing denominationalism, promoting prophecies) they also demonstrate the continued modernization and progression of those traditions--plunging their message into the mainstream with expensive advertising campaigns and widely broadcast shows declaring their steadfast belief in the impending Judgment Day. While American religious groups have certainly evangelized through the air waves and have utilized the market before (Sister Aimee, Billy Sunday, Oral Roberts, Billy Graham….) we seem to have reached a new era in which proselytizing has become even more secularized/reliant on secular media to reach potential converts.

Fortunately for my husband, the hyper-analysis of the billboards only lasted for a couple of hours before I was distracted by pyrotechnics and awesome guitar riffs. And if the Rapture does come next Saturday, at least I can say that the two of us went out with a bang.

Tuesday Merry-Go-Round: From Oprah to Rob Bell to Chick-Fil-A to R. J. Rushdoony's Righter-Than-Thou Economics (And Why They all Matter)

Paul Harvey

If you're like me and pushing your red pen up a Sisyphean pile of papers, you may not have time to get to any of these good reads right away, but I'll put some good stuff to read later for you up here so you can get to it when you can get to it. Yes, it's miscellaneous but good links day here.

First, we've noted here the great set of dialogues going over at Immanent Frame (with 12 substantive and engaging responses now) on Kathryn Lofton's Oprah: Gospel of an Icon. The latest entrant in the conversation is our friend Tracy Fessenden's O Tedious Selfhood, a wonderful and very funny take. A brief taste:

How has the trajectory of American religious history brought us to this place, this Oprah?

A thumbnail history might go like this: The Protestant sanctification of the commonplace, the discovery of divine light in the mundane array of objects and acts taken up by a priesthood of believers, proves a boon to American merchants and clerics alike. As Protestantism finds itself more and more at home in the New World, its religious dispositions and their modes of production become less separable from everyday life—indeed, they come to make up the fabric of everyday life. This means your life. The erstwhile Puritan discipline of self-scrutiny brings the things of the world increasingly into its purview, reading them for the shimmering glint of spiritual favor. Advertising, the most aspiring of evangelical preaching’s bastard offspring, offers the promise of entry into a more charismatic life in exchange for the dissipation of spiritual and economic capital: buy, believe, buy and believe more. Consumer choice and religious option open along the same paths, obscuring relational possibilities and imperatives that might bind you to a particular past, a more circumscribed future, to anything that might constrain the unfolding of your own best life. Women gain ground in the commercial revolution faster and more easily than they wrest standing from church authorities, leaving the latter to play catch-up with the consumer culture they helped to foster. Buy and believe. Find what works for you. Purveyors of spirituals and temporals alike ratchet up the “imperatives of comfort nestling modern women in a language of self-service.” “Self-service,” here, is pitch-perfect: Because you’re worth it. And by the way, you’re on your own. We’re now in Oprah’s world—“a world in which we find alluring the templates to which we are fitted,” as Jason Bivins gorgeously puts it, “a melancholy whose song of empowerment sells us resignation as the hope we know will be dashed.”

Next up, for you American Historical Association members, is Darren Dochuk's piece in the latest Perspectives, the monthly newsletter of the AHA: "Searching Out the Sacred in U.S. Political History." You'll have to be a member to get it online, or track it down in your library, and it's well worth the short read. Accompanying this, by the way, is the new anthology edited by Darren and Michelle Nickerson, Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Place, Space, and Region, another fine volume from the University of Pennsylvania Press' "Politics and Culture in Modern America" series. The volume includes Darren Grem's great piece (which we blogged about here before) "The Marketplace Missions of S. Truett Cathy, Chick-fil-A, and the Sunbelt South," and it also includes a statistical political science-y analysis of "Religion and Political Behavior in the Sunbelt."

And what would a week here at the blog be without a little discussion of hell. We noted before Lauren Winner's take on the Rob Bell Love Wins controversy; I neglected then to note Krista Tippett's take on the same, also in the Washington Post.

Finally, those of you who follow Religion Dispatches will know of Julie Ingersoll's fascinating work there tracing down the significant, if somewhat hidden, influence of Christian Reconstructionism on various aspects of the contemporary right, (she is currently, I believe, writing a book on said subject). See, for example, "Huckabee Channels Rushdoony," and "Reconstructionists Celebrate 'Ruling Over the Earth' Day."

Mark Oppenheimer discusses this further in his piece "Christian Economics Meets the Antiunion Movement," from the New York Times a couple of days ago. Aside from discussing the topic of Gary North's economic views, the article also gives a brief (and funny) history of the dysfunctional family history of "Christian Reconstructionism" from its intellectual godfather R. J. Rushdoony to its contemporary exponent North. If you have no idea what any of this is, here's a very brief summary, from the piece:

Mr. North, who is Mr. Rushdoony’s son-in-law but was not on speaking terms with him from 1981 until Mr. Rushdoony’s death, focuses on how that biblical libertarianism applies to economics. He concluded that the Bible forbids any welfare programs, is opposed to all inflation, and requires a gold-coin standard for money.

Oppenheimer's piece addresses the always difficult historical question of tracing influences. He writes:

Professor Ingersoll concedes it is difficult to prove direct connections between Mr. North’s writings and Wisconsin antiunion conservatism. On the other hand, Mr. North might like to think he has influenced the Wisconsin debate, and he has written in vociferous support of Gov. Scott Walker.

And, as Professor Ingersoll cautions, influence does not always announce itself:

“I like to say, ‘How many Christians know who is Augustine is, and how he influenced them?’ ”

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."

Zombies, Millennialism and Consumption

Kelly Baker

While perusing facebook yesterday, I happened upon a friend's event, entitled "Zombie Apocalypse." The end via shambling, brain-eating zombies is scheduled for December, 22, 2012, so please mark your calendars. It seems that the zombie apocalypse follows very closely behind the Mayan calendar's end on December 21 of the same year (unless you believe new estimates.) What was striking to me was not that such an event existed, since facebook is a world of random events, fandom, and strange pages, but rather the number of people attending said event. According to the event page this morning, 521, 035 people are attending, 80, 798 are maybe attending, and 289, 558 have politely declined their invitation to a gun-toting, gore-filled end. While some might still be shilling for the Mayan apocalypsis, zombies appear to be the vogue way for the world to end.

Zombies have become a sci-fi/horror/fantasy genre staple. From the popularity of AMC's The Walking Dead to Romero's zombies and their legacies in film to Max Brooks's franchise of World War Z and the survival guide to various anthologies (The Living Dead I and II, Zombies, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and my personal favorite Zombies vs. Unicorns), the zombie apocalypse is a cottage industry. While I could reflect on what the zombie apocalypse teaches us about (in)human nature, gore, or the necessity of high power weaponry, I think the more pressing and interesting point for scholars of American religion and popular culture is the pervasiveness of this genre and the continued presence of catastrophic millennialism in American popular culture.

Michael Barkun discusses the "pervasive millennialism" of American culture in which end times theologies and scenarios are popular and consumable. Pervasive millennialism works because of the commodification of these ideas. Do you need to be briefed in the Mayan calendar? Buy this book or dvd. Need to survive zombies on the front step? Please purchase one of the many survival guides, necessary hardware, and stock up with food. Need to ride out the looming end (of any variety)? Please buy your rations for a year at Costco. Want to know how the world looks post-Rapture? Purchase the Left Behind series. Perhaps, one wants to survive post-apocalypse? Download various films via Netflix, read Cormac McCarthy's The Road or maybe not, or pick up any number of young adult fiction titles from Carrie Ryan (zombies) to Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games trilogy), pick up survivalist gear and stock up food. We can consume the end and all its possible varieties. What is clear from the proliferation of end times products is the hope and fervor that the right products can save us. Read, watch, stock and prepare.

In her excellent book, Tourists of History (2007), Marita Sturken argues that cultures of fear and paranoia bolster "consumer practices of security and comfort" (5). This "comfort culture" allows Americans to purchase goods that supposedly might protect us, and this "culture of comfort functions as a form of depolitization and as a means to confront loss, grief and fear through processes that disavow politics"(6). We consume supplies to comfort ourselves in the face of global war, domestic politics and personal strife. Moreover, Sturken claims that often Americans seek to be "tourists of history" who remain distant to the sites they visit, where they are often defined as innocent outsiders, mere observers whose actions are believed to have no effect on what they see" (10). As I read Sturken's book, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe apocalyptic consumption functions as a "culture of comfort." Purchasing survival guides or survivalist training, reading books, watching films that direct us how to kill zombies, purchasing a year's worth of food can all provide comfort. Americans are often "tourists" of the apocalypse.

Apocalyptic thinking is rife with paranoia, conspiracy and fear, and the genre of apocalyptic tales is as well. Consuming (products of) the end provides comfort that the end is not quite here but could be. Products can "save" us. The comment sections of the "Zombie Apocalypse" event page makes this obvious: what weapons, cars, tools, etc. might you need. Folks discussing the merits of a Louisville slugger over various guns or axes or other household objects. Part of my interest is the question of what does this mean about not only apocalyptic thinking but also about more secular visions of millennialism? What is at stake if we are "tourists" of the end? Why does consumerism go hand-in-hand with visions of catastrophe and the undead?

It is at this point that I wish already had Katie Lofton's book on Oprah. [Editor's note: Lofton's Oprah is available, so I misspoke early]. Now granted, I imagine Oprah doesn't have much to save about zombies but I bet Lofton has much to say about how products can save and how consumerism can become religious practice and devotion. Moreover, if half a million people are excited about the prospect of taking down zombies, then what is at stake in the consumption of this particular end? Why is the zombie apocalypse comforting? And why am I more and more convinced that apocalypticism functions as a comfortable rhetorical and imaginary space? If the apocalypse provides comfort, products can save us, then how might we understand the role of popular culture in the study of American religion?

[Cross posted at www.kellyjbaker.com]

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.

Selling God on the Net: Beliefnet's Affinity Group

Paul Harvey

Ever wondered about the philosophy and business model of the spirituality catch-all website Belief.net. And who exactly owned it anyway?

Yeah, neither did I. Whatever, dude.

But actually, the story is quite fascinating, as it turns out, and Mark Oppenheimer explains it in today's NY Times religion column. You won't be surprised to hear that Rupert Murdoch makes an appearance, if only (this time) to sell; apparently keeping Fox News fair and balanced (paleo-, neo-, and tea-party-o conservatism are all represented in all their glorious diversity!) and covering the deficits wracked up by the expensive purchase of the Wall Street Journal (which I actually do read and enjoy, thanks to their selling subscriptions for a relative pittance of frequent flyer miles), is taking his time. Anyway, a brief taste of this very interesting article:

Rupert Murdoch sells topless Page 3 girls to England, and he sells “fair and balanced” television commentary to America. But until last week, his most eccentric product was Beliefnet.com.

On June 25, Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation sold the pioneering religion Web site to the owners of Affinity4, a company run by evangelical Christians and, according to its Web site, is dedicated to “the sanctity of the family.” It is another owner and another incarnation for Beliefnet, an online magazine that has survived since 1999 by nurturing every aspect of our conflicted spirituality. It has united angels and yoga, monotheism and meditation. Beliefnet has become America.

Today, the story continues, 15 million subscribers receive one or more of Beliefnet's 23 newletters. I probably ought to subscribe to this one: "Weight Loss With Norris" (would that be Chuck, or J. Frank? Hell, what's the difference?). Hey, whatever works.

Beliefnet's current director plans to continue "leading folks in every one of the multifaith categories." Sounds like it's time for me to re-read my good ol' classic text R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture. If that's not a good way to spend a 4th of July, what is?

Methodists, Elizabeth Warren, the Financial Crisis, and Free Market Fundamentalism

Ask Elizabeth Warren, scourge of Wall Street bankers, how they treat consumers, and she will shake her head with indignation. She will talk about morality, about fairness, about what she calls their “let them eat cake” attitude toward taxpayers. If she is riled enough, she might even spit out the Warren version of an expletive.

“Dang gummit, somebody has got to stand up on behalf of middle-class families!” she exclaimed in a recent interview in her office here.

Yes, it’s true, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about Methodists lately. Sure, I farmed out John Wigger’s new biography of Francis Asbury out to a couple of our blog contributors, and recently I was surveying a manuscript of a journal article which discussed the red-baiting spewed at some Methodist Church leaders in the 1950s (one of whom responded with admirable humor and restraint, I thought). But Methodists seem so, umm . . , nineteenth century somehow -- that was the Methodist century, after all. Even my several weeks at the Methodist archives at Drew University were spent in the service of a larger project that had less to do with Methodism per se than religion and civil rights more generally. Methodists just aren't that cool.

All this struck me today while reading about one of my contemporary heroes -- Elizabeth Warren, a Methodist Sunday school teacher, professor of law at Harvard Law School, congressional overseer for the TARP program, and the best-known advocate for the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (opposed unanimously by Senate Republicans -- thanks, guys, plus Olympia Snowe and what’s-her-name from Maine, for your heartwarming diplay of bipartisan spirit on a major national issue). The Senator from my home state, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, is apparently too busy fulminating about denying Viagra to sex offenders to worry about a consumer financial watchdog agency. I mean, why spend time worrying about the national housing crash, predatory lenders, pay-day loan scams, and the entire structure of too-big-to-fail “insurance” companies (yeah I’m talking about you, AIG) when there is the slightest possibility that some dude somewhere might snooker his physician into getting him some Viagra. And of course the other congressional wingnuts have been preoccupied egging on the very same Tea Party protesters who hurled racial and homophobic insults at John Lewis and Barney Frank, and are now targeting Rep. Betsy Markey in my current home state of Colorado -- check Sarah Palin's Facebook page, and you'll see that I mean the term "targeting" quite literally. There's a bullseye on you, Betsy, that will make you regret voting for a very modest, limited expansion of health care to some uninsured people.

Apropos of that, I believe it is Warren that I first heard point out that medical costs were the number one cause of bankruptcy in America -- reasonably common knowledge now, not so much a few years ago when I saw her explain that.

A brief description of Professor Warren:

She is an Oklahoma native, a janitor’s daughter, a bankruptcy expert at Harvard Law School and a former Sunday School teacher who cites John Wesley — the co-founder of Methodism and a public health crusader — as an inspiration.

I’ve heard Ms. Warren on the radio, and seen her on television a number of times, and she seems equally at ease on both Jon Stewart and on Dave Ramsey -- the latter being the current reigning guru of radio financial advice. (Confusingly, Ramsey mixes sound financial advice and common-sense platitudes about staying out of debt with near-daily nonsensical screeds against Social Security and in favor of the kinds of market fundamentalism which have, in part, created the legions of people calling into his shows seeking emergency financial advice). Warren seems equally able to piss off the right-wingnuts and Timothy Geithner at the same time, an unusual quality right now.

In her pitch for a consumer financial protection agency, she speaks forthrightly to Congress, fear of failure be damned:

If that happens, Ms. Warren will still have her own platform, starting with her nearly constant stream of television appearances. Hosts and cameramen love her: she has the friendly face of a teacher, the pedigree of a top law professor, the moral force of a preacher and the plain-spoken twang of an Oklahoman.

Historically, Methodists have been pretty resistant to fundamentalism, and perhaps that helps explain why Warren, an old-fashioned and principled conservative in many ways, has emerged as the strongest proponent of consumer protections against free market fundamentalism.

New Media and the Reshaping of Religious Practice

Paul Harvey

Following up on its recent report "The New Landscape of the Religion Blogosphere," which features discussion of our little blog here along with many other more prominent ones, the SSRC and Immanent Frame have posted short responses from a variety of folks (including myself and more knowledgeable people in the area such as David Morgan and Stewart Hoover) on the question of how (or whether, or if) new media will reshape religious practice. More precisely:

how are new media—from blogs and social networking sites to mobile technologies and other forms of digital connection—shaping and reshaping the practice of religion?

My response (posted again below) speculated on blogging as an updated form of spiritual journaling, a practice familiar from the medieval world to the Puritans and to the evangelicals of the era of the awakenings (keep in mind that this was prepared for Immanent Frame's "Off the Cuff" series, and I take the series title seriously: these reflections are based on nothing more than vague impressions, written "without fear and without research," as somebody once said of a particular history text that we liked to trash in graduate school):

Blogs are becoming something like a combination of spiritual journals and diaries together with personalized newsletters, allowing for people to publicly express their daily thoughts and spiritual practices, for ministers to reflect on sermons past and present, for church members to discuss what their preacher talked about last Sunday, and for intellectuals to issue prompt analytical verdicts on religion in the news and religious trends as reported in the media. The result, I believe, is a continuation of a familiar theme in American religious history—the democratization of religious expression, the relative flattening of authority, and the basic impulse to internalize religious traditions in a personal way. Social networking may have some of that effect (I’m less familiar with religious social networking sites), but may work at cross-purposes as well. For example, Facebook fan clubs for religious celebrities accentuate, rather than flatten out, authority and promote well-known religious spokespeople, as opposed to the decentralized and anarchic world of blogging. Many bloggers, I have noted, keep a list of exercises (personal, academic, spiritual) and give daily or weekly accounts of how well they’ve kept up their disciplines—much like Sarah Osborn did in her personal writings in the eighteenth century, and countless evangelical believers did in the nineteenth. The difference, of course, is that the blog is there as a form of private confessional that holds one publicly accountable.

The technologies are new, but the impulse to personalize, record, and measure one’s spiritual devotion has gone on a straight line from the Puritans to the present.

But maybe, as usual, I'm just late to the party, having arrived after the cool people have left. That at least is the implication of the post by Elizabeth Drescher, who quotes surveys showing the decline of blogging among the younger set, and among those who tend to predict the future of media consumption. She continues:

For one thing, it seems to mean that if we want to understand how digital media practices are impacting emerging religious practice, looking at the religious blogosphere probably isn’t the first place to start. Demographically speaking, with the important exception of gender, the religious blogosphere as it’s mapped in the SSRC report is largely an articulation of mainline religious and academic institutional establishments. Wonderful as the blogs and blogsites studied may be as gathering places for academic and religious thought leaders with a lingering passion for reasonably extended reflection, their very inclusion means that they have participated in a process of institutionalization that is undermined again and again by the very nature of Web 2.0 practice and culture. Fan though I am of many of these blogs, their very status in the various rankings cited in the report places them at the top of a hierarchy that is relatively meaningless in the shaping of religious practice in America. The report, then, picks up the trail of religious change just at the place where it seems to be going cold.

Where might we pick up the scent? The answer, I think, is small: small clusters and communities centered around more or less exclusive and more or less organized social networks, and small communication forms like Facebook status updates and, especially for younger teen girls and young adults of all genders, Twitter feeds. Attending to these micro-forms is something we learned from Steven Johnson’s influential book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. An emergence, Johnson teaches, is lead by ants, not by queens. Small is where we’ll find the contours of new religious identity, community, and practice.

Also included here is a response from our own Randall Stephens, who as usual finds the most amusing quote and is generally wittier than everybody else.