Jesus and Plastic Guitars

Kelly Baker

Since most of America is debating the virtue or vice of McCain's vice-presidental pick, I suggest we delve into the realm of religious popular culture for a change of tune. Digital Praise has created a video game aptly titled Guitar Praise, a Christian version of Guitar Hero (though not associated with the brand). Now, folks who are offended by secular rock music can rock out, in a wholesome way, to songs by Relient K, dc talk, and Caedmons Call among others. One can groove with a plastic guitar and praise at the same time. Digital Praise wants to combine interactive media with effective worship.

This game is not unique considering there have been other Christian video games as well as Christian guilds in secular games, like World of Warcraft. But, it showcases a desire for Christian media that avoids the pitfalls of various non-Christian media, similar to the development of GodTube (see my previous post). What might be unique is that this game could be successful where other Christian games have failed to gain ground. Guitar Hero is a huge success because it fulfills the dreams of all who wanted to be rock stars by allowing one to be a star in your own living room. Guitar Praise will likely build upon this success with more spiritual aspirations, of course. Not surprisingly, Christian bloggers, churches, and ministries are excited about the game for kids. The gaming community, however, is not too thrilled, and various bloggers make easy fun of some of the game's religious aspects. Wired notes, "By tilting your guitars toward heaven you'll be able to send each other "surprises.' Hallejujah." Whether or not the game is scorned, I am betting it will be bought and played by those who want their gaming to match their Christian values.

John Leland: Unknown Hero of Religious Freedom?

Paul Harvey

This is taken from Mary Dudziak's Legal History Blog -- links to and an abstract for an article of significance on the historical origins of religious freedom clauses, and the Baptist-Jeffersonian alliance.
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Scarberry on John Leland, James Madison, and Religious Influence on the Constitution and Bill of Rights

Posted by Mary L. Dudziak

John Leland and James Madison: Religious Influence on the Ratification of the Constitution and on the Proposal of the Bill of Rights is a new paper by Mark S. Scarberry, Pepperdine University School of Law. Here's the abstract:

Itinerant Baptist preacher John Leland (and Baptists generally) strongly influenced James Madison's elections to the Virginia ratifying convention and to the First Congress, with possibly substantial effects on American history. New insights include evidence making it seem nearly certain Madison had a key letter concerning Leland in hand at a critical time and evidence showing that George Eve's famous defense of Madison at a Baptist church meeting was in pivotal Culpeper County, rather than Orange County. The paper also notes Leland's relationship with Thomas Jefferson; Leland's consistent advocacy of religious liberty for all persons; his criticism of slavery; and the unusual accessibility of his straightforward and humorous prose. Leland deserves more attention, especially now that his works are very easily accessible on Google Books. As L.H. Butterfield (an editor of the papers of both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) put it, Leland "was as courageous and resourceful a champion of the rights of conscience as America has produced." Leland (in Philip Hamburger's phrase, "Jefferson's friend and ally, the irrepressible John Leland") is worth getting to know.

McCain the Maverick

Matthew A. Sutton

When I first heard that McCain had asked Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential nominee, I thought the choice was pure genius. This was McCain the Maverick at his best. Realizing that Obamamania could not be overcome, he was going to use the 2008 campaign to settle old scores. Choosing Palin would accomplish two things. First, it would guarantee that he lost the election, leaving it to the Democrats to fix the economy and straighten out the Middle East. As a result, the horrible legacy of his old nemesis, GW Bush, would be guaranteed. After the way the Bushies mistreated him in 2000, he would have the last laugh and all the free Arizona beer he could drink. Second, he would get one last swipe at those he dubbed the “Agents of Intolerance.” By picking a creationism-advocating, heat-packing, Pentecostal church-going Alaskan straight out of Jerry Falwell’s playbook, I thought McCain was sealing the doom of the Religious Right as we have known it. With the ascension of Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Joel Osteen, I figured the United States had seen the last of the shrill politics of anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-environment, anti-community organizer Jesus. Palin would lure Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and James Dobson into the spotlight one final time where they would finally be discarded.

Alas, McCain was wrong. Little did he know that his choice of Palin, rather than dooming the Bush legacy and the Religious Right, would in fact resurrect both. It looks like Jesus will equal Republican for at least another decade, which is bad news for Jesus and great news for the GOP. Who would have guessed that of all people the Maverick would be the one man who could pull that off?

Voting America: United States Politics, 1840-2008

Paul Harvey

Since we're into politics season (John Fea's post below on Sarah Palin's Pentecostal background immediately leaped to most-hit post in this blog's history!), scholars who follow this blog should know about this new and pretty damn amazing site: Voting America: United States Politics, 1840-2008. The AHA blog describes the site in more detail here.

YSAR: Final Reminder for Applications Due Mid-October

Young Scholars in American Religion 2009-2011: Final Reminder!

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

Young Scholars in American Religion Program 2009-2011

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

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

Seminar Leaders:

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

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

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

The deadline for applications is 15 October 2008. Essays, CVs, and letters of reference should be sent to: Director, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, IUPUI, Cavanaugh Hall 417425, University Boulevard, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140

Palin and Evangelical Politics

Welcome to our new contributor, Jeffrey Scholes. Jeff is finishing his PhD at Denver University, where he focuses on intersections of religion and American culture. He has written from the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture and other publications. Presently he also teaches in the Philosophy Department at my place, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Welcome to Jeff!
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Venial vs. Mortal in Evangelical Politics

The Evangelical leadership overwhelming applauded John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate wholesale. Yet as revelations emerge from the biography of this newly minted public figure, the effort to maintain an unqualified enthusiasm for the initial endorsement may get tricky.
2008/POLITICS/09/01/palin.evangelicals/index.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/dobson-on-brist.html

More interesting is what statements from prominent Evangelical leaders say about the complex relationship between the tenets of Evangelicalism and politics.

Specifically (for now!) the news that Palin’s 17 year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant, will deliver the baby, and will marry the father has presented leaders such as James Dobson with a more complex situation than Sarah’s decision to give birth to her developmentally challenged baby. The latter situation is a hanging curve ball for pro-lifers: the refusal to abort a fetus with Down Syndrome is an example par excellence within the pro-life community. However the approval of Bristol’s decision to take her pregnancy to term is more of a split-finger fastball.

Without missing a beat, Dobson cast the issue in terms of sin. “Being a Christian does not mean you're perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord.” Bristol’s decision to have sex out of wedlock is the forgivable offense; a decision to abort the fetus is not. A hierarchy of sins is not a new way of casting judgments for Evangelicals or Christians in general. The tricky part, though, is balancing public statements that have political cache with the tenets of the Evangelical faith. Because abortion is and has been the most non-negotiable political (and perhaps moral) issue for most Evangelicals, being on the right side of it will always run cover for more negotiable factors that led to the situation. It is on this distinction that really separates the political sides on the issue of abortion.

More to the point, Dobson’s comments underscore the tendency for Evangelical leaders who are inclined to involve themselves politically to offer generalized statements about “the family,” while specifics that go on in all families are submerged. (See Dick Cheney’s awkward handling of his daughter lesbianism.)

I ask myself, “at what point would the Evangelical hammer come down?” Does Sarah Palin’s decision to give birth to Trig cover over a multitude of sins such as the alleged abuse of power she wielded in the firing of a government employee? Does it cover over the implication that she has a daughter who clearly went against the family’s morals and had unprotected sex out of wedlock as a minor? And finally, does the fact that Sarah Palin may become the second most powerful person in the country quickly force Dobson and Richard Land to erect a special filter for their judgments? Perhaps like sins, all people aren’t created equal as well.

Roger Williams and Martha Nussbaum on Religious Liberty

Paul Harvey

Some must reading for American religious historians, and all interested in historical models for religious liberty: Martha Nussbaum's review of James Calvin Davis, On Religious Liberty: Selections from the Works of Roger Williams. It's less a review, actually, than a substantial philosophical exploration and reviving of Williams as a thinker who, so Nussbaum argues, both preceded and excelled Locke in exploring the rights of conscience.

The article is too rich to give justice to here. Briefly, Nussbaum provides a philosophical summary of the depth of Williams's commitment to rights of conscience, a more profound notion than just "toleration." Beyond that, Nussbaum uses Williams to critique the "wall of separation" idea, insisting instead that "we must respect one another's freedom and equality, the deep sources of conscience that lead us through life. We will do this only if we keep religious orthodoxy out of our common political life. But we must base that life on ethical principles that, for many of us, also have a religious meaning and justification." She continues: "That we so obsessively focus on the religions of political candidates, as contrasted with moral virtues that we all can share, is a fact of American political life that we should regret and attempt to change."

Throughout, Nussbaum contrasts those who demand "orthodoxy" and "order," both in Williams's time and our own, with Williams's own more capacious views:

The Europeans of Massachusetts reacted to insecurity by enforcing orthodoxy of religious belief and practice. Roger Williams's lifelong intellectual adversary John Cotton, pastor of the First Church of Boston and one of Massachusetts's most influential religious leaders, wrote copiously in defense of religious persecution, arguing that it was necessary for civil order. It was also God's will, Cotton said, in order to separate the diseased element of society from the healthy element. Heretics and dissidents are like Satan in our midst. Even if they behave peaceably, they are enticements to sin. Cotton urged imprisonment, banishment, and other harsh penalties for the unorthodox.

Such reactions to insecurity are sadly familiar in America's history: in situations of insecurity, we are all too ready to project the causes of instability onto other people, grabbing hold of Cotton's seductive metaphor of a stain in our midst (his reply to Williams's great book was called The Bloody Tenent, Washed, and Made White in the Bloud of the Lambe) that must be removed if we are to resist corruption. What makes Williams of particular interest today is not just the high quality of his philosophical work. It is also the way in which he offers an alternative to the paranoid response to uncertainty, confidently urging on his readers attitudes of mercy, gentleness, reasonableness, and civility--all words that recur with obsessive frequency throughout his two great philosophical dialogues.

Nussbaum also contrasts Locke's more limited notions ("Locke seems to think that equal liberty is compatible with a religious establishment") with Williams's argument for allowing exceptions to general laws for conscience's sake, a debate that resonates in recent Supreme Court decisions:

The contrast between Williams and Locke is still with us, in the form of divergent standards that have played a role in recent Supreme Court debates. The Williams idea was long a hallmark of free exercise jurisprudence, in the form of what has come to be known as the "Sherbert test," after an important case in 1963 involving a woman who was fired because her Seventh-Day Adventist beliefs forbade her to work on Saturday, and was then denied unemployment compensation on the grounds that she had refused "suitable work." The Court, finding in her favor, said that government may not impose a "substantial burden" on a person's free exercise of religion without a "compelling state interest." The case had an important equality aspect: the fact that Saturday and not Sunday was the required day put unfair pressure on this minority woman, pressure that the majority did not have to face.

This was our legal standard for some years, but in 1990 the Lockean position took control, with Justice Scalia's controversial opinion in Employment Division v. Smith, a case involving Native American peyote use. Scalia declared that laws must rule exceptionlessly, so long as they were neutral and not discriminatory. Like Locke, Scalia is interested in legal neutrality: when a Florida community passed an ordinance forbidding ritual animal sacrifice he struck it down, holding that the fact that they allowed animals to be slaughtered in all sorts of other ways showed that they were simply targeting Santeria worshipers. But he does not believe that courts should go beyond this, and insist on the protection of conscience against laws that are not hostile--although he is willing to allow the legislature to pass such exemptions if it wants. What this conflict over accommodation is really about is the equality of minorities in a majority world. Rules about workdays, drugs, and a host of other matters favor the majority--so alcohol is legal and peyote is not, Sunday is the usual day of rest and Saturday is not. Williams understood the vulnerability of minority conscience in a world of majority rule, and his more protective standard should, in my view, be restored.