Religion and Popular Culture

Popular Religion

What is Religion?Religion, “a system of thought, feeling, and action that is shared by a group and that gives the members an object of devotion; a code of behavior by which individuals may judge the personal and social consequences of their actions; and a frame of reference by which individuals may relate to their group and their universe. Usually, religion concerns itself with that which transcends the known, the natural, or the expected; it is an acknowledgment of the extraordinary, the mysterious, and the supernatural. The religious consciousness generally recognizes a transcendent, sacred order and elaborates a technique to deal with the inexplicable or unpredictable elements of human experience in the world or beyond it.”

Belief, ritual, experience, doctrine, worldview, community, institution…

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Popular Religion

Popular Religion: “non-official, non-elite, unorganized, eclectic and lived religion… It does not emphasize the importance of scriptures, literary tradition, institution, clergies or doctrinal purity. It is syncretistic and implicit in its nature.”

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Religion, Television & Belief

• Explicitly “religious” dramas - Touched by an Angel, etc.

• “Flattens” religious doctrine?

• Theological messages: God is love, God has a plan (unknowable), God exists… Evil isn’t God’s fault… anything else?

Religion,Television, and Belief

• Talk shows… – Attesting to the

Supernatural• Demonic possession

• Angel visitations

• Near Death Experiences

• Hauntings

Religion,Television, and Belief

• Dramas, “Reality” shows… – Ghost Whisperer– Ghost Hunters– Ghost Trackers– Supernatural

– Retellings of folkloric, pop culture beliefs, reivigorating supernatural in modern world?

Religion and Television portrayals of Religious

Affiliation• Law and Order

– Religion as short-hand for character traits (religious stereotyping)

– Religion as moral reasoning (Justice vs Law…)

– Religion as destructive force (fanatics, cultists, terrorists…)

Religion, Television, and Ritual

• Television as surrogate religious ritual?– Judge Judy and Dr.

Laura - modern day confessionals?

– “substitutionary catharsis?”

Religion, Ritual and Pop Culture

• Pop Culture Tourism as Religious Ritual - Pilgrimage?– Pilgrimage to

Graceland?

– Pilgrimage to Star Trek conventions?

– Pilgrimage to Grateful Dead concerts?

Is Popular Religion really ‘pop’?

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“Chevrolet Presents: Come Together and Worship - 16 concerts with top Christian rock bands across the Southeast and the preaching of Texas pastor, Rev. Max Lucado.”

WWJD?

(What would Jesus Drive?)

Vs

Trickle down, Trickle up?

• Theories of popular religion - the trickle down theory - religion starts with orthodoxy, trickles down to the masses, who reinterpret, appropriate for own uses, etc. - pop religion as “degraded” form of “orthodox” religion.

• Trickle up - religion starts with folk belief, practice, becomes codified over time, subject to continual renewal from popular level.

Popular Religion and Popular Culture

• Lowest common denominator - “mass culture”?

• Cultural mirror?- Maintaining the Status quo?

• Subversive of orthodoxy?