Religion and Popular Culture Popular Religion
Jan 06, 2016
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?