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Religion and Popular Culture

Religion and Popular Culture. Popular Religion. What is Religion?.

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Religion and Popular Culture

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  1. Religion and Popular Culture Popular Religion

  2. 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…

  3. 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.”

  4. 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?

  5. Religion,Television, and Belief • Talk shows… • Attesting to the Supernatural • Demonic possession • Angel visitations • Near Death Experiences • Hauntings

  6. 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?

  7. 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…)

  8. Religion, Television, and Ritual • Television as surrogate religious ritual? • Judge Judy and Dr. Laura - modern day confessionals? • “substitutionary catharsis?”

  9. 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?

  10. Is Popular Religion really ‘pop’? Vs “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?)

  11. 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.

  12. Popular Religion and Popular Culture • Lowest common denominator - “mass culture”? • Cultural mirror?- Maintaining the Status quo? • Subversive of orthodoxy?

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