a review of religion and media
From James Davis’ interviews with Muslims in Florida, for the Sun Sentinel, to mark Ramadan:
Q. Why did you want to become a Muslim?
People of color in America were treated as second-class citizens. The Nation of Islam offered a different way of seeing yourself, as a person of value and dignity. That was appealing to me.
Amy Levin: If it wasn’t already, presidential politicking has stooped a little low. Curiously, Barack Obama’s reelection campaign informed Politico of their strategy to re-elect the “hopeful” incumbent: to make Mitt Romney seem. . . weird. Due to his fairly low approval ratings, the Obama’s campaign strategists are betting on a victory at the expense of throwing his most likely opponent under the rug. According to writers Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin,
The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”
Amy Levin: If it wasn’t already, presidential politicking has stooped a little low. Curiously, Barack Obama’s reelection campaign informed Politico of their strategy to re-elect the “hopeful” incumbent: to make Mitt Romney seem. . . weird. Due to his fairly low approval ratings, the Obama’s campaign strategists are betting on a victory at the expense of throwing his most likely opponent under the rug. According to writers Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin,
The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”
In Peter King’s world, the battle has only two sides and only one winning strategy.
by Amy Levin and Abby Ohlheiser
Lately media outlets have been telling us what Americans believe, from how much we think we should be taxed, to how much we like Muslims. Even how (much) we believe in God. What Pew or Gallup haven’t capitalized on yet is Americans’ obsession with terrorism. How many of us believe in it—as a great danger to society, for instance—or how do we collectively define it—say, as a feature of particular world regions or cultures? Not unlike past eras when Americans developed their own definitions of Marxist, Communist, fascist, or anarchist (not anything good, mind you), in our current era we confidently call individuals with non-conformist, “subversive” ideologies “terrorist.” Sure, there is a technical definition for the word, but like any of the above descriptions, the more we use terrorist, the more obscure its meanings become. Why are certain political institutions reconstructing the definition of terrorism? Which forms of power succeed in remolding the word’s transformation? What are the implications of invoking terrorist discourse?
Steering the bandwagon on exposure of terrorist threats, Rep. Peter King (R-NY3) is but one of the the media’s returning bedfellows on the fear-trafficking topic of homeland security. Like any politician’s platform, there’s more to King’s efforts than meets the eye. Given the context–-the killings in Oslo by suspect Anders Breivik–of last Wednesday’s third round of hearings on Muslim radicalization it is perhaps not surprising that much of the time was spent discussing things other than the stated topic of the day, the threat of Al Shabaab in the US. Continue Reading →
Amy Levin: What happens when we give scientists the authority to speak about God? This was my first question when I discovered Jonathan Pararajasingham’s recent video compilation called “50 Famous Academics and Scientists Talk About God.” It’s posted on Open Culture and the list of those featured includes 16 Nobel prize winners, including a bundle of recognizable names like Richard Feynman, Steven Pinker, Oliver Sacks, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, and Leonard Susskind.
The montage is a hefty undertaking and a convenient exploration of some of the most fascinating personal belief talk around. It’s also dialogical candy for political atheists like Bill Maher and worshippers of Richard Dawkins. After all, who can argue with an orgy of scientific elitism on the question of objective truth? Continue Reading →
Amy Levin: When the American Atheists group filed a lawsuit to oppose a 17-foot cross-shaped beam discovered in 9/11 wreckage to be placed in the World Trade Center Museum, I experienced a major flashback. The newborn controversy over the so-called World Trade Center Cross spewed an outburst of dialogue over religious equality and the politics of memorializing quite familiar to popular media outlets and those who read them. Continue Reading →
Abby Ohlheiser: A couple years ago, in a small Christian-owned performance space-cum-vintage shop, I listened to David Bazan finish a song, pause, and ask, “anyone have any questions for me?”
Bazan, who was touring with songs from his album about lost faith, Curse Your Branches, fielded earnest theological questions from the young fans sitting cross legged right up close to the stage. He’d play a few songs, some from the album, some from his old band Pedro The Lion (a mid-2000’s crossover Christian/indie music darling), pause for questions, then keep going.
Earlier this summer, he released a new album. Continue Reading →
by Abby Ohlheiser
Weeks after the earthquake in January, 2010, five planes, filled with medical supplies, flew to Haiti. One plane was named DFTBA, which stands for Don’t Forget To Be Awesome, an acronym popularized by the nerdfighters. The other four were named Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore, after the most familiar and beloved characters from the Harry Potter series. Partners In Health chartered the planes with $123,000 dollars raised by a group called the Harry Potter Alliance.
Perhaps best known for its ubiquitous fan fiction, Wizard Rock bands, and for titillating bookstore owners everywhere with the promise of a packed house on book launch nights, the Harry Potter fan community (also called a “fandom”) is often discussed as it exists in isolation from the “real world,” or as consumers of a widely-hyped, money-making franchise. But the books have now all been written and the last film came out this month. With the exception of a Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, it would seem the franchise is all out of new ways to engage its audience. That’s where the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) comes in.
The non-profit, founded in 2005 to channel the Harry Potter fandom energy and resources into charitable work, uses parallels to the book series to build support for a broad range of causes, connections that range from direct to oblique. One example: The HPA works for LGBT equality, and has cited the “in the closet” hidden identities of Hagrid the half-giant, Lupin the werewolf, and the protagonist Harry Potter himself, who was forced to literally live in a closet for most of his early childhood. Continue Reading →
by Gordon Lynch
One of the striking features of the current crisis engulfing News International is the prevalence of religious language. There is talk of News of the World, including all of its former staff, having been offered as a sacrifice, and speculation whether Rebekah Brooks, Chief Executive of News International, should have been offered up instead. The former editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler, spoke last week to his staff about the need to atone for the past. More widespread than this is the language of pollution; of shame, of people feeling sickened and appalled at abhorrent actions, of those implicated in those acts as being less than human.
When we see the language of pollution being used in the public domain, along with powerful moral sentiment driving public opinion, we know that we are witnessing the acting out of cultural sensibilities concerning the sacred and the profane. By ‘sacred’ here I do not mean a simple synonym for ‘religion’ or some kind of universal mystical experience. Rather, the sacred refers to what people experience as realities that have an unquestionable moral claim over social life, and which are perpetually under threat of destruction or pollution by the evil of the profane. Although their content varies across different times and places, cultural structures of the sacred and profane have been used to mark the moral boundaries of human society for millennia. Continue Reading →
by Andy Kopsa
Every four years the national political eye shifts to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. With the 2012 presidential election only 15 months away, the campaign frenzy in Iowa has already begun. Local and national media are eagerly following Republican presidential hopefuls as they glad-hand farmers, eat local delicacies and stump, flanked by American flags, through soybean fields.
In February next year, Iowans will head to their local caucus to give a traditionally coveted victory to one Republican who could go on to face President Obama in the general election. That Republican – be it Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich – will need to secure the blessing of the radical religious-political group The Family Leader.
Bob Vander Plaats, the outspoken head of The Family Leader (TFL), is the man The Atlantic has called a Republican political “kingmaker” in Iowa – and the man who The Hill just ranked as having the ability to give one of the top 10 “endorsements the presidential candidates covet most.”
The media has documented his – and the TFL’s – statements about homosexuality (worse than second hand smoke) and women’s role in society (producing lots of babies). Last week TFL made national news again with its Marriage Pledge – already signed by Bachmann and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania – touting the benefits of slavery to African American families (after vocal push-back, TFL has since removed this from the pledge). None of Vander Plaats’ work would be half as interesting a story if The Family Leader, a Focus on the Family affiliate, hadn’t been built with over $3 million in federal funds. Continue Reading →
