Inheritors of Unwanted Legacies

Today's post comes to us from our friend and occasional guest poster Judith Weisenfeld, Professor of Religion at Princeton University and author of the recent and excellent volume Hollywood be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929-1949. Judith discusses some recent documentaries on the entangled history of race, slavery, communal myths, and religion in American history.

____________________________________________

Inheritors of Unwanted Legacies
Judith Weisenfeld

On July 29, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the non-binding respolution H.Res. 194 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr110-194) formally “apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans” and committing to rectifying “the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow.” Predictably, my reading of responses posted on online news sites turned up many people arguing that this as far too little and far too late and many insisting that these sins of the past have nothing to do with them. Some, however, took the opportunity to respond at length to the question of what kinds of responses to the legacies of slavery and racism are useful and appropriate.

Coincidentally, I recently saw two new documentaries made by white women dealing with the implications of their families’ histories as participants in America’s long traditions of racism. Katrina Browne’s Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, which premiered on PBS’s POV in June, follows ten descendants of the DeWolf family of Bristol, Rhode Island as they struggle to come to terms with their ancestors’ tremendous success as slave traders from the mid 18th century through the early 19th century and slave plantation owners in Cuba well into the 19th century. The film follows this group as they retrace the steps of the slave trade from Ghana to Cuba to Bristol and consider the economic, political, and moral consequences of their ancestors’ business in each location. In addition to building the economy of Bristol through their active traffic in people, the DeWolfs were important figures in the local Episcopal Church. Many of the descendants featured in the film are active members of churches and see their work as fundamentally religious. The information the film presents about the profound ways in which Northern communities were implicated in the Atlantic slave trade and American, Caribbean, and Latin American systems of slavery is compelling and makes clear that, while the documentary began as a personal project, it is not simply the story of one family. At the same time, the focus remains on the individual emotional journeys of participants, with Browne serving as narrator and commentator. I sometimes found it difficult and at other times moving to observe their struggles, but was generally made uncomfortable by Browne’s sighing, worried narration which contributed to a certain aura of self-indulgence on the part of the DeWolf descendants.

A good deal of screen time is devoted to conversations among the ten participants about what, if anything, their inheritance enjoins them to do and, although no single path emerges, we do get a sense at the film’s end of the actions various family members take. One of these was a campaign to get the Episcopal Church to apologize for its involvement in the slave trade and in slavery. A dialogue project has emerged from the film and discussion materials and information about screenings are available (although I was a little taken aback by the division of viewing guides into ones for African Americans, “European Americans,” “multi-racial” people, and “other race groups and ethnicities”). Traces of the Trade is just out on DVD soon and so easily obtained.

Margaret Brown’s The Order of Myths chronicles the 2007 Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama, where she grew up. The oldest Mardi Gras in America, Mobile’s celebration remains racially segregated, with an all-white association crowning what they understand to be the true and only King and Queen of Mardi Gras. An all-black group, founded in 1939 in response to Mobile’s black residents only having access to the celebration as servants, musicians, or fire carriers (this remains the case today), crowns its own King and Queen. 2007’s white Mardi Gras Queen descends from an infamous slave trader who brought an illegal shipment of Africans to Mobile in 1860 and, as it turns out, that year’s black Mardi Gras Queen descends from one of the Africans on board that ship. The mystic societies that sponsor balls and parades – The Order of Myths is one of these – remain inaccessible to black members and many of the white participants Brown interviews insist that they simply want to maintain their traditions and, besides, the “coloreds” like it that way.

What makes this film so compelling is the skill with which Brown accomplishes observational, cinema verité documentary – she chose informational title screens rather than a voice-over narration – and refuses easy resolution. This is not to say that her perspective is not apparent. Her emotional presence informs everything, especially the editing, which moves the film along quickly primarily through juxtaposition of scenes of the separate black and white events. It did seem to me, however, that the editing sometimes relegated the black participants in service of Brown’s desire to show the separate but unequal nature of the celebrations rather than allowing these people’s stories their own integrity. We learn late in the film precisely how Brown is connected to Mobile’s Mardi Gras and it seems to me a good decision for her to have withheld that information for so long. It is clear that the filmmaker has an investment in the past and future of Mobile’s rituals and, despite a few missteps, she does a remarkable job of presenting a complicated vision of one small portion of contemporary American race relations. In his review in New York Magazine, David Edelstein sums up the source of the film’s power and effectiveness well: “In the telling, The Order of Myths sounds obvious, and its underlying racial politics might be. But Brown is scrutinizing the surface, the tension between individuals and their ways. You try to read their faces, and it’s as if they’re wearing Mardi Gras masks, held in place by… what? Fear? It’s no wonder. Without the order of myths, what’s left?” The film’s website has information on the limited schedule of screenings, but I sincerely hope that we will see a DVD release soon. [Editors' note: my Netflix queue gives a January release date for the DVD).
_________________________________________
Update: We have received the following information on getting the DVD, especially to show for classes and the like, for The Order of Myths: "it is available for purchase on DVD with Public Performance Rights. You can order it online through our website, at www.cinemaguild.com (select New Releases along the top), or by calling or faxing us directly at Tel: (212) 685-6242, or Fax: (212) 685-4717.

Where Have All the Bible Salesmen Gone?

MICHAEL PASQUIER 

I taught a course on religion in the American South this past semester.  We started with Jon Sensbach’s 2007 article in the Journal of Southern History, “Religion and the Early South in an Age of Atlantic Empire.”  We ended with Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood (1952).  Talk about a wide time span, not to mention a topical (not tropical) gulf between a heavy historiography of the colonial South and a fictional rendering of the twentieth-century South.  As you might imagine, we covered a whole lot of material in between, from Afro-Catholicism in colonial New Orleans (more slaves went to mass than whites?) to white evangelical Protestants and the music of Johnny Cash (who’s the man in “The Man Comes Around”?), and from the depiction of women in Gone With the Wind (Scarlett O’Hara was an Irish Catholic?) to the rise of Pentecostalism (who’s this Randall Stephens guy?).

During the final week of class, as my students and I discussed some of the major issues threading the entire course, a confident graduating senior asked a tough, sarcastic question: “Where have all the bible salesmen gone?”  She was thinking about our few encounters with "God’s peddlers" throughout the semester: Manley Pointer in O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” (1955), Big Dan Teague in the Cohn Brothers’ film O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000), and Paul Brennan in the Maysles Brothers’ documentary Salesman (1969). 

For the life of me, I could not think of a good answer.  I still can’t think of a good answer.  No bible salesperson has ever knocked on my door.  Sure, I’ve kindly declined the little green books from my fair share of Gideons on university campuses, but giving away cheap prints of the New Testament is a bit different from selling expensive family bibles.  So, instead of answering the question directly, I did like any stammering professor would do; I asked the class what they thought.  Specifically, I tried to facilitate discussion about the representation of bible salesmen in the stories we watched and read in class.

First up, Manley Pointer, bible salesman turned prosthetic leg thief who really knows how to pick ‘em in Hulga Hopewell, an atheistic, nihilistic, skeptical philosophy Ph.D. who thinks she can pull one over on the presumably innocent bible thumper, only to be drawn up into the loft of a barn by the hard-drinking, card-playing Pointer who admits “I been believing in nothing ever since I was born!” and who runs away with Hulga’s leg.

Next, Big Dan Teague, self-described “man of large appetite” with a patch over one eye and a piece of fried chicken in the other who lures Ulysses and Delmar out to an isolated pasture where the robust bible salesman, whilst perspiring through his white linen suit, chooses to thump his companions instead of the bible.

Last (and probably least well known), Paul Brennan, the real-life Irish Catholic bible salesman who friends call “The Badger” and who gets denied at the doorsteps of countless homes across Massachusetts and Florida, thus introducing thousands of viewers to one of the most poignant depictions of the relationship between work and religion in American film.  See the film and you can also meet the Gipper, the Rabbit, and the Bull.

I’m left with three questions:

1. Where are all the bible salesmen in the history books?

2. Why the bad rap?

3. Where can a young professor with no summer income get a job selling bibles (or mufflers, for that matter)?  

Post-Katrina, Still Waiting

ART REMILLARD

I recently received word of a PBS documentary, Still Waiting: Life After Katrina. There’s a low resolution version of the film on the website. Here’s a description…

Still Waiting: Life After Katrina documents the remarkable story of resilience, family, and attachment to place. The role of race, women, family, food, and faith are integral to the content and provide powerful teaching opportunities.

Still Waiting takes place in the post-Katrina world of three African American women who grew up in the New Orleans area. The stories of Connie, Katie, and Janie are set against a backdrop of the larger extended family they share. In the film, we see how our primary women who have long held up the center of their respective families react differently to the circumstances that Katrina has thrust upon them.

The unusual size and interconnectedness of the 155-member family portrayed in this film point to a cultural truth that, while unfamiliar in most of the US, resonates strongly in the New Orleans area. The group’s well-knotted bonds of love and reciprocity function like an emotional ecosystem, capable, it seems, of absorbing the profound betrayal of nature and the system. But as the story of their evacuation to Dallas gives way to the story of their return to the bayou and the unexpected difficulties they face, the hopes of reclaiming life as it once existed look increasingly remote.

Still Waiting is a collaborative project of two-time Emmy winning filmmaker Ginny Martin, and Kate Browne, Afro-Creole specialist and professor of anthropology at Colorado State University. The documentary was filmed between October 2005 and March 2007 and was funded by National Science Foundation, Colorado State University, and Women in Film. Still Waiting was broadcast on nearly 300 PBS stations in August, September and October 2007. The film's website includes a low resolution streaming video of the film, a link showing reactions to the documentary, PBS air dates and times, and links for ordering a DVD for personal or institutional use. Please visit www.stillwaiting.colostate.edu

“It Wears Me Out / It Wears Me Out”

BY KATHRYN LOFTON

You know who is really funny? Old people. You know what is even funnier? Old people singing disconcertingly ribald lyrics. I speak, of course, of the new documentary by Stephen Walker called Young@Heart, which tracks an eponymous vocal choir whose average age is 80 and whose choice of material does that thing (the thing Hollywood loves, Kodak loves, we love) where you smile wryly before despair. Sure, we’re all going to die and sure, death is pretty much always grotesque, and yeah, disease and dying are currently managed in an unbelievably cavalier way by insurance interests and, of course, every single other piece of this culture idolizes the flesh and voice and excess of youth but you know what? Old people are funny. They’re feisty and they’ve got weird vocal patterns and their faces squish in ways that make for sculptural screwball. And at Sundance Film Festival, the glitterati needed some comedy because Ledger was dead (youth lost too soon) and they needed to be reminded that it was going to be okay.

Enter Young@Heart. Like other feel-good documentaries (think March of the Penguins, or The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill), the purpose of this text is not to instruct structure, but to inundate with the sucker-like sweetness of sentimentality. Global warming and homelessness and health care are subtexts so sub as to be imperceptible. Front and center is the (wait for it) triumph of the human spirit. Just what is triumphed over is always cast as unchangeable and inevitable. Never is context or contingency identified (How does homelessness persist? Why is the glacier shrinking?). Don’t be such a drag: quit that Michael Moore talk and just watch grandma mumble Radiohead lyrics. “Fake Plastic Trees” never sounded so true.

We need a new word for the sort of role old people occupy in contemporary film, a word that could combine the condemnatory analysis of “Orientalism” with the permissive caricature of “slapstick.” I say “we” because religious life is hardly removed from such age imagery. Young@Heart previewed before my viewing of There Will Be Blood, and the images of infantilized seniors stuck with me throughout Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic rumination on Daniel Day-Lewis’ eye muscles. There Will Be Blood has enjoyed such lavish praise that it can endure a little tough love, especially from those (us) whose responsibility it is to pursue the odd tropes wended into this little masterpiece. I speak not of an appraisal of historical accuracy (which seems to me a wrongheaded response to a film relying more on the history of cinema than an accurate history of evangelicalism) but an appraisal of archetypal dependency.

Not surprisingly (to any religionist, to any cultural observer) Anderson hunkers into two stock profiles to tug warmth from Day-Lewis’ shatteringly cold stare. I speak of the desperate elder and the wounded child (the latter which deserves more attention but suffice to say, “I abandoned my child”).You don’t need to have seen the film to imagine the geriatric minstrelsy that it included when panning clapboard church scenes and evangelical entourage. The history of movie religion is littered with audience shots of aching arthritics hungry for Aimee’s or Elmer’s or Steve Martin’s healing touch. But it’s hard to think of a scene quite like this one, where the Mrs. Danvers lookalike grasps his parishioner and pulls from her rheumatoid malaise. Eli Sunday (the young preacher, played by Paul Dano) caresses his old lady with an astonishing intimacy, and intimacy that presumes an easy convert, a needy geezer in desperate, easy-to-access hour. The scene would make a good launch pad for an in-class conversation about preaching, performance, and the truths of healing. But it would also make Exhibit A in a history of our moment, of the way we enjoy the impassive sexed bodies of the elderly to work our evangelical, and cinematic, magic. What miracles they do provide, singing songs of youth as they die before our eyes.

P.S. For those wondering how to incorporate film into their syllabi, a great starting place would be to pair the essays from Catholics in the Movies (2007) with screenings of their films. I have never read such an accessibly thoughtful text that so neatly fits undergraduate curricular scheduling. The Introduction, by Colleen McDannell, makes a fantastic argument for the preponderance of Catholic imagery in U.S. film production, even those films (like There Will Be Blood) which convey Protestant thematics. Highly recommended.

The Jewish Americans, 3 Part Documentary -- On Television Tonight

THE JEWISH AMERICANS is a three-night documentary that explores 350 years of Jewish American history. Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin, THE JEWISH AMERICANS is a journey through time, from the first settlement in 1654 to the present. It is about the struggle of a tiny minority who make their way into the American mainstream while, at the same time, maintaining a sense of their own identity as Jews. Focusing on the tension between identity and assimilation, THE JEWISH AMERICANS is quintessentially an American story, which other minority groups will find surprisingly familiar.

Narrated by actor Liev Schreiber, this landmark series features Jewish Americans who have made significant contributions to American life – from Louis D. Brandeis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Henry Morgenthau, Hank Greenberg, Betty Friedan, Molly Goldberg, Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, and Tony Kushner. However this story is also about Jewish American tailors and shopkeepers, soldiers and bankers, peddlers and merchants, labor organizers and civil rights activists, all of whom also helped shape the American landscape.

Memo to Religious Conservatives: There's a Snake in Your Garden

Today's New York Times Magazine section features David Kirkpatrick's "The Evangelical Crackup." Most of the article will be familiar to those who follow contemporary religion and politics. Kirkpatrick discusses the dissatisfaction of the religious conservative base with W, the movement of some evangelical leaders towards "green" and "social justice" views typically more associated with liberalism, and the despair of evangelical conservative kingmakers with the current crop of Republican candidates. "Not for me, my brothers," Dobson proclaimed of Giuliani. Kirkpatrick follows the travails of some pastors in Wichita, formerly a stronghold for religious conservatives (as bemoaned in Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas), but treated here as symptomatic of the fracturing of the evangelical coalition.

Of course, political fortunes ebb and flow. As we've discussed on the blog before, rumors of the "death of the religious right" are greatly exaggerated, just as the triumphalist rhetoric of religious conservatives after the 2004 election proved to be hubris. The dance between religious belief and political activism will continue, and religious conservatives will remain a significant power as long as they continue to mobilize significant numbers of voters, and as long as they address serious moral issues that concern many Americans of various political stripes. Politically categorizing evangelicals has never been as simple as the press sometimes has made it out to be, and Kirkpatrick's article is pretty good in terms of showing a diverse spectrum of evangelical opinion.

None of this agonizing over the limits of politics would be surprising to Reinhold Niebuhr. Like Jesus, Niebuhr seems to have self-proclaimed adherents on all sides of the current political spectrum. Today's Speaking on Faith features some oral excerpts from Niebuhr's preaching -- I had not realized fully before the moral urgency and charisma he conveyed in his public speaking. See Moral Man and Immoral Society: Rediscovering Reinhold Niebuhr, another stimulating hour of radio courtesy of Krista Tippett.

More to the point here is that the article reminds us that the "b" word -- bigotry -- is alive and well in certain sectors of the evangelical coalition. The slandering of McCain in the South Carolina primary in 2000 (remember his illegitimate biracial child, South Carolina evangelical voters? Oh, and thanks for the memories, Karl Rove) was an example of the way politicos can play on this ugly underside of the base. Here's another one, ripped from the current campaign. Memo to Dobson et al: there's a snake in your garden. And, in god's name, when the hell are you going to deal with it? What more, in the name of love?

In the Wichita churches this summer, Obama was the Democrat who drew the most interest. Several mentioned that he had spoken at Warren’s Saddleback church and said they were intrigued. But just as many people ruled out Obama because they suspected that he was not Christian at all but in fact a crypto-Muslim — a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. “There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith,” Welsh said. “Is his faith anti-Christian? Is he a Muslim? And what about the school where he was raised?”

“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ”

Fox, meanwhile, is already preparing to do his part to get Wichita’s conservative faithful to the polls next November. Standing before a few hundred worshipers at the Johnny Western Theater last summer, Fox warned his new congregation not to let go of that old-time religion. “Hell is just as hot as it ever was,” he reminded them. “It just has more people in it.”

Fox told me: “I think the religious community is probably reflective of the rest of the nation — it is very divided right now. This election process is going to reveal a lot about where the religious right and the religious community is. It will show unity or the lack of it.”

But liberals, he said, should not start gloating. “Some might compare the religious right to a snake,” he said. “We may be in our hole right now, but we can come out and bite you at any time.”

On the Road to Atheism -- Again

Atheism Again
Kelly Baker

Speaking of Faith has a podcast on entitled Beyond the Religion-Atheism Divide, in which Krista Tippett interviews Harvey Cox, Jr., a Harvard Divinity School Professor, on the current fad in books on atheism (see my previous post) as well as reflection on his work on secularism. The conversation highlights the problem between dividing the religious and non-religious so sharply. The podcast is described:

In 1965, a young Harvard professor became the best-selling voice of secularism in America with his book The Secular City. He sees the old thinking in the "new atheism" of figures like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The either/or debates between religion and atheism, he says, obscure the truly interesting interplay between faith and other forms of knowledge that is unfolding today.

One of the main critiques of these recent works in “new atheism” is the occlusion of nuanced ways that religion impacts our world in a myriad of ways rather than just being the root of violence or hatred as some authors suggest. Additionally, Tracy Fessenden’s new book, Culture and Redemption provides a stunning look at the foundations of secularism and how the religious impacts the process of secularization. (Fessenden’s book is highlighted in this post).

God and The War

By John Turner

Last month, PBS garnered high ratings (though perhaps not as high as expected) for Ken Burns's The War.

Burns's 15-hour documentary garnered some mixed reviews. For example, Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times criticized its political timidity, lack of inclusiveness, and insularity. Burns received a large amount of criticism for not including material on Latino Americans in the film, eventually prompting him to insert (somewhat awkwardly, in my opinion) some compensating footage.

As I watched The War, I occasionally thought about the presence of religion in the film: when a Jewish veteran described his motivation for fighting, when troops prayed on ships before entering combat, and when carols accompanied a wartime Christmas. I appreciated a few subtle touches, such as one of my favorite hymns -- Come Ye Thankful People, Come -- serving as background music to a harrowing Thanksgiving meal on the front.

And while I wouldn't have wanted Burns to splice in material on the subject of religion, the little bits of religion that made their way into the film intrigued me. I found myself wanting to know more about the interconnections between American religions and the war. There was a lot of discussion towards the end of the documentary about how the war indelibly changed those who fought in it. I wanted to know how believing (and unbelieving) used their faith (or lack thereof) to interpret what they saw during the war. Perhaps a chaplain for an interviewee? Religion seemed uncontroversial in the early 1940s -- surprisingly so, even when both Franklin Roosevelt (I think) and ordinary Americans talked about the war as a "crusade." I was curious about some divisions and controversies that might have lurked beneath the surface of consensus.

I don't blame Burns for not including more religion -- he had a hard enough task satisfying diverse groups of Americans. Still, the film made me think that we need more studies of religion and WWII. Gerald Sittser's A Cautious Patriotism, I think, is a good starting place (though I think many groups he paid less attention to dropped the caution), and portions of other books (such as Joel Carpenter's Revive Us Again) discuss the impact of the war on certain American religious groups. Because of Youth for Christ and the postwar burst of foreign mission agencies, the war appears to have been central to the reemergence of evangelicalism in a way not yet fully appreciated. The formation of the National Council of Churches shortly after the war possibly highlighted the height of mainline Protestant clout in the United States. The war certainly helped usher in the Protestant-Catholic-Jew consensus of the 1950s. All of these factors make me think of the Second World War as a critical turning point in the history of American religion, and I'm looking forward to someone writing a book that puts this story together for us.

God's Warriors

God’s Warriors
Kelly Baker

CNN is airing a special, entitled God's Warriors, starting this Tuesday, Aug. 21st at 9 pm ET. The special, hosted by Christiane Amanpour, documents supposed warriors for God in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. For a preview, the CNN website contains various video clips for each religious tradition that provides a sample of what the larger documentary is like. For Judaism, Amanpour reports on Jewish settlements in Gaza that pit settlers against soldiers. For Islam, there is a riveting video on the importance of martyrdom in Iran as dedication to both religious faith and nation. For Americanists, the information of Judaism and Islam is more global, but I think this might still be helpful for understanding the current fascination among the media with violent “tendencies” within religious traditions. (I field questions from students all the time about whether Islam is inherently violent or not, and I am not sure whether this documentary will prove to be a resource for educators or add more fuel to the fire for my students at least.)

The segment on Christianity, at least from the previews, seems to focus on American evangelicals. This should not be surprising because of the popularity of Jesus Camp. There is a great video about Battlecry, which is a ministry for teens to help them survive in our “secular” society. The ministry also has fantastic Christian merchandise, which is a combination of punk and skater aesthetic. This is a ministry that strives to be “hip” while encouraging teens to embrace faith rather than the immorality of American culture.

Amanpour also has an interview with the late Jerry Fallwell, a week before his death, about his role in the anti-abortion movement in which Fallwell sticks by his assessment that 9/11 signaled God’s disfavor with the American nation. Overall, the God’s Warriors might prove to be interesting with the comparison between the Abrahamic faiths, and it might prove to be a provocative resource in the classroom.

Puff the Magic Graham -- John Fea

John Fea

Did anyone get a chance to see the special edition of ABC’s 20/20 devoted to Billy Graham and the presidency? I am eager to hear what the “Religion in American History” blog community thought about it. Here are a few of my own thoughts to get the ball rolling.

1). While the documentary was generally favorable toward Graham, I was pleased that Charlie Gibson asked some of the tough questions about a Christian minister’s responsibility to speak truth to power. (I should add here that he never asked this question to Graham himself. This line of questioning was most evident in his interview with Charles Colson about the anti-Semitic remarks Graham uttered during a taped conversation in the oval office with Richard Nixon.

2). Was Graham a spiritual counselor or a prophet? Can we separate the two? If he was a counselor (as seems to have been the case with the Clintons), then I do not have as much of a problem with him hanging out in the corridors of power. Even presidents have spiritual needs. If he was a prophet, however, then I think he was definitely seduced by power. The Washington Post reporters who wrote the book that inspired the ABC documentary suggested that the presidents and Graham benefited from each other, but much of the focus in the show was on the way the presidents benefited from Graham and not the other way around. (With the exception of a brief commentary on how Graham used his fame to open doors for the preaching of the gospel in communist countries). Whatever the case, Graham seemed to thoroughly enjoy hobnobbing with presidents at the White House, on the golf course, and at a host of presidential vacation homes. In this sense, he was certainly no John the Baptist. (I might add here that Truman thought Graham, with his pistachio-colored suits, was a publicity hound. Carter, a strict Baptist, thought a relationship with Graham during his presidency would violate the principles of separation of church and state).

3). There seems to be a larger issue here about evangelicals and power. Pundits and commentators like to date the return of American evangelicals into public life sometime around the mid-1970s when Jerry Falwell started the Moral Majority and Newsweek declared 1976 “The Year of the Evangelical.” But well before these developments, evangelicals (they called themselves “neo-evangelicals”) had made serious attempts to break away from the separatism of fundamentalism and engage the world. Graham, with his inclusive and ecumenical crusades, represented this shift. But so did a host of neo-evangelical scholars such as Carl F.H. Henry, E.J. Carnell, and others who joined the faculty of the newly established Fuller Theological Seminary. (See George Marsden’s excellent account of Fuller’s early years in Reforming Fundamentalism).

Today when we think of evangelicals in positions of power, we think about politics. But the neo-evangelicals of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s also set the stage for theologically conservative Protestants to gain influence in the academy. (And, I might add, they have done quite well—especially in our field of American religious history). If any of us were put off by the way Graham may have been seduced by the power of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I wonder if we can say the same thing about evangelical scholars and their relationship to the academy? (And I will confess that I am getting a bit autobiographical here). Is it really possible for evangelical academics to be “in the world, but not of it?” As we all know, success in the academic world requires ambition, a good bit of self-promotion, and the ever present temptation to write primarily for the approval of others. Can an evangelical be a good academic citizen without compromising her or his faith? I wonder.

4). Did anyone notice that the sole American religious historian on the show, Randall Balmer, got very little air time?

5). I still think that if you want to really understand what Billy Graham was all about, you have to watch his 1969 appearance on the short-lived Woody Allen Show. Check it out.

Randall Stephens, Creationism and ID at Home and Abroad

"Creationism and Intelligent Design in America and Abroad," by Randall Stephens

Are creationism and intelligent design unique to America?" That's what I asked Kenneth R. Miller, renowned author and Brown University professor of Biology, after he delivered a spectacular multi-media presentation on intelligent design (ID) at the Open Theology and Science conference here at my college in July. Miller, along with Anna Case Winters, and Karl Giberson, participated in a forum on "God, Darwin, & Design: The Struggle for America's Soul."

I was surprised by Miller's answer. He said: no, in fact, it is not uniquely American. Creationists of various degrees populate the European continent, the U. K., and, most significantly, the Muslim world. That seemed fascinating. I had tended to think American evangelicals and conservative fundamentalists were exceptionally belligerent on the issue of human origins. What of the court cases in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Georgia, pitting fundamentalist against "godless" textbook writers? Creation "scientist" Ken Ham recently built a $27 million creationist museum in Kentucky. Match that, Luxembourg!

Isn't this strident theo-science peculiarly American? Apparently not. A recent piece in the New York Times, "Islamic Creationist and a Book Sent Round the World," was confirmation enough that I was off the mark: "In the United States, opposition to the teaching of evolution in public schools has largely been fueled by the religious right, particularly Protestant fundamentalism. Now another voice is entering the debate, in dramatic fashion. It is the voice of Adnan Oktar of Turkey [aka] Harun Yahya." Yahya has mailed a beautifully illustrated creation science textbook to leaders in the field at top universities across the United States. Darwinian evolution is a demonic plot of the West, so goes the argument. Those who have found this massive tome in their mail box have commented on how visually stunning it is. The recipients, nonetheless, were unconvinced.

Yet this development in the East could pose new challenges to public schools in the US and abroad. Will American Muslims buy the religion-dressed-as-science Yahya is hawking? Less likely, but no less interesting, might Christian conseravtives and Muslims find common ground on the issue?

According to Miller, the influence of creationism and ID extends far beyond religious right groups. A January 2006 survey conducted by the BBC showed that quite a few Britons are "unconvinced on evolution." Surveys are often flat of foot and leave as many questions as they offer answers. This survey, however, of over 2,000 participants, "asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life," is a little startling. It showed that "22% chose creationism, 17% opted for intelligent design, 48% selected evolution theory, and the rest did not know." That last bit speaks volumes. How much do English men and women care about the subject?

The survey was conducted for an installement of the BBC's Horizon - A War on Science. It can be watched in full on Google video. The 2006 documentary examines the roots of ID and exposes its all-too-close resemblence to creationism. As a pundit once put it, ID is creationism dressed in a cheap tuxedo.

The film is a superb introduction to the subject. Its coverage of the now-famous Dover, PA, trial is especially interesting. Interviews with Michael Behe, William Dembski, Richard Dawkins, and Kenneth Miller provide excellent context. The film is, though, quite heavy-handed at times. It's over-the-top score reminds me of the ridiculously grim music playing behind the Daily Show's faux-news magazine interviews. Minus that and some unecessary grandstanding on both sides (Dawkins calls Darwin's doubters "yapping terriers of ignorance"), this is the best treatment I've seen. I plan to use selections from it for my American Religion and Culture course. The film's setting, America's Bible Belt, presents the subject in stark relief.

Studying the Religious Lives of Children in Jesus Camp

Below is Kelly Baker's post on the film Jesus Camp. Just a pre-script -- besides the film itself, I highly recommend the directors' commentary included with the DVD of the film. They provide a fascinating window into the making of the documentary, and have some interesting things to say also about Ted Haggard, who appears briefly (and not very likably) in the film. Anyway, Kelly provides some good thoughts below on studying the religious lives of children, so enjoy!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelly Baker -- “Don’t be a promise breaker, be a history maker”

The documentary, Jesus Camp, explores the evangelical camp, “Kids on Fire,” and the lives of some of the participants. Becky Fischer, a Pentecostal children’s minister, runs the camp because of her belief that children are so “open and usable” in Christianity. Throughout the documentary, Fischer’s dictum about children seems to play out (sometimes painfully). We also follow Levi, Rachel, and Tory in their experiences of camp as well as their renderings of both their faith and their nation. Levi, who wants to be a preacher, is home schooled. His mother is his teacher and proponent of Creationism. Rachel shows the most enthusiasm for evangelizing and bowling, and she combines the two when witnessing to a young woman at the bowling alley. Tory listens to Christian heavy metal and dances for God rather than the flesh. Throughout their journeys at camp, the children embrace Fischer’s opinion on sin, abortion, and the decline of America. Levi preaches a sermon in which he tells the other children that they are the “key” generation to bring about the Second Coming of Christ, and Tory sobs when the camp counselors discuss the need to break the power of the enemy -- I suppose these are non-evangelicals, or the American government. What was most striking about the documentary was the reaction of children as they were being trained to be an army of God. Children sobbed over their supposed hypocrisies, raised their hands quickly to give their lives for God, and confessed while weeping how hard belief really is.

I watched most of this in a strange state of awe and discomfort. I was fascinated by the raw emotions of the children at the same time I had empathy for their self-loathing and tears. They were just kids after all. Yet as an American religious historian, I could not help but wonder if this film actually provided an accurate portrayal of the lived religion of these evangelical kids. Were these boys and girls always committed to becoming soldiers? Did they understand the red “LIFE” stickers adults placed over their mouths? Were these kids always so serious and committed? There were occasional glimpses of the children having fun from dancing exuberantly to Christian rap to boys scaring the wits out of each other with ghost stories. (The boys were reprimanded by adult, who suggested ghost stories were not quite holy).

Moreover, this film made me think about the religious lives of children. In his Between Heaven and Earth, Robert Orsi examined the religious lives of Catholic children among many other topics, and he argued that “[c]hildren are uniquely available to stand for the interiority of a culture and to offer embodied access to the inchoate possibilities of the culture’s imaginary futures” (78). Children, then, are often the place markers for a culture to present the future. To repeat Becky Fischer, children are “usable.” The counselors and the parents strived to create foot soldiers for the evangelical movement to take back what “rightfully” was a Christian nation. Yet with our great hopes for children also comes the possibility of failure. They might raise their hands, but they still want to tell ghost stories. For American religious historians, children pose an interesting problem. We have to realize how they represent the “interiority of the culture” while also seeing the children for themselves. How do we differentiate between the expectations of Fischer and the child’s own desires and needs?

For me, Jesus Camp was more an interesting exploration of the lives of evangelical children. Many were shocked and awed not only by the children’s behaviors but also the political message. The political message was not necessarily shocking, and I think it was handled (slightly) better by Michelle Goldberg in Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. The more confounding puzzle is still how to study the religious lives of American children because as Fischer rightly noted children are future “history makers.”

(Interestingly, Fischer has closed the “Kids on Fire” camp due to the negative response associated with the documentary.)

Mormon Pioneer Day

It's July 25th, and the new San Diegans Ed Blum (via Joanna Brooks, author of the oustanding book American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of Native American and African American Literature, reviewed here) remind me that yesterday, July 24th, was Pioneer Day, commemorating the Mormon trek and settlement in Salt Lake City. I'll be putting it on the annual blog calendar. With the documentary recently on PBS (reviewed by the New York Times here, HT to Art in the comments section, and by a Mormon blogger here), the presidential address at the American Society of Church History by Jan Shipps (a true pioneer in scholarship on the history of the LDS church), and of course Mitt Romney's candidacy, it's time for American religious historians to incorporate Mormonism more carefully into the narratives and scholarship, beyond recounting the nineteenth-century originating events of the church.

In his review of the book that Philip Goff and I edited, Themes in Religion and American Culture, Douglas Winiarski surveyed the "winners" and "losers" in the market economy of American religious history as it's being written now. Based on the essays in our volume, he pronounced Mormonism a "winner" (mainline Protestantism, not surprisingly, was a "loser," in both cases referring to the amount of discussion each respective group got in the essays). Although I co-edited the book, I hadn't realized how extensive the discussion of Mormonism was throughout the text, and was surprised when I skimmed the text again after the review and realized that Winarski's parsing of the winners and losers in the current historiographical economy was pretty dead-on.

Jan Shipp's presidential address to the ASCH on the changing meanings of Mormonism is not online (and if you're reading this, you need to be a member of the American Society of Church History -- you can do so online, so click on the link and just do it, and you'll receive the excellent journal Church History). However, Shipps has a nice piece "A Religious Ritual Wrapped in a Civic Event," which discusses the changing meanings of Pioneer Day. Here's a quick summary; click above for the link.

In the mountain West, Pioneer Day long had the effect of sustaining an unofficial pattern of stratification within Mormon culture that placed the members of families who came to the region during the early decades of LDS settlement in the area above those who came later. This pattern is gradually being altered, and one reason may be that Pioneer Day is undergoing a transformation.

The agent of change is an expansion of the idea of what being a Mormon pioneer means. Instead of simply honoring long-deceased pioneer heroes and heroines, today’s Saints in the mountain West and outside it are being asked to be pioneers themselves by doing something special to build up Mormonism in these latter days--perhaps being the first member of one’s family to go on a mission, being a leader of a branch of the church in an area where the church has not before had an organized unit, or serving the church in some other way that demands sacrifice and courage.

Looking at it this way reveals that the hoopla is not all there is to Pioneer Day. A closer look at this celebration reveals a larger truth about the Latter-day Saints: nowadays all sorts of things are changing within Mormonism. The transformation of the idea of what it means to be a pioneer will surely help dissolve what amounted to a caste system within the Mormon community. But as the meaning of being a pioneer is being transformed rather than de-emphasized or discarded, Pioneer Day is likely to retain its significance as both a holy day and a holiday.

McPherson and the Mormons

Aimee Semple McPherson and the Mormons -- an unlikely combination to be receiving lavish attention lately, both subjects of numerous new books, documentaries, and the like. The PBS documentary on McPherson -- featuring my friend Anthea Butler, a radiant talking head and new editor of The North Star: Journal of African American Religious History, alongside other scholars -- relies heavily on the biographies of McPherson by Edith Blumhofer (Everybody's Sister, an excellent book I reviewed for the Journal of Southern History), and the recent work Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. Aimee's life (as viewed by Sutton) also gets reviewed by Caleb Crain in the New York Review of Books (subscription required); Crain supplements his article with some further interesting notes on Aimee's life here, and links to recordings of Aimee's voice here. Here locally in Colorado Springs, the rise and fall of Sister Aimee bears many resemblances to that of Ted Haggard of the New Life Church (albeit the "fall" part is more sordid and less amusing than Sister Aimee's). If you have J-STOR access, my review of Blumhofer's biography is here.

The PBS/Frontline four-hour series on Mormon history and culture is linked here; the film makes excellent use of religious/legal history scholars such as Sarah Barringer Gordon and Kathleen Flake and also features a sensitive discussion of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I'll post more another time about the plethora of excellent recent scholarly literature on the Latter-day Saints.

The theme here is the theatrical and the organizational, or perhaps the charismatic and the bureaucratic. It reminded me of a recent conversation with a relative concerning Fall's Creek Baptist Youth Assembly, the largest religious youth camp in the United States, located in Oklahoma. The music there is no longer reliant on Protestant hymnology, but instead has been converted into praise music bands, the now-standard megachurch style. The same goes for the praise music at the Estes Park YMCA camp where I recently attended a family reunion. Sister Aimee would have loved it.