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KEN CHITWOOD

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“The person who knows only one religion, knows none”
— Max Müller

Christians across the world remember Ash Wednesday on Feb. 18, 2015. What other religious face markings exist? And why are they so prominent? 

Religion in your face: Ash Wednesday & religious face markings

February 17, 2015

"Dude, you've...um...I think you have dirt on your face."

"No sir, it's not dirt. It's a marker of allegiance to a particular strand of religiosity, in this instance focused on a liturgical posture of penance, which, in turn, may have little bearing on my day-to-day lived religious identity and practice....but yeah, otherwise, it's dirt on my face." 

Or, perhaps, ash would be more accurate. Tomorrow (February 18, 2015) is Ash Wednesday. Millions of Christians across the world -- Catholic, Lutheran, Anglicans, others -- will commemorate the commencement of Lent -- a 40-day penitential season of fasting and preparation preceding Easter, the celebration of Jesus' resurrection from the dead -- with the "imposition" or "infliction" of ashes on their foreheads. 

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood on Twitter

Christians are not alone in marking their faces with religious symbols. There are traditions in India, New Zealand, sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere that involve religious symbology being born on foreheads, cheeks, and mouth. While this may seem an extreme sign of devotion, more often than not, these religious facial markings tell us relatively little about the lived religion of the devotee marking their visible features with spiritual symbols. 

Ash Wednesday

The symbol of ashes on the forehead are meant to serve as a reminder of the contrite believers' physical return to dust (accompanied by a ritualistic repetition of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" or "from dust you came, from dust you shall return") and their spiritual condition as sinners in need of mourning over their sin, confession, and repentance. 

A Filipino woman has her forehead graced with ashes in remembrance of the Christian holiday "Ash Wednesday," marking the culmination of the penitential 40-day season of Lent. 

While traditionally practiced among Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Lutherans, there are a growing number of evangelical and other mainline Protestant churches taking up the practice. And not only are Christians getting their ash in church, they're getting dusted in the streets. In her book City of God, recovering journalist and Episcopalian lay liturgist Sara Miles shared her Lenten adventure of perambulating San Francisco's mission district in black cassock on Ash Wednesday marking those she meets with the ashes of Lent. There, in the cracked sidewalks and fractured realities of the city she calls home, Miles finds bodies marked not only with poverty and pain, but "the realities of death." 

Revealing in an interview with Publisher's Weekly the premise that "God has left the [church] building," Miles believes she does not take faith to the streets, but finds it there. "I am in this privileged position to get to see what people's experience of faith and God is, and for each person it is slightly different." In her book she aims to voice this urban canon, this discovery of people who are "hungry for something that's real."

Of marking foreheads with ashes, Miles says the yearning for belief that is solid and can be touched is part of the draw of that ritual. "It's stunning how many people want to be told they are dust and that they will die," she says. "The chronic lie of our culture is that people don't die. But people want to know the truth."

For over twelve hundred years on the dies cinerum (Day of Ashes) faithful followers have approached the altar to receive ashes on their foreheads. These ashes are often made from the burnt palm fronds that were blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. The ashes are sprinkled with water, usually fragranced with incense and blessed. The ceremonial use of ashes for repentance and penance can be traced even further back and is practiced throughout the world. 

What this seemingly utmost devotional act does not reveal is how quickly many practitioners may wash their foreheads or remove their ashes once they leave the sanctuary. In the case of the individuals on the streets of San Francisco, and elsewhere, that get their ashes to-go, it tells us nothing of their personal faithfulness through the rest of Lent or as day-to-day Christians for that matter. 

South Indian Tripundra 

The same can be said for the mark of a saiva in South India known as the "tripundra" (also "tilak").

Consisting of three horizontal lines of vibhuti (holy ash) on the forehead often with a dot (bindu) acting as "a third eye," the tripundra may evoke a sense of the Ash Wednesday practice. However, there are different motivations in this Hindu tradition.  The three lines symbolize the the real self's (atman's) three bonds: anava, karma, and maya.

Anava is the sense of "I" or "mine" within each of us and is, according to the Shaiva tradition under consideration by Dr. Elaine Fisher of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the impetus for the individual atman's misplaced notion of separate being apart from the god Shiva. It is the final bond to be broken before moksha, or self-realization and release. Karma literally means "action, work or deed." In both Buddhist and Hindu traditions, karma is the universal law of cause and effect -- the effect (or fruits) of a person's actions not only have ramifications in this life, but also in the next. Over the centuries, the various schools of Hinduism have conceived of many variations on the karmic theme, some making karma appear quite deterministic, others making room for free will and individual agency. Maya is power and wisdom. The debate rages over whether this ability is real or illusory. In some Vedic texts, maya is a "magical show, an illusion," but in Shaivism maya is potent and truly existent and deterministic. It is real insofar as it endows the individual with the cosmos, tangible elements of the world, and a body to be realized, and to practice, in. However, the vibhuti, composed of burnt cow dung, or in some Shaiva traditions the funerary ashes of cremated corpses, is an omnipresent reminder of the temporary nature of physical existence and the urgency to strive for self-realization and spiritual attainment (moksha).

As Fischer explained the bearing of tripundra actively mark's one in South India as part of a certain body/religious public and community, but it tells us little else about other aspects of their religious identity.  

Māori Ta Moko 

This dynamic is even more evident in the modern practice of ta moko among Māori, and others, in Aotearoa (New Zealand). 

Uetonga tattooing his son-in-law Mataora in the under world. 

The Māori traditionally chiseled marks on their faces, called ta moko. Each individual’s ta moko is unique and sacred to them. As mentioned, the traditional way of applying ta moko to the face was to dip a narrow blade in black pigment and then tap the blade with a mallet to chisel deep incisions into the skin. This process not only left a tattoo of the designs, but permanent grooves in the skin. Today, most ta moko are tattooed according to international standards, but still informed by Māori lore. 

The traditional form of ta moko was practiced by tohunga, who were both ritual experts and skilled artisans. A woman’s moko, which covered only the chin and lips, would take one or two days to complete. A man’s moko, which covered the whole face, was done in stages over several years due to the immense pain, swelling, and blood often involved in the process. Because of this, while the scars were healing, the person being tattooed was in a state of tapu (taboo, sacred or set apart). They could not look in a mirror, touch their own food, engage in sexual activity, or even wash the tattooed skin. 

It is mythically believed that the Māori received the practice of ta moko from the underworld -- Rarohenga -- when the ancestor Mataora went in search of his wife Niwareka there. Encountering a different people than what he was used to in "the upper world," Mataora came across a man being tattooed and bleeding profusely. He thought something must be wrong. Uetonga, the chief applying the tattoo, informed Mataora that his method of tattooing was permanent, while the upper world's was "merely a marking" (whakairo tuhi or hopara makaurangiI) that could be wiped away. The tattoos were often made of red, blue, and white ochre and were temporary. Uetonga then smeared Mataora's tuhi and instructed him in the ways of ta moko, puncturing his skin and marking the lines in his face with a chisel. When Mataora returned to the upper world, he adopted ta moko and made it known among the Maori and their neighbors. As the myth says, "prior to the visit of Mataora to Rarohenga, people painted pictures on their faces" and now they practice "real tattooing by puncture." 

Since the 1970s and 80s, some Māori have begun wearing ta moko again as a marker, and assertion of their cultural identity as part of the wider Māori cultural revival (Ngā tuakiri hōu). Even a few Māori tattoo artists are reviving traditional methods of applying ta moko to the face, thighs, and arms. Formerly a sign of status and prestige, now Māori people who wear ta moko assert their identity in a world of rapid change and cultural incursion. 

Sub-Saharan African Tribal Marks

A Maasai woman with facial markings on her cheeks. 

Similarly in many locales throughout sub-Saharan Africa various tribes include face markings as part of their ethnic identification. However, some markings in African tribes have more spiritual intimations. In some Yoruba settings children believed to be a "reincarnated child" (abiku), will be given marks on their face and body. It is believed that to take away the potentially destructive spiritual powers of the child, he/she has to be identified by the marks when he/she is born. Otherwise, it is believed, the child may die at an early age. It can also be used to wade away evil spirits ravaging around a certain group of people or family. In this case, the marks are not only on the face but other parts of the body as well. In Ghana among most tribes a "reincarnated child," referred to as "Kosanma" will bear "Donko" marks on the face.

Like the Yoruba, most tribes in sub-Saharan Africa give marks to their people for spiritual protection. Most often, it is religious ritual experts (shamans, herbalists, etc.) who apply the marks by cutting the body and inserting powerful herbs with spiritual potency to help heal the wound. Cuts will not only be made on the face, but on hips, wrists, stomachs, and shoulders. 

Regardless of the source or tradition, most who do not practice such religious facial markings may react with surprise or even horror when they see someone with their religious identity splashed, or scarred, across their faces. Extreme. Outlandish. Drastic. 

In one sense, inscribing, or marking, one's religion on one's face is powerful and evocative. Not only does it identity the believer with a particular religious or cultural community, it also locates that believer within the drama. By marking one's body, either permanently or temporarily, the adherent weaves themselves into the dogmatic and ritualistic narrative of their religion. With permanent markings, this placement is deeper both physically -- scars and chiseled skin -- and spiritually. 

Yet, as has been hinted at throughout this post, while these markings may disclose a particular religious self-identification or membership in a certain religious community or body politic, they tell us very little about how these individuals construct their daily religious life or if they do so at all. In a globalized world, cultural identity is a precious commodity. Thus, facial markings are a way to fetishize the body, to inscribe it with communal meaning, profound purpose, and public sacrality in a world perceived as increasingly homogenous, superficial, individualized, secular, and privatized.

More often than not, these markings are temporary. When they are not, they are markers of cultural identity more than religious ritual. Either way, they force the issue of religiosity in the 21st-century and continuously drive us to ask why it is that so many, whether Christian or Māori, Yoruba or Hindu, choose to not only bear their religion on their face, but put it in ours as they meet us in the public square. By proudly bearing their markings for a day, a season, or their entire lives, these devotees and religious faithful are a constant reminder that religion has not gone by the wayside in a globalized world, but is ever more present, potent, and potentially "in our face." 

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood on Twitter

In Religion and Culture, Religious Studies Tags Ash Wednesday, Lent, Sara Miles, City of God, Imposition of ashes, Tripundra, Tilak, Shaiva, Abhuti, Maori, Ta moko, Mataora, African face markings, Scarrification, Religion in your face, Elaine Fisher
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Nintendo's Power Glove & the Hand of God: Religion & Culture in the Digital Age

February 4, 2015

Over the last decade the study of religion has expanded its multidisciplinary reach by looking to see the ways in which religion and culture intersect with media and digital technology. Questions range from "How is religion represented in the media?" to "How are religious organizations using media and technology to promote their faiths" to more ambitious questions about the role media plays in shaping, and perhaps deputizing the role of, religion. 

As Dr. Stewart Hoover wrote in Religion in the Media Age, “It has been argued that the media are today the most credible sources of social and cultural information, setting the agenda and the context for much of what we think and know about reality. Religion, which addresses itself to such questions, must be expressed and experienced differently as a result.” So too must the study of religion. Increasingly, individual and communal religious actors are engaging with media religiously or encountering religion through various forms of digital media.

The University of Florida's religion department is interdisciplinary in nature. In approaching religion, the program  encourages students to draw on work in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. 

However, we would be naïve to posit that it is only the forces of media that impact religion and not vice-versa. As the twenty-first century comes of age, religion continues to prove a potent local, regional, and global force that is shaping the way we interact with, view, and create media. Indeed, both media and religion compete for the central constructive roles in the formation of social solidarity and thus, studies merging the two streams of cultural production are necessary and beneficial to understand religion, and/or media, in the digital age. Hence, the purpose and pertinence of the Graduate Student Conference "Religion and Culture in the Digital Age" held January 24, 2015 at the University of Florida. 

The conference sought to bring together graduate students from diverse academic backgrounds and scholars who conduct research in the digital humanities. The daylong event included three panels and a roundtable with Dr. David Morgan (Duke University), Dr. Stewart Hoover (University of Colorado at Boulder), Dr. Dragan Kujundzic (University of Florida - Jewish Studies), and Dr. Sid Dobrin (University of Florida - English). 

The papers presented at the conference, and the topics covered, were diverse and wide-ranging. What follows is a short overview of each panel and the roundtable talk, covering highlights and the most pressing issues and/or questions that emerged from each. 

Panel 1: The Creation of Sacrality and the Role of the Audience (Commentator: Dr. Terje Østebø)

At the fear of being partial to my own paper, I will start with the other two panelists. Cristina Ruiz-Poveda Vera (University of Florida) presented about the role of the audience in transcendental spiritual films, discussing films like Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World" (2007) and Don Hertzfeldt's "The Meaning of Life" (2005). Entitled, "Film as Temple" the presentation artfully explored the ways in which spiritual movies can often move the viewer beyond themselves much like sacred texts and ritual.

Alfredo Garcia (Princeton University) presented the results of a sociological study entitled, "Tolerance in an Age of Social Media: An Experimental Design Examining Muslims and Mosques in the United States," in which he and a co-author found that having a Muslim friend, or even interacting with Muslims on social media, did not significantly alter attitudes about the building of mosques in the U.S. 

Trying to let the bow-tie do the talking for me. 

Honored to share alongside these two scholars, my paper presented the findings of my two-month long ethnographic experiment as a participant-observer on the "Latino Muslim Facebook Group." Latina/o Muslims in the United States are quadruple minorities (Latina/o and Muslim in the U.S., Latina/o in the Muslim community, Muslim in the Latina/o community). As such, Latina/o Muslims seek to create their own identity and supportive community. While national para-mosque organizations and local entities create some sense of shared identity, new media, specifically social media, play an increasingly important role in constructing a cohesive Latina/o Muslim community and creating causeways for greater inclusion in the global umma. By liking one another’s posts (the most common form of interaction on the page), Latina/o Muslims are doing more than having fun on social media. They are intimately, and actively, engaged with creating a hybrid community, crafting a worldview on the borderlands between the digital and real, between being Muslim and Latina/o, and shaping a Latina/o Muslim identity that will be applied online and in the “real” world. 

The discussion following this panel revolved around questions of methodology in the digital humanities and whether or not there is such a thing as an "ethnography" of a digital sociality. 

Panel 2: Digitized Hinduism (Commentator: Dr. Phillip Green)

Yael Lazar presents on "digital darshan" as Bhakti Mamtora, Nick Collins, and Dr. Phillip Green look on. 

Yael Lazar presents on "digital darshan" as Bhakti Mamtora, Nick Collins, and Dr. Phillip Green look on. 

Following this discussion and some refreshments provided by Harvest Thyme Café, Yael Lazar (Duke University) presented her paper examining the use of the internet and its shaping of Hindus, and Hinduism, through the practice of "digital darshan." Darshan, (Sanskrit: "auspicious viewing") is the beholding of a deity, guru, or sacred object (esp. in image form). The devotion is perceived as reciprocal in some traditions and the idea is that the viewer will receive a divine blessing. Some Hindus are taking to the internet to perform darshan and receive their blessings digitally, though the potency of such a practice is contested. 

Bhakti Mamtora (University of Florida) examined the websites, social media sites, and mobile apps of Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, known as BAPS, a major Swaminarayan organization. She argued that through sleek designs and highly visual and interactive elements, which introduced immediate and personal experiences (e.g. "Daily Satsang"), BAPS is able to help craft technologies that aid individuals in their spiritual endeavors and contribute to the formation of a global tradition.  Mamtora emphasized how this area of Hindu culture and practice, in addition to Lazar's study, needs more focused research and necessitates a focus on practice to understand the multiple levels of meaning that individuals ascribe to online practices as active social agents in community construction in a digital landscape. 

She argued that through sleek designs and highly visual and interactive element, which introduced immediate and personal experiences (e.g. “Daily Satsang”), BAPS is able to craft technologies that aid individuals in their spiritual endeavors and contribute to the formation of a global tradition.

 

Nick Collins (University of Florida) rounded out the panel by talking about the "digital super nature" available to Buddhist practitioners experiencing the anomic experience of a fractal mind and self. He called the various media online and the networks of connections available to practitioners as an "invisible school" offering an opportunity to enter into the Vedic mind. He wrote, "In the contemporary digitally mediated cultural landscape, the traditional lineage lines, forms, and structures of cultural systems, including religious traditions, have become 'cut loose' from their (prior) cultural bodies and aggregately integrated into a single, all inclusive spatial-temporal environment, a discarnate, nonlocal, and ever-present now represented by the interconnected digital media landscape."

He closed by emphasizing the importance for the scholar of such a tradition to "enter into experiential contact with such practices" and "Be a Weirdo" in both society and academia. 

Panel 3: The Mediazation of Myth and Learning (Commentator: Dr. Robert Kawashima)

The final panel of the day focused on Christian traditions. Chris Fouche (University of Florida) talked about the potential promises and pitfalls for seminaries and other theological institutions offering distance education while at the same time seeking to form deep Christian community. Using Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Finkenwalde seminary project as a litmus test of sorts, Fouche recommended hybrid models for online/offline theological education and underlined just how difficult online education is in the creation of authentic community. 

Michael Knippa brings McLuhan into the digital age, arguing the Bible might be seen differently now since "the medium is the message." 

Michael Knippa (Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) discussed the transformation of interpretation and meaning of biblical texts due to their various media: scrolls, codices, amulets, collections, book form, and digital representations. Pulling on the theory of Marshall McLuhan ("the medium is the message") he argued that in the shift from print to digital we can't pretend that the digitization of the Bible will not have an impact on its reception and its message. He offered that digitized Bibles will transform our methods & theories of interpretation, perhaps more mythologically. Only time will tell.

From the up the road in religious studies land, Carson Bay (Florida State University) examined various Christian reactions to the film Noah released last summer (2014). He discussed the film's platform and whether or not it was perceived as legitimizing or delegitimizing certain narratives in the Bible. Regardless of various negative lines on the reception of Noah among Christians, evangelicals used the movie as culturally-relevant tool for proselytization, with attendant theological corrections (e.g. with 'the Watchers' and Noah's abortive mania). 

The discussion following this panel was the most lively of the day as the discussion centered around McLuhan's theoretical system and whether or not it was viable. As Dr. Hoover mentioned, these young scholars were entering into a very long, and historical, discussion about media and religion. That was where he, and others, would begin during the roundtable discussion that rounded off the day. 

Roundtable Discussion (Moderator: Dr. Manuel Vásquez)

Featuring four scholars each with their own unique, and significant, contributions of the field of religion and digital humanities, the roundtable discussion was the highlight of the conference. 

David Morgan's major interests are the history of religious visual and print culture and American religious and cultural history. He opened by reminding students that this area of study "is not always about being sexy, it's about contextualizing the new to give it historical depth." He further offered that it is healthy and helpful to "bring a hermeneutics of suspicion to media studies and the investigation of religion and material culture in the digital age." Speaking to earlier discussions about ethnography in the digital age he underlined the need for hybrid methods. He said, "There's no 'pure' digital ethnography. We have to develop the tools to track people between both online and offline worlds."

Dr. Manuel Vásquez, Dr. David Morgan, and Dr. Dragan Kujundzic listen as Dr. Sid Dobrin presents his angle on religion, interpretation, and the digital age. 

Echoing Morgan, Stewart Hoover, Professor of Media Studies and founder/director of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture, underlined that while "the 'digital age' is different, we must view religion and media through an historical lens...looking at the issues our research presents over time." Furthermore, he talked about how he is not interested in studying the media on the screen people are viewing, but watching the people who are watching the media. Beyond this ethnographic perspective, he encouraged researchers in this area to think cosmopolitan-ly. He closed stating, "religious transnationalism, globalization, and the like must be considered in our study of religion & digital media."

Kujundzic and Dobrin each added their own perspectives, with the former focusing on the post-modern lens and the study of religion and media and the latter bringing his perspective from literature studies to the consideration of religion in print media, film, music, and digital media. 

Feeling as if they had drank water from a firehose all day long, the participants and presenters retired to the Keene Faculty Center for a reception to interact and continue the discussion. 

As wine glasses clinked and the conversation circled back to the various topics presented throughout the day the general conclusion was that the day was a success. Not only were the papers and topics scintillating and interesting, each in their own regard, but the atmosphere of the conference was prosperous in that it brought together core academics and new scholars to discuss an apposite interdisciplinary field that is of special interest to anyone concerned with religion, digital media, or the intersection and intermeshing of the two in the 21st-century and beyond.   

Special thanks to Dr. Manuel Vásquez, Dr. David Hackett, Dr. Terje Østebø, Dr. Phillip Green, and Dr. Robert Kuwushima for their support of the conference. Thank you also to the conference's graduate student organizers Prea Persaud, Jason Purvis, and Caroline Reed for their efforts in making this first annual grad conference with #UFreligion a major triumph and contribution to the fields of religious studies and digital humanities. 

In Faith Goes Pop, Religion, Religion and Culture, Religious Studies Tags Religion and Culture in the Digital Age, David Morgan, Stewart Hoover, Manuel Vásquez, Ken Chitwood, Alfredo Garcia, University of Florida, religion and media, religion in the media age, Dragan Kujundzic, Sid Dobrin, Michael Knippa, Cristina Ruiz-Poveda Vera, Islam, digital darshan, Yael Lazar, Bhakti Mamtora, BAPS website, Nick Collins, Buddhism online, Dr. Phillip Green, Dr. Terje Østebø, Chris Fouche, Theological education online, Marshall McLuhan, digital Bibles
Comment

The Mission & reclaiming humanity in our reading of history

January 22, 2015

The first time I encountered the movie 'The Mission' was in a hostel in Berlin. My wife and I were backpacking across Europe and we met up with a couple of friends at our Hakeschermarkt hostel. One of them was listening to the film's score and he shared it with me. It was beautiful, moving, and immense.

When I got home I watched the movie and found it intriguing and visually stunning. This week I was able to 're-read' the film by watching it again -- this time through the lens of the study of religion in Latin America. 

Besides proving that Liam Neeson is a bad ass even in a monk's habit and showing Robert De Niro can't stop the wild and volatile nature of, well, himself, this film is an invitation to recapture the human element of our records of the past and a challenge to the narrative of "the inevitability of history." These are two very important points that, I contend, we must recapture to address pertinent crises of our own today. 

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

First, a short overview of the film (go watch it, seriously...do it now). The film is set during the Jesuit Reductions in South America, specifically in the border regions (Tres Fronteras) between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. The Jesuits have set up missions independent of the Spanish state in order to reach the Guarani people and to avoid political oversight or removal when the Portuguese are handed the territories within which they operate.  

Throughout, the film deals themes of violence, peace, and transformation (warning, spoilers ahead). The Guarani kill one missionary only to receive another -- Father Gabriel -- (played by Jeremy Lyons) who comes with music and peace. A mercenary named Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) kills his brother in a love triangle in the colonial city Asuncion, which is built on a slave economy. Gabriel seeks to redeem Mendoza and leads him, through trial and travail, to join the Jesuit order and the mission "above the falls." 

The work of the mission, however, is threatened by political developments. The Spanish and Portuguese crowns have signed a treaty that transfers the territory where the missions are located from Spanish to Portuguese jurisdiction. Cardinal Altamirano (Ray McAnally), an emissary from the Pope in Rome, arrives to decide whether the missions will remain under the protection of the Church. Tension and disagreement ensue as various interlocutors (the missionaries, colonists, and the Guarani) all contest the handover of land. The central issue is whether or not the Guarani will be forced off their land. 

While Altamirano is impressed by the missions among the Guarani he also recognizes that the missions pose an economic threat to the European (Spanish or Portuguese) plantations. Thus, Altamirano tells the Indians that they must leave and orders the priests to accept the transfer of the mission territories. In private, he explains to Gabriel that the future of the Jesuit order in Europe depends upon their not resisting the political authorities in South America.

The Guarani, unmoved by political arguments and unable to understand what Altamirano says is the will of God, decide to defend their home. Mendoza, encouraged by an Guarani boy renounces his vow of obedience as a Jesuit and chooses to fight alongside them. Gabriel discourages him and instead decides to lead mass with women, children, and older men as European troops descend and the mission is destroyed, the Guarani killed. 

Near the end of the film, Cardinal Altamarino and the Portuguese political representative (Don Hontar) are discussing the events that unfold and the latter laments that what occurred was unfortunate, but inevitable. He says, "we must work in the world; the world is thus." To this, Altamarino replies, "No, thus have we made the world. Thus I have made it." 

In this one line is the point of the film that I am trying to highlight -- that history is not inevitable, that human actors play a key role in all historical events, forces, or movements. Cardinal Altamarino recognizes that the massacre was not predetermined, but instead that human actors had made it so by their thoughts, words, and deeds. 

School children peer over at a wooden representation of a victim of the Inquisition in Lima, Peru. 

A similar point is made in another work concerning colonial South America -- Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World by Irene Silverblatt. Interrogating records from the Inquisition in colonial Peru, Silverblatt argues that rather than being a paragon of pre-modern religious fanaticism, the Inquisition was a thoroughly modern, and some might say 'civilized,' affair engaged in bureaucratic wrangling, a fidelity to procedure, and a magical process of modern state-craft built around race-thinking. She argues throughout the book that in order to see the Inquisition as such we must plumb the historical depths of the records to find a) that the accused, the inquisitor, the witnesses, and the participants in the autos-de-fe were all human and b) that the Inquisition was not inevitable as such. 

She wrote of looking at the records, "we read about disputes, errors, missed chances, and disastrous calculations; we read tales of human strength and courage, about moments of extraordinary valor and acts of profound dignity; and sometimes we can even find flashes of humor." (p. 23) She intimates here that in looking to the historical sources, we must find the characters to not be some mindless figures caught up in fixed forces, but as "human beings -- replete with foibles, strengths, and shortcomings -- who act in ways not always predictable or anticipated." (p. 22)

Likewise, in her book Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos Kay Almere Read approaches the bloody system of sacrifice in the Mexica cosmos and takes a novel approach compared to other historical overviews and explanations. Rather than assuming that the entire Mesoamerican civilization was full of sadist-psychopaths who enjoyed murdering one another, let's assume that it's not just about sacrifice and that these human beings of the past were engaged in, what they thought, was a world-ordering and moral affair engaged with the fundamental powers of the universe (time and space). Let's try to understand their point of view. At the same time, Read perhaps goes too far in underestimating the level of resistance to this system of sacrifice in order to illustrate the rationale of it. Certainly, peripheral communities within the Mexica world resisted their capture and the sacrificial system, even though they may have bought into the rational of the cosmological narrative. Again, history is not inevitable. 

This same dual emphasis could be applied to other epochs of history -- investigating the "Golden Era of Islamic Science," the "Galileo Affair," the development of Mormonism in the U.S., etc. In each of these instances we can read them according to their headlines, or we can listen to the small voices of history and try to recapture the human elements of each story. Doing so, we will find true believers and dissonant rebels, people on both sides of the conflict and certainly some in the middle. We will discover conflicted characters and moments when maybe, just maybe, things could have gone a different way. 

Essentially, we can read history in a black-and-white, "this was always going to happen," manner or we can nuance the story, romance its miscellany, and find the tangible, fallible, and flesh-and-blood stories of men and women wrestling with the worldview of their day to bring about the events that we now read as "inevitable history." In doing so, we will find that these events were anything but assured, but that history could've turned on a dime. 

Why is this important? Today, we are dealing with myriad crises. Whether we are in Ferguson, Missouri; Mosul, Iraq; Paris, France; or Monrovia, Liberia we must never lose sight of the human elements of each of these stories, and, likewise, must not assume that there are inexorable forces at work that fate these circumstances to play out in a certain way. Black lives can matter and police work can be respected; violent extremism and sectarian religious communism can be combatted, and disease can be eradicated. There is no need to throw our hands up in the air and either a) ignore the problem or b) act as if there is only one unfortunate outcome. 

The way to address these issues with an open mind and for a possible positive outcome is to actively remember, and recapture, the human element at every turn.

We must not think of the protests in Ferguson (and elsewhere) as an "us v. them" drama, but a story of a family who lost a child, a police officer who took a life, a community that feels social pressures that they feel are outside of their control, and political, religious, and social leaders trying to lead toward a peaceful future. 

This man has a story, let us not forget. 

We must not think of ISIS or other terrorist elements in the world as mindless drones caught up in a tidal wave of "Islamic extremism." These are men and women who feel isolated, de-territorialized, and confused in a chaotic mess of identity crisis wherein they are forced to choose between false binaries of being modern or Muslim, European or Islamic, etc. We must also remember the refugees and the soldiers on the ground with their lives, families, religious sensibilities, and daily concerns. We must also not forget the victims and their hopes, dreams, and aspirations cut short or derailed by violence. 

We must not think of Ebola as an unstoppable disease or the cultures wherein it is wreaking havoc as backwards or unable to cope. Diseases have been eradicated before, plagues have been stopped. Throughout, we must remember that those effected are more than bodies, they are embodied beings whose heart beats with similar passions to our own, but are forced to live in a context of fear, suspicion, and death that we can only scarcely imagine.  

In conclusion, it is my contention that remembering the human element will often lead us to more level headed, compassionate, and deeper understanding of not only historical events, but contemporary crises. By considering the movie "The Mission" and the study of various eras in American hemispherical history we are invited to recognize that these stories are not of individuals caught up along some inhuman wave of social forces or inevitable metaphysical dramas, there is an ontological, chaotic, dynamic relationship between event and human. 

We must never forget the human element. If we do, we will often misconstrue history and/or contemporary events to the point that we assume that the people involved have no humanity to defend, that they were simply good/bad, evil/heroic, and that history dealt with them accordingly. Likewise, we must never ignore the history of a people. As William Loren Katz wrote, "Those who assume that a people have history worth mentioning are likely to believe they have no humanity worth defending." 

Appreciating the history, and humanity, of people, stories, and events, on the other hand, will lead us to greater understanding, dialogue, and eventually, hopefully, to compassion as we consider the story, as we wrestle with its implications, and we draw lessons to learn from the past and the present to confront our common future. 

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

In PhD Work, Religion and Culture, Religious Studies Tags The Mission, Robert DeNiro, Liam Neeson, Modern Inquisitions, Violence, inevitability of history, humanity of history, Interrogating the text, Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos, Ferguson, Black Lives matter, Ebola, ISIS, Paris attack
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Are Islam & science compatible?

January 20, 2015

Are Islam and science compatible? Is the Islamic faith harmonious with the science of the natural world or is there, rather, an irreconcilable conflict between the metaphysical system based on faith and the demands of reason and empirical inquiry? 

This question is the one I proposed to a class of some 30 undergraduate students at the University of Florida on January 20, 2015 as I lectured on the topic of "Islam & Science" as a teaching assistant for Dr. Anna Peterson's "Religion and Science" course. 

This question is inexorably tied up in consideration of history, contemporary politics, discussions of civilization, debates about "oriental" understandings of the past, and the fields of philosophy, science, and metaphysics. 

Essentially, it's a complicated topic. As I said to my students, covering this topic in one 50-minute lecture is like drinking water from a firehose. You can't keep it all down, catch what you can! To help the students and to share the discussion with others I voiced-over my public Prezi and am sharing it with you HERE. 

Please FOLLOW THIS LINK to watch, and listen to, my presentation of the historical context, the contemporary debates, and the significant highlights we must consider, understand, and appreciate concerning Islam and science and to be able to answer the question of whether or not these two are harmonious, compatible, or engaged in irreconcilable conflict. 

In PhD Work, Religion and Culture, Religious Studies Tags Religion and science, Islam, Islam and science, Al-Kindi, Golden Era of Muslim science, Islamic science, Muslim science, Science and religion, Al-Razi, Ibn Sinna, Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn-Rush, Ibn-Rushd, Ibn-Khaldun, Al-Ghazali, Decline of science in Islam, Islamic scientific revolution, Pervez Hoodbhoy
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New Position with New Zealand 'Islamic Studies Group'

January 20, 2015

It is no surprise that the study of Islam and Muslims is of paramount importance in the world today. Yet, with recent events in France, Belgium, Syria/Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, and Australia (to name a few) the global understanding of Islam and its transnational, de- and re-territorialized, and local dimensions is evermore vital. 

Take for example the Maori agriculturalist living in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand. A respected man in the community and one of the world's "500 most influential Muslims," Te Amorangi Kireka-Whaanga recently declared his allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and "founded" his own "Islamic state" in the town of Hastings. 

Why did a Maori New Zealander state his fidelity with a jihadist organization in the Middle East? What was the reaction of the local population? His neighbors? The Muslim community he once represented? When did Mr. Kireka-Whaanga convert? What were the circumstances? What are the local dynamics of the community? Are there any connections between that community and Syria and/or Iraq?

These are just some of the questions that need to be asked. Just one of the instances of Islam in Oceania, and around the globe, that need to be studied, apperceived, and explained. 

It is in this context of exploration, and cognizance, of global Islam that I am excited to announce I have now been named a Corresponding Associate Research Member with the University of Waikato's Islamic Studies Group (UWISG). 

The Islamic Centre of Palmerston North, New Zealand. 

The University of Waikato (Te Whara Wānanga o Waikato)  is located in Hamilton, New Zealand. With strengths in computer science and information systems, economics, education, law, and languages, the University serves not only the south Auckland populace, but also the central region of Aotearoa's North Island. The University has over 30 different research centers and groups, including the UWISG. 

The UWISG is "a non-partisan and a not-for-profit organisation committed to the objective of fostering academic insight and understanding on Islamic phenomena through interdisciplinary research initiatives." The group hosts seminars and presentations, publishes a bi-annual review, and provides public relations services and consultation in the public and private sectors. 

As a Corresponding Associate Research Member I am associated with the UWISG, but continuing my studies and work at University of Florida in Gainesville. I will contribute by writing for the Waikato Islamic Review via articles and reviews, present UWISG workshops, talks, and/or symposia at the discretion of the UWISG management, and provide commentary advice/support as and when called upon.

I am more than honored and pleased to join the UWISG as a Corresponding Associate Research Member and look forward to continuing my study of global Islamic dynamics and community and sharing some of that insight with you here at the blog. 

In the meantime, I encourage you to look into the University of Waikato, its Islamic Studies Group, and perhaps read more about Islam in New Zealand via the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand. 

 

In PhD Work, Religion News, Religious Studies Tags University of Waikato, Global Islam, Ken Chitwood, UWISG, Islamic Studies Group, University of Waikato Islamic Studies Group, Te Amorangi Kireka-Whaanga
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Being an Apostolic fashionista

December 2, 2014

*A guest post from Megan Geiger. 

Thank God for winter.

Summer in Florida is not the easiest time to be Apostolic. With temperatures in the high 90’s and enough humidity to make the mosquitoes grumpy, the daily task of choosing an outfit becomes something of a test of ingenuity. 

As an Apostolic Pentecostal, I belong to a group of believers that adheres to standards of dress that promote modesty, based on scriptural interpretations of covering with a little Bible belt flavor and fashion thrown in. That means that my body is covered from my knees to my neck to the middle of my bicep in every season, no matter the heat index.

Today’s fashion world and shopping scene present some challenges to the Apostolic girl looking for modest clothing. Outfits are often feats of layering, pieced together from store-bought articles that would be considered immodest by themselves. Knee-length pencil skirts are often too tight to be worn alone, but are perfect for lengthening the hem of a cocktail dress that only falls to mid-thigh, sleeveless tops are only wearable under jackets or as a way to raise the neckline of another shirt, and thin, long-sleeved undershirts are worth their weight in platinum as all-purpose coverage under sleeveless dresses, tank-tops, and sheer materials. On any given day an Apostolic girl may leave her house wearing two or three tops and multiple skirts (never pants, by the way, as those are considered to be “the apparel of a man”). 

A solution to this problem of overdressing would be to revert to making our own clothing, sewing modest pieces from a single piece of fabric and leaving the layers for the snowbirds. But for us, an essential part of living our Christian walk “in the world but not of the world” is looking modestly stylish, approachable, and even attractive. It simply won’t do to just walk away from modern fashion and resort to homemade gingham shifts; there’s a great feeling of accomplishment that comes with taking a “worldly” aesthetic and turning it into something holy, and even haute.

That’s not to say that our style choices allow us to blend in. On the contrary, we’re supposed to stick out; as evangelicals with a world to save, the way we style our bodies is sometimes our greatest missionary resource, opening doors for non-threatening conversations with strangers. A big part of that is the hair. 

Oh, the hair. 

Based on several verses, 1 Corinthians 11 adjures women to enter sacred spaces with their heads covered and also say that long hair is a glory for females. The majority of Apostolic women choose to leave their hair uncut. While hair length depends largely on genetics and diet, many women sport tresses that fall well past their waists, some with locks that drag the ground, a living rebuttal to the myth that split ends prevent growth. For many of us, our hair is a canvas for artistic expression, a marker of our identity. 

And let me tell you, we’ve gotten good at fixin’ it. 

Anyone who believes that hair teasing died with the 1980’s has never set foot in an Apostolic rally or convention. While the days of using mini cereal boxes and paper towel rolls as structural aids to support massive beehive ‘dos are gone, big hair has never fallen out of vogue completely. Each stylist has her own set of tools and tricks to use in sculpting her Sunday silhouette. Even loyalty to particular brands of hairspray, mousse, bobby pins, clips, and volumizing products is fierce. At important events, like national conferences, women can expect to spend anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour on their hairdos, rendering striking results. Styles vary from couture, asymmetrical constructions of spirals and braids to slightly more tame arrangements that resemble something from a wedding magazine or a prom picture. Even the most ornate styles are tested before service to make sure they will stay in place throughout the vigorous worship that accompanies Pentecostal devotion; bobby pins make mean shrapnel if flung with enough speed during a good “shout song.” However, it’s expected that we’ll all leave service looking a little rough, since worship isn’t about looking pretty and the hair and clothes are less about looking good and more about being a part of the community.

To be honest, a well-layered outfit and a well-coiffed hairdo has little to do with piety and more to do with identity. It would be easy to adhere to our standards of modesty without bothering so much with fashion, and some ladies do choose to stick to more low-maintenance styles. Still, for plenty of young women, experiments in Apostolic fashion are a way to stay separated from ‘the World’ while remaining tied in to a larger community of practitioners. It’s a marker of belonging, and a common aesthetic that we can be proud of, despite feeling different in the context of mainstream American culture.

All of us Apostolic girls have at some point lived the following scenario: a familiar silhouette catches my eye in a crowded mall or at a theme park. The woman walking towards me is wearing a skirt that falls well past her knee, a long-sleeved shirt, and a contrasting camisole that covers her chest nearly to her collarbone, despite the heat of the day. I quickly check her wrists and ears for jewelry; there is none. Another covert sweep confirms that she isn’t wearing any noticeable makeup. A slightly too-ornate bun at the back of her neck seals the deal; she’s one of us. If our eyes meet, we exchange a quick smile and perhaps a small wave.

Maybe it’s a sign of solidarity, of letting each other know that we’re not alone in the struggle to be different from the norm. Or maybe it’s just an appreciation of something in others that we see in ourselves. The Pentecostal “Namaste.” 

Either way, it’s assurance for each of us that our culture is being preserved and promoted, and that our distinctiveness has neither been swallowed up by worldly fashions nor succumbed to dowdiness. It reminds us that our bodies are the billboards of our faith. Even during long-sleeved Florida summers, it’s something we prize. 

*Thanks to Megan Geiger for her guest post. Megan is a fellow graduate student at University of Florida and received her B.A. in Spanish with a dual minor in Anthropology and English Literature from the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, where she was chosen as the Stan and Renee Wimberly Scholar for the class of 2014. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the changes in the social discourses present in an archive of sermons from a Pentecostal church, and she aims to continue in that vein of research during her time in the Master’s program. Her other research interests include Pentecostalism and immigration, Pentecostalism in Latin America, American religious history, and the role of women in Christian fundamentalism. She is an active member of the United Pentecostal Church, International.

*This post is also available at Faith Goes Pop with Read the Spirit and Sacred Duty with Houston Belief. 

In Religion and Culture, Faith Goes Pop, Religion, Religious Studies Tags Apostolic, Apostolic Pentecostals, Pentecostalism, Megan Geiger, University of Florida
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Dr. Abdullah'i An-Naim, Professor of Law, Emory University

The problem with American Muslims

November 18, 2014

The problem with American Muslims is not, necessarily, that they want to enforce the shari’ah in the U.S. Nor is it that Islam is an inherently violent religion or that Muslims in the U.S. are some sort of secret "fifth column" lurking in our midst. It is not even that Muslims are not vocal enough in denouncing acts of terror perpetrated in the name of their faith. 

No, the problem with American Muslims is not their complicity in violence, their silence during crisis issues, or their religion in and of itself. 

Instead the problem with, or rather for, American Muslims are the categories and conceptions, from within and without, that are forced upon them and within which they are required to forge their identity, and make sense of the world, according to their faith. 

What are these categories and concepts? As Michael Muhamad Knight shared at the University of Florida last month, “American Islam is still fighting for its space and contesting false dichotomies of authenticity on all sides.” On one side, American Muslims are fighting to be considered truly “American” by the country they call home. On the other, they are struggling to be considered genuinely “Muslim” as they work out how to submit to God and country, knowing full well that they are shaped by the context in which they live.  

Furthermore, Muslims are constantly barraged with questions that force them, as individuals or as minority communities, to answer for every word spoken or every deed done in the name of their faith. Their responses immediately categorize them as either violent or peaceable, moderate or extremist, fundamentalist or progressive when, in reality, what Islam is to the people who believe and practice it is shaped by their own personal experiences, the historical thrust of their faith, their current context, and an interplay and tension with the global umma (Muslim community). In a word, there are numerous Islams — structurally and interpersonally. Thus, it is unfair of outsiders (or insiders for that matter) to point the finger at Muslims and demand a response for where they stand on major crises and for their response to be gauged as authentic or not, representative or not, Muslim or not, moderate or not, American or not, violent or not, fundamentalist or not, etc. 

Indeed, it also unfair of us to do so without concomitantly interrogating our own philosophy or religion’s history, words, deeds, and present posture on such issues. 

Abdullah’i An-Naim, the Chandler Professor of Law at Emory University and an activist engaged in human rights issues, Islam, and cross-cultural crises spoke to this topic in a convincing manner last week at the University of Florida in conjunction with its Center for Global Islamic Studies.

An-Naim argued that “religious identity cannot be framed by fixed modalities” such as the ones noted above. Especially not in progressive, modern, societies such as the U.S. 

Why? Contending that Islamicity is fluid, An-Naim posited that Muslims are constantly contesting and remolding what it means to be Muslim given their current context, geo-political trends, philosophical currents, and personal experiences. Unfortunately, he intimated, too often this debate, both internal and external, is overpowered by colonial discourses still shaped by former, or present, imperial powers (implicating the U.S. here and its continual involvement in the affairs of Muslim nations for its own ends). 

An-Naim even critiqued post-colonial confabulations, saying that while this discourse was, and is, crucial to the individual and collective understanding of Muslims in the modern world, Muslims must move beyond allowing colonial powers (and their concepts and categories) to define who they are or who they could be. 

Looping back to where we started, colonial forces continue to compel Muslims to justify and explain their viability as Muslims (or Americans, peaceable people, etc.) according to colonial discourse, not Muslim conceptualizations of what it means to be Muslim.

This is why al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, IS) is so compelling to many young Muslims seeking out an identity in a Westernized, globalized, and secularized world. Feeling isolated and de-centered, many Muslims see in ISIS an opportunity to establish Islamic sovereignty along Muslim lines and to buck colonial categories and constrictions.  

In place of the Islamist, post-Islamist, Salafist, or jihadist post-colonial projects An-Naim proposes a “past-colonial” program that serves as an alternative Muslim vision that encourages tolerant public space and ample room for dissent, discussion, disbelief, and dialogue. 

To do this, An-Naim argued, Muslims must come to terms with the post-colonial and legitimize and indigenize its concepts and imperatives in a vividly Muslim way so that they can uphold them as their own and not just as a matter of course or according to colonial philosophies. 

Novelly, An-Naim suggested that the shari’ah is integral to this process of re-engaging Islamic agency in defining what it means to be Muslim in the modern world.

I ask you, in this moment, to suspend your preconceptions of the shari’ah and listen to An-Naim’s argumentation. From his perspective, the shari’ah is not a fixed institution, that it has no moment of foundation, nor is it internally or eternally consistent. Instead, he posits, the shari’ah is an evolving process of establishing Islamic law according to intergenerational consensus that seeks to make Islamic law immediately relevant to the formation of past-colonial institutions and spaces in countries where Muslims are either majorities or minorities. This means that, for An-Naim, the shari’ah cannot be enacted as a state law because, by its very nature, it denies formulaic notions in that it constantly needs to adapt to new contexts through constant consultation among numerous Muslim, and non-Muslim, constituencies. 

Certainly, An-Naim’s proposals are revolutionary for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We are not accustomed, or at times comfortable, with this type of talk. 

The key here, to simplify his argument a bit, is Muslim agency in defining what it means to be Muslim and live in the modern world, as either a majority or minority. 

Still, I inquired of him that night, what is the role of non-Muslims (like myself) and scholars, or interested parties, in changing the conversation and creating spaces for Muslim agencies in this discourse? 

An-Naim suggested that Muslims and non-Muslims work hard at creating solidarities across religious boundaries and that non-Muslims stridently commit to not stripping Muslims of their right to decide what it means to be Muslim. 

He had this great quote for those of us in “the ivory tower of academia” that is not only applicable in this discussion, but in many areas of public dialogue and activism. He said, “academics are not just academics; they are humans too. Scholarship can never be neutral. Our feigned neutrality is in itself a position in favor of maintaining the status quo" (Islamophobia, violence enacted in the name of Islam). He continued, "we should engage this topic from our humanity and take a stance conditioned by our positioning, advocating for a change of the status quo and the need to engage in a past-colonial discourse.” 

In this solidarity and active dialouge, Muslims will need to deconstruct (and reconstruct) what it means to be Muslim and non-Muslims, especially those in the majority (in my case the U.S. as state power and Christianity as dominant religion) need to deconstruct, and reconstruct, what it means to be a hegemonic power and political force. 

Practically, where can you (myself included) begin? First, inform yourself. Take a position to correct the problematic approach we have toward the Muslim world, which, I would argue, is as much part of our American, and global human, story. Although we may pray to a different God or come from a different historico-cultural context, we share in our humanity and this must be our starting point for understanding and dialogue — not ignorant judgement, essentializing or “othering” Muslims by their very nature. 

Second, we must permit that Muslims may be changing the narrative in their own way and in a language and form we do not recognize as progressive. We should practice forbearance and trust that, from a Muslim point of view, that progress is happening. We cannot control it or coerce it according to our categories. While this may be a scary, or frustrating, proposition it is the most effective in the long run. Bombs, a barrage of insinuating questions, or anti-Muslim sentiment does not work. All it does it carve out space for Muslim post-colonial movements that set themselves up in the “clash of civilizations” (Islam v. the West) framework (e.g. ISIS, al-Qaeda, etc.). 

Informing ourselves and creating this space will involve reading, learning, creating friendships with Muslims, taking part in interfaith peacemaking, and bearing with others in patience, love, and hope. 

We cannot do nothing. While we may opine that Muslims continue to remain silent (even though they are not) or that the Qur’an says this or that (even though “texts are by themselves silent” [Michael Lambek] and require active interpretation) we cannot allow others’ inaction or failure justify our own. 

Instead, we must do what we can to create a space, specifically within the U.S., where Muslims can freely, openly, and by their own agency, determine what it means to be an American Muslim in the contemporary scene.

In PhD Work, Religion, Religious Studies Tags Islam, Islam and modernity, Abdullah'i An-Naim, University of Florida, Emory University, Center for Global Islamic Studies, American Muslims, American Islam, Michael Muhamad Knight, Religious identity, post-colonial, past-colonial, ISIS, ISIL, IS, Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya, Shari'ah, Shariah, non-Muslims, interfaith space, interfaith
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NEW Essays: Global Islamic Reformism & Religion in the Black Atlantic

November 3, 2014

What does conservative Islam reformism look like in Yemen? In South Asia? In Egypt? In the United States? Do they differ in significant ways? Or, is Islamic reformism an unstoppable transnational religious force that erases all signs of local adaptation and innovation in its wake? In this essay I present a mosaic approach to assessing global Islamic reformism as a way to balance the contestation and agreement between translocal and local expressions of Islamic neofundamentalism worldwide. 

Read it at Academia.edu

As is evinced by the above paper on Islam, approaches are important. The "Black Atlantic" is a diverse and wide-ranging, trans-Atlantic, and multi-hemispheric discipline that requires careful thought and various approaches to apperceive the various religious currents at work across it. In this paper, I examine four approaches to religion in the Black Atlantic, paying special attention to Candomblé, Umbanda, sorcery/witchcraft, and Vodou. 

Read it at Academia.edu

In PhD Work, Religion, Religious Studies Tags Islam, Islam in Yemen, Islam in Egypt, Islam in the U.S., Islam in the West, Globalized Islam, Global Islam, Salafism, Global Salafism, Trasnational religion, Local religion, Black Atlantic Religion, Black Atlantic, Candomble, Umbanda, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Vodou
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Can Christians celebrate Diwali?

October 21, 2014

The lights are hung, the candles lit, the feast prepared, the New Year is almost here, families gather and the children wait to hear the dramatic re-telling of stories from the ancient past. No, it is not Christmas, nor is it Hanukkah or Kwanzaa; steeped in mythical tales, religious devotion, and socio-cultural importance it is the Hindu festival of Diwali, celebrated in India and throughout its diaspora spread across the world.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

Diwali is celebrated by several religious groups including Sikhs, Jains and even some Buddhists, but its roots are thoroughly Hindu. For Sikhs it is a commemoration of “the day of freedom” when one of their revered gurus, Guru Har Gobind Ji was released from imprisonment. Jains celebrate Diwali to mark Mahavira’s moksha (enlightenment) -- the last of the tirthankara (enlightened ones). For Hindus the festival is the beginning of a New Year, a time for prosperity and new ventures, a celebration of the brother-sister relationship and the prevalence of truth over falsehood and light overcoming the darkness.

This meaning for the five-day festival is derived from several Hindu accounts. However, it centers around the account of the victory of Lord Krishna over the demon Narkasura. Other gods and goddesses, including the goddess of wealth (Lakshmi), are worshipped during Diwali, but above all it is a celebration of the victory of life, light and lightheartedness over nefarious 'Narkasuran' forces. 

With a South Asian population of about 3 million, there are significant Diwali celebrations going on throughout the U.S. this week. Local Hindu and Jain temples and Sikh gurudwaras will host Diwali celebrations featuring hundreds of lights and lanterns, Indian curries and festive music played on harmoniums (keyboard), tablas (drum) and tambours (a stringed instrument). For many Asian Indians living in the diaspora, Diwali is not only religious, but steeped in socio-cultural significance and celebrations of South Asian identity.

With this in mind Pramod Aghamkar, Executive Director of Satsang Ministries, started celebrating "Christian Diwalis" a few yeas ago in Dayton, Ohio. The Christian Diwali in Dayton is an effort on his part to immerse himself in native Asian-Indian culture and add the concepts and ideologies of the Christian worldview.

“The festival of Diwali provides the necessary framework, structure and organic occasion to proclaim Christ as the light of the world” said Aghamkar. “It gives stepping stones, clues and redemptive analogies for cross-cultural witness.”

Drawing inspiration from those Christians who redeemed pagan festivals and symbols to make Easter (eggs, new life) and Christmas (the evergreen tree bedecked with lights) what they are today, Aghamkar hopes to redeem the symbols and practices of Diwali for the sake of Christian witness. For him Diwali “is a native tool that still remains undeveloped by Indian Christians.” To tap into this potential, Aghamkar hosts a Christian Diwali in South Asian family settings each year and now encourages other Indian Christian leaders to do the same in other cities.

One city where Indian Christian leaders are not so receptive to this idea is Houston.

Asked about the possibility of Christian Diwali celebrations in Houston, a South Asian pastor from The Woodlands demurred, “it is a major Hindu festival, Christ is not part of the celebration.”

“Whenever possible I seek the Scriptures for knowledge and direction” said the pastor. “I am not sure there is any place in the Scriptures where it talks about redeeming a heathen idea.”

Another Houston man, Vidyasagar Garnepudi, feels the tension and the temptation to celebrate a "Christian Diwali." He said, "every Indian child's dream is to participate in Diwali, it's a victory over darkness, a festival of lights, it's firing off the firecrackers."

*Read a personal account of the meaning of Diwali

Despite the desire to participate in the celebration, he lamented that "as Christians we should not celebrate Diwali. However, we do rejoice with our neighbor as India is a secular nation."  

Aghamkar hears and understands these objections, but believes the practice of  Christian Diwali is still a viable custom. “Non-Hindu accounts show Diwali to be a flexible, multi-faceted festival” he said, “the form of celebration is not intrinsically Hindu, Jain or Sikh….though the principles are ‘non-Christian,’ they are not ‘un-Christian.’”

He also cautions that while the music, lights, food and stories may be similar between Hindu and Christian celebrations, the traditional Hindu gods and Sikh and Jain teachers are not lauded, but instead it is Christ who is the hero of the story who dispels the darkness and brings light and life. “It is not shifting from radical rejection to wholesale acceptance” said Aghamkar, but it is a way for “the Indian community to experience Jesus in a native way.”

Some scholars of South Asian religion and Hindu traditions I spoke with offered some perspective as they debated the saliency of a "Christian Diwali." One offered, "it's one thing for a Christian to come to a temple and celebrate the ritual, taking away the nitty-gritty of the myth, just as a general celebration of victory of good over evil...it's another to use a Hindu tradition to advance Christianity." The same individual asked, "how would a Christian react if Easter was used to further Hindu ideas and motives?"

Another participant in the academic dialogue offered that since, in India, Christianity is a minority religion, "this might be an expression of having to find their way in a world that is primarily Hindu."

Perhaps even still, this is part of a wider dialogue on the secular and/or religious nature of Diwali and whether or not Diwali is losing its religious significance in favor of more secular or purely culturally mechanic communal practices and personal rituals. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK? CAN CHRISTIANS “REDEEM” DIWALI? SHOULD THE HOLIDAY BE LEFT FOR HINDUS, SIKHS AND JAINS TO CELEBRATE? WHAT ARE YOUR DIWALI TRADITIONS?

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

In Missiology, Religion and Culture, Religious Studies, PhD Work Tags Diwali, Can Christians celebrate Diwali?, Christian Diwali, Christmas, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Pramod Aghamkar, Vidyasagar Garnepudi, South Asian religion
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Of Mountains, Mary, & Sacred Fire: Revivication of Indigenous Voices

October 13, 2014

Today is Columbus Day. For some, it is Indigenous Peoples Day.

While Stephen Colbert may joke about, and some may be honestly offended by, the re-appropriation of Columbus Day by indigenous peoples, the reality is that Native Tribes and indigenous organizations feel ostracized and offended by the holiday.

The movement to re-claim "Columbus Day" (associated with cultural extirpation and colonial hegemony) is part of a wider context of the revivification of indigenous voices across the Americas.

In a recently written paper I address three examples of the tension, transculturation, and tribal aspects of indigenous religious subversion: in the mountains of California, in the shrines of Central America, and on Lake Titicaca in Peru. Read the rest of the paper HERE.  http://

In PhD Work, Religious Studies Tags Stephen Colbert, Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, Indigenous religion, Virgin Mary, Transculturation, Tribes, Lake Titicaca, Fire ritual, Andean fire dance, Mt. Pinos, Chumash, New Age
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Why "world religion Bible studies" are awful

September 30, 2014

The U.S. is suffering from a case of multi-generational and multi-cultural  religious illiteracy —what Stephen Prothero calls, “religious amnesia.” The United States, in spite of its established secularism, is a thoroughly pluralistic nation with robust expressions of myriad world religions everywhere from the wheat fields of Iowa to the buckled asphalt of Los Angeles. Yet, we are simultaneously “a nation of religious illiterates” who flunk the most basic of quizzes on religion — even our own. It seems, “[m]ost Americans remain far more committed to respecting other religions than learning about them.” 

To the rescue come "world religion Bible studies" that attempt to help Christians navigate their world's stunning religious pluralism.  The problem is, most "world religion Bible studies" are terrible. 

While most of the leaders of these studies start with the intention to help their parishioners learn more about the world's religions, the way they go about it usually leads to nominally increased religious literacy. Even worse, these studies often exacerbate pre-existing prejudices or presuppositions about studied worldviews. 

Granted, not all world religion studies are horrible, but many I've been to, or heard of (and, admittedly, some of the ones I've taught), were dreadful. While I confess that I'm a culprit of creating crappy curriculums for a "world religion Bible study" or two, I humbly suggest that I have learned the error of my ways (mostly) and want to propose some strategies to remedy the oversights of well-meaning pastors and educators.

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

So, below are THREE REASONS WHY WORLD RELIGION BIBLE STUDIES SUCK and a few accompanying action points to make them better:   

1) Unschooled teachers 

The number one issue with the vast majority of these studies is those who are teaching don't know much about the world's religions in the first place. Furthermore, they are not in the least bit trained in how to properly engage in religious studies, which is a topic altogether distinct from the task of theology.

While teaching can be a wonderful way to learn, we should not feign being an expert when we really have not spent the time to gain expertise in one religion other than ours, let alone multiple world religions. And do not, for a moment, think that because you read one book, watched a movie, or visited a temple that this makes you an expert on Buddhism, Islam, Scientology, etc.

This is the cover of a book I wrote on "twenty major world religions" in New Zealand. It isn't the best, but what was great about it was that I submitted every chapter to a practitioner of that respective belief system. They corrected much of what I got wrong and provided deep insight into how to (re)present religion. 

Admittedly, several pastors confessed to me that they do not know much about the world's religions, but decide to teach on them anyways because, "my parishioners are asking me to." Granted, you, as a pastor or teacher, are in a tough place when people ask you to lead a study in an area you feel you know little about. I feel for you. But then there are other pastors who took one class on world religions, watched one documentary, or read one book and decide, "My people need to know this!" and like a crusader gallivanting off to slay the pagan hordes they announce a study to equip their congregants for the spiritual battle at hand. #Facepalm. Maybe you are the former, maybe you're the latter. Either way, you aren't an expert — I implore you to stop acting like one. 

Nonetheless, I feel for you. The problem is that we pastors and teachers are expected to be weekly experts on a wide variety of topics. Every Sunday a pastor is meant to churn out a sermon wherein he/she expounds on a relevant topic from a deep knowledge of the biblical text. People listen to the pastor as if he/she is an authority on the given topic (marriage, parenting, politics, etc.). While most pastors (certainly not all) are adept at interpreting Scripture, they are not mavens in every field. It's unfair to expect them to be an expert on everything — especially religions they were not trained in. Too often we pressure them to act as if they are. Likewise, teachers and educators are expected to cover a broad range of topics week-in and week-out, even if their knowledge on some of these topics is exhausted within the confines of the text they use to teach. This problem becomes paramount in teaching on world religions.

With untrained teachers and unqualified pastors diving head first into a study where they are presumed to be specialists, but are effectively faking even basic facility, what most world religion Bible studies become are cesspools of collective religious ignorance not classrooms prepped for increased religious literacy. 

Sometimes, in an effort to sidestep an educator's insufficiency for the task, an ex-member testimony is favored. Oh Lord have mercy, this is even worse. Certainly, ex-members have a voice to bring to the table and their perspective is a valuable one to appreciate in our study of religion. But it is only one voice and an extremely biased one at that. Ex-members are ex-members for a reason. While they may not "have an axe to grind" they will most definitely present a prejudiced perspective on a religion they now eschew. 

Imagine this -- an atheist meet-up group wants to learn more about Christianity. To do so, they bring in a former evangelical who no longer believes in God to talk about their former faith. Would you, as a Christian, say that the atheists in that group necessarily got a fair picture of Christianity? Would you want them to perhaps balance out their learning with some supplementary teaching or a current member's testimony? If not, you should. Relying on ex-member testimonies or teaching is a sure way to get a skewed impression of a world religion.

So, how do we fix this? Three ways:  

The fix: Get an education. Take a class, keep reading, enroll in a master's program. Become the expert you are pretending to be. Even a few classes on one religion will equip you to better teach that topic. However, do not think that taking one intro class on world religions or reading one book is enough. Dive deep into one religion before you endeavor to teach it. Enjoy that process? Keep going deeper or expand your knowledge to include other religions. Repeat as necessary.

The fix: Study in the presence, or even under, the "religious other." While I do not like the fertile terrain for prejudice that "othering" a people group creates, the reality is that most Christians feel that Muslims and Mormons, Jews, Jains, and Jedis are "the religious other." They feel uncomfortable talking about these other faiths in the presence of "the other" (cue creepy sci-fi music here). So, they round up the wagons, close the parish hall doors, and "study" them from the safety of their own sanctuaries. As an educator, your task is to bust those doors down and make the learning environment an uncomfortable one. Bring in a Muslim to team-teach on Islam, invite an atheist to present their non-religious ways, visit a local mosque, temple, or place of worship to engage in experiential education, make your study public, or at the very least ask a Buddhist to sit in on your teaching to call you out or offer further food for thought. Yeah, it will be awkward, unsettling, and a bit "weird," but that's a good thing. In that environment learning is probably going to take place on all sides. 

The fix: Bring in the experts. f all else fails, ask the experts. Bring in a local professor or your denomination's resident religious scholar, anthropologist, or sociologist. As mentioned before, bring in a Buddhist monk to share their practice, an imam to elucidate their beliefs, etc. Shameless plug: invite me to come and speak. While I can't speak to EVERY religion with expertise, I can at least point you in the right direction or start you off with the right tools/perspective. 

2) The category of "world religions" is problematic anyways

Even if a pastor/teacher is schooled in the ways of the world's religions, what is a "world religion?" Most studies pick out a few heavy hitters among the sundry spiritualities that are held and practiced around the globe. There are some usual suspects that pop up in almost every world religion study. Here's an example from the table of contents of a self-titled "world religion Bible study" curriculum: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Bahai Faith, Spirit Religions, Atheism, New Age Movement, and others. This is a generous list. Another "world religion" study I saw recently (at a Lutheran church) sought to teach the following: Catholicism, Islam, Anglicanism, Pentecostalism, Buddhism.... Yikes. 

This was a fun study that we did at a local brewery in Houston, Texas. While I taught this one solo, I had people who were Christian, agnostic, atheist, "spiritual, but not religious," Confucian, and Buddhist come to the study. They called me out when I needed it. And then we had a beer together, so it was all cool. 

The issue here is that these lists, and most other scopes and sequences of world religions studies make three mistakes: 1) ignore religions and spiritualities on the periphery (e.g. Sikhism, Yoruba, Juche, etc.); 2) lump together multiple world views and practiced spiritualities into general categories that obfuscate more than they educate ("Spirit religions" covers a wide, diverse, range of religions/spiritualities ranging from indigenous religion to hybrid spiritualities, New Age and "others" is necessarily ambiguous, and "Islam" and "Hinduism" obscure realities that exist in the margins); 3) make divisions where they need not do so (is a "world religions" class the proper place to present the differences between Catholics and Lutherans?). 

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

These categories, meant to help simplify the study or book (however well-meaning they are) betray a dangerous unsophistication when it comes to apperceiving and appreciating the wild diversity of religious beliefs and spiritual practice around the world. 

The fix: Teach the tools. For years, the archetypal format of religious studies tended to place different religious traditions, typically those deemed to be “the world’s ‘great’ religions,” in their respective silos and investigate them each according to some prescribed rubric based on the author’s own definition of religion. This pedagogical approach tended to dissociate individual traditions from the study of religion as a whole and, even, from the students themselves. Since, as authors George D. Chryssides and Ron Geaves noted, students “rarely come to study religion because they wish to be neutral social scientists or simply to describe religious belief and practice more accurately,” this method bequeaths a superficial knowledge of religion at best and exacerbated stereotypes of the spiritual at its worst. Hence, I suggest an initial approach that involves considering what it means, and looks like, to study religion from a disciplined, self-reflective, point of view rather than a theological one. In lieu of teaching the religions themselves, teach how to study religion in the first place. Teach how to ask questions, be a participant-observer, etc. The rules that apply to training apply here too. If you don't feel comfortable as a religious student, bring someone in who is. 

3) Straw man studies

Now, if untrained leaders and unrefined categories are bad, this problem is the Satan-of-world-religion-studies incarnate. 

I get what the leader of these studies is trying to do: help their flock better understand other religions so that they can witness to their neighbor, coworker, family member, or friend. Typically, the end game of these studies is to help the Christian better evangelize someone of another faith. 

Putting the issues of hegemony, colonialism, and arrogance involved in discussions of Christian mission and evangelism aside for a moment, such an approach in a world religion Bible study is bad for the simple reason that in the rush to get to "what's wrong with this religion" that we usually end up skipping over "what this religion is" in the first place. 

We either misapprehend, or misrepresent, world religions by presenting a "straw man" form of the faith  (a hollow, or sham, version of the worldview that is easily defeated in an artificial argument without "the other" present) or do so by seeking first to pinpoint error rather than attempting first to understand. 

This shot is from an event called, "Interview with an atheist," in which I invited two local, prominent, non-believers to share their story in front of a Christian audience. We then had a Q&A session that was uncomfortable, challenging, and wonderful in every way. It was not a debate. It was not a "bash the atheist/Christian" fest. It was a charitable dialogue, and everyone walked away changed. 

Sabine MacCormack in her book Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Colonial Peru shared how missionaries in colonial Peru set out to comprehend Incan religion as it was practiced in both in the centers of power (i.e. Cusco) and in the rural Andes. In their accounts, they made two fatal mistakes: 1) by setting out with the primary purpose of extirpating (destroying) these beliefs and practices and 2) interpreting these religions through their own spiritual lenses. These approaches meant that the missionaries completely misinterpreted the religion as it was presented to them. They misconstrued myths, received a false impression about beliefs, and misread rituals.  All the while, the Andean beliefs and practices survived and even thrived, whether under the guise of Catholicism or out in the open, and often with greater emphasis than before. Setting out to eradicate the religion of the Andes, the missionaries misunderstood it completely. Too often, world religion Bible studies do the same. 

The fix: Study in the presence, or even with, the "religious other." Again, there is nothing better for our mutual learning and understanding than having a Muslim present when you teach on Islam. Give permission for them to correct you where they think you are wrong. Maybe you're not and they just don't like the way you put it. But, maybe you are. Have the guts to have a practitioner of the faith you are studying call you out. Assume insiders are the experts, you would expect the same from someone studying Christianity. Your study will be MUCH BETTER because of it. 

The fix: Seek understanding and relationship. The primary goal of your study should be understanding and bridge building, not apologetics or polemic. Before you call the heresy police, hear me out. While we often see our friendships with people of other faith as a means to an end, I am proposing that we see the relationships as ends unto themselves. Part of God's grand plan is a restoring of what was lost in our fall from grace. Part of Christ's redemptive work is to bring together that which was torn asunder. Understanding other religions, and building relationships with "the religious other," is part and parcel to the resurrective, restorative, and recreative kingdom of Jesus -- to bring unity and fellowship where there was disharmony and division. This does not mean forsaking witness, but it does mean not orsaking friendship for the sake of witness. Witness to the worldview, sure. Share your faith, certainly. But the friendship must endure, the understanding must be the primary goal, and the first step in evangelizing needs to be shutting our mouths, and opening our ears, to listen and learn.

*Was this post helpful? Hurtful? Have a suggestion? Want to accuse me of heresy or worse? This blog is meant to be a provocation toward deeper understanding. It's a beginning. There will certainly be revisions in my own thought -- additions, subtractions, and perhaps a crumpling of the entire project and a total re-write before we can, together, build a “strong, benevolent Christianity” (a la Brian McLaren) that can successfully engage other religions, spiritualities, and worldviews in a context defined by religious pluralism. So, please share your thoughts with me below or via e-mail. 

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

 

In Church Ministry, Missiology, Religion, Religious Literacy, Religious Studies Tags World religions, Bible study, Religious literacy, Stephen Prothero, Brian McLaren, Interview with an atheist, Ken Chitwood, Religious studies
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Photo: Reuters

The danger of crafting Muslim identities for our own purposes

September 16, 2014

*For more on religion & culture follow @kchitwood

The situation with ISIS/ISIL (Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya) continues to heat up. ISIS continues to post videos of atrocious beheadings of their Western prisoners (two U.S. journalists and a British aid-worker). These digital demonstrations have provoked the Western military powers into intense discussions of reprisals and concrete conversations about constructing a coalition.

*Read "Five Facts You Need to Know about Iraq, its Religious Minorities, and ISIS."

Amidst the flurry of emotion and geo-political crusading an interesting, misleading, trend has re-surfaced: the crafting of Muslim identity by non-Muslims for the latter's own purposes.

President Barack Obama's comments to this effect did not go unnoticed. He said on September 10, just a day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:

“...let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state.”

POTUS's comments echo those of George W. Bush who famously quipped in the aftermath of 9/11, that Islam "is a peaceful religion" (Nov 13, 2002) and that:

“Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.”
— October 11, 2002

Obama used this language before moving on to say, "Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy."

British Prime Minister David Cameron joined in with the ISIS ≠ Islam prose. In the wake of the execution of British aid-worker David Haines, Cameron remarked that ISIS "are not Muslims, they are monsters." He branded the ISIS killings and subsequent videos as acts "of pure evil" and vowed that the UK, "will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice." 

Cameron, and Obama, made comments about what Islam is, and what it is not, that allowed them to justify their actions. Realizing that the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric (the "West" versus "Islam") is not popular sentiment, nor is it conducive to building a coalition that would include Muslim-states and Muslim majority nations, the two Western leaders made sweeping statements about what Islam is, and is not, in order to vindicate their aggressive, military-based, retaliations. 

Response to Cameron and Obama's comments has been mixed. Many from progressive Muslim communities praised them for drawing a line between their peaceful faith and practice and the brutal extremism of ISIS. Many on the far-right of the political spectrum (and even some from among the ranks of the "New Atheists," including Sam Harris) in the U.S. lambasted POTUS for his "ignorance" concerning ISIS and Islam, saying that he "isn't qualified enough to say what is and what is not Muslim." 

Photo: Shibli Zaman, Loonwatch.com

At the same time, a Twitter handle by the name of "Ahimla Jihada" (@Ahimla2), which spouted seemingly supportive superlatives for ISIS from an "American-Muslim woman" was found to be a fake. Before the account was shutdown, the tweets of @Ahimla2, which declared her devotion to ISIS and love for terror (from within the United States no less!) produced strong responses calling for her death and the killing of many more Muslims in the U.S. Shibli Zaman at Loonwatch.com lamented:

“There are dubious forces from an increasingly belligerent political Right who are out to brainwash, by hook or crook, the American public into hating their fellow citizens of the Muslim faith and to justify a foreign policy in the ‘10/40 Window’ that has tarnished America’s reputation globally and needlessly puts our men and women in uniform in harm’s way.”

While Cameron/Obama/Bush may be lauded for trying to distinguish between ISIS and global Islam and this Twitter scandal may be mourned as an attempt to justify Islamophobia in the U.S., they are both examples of the same error: Western politicians or popular pundits cannot be the ones to say what Islam is and is not. 

*Read "Does ISIS = Islam?"

At issue here is the question -- who has the right to define what Islam is and is not? 

Language has power to shape opinions and to galvanize people to action. These leaders and culture shapers understand this. That is why they use essentializing terminology to declare what Islam is and is not. By becoming arbiters of Islamic identity, Western leaders seek to make essentialist claims in order to provide powerful, and useful, rallying-points for their own agendas. In these cases, attacking and destroying ISIS on the one hand, turning on Muslims in the U.S. on the other. 

While artlessly defining Islam may prove useful for political purposes, it is not conducive to helping non-Muslims understand what Islam is. Concepts such as 'Islam' are not static. There is no fixed form of Islam that can be found or defined, especially by non-Muslims. Instead, Islam is a diverse stream of various forces, persistently in process, forever in flux, consistently contingent on changing cultural, political, ethnic, religious, and economic realities. Really, the language of Obama, Cameron, @Ahimla2 and others who want to say neatly that ISIS is Islamic, or it is not Islamic, is hegemony at work again -- colonial powers attempting to define the "other" in order to exert their own influence or power in the Islamic world. 

My concern here is not political, it is not militaristic. Instead, it is one of religious literacy. Islam is one of the most multi-cultural, multi-generational, multifaceted, and misunderstood religions in the world, especially in the West. In order to understand Islam, we cannot apperceive it according to uncluttered constructs or uncomplicated categories. Instead, the messiness and miscellany of the Muslim world must be explored. This will often mean meeting with local Muslims, observing regional dynamics, and listening, and learning, their perspectives on global Islam. Especially in the West, we need to listen to Muslims speak about their own community, from all sides, before we begin crafting Muslim identities according to our own motivations -- be they benign or malevolent.  

If Western powers or Islamophobes want to say what Islam is or is not for their own political ends, so be it. What I don't want to see is the general population getting carried away with a vision of Islam that is founded more in Western hegemony than it is global Islamic reality. 

 

In Religion, Religion and Culture, Religion News, Religious Literacy, Religious Studies Tags ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State in Syria, Islamic State in the Levant, Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya, President Obama, 9/11, Is ISIS Muslim?, George W. Bush, David Cameron, David Haines, Ahimla Jihada, Loonwatch, Shibli Zaman, Ahimla2, Essentializing, Essentialism, hegemony, colonialism, Islam, Muslim
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Does ISIS = Islam?

September 10, 2014

Does ISIS = Islam? Does Islam = ISIS? 

In the wake of rising violence and thuggish rhetoric, many are re-visiting the common accusation that terror groups and rogue states such as ISIS are Islam and that any discussion about the varieties of Islamic belief and ritual throughout the world is smokescreen. The assumptive claim is that if you prick Islam it always bleeds terror, hate, and violence. 

Dr. Terje Østebø, whose perspective on global Islam helped inspire this post, is involved in the launch of the University of Florida’s Center for Global Islamic Studies. After The Gainesville Sun published an article on the center’s launch, Østebø suffered vitriol via comments, phone calls, and e-mails. Although Østebø said, “There is an urgent need for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the rich diversity and the complex dynamics of contemporary Islam," many of his critics found the need to point out to him — the scholar in Islam — that Islam is clearly typified by ISIS and that ISIS is at the core of this world religion.

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

Unfortunately, these verbal assaults are too often accompanied by physical attacks as well as just last week, a man chased a Muslim American woman into oncoming traffic in Brooklyn while threatening to behead her and her companion. Every time I post an article, like this one, I will undoubtedly receive comments like this from Cowboywill46:

“Once and for all, will someone with a grain of sense admit to the world that Islam is nothing more than a mind-control, anti-social cult bent on world domination. ”
— Cowboywill46

To be fair, Islam is a world religion with a unifying foundation. It may be the Qur’an, or the holy book’s common language — Arabic. The shahada, or profession of faith that “there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet,” is universal in form — all Muslims confess it, it is what it takes, and means, to be Muslim. Mecca, perhaps, as “the capital of Islam” serves as, in the words of Miriam Cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence, as “[t]he organizing principle of Islamic ritual and imagination.” As such, this Saudi Arabian city is “the defining node for a worldwide community of believers who are linked to the Prophet Muhammad and to Mecca and to one another through networks of faith and family, trade and travel.” Whether knit together by language, profession, text, orienting metropolis, or something else there is a unified, integrated, sense to global Islam and a shared cultural history. To be sure, there are not several, or even two, Islams, but one Islam. 

At the same time, Islam is, in the words of scholar Talal Asad, “a discursive tradition.” There is an ongoing debate, what Reza Aslan calls, “a civil war,” raging over what is orthodox Islam and where the boundary lines of Islam can be drawn. Islam, as a world system, is not static, but is always changing according to the various lines of its own “discursive traditions.” The tone of these various streams of thought about Islam are determined by local realities, Islamic networks, and by external global forces of economics, politics, religion, and culture. 

What do these localizations and various discursive traditions do to Islam’s shared cultural and textual heritage? Local Muslims, sharing in "global Islam," interpret Islam differently according to their socio-cultural, and historical, context. Sometimes accusing the other interpretation or lived religion as not “authentic” or “orthodox” Islam. This is why ISIS, along with killing Yazidis and Christians, also targets Muslims they deem kafir (unbelievers, or apostates) because of their extreme definition of takfir— those who claim Islam but are outside the strict boundaries of Islam that ISIS puts in place. 

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

Today is the 13th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11. Certainly, it is a somber remembrance and one with potent emotions and visceral reverberations in our cultural psyche. 9/11’s effect on our the U.S.’s interest in Islam has been a double-edged sword. While more solid, scholarly, work has been done on Islam in the U.S. than ever before, we have also been seeking to essentialize Islam in an effort to have manufacture a clearly defined enemy to combat. We want a clash of civilizations — Islam v. the West — but it’s not that simple. Seeking a “clash of civilizations” we usually end up with what Edward Said called, “a clash of ignorance” wherein “unedifying labels” such as “Islam” and the “West,” “mislead and confuse the mind, which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality that won't be pigeonholed or strapped down as easily as all that.”

So, is Islam to be represented by ISIS? In one sense, yes. ISIS = Islam. However, ISIS ≠ global Islam. ISIS ≠ Islam everywhere. Not every Muslim living in the U.S., in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, or Southeast Asia is a secret jihadi with ties to ISIS, Boko Haram, or al-Qaeda. Instead, ISIS is an expression of Islam in its locality (Syria, Iraq, the Levant) forged out of a combination of contextual concerns, socio-cultural realities, and translocal forces of politics, economics, and religion. As such, it is competing to be the authoritative voice of Islam and, in many ways, wants pundits and cultural commentators to say that ISIS = Islam. 

Yet, to say ISIS = Islam is too simplistic. There are too many other Muslim communities and expressions of glocal (localized forms of the one global faith) Islam throughout the world. Islam is a diverse global faith, which takes on a different form, with varying interpretations of the Qur’an and the tradition of Muhammad where the local Muslim community deals with dissimilar concerns about local realities and contrasting views on religious violence and Westernization. This is why it is unsophisticated to simply posit that ISIS = Islam with no further discussion or clarification. 

After all, many Muslims claim that ISIS Is un-Islamic. Muslims in South Africa who fought for equality of all races after mistreatment and misrepresentation for centuries under Afrikaaner nationalism and apartheid and Muslims in Houston who advocate anti-gang initiatives and are actively engaged in inner-city education programs would not want to be lumped in with ISIS. They are engaged in a struggle, they share the same Islamic faith, but they are not ISIS. As Jaweed Kaleem reported for the Huffington Post, there is widespread disappointment among worldwide Muslims in how ISIS is often equated with Islam in popular media.

Even so, without any right or proper understanding, many will continue to try and declare what Islam is and is not. They will pipe up and declare that “ISIS is Islam” or ignore progressive understandings of Islam by countering, “but doesn’t the Qur’an actually say _______?” What the Qur’an says, not to be crass or offensive to my Muslim friends, is irrelevant. What is more relevant in this discussion is what Muslims say the Qur’an says. What ISIS says about what Islam is or what the Qur’an says is going to be different than a Muslim community in Miami or a Muslim organization in Indonesia. Muslims’ interpretation of their shared holy text is defined by their local context, their historical moment, their transnational networks, socio-cultural realities, and interaction with global forces.

If we are to understand Islam — and ever since 9/11, 7/7, and other terrible terrorist attacks, it is evident that we must in some way endeavor to do so — our shared starting point cannot be solely those groups that engage in terrorism, persecution, and barbarous bombast. Instead, we must approach Islam as a global phenomenon, with a certain sense of interconnectedness and unity. At the same time, we must come to appreciate and pay attention to its various localities as they wrestle with the shared international socio-cultural forces of Westernization, globalization, and transnationalism. 

Does ISIS = Islam? 

Yes, but it’s too superficial of us to say “yes” unequivocally. It has to be a nuanced affirmation, one that appreciates that as much as ISIS is Islam, it is also equally not Islam. In the end, we must listen to Muslims, and their various discourses about orthodoxy, Muslim boundaries, and authenticity, before we can come to any strong conclusions or make any serious political or religious decisions about Islam as a whole based on the actions of the few who take part in the violent actions of ISIS and its counterparts.  

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

 

 

In Religion and Culture, Religion, Religion News, Religious Literacy, Religious Studies, PhD Work Tags discursive tradition, Terje Ostebo, Reza Aslan, kafir, Bruce B. Lawrence, Miram Cooke, Global Islam, Talal Aslad, Edward Said, University of Florida, Islam, Clash of Ignorance, clash of civilizations, taqfir, takfiri, ISIS
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The most (ir)relevant field of study

July 31, 2014

Dinner conversation can be dangerous. Especially when you are new to a college town and everyone inquires, “What are you studying?” 

Yes, I am a PhD student. I am studying religion in the Americas. 

The follow-up question is predictable, lamentable, and unnerving — “What are you going to do with that?” 

The assumptions behind the question are frightening. The presumption is that studying religion is impractical, unemployable, & irrelevant. 

Maybe they are right. After all, the first piece of advice I received from a mentor when I started the process of applying for my PhD was, “Don’t do it.” Why? There is no money, great opportunity, or vast interest in the topic of religion these days. 

And that’s horrifying. 

I am not worried about my reputation. I am not even concerned about job prospects. What I am fearful of is a multi-generational, multi-national, and multi-cultural case of religious ignorance — what Stephen Prothero calls “religious illiteracy.” 

The United States, in spite of its established secularism, is a thoroughly pluralistic nation with robust expressions of myriad world religions everywhere from the wheat fields of Iowa to the buckled asphalt of Los Angeles. 

Yet, we are simultaneously “a nation of religious illiterates” who flunk the most basic of quizzes on religion — even missing questions from our own traditions. 

When asked who led the exodus out of Egypt, some will think Abraham was the man. What religion was Mother Theresa? She was Hindu…she worked in India right? What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism? Trick question, surely. They don’t exist. What does the holiday Ramadan commemorate? What religion is it a part of? “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible. True or false? 

You could continue with the line of questioning and the odds are that the average American will only get half of the questions right. That’s 50%. That’s an, “F.” A failing grade. Sorry, you’re going to have to take this one over. 

When I teach students, I usually find that failing grades are symptomatic of apathy, not lack of effort. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s that we don’t care. We don’t think religion matters any more. 

Although proponents of the secularization theory claim that as civilizations modernize so too do they, and should they say the “New Atheists,” secularize, the world remains a vibrant religious milieu. 

Religion is a principal and permanent feature of humanity. As religion and American studies scholar Thomas Tweed wrote, religion helps us “intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and superhuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries.” Religion, through its embodied practices & global social networks helps us feel secure, it protects us from chaos. Religion is part of who we are, how we interact with others, and what we do in the world. It’s not going away. Religion will continue to shape global, and local, circumstances for millennia as we continue to come into contact with “the religious other” and cross borders and boundaries together in an ever more globalized and transnational world (see Thomas Tweed - Crossing and Dwelling). 

Therefore, not only is rampant religious unenlightenment embarrassing, it’s hazardous. 

Look to the crisis in the Middle East and its ancient religious motivations; to the battle over Orthodox-orthodoxy in Ukraine; to the intersection of religion and public life in the U.S. Supreme Court; and to your new neighbors next door. In each of these situations, religion matters. People believe. People believe things that effect, and affect, their entire lives and the lives of those around them. People orient themselves around symbols, myths and rituals. People ascribe value to what they see and experience based on their conception of what is sacred, what is secular. People believe things to protect their way of life from lawlessness. Sometimes, people believe things that cause them to marginalize, oppress, or attack others. Other times, belief and religious practice manifest the most magnificent examples of art, music, & human creativity. 

Is my degree irrelevant? Impractical? Effectively useless?

Far from it. 

The truth is, I’m not studying religion; I’m studying how the world works. I'm investigating what makes people tick. I'm, as Michelle Boorstein highlighted from Krista Tippett's recent White House honor, ‘thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.’ I'm exploring why we believe. I'm also fascinated with why many of us don't care about religion anymore.

Advocates of religious literacy say that one of the crucial components in combatting religious ignorance and its antecedents of bigotry and religiously motivated violence, is better education.

David Smock of the U.S. Institute of Peace wrote, “One antidote to hatred among religious communities is to teach communities about the beliefs and practices of the religious other.”

Yet, books and lectures alone are insufficient.

As Yehezkel Landau said, “we need to develop educational strategies to overcome the ignorance that leads to prejudice, which in turn leads to dehumanizing contempt, which in turn breeds violence.”

So, champions of religious literacy will encourage individuals to study other religions in the presence of “the religious other,” and to make sure that what they are learning is true to that religion’s own perspective and grounded in its local experience. Such experiences “re-humanize” the religious “other” more than any lecture or in-class discussion.

That’s why I need your help. I can’t be the only one studying religion. My job is to study, to learn, and to pass what I learn on in popular, as well as academic ways. But I can’t be everywhere to answer every question you have about religion. 

Pay attention. Listen to, and learn from, your Buddhist neighbor. Visit a mosque when invited. Sit down for dinner with your Hindu co-worker. Have a conversation with your agnostic cousin. 

Learning about religion can be dangerous and difficult, you might be changed by the conversations you have. But the flip side is even more perilous. The consequences of continued religious ignorance are too menacing to do nothing. 

In addition, learning about other religions can be fun. It invites us to see the beauty in the strange and unknown, to journey with a sense of wide-ranging wonder, bridging worlds, cultivating our curiosity, and finding delight in humanity's differences. Plus, you will kill it on religion questions in Trivial Pursuit. 

So let us enjoy learning and take delight in new discoveries, knowing all the while we are making the world a better, safer, more religiously literate place. 

 

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In Religion, Religious Studies, PhD Work, Religious Literacy Tags Religion, Religious studies, PhD, Religion scholar, religious literacy, Thomas Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling, Stephen Prothero, religious other, Mother Theresa, religious literacy quiz, religious education, U.S. Institute for Peace, David Smock, Yehezkel Landau
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