Is there something about mediation itself that resonates with modern ideas of religiosity?

By Angela Zito

Excerpted from Rethinking Religion 101: Critical Issues in Religious Studies, edited by Bradford Verter and Johannes Wolfart . Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2009.

The critical cultural anthropologist in me asks this question first of all: What does the term “religion,” when actually used by people, out loud, authorize in the production of social life? What does it allow people to do? And that question immediately opens others: What acts can then possibly be performed? What stories can be told? What conversations can be had? What thoughts can be thought? What sorts of people are imagined to be interlocutors, and audiences? Who becomes the enemy? Who an ally? What histories are excavated, and negotiated aloud? What is perforce forgotten? What hierarchies and politics of power are then possible? And above all, what pleasures of self-making? What communities do those senses of personhood entail? And finally, what happens when “religion” is rejected?

8 May 2008
1:54 PM: Jeff Weiss of the Dallas Morning News wonders if Hillary Clinton's Doug Coe connection is as troubling to her campaign as Obama's "pastor problem." Weiss asks, I get to answer.

30 April 2008
2:46 PM: Republicans aren't the only ones who believe in using faith-based initiatives to win votes. In the month before the Reverend Calvin Butts, one of the most influential black pastors in New York City, surprised his Harlem congregation by endorsing Hillary, she quietly steered three grants worth $1.5 million his way. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi follows the cash flowing in and out of Clinton coffers in a story that probably didn't make the radar of most religion-observers. 30 April 2008
12:09 PM: Maureen Dowd, the noted columnist and student of African American religious history, jumps on the NYT Jeremiah Wright hate train, reducing Wright's learned history of the black church and why it should matter to all Americans to a "’60s maelstrom." Apparently, racism is something that happened 40 years ago and should be left there, except for historical reference when declaring Obama postracial.

30 April 2008
12:56 AM: Sharlet: I believe I'll be on the CBC -- Canadian Broadcasting Company -- program "The Current" Wednesday morning, discussing the pundit assault on Jeremiah Wright and black liberation theology. Whether or not they use my comments, I suspect the show will be a good one.

29 April 2008
11:25 AM: The NYT's Bob Herbert (writing in the opinion pages, at least), joins the liberal elite's outrage over Jeremiah Wright. Yes, I just said "liberal elite"; there is no other term with which to describe the big media Obama backers distressed by the fact that Wright would have the gall to defend himself from what they'll admit was essentially a massive, national, racist smear job. How dare he! Obama's trying to move us beyond race! But, as Herbert writes with indignation, "Rev. Wright is roaming the country with the press corps in tow, happily promoting the one issue Mr. Obama had tried to avoid: race." No points for the press corps here, by the way. The only justification for the anger of Herbert and Stanley (below) is their recognition, from within the belly of the media beast, is that none of their colleagues give a damn about Wright's words on race. No, they're gathered round Wright, one eye on Obama, whispering like kids in a schoolyard: "fight, fight, fight!" If they were listening, they'd be hearing that "national debate about race," the media always says it wants. But they can't hear it, can't see it; all they see is two African American man, and one of them is -- shudders of indignation among the elite, of voyeuristic joy among the media's working stiffs -- angry and cracking wise.

29 April 2008
12:41 AM: Holly Berman: A surrogate for the Obama campaign announced today that in light of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's decision to defend himself in the public square, it's clear that "Mr. Wright doesn’t hate America, he loves the sound of his own voice." The move was an obvious attempt by the Obama campaign to distance the candidate from the outspoken pastor, described by an Obama spokesman as a sort of retread of "Sanford and Son": a "compelling but slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention." Oh, wait -- that wasn't an Obama spokesperson, it was Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times, filing what will surely mark a low point of her journalistic career, a borderline racist assault on Rev. Wright for talking back to the press.

28 April 2008
1:34 AM: Another brilliant portrait of New York City Islam from the NYT's Andrea Elliott -- a major feature on the Khalil Gibran International Academy and the campaign to destroy its founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, who's just speaking out now for the first time since the controversy began. Elliott names that campaign for what it is: "the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life." Elliott, who won a Pulitzer last year for her portrait of a NYC imam, has used her metro beat to become one of the best religion reporters working today.

25 April 2008
2:31 PM: There's some irony that Bishop Gene Robinson, the out gay Episcopal prelate, has been relegated to the "Marketplace" at the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference, a worldwide gathering that occurs only 10 years. Conservative bishops threatened a boycott unless their brother in Christ was excluded. Moderates suggested that he be allowed to attend if he agreed to be "diminished." But belittling wasn't good enough for the conservatives, so the gay bishop will have to haunt the Marketplace, an adjunct bazaar for merchandise vendors and advocacy groups. That should sit well with conservative sociologist Rodney Stark of Baylor University, who with Roger Finke developed the idea of looking at religious life through free market metaphors. But will Stark, a moderate conservative, be happy should Robinson's inclusive faith prove a better seller than the anti-gay doctrine of a denomination in sharp decline? The NYT Laurie Goodstein reports on the bishop's preparations -- which include getting married.

25 April 2008
10:12 AM: What do the king of Norway and Hillary and Clinton have in common? They're both pals with Doug Coe, the "First Brother" of the fundamentalist network known to those in the know as The Fellowship and to those on the inside as The Family. Talk 2 Action's Bruce Wilson does a better job than I did yesterday in translating Norwegian to bring us the latest news on the man known to his friends in Washington as the "Shadow Billy Graham." Yes, this is all sounding pretty kooky. But it's no conspiracy, it's just the wonderful weirdness of religion in America (and Norway).

23 April 2008
11:45 AM: What's worse than Mel Gibson's Passion? A biography of Jesus by the director of Showgirls. Next up: Brett Ratner directs Jackie Chan as an ass-kicking, wise-cracking Thomas Aquinas!

22 April 2008
2:50 PM: Religious right watcher Bill Berkowitz, whose work we've touted before, joined two scholars we admire -- Bruce Schulman and Paul Starr -- and a third who's new to us -- Julian Zelizer -- at Princeton University for a panel discussion titled "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, and What That Means in 2008." What's it to you? Well, some smart publicist posted video on Youtube. It's like Princeton, for free! And you can pause whenever you want.

21 April 2008
7:12 PM: Newsweek's cover story this week depicts a remote community of frustrated, working class folk facing dim economic prospects and a world that seems to have forgotten their community's glory days. In response, reports Newsweek, many of these people delve deeper into their faith and develop hostility toward those who don't share it. Far removed from the competitive fields of the modern economy, they cling to their families and their guns. And they sure don't believe they can count on Washington. Where is this dirty old town? Pennsylvania? Ohio? Try Libya. In "Destination Martyrdom," Kevin Peraino replays the very critique offered by Obama to almost universal derision by the pundit class. Strangely, none are rushing to the defense of the Libyan common man.

21 April 2008
12:06 PM: Leave it to the Anglicans to make biblical literalism sound thoughtful. Sholto Byrnes in New Statesman on Britain's cleverest fundamentalist, Bishop Tom.

21 April 2008
11:57 AM: "Art demands detachment," writes Leon Wieseltier, "but religion forbids it." Huh? That's about as narrow a conception of both as we can imagine, but Wieseltier is broader-minded when it comes to the Muslim call to prayer broadcast in Harvard Yard...

20 April 2008
3:56 PM: The counterpart to today's NYT frontpager on the pope's mild stand on behalf of immigrants is the Metro section lead, "A Populist Shift Confronts the U.S. Catholic Church." It's a fairly ordinary piece about the growing appeal of Pentecostalism, particularly among Latinos and immigrant groups. What's remarkable is this photograph by Piotr Redlinski. Most of Redlinski's work is theatrical -- even these gritty war pictures turn out to be literally staged. That experience is perhaps what allowed him to recognize the simultaneous theatricality and authenticity of this group of believers laying on hands at the Portuguese Language Pentecostal Missionary Church in Astoria, Queens. The woman on the right keeps her mike ready even as she leans forward with fervor; the man on the left looks oblivious to the performance he is a part of; and the pastor who's receiving an anointing maintains a steadying hand on the neck of his electric guitar. It's a stunning image, the best religion journalism in a Sunday paper packed with papal news.

20 April 2008
3:17 PM: Peter Manseau in The Washington Post, on the incredible shrinking papacy.

17 March 2008
1:01 AM: Faith-Based Initatives just turned seven. And it looks like the program may have a long life ahead of it. Bill Berkowitz offers the even-handed account of how one of Bush's signature programs has altered the federal landscape and why a Democratic victory in 2008 may not stop it from growing.

12 March 2008
3:27 PM: Much ink has been spilled over John McCain's ongoing relationship with ultra-right megachurch pastor and apocalypse dreamer John Hagee. Now the liberal press is starting to get up to speed on another McCain pal, Rod Parsley, the fundamentalist prince of Ohio. David Corn reviews the basics in Mother Jones. We here at The Revealer have long been admirers of Rod's... panache. With links to deeper, but less amusing, coverage from Michelle Goldberg and Sarah Posner. And here's more on how Parsley uses the plight of Sudan as a weapon in his holy war.

9 March 2008
1:28 PM: Sharlet: I've been following the career of Senator Mark Pryor ever since the faith-based Democrat of Arkansas told me that through his participation in The Family -- a bizarre network of politicians and businessmen dedicated to a fundamentalist theology of "Jesus plus nothing" -- he'd come to realize that the wall of separation between church and state is "too high." Apparently, he also thinks the 14th Amendment, equal protection for all, is "too strong" -- Pryor was one of a handful of conservative Democrats who just backed Senator David Vitter's successful amendment to an Indian health care bill that permanently prohibits the use of federal dollars to fund abortions for Native American women. Of course, under the Hyde Amendment, that prohibition extends to the entire country -- but it must be renewed every year, leaving it open to debate and the democratic process. Not for Native American women, not anymore.