Arts

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Angels and religion ghosts in American Bible Society's flight from New York City

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Angels and religion ghosts in American Bible Society's flight from New York City

Let us now praise the fact that The New York Times offered a story about the departure of the American Bible Society from the Big Apple, even if that story was labeled as a "Building Blocks" feature that focused on the architecture of the building at 1865 Broadway, rather than covering some of the cultural implications of this symbolic evangelical group's flight to a less demanding location.

As the old saying goes: New York, New York. If you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Well, what about the opposite?

There are moments when this piece hints at the larger dramas behind the architectural lede. Still, let's let the Times team start where it wanted to start:

“Behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Angels have never been especially conspicuous around Columbus Circle in Manhattan. But it is hard to look at 1865 Broadway, the former headquarters of theAmerican Bible Society, and not think for a moment about the ladder of Jacob’s dream, as described in Genesis 28:12.
If the bold, Brutalist rungs of the main facade do not persuade you of a biblical provenance, you are also free to read symbolism into the 12 deep recesses at each floor. Might they represent the 12 tribes of Israel? Or the Twelve Apostles?


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Famous church choirmaster and organist dies and, oh yeah, faith helped shape his work

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Let me confess, straight off, that this post is personal for me. I have, you see, been a church musician longer than I have been a journalist -- dating back to singing soprano in a classical boys choir. In college I was blessed to sing under the great Anglican choirmaster Robert H. Young (yes, at Baylor University) in his classical touring choir and I missed only two rehearsals in six years of undergraduate and graduate work. There is no way to express what sacred choral music means to me.

Thus, I know first hand the tensions that exist between the standards of classical performance and the singing done by normal church sanctuary choirs. I have known my share of elite choir snobs. At one point I was an elite choir snob.

So I read with great interest the New York Times piece on the recent death of the great organist and choirmaster John Scott, an Anglican who most recently was director of music at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

The article -- as it should -- emphasized his achievements as a performing artist on both sides of the Atlantic. He had just returned from recitals in Europe and was poised to begin the second leg of that tour. His second wife is expecting their first child in a few weeks. There is much to report about his life and career:

Mr. Scott played at the Boston Early Music Festival in June. His last American appearance was a Bach recital at St. Thomas on June 20.


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How did 'Christian' — as an adjective in mass media — come to mean shallow and lousy?

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How did 'Christian' — as an adjective in mass media — come to mean shallow and lousy?

On one level, this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to tune that in) is a follow-up discussion of my recent blog here about the New York Times article that, allegedly, tried to look for Jesus at Comic-Con 2015. That event in San Diego is, as I described it in my discussion with Todd Wilken, the great annual gathering of the pop-culture tribes for a "sacred dance" of hero worship and, of course, marketing.

The Times team apparently went to this event looking for evidence that the emerging mini-industry of films and television miniseries targeting "Christian" consumers -- in this case, "Christian" clearly means "evangelical" -- just isn't with it, or cool enough, when it comes to competing in the pop-culture major leagues. But that article, I argued, really didn't pay attention to (a) the work of Christians in mainstream media and (b) the ongoing debates, decade after decade, about aith questions raised in franchises such as "Star Wars," zombie movies, the X-Men, Doctor Who, etc., etc., etc.

In the end, the podcast ended up focusing on how the term "Christian" -- used as a adjective for marketing purposes -- has in our times become another way of saying shoddy, cheap, shallow and derivative. This led to some obvious questions.

Was J.S. Bach a "Christian" composer? Is Christopher Parkening a "Christian" classical guitarist?

Was J.R.R. Tolkien a "Christian" novelist?

How about C.S. Lewis? How about Jane Austen? How about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? When Fyodor Dostoyevsky sat down to write, was he thinking to himself, "How can I please the 'Christian' marketplace?" How about Flannery O'Connor? By the way, her work was the subject of my "On Religion" column for Universal this past week.


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How to miss a few scary angels at Comic-Con, as well as zombie theology debates

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First thing first, let me offer a cry of personal outrage about one passage in that interesting New York Times piece about God and the annual Super Bowl of American pop culture -- Comic-Con. We're talking about the news feature that ran under this headline: "At Comic-Con, Faith-Based Entertainment Stays in the Shadows."

(Cue mock voice of indignation) What? There is no one on the copy desk of the world's most influential newspaper who knows the Doctor Who canon? That newsroom is a Whovian-free zone?

What does this question have to do with this story? Well, the interesting thing about this piece is that it seems to define the missing "faith" content at Comic-Con 2015 in terms of products produced by the niche-entertainment industry that strives to appeal, for the most part, to pew-sitting evangelical Christians. It seems tone-deaf to the religion content in mainstream culture, including some of its most popular products.

In that context, there is the following passage:

... There was almost no obvious contemporary, faith-based cultural presence on a convention exhibit floor that was crammed with gods, spirits and cultic outcroppings of almost every stripe.
The Christian Comic Arts Society was supposed to have a spot in the small press pavilion, but was not to be found in its assigned spot on Thursday and Friday. If the group indeed showed up, it was lost somewhere in the crowd of 130,000 attendees. The closest approach to Christian imagery was a large drawing that portrayed a dragon-conquering woman beneath a halo.
A couple of “angels” were strolling about, but they were ominously covered, head to toe, in dark makeup.

#DontBlink #WeepingAngels #DUH


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Powers that be at NBC-TV placed a big bet on the Bible, and sorta lost

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Powers that be at NBC-TV placed a big bet on the Bible, and sorta lost

What’s the future for quality, religiously themed dramas on U.S. broadcast television? That story theme, which reporters could develop with help from entertainment industry analysts, emerges from the track record  of “A.D.: The Bible Continues.” This NBC miniseries about the birth of Christianity, drawn from  the biblical Book of Acts,  wrapped on June 21.

Broadcasters often relegate religious fare to the Christmas and Easter seasons and the rest of the year may depict devout characters in bit parts that are not always flattering to faith.  However, NBC placed a big bet on a reverential series that was adjudged “handsomely mounted” but “thuddingly earnest” by Variety, the showbiz bible. The first episode ran on Easter Sunday and the programs were then granted another consecutive 11 Sundays in prime time including the May ratings “sweeps.” That’s coveted TV real estate.

NBC’s  innovation made commercial sense, you’d think, given past box-office results and hoped-for viewership among millions upon millions of U.S. churchgoers. Moreover, star producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey had scored an impressive surprise hit on cable TV with their similar 2013 miniseries “The Bible” on the History Channel (jointly owned by ABC-Disney and Hearst).  The first episode drew 13.1 million viewers, others consistently posted above 10 million, and the Easter Sunday conclusion had an audience of 11.7 million. It was the second most popular miniseries the channel has ever carried.

However, NBC’s 2015 outing was a different matter, which probably underscores the difference between cable and broadcast in this era of fragmentation and specialized niche audiences.


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History of religious cults in America's Northwest gets graphic-art treatment

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When you search for religion news around the Pacific Northwest, what’s out there is definitely a mixed bag. The biggest religion story in years has been the break-up of Seattle's Mars Hill Church and the continuing saga of its one-time pastor, Mark Driscoll.

This week’s big story, broken by the Sydney Morning Herald, was that Driscoll’s invite to an Australian conference sponsored by the megachurch Hillsong had been rescinded. And so one alternative Seattle publication cribbed off the Driscoll angle by offering -- in graphic novel format -- a story titled “Predators and Prophets: A Comic History of Pacific Northwest Cults.” The subtitle: “Spiritually-motivated bioterrorism at Taco Time, 35 thousand year old Lemurian warrior gods in Yelm, LSD-fueled Queen Anne hippie cults, and much more.”

Figured I had to read that one, which begins thus:

The decline and disintegration of Mars Hill Church last year may have surprised some, but to others it was predictable, and not without precedent. The Pacific Northwest has been home to numerous utopian communes and fanatical religious groups, from the radical to the deeply conservative. Since the arrival of European Christianity and its normative pall, outsider and fringe belief has been a staple of the local culture. From Eastern philosophies to the syncretic, the Pacific Northwest has been a site of religious demagoguery for ages, and the present is no exception.


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Bill O'Reilly sounds off, and mainstream media rev up the distortion machine

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Want an object lesson on how not to mix reporting and opinion? Just look at media reaction to Bill O'Reilly's take on the new Pew Research survey.

The survey, released on Tuesday, finds that American Christians are dwindling, especially Catholics and mainline Protestants. It says also that the "nones," or unaffiliated, have increased, as have non-Christian religions.

Whenever such studies come out, the pundits usually cast about for the "why," and O'Reilly of Fox News was no exception. In his "Talking Points" segment, he says:

There is no question that people of faith are being marginalized by a secular media and pernicious entertainment. The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people -- the group that is most likely to reject religion. Also, many movies and TV shows promote non-traditional values. If you are a person of faith, then the media generally thinks you are a loon.

He then launches a standard jeremiad about the decline of America, with "corruption" in the Catholic Church and the push to legalize drugs like heroin and cocaine. He unoriginally compares modern America with the Roman empire, saying both declined because their citizens shunned sacrifice for self-gratification.

He ends with a couple of clichés: "But it can be fixed if the electorate wakes up ... That's why the upcoming election is perhaps the most important in our lifetime."

So his sermonette has much to criticize. But as I've said often on GetReligion, criticism is one thing and coverage is another. Tell me what's going on, then tell me your opinions -- but in different stories, please.

Unfortunately, a fair-size segment of the media tried to tell you what to think of O'Reilly's views. And many of the reports pounced on his complaints about rap. Billboard, Huffington Post and the much-quoted Washington Post all spent most of their stories rebutting that one sentence from O'Reilly's comments.

Philip Bump, the Washington Post's political writer, gives a mere three paragraphs to O'Reilly's remarks, then most of the other 11 arguing with them. He points out how rappers like Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar have cleaned up their acts.


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Turn, turn, turn: What is Buddhism's appeal for contemporary Americans?

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Turn, turn, turn: What is Buddhism's appeal for contemporary Americans?

DANIEL ASKS:

What aspects attract the many religious Americans that convert to Buddhism?

THE RELIGION GUY RESPONDS:

Before discussing what “attracts” let’s consider how “many” Americans have adopted this venerable faith. The over-all U.S. context is a deep divide between native-born converts (presumably Daniel’s interest) and Asian immigrants, also American Buddhists but not new “converts.” Richard Hughes Seager of Hamilton College calls this split “the most prominent feature of American Buddhism” during recent decades.

Due to the 1965 liberalization of U.S. immigration law, Asian-Americans dominate U.S. Buddhism.

As with Islam, it’s hard to pin down the numbers. The religion has no U.S. umbrella organization to represent its myriad branches and issue headcounts. The American Religious Identity Survey in 2001 sampled 50,000 Americans and projected there were 1.1 million adult Buddhists, and later added children for an estimated 1.5 million. The “World Christian Encyclopedia” (second edition, 2001) listed 2.45 million U.S. Buddhists including children but didn’t count “new religions” like Japan’s Soka Gakkai that others consider Buddhist. Experts have said Asian-American immigrants are something like three-fourths of U.S. Buddhists, and by outdated guesses there may be as few as 100,000 non-immigrant converts or as many as 800,000.

What aspects attract?

Meditation is certainly the key.


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The Baltimore Sun covers most of the voices in that controversial non-controversial D.C. art exhibit about the Virgin Mary

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The current exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts is, as described in a weekend Baltimore Sun feature, certainly sounds like an "embarrassment of riches," featuring works by Michelangelo, Durer, Botticelli and Titian. Some of the art has never been in an American exhibit before. As the museum's website notes:

Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea explores the concept of womanhood represented by the Virgin Mary as well as the social and sacred functions her image has served through time. This landmark exhibition organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts brings together more than 60 Renaissance- and Baroque-era masterworks from the Vatican Museums, Uffizi Gallery, and other museums, churches, and private collections in Europe and the United States.
Divided into six thematic sections, the exhibition presents images of Mary as a daughter, cousin, and wife; the mother of an infant; a bereaved parent; the protagonist in a rich life story developed through the centuries; a link between heaven and earth; and an active participant in the lives of those who revere her.

However, there is a problem.

Since the exhibit takes a rather conventional approach and focuses on a specific period of time in art history, it suffers from an shocking lack of elephant dung.

In other words, this exhibit has -- among a elite art critics -- become controversial because it is not causing controversy among (wait for it) religious believers who are, by definition, opposed to modern art. As the Sun report notes:


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