Religion finds many places in American culture

Date: 04-04-2010

You won't have to look far today to find evidence that Americans like their religion upfront and center.

Sure, the Easter bunny is about as pious as those candy-filled eggs kids are digging out of almost-clever hiding spots, but the message of the day - the hope of new life and fresh beginnings that come with the resurrection of Jesus Christ - is just as prevalent.

As it usually is.

Say what you want about our beliefs, we Americans are a religious people. According to the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, full results of which were recently released, 92 percent of Americans believe in God, and 82 percent say religion is very or somewhat important in their lives.

"For all the talk about the secularization of our society, we sure are a religious country," said Bruce D. Forbes, the co-editor of "Religion and Popular Culture in America" and chairman of religious studies at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. "I'll talk to people who come here from Europe, and they're just amazed at the role religion plays in our lives."

Not that anyone can say for certain what "religion" is or what it should or could be. Even the book that defines most Americans' belief structure, the Bible, is open to wide interpretation.

"Everyone thinks they understand it when really, it's highly complicated, confusing, seemingly contradictory," said Kristin Swenson, a religious-studies professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of "Bible Babel," a book about the Bible and religion in contemporary society. "It's a collection rather than a single book. We're working with an ancient text, in translation. And translations themselves are interpretations."

In "Bible Babel," Swenson tells the story of how the Bible came to be, pieced together over thousands of years in accounts written or, more often, passed down orally.

"There have been so many translations. There's a lot of interpretation in there," she said during an interview in Charlottesville, where she's spending the semester as a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. "There's this culture of assumption that the Bible is perfectly understandable. People can be excused for not knowing."

But origin, she and Forbes said, isn't as important today as prevalence. America is a religious place, with religious themes, images and ideas popping up in everything from presidential politics to pop culture.

In the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter became the first overtly religious president, and faith has been a big part of the executive branch ever since. At the same time, the singer Bob Dylan eschewed his Jewish roots, declared himself a born-again Christian and recorded three albums of religious material. In the 1980s, the heavy-metal band Bon Jovi released "Livin' on a Prayer." The song wasn't religious in the Dylan sense, but it did play on the common theme of using prayer in the name of daily desires. Artists before and since have taken to song to prove their faith, with a whole new genre of music - Christian rock - firmly establishing itself in the past few decades.

Last Sunday, the Simpsons clan of the Fox TV network traveled to Jerusalem for an episode during which Homer proclaimed himself Messiah. It didn't work out well for him - it turned out the town was full of false Messiahs - but the popular animated show got across its usual message of tolerance.

Swenson uses pop-culture references to prove her point about the Bible's place in society. The heavy-metal band Metallica was inspired to write the song "Creeping Death" after watching "The Ten Commandments." In the movie "Dogma," the stars, a couple of fallen angels played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, play the role of vengeful God on corporate leaders they accuse of promoting a false idol.

The examples roll on, page after page in Swenson's book, ranging from street signs to TV preachers to sports arenas.

"I wanted to make it accessible," she said. "One thing I'm constantly amazed by is students saying, 'I didn't know that.'"

Forbes, a United Methodist minister in addition to his duties as a professor and author, has studied religion in pop culture for decades. He said he's rarely surprised where he finds messages.

"It's everywhere," he said. "I can see religion in all kinds of things."

He pointed to the movie "E.T."

"I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it sure is like the Christ story," he said.

In the movie, the alien appears unexpectedly, shows a willingness - and apparent penchant - for healing, is shunned, chased and threatened. Substitute Jesus for E.T., Forbes said, and the story line doesn't have to change much.

That's not the only example. Of late, those examples have been particularly abundant.

"I think it ebbs and flows," Forbes said. "There was a time when Hollywood wouldn't touch a religious theme. When it did show up, it was in these weird places like [the TV show] 'Northern Exposure.'"

That changed, he said, with the surprise success of the TV show "Touched by an Angel." It debuted in 1994 with a cast of three angels sent to Earth to remind people that God loves them. Its premise turned off critics and TV executives alike, and it was canceled after less than a year. Then it was resurrected after a spirited letter-writing campaign by fans, and it remained on the air until 2003.

Of more recent vintage, Tim Tebow, the award-winning quarterback on the University of Florida football team, used his team's appearance in a bowl game last season to promote his beliefs.

With a national audience tuned in to the game, Tebow added "John" and "3:16" to the familiar black streaks athletes paint under their eyes. That's a reference to the passage in the Bible in which God sacrifices his son for the sake of believers.

While not all college students are as forthcoming about their beliefs as Tebow, faith on campus is not a foreign concept.

"The biggest category I see is students who say they are spiritual but not religious," Mark Wood, the head of VCU's religious studies program, said during a panel discussion last month.

"Most people want to be about something," Tyrone Nelson, the pastor of Richmond's Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, said during the same discussion.

Proof of that, Swenson said, prompted her to write her book.

For all the versions of the Bible - type in the words "the Bible" on amazon.com and you'll get more than 230,000 choices - understanding it isn't always easy.

Jews, Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians, among others, espouse beliefs from their own versions, she said.

"There's a lot to learn," she said. "I hope it's fun learning."