Say A Little Prayer

My uncle and I walked into the famous Mutter Museum, located on 19 South 22nd Street in center Philadelphia. As a doctor, my uncle was excited to see the biological deformities and medical monstrosities that have come to make the museum such an incredible place. The museum of such high expectations is quite small in size, with only two floors and three rooms with large glass showcases. Among the most famous of the medical phenomena found in the museum are a plaster cast of a liver that once belonged to Siamese twins, the cast of a woman whose body has physically turned into soap, and a giant colon that could fit a basketball inside of it.

As I finished my analysis of the “Soap Lady” and many other oddities on the top floor, I observed my uncle at the corner of the bottom floor fixated on another specimen. As I reached his position, I found him staring at a plaster of a carcass of two babies conjoined at the hip with four arms. He looked at me and told me that this figure was a religious symbol.

My uncle had also worked in the Hindu temple for quite some time before earning a medical degree. I didn’t understand his statement that such a deformed figure could represent Hinduism in anyway. He reminded me of goddess Durga, which has ten arms, each bearing a different weapon, and various other gods and goddesses that possessed physical deformities. In ancient times, a child born like the one in the glass showcase would represent a message from god, and Hindu clerics would interpret a deformed or impaired child as a religious symbol. According to my uncle, this is the reason why deformities have always been celebrated in Hindu religion.

As I veered away to look at another item across the room, I stared back towards my uncle, who stood in the same spot, still facing the deformed child, with his hands clasped together, eyes shut, saying a prayer quietly to himself.

The Religion of Culture

While I was reading Authentic Fakes, I noticed that Chidester referenced some classical Anthropologists. Last semester I took Intro to Cultural Anthropology, so these references piqued my interest. One of the anthropologists Chidester refers to is Durkheim. From what I remember, his take on religion is that it is a description of culture; that the larger force people refer to when talking about God and religion is really just a way to understand the larger force of culture. In other words, religion is just a vehicle for understanding and explaining the movement and force of culture through the world. I happen to really like this explanation. This also lends itself to Chidester's explanation of pop culture taking on a religious form in the US. If religion is just an explanation of culture moving through the world, then it is only logical that culture is the driving force behind religion. If this is so, then the cross over of religion and popular culture that Chidester describes is only an inevitable by-product of that connection. Taking this view, it is now easier to understand the classification of many things as "religious" when they have no concrete ties to any form of religion. For example, the religious experience of a football game or of a concert is not truly religious, but people use that term to try to explain and understand the emotions and feelings of "effervescence," as Durkheim calls it.
To me religion is nothing more than a way to cognize and to categorize the world and the events that surround us every day. Religion is comforting and a source of security, but in order to understand it and the way people perceive and interact with culture, you must first understand the larger force of culture in the world and in every one of us.

Subways and Religions

Over winter break, I spent a weekend carousing around New York City with some friends. One day, while wandering the depths of Port Authority looking for a subway to Greenwich, we were stopped by a man with peyos, the curls that religious Jews wear next to their ears. However, this man, oddly enough, was sporting a teal t-shirt with a black inscription: “Jews for Jesus.”
“Take this.” He shoved a color-coordinated teal pamphlet into my hand. My friends started laughing and pulled me away. This was the last I was concerned about the incident for the remainder of the trip.

It wasn’t until the other day that the pamphlet floated out of my bag onto my dorm room floor. That’s when I started wondering. I’ve always been taught, from my dad to Hebrew school teachers, that there’s no difference between Jews and Christians except for a belief or lack of belief in Jesus as the Messiah. So, what in the world could a Jew for Jesus be? I decided to do some research.

Wikipedia.org tells us that Jews for Jesus is a controversial US-based Evangelical Protestant organization founded in 1973 by Martin Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister, with a goal of converting Jews to Christianity. It sites some extremely critical viewpoints, pointing out that the group is rejected not only by Jewish organizations as clearly “un-Jewish” in its lack of observance of the Torah, but also by many Protestant organizations which accuse the group of overstepping bounds and distorting truth. However, JewsforJesus.org takes an entirely different stance. Rather than summarizing a mission statement into one clear sentence, the group allows the user to explore various links on evidence of Jesus’ divinity and stresses the idea that his messiahship is an important fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy.

And so, there are two sides to every story. My search has not led me to answer, but more questions. Why is it that people refuse to recognize the commons roots between Judaism and Christianity? Do these common roots stretch as far as Jesus’ divinity? Is this organization merely a ruse to attract Jews to Christianity? Is there any merit here? Does it matter?

FCA

Just the other day, I was going through my routine Penn e-mail check, and I came across a message from one of my soccer teammates. It was entitled, "no subject," so I didn't have any idea what it would involve. I opened the e-mail, and it had to do with a group called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, or FCA. During the season I had overheard a few of the girls talk ing about meetings and activities they went to that were sponsored by the FCA, so I was already interested to learn a little more about it. My friend had invited me to a meeting, just to participate in some games and listen to a guess speaker. I have not been able to go yet, but I am thinking about attending the next one. I went on the FCA's website, http://www.fca.org/AboutFCA/, and it is really an impressive site. After looking over it, it seems like the members of the FCA set goals for themselves and then attempt to achieve them through various activities and projects. Integrity, service, teamwork, and excellence were often mentioned and appear to lay the foundation for this organization. So far, my overall opinion of the FCA is that it provides a great opportunity for student-athletes in college, who want to continue with their religious practices and behaviors, to work together and encourage others to recognize and appreciate the tremendous impact that Jesus Christ has made on everyone.

“A New Era of Religion”

When one thinks of religious piety, Britney Spears is by no means the first person to come to mind. Even those who know little about the American pop-singer (this author) know that she is not in any way a sexually moral person under the standards of her raised-Baptist parents. However, Britney Spears along with other pop-culture hot shots may be making her way into a new religious trend. It may even turn some religions from important spiritual experiences to a stunt that only Hollywood could concoct.

Pop diva Britney Spears, who has released albums and songs like Baby One More Time, My Prerogative, Boys, and I’m a Slave 4 U, was born to Baptist parents and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana. After her rise to stardom she, like many celebrities, earned the ability to devote time and money to several different parts of her life. Among these was religion.

She was originally influenced by Madonna, who did and still does practice a form of Kabbalah, a religious mystical system of Judaism. Madonna has reportedly donated more than $30 million to the cause of building Kabbalah centers around the world. Although Spears never reached that status, she was a faithful follower of Kabbalah for several years even wearing the trademark red bracelet of the religion. During this religious stint in Kabbalah, she married Jason Alexander in Las Vegas. Alexander was a childhood friend of Britney’s, and the marriage was broken only 55 hours after it began. After her first failed marriage, she attempted to have the Hebrew words “New Era” tattooed on her back. This was a failure, and the tattoo artist instead wrote something in Hebrew that was virtually meaningless. To make matters worse, tattoos are traditionally not allowed in Jewish law.

After Kabbalah, Spears became very religious along with her mother, who was a devout Baptist. Britney started going to church, and soon had to make a decision about what type of wedding she wanted with Kevin Federline, her fiancé. Her mom was urging a Baptist wedding while Madonna was encouraging a Kabbalah wedding. She ended up choosing a Baptist wedding, and was married in November of last year.

To add a twist to the story, Britney’s newborn child, Sean Preston Federline, was recently brought to receive blessings from the Hindu Gods by Britney herself, without Kevin.

Hollywood often seems to be a mockery of important subjects, and religion is apparently no exception. Britney Spear’s seemingly rocky experience with religion is only one example among many from today’s celebrities. We can only hope that this is not a New Era where celebrities have the right to make a mockery of Baptists, Kabbalists, and Hindus.