AAR...No pirates to be seen at Law and Religion

I noted earlier that there were lawyers at AAR as well (to be specific law professors.) Now before anyone makes any lawyers/pirates comparisons please know that many of my friends are lawyers! Scallywags some may be, but thieves and vagabonds they are not. ;-)

The papers in Law, Religion and Culture session considered the Bouchard Taylor Commission, Aboriginal Rights, and Islamic Law in Canada. The first paper and the last caused me the most...well frustration. The Bouchard Taylor commission considered the issue of religious accommodation in Canadian life (how big an issue is the need to accommodate the religious views of minorities in canada.) Lori Beaman was very concerned with the report's suggestion that minorities run too quickly to the courts, and that they should seek to resolve issues of accommodation privately. She felt that minorities are more vulnerable and need the safety of the courts to ensure the rule of law. But do enforced resolutions build community? Do they break down the prejudices or engrain them? Hmmm.

The paper on Islamic Law addressed the issue of arbitration in family matters, but specifically religious arbitration based on religious law. The speaker Sevak Manjiakam was so engaging I forgot to take good notes so I'll work from memory here. He argued that, not surprisingly, minorities are reluctant to go to the courts with religious issues. For much of the world questions of marriage, divorce and family are religious issues. Although anyone can choose to have their dispute settled by an religious arbitrator, that arbitration does not have the force of law. Religious arbitration was used in Ontario by the Catholic and Jewish communities for years prior to requests by Islamic groups for Sharia based arbitration. Ontario banned all religious arbitration in 2005. Mr. Manjiakam eloquently voiced the need for religious arbitration in Canada but to my surprise, challenged the way many in the Muslim community envisioned such arbitration, based solely on Sharia Law, and conducted by local Imams. He argued that there was a substantial tradition of Islamic law, and what was needed were trained legal specialists who understood both Islamic law and arbitration. He made a good case: is, for example, the average Christian church pastor qualified to make legally binding decisions about my marriage and family disputes? Counselling perhaps, depending on the courses they took, but arbitration? No, I don't think so. I also appreciate the concerns of minorities. I heard an excellent paper presented by Pascale Fournier on a similar topic back in May that considered how well meaning judges attempting to be multiculturally sensitive were arriving at very different legal conclusions. So the problem is real and it is growing.

So where now? Secular courts don't work well and private arbitration is not much better. Are we headed to a mosiac of courts based on religions and culture; not just for Muslims, but Catholics, Jews, Buddhists and Athiests. Wiser heads than I need to resolve this one....

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AAR...my candidate to walk the plank!

The AAR conference brings together a very diverse group of people. There are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans and Atheists. There are sociologist, theologians, anthropologists, and (surprise!) lawyers. Oh, and I even met an evolutionary psychologist. Some are regular practitioners of their faith; some are simply fascinated by the social expressions of religion. It is illuminating to interact with such a diverse group around various topics; it also requires a sensitivity to the faith positions of others. As an evangelical Christian I must be prepared to defend my faith, but I am also obligated to live at peace with those around me. I need to treat others with respect even when we disagree. I don't always succeed but I try.

To teach sociology of religion in a religious institution has its advantages I think. You can assume a particular theological position and proceed from there. A university context must be much more challenging. How do you navigate the diversity of opinion and avoid the religious minefields? I like how Chris Helland my doc supervisor handles it. He explains very early in the class the sociological perspective that he adopts: he must "bracket" his own beliefs and choose not to ask the crucial question "is this from God?" As a sociologist he is confined to the natural world. This does not mean he believes that religion is an entirely human phenomenon but that some things are outside his research focus. He must take all religious experiences at face value though he does not believe all religions are universally valid based on their outcomes (e.g. Jonestown or the Branch Davidians). I think he would say he is an observer of religion not its judge.

I attended one paper where the researcher was studying Chick Comics and Tracts. If you grew up in a conservative evangelical church you probably will remember the gospel tract "This was your Life". I appreciate the evangelistic message they tried to make and the zeal behind the attempts. Sometimes however, the message they preached, especially when addressing other groups such as Roman Catholics, was fraught with unproven innuendo and speculation. It was more than the simple gospel message. The truths they communicated were sometimes lost in the bluntness of their presentation. The sociologist who presented the paper obviously did not share Chick's position. His presentation was littered with sarcastic asides and not so subtle mockery. This was more than critique of the content and approach of Chick; this was a rejection of the faith position of this group. He was no longer a sociologist, but assumed the role of arbiter of the truth claims they made. I would hope that Chris' first year undergraduate students would know better than this professor.

So in a not so nonjudgmental fashion I nominate this presenter to "walk the plank!"

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AAR...Can pirates dance?

Religious rituals. There are the big rituals (coronations) and little rituals (like a family Bible reading.) Some are very tightly scripted; you don't have much leeway in a funeral or a remembrance service at a cenotaph. Other rituals are more open to interpretation; I have lots of room for innovation in a wedding ceremony like readings, music etc. as long as certain things occur like vows, pronouncement etc. I remember in my wedding the Minister forgot to say "you may kiss the Bride." Now I did eventually get to kiss her and I'll let you in on a secret: I kissed her before the wedding! ;-) But I'll always remember that omission because...well, you are supposed to say that at weddings, right?! Yet rituals are not static and can change over time.

One session I attended discussed how popular media can transform religious traditions. (I'm separating faith and religion here: I believe that faith transcends culture since it finds its source in God; religion on the other hand is one way in which we live out our faith in community.) The premise is that religion is socially constructed (societies create and recreate religious traditions) and media is also socially constructed (societies create media and use it for their purposes). Both interact in culture and they change each other.

Here is one example that Lynn Schofield Clark presented. This wedding video that has gone viral on YouTube. "J and K's Big Day" was a private choreographed moment as part of a wedding processional. The video was posted on YouTube for family and soon was viewed 31 million times. They were invited onto the Today show and it became a much copied hit creating a new wedding tradition almost over night. Now this is hardly a dramatic change but it would have been impossible before the internet. Ritual and tradition can be shaped by the web.

For your viewing pleasure : the Lego version of "J and K's Big Day."

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AAR...Pirates at play

The Monday's session on Religion Media and Culture focused on ritual in contemporary culture and media. Rituals, sociologically speaking, are sets of action with symbolic meaning that we perform usually prescribed by religion or tradition. A wedding ceremony has its rituals (candle lighting, exchange of rings etc.) and so do funerals. What happens when rituals are played out online?

Rachel Wagner has done a lot of research into video games and the ideas of interactivity, play, rules, narrative and conflict. Even in telling a fixed story, there is room for interactivity and "Play". She urged us to think of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. This was a fixed story but viewers gave him room to play with lighting, costuming sets etc. but only to a point. Beyond that we would say "you didn't tell the story." Rachel has been looking at how religion has been brought into video games and the implications of that for storytelling and play. When is the game more than a game? Kerstin Radde-Antweiler spoke about religious rituals played out online. She focused on two stories of a wedding celebrated in SecondLife and a memorial service held online in World of Warcraft (WoW). In the SecondLife story a wedding service was being held with friends online. There are a ton of religious questions here but the focus of the story was that three virtual people (avatars) decided to crash the virtual wedding (flying on brooms). To them it was all a game; but not so for the celebrants. This was important to them and they were upset. Even more so in the WoW story. For those unfamiliar with this, WoW is an online 3D world where players, through their virtual selves (avatars) explore, fight monsters and interact with other players. In the story Kerstin recounted, a member of an online guild (team) had passed away in real life. Her online friends decided to hold a memorial service for her online in WoW, really the only place where most knew her. They advertised the intended service. However, during the service a rival guild attacked the avatars and virtually killed many of the mourners. This initiated a great debate over the appropriateness of the behaviour on both sides. Was it wrong to not respect the memorial service? Was it right to even bring a serious ceremony into a virtual game? When is the game no longer the game and can you draw a line between the two?

I know what pirates would do! What do you think? When is the game no longer the game?

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AAR...Pirates and Civil Religion...

Session two at the AAR conference:Rethinking Civil Religion. No, it has nothing to do with being rude at church, although you should never be rude at church (or really anywhere.)

To sum up: Civil Religion is the sum of religious concepts, rituals and dialogue that are adopted by the state and become part of the fabric of the social consciousness of that state. Robert Bellah coined the concept back in 1967. Think of it this way: the USA has a constitutional separation of church and state. But...the money says in "In God we Trust", political functions start with prayer, and every president has invoked terminology like "sacred trust" and "moral duty", the language of religion to rally the citizenry. The pledge of allegiance and singing of the national anthem at sports events, are two of the rituals and pronouncements like "my country right or wrong" complete the "religious" mythology of the USA. Tied up with this is the idea of being God's chosen people; a nation of destiny; the shining beacon to the world.

So is this a good thing or bad? Well, here is where our speakers were undecided. They all agreed that the recent events have shaken America's self perception. Maybe the USA is not invincible; maybe they won't always prevail. That was an almost unthinkable admission not long ago. But should America, and well all country and even the world have a civil religion?

Can there be a civil religion without God? Well maybe yes the speakers argued, as long as there is some idea of transcedence; something bigger, greater than ourselves. Something to aspire to like universal moral principles. Sound very lofty. But I wonder...do people readily give their lives for abstract concepts? Or do they give their lives for something personally important to themselves: love for family, community and God?

OK, no pirates in this session, but remember the "code of the brethren" from the Pirates of the Caribbean? Sounds like civil religion to me. :)

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AAR...Pirates and religious work?

Here I am at the AAR conference in Montreal. This is a BIG conference and the Palais des Congres is a huge facility. I arrived by train at 7:45am and headed right over to the venue for my first session at 9am. Religion and Social Sciences make much more sense when you're sleep deprived! :-)

This session's theme was Velben's Theory of the Leisure Class: Rethinking Religion and Economy if the Age of Crisis. Yeah, I had to look it up too. In a nut shell, Velben was a foundational economist and sociologist who developed the ideas of conspicuous consumption and the ruler class as "the leisure class" because they really did not contribute economically to the survival of the group. Religion he would argue does not contribute to the economy of the tribe and really was a form of waste. One speaker made much of the image of Pope Benedict signing an Encyclical expressing concern for the poor and downtrodden surrounded by the trappings of wealth and separated from manual labour. I took exception to how he presented this but the point is taken. Those who actually know what they are talking about can critique my cartoonish oversimplification of Veblen.

I went to this session because information science research has payed little attention to religious questions because religion has been relegated to "leisure activities" like hobbies etc. and not been considered important for study. What caught my attention were two ideas. First, one speaker Richard Callahan talked about the idea of the "instinct of workmanship" from Veblen: our meaning, purpose and instinct is to work. Competition through War and Sport detracts from this and replaces the goal of work with the seeking of "booty." (See! I told you it would come back to Pirates in the end.) Most defenses of the Church from Veblenian critiques would point out how the church has acted to redistribute wealth thus serving a beneficial purpose in Veblen's economy. But there is more that that here. I thought about the Biblical idea of man and woman created to "tend the garden" and act as stewards over creation. Theologically we were created to work and to enjoy the fruits of our labour. Maybe Veblen had something here, that the church needs to think more about.

The second idea raised by Joerg Rieger was that in the information age we need to begin to rethink the definition of work. Life isn't so easily subdivided anymore into work/non-work. Technology is changing that. Is white collar work the same as blue collar work? Do they both contribute? what about volunteerism and other forms of unpaid work? Do these contribute to the economy? I think they do and there is a role for religion/community service is that new definition. Hmmm...things to think about.

Off to the next session (watch out for pirates)....

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