I recently read an article about how many of the Academy Award-nominated pictures this year have religion as their central theme:
-Les Miserables--at the heart is the theme of redemption, of "returning to God" and has religious allusions and references throughout.
-Beasts of the Southern Wild-- has religious allusion along with magical realism.
-Django Unchained-- many religious references. An overseer patrols with a whip and a bible in his hand, and Django ends up shooting him in the chest through a bible page-- a breastplate of righteousness.
-Life of Pi-- totally centered around three different religions, has themes of hope and redemption, and explores what religion is really about.
Article begs the question-- in a time of growing disbelief, will Hollywood take over our methods of myth telling and become our marker for morality? Its an interesting question.
The on-going discussion of who gets to vote for Pope has taken some nasty turns as of late. In their pursuit of finding a "clean" conclave to elect the new pope, several cardinals, including Cardinal Keith O'Brien from the U.K. and Cardinal Mahoney from the U.S. have been prevented from participating in the papal conclave. Both cardinals have been barred due to allegetions of sex abuse or the covering up of sex abuse.
I actually found out Cardinal Keith O'Brien from The Onion, which took on a droll and sarcastic tone when explaining the sex abuse allegations: "EDINBURGH—Sources confirmed Monday that Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has stepped down from his position as Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh due to—you’re not going to believe this one—sexual abuse allegations."
I googled "Cardinal Keith O'Brien" and found that the actual story was quite true-- a Guardian article went more into depth about the allegations and talked about the implications for the upcoming enclave. I find the Onion article interesting because it shows how a large number of people are no longer surprised by such allegations within the Catholic Church, while several years ago, it could've been a different story. This next papal election has a lot of implications for the public view of the church in recent years.
I read an article from the Huffington Post about whether or not Cardinal Mahoney, an American who covered up priest sex abuse scandals in California and Oregon, should be able to vote for the next Pope. Cardinal Levada was in favor of Mahoney voting for pope, saying that "there are some victims' groups for whom enough is never enough." The general attitude both priests took, one of being the victim, kind of disgusted me. Mahoney was actively involved in covering up evidence and protecting pedophile priests, and allowing them to molest again. No matter what he has done to make up for it since, his past judgments still reflect on him in a way that do not make him a good candidate for voting for pope.
The end of the article had an interesting aside which talked about the likelihood of an American pope. It was deemed unlikely because of the perception that the pope would somehow take orders from the U.S. government, which is the world's biggest military power. I find this an interesting turn-around from JFK's election in the 60's, in which many people were concerned that as a Catholic, he would take orders from the pope. Is this indicative of how power has shifted away from religion and toward nationality or military might? It remains to be seen.
I recently read an article from the online Prodigal Magazine about a young woman who been brought up in a very conservative American Christian culture in which virginity was given the upmost importance. The article centers around her conclusion that she doesn't want to defined by her virginity-- it ends with the line "I'm not just a virgin or a non-virgin. And neither are you."
I found the article interesting because it gives an insider's jaded look at a culure that, living in America, you certainly hear about, but which I haven't experienced first-hand. When I hear her account of couples "winning the race to the altar" and her conclusions that virginity is just another way of getting God "to like us more than other people," I am rather turned off by the whole thing. The comments below the piece were interesting and diverse-- some people agree with her wholeheartedly, while others offer up more cynical opinions: "Is premarital sex a sin? Probably."
Having not grown up surrounded by this sort of thinking, I probably don't have the perspective to fully understand what sort of life, faith, and community-altering impact this conclusion might have for this young woman. I've had friends who had purity rings, neighbors proud of their virginal wedding night, but I've never really considered just how fundamental this focus could be. It's hard enough to be a girl in our culture, what with slut shame, rape culture, and endless back-and-forths between misogyny, feminism, and post-feminism, without adding this as well.
I was interested by this issue, which is by no means modern, but seems to be getting a lot of attention recently, and I found a documentary called "Virgin Tales," which was done by a Dutch film company. It chonicles a family in Colorado Springs that has begun holding "Purity Balls" for their daughters and other young girls in their church. I haven't watched it yet, but the preview and website were certainly intriguing.
It'll be interesting to see how this sub-culture's views on purity, sexuality, and marriage affects the rest of American culture in the near future.
About two years ago, my family got a puppy. I'm not really a dog person, and puppies are a tremendous amount of work, so I left most of the training up to my mom. She decided on crate training, and to help her in this endeavor, she bought a book called "The Art of Raising a Puppy." It's written by a group called the Monks of New Skete, which are a religious order dedicated to a monastic life in the Eastern Orthodox Church. They're based in Cambridge, New York.
The monks are dedicated to raising and training dogs, and along the way they've gained a lot of insight into the canine psyche. They explained the social order of dog packs, how puppies' personalities are ingrained in them from birth, and how asserting dominance early on was essential. The knowledge they imparted could only have been gained from years of single-minded devotion to their task. The concept of a monastic existence is an interesting one; removing oneself from society and focusing solely at the task at hand seems such an elevated pursuit.
The monks are Byzantine Rite-Franciscans, and they have a sister monastery of Poor Clare nuns, who make gourmet cheesecakes, as well as an associated community of married people called the Companions of New Skete, who live a similarly religious existence.
I read an Atlantic article about a conservative Seventh-Day Adventist sect in California called Loma Linda that focuses a lot of its religious zeal on the concept of living well and living healthily. Most of its members are vegetarians or vegans, are well-educated, and regularly attend religious services, basing their philosophy on the idea that the body and soul are one. Many of their oldest members were interviewed for the article, among them Ellsworth Wareham, who at 98 is still performing open heart surgery at the local hospital.
This article was so interesting to me because it shows religion functioning in a very practical way. The people in this sect live longer and, on average, happier lives due to the way they practice their beliefs. Their faith certainly seems to be "working," and in a way that is much more quantitatively obvious than many other religions. Their diet seems most important--they subsist on vegetarian or vegan, mostly Mediterranean diets-- but their religious observance also seems somewhat important; research shows that people who regularly attend religious services tend to be happier overall.
This has made me question the way that I live my life, mostly in terms of attending religious services. I don't consider myself to be religious, but the concept of a communal and spiritual gathering certainly appeals to me, not only because of the health benefits, but because of another sort of fulfillment as well. What exactly is it about religious services that benefit people so much? Are there other forms of communal interaction, or physical activity, that can provide similar rewards? I'll continue searching.
