tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/protestantism-45050/articlesProtestantism – The Conversation2024-03-26T17:02:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2265722024-03-26T17:02:09Z2024-03-26T17:02:09ZExtinguishing lights and a great big bang: the ancient sights and sounds of the pre-Easter tenebrae service<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584208/original/file-20240325-18-saxwku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The crucifixion of Christ inside Chester Cathedral.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chester-cheshire-england-uk-26-march-2433472355">PhotoFires|Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Easter is a time of mixed emotions. According to <a href="https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/church-attendance-rises-second-year-running">Church of England figures</a>, up to a million people will go to church on Easter Sunday to celebrate the joy and hope of the resurrection of Christ. But in the three days before that, churchgoers in many traditions come face to face with the darkest moments of the Christian story: <a href="https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-our-collection/highlights/context/subjects/judas">the betrayal</a> Jesus faced at the hands of Judas Iscariot, his death on the cross and his burial.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A priest extinguishes a candle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584205/original/file-20240325-9980-x5ion5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A symbolic darkening.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/25389408003/in/photolist-EFzmrR-qYG4Vv-rsNXi9-rD326R-qYJtLH-rCVpZw-rCVwuq-rBaqre-rD2YZB-rCU4QJ-rVq5Li-rBaCTZ-rVnevu-rVnbds-rVn54J-rCVt5u-rCU9Bh-qYutdC-qYGikB-rVpYFH-rVpZK6-9XFueb-rVuA3a-6dSFu4-rCUe3m-qYuwAu-rVuvSM-EFzmxT-SxBjRf-rCuHh7-7qWKHW-e6w8nR-7QK7Y4-e6FJya-rVsi1e-TNcwt5-5rUMHg-9AJeZS-TNcwqu-7Q8vmN-7QNq9G-4zM5yA-buGoW5-ngK9DK-ngK8v2-2gC1u1M-rUWund-rUZgjH-qYgu1p-nivvzB">Lawrence OP|Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the lesser known rituals of this pre-Easter period is an ancient exploration of darkness itself, known as <em>tenebrae</em>. Originally, this service took place late at night or early in the morning on the last three days of Holy Week, leading up to Holy Saturday (the day before Easter Sunday).</p>
<p>For at least 1,200 years, the defining feature of tenebrae services has been the gradual <a href="https://alcuinclub.org.uk/product/175/">extinguishing of lights</a>. Enclosed in an increasingly darkened church, worshippers are reminded of the three days Jesus spent in the tomb following his death. </p>
<p>My research <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/departments/music/research/research-projects/music-in-the-shadows.aspx">shows</a> that in the past it was actually quite common for worshippers to attend church in the middle of the night. Before electric light, sunset forced most daily activities to cease. Long winter nights afforded plenty of time both to sleep and to pray. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white nitrate negative image of a church service in 1941." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584196/original/file-20240325-20-uwswqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tenebrae service on Spy Wednesday at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1941.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/matpc.21011/">Matson photograph collection|LOC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Darker than dark</h2>
<p>Since medieval times, the tenebrae ritual has had the feel of a funeral. It features <a href="https://archive.org/details/liberusualismiss00cath/page/302/mode/2up?view=theater">dirge-like chanting</a>, <a href="https://www.liturgies.net/Lent/Tenebrae.htm">doleful texts</a> and a pointed avoidance of ornament. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A large standing candelabra." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584194/original/file-20240325-28-8pnz7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Antoni Gaudi’s tenebrae hearse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:(Barcelona)_Tenebrae_Candelabra_-_Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD_-_Museums_of_the_Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia.jpg">Didier Descouens|Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Latin verb <em>tenebrare</em> means “to darken” and this is probably the origin of the ritual’s name. A symbolic number of candles or lamps – historically this varied between five and 72, but is now most often 15 – is lit at the beginning of the service, and then, for each successive chant, reading or verse, one light is extinguished. </p>
<p>These are often placed on what is known as a “hearse” – a triangular or pyramidal frame that would also be placed above a coffin or tomb. (Only in the 17th century would this word be borrowed to describe a funeral vehicle.) By the end of the service, a single light remains, barely enough to see by. </p>
<p>The effect is hugely dramatic. There have been different interpretations of the ritual through the ages.</p>
<p>In his ninth-century commentary <a href="https://documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0776-0852__Symphosius_Amalarius__Liber_De_Ordine_Antiphonarii__MLT.pdf.html">On the Ordering of the Antiphoner</a>, the Frankish bishop Amalar of Metz understood the extinguishing of candles to represent the “the extinction of joy” brought about by Jesus’s crucifixion. Others saw a representation of the biblical figures and saints who had died bearing witness to this story, or a depiction of the waning light of Jesus the metaphorical sun.</p>
<p>Art objects have also provided layers of meaning. Standing some 25 feet tall, the giant <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/75710752@N04/8758144549">16th-century tenebrae candelabra</a> of Seville Cathedral is comprised of a metal hearse topped with 15 candles and as many carved figures.</p>
<p>As each candle is extinguished, a person seems to disappear, as if the faith of Christians is draining away. Similar objects are found in many Catholic churches, including the one designed by Antoni Gaudi for the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. </p>
<p>Some medieval churches used a hand-shaped snuffer made of wax to put out the candles. Signifying the hand of Judas, this underlined the theme of betrayal.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4TFAR6oTz8s?wmode=transparent&start=57" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>At the end of tenebrae, the final light is customarily hidden. In the eery, disorienting darkness that ensues, there is a long tradition of a loud sudden noise being made. This bang or clatter is known as the <em>strepitus</em>. People <a href="https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/282/tenebrae-best-ways-to-make-the-strepitus/">might</a> slam a door, bang a book, stamp their feet or use percussive instruments. </p>
<p>The strepitus is thought to represent the confusion or shock the disciples experienced after Jesus died, or the earthquake that followed the crucifixion. Like many aspects of ancient ritual, though, the strepitus was probably functional in origin.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/when-easter">By definition</a>, the days around Easter always enjoy the light of the moon. But finding your way out of an unlit church can be a struggle. It seems the original purpose of the sound, then, was to signal to the sacristan (the warden in charge of the church building and its contents) to reveal the hidden candle again, so that everyone could safely return home.</p>
<p>Inevitably, sometimes things got out of hand. In his Latin <a href="https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503044033-1">commentary on the liturgy</a>, the 13th-century French bishop <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/thib14180">Guillaume Durand of Mende</a> described a form of tenebrae service that ended with shouting, wailing and a “commotion of the people” as congregants enacted both the disciples’ grief and the ironic cheers of Jesus’s enemies. One 19th-century author <a href="https://archive.org/details/ancientenglishho00feas/page/90/mode/2up">reported</a> a volley of musket-fire being used for the strepitus in Seville.</p>
<p>Today, the sounds of tenebrae are much more respectable. Performances by the eponymous, Grammy-nominated choir, Tenebrae, make a feature of candlelight and ancient church spaces. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nXYbEyvVXUk?wmode=transparent&start=36" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The ritual has also inspired countless famous classical works. The 16th-century English royal composer Thomas Tallis crafted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de_OPTtfZdw">sensuous vocal setting</a> of tenebrae readings from the Old Testament’s Book of Lamentations. </p>
<p>In 1585, his younger Spanish contemporary Tomás Luis de Victoria published almost three hours’ worth of <a href="https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/4up2bNlUkQvQhPFAwsWhM1?utm_source=generator">tenebrae polyphony</a>. A more operatic style appears in François Couperin’s exquisitely anguished <a href="https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W7081_120622">Leçons de ténèbres</a>, composed around 1710.</p>
<p>More recent examples include Stravinsky’s angular and unrelenting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpOOgOeab0">Threni</a>, a concert work from 1958, and Poulenc’s lesser-known <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZCnnK7bvfc">Seven Tenebrae Responsories</a>, commissioned by Leonard Bernstein in 1961. </p>
<p>Among the many cherished settings of one medieval Tenebrae text, O vos omnes (a Latin adaptation of Lamentations 1:12-18), is a version by Spanish and Puerto Rican composer Pablo Casals. Written in 1932, it is still widely performed today. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RlcAqb-h98A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Casals was a <a href="https://www.paucasals.org/en/pablo-casals-and-the-united-nations/">peace activist</a> as well as a cellist. His simple, heartfelt strains transform <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations+1.18&version=NIV">the words of the prophet Jeremiah</a> into an impassioned plea for our troubled times: “Listen, all you peoples; look on my suffering.” </p>
<p>On Easter Sunday, many Christians will return from church having received a vital injection of hope for the world. But the tenebrae tradition, which some will also experience this week, has a useful role too. It helps us to come to terms with darkness in human history, and to find beauty even when it seems that hope itself is being extinguished.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226572/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Parkes receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>The ancient tenebrae tradition brings churchgoers face to face with the darkest moments of the Christian story.Henry Parkes, Associate Professor, Department of Music, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2148492023-12-18T19:09:41Z2023-12-18T19:09:41ZWho wrote the Bible?<p>The Bible tells an overall story about the history of the world: creation, fall, redemption and God’s Last Judgement of the living and the dead.</p>
<p>The Old Testament (which dates to 300 BCE) begins with the creation of the world and of Adam and Eve, their disobedience to God and their expulsion from the garden of Eden. </p>
<p>The New Testament recounts the redemption of humanity brought about by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It finishes in the book of Revelation, with the end of history and God’s Last Judgement. </p>
<p>During the first 400 years of Christianity, the church took its time deciding on the New Testament. Finally, in 367 CE, authorities confirmed the 27 books that make it up.</p>
<p>But who wrote the Bible? </p>
<p>Broadly, there are four different theories.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566007/original/file-20231215-17-wovd4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bible tells an overall story about the history of the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pixabay/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. God wrote the Bible</h2>
<p>All Christians agree the Bible is authoritative. Many see it as the divinely revealed word of God. But there are significant disagreements about what this means. </p>
<p>At its most extreme, this is taken to mean the words themselves are divinely inspired – God dictated the Bible to its writers, who were merely God’s musicians playing a divine composition. </p>
<p>As early as the second century, the <a href="https://archive.org/details/fathersofchurch0000unse/page/382/mode/2up">Christian philosopher Justin Martyr saw it</a> as only necessary for holy men </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to submit their purified persons to the direction of the Holy Spirit, so that this divine plectrum from Heaven, as it were, by using them as a harp or lyre, might reveal to us divine and celestial truths. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, God dictated the words to the Biblical secretaries, who wrote everything down exactly. </p>
<p>This view continued with the medieval Catholic church. Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas put it simply in the 13th century: “the author of Holy Writ is God”. He <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q1_A10.html">qualified this</a> by saying each word in Holy Writ could have several senses – in other words, it could be variously interpreted. </p>
<p>The religious reform movement known as Protestantism swept through Europe in the 1500s. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Reformation">A new group of churches formed</a> alongside the existing Catholic and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eastern-Orthodoxy">Eastern Orthodox</a> traditions of Christianity. </p>
<p>Protestants emphasised the authority of “scripture alone” (“sola scriptura”), meaning the text of the Bible was the supreme authority over the church. This gave greater emphasis to the scriptures and the idea of “divine dictation” got more support. </p>
<p>So, for example, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924029273996&seq=254">Protestant reformer John Calvin declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[we] are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak at their own suggestion, but that, being organs of the Holy Spirit, they only uttered what they had been commissioned from heaven to declare.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566013/original/file-20231215-27-3bk1hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protestant reformer John Calvin believed in ‘divine dictation’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Divine dictation” was linked to the idea that the Bible was without error (inerrant) – because the words were dictated by God. </p>
<p>Generally, over the first 1,700 years of Christian history, this was assumed, if not argued for. But from the 18th century on, both history and science began to cast doubts on the truth of the Bible. And what had once been taken as fact came to be treated as myth and legend. </p>
<p>The impossibility of any sort of error in the scriptures became a doctrine at the forefront of the 20th-century movement known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christian-fundamentalism">fundamentalism</a>. The <a href="https://www.apuritansmind.com/creeds-and-confessions/the-chicago-statement-on-biblical-inerrancy/">Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978</a> declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-bible-helped-shape-australian-culture-96265">How the Bible helped shape Australian culture</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. God inspired the writers: conservative</h2>
<p>An alternative to the theory of divine dictation is the divine inspiration of the writers. Here, both God and humans collaborated in the writing of the Bible. So, not the words, but the authors were inspired by God. </p>
<p>There are two versions of this theory, dating from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Reformation">Reformation</a>. The conservative version, favoured by Protestantism, was: though the Bible was written by humans, God was a dominant force in the partnership. </p>
<p>Protestants believed the sovereignty of God overruled human freedom. But even the Reformers, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther">Martin Luther</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Calvin">John Calvin</a>, recognised variation within the Biblical stories could be put down to human agency.</p>
<p>Catholics were more inclined to recognise human freedom above divine sovereignty. Some flirted with the idea human authorship was at play, with God only intervening to prevent mistakes. </p>
<p>For example, in 1625, <a href="https://archive.org/details/catholictheories0000burt/page/46/mode/2up">Jacques Bonfrère said</a> the Holy Spirit acts: “not by dictating or inbreathing, but as one keeps an eye on another while he is writing, to keep him from slipping into errors”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566017/original/file-20231215-25-7tzwzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Catholics were more inclined than Protestants to recognise human freedom above divine sovereignty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pixabay/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1620s, the Archbishop of Split, Marcantonio de Dominis, went a little further. He distinguished between those parts of the Bible revealed to the writers by God and those that weren’t. In the latter, he believed, errors could occur. </p>
<p>His view was supported some 200 years later by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Henry-Newman">John Henry Newman</a>, who led the Oxford movement in the Church of England and later became a cardinal (and then a saint) in the Roman Catholic Church.</p>
<p>Newman argued the divinely inspired books of the Bible were interspersed with human additions. In other words, the Bible was inspired in matters of faith and morals – but not, say, in matters of science and history. It was hard, at times, to distinguish this conservative view from “divine dictation”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-quran-the-bible-and-homosexuality-in-islam-61012">Friday essay: The Qur’an, the Bible and homosexuality in Islam</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. God inspired the writers: liberal</h2>
<p>During the 19th century, in both Protestant and Catholic circles, the conservative theory was being overtaken by a more liberal view. The writers of the Bible were inspired by God, but <a href="https://archive.org/details/catholictheories0000burt/page/186/mode/2up">they were “children of their time”</a>, their writings determined by the cultural contexts in which they wrote. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566015/original/file-20231215-31-6sqtab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th-century depiction from the gospels of Matthew and Mark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This view, while recognising the special status of the Bible for Christians, allowed for errors. For example, in 1860 <a href="https://archive.org/details/a578549600unknuoft/page/n359/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=inspir">the Anglican theologian Benjamin Jowett declared</a>: “any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to all well-ascertained facts of history or of science”.</p>
<p>For Jowett, to hold to the truth of the Bible against the discoveries of science or history was to do a disservice to religion. At times, though, it’s difficult to tell the difference between a liberal view of inspiration and there being no meaning to “inspiration” at all.</p>
<p>In 1868, a conservative Catholic church pushed back against the more liberal view, declaring God’s direct authorship of the Bible. The Council of the Church known as Vatican 1 <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum20.htm.">declared</a> both the Old and New Testaments were: “written under the inspiration of the holy Spirit, they have God as their author.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-spite-of-their-differences-jews-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god-83102">In spite of their differences, Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. People wrote it, with no divine help</h2>
<p>Within the most liberal Christian circles, by the end of the 19th century, the notion of the Bible as “divinely inspired” had lost any meaning. </p>
<p>Liberal Christians could join their secular colleagues in ignoring questions of the Bible’s historical or scientific accuracy or infallibility. The idea of the Bible as a human production was now accepted. And the question of who wrote it was now comparable to questions about the authorship of any other ancient text. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566001/original/file-20231215-17-ny9bcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eve in the Garden of Eden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giuliano di Piero di Simone Bugiardini/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The simple answer to “who wrote the Bible?” became: the authors named in the Bible (for example, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – the authors of the four Gospels). But the idea of the Bible’s authorship is complex and problematic. (So are historical studies of ancient texts more generally.)</p>
<p>This is partly because it’s hard to identify particular authors. </p>
<p>The content of the 39 books of the Old Testament is the same as the 24 books of the Jewish <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew-Bible">Hebrew Bible</a>. Within modern Old Testament studies, it’s now generally accepted that the books were not the production of a single author, but the result of long and changing histories of the stories’ transmission. </p>
<p>The question of authorship, then, is not about an individual writer, but multiple authors, editors, scribes and redactors – along with multiple different versions of the texts. </p>
<p>It’s much the same with the New Testament. While 13 Letters are attributed to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle">Saint Paul</a>, there are doubts about his authorship of seven of them (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews). There are also disputes over the traditional authorship of a number of the remaining Letters. The book of Revelation was traditionally ascribed to Jesus’s disciple John. But it is now generally agreed he was not its author. </p>
<p>Traditionally, the authors of the four <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gospel-New-Testament">Gospels</a> were thought to be the apostles Matthew and John, Mark (the companion of Jesus’s disciple Peter), and Luke (the companion of Paul, who spread Christianity to the Greco-Roman world in the first century). But the anonymously written Gospels weren’t attributed to these figures until the second and third centuries. </p>
<p>The dates of the Gospels’ creation also suggests they were not written by eyewitnesses to Jesus’s life. The earliest Gospel, Mark (65-70 CE) was written some 30 years after the death of Jesus (from 29-34 CE). The last Gospel, John (90-100 CE) was written some 60-90 years after the death of Jesus. </p>
<p>It’s clear the author of the Gospel of Mark drew on traditions circulating in the early church about the life and teaching of Jesus and brought them together in the form of ancient biography. </p>
<p>In turn, the Gospel of Mark served as the principal source for the authors of Matthew and Luke. Each of these authors had access to a common source (known as “Q”) of the sayings of Jesus, along with material unique to each of them. </p>
<p>In short, there were many (unknown) authors of the Gospels.</p>
<p>Interestingly, another group of texts, known as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apocrypha">Apocrypha</a>, were written during the time between the Old and New Testaments (400 BCE to the first century CE). The Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions consider them part of the Bible, but Protestant churches don’t consider them authoritative.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-things-to-know-about-the-traditional-christian-doctrine-of-hell-119380">5 things to know about the traditional Christian doctrine of hell</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Divine or human: why does it matter?</h2>
<p>The question of who wrote the Bible matters because the Christian quarter of the world’s population believe the Bible is a not merely a human production. </p>
<p>Divinely inspired, it has a transcendent significance. As such, it provides for Christians an ultimate understanding of how the world is, what history means and how human life should be lived. </p>
<p>It matters because the Biblical worldview is the hidden (and often not-so-hidden) cause of economic, social and personal practices. It remains, as it has always been, a major source of both peace and conflict. </p>
<p>It matters, too, because the Bible remains the most important collection of books in Western civilisation. Regardless of our religious beliefs, it has formed, informed and shaped all of us – whether consciously or unconsciously, for good or ill.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Bible remains the most important collection of books in Western civilisation. Regardless of our religious beliefs, it has shaped all of us. But who wrote it? The answer is complicated.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168902023-11-20T13:17:41Z2023-11-20T13:17:41ZWhat a biannual gathering of 1967 Impalas reveals about the blurry line between fandom and religion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559492/original/file-20231115-25-wna49s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C81%2C2992%2C2123&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the cult TV series 'Supernatural,' the car driven by the two protagonists is a star in its own right.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Natasha Mikles</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among the many spooky events happening over Halloween weekend was the biannual “Haunting of Impalas” at Family Business Brewing, a 15-acre brewery in Dripping Springs, Texas, owned by actor and musician Jensen Ackles. </p>
<p>Along with Jared Padalecki, Ackles is the star of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460681/">Supernatural</a>,” a television series that ran from 2005 to 2020. </p>
<p>A weekly science-fiction show akin to “The X-Files,” “Supernatural” follows two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, as they drive in a classic 1967 Chevrolet Impala across the U.S., fighting monsters and uncovering their convoluted family past. Show creator <a href="https://www.appeal-democrat.com/supernatural-impala/article_052d3db8-efcf-543e-9415-ac878d13a4d0.html">Eric Kripke</a> has described the show as “a modern American Western – two gunslingers who ride into town, fight the bad guys, kiss the girl and ride out into the sunset again.” </p>
<p>With a subtle nod to the show’s tagline: “Saving People, Hunting Things – The Family Business,” <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2018/05/03/supernatural-star-jensen-ackles-opens-a-new-texas-brewery-and-keeps-it-all-in-the-family/?sh=4cceec783796">Ackles opened the brewery in 2017</a>. It has since become a popular destination for fans of the TV series. </p>
<p>“Supernatural” has been called a <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a405263/supernatural-the-fall-and-rise-of-the-cws-cult-drama/">“cult” drama</a>, with <a href="https://www.creationent.com/cal/supernatural_sf.htm">conventions that draw fans from</a> all over the country. Religious terms like cult are often used to convey how serious the fandom is. But as two <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4EKx-aoAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars of</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MoKFgEgAAAAJ&hl=en">religion</a>, we see the connection between fandom and religion as one that’s stronger and deeper than many people might realize.</p>
<h2>If you build it, they will come</h2>
<p>The Haunting of Impalas – fans call a gathering of the cars a “haunting” – has been held at the brewery as a free event since 2019, first as a casual meet-up and then as an official event sponsored by the brewery. </p>
<p>As much a character on the show as Ackles and Padalecki themselves, <a href="https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/The_Impala">the characters’ black 1967 Impala</a> has become iconic for fans. Elaborating on the debt “Supernatural” owes to Westerns, show writer <a href="https://www.appeal-democrat.com/supernatural-impala/article_052d3db8-efcf-543e-9415-ac878d13a4d0.html">Kripke said of the Impala</a>, “If you’re going to have cowboys, they need a trusty horse.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trunk of car opened with weapons displayed, with two jugs of beer and a cooler in the foreground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559461/original/file-20231114-27-ocetr3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Each car has its trunk filled with objects recreated from the show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=548507675853451&set=pb.100065145835517.-2207520000">A Haunting of Impalas/Facebook</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The car serves as the brothers’ home on the road, as their protection from evil and as a repository of monster-hunting weapons. In a nod to the car’s central role, some devoted fans of the show have since bought and restored black 1967 Impalas, which they bring together at the Haunting of Impalas event. </p>
<p>Fans have lovingly recreated each Impala – sometimes even accurate to a specific episode. Lined up, each car reveals a secret trunk compartment filled with weapons from the show, such as vampire-killing machetes, silver bullets for werewolves and holy water for demons.</p>
<p>Further care is taken to reflect other details found in the Impala over the seasons: a small green army man stuck in the ashtray or a partially eaten pie. At the brewery, four Impalas, as well as one <a href="https://www.imcdb.org/v687978.html">AMC Gremlin</a> that appeared in several episodes, were lined up for examination as close to 100 people milled about in the hour we visited. The social media accounts for the brewery registered over 1,500 RSVPs, and one organizer estimated that roughly 1,000 people were in attendance over the course of the day.</p>
<h2>‘People just want to have an experience’</h2>
<p>In our work, we’ve seen this behavior before. But it’s been in churches and temples rather than the parking lot of a brewery. </p>
<p>Spectators approached the Impalas with a hesitant reverence, eager to touch the trunk or take a photo sitting in the driver’s seat. One Impala received special interest, as it had actually been used in Season 12 of the show – a fact at least a dozen individuals told us in hushed tones. Its owner hovered around the car with a polishing cloth to quickly whisk away any fingerprints left by visiting fans, but was eager to point out each place an actor had signed the car or otherwise left their mark.</p>
<p>Many of the Impalas at the event had been driven across the country for days to participate. Organizer Travis Perdue, a fan in his early 40s, could tick off the whereabouts of other “Supernatural” Impalas – and the owners who had been too sick to come or otherwise detained.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and yellow vintage cars lined up in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559460/original/file-20231114-15-uxa7kv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some fans drive their Impalas across the country to participate in the biannual event.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/177108586326697/photos/pb.100065145835517.-2207520000/544828619554690/?type=3">A Haunting of Impalas/Facebook</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When asked if this event felt spiritual, Perdue explained, “It’s not about the cars; it’s not about the weapons. It’s something else. People just want to have an experience.” </p>
<p>He said that he frequently sees fans getting emotional near the cars. More than a handful of them have burst into tears. He said one person even passed out upon seeing the restored Impala. </p>
<p>We witnessed one man loudly tell his wife, with tears in his eyes, “If I had one of these, I could die happy.” </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=GMrhDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Elementary+Forms&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk0ovl1LqCAxXjlmoFHT8qA8EQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Elementary%20Forms&f=false">Sociologist Emile Durkheim has written</a> that when people encounter their community’s sacred symbols, it can overwhelm them – that the feelings these objects inspire act like “material forces that mechanically generate physical effects.”</p>
<p>The Impalas are not the only potent symbols on display at the event, either. Most of the attendees wore some sort of Supernatural-themed apparel – a shirt, a bag or even a tattoo. </p>
<p>Inside several of the cars were facsimiles of the monster-hunting journal written by John Winchester, Sam and Dean’s father in the show. Each journal featured dozens of hand-inked pages, recreations of newspaper articles, a pin for military service in Vietnam and eerie photographs. Like monks producing <a href="https://new.artsmia.org/programs/teachers-and-students/teaching-the-arts/five-ideas/medieval-illuminated-manuscripts">illuminated manuscripts</a>, a team of fans crafted each journal by hand. </p>
<p>Perdue, who’s worked on the journals, explained that the first facsimile took eight months of research to design, and each subsequent copy took six weeks to produce. They sell them to other fans for $650, and Perdue has a waitlist of dozens of people. But the group makes no money off the journals. Rather, he is motivated by the joy of making such a precious item for other fans.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Open notebook with handwritten notes in it next to two FBI badges." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559494/original/file-20231115-21-3yxpxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some fans have painstakingly recreated the monster-hunting journal from the show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Natasha Mikles</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fandom as religion or vice versa?</h2>
<p><a href="https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/25282">Many scholars </a> have noted the religious aspects of fan culture. </p>
<p>Perhaps, however, we might reverse the comparison and note that religion operates more like a fandom. </p>
<p>Because of America’s <a href="https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-59;jsessionid=61B32340E18C9B2F4044EED035BD2F4D?rskey=Gdlnlh">Protestant heritage</a>, Americans often assume religion is about beliefs; That’s because Protestantism renounces “salvation through works” in favor of “<a href="http://protestantism.co.uk/solas">sola fides</a>,” or “faith alone.” </p>
<p>But most religions don’t work this way. As religion scholar <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393422047">Stephen Prothero points out</a>, “Religions are often called ‘belief systems.’ But the Christian tradition is the only major religion that puts a strong emphasis on beliefs.”</p>
<p>According to Prothero, the common denominator that all religions share is not beliefs but stories. As he puts it, “All religions are ‘story systems.’” Outside of Christianity’s emphasis on creeds, most religious traditions emphasize practices, experiences and stories – exactly the things that drew fans to the Haunting of Impalas. </p>
<p>Pilgrimage – journeying to see sacred places and objects – is found in many religions. In 2023, the Hajj drew about <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/25/largest-hajj-pilgrimage-in-history-begins-in-saudi-arabia">2 million</a> pilgrims to Mecca despite dangerously high temperatures. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2023.2168736">Even more common is mimesis</a>, or replicating sacred stories through art and ritual. In the Mexican tradition of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Las-Posadas">Las Posadas</a>, a procession recreates the story of Mary and Joseph being turned away from the inn before smashing a pinata shaped like the star of Bethlehem. </p>
<p>What made “Supernatural” great was not the supernatural. Fans know the Winchester brothers are imaginary. And yet the Winchesters’ story seems to represent something greater than themselves. The Impalas become an object of pilgrimage because they present a physical connection to things that are otherwise intangible and transcendent – a modern mythology and a community of like-minded people. </p>
<p>Religious studies is largely a Western invention, and so it has historically carried a lot of <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400849659-008/html?lang=en">Protestant assumptions</a>, even when discussing non-Christian religions, including the idea that the essence of religions is a set of intellectual propositions about God or the afterlife.</p>
<p>But if scholars of religion shift their analysis from beliefs to stories and communities, who is to say that the world’s religions are not just larger fandoms of figures like Jesus, Buddha or Krishna?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since 2019, fans of the TV series ‘Supernatural’ have flocked to Austin, where their encounters with 1967 Impalas customized to mimic the one used in the show arouse elation, astonishment and tears.Joseph P. Laycock, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State UniversityNatasha Mikles, Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2160282023-10-26T10:39:21Z2023-10-26T10:39:21ZFive witchcraft myths debunked by an expert<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555782/original/file-20231025-29-zmv3lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C3000%2C1706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/three-women-executed-witches-derneburg-germany-237235090">Everett Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>About 400 years ago, the European witch hunts were at their peak. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, an estimated <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810872455/Historical-Dictionary-of-Witchcraft-Second-Edition">50,000 people</a>, mostly women, were executed for witchcraft across Europe. They were accused of devil-worship, heresy and harming their neighbours by using witchcraft.
The 1620s was the most intense phase of persecution in places like <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstätt</a> in Germany, where almost 300 witches were executed between 1617 and 1631. </p>
<p>The witchcraft trials have endured as a matter of curiosity, entertainment and debate. But despite this interest, popular understandings of the European witch-hunts are riddled with error and misconceptions. So, given it’s the season of the witch, it’s time to dispel some myths.</p>
<h2>1. Witchcraft is a medieval idea</h2>
<p>It isn’t – it’s modern. The Christian church was <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/witchcraft-and-magic-in-europe-volume-3-9780485891034/">sceptical</a> about the reality of witchcraft until the 15th century. Even then, many theologians and clergymen did not believe that witchcraft was a threat. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/263689">first trials</a> of people who were believed to be malevolent worshippers of the Devil who actively caused harm happened in the 15th century. The most intense period of witch hunting ran from about 1560 to about 1630. </p>
<p>Before that there were very few witchcraft trials, because acts of witchcraft were believed to be an <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/witchcraft-and-magic-in-europe-volume-3-9780485891034/">illusion</a> caused by the Devil with the permission of God.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woodcut of witches on broomsticks cavorting with the Devil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C1507%2C1264&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witches on broomsticks, featured in The History of Witches and Wizards (1720)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/abkab8tq/images?id=hbe9wc8m">The Wellcome Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Witchcraft trials occurred everywhere</h2>
<p>Most witchcraft trials happened in central, western, or northern Europe. These were the areas which were the cradle of the Protestant and Catholic <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/115/2/351/10371?searchresult=1">Reformations</a>, which saw the transformation of the religious geography of Europe. And the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/abs/witches-of-durer-and-hans-baldung-grien/5839650C1787984F1CAA1A9CD1B4B06E">northern Renaissance</a> and the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300260953/the-decline-of-magic/">scientific revolution</a> had transformed how the world was understood. </p>
<p>More than 50% of all trials in Europe happened in Germany. But even there, witch persecution was limited to a few of the very many autonomous and semi-autonomous territories of which it was comprised. </p>
<p>In places like <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/early-modern-european-witchcraft-9780198203889?q=Early%20Modern%20European%20Witchcraft%20Centres&lang=en&cc=gb">Iceland</a> and <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/a-history-of-magic-and-witchcraft-in-wales/9780752428260/">Wales</a>, there were very few witchcraft trials at all. It seems that local beliefs about magic and witchcraft, alongside the attitudes of clergymen and judges, may be the reasons for this. </p>
<h2>3. The Inquisition tried and executed most witches</h2>
<p>The Roman, Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, established in the 16th century, were responsible for dealing with matters of heresy. They have become notorious for their rigour in rooting out opposition to Catholic orthodoxy. Yet, they burned very few witch suspects. Across the whole of the <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/8436?language=en">Iberian</a> and <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3515/">Italian</a> peninsulas, the inquisitions executed fewer suspects than were hanged in England.</p>
<p>The Spanish Inquisition put a stop to the witchcraft trials that had spilled over from France in the early 17th century by assuming jurisdiction over witchcraft accusations.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="An illustration of witches being burned while a man stokes the fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The execution of alleged witches in central Europe, 1587.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Wickiana3.jpg">Zurich Central Library/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Only women were tried for witchcraft</h2>
<p>It’s true that 80% of those tried and executed for witchcraft were women. Many witch hunters, like those in <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstätt</a>, also selected female suspects over male ones, even though the evidence could be very similar. </p>
<p>However, in some places, like <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/male-witches-and-gendered-categories-in-seventeenthcentury-russia/F9FA9F79E0576D4F0AC5EA29E3EFF59A">Russia</a>, it was men who formed the majority of witch suspects. This was primarily because Russians conceptualised gender very differently to people in western Europe.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether the witch suspects were accused before magistrates or denounced under torture, their female neighbours were the ones most likely to accuse them. </p>
<p>In England, women on the margins of society were more vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft when things went wrong for their neighbours, such as inexplicable deaths or harm. This was the case with Ursley Kemp, one of the two witch suspects of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/136/578/26/6121677">St Osyth</a>, Essex, who were hanged in 1582. Kemp was a marginal figure in the town, a woman with an illegitimate son making ends meet through her healing skills. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstatt</a>, it was a product of the processes of torture. When the suspects (more than 90% of whom were women) had to name names under torture, they gave those of their neighbours. The suspects’ networks were founded on their sex; women named women and the few male suspects named men. </p>
<h2>5. Witches were really the followers of a pagan fertility cult</h2>
<p>This myth was promoted by the Egyptologist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587X.1994.9715877">Margaret Murray</a> in the early 20th century and was then <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Witchcraft_and_Demonism/Tm12ngEACAAJ?hl=en">debunked</a> by the historian C. L'Estrange Ewen almost as soon as it appeared. It was founded on a partial reading of the available witchcraft evidence. </p>
<p>It persisted because Murray wrote the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on witchcraft that remained in print for 40 years, until 1969, and actively supported the new <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-triumph-of-the-moon-9780198870371?q=triumph%20of%20the%20moon&lang=en&cc=gb">Wiccan religion</a> in print in the 1950s. This new religion was founded by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27782244">Gerald Gardner</a> who revived what he believed to be ancient pagan witchcraft in the 1930s. But it has no material connection to any form of historic witchcraft.</p>
<p>Most witches were ordinary Christian women who found themselves accused of witchcraft by their neighbours, or denounced by other suspects under torture.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Durrant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Witchcraft is an enduring source of fascination but also prone to popular misconceptions.Jonathan Durrant, Principal Lecturer in History, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142782023-10-09T13:32:55Z2023-10-09T13:32:55ZEthiopia: religious tension is getting worse – 5 factors driving groups apart<p>Religion is highly present in Ethiopia. It’s visible in churches and mosques, in clothing, and in public rituals. </p>
<p>The country’s main religious communities are Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Protestants. It’s home to one of the world’s oldest churches and has the third-largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. Orthodox Christians account for <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">about 43% of the population, while approximately 33% are Muslims</a>. Protestant Christianity arrived in the late 19th century and has expanded rapidly in recent decades to account for an estimated 20% of the population. </p>
<p>Ethiopia is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">often portrayed</a> as a unique case of harmonious inter-religious relations where Christians and Muslims have lived peacefully together for centuries. But the country has also seen religious conflicts. </p>
<p>In the last three decades, there has been a worsening of religious tension. In <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/ambush-kills-20-muslim-worshippers-in-ethiopias-amhara-region#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20incident%20happened%20yesterday%20when,three%20people%20and%20wounding%20five.">2022</a>, for instance, more than 20 people were killed following attacks on Muslims in the north-western city of Gondar.</p>
<p>Ethiopia is constitutionally a secular state. Religion has no formal place in politics. Shared spaces and government buildings are to be free from any religious expressions. However, this has been unevenly practised. Religion is present everywhere. </p>
<p>I am a scholar of religion, with extensive <a href="https://religion.ufl.edu/directory/terje-ostebo/">fieldwork and research experience</a> in religion, ethnicity and politics in Ethiopia. In a recent <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">paper</a>, I analysed the developments over the last decades that have affected inter-religious relations, worsened polarisation and produced conflicts.</p>
<p>In my view, five factors have contributed to the rise in religious tensions.</p>
<p>First, the political transition in 1991, which allowed for greater expression of religious activities and changed the religious landscape. Second, the expansion of Christian Protestantism from the early 1990s. Third, the rise of a more visible and assertive Muslim population. Fourth, the response from the Ethiopian Orthodox church to a loss of influence. Finally, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abiy-Ahmed">Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed</a> allowing religion to enter the public political discourse.</p>
<h2>Growing conflict</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/08/15/ethiopia-risks-sliding-into-another-civil-war">Civil war</a> and <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/25/two-ethnic-revolts-rack-ethiopia-at-the-same-time">ethnic conflicts</a> have dominated news coming out of Ethiopia in recent years. Religious and ethnic identities are closely connected, but the ethnic dimension of conflict has tended to overshadow the growing tensions between religious communities.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.eip.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ostebo-et-al-2021-Religion-ethnicity-and-charges-of-Extremism-in-Ethiopia-final.pdf#page=14">2018</a>, young rioters burned churches and killed several priests in Jijiga, in the eastern Ethiopian state of Somali. In <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/ethiopia/">2020</a>, Muslim properties were attacked in Harar, eastern Ethiopia, during celebrations of an Orthodox Christian holiday. In <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/ambush-kills-20-muslim-worshippers-in-ethiopias-amhara-region#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20incident%20happened%20yesterday%20when,three%20people%20and%20wounding%20five.">2022</a>, attacks on Muslims in Gondar turned deadly. Such incidents have eroded trust between Ethiopia’s religious communities. </p>
<p>Inter-religious violence is often blamed on so-called extremist elements. However, a closer look reveals a more complex picture. </p>
<h2>The drivers</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia/Socialist-Ethiopia-1974-91#ref1033852">political transition in 1991</a> and the arrival of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front led to important changes to the political, social and cultural landscape. Seeking to promote equal rights for the country’s ethnic and religious groups, the new government lifted formal restrictions on religious activities. </p>
<p>This affected the balance of power between religious groups. Historically, Ethiopia’s inter-religious co-existence was made possible by one community dominating the others. </p>
<p>Since its establishment in the fourth century, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had been intimately tied to the state. The domination of the church contributed to the marginalisation of other religious communities. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia/Socialist-Ethiopia-1974-91">1974 Ethiopian Revolution</a> ended the state-church marriage, and the changes after 1991 further eroded the church’s position and brought other religious communities in from the shadows. </p>
<p>The second driver of tensions has been the rise of Protestantism. Initially brought by western missionaries in the late 19th century, the religion was mainly found in Ethiopia’s non-Orthodox southern region. Protestantism grew rapidly after 1991, with churches and ministries expanding into traditional Orthodox and Muslim areas. On occasion, this has led to violent conflict. In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">2006 and 2010</a>, for instance, clashes erupted in the southwestern area of Jimma.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/religion-was-once-ethiopias-saviour-what-it-can-do-to-pull-the-nation-from-the-brink-171763">Religion was once Ethiopia's saviour. What it can do to pull the nation from the brink</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The 1991 changes also led to Islam becoming more visible in the country. Various Islamic reform movements began strengthening religious identity among Muslims and countering their historically marginalised position. This produced a more assertive community. Muslims have become more active in Ethiopia’s social and political life. Numerous mosques have been built across the country. And Muslims have become increasingly visible through a changing dress code, particularly the use of veiling among women, and through public celebrations of religious holidays. </p>
<p>Many Christians, both Orthodox and Protestant, interpret a more visible and assertive Muslim community as proof of Islamic “extremism”. It’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41240192">commonly claimed</a> that mosques and religious schools are funded by Saudi Arabia. And that the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4FMpXkKFzQ&t=29s">ultimate aim</a> of Ethiopia’s Muslims is political power. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_6lVEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&ots=FAYRrOHs-A&sig=2baPJasl1_wE5VUWCtnWka-M_Vg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">Research</a> has shown that Saudi religious activism has actually dwindled over the last years. But the narrative about such ties continues to fuel suspicions and affect Christian-Muslim relations. </p>
<p>All these developments have been challenging for the Orthodox church. Many of its members are <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">changing their affiliation to Protestantism</a>. The Orthodox church has made efforts to limit this. It has, for instance, prohibited the construction of Protestant churches and mosques in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/arts/design/churches-of-aksum-and-lalibela.html">Lalibela and Axum</a> in Ethiopia’s north. The church has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48634427">declared</a> these cities as sacred Orthodox spaces. </p>
<p>The Orthodox church has also sought to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/religious-dynamics-and-conflicts-in-contemporary-ethiopia-expansion-protection-and-reclaiming-space/ABD9865F31A8D01E5D87AA38EDF1B0F5">reclaim its lost space</a> by, for example, celebrating religious holidays through highly visible ceremonies. During its Meskel holiday in September this year, the Addis Ababa government <a href="https://apanews.net/this-years-ethiopian-meskel-festival-sees-low-turnout-tight-security/#:%7E:text=The%20laity%20is%20restricted%20from,Shirts%20was%20not%20allowed%20too">placed restrictions</a> on the celebration.</p>
<p>The church’s responses have provoked reactions among other religious communities, particularly Muslims who view its actions as an attempt to curb the space they have carved out for themselves. </p>
<p>Finally, Abiy’s political language is laced with semi-religious references. The prime minister is a practising Pentecostal. His acknowledgement of religion has enabled actors to lift religion into the public sphere in ways that have <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429426957-45/strains-pente-politics-j%C3%B6rg-haustein-dereje-feyissa">sharpened boundaries and added to the tensions</a>. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>Religious identities and belonging are important in today’s Ethiopia. Changes over the last decades have, however, deepened inter-religious tensions. There is potential to alleviate these tensions. Doing this will require political and religious leaders to communicate across religious boundaries to accommodate Ethiopia’s plurality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terje Ostebo have receive funding from USAID.</span></em></p>News coverage of Ethiopia’s ethnic conflicts has overshadowed the growing tensions and polarisation between religious communities.Terje Ostebo, Chair of the Department of Religion and Professor at the Department of Religion and the Center for African Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015482023-04-05T12:22:41Z2023-04-05T12:22:41ZEach generation in Northern Ireland has reflected on the ‘troubles’ in its own way – right up to ‘Derry Girls’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517925/original/file-20230328-2526-vb272r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4031%2C3005&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mural in Derry commemorating the TV show 'Derry Girls,' which follows the lives of teenagers growing up amid Northern Ireland's troubles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dominic Bryan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A 9-year-old boy lies on the floor of a working-class rowhouse in Belfast, Northern Ireland, wondrously watching American Westerns on TV. Outside, though, the world’s gone mad. Broken glass and shattered masonry. Barricades go up. Rifle-toting soldiers patrol the streets. </p>
<p>It’s August 1969, the summer that Northern Ireland’s ‘troubles’ flared into violence.</p>
<p>The scene is from “Belfast,” director Kenneth Branagh’s ode to growing up in <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/victims/docs/group/htr/day_of_reflection/htr_0607c.pdf">the grinding conflict</a> that would go on to kill several thousand people. Branagh’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja3PPOnJQ2k">Academy Award-winning film</a> premiered in 2021, more than two decades after <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-certain-war-to-uncertain-peace-northern-irelands-good-friday-agreement-turns-20-94624">the Good Friday Agreement</a> brought the troubles to a close on April 10, 1998 – 25 years ago this month.</p>
<p>This was the second period of so-called troubles in Ireland. The first involved a bloody <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/irish-war-independence">guerrilla war</a> that ended in 1921, with the island partitioned into an independent, mostly Catholic south and a mostly Protestant north that remained part of the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>But that division did little to settle the age-old war of cultural identity. Since then, each generation of artists has used theater, song and film to reflect on their states’ still-uneasy peace – made <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53724381">all the more complicated</a> by Brexit.</p>
<h2>‘Four green fields’</h2>
<p>For hundreds of years, <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/10/06/negative-stereotypes-of-the-irish/">British culture stereotyped the “native” Irish</a> as savage, bestial, childlike, lazy, belligerent and, above all else, unruly: a tribe that needed British civilization – and, therefore, its colonization. Irish nationalists like poet W.B. Yeats, who wanted to free the whole of Ireland from British rule, felt they had to <a href="https://ernie.uva.nl/upload/media/eb201b85e5cb00114d568245a59cc05f.pdf">flip this script</a> by purging the island of “Anglo” influences, reviving the Irish language and promoting Celtic arts.</p>
<p>In 1902, Yeats wrote the masterpiece of this Celtic revival, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49611/49611-h/49611-h.htm">Cathleen ni Houlihan</a>.” The one-act play dramatizes traditional songs and legends about a poor old woman driven from her farm by strangers. Cathleen recruits a groom – on the eve of his wedding day, no less – to help fight to retrieve her “four beautiful green fields.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white picture of a woman holding up a lantern in a doorway to a room with three people in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from ‘Cathleen ni Houlihan.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scene_From_Cathleen_Ni_Houlihan_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_19028.jpg#/media/File:Scene_From_Cathleen_Ni_Houlihan_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_19028.jpg">Project Gutenberg/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s an obvious allegory: She is Ireland, the fields are Ireland’s four provinces, and the strangers are the British. The blood of Irish martyrs nourishes the old woman, and at the play’s end, Cathleen transforms into a young girl “with the walk of a queen.”</p>
<p>Cultural pride helped fuel support for Irish independence, and the Irish Republican Army drove the British out of three of the island’s four provinces by 1922. But a majority of people in much of the final province, Ulster, identified as British, so <a href="https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/partition-of-ireland-explained-477342/">a new national border was drawn</a> to separate the two communities. </p>
<p>That gerrymandered border sparked a civil war in the new Irish Free State between the “die-hard” nationalists, who wanted to keep fighting the British till they abandoned the north, and the “Free Staters,” who compromised to make peace. Martin McDonagh’s 2022 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11813216/awards/?ref_=tt_awd">The Banshees of Inisherin</a>,” nominated for nine Academy Awards, can be viewed as an allegory of the Irish Civil War – the tragedy when brothers in arms turn their guns on one another.</p>
<h2>Spiraling crisis</h2>
<p>Many Protestants loyal to the U.K. viewed the culture of Northern Ireland’s minority Catholic population <a href="https://www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/execoffice/commission-on-fict-final-report.pdf">as a threat</a> and treated them as second-class citizens. In the late 1960s, in part <a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/how-martin-luther-king-inspired-north-uprising#:%7E:text=By%20marching%20through%20%22Protestant%20territory,defend%20the%20right%20to%20protest.%22&text=Northern%20Ireland's%20sectarian%20nature%20was%20revealed%20to%20the%20world.">inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s</a> civil rights activism in the U.S., Catholics began campaigning against discrimination. Their demands were met with violence, like the 1972 <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/chron.htm">Bloody Sunday</a> massacre, in which British soldiers shot and killed 14 unarmed protesters in Derry, also known as Londonderry – rival names that themselves reflect the sharp divide between communities.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A soldier stands on a street as two young children, one holding a fake shield, stand in front." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A soldier on patrol in Belfast in 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/two-children-the-boy-with-rude-toy-weapons-stands-by-a-news-photo/514704064?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tribal feelings spiraled higher, pitting mostly Protestant “unionists” loyal to the U.K. against Catholic “nationalists” who sought reunion with the Republic of Ireland. Neighborhoods were segregated and <a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2020-01-14/northern-ireland-still-divided-peace-walls-20-years-after-conflict">giant walls went up</a> to keep Catholic and Protestant apart, but wave after wave of reprisals came anyway, including bombings and sniper attacks.</p>
<p>As the troubles intensified, folk musician Tommy Makem’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTmsNM4fLM">popular song “Four Green Fields</a>” drew again on the legend of Ireland as a poor old woman:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I have four green fields, one of them’s in bondage</em></p>
<p><em>In strangers’ hands, that tried to take it from me</em></p>
<p><em>But my sons have sons as brave as were their fathers</em></p>
<p><em>My fourth green field will bloom once again,” said she.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It became <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHhPeNv90co">a nationalist battle call</a>, and a sign of the times, as plenty of young men joined the IRA’s campaign against British control of Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Nowhere was the “them and us” attitude more evident than on the gable ends of rowhouses, where nationalists and unionists each painted murals celebrating their heroes and remembering the atrocities perpetrated by the other side. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in dark coats hold white crosses in front of a purple and red mural with people's faces painted in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Families of the victims and supporters walk past a mural featuring the 14 victims of Bloody Sunday as they commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massacre, in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/families-of-the-victims-and-supporters-walk-past-a-mural-news-photo/1238082451?adppopup=true">Charles McQuillan/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Sing a new song’</h2>
<p>In the mid-1970s, a group of writers and actors, including <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney">the Nobel laureate poet Seamus Heaney</a>, tried to blaze a way out of this cultural death spiral. Calling themselves “Ireland’s Field Day,” they tried to create art that could be <a href="https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/20/field-day-theatre-company/">a “fifth province</a>” of Ireland, a place that would transcend sectarian politics.</p>
<p>U2 wrote its hit song “<a href="https://youtu.be/bCP9rkTsbKQ">Sunday, Bloody Sunday</a>,” the first song on its 1983 album “War,” in the same spirit. It begins with images reminiscent of the massacre in Derry 11 years before:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Broken bottles under children’s feet</em></p>
<p><em>Bodies strewn across the dead-end street</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In U2’s telling, the villain is not the other side. The enemy is the violence itself, generated by the feedback loop of Nationalism and unionism. The only way out is to refuse “to heed the battle call.” </p>
<p>The album ends with <a href="https://youtu.be/pt9Xc4jO-Yc">the song “40</a>,” a soulful echo of the Bible’s 40th Psalm: “I will sing … sing a new song.” </p>
<p>This kind of thinking helped lead the war-weary people of Northern Ireland to <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/good-friday-agreement.pdf">the Good Friday Agreement</a>, also called the Belfast Agreement, in 1998. Its deals shaped the power-sharing system Northern Ireland has today, which <a href="https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/ireland_and_the_uk/good_friday_agreement.html">legitimizes both identities</a>. People in Northern Ireland can choose to be citizens of the U.K., citizens of the Republic of Ireland, or both. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo shows a band performing on stage in front of a large illustration of a boy's face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U2 performs on a television show in 1983, with an illustration from the cover of its ‘War’ album behind it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-edge-bono-larry-mullen-jnr-adam-clayton-performing-live-news-photo/85238270?adppopup=true">Erica Echenberg/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It has, by and large, worked. Over the years, this commitment to religious, political and racial equality tamped down the tribalism and violence. The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland became less and less relevant. By 2018, half of the people in Northern Ireland <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/ARK/sites/default/files/2022-05/update147_0.pdf">described themselves</a> as “neither nationalist nor unionist.”</p>
<h2>A new generation</h2>
<p>Brexit, however, has turned the line between Ireland and Northern Ireland into the only land border between the U.K. and the EU. Both nationalist and unionist identities are on the uptick, and the proportion of people in Northern Ireland claiming neither identity <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/ARK/sites/default/files/2022-05/update147_0.pdf">has plummeted to 37%</a>.</p>
<p>Even so, anthropologist <a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/dominic-bryan">Dominic Bryan</a>, co-chair of Northern Ireland’s Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture, and Tradition, is optimistic that culture has built up a resistance to “us versus them” tribalism – reflected, in part, by how people remember the troubles.</p>
<p>He sent me a picture of a mural in Derry, painted one year after Brexit, which celebrates Lisa McGee’s hit TV show “Derry Girls.” Launched in 2018, the comedy follows the fictional lives of five teenagers <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/757529881/in-northern-ireland-derry-girls-balance-teen-comedy-and-sectarian-conflict">growing up in the troubles</a>. Though the show focuses on a Catholic community, it defuses the “us and them” way of thinking about identity. An episode called “Across the Barricades” satirizes facile attempts to get Catholic and Protestant kids to bond; it ends when they recognize their common enemy: parents.</p>
<p>In the last episode of the first season, while the kids deal with the anxieties of a high school talent show, the tone shifts dramatically. The adults are watching a TV news report of “one of the worst atrocities of the Northern Irish conflict.” A bomb has killed 12 people and injured many more, and “anyone with medical training” is urged to “come to the scene immediately.”</p>
<p>The audience doesn’t know if the bomb was detonated by Catholic terrorists or Protestant terrorists. It doesn’t matter. The violence is like a tornado or an earthquake: a disaster suffered by all of Derry’s citizens, who pick up the pieces together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Patrick Kelly is affiliated with the Charleston County (SC) Democratic Party. </span></em></p>Twenty-five years after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is still resisting the culture of violence.Joseph Patrick Kelly, Professor of Literature and Director of Irish and Irish American Studies, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1845322022-06-13T12:31:29Z2022-06-13T12:31:29ZThere is no one ‘religious view’ on abortion: A scholar of religion, gender and sexuality explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468114/original/file-20220609-23-dvo8xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C6%2C1014%2C709&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators stand outside the Supreme Court in 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-choice-demonstrators-stand-outside-the-us-supreme-court-news-photo/462793499?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Catholic Church’s official line on <a href="https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/abortion/respect-for-unborn-human-life">abortion</a>, and even on <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-50-years-a-popes-birth-control-message-still-divides-catholics-1525962322">any artificial birth control</a>, is well known: Don’t do it.</p>
<p>Surveys of how American Catholics live their lives, though, tell a different story. </p>
<p>The vast majority of Catholic women <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/religion-and-family-planning-tables">have used contraceptives</a>, despite the church’s ban. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/">Fifty-six percent</a> of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, whether or not they believe they would ever seek one. <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states">One in four</a> Americans who have had abortions are Catholic, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for reproductive health.</p>
<p>It’s a clear reminder of the complex relationship between any religious tradition’s teachings and how people actually live out their beliefs. With the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-at-stake-as-supreme-court-appears-intent-on-overturning-roe-v-wade-3-essential-reads-182376">poised to overturn Roe v. Wade</a>, the 1973 ruling that protects abortion rights nationwide, religious attitudes toward a woman’s right to end a pregnancy are in the spotlight. But even within one faith, there is no one religious position toward reproductive rights – let alone among different faiths.</p>
<h2>Christianity and conscience</h2>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/wgst/samira-mehta">gender</a> and <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/people/faculty/samira-mehta">religion</a>, I <a href="https://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636269.001.0001/upso-9781469636269-chapter-009">research</a> how religious traditions shape people’s understandings of contraception and abortion.</p>
<p>When it comes to official stances on abortion, religions’ positions are tied to different approaches to some key theological concepts. For instance, for several religions, a key issue in abortion rights is “ensoulment,” <a href="http://www.anglicantheologicalreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/disney-poston_92.2.pdf">the moment at which the soul is believed to enter the body</a> – that is, when a fetus becomes human. </p>
<p>The catch is that traditions place ensoulment at different moments and give it various degrees of importance. Catholic theologians place ensoulment <a href="https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/abortion-conception-and-ensoulment?s=r">at the moment of conception</a>, which is why the official position of the Catholic Church is that abortion is never permitted. From the moment the sperm meets the egg, in Catholic theology, a human exists, and you cannot kill a human, regardless of how it came to exist. Nor can you choose between two human lives, which is why the church <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/22/us-catholic-bishop-hospital-abortion">opposes aborting a fetus to save the life of the pregnant person</a>.</p>
<p>As in any faith, not all Catholics feel compelled to follow the church teachings in all cases. And regardless of whether someone thinks they would ever seek an abortion, they may believe it should be a legal right. Fifty-seven percent of U.S. Catholics say abortion is morally wrong, but 68% still <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/">support Roe v. Wade</a>, while only 14% believe that abortion should never be legal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People at a rally hold a life-size illustration of Pope Francis in front of an outdoor stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468096/original/file-20220609-19878-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People opposed to abortion gather at the Washington Monument during the 2017 March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-life-supporters-gather-at-the-washington-monument-to-news-photo/632842482?adppopup=true">Tasos Katopodis/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some Catholics advocate for abortion access not despite but because of their dedication to Catholic teachings. The organization <a href="https://www.catholicsforchoice.org/">Catholics for Choice</a> <a href="https://www.catholicsforchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CatholicsForChoiceJustTheFacts.pdf">describes its work</a> as rooted in Catholicism’s emphasis on “social justice, human dignity, and the <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/11/11/pope-francis-reaffirms-primacy-conscience-amid-criticism-amoris-laetitia">primacy of conscience</a>” – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/most-catholics-rely-heavily-on-their-own-conscience-for-moral-guidance/">people making their own decisions</a> out of deep moral conviction. </p>
<p>Other Christians also say faith shapes their support for reproductive rights. Protestant clergy, along with their Jewish colleagues, were instrumental in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/how-the-clergy-innovated-abortion-services/484517/">helping women to secure abortions</a> before Roe, through a network called the Clergy Consultation Service. These pro-choice clergy were motivated by a range of concerns, including desperation that they saw among women in their congregations, and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/progressive-christians-abortion-jes-kast/590293/">theological commitments to social justice</a>. Today, the organization still exists as <a href="https://rcrc.org/mission-statement/">the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice</a>.</p>
<p>There are myriad Protestant <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/january/evangelical-abortion-views-age-gap-younger-pro-life.html">opinions on abortion</a>. The most conservative equate it with murder, and therefore oppose any exemptions. The most liberal Protestant voices advocate for a broad platform of reproductive justice, calling on believers to “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/Trust-Women-P1344.aspx">Trust Women</a>.”</p>
<h2>Who is a ‘person’?</h2>
<p>Muslims scholars and clerics, too, have <a href="https://rcrc.org/muslim/">a range of positions</a> on abortion. Some believe abortion is never permitted, and many allow it until ensoulment, which is often placed at 120 days’ gestation, just shy of 18 weeks. In general, many Muslim leaders <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1016/S0968-8080%2806%2929279-6">permit abortion to save the life of the mother</a>, <a href="https://rcrc.org/muslim/">since classical Islamic law sees legal personhood as beginning at birth</a> – though while many Muslims may seek out their religious leaders for guidance about or assistance with abortion, many do not. </p>
<p>Jewish tradition has a great deal of debate about <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-soul-of-a-fetus/">when ensoulment occurs</a>: Various rabbinic texts place it at or even before conception, and many place it at birth, but ensoulment is not as key as the legal status of the fetus under Jewish law. Generally, it is not considered to be a person. For instance, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/talmud-101/">the Talmud</a> – the main source of Jewish law – refers to the fetus as part of the mother’s body. The biblical Book of Exodus notes that if a pregnant woman is attacked and then miscarries, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.21.22?lang=bi&aliyot=0">the attacker owes a fine</a> but is not guilty of murder.</p>
<p>In other words, Jewish law protects a fetus as a “potential person,” but does not view it as holding the same full personhood as its mother. Jewish clergy generally agree that abortion is not only permitted, but mandated, <a href="https://rac.org/blog/abortion-and-reproductive-justice-jewish-perspective">to save the life of the mother</a>, because potential life must be sacrificed to save existing life – even during labor, as long as the head has not emerged from the birth canal.</p>
<p>Where <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-does-life-begin-theres-more-than-one-religious-view-167241">Jewish law on abortion</a> gets complicated is when the mother’s life is not at risk. For example, contemporary Jewish leaders debate whether abortion is permitted if the mother’s mental health will be damaged, if genetic testing shows evidence of a nonfatal disability or if there are other compelling concerns, such as that the family’s resources would be strained too much to care for their existing children.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A line of protesters hold signs behind a fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468089/original/file-20220609-20635-7sdug2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters listen during the 2022 Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-listen-during-the-jewish-rally-for-abortion-news-photo/1397755650?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>American Jews have generally supported legal abortion with very few restrictions, seeing it as a religious freedom issue – and a question of life versus potential life. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/jewish/views-about-abortion/">Eighty-three percent</a> support a woman’s right to an abortion, and while many might turn to their clergy for support in seeking an abortion, many would not see a need to.</p>
<h2>A different view of life</h2>
<p>As much diversity as exists in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, there is likely even more in Hinduism, which has a range of texts, deities and worldviews. Many scholars argue that the fact so many different traditions are all lumped together under the umbrella term “Hindusim” <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/0195166558.001.0001">has more to do with British colonialism</a> than anything else. </p>
<p>Most Hindus believe in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zmgny4j/revision/3">reincarnation</a>, which means that while one may enter bodies with birth and leave with death, life itself does not, precisely, begin or end. Rather, any given moment in a human body is seen as part of an unending cycle of life – making the question of when life begins quite different than in Abrahamic religions.</p>
<p>Some bioethicists see Hinduism as <a href="https://doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v12i9.1340">essentially pro-life</a>, permitting abortion only to save the life of the mother. Looking at what people do, though, rather than what a tradition’s sacred texts say, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(17)30453-9">abortion is common</a> in Hindu-majority India, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/dec/27/families-want-a-son-at-any-cost-the-women-forced-to-abort-female-foetuses-in-india">especially of female fetuses</a>. </p>
<p>In the United States, there are immigrant Hindu communities, Asian American Hindu communities, and people who have converted to Hinduism who bring this diversity to their approaches to abortion. Overall, however 68% say <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/hindu/views-about-abortion/">abortion should be legal</a> in all or most cases.</p>
<h2>Compassionate choices</h2>
<p>Buddhists also have varied views on abortion. The <a href="https://rcrc.org/buddhist/">Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice</a> notes: “Buddhism, like the other religions of the world, faces the fact that abortion may sometimes be the best decision and a truly moral choice. That does not mean there is nothing troubling about abortion, but it means that Buddhists may understand that reproductive decisions are part of the moral complexity of life.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A row of small mossy statues of seated figures along a path in the forest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468084/original/file-20220609-16-5yvlwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jizo statues sit along the Daiya River and Jiunji Temple in Nikko, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alternatively-called-bake-jizo-narabi-jizo-or-hyaku-jizo-a-news-photo/167603855?adppopup=true">John S Lander/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/buddhism-and-abortion/">Japanese Buddhism</a> in particular can be seen as offering a “middle way” between pro-choice and pro-life positions. While many Buddhists see life as beginning at conception, abortion is common and addressed through <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/08/15/429761386/adopting-a-buddhist-ritual-to-mourn-miscarriage-abortion">rituals involving Jizo</a>, one of the enlightened figures Buddhists call bodhisattvas, who is believed to take care of aborted and miscarried fetuses.</p>
<p>In the end, the Buddhist approach to abortion emphasizes that abortion is a complex moral decision that should be made with <a href="https://rcrc.org/buddhist/">an eye toward compassion</a>.</p>
<p>We tend to think of the religious response to abortion as one of opposition, but the reality is much more complicated. Formal religious teachings on abortion are complex and divided – and official positions aside, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/">data shows that over and over</a>, the majority of Americans, religious or not, support abortion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samira Mehta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Views on abortion differ not only among major religious traditions, but within each one.Samira Mehta, Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1795362022-05-24T12:45:52Z2022-05-24T12:45:52ZProtestants and the pill: How US Christians helped make birth control mainstream<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464873/original/file-20220523-42302-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C7%2C999%2C723&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestant Christians have been debating -- and more often than not, supporting -- modern contraceptives since they first appeared.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-government-and-doctors-have-decided-the-10-million-news-photo/514867588?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Bettman via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many Christians have celebrated the prospect of an America where abortion is someday <a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/05/19/as-roes-potential-fall-nears-abortion-abolitionists-turn-on-pro-life-elites-sbc-tom-ascol-women-murder-criminal/">banned entirely</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, other conservative Christians have been working on a related target: <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/19/some-states-already-are-targeting-birth-control">limiting access to some contraceptives</a>.</p>
<p>In July 2020, when <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-431_5i36.pdf">the Supreme Court</a> ruled that organizations with “sincerely held religious or moral objection” are not obligated to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, many conservative Christians <a href="https://ministrywatch.com/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-little-sisters-of-the-poor/">applauded</a>. Six years before, the evangelical owners of crafting chain Hobby Lobby took their objections to covering the IUD in their health insurance plans all the way to the Supreme Court. Hobby Lobby argued – incorrectly, according to most <a href="https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/practice-bulletin/articles/2017/11/long-acting-reversible-contraception-implants-and-intrauterine-devices#:%7E:text=Copper%20Intrauterine%20Device&text=The%20available%20evidence%20supports%20that,which%20it%20remains%20highly%20effective.">medical authorities</a> – that it was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/heres-why-hobby-lobby-thinks-iuds-are-like-abortions/284382/">a form of abortion</a>, and therefore they should not have to cover employees’ health insurance for it. The justices sided with the chain’s owners.</p>
<p>Yet as access to both abortion and contraception <a href="https://www.today.com/health/womens-health/overturning-roe-v-wade-threaten-birth-control-access-rcna27092">comes under threat</a>, the vast majority of Protestants <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr062.pdf">use or have used</a> some form of contraception. Their actions are supported by almost 100 years of pastoral advocacy on the issue. In my work as <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/wgst/samira-mehta">a scholar of religous studies, gender and sexuality</a>, I have researched the Protestant leaders who campaigned to make contraception respectable, and therefore widely acceptable, in the mid-20th century. </p>
<p>History, I have found, provides a different story about the relationship between Protestants and birth control.</p>
<h2>‘Responsible parenthood’</h2>
<p>As new contraceptive options emerged in the first two-thirds of the 20th century, from the <a href="https://www.popsci.com/story/science/contraception-diaphragm-history/">diaphragm</a> to the birth control pill, Christian leaders <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/amerreli.1.2.02">wrestled with what to think</a>. Many came to see birth control as a moral good that would allow married couples to have satisfying sex lives, while protecting women from the health risks of frequent pregnancies. They hoped it could ensure that couples would not have more children than they could care for, emotionally and economically.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph shows women with baby carriages lined up on a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464874/original/file-20220523-31005-tpf96t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women with children stand outside Sanger Clinic, the first birth control clinic in United States, in Brooklyn, New York in 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-with-children-outside-sanger-clinic-first-birth-news-photo/1347202932?adppopup=true">Circa Images/GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They looked inward, considering the consequences of birth control for their own communities, and hoped that “planned” or “responsible” sex would create healthy families and decrease divorce. They also looked outward, thinking about birth control’s wider implications, at a time of widespread concern that the global population <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/">was rising too quickly to handle</a>.</p>
<p>By the time <a href="https://theconversation.com/freer-sex-and-family-planning-a-short-history-of-the-contraceptive-pill-92282">the pill</a> came on the market in the 1960s, liberal and even some conservative Protestants were advocating for birth control <a href="https://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636269.001.0001/upso-9781469636269-chapter-009">using new theological ideas about “responsible parenthood</a>.”</p>
<p>“Responsible parenthood” reframed debates about family size around “Christian duty.” To be responsible in parenting was not only to avoid having more children than you could afford, nurture and educate. It also meant considering responsibilities outside the home toward churches, society and humanity.</p>
<p>Protestant leaders supporting contraception argued that the best kind of family was a father with a steady job and a homemaker mother, and that birth control could <a href="https://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636269.001.0001/upso-9781469636269-chapter-009">encourage this model</a>, because smaller families could maintain a comfortable lifestyle on one income. They also hoped that contraception would help couples stay together by allowing them to have satisfying sex lives.</p>
<p>Multiple denominations <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1190751">endorsed birth control</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/26/archives/lambeth-bishops-for-birth-control-family-planning-described-by.html">In 1958</a>, for example, the Anglican Communion stated that family planning was a “primary obligation of Christian marriage,” and chastised parents “who carelessly and improvidently bring children into the world, trusting in an unknown future or a generous society to care for them.” </p>
<h2>The big picture</h2>
<p>Religious leaders’ support for “responsible parenthood” was not just about deliberately creating the kind of Christian families they approved of. It was also about heading off the horrors of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html">population explosion</a> – a fear very much front of mind in mid-century America.</p>
<p>In the middle of the 20th century, with increased access to vaccines and antibiotics, more children were living to adulthood and life expectancies were rising. Protestant leaders feared this so-called <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/">population bomb</a> would outstrip the Earth’s food supply, leading to famine and war. </p>
<p>In 1954, when the global population stood at <a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/data-visualization-40#tab-chart_1">about 2.5 billion</a>, Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/pastorsandpreachers/harry-emerson-fosdick.html">one of the most prominent Protestant voices of the age</a>, framed overpopulation as one of the world’s “basic problems,” and the birth control pill, which was then being developed, as the best potential solution.</p>
<p>Richard Fagley, a minister who served on the World Council of Church’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Population_Explosion_and_Christian_R.html?id=jhbaAAAAMAAJ">argued that</a> in family planning, science had provided Christians with a new venue <a href="https://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636269.001.0001/upso-9781469636269-chapter-009">for moral responsibility</a>. Medical knowledge, Fagley wrote, is “a liberating gift from God, to be used to the glory of God, in accordance with his will for men.”</p>
<p>These “responsible parenthood” ideas held that religious couples had a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth by not having more children than the planet could support. In the context of marriage, contraception was viewed as moral, shoring up a particular form of Christian values.</p>
<h2>Yesterday’s arguments</h2>
<p>These ideas about “good” and “bad” families often rested on assumptions about race and gender that reproductive rights advocates find troubling today. </p>
<p>Early in the 20th century, predominantly white, Protestant clergy were very interested in increasing access to contraception for the poor, who were often Catholic or Jewish immigrants <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520303218/birth-control-battles">or people of color</a>. Some scholars have argued that early support for contraception was predominantly about eugenics, particularly before World War II. Among some white leaders, there was concern about so-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/204082">race suicide</a>: the racist fear that “they” would be overwhelmed.</p>
<p>Apart from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/jme.2021.54">some eugenicists, however</a>, most of these clergy wanted to give people access to contraception in order to create “healthy” families, regardless of income level. Yet many were unable or unwilling to see how they were promoting a narrow view of the ideal family, and how that marginalized poor communities and people of color – themes I am studying in my current book project.</p>
<p>Moreover, many proponents were advocating for women’s health, but not reproductive freedom. Their priority was setting women up for <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469636269/devotions-and-desires/">success to attain their ideal</a> of the middle-class, Christian motherhood. With fewer children, some hoped, families would be able to get by on just a husband’s salary, meaning more women at home raising children.</p>
<h2>A battle won – and lost?</h2>
<p>Over the decades, Protestant leaders have, in large part, disappeared from pro-birth control arguments.</p>
<p>There are many reasons. Mid-century agricultural technologies reduced fears of overpopulation – which have only recently been <a href="https://theconversation.com/curb-population-growth-to-tackle-climate-change-now-thats-a-tough-ask-153382">reawoken by the climate crisis</a>. Meanwhile, mainline Protestant churches, and their public influence, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/18/mainline-protestants-make-up-shrinking-number-of-u-s-adults/#:%7E:text=Pew%20Research%20Center's%202014%20Religious,Study%20was%20conducted%20in%202007.">are shrinking</a>. Conservative leaders eventually grew concerned that birth control would lead to more working women, not fewer. And since the 1970s, evangelicals <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734303135/throughline-traces-evangelicals-history-on-the-abortion-issue">have grown increasingly opposed</a> to abortion, which was increasingly linked to birth control through the broad term “family planning.”</p>
<p>In other words, since the “population bomb” was no longer ticking, contraception no longer seemed like such an urgent necessity – and some of its other implications troubled conservatives, breaking an almost pan-Protestant alliance.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, liberal Protestants had so embraced contraception that they no longer viewed it as turf that needed defending. Today, 99% of American girls and women between the ages of 15 and 44 who have ever had sex <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/c.htm#contraception">use or have used a contraceptive method</a>. Reproductive rights advocates turned their attention to abortion rights – largely leaving religious views on birth control to their opponents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samira Mehta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conservative Christians have cheered restrictions on some birth control. But many decades ago, Christian leaders’ support helped contraceptives become acceptable in the first place.Samira Mehta, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies & Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1697212021-11-01T12:24:40Z2021-11-01T12:24:40ZWhat the ‘spiritual but not religious’ have in common with radical Protestants of 500 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429181/original/file-20211028-25-jfjjqp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C988%2C599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Reformation's leading figures had diverse views, and some might have recognized themselves in "spiritual but not religious" people today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.440991">Rijksmuseum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For over a decade, one of the biggest stories in American religion has been <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">the rise of the “Nones”</a>, a broad term for people who do not identify with a specific faith. The religiously unaffiliated now make up just over one quarter of the U.S. population. </p>
<p>While the Nones include agnostics and atheists, most people in this category <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/">retain a belief in God or some higher power</a>. Many describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” or “SBNR,” as researchers refer to them. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.sksm.edu/people/christopher-l-schelin/">professor of theology</a> at a <a href="https://www.uua.org/">Unitarian Universalist</a> and multireligious seminary, I encounter many students who fit within the SBNR mold. They are studying to become chaplains, <a href="https://chaplaincyinstitute.org/why-interfaith/">interfaith</a> ministers and social activists. But they may be surprised to know how much they resemble certain Protestants who lived five centuries ago – some of the so-called <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-940474-15-4.html">radical reformers</a> who split off from <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lasting-impact-of-luthers-reformation-4-essential-reads-105953">Martin Luther’s Reformation</a>.</p>
<h2>Spiritual but not religious</h2>
<p>Scholars fret over the <a href="https://nccc.georgetown.edu/body-mind-spirit/definitions-spirituality-religion.php">slippery definitions</a> of “spiritual” and “religious.” What the average person tends to mean by “spiritual” is seeking or experiencing a connection with a greater reality, however they understand it. Meanwhile, “religious” often means belonging to a group with specific doctrines and rituals.</p>
<p>The spiritual but not religious are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199341221.001.0001">independent seekers</a>, many of whom pray, meditate, do yoga and other spiritual practices outside the confines of a particular tradition.</p>
<p>The theologian <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cByiqiMAAAAJ&hl=en">Linda Mercadante</a> spent several years interviewing SBNRs. In her book “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931002.001.0001">Belief without Borders</a>”, she identifies some common values. SBNRs tend to be individualistic, trusting their own experience and intuition as a guide. They reject claims that any one religion contains the ultimate, exclusive truth, but they also believe religions possess wisdom and offer “<a href="http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/viewpdf/default.aspx?article-title=Paths_That_Lead_to_the_Same_Summit_by_Ananda_Coomaraswamy.pdf">many paths</a> to the same summit.”</p>
<p>Repudiating “organized religion” as a bastion of dogmatism and moral hypocrisy is common among SBNRs. They often <a href="https://collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings/listening-spiritual-religious/">explicitly reject</a> what they understand to be central Christian beliefs. They don’t welcome a message that God loves them but will send them to hell for not accepting Jesus. But many continue to experiment with rituals and prayers that draw on established religions, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/04/16/for-millennials-mysticism-shows-a-path-to-their-home-faiths/">including Christianity</a>.</p>
<h2>A Spiritual Reformation</h2>
<p>In 1528, Lutheran pastor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sebastian-Franck">Sebastian Franck</a> decided he’d had enough of organized religion. Deeply disturbed by the moral failures of professing Christians, he resigned his pulpit. </p>
<p>The Protestant Reformation had recently split the Christians of Western Europe into various factions, pitting Roman Catholics against Lutherans, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/moversandshakers/ulrich-zwingli.html">Zwinglians</a> – whose influence lives on in <a href="https://new.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/reformed-accent/what-reformed">Reformed churches</a> today – and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anabaptists">Anabaptists</a>, who practiced adult baptism. They couldn’t all be right, so Franck concluded they must <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bN1PuDsP4ocC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=a%20letter%20to%20john%20campanus&f=false">all be wrong</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd stands around a flame as a man burns papers in this black and white drawing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429403/original/file-20211029-13-1r5g4ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Martin Luther, drawn here burning the pope’s threat to excommunicate him, is the most famous Reformation-era reformer, but there were many more.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franck declared that the true church was the invisible fellowship of people who were instructed, not by the pope or the Bible, but by <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004393189/BP000007.xml">the divine spark</a> within. He became a leading figure in a form of radical Protestantism that scholars would later call the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/RenaissanceAndReformationWilliamGilbert1997/Renaissance%20and%20Reformation%2C%20William%20Gilbert%20%281997%29_djvu.txt">“Spiritualists”</a> or <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24934">“spiritual reformers”</a>. This diverse cast of characters downplayed or rejected the outward trappings of religion, such as rituals and sacraments. What really mattered was each individual’s direct encounter with God.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hans-Denck">Hans Denck</a>, who is sometimes credited as the first <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789047411048/Bej.9789004154025.i-574_008.xml">Spiritualist</a>, described this experience as the “inner Word” speaking from within a person’s soul. “The Word of God is already with you before you seek it,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=umpCQSQmsfMC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=denck+%22The+Word+of+God+is+already+with+you+before+you+seek+it%22&source=bl&ots=rQYx8LlKaN&sig=ACfU3U2vZckP9juI-hnXIcidVyOl_gM7rQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX0PeM_-3zAhXBneAKHUQ8CNMQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=snippet&q=the%20word%20of%20god%20is%20already%20with%20you&f=false">he wrote</a>. Unlike typical Protestants, Denck and the other Spiritualists saw the Bible as redundant. Its purpose was to confirm what the believer already knew from the heart.</p>
<p>Because the inner Word resided within all human beings, certain Spiritualists held that salvation was not limited to Christians. </p>
<p>“Consider as thy brothers,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=umpCQSQmsfMC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=denck+%22The+Word+of+God+is+already+with+you+before+you+seek+it%22&source=bl&ots=rQYx8LlKaN&sig=ACfU3U2vZckP9juI-hnXIcidVyOl_gM7rQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX0PeM_-3zAhXBneAKHUQ8CNMQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=snippet&q=%22consider%20as%20thy%20brothers%22&f=false">wrote Franck</a>, “all … who fear God and work righteousness,” even those who never heard of Christ. There was no need to send missionaries to other nations. They already had the Holy Spirit to teach and spiritually “baptize” them.</p>
<p>Partly because of persecution and partly because of their emphasis on the individual, the Spiritualists rarely formed structured communities. Today, they are mostly forgotten outside of church history courses. But their influence shaped the founding of <a href="https://quakerinfo.org/index">Quakerism</a>, a branch of Christianity that, to this very day, seeks the guidance of the <a href="https://www.pym.org/faith-and-practice/experience-and-faith/the-light-within/">inner light</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture in an email newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p>
<h2>What’s old is new again</h2>
<p>The parallels between the Protestant Spiritualists and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas-nones-left-religion-behind/">many contemporary SBNRs</a> can be striking. Both are repulsed by the ethical failings and exclusivism of religious communities. Both emphasize the responsibility of the individual to follow their own spiritual quest. Both believe that authentic experience of God or ultimate reality is available to all people, regardless of their specific beliefs. Whereas Franck and Denck used the early printing press to spread their message, today a spiritual teacher might record a podcast or YouTube video.</p>
<p>But it is important to emphasize that the Spiritualists were still decidedly Christian. Contrary to most SBNRs, they considered Jesus Christ the authoritative revealer of truth. Some believed he would soon return to Earth for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/millennialism/Millennialism-from-the-Renaissance-to-the-modern-world">his Second Coming</a> and waited as expectantly as any end times-focused fundamentalist does today. They may have seen other religions as valid paths, but they didn’t turn to them as resources for spiritual practice.</p>
<p>Even so, the Spiritualists demonstrate that the values and attitudes of SBNRs are far from a new development. They wrestled with similar difficulties in religion and came up with similar answers. As <a href="http://www.skylightpaths.com/page/product/978-1-59473-515-8">the spiritually independent continue to seek wisdom</a> and meaning, they can find good company in the radical reformers of a bygone age.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338598/original/file-20200529-78871-1g5gse5.jpg?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header></header>
<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Starr King School for the Ministry is a member of the Association of Theological Schools</a></p>
<footer>The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation U.S.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Schelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>So-called Spiritualists split off from Martin Luther’s Reformation 500 years ago, but some of their ideas carry on.Christopher Schelin, Assistant Professor of Practical and Political Theologies, Starr King School for the Ministry Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1641432021-07-16T12:26:20Z2021-07-16T12:26:20ZHow ‘In God We Trust’ bills are helping advance a Christian nationalist agenda<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411551/original/file-20210715-32887-1a1jb8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C63%2C4256%2C2758&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christian nationalists are pushing for 'In God We Trust' to be omnipresent.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/in-god-we-trust-royalty-free-image/525213315?adppopup=true">Joe Longobardi Photography via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>City vehicles in Chesapeake, Virginia, will soon be getting religion. </p>
<p>At a meeting on July 13, 2021, <a href="https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/chesapeake/add-in-god-we-trust-to-city-vehicles-chesapeake-will-vote-on-proposal-tuesday-night/">city councilors unanimously voted in favor</a> of a proposal that would see the official motto of the U.S., “In God We Trust,” emblazoned on every city-owned car and truck, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of US$87,000.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the state of Mississippi is <a href="https://www.mississippifreepress.org/13182/atheists-sue-mississippi-for-in-god-we-trust-plates-i-dont-want-jesus-riding-on-my-car/">preparing to defend in court</a> its insistence that all citizens, unless they pay a fee for an alternative, must display the same four-word phrase on their license plates. Gov. Tate Reeves <a href="https://www.wlbt.com/2021/06/25/gov-reeves-calls-lawsuit-over-god-we-trust-license-plates-publicity-stunt/">vowed last month to take the issue</a> “all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court should we have to.”</p>
<p>“In God We Trust” became the national motto 65 years ago this month. But over the past few years a string of bills and city ordinances has sought to expand its usage and presence. Such efforts include legislation requiring or encouraging the motto be displayed in <a href="https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/02/oklahoma-house-speaker-wants-in-god-we-trust-displayed-in-state-buildings/334638007/">government buildings</a> and <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/in-god-we-trust-school-displays">schools</a>, on <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/in-god-we-trust-license-plates">license plates</a> and on <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/04/07/god-we-trust-police-cars/82762992/">police vehicles</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sample license plate with 'In God We Trust' on it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411535/original/file-20210715-23-dxl77w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mississippi license plates carry the motto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dor.ms.gov/TagsTitles/Documents/MS%20Passenger%20Reissue%202017%20V2_11-16-16%20HD%20LRG.jpg">State of Mississippi</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The rise of bills across the country at this time is no coincidence. It fits with a concerted effort by Christian nationalists who view the motto as a tool to help legitimize an agenda of passing legislation that <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/project-blitz-seeks-to-do-for-christian-nationalism-what-alec-does-for-big-business/">privileges conservative Christian values</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/february-web-only/what-is-christian-nationalism.html">Christian nationalism</a> is a political ideology that fuses conservative religious beliefs with a – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-capitol-siege-recalls-past-acts-of-christian-nationalist-violence-153059">usually white</a> – American identity. Christian nationalists assume that the laws of the land should be based on Christian morals. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/klee27/">a scholar of religious and political rhetoric</a>, I have observed how Christian nationalists are using what I call “<a href="https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.23.2.0255">theistnormative</a>” legislation – government-endorsed policies, rituals, laws and symbols that use vague religious references, such as “God” – to encourage people to view the United States as a theistic collective – that is to say, as a nation of believers in God.</p>
<h2>From coins to national motto</h2>
<p>Christian nationalists <a href="https://rewirenewsgroup.com/religion-dispatches/2019/08/27/the-story-of-in-god-we-trust-our-christian-nationalist-motto-part-1/">played a key role</a> in getting “In God We Trust” put on coins during the Civil War and ever since have attempted to use the motto as “proof” that the United States is a Christian nation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/5/93/htm">Early Christian nationalists</a> criticized the Founding Fathers for failing to recognize the United States as an explicitly Christian nation in the Constitution. An early Christian nationalist organization, <a href="https://candst.tripod.com/nra.htm">The National Reform Association</a>, pushed for a “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/419814/pdf">Christian Amendment</a>” that would correct what they called the “<a href="https://reformed.org/eschaton/symington/index.html?mainframe=/eschaton/symington/a_editor_preface.html">original sin</a>” of not recognizing Jesus Christ in the Constitution. </p>
<p>Their efforts failed. But Christian nationalists had better success in getting the more ambiguous motto “In God We Trust” <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-complex-history-of-in-god-we-trust-91117">put on coins</a> in 1864. It followed a report to the U.S. Treasury by the director of the U.S. Mint, James Pollock, an active member of the National Reform Association, in <a href="http://www.chicagocoinclub.org/lib/us/usmnt/1863/mr.html">which he asked</a>: “We claim to be a Christian Nation – why should we not vindicate our character by honoring the God of Nations in the exercise of our political Sovereignty as a Nation?”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A handwritten letter in which Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase amends 'In God is our Trust' to 'In God We Trust' in an 1863 letter to James Pollock, director of the Philadelphia mint." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411534/original/file-20210715-23-uffi58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase amends ‘In God is our Trust’ to ‘In God We Trust’ in an 1863 letter to James Pollock, director of the Philadelphia mint.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chase_to_Pollock_1863-12-09_motto_only.png">National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Amid <a href="https://doi.org/10217/189376">fears of “atheistic communism</a>” during the Cold War a century later, Christian nationalists in the U.S. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.398">again tried and failed to pass</a> a “Christian Amendment.” But they again found success in advocating for legislation that used vague religious references, culminating in the adding of “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/under-god-added-to-pledge-of-allegiance-2014-6">under God</a>” to the pledge of allegiance and making “In God We Trust” <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-complex-history-of-in-god-we-trust-91117">the national motto</a> on July 30, 1956. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President Eisenhower at a ceremony introducing a 8-cent Statue of Liberty stamp with the inscription ‘In God We Trust.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411552/original/file-20210715-17-1w8s3ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two years before making ‘In God We Trust’ the national motto, President Eisenhower introduces a stamp carrying the slogan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-state-john-foster-dulles-president-eisenhower-news-photo/515383474?adppopup=true">Bettmann / Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since it became the national motto, conservative Christians have used “In God We Trust” to justify opposing <a href="https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/21198/zz0002rbw9/">abortion rights</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/America_s_Struggle_for_Same_Sex_Marriage/A_jA20D3U9cC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=In%20god%20we%20trust">same-sex marriage</a> by suggesting that they <a href="https://mndaily.com/197771/uncategorized/god-we-trust/">violate the principles embedded</a> in the motto.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Mississippi state Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith <a href="https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/38628-ffrf-calls-out-senator-from-mississippi-on-christian-nationalist-comments">justified legislation that would ban voter registration on Sundays</a> by holding up a dollar bill and saying, “This says, ‘The United States of America, in God we trust.’ … In God’s word in Exodus 20:18, it says ‘remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.‘” </p>
<p>While most Christian nationalists <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/14/christian-nationalists-bills-religious-freedom-project-blitz">claim to support religious freedom</a> – which would seemingly apply to all faiths – most believe Christianity, specifically white conservative Christian values, should be privileged in the public sphere.</p>
<h2>'Project Blitz’</h2>
<p>Christian nationalists have increasingly turned to “In God We Trust” bills as a way to further legitimize their agenda. This is particularly evident in the “Project Blitz” initiative, led by the <a href="https://cpcfoundation.com/about/">Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation</a>, which states its aim as “restoring Judeo-Christian principles to their rightful place.”</p>
<p>Project Blitz started in 2015 with the purpose of “blitzing” the country with legislation advancing Christian nationalism. As David Barton, a leader in the initiative, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/opinion/project-blitz-christian-nationalists.html">explained</a> in a 2018 conference call with state legislators: “It’s kind of like whack-a-mole for the other side; it’ll drive ‘em crazy that they’ll have to divide their resources out in opposing this.”</p>
<p>One such success in Project Blitz was in Chesapeake, where the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation is based. The organization <a href="https://wset.com/news/local/chesapeake-city-hall-to-display-in-god-we-trust-motto">successfully pushed for the motto “In God We Trust” to be displayed</a> at the City Hall.</p>
<p>After Project Blitz <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/">generated negative publicity</a> in 2018, it was misleadingly rebranded as “<a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/11/07/project-blitz-any-other-name">Freedom for All</a>.” During a recorded strategy meeting that was later <a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/11/07/project-blitz-any-other-name">circulated by the social justice think tank Political Research Associates</a>, Lea Carawan of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-951886982/audio-10-24-19">explained</a>, “As soon as we understood that they knew they were on to us, we changed the name; shifted things around a little bit […] we’ve renamed and moved on but it’s moving just as strong and just as powerfully.”</p>
<p>Up to 2018, the initiative had helped more than <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/">70 bills</a> relating to their agenda get proposed. The group <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/exclusive-christian-right-bill-mill-project-blitz-hasnt-gone-away-its-just-gotten-more-secretive/">continues to have successes</a> in getting legislation not only proposed, but also passed. According to <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/legislation">BlitzWatch</a>, a group tracking Project Blitz initiatives, this includes bills that <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/bible-classes">support Bible readings in schools</a> and policies that allow <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/adoption-and-foster-care">adoption and foster agencies</a> and <a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/religious-refusals-health-care">health care providers</a> to deny services based on religious grounds. But it is the “<a href="https://www.blitzwatch.org/in-god-we-trust-school-displays">In God We Trust” bills</a> that have seemingly been the most successful for Project Blitz.</p>
<h2>Pushing America’s 'Christian heritage’</h2>
<p>According to the initiative’s <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Religious-Freedom-Analysis-Report-2020-2021.pdf">2020-2021 playbook</a> – which was <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/exclusive-christian-right-bill-mill-project-blitz-hasnt-gone-away-its-just-gotten-more-secretive/">obtained by the religion news website Religion Dispatches</a> – “In God We Trust” bills aim to recognize “the place of Christian principles in our nation’s history and heritage.”</p>
<p>While those behind “Project Blitz” claim the bills are not about converting people to Christianity, they also argue that the U.S. should be a Christian nation whose laws and policies “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJHZ8OKPTEU">reflect Judeo-Christian or biblical values and concepts</a>.”</p>
<p>As such, “In God We Trust” bills set the foundation for more explicitly conservative Christian legislation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Religious-Freedom-Analysis-Report-2020-2021.pdf">playbooks</a> suggest “In God We Trust” bills can “shore up later support for other governmental entities to support religious displays” to help America accept its “Christian heritage.” The Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation also recommends legislators push for other types of bills including, as stated in their <a href="https://www.au.org/sites/default/files/2019-01/Project%20Blitz%20Playbook%202018-19.pdf">2018-2019 playbook</a>, a resolution to establish policy “favoring intimate sexual relations only between married, heterosexual couples.”</p>
<h2>The risk of opposing</h2>
<p>What makes “In God We Trust” bills so successful is that they often receive bipartisan support. In Louisiana, for example, it was a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/11/us/in-god-we-trust-louisiana-schools/index.html">Democratic governor</a> who signed the 2019 bill requiring the motto be displayed in all schools. Politicians who do oppose “In God We Trust” bills run the risk of being labeled as “<a href="https://www.christianpost.com/trends/in-god-we-trust-motto-sparks-debate-in-minnesota.html">anti-faith</a>.”</p>
<p>Despite its being the national motto for only 65 years, Christian nationalists have framed “In God We Trust” as part of the U.S.’s founding tradition. Moreover, the motto has become an important rhetorical weapon for Christian nationalists – using it to advance their belief that governments and people are to “trust in God,” and more specifically their perception of a conservative Christian God.</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristina M. Lee is affiliated with various secularists groups including Atheists United and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.</span></em></p>‘In God We Trust’ became the national motto of the US on July 30, 1956. Since then, it has been used to forward a conservative Christian agenda.Kristina M. Lee, Ph.D. Candidate in Rhetoric, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1332242020-03-18T21:21:03Z2020-03-18T21:21:03ZHow strong a role does religion play in US elections?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321281/original/file-20200318-37407-77y4v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C30%2C2048%2C1272&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joe Biden at McKinley Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/tabor-roeder/49331527821/in/photolist-2iafYx8-9wGwJJ-2iEAYWc-2ieZWHo-dhWfEE-dhWfK3-5pR7Gk-2ivodQE-2h46nqc-29XvNv9-7f6MAn-2if4udv-2if4uzN-2itnDgh-2if14oN-2if1533-2h1heYp-ch6i4y-ch6i1J-2if3t3F-2itnDqL-2gY4K1q-2gv9Ld7-2gX99DF-2itnDm2-5praP8-2h88ZgH-2h88Z4D-2gvUMxt-2gX86fh-2gX8oNP-2gZdqwr-2h88Yf4-mHfN3-mHfJr-2ioq3BS-2h88eRW-2h88YSb-2iah7nv-2h46mCL-5vfQh4-mHfPo-e3q1ox-2h45LXy-2h45AmP-2h46wXZ-2gY4KgA-2gY3Xtc-2iah8sb-f731Vs">Phil Roeder/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On March 17, Joe Biden took firm control of the Democratic nomination process, winning primaries Florida, Illinois and Arizona by significant margins. The ongoing coronavirus epidemic is in part responsible, having <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/politics/coronavirus-2020-campaign.html">reshaped votors’ worries and expectations</a>, but the role played by religion in Biden’s resurrection should not be overlooked.</p>
<p>Indeed, Biden’s comeback began in South Carolina, where his win gave much-needed momentum for Super Tuesday. In that state, black voters make up a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/02/25/democratic-presidential-hopefuls-need-support-black-voters-sc-biden-steyer-buttigieg-warren/4867208002/">majority of the Democratic electorate</a>. So it is no surprise that all the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/warren-works-to-overcome-hurdles-with-black-voters-in-sc/2019/08/18/e311f94c-c1e0-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html">Democratic presidential candidates</a>, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaP9U5oGEaQ">Bernie Sanders</a>, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/08/20/as-democrats-vie-for-african-american-votes-the-black-church-is-paying-attention/">flocked to African-American churches</a> before the primary.</p>
<p>Black Americans, who are <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/464680-poll-overwhelming-majority-of-black-voters-choose-any-given-2020-democrat-over">largely Democrats</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/on-politics-biden-super-tuesday.html">older and less liberal</a>, are the most religious group: <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/">83%say they believe in God</a> (compared with 61%of whites). They are also more likely to attend church and pray.</p>
<h2>Greater presense of religion in American life</h2>
<p>Even outside the African American community, the American people as a whole continue to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/05/u-s-adults-are-more-religious-than-western-europeans/">stand out for their religiosity</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/17865/daily-prayer-worldwide/">55% say they pray regularly</a> (compared to about 10% in France and 6% in the UK).</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/268205/americans-believe-god.aspx">87% say they believe in God</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>56% say they believe in God <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/">“as described in the Bible”</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, Americans are still far <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-are-far-more-religious-than-adults-in-other-wealthy-nations/">more religious than people in any other wealthy nation</a>.</p>
<h2>A match between a secular socialist and a centrist Catholic</h2>
<p>Of all of the presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders is probably the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/14/politics/bernie-sanders-religion/index.html">least religious</a>. He identifies himself as both <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/bernie-sanders-the-devout-secular-jew-b3575b13c5d3/">Jewish and secular</a>, does not participate in any <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-finally-answers-the-god-question/2016/01/26/83429390-bfb0-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html">organized religion</a> and defends the <a href="https://secular.org/2019/05/senator-bernie-sanders-on-separation-of-church-and-state/">separation of church and state</a>.</p>
<p>Sanders has a political vision of religion. He connects religious beliefs in general, and his Jewish heritage in particular, to <a href="https://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-religion-and-beliefs/">social and economic justice</a>. He often <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-old-and-new-socialism-of-bernie-sanders-should-catholics-support-it">praises Pope Francis</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/02/22/exclusive-watch-bernie-sanders-call-pope-francis-a-socialist/">calls him a socialist</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/btYvtWMs7tI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18306125/white-identity-politics-trump-racism-ashley-jardina">rise and success of identity politics</a> suggests that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/07/why-bernie-sanders-economic-message-isnt-enough-to-win-over-black-voters-118197">race or religion may matter more</a> than economic justice.</p>
<h2>Sharing faith, making connections</h2>
<p>Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/us/politics/biden-busing.html">record on race</a> may be great, but he was vice president to the first black president, Barack Obama. Contrary to Sanders, he has not been talking about religion but rather about his faith. And he has done so not in political terms but in emotional and personal terms. For instance in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/politics/joe-biden-pastor-charleston-church-shooting/index.html">town hall meeting in South Carolina</a>, he was able to connect with an African American pastor whose wife was killed by a white supremacist by sharing personal tragedy: the loss of his own wife and daughter in 1972 and his son in 2015.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Q5_FUqGHvk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>By building an empathetic bond with voters, he also avoids taking pointed positions on controversial issues such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/politics/biden-abortion-rights.html">abortion</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/politics/lgbt-forum-2020.html">same-sex marriage</a>. This seems to be working: he is the only Democratic candidate considered “rather religious” by more than half of American adults (<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/27/most-americans-dont-see-democratic-candidates-as-very-religious/">55 percent</a>).</p>
<p>While expressing genuine grief, he has turned his sorrow and pain into political assets, having no qualms about using them in this campaign ad, for example, where he says almost word for word what he expressed in the CNN town hall interview with the pastor.</p>
<p>He won <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-voters-know-what-they-want-tuesday-it-was-joe-n1151001">65% of the most religious black voters</a> in South Carolina as well as a good size of the religious white voters (<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/south-carolina-primary-election-live-updates-stream-2020-02-29/">43% compared to 16% for Buttigieg and 14% for Sanders</a>).</p>
<h2>Religion in Congress</h2>
<p>If you have doubts about the relevance of religion in politics in the United States, just look at the US governing bodies. The 116th American Congress is more diversified on the religious level, but remains overwhelmingly Christian (<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/03/5-facts-about-the-religious-makeup-of-the-116th-congress/">88% against 71% of the adult American population</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319192/original/file-20200308-118913-1cieykf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">PF FaithOnHill political makeup px.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Only one elected representative, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/01/03/first-member-of-congress-describes-religion-as-none">Senator Kyrsten Sinema</a> (Democrat of Arizona), claims to be nonreligious and no member describes themselves as an <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/congress-atheists-representation_n_5c2f9b03e4b0bdd0de588425?ri18n=true&guccounter=1">atheist</a>. Even someone as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/nyregion/ocasio-cortez-democrats-congress.html">far to the left</a> as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mentions <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/06/27/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-her-catholic-faith-and-urgency-criminal">her Catholic faith in Congress</a> and even <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1088200188089565184">quotes the Bible on social networks</a>.</p>
<h2>Religion in the White House</h2>
<p>Religiosity is even more <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403977717">visible in the White House</a>. US presidents have been invoking faith and God ever since George Washington expressed his “fervent pleas to this Almighty Being who rules the universe” in his <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/inaugural-address-16">1789 inaugural address</a>. Moreover, <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326413.001.0001/acprof-9780195326413">scholars observe</a> that the use of religious language and even explicit references to God have increased in presidential rhetoric since the 1980s. For example, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?redir_esc=y&hl=fr&id=T3viBwAAQBAJ">David Domke and Kevin Coe write</a> that iterations of the phrase “God bless America,” the most explicit statement linking God and country, are now expected in all major speeches, although they were almost entirely absent prior to Ronald Reagan.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/8484">recent study by semantic scholar Ceri Hughes</a>, this trend seems to be even more pronounced with Donald Trump.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319197/original/file-20200308-118881-y6esub.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Religion in Presidential rhetoric.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although he <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/28/politics/donald-trump-church-member/">claims to be a Presbyterian Protestant</a>, there is ample evidence, as <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=0p1WDwAAQBAJ">historian John Fea has shown</a>, to suggest that the current tenant of the White House is the least religious president of the modern era. Yet he invokes religion the most, and the political strategy is obvious: after all, in 2016, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/">81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump</a>. His promise: to defend them in <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/02/culture-war-liberals-conshttps://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/02/culture-war-liberals-conservatives-trump-2018-222095ervatives-trump-2018-222095">the culture wars</a>, especially on the subjects of <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/07/20/abortion-laws-get-more-attention-in-the-culture-wars">abortion</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-may-want-you-to-think-hes-lgbtq-friendly-dont-be-fooled/2019/08/20/c2b7a7be-c36b-11e9-b72f-b31dfaa77212_story.html">LGBTQ rights</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/897f550e2d5b809acaeffdf489aa62c9">school prayer</a>.</p>
<p>Beyond the particular case of Donald Trump, all presidents of the modern era have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/20/almost-all-presidents-have-been-christians/">identified as Protestant Christians</a>, with the notable exception of John Kennedy whose Catholicism proved <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/john-f-kennedy-on-catholicism-video">to be a campaign issue for him</a>. No person of the Jewish faith has received a presidential nomination from a major party (Joseph Lieberman received only the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 2000), and the Mormon affiliation of Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate in 2008, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/mormonism-hurt-mitt-romney-in-2008-what-about-2012/2012/05/22/gIQAerBjiU_story.html">not without controversy</a>.</p>
<h2>A changing religious landscape</h2>
<p>The ever-increasing presence of religious rhetoric in political discourse is both the reason for and the consequence of <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/4113">the politicization of religion</a>, particularly of white Evangelicals, since the 1970s. This politicization has highlighted the racial divide that exists in the United States. According to <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-christian-religiously-unaffiliated/">the PRRI</a> (Public Religion Research Institute), a non-profit, non-partisan organization, “no religious group is more closely linked to the Republican Party than white Evangelical Protestants.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319194/original/file-20200308-64601-iy18ea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Party Religious Affiliation.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The label “evangelical,” however, is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/evangelical-christian/418236/">a complex one</a>. It is a trans-denominational movement mostly within Protestant Christianity based on a <a href="https://www.nae.net/what-is-an-evangelical/">set of personal core beliefs</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The Bible at the center of faith</p></li>
<li><p>The atonement for sins through Jesus’ death on the cross.</p></li>
<li><p>Personal conversion and salvation.</p></li>
<li><p>The sharing of the gospel, from which this movement takes its name.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>But not all evangelicals are white and conservative. There is a small proportion of non-white Evangelicals (<a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/">about 25%</a>) as well as some white Evangelicals who are progressive (<a href="https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-christian-religiously-unaffiliated/">about 15 percent</a>) and tend to vote for Democrats.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, statistics show a slow <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/">erosion in the number of Americans who identify as Evangelical Protestants</a>__ since the 1990s, particularly in the younger generations. Similarly, the number of Catholics has slowly declined, while the number of historic <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/06/28/what-is-a-mainline-protestant/">Mainline Protestants has virtually collapsed</a>.</p>
<p>See this <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1108183399364263936">graph</a> by political scientist <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1108183399364263936">Ryan Burge</a> (based on <a href="https://gss.norc.org/">GSS data</a>) :</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319193/original/file-20200308-118885-1ppphsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">America s Changing Landscape.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The trend most discussed by academics (<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537903.2018.1535379">here</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13644-020-00400-7">here</a>, or <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/injlaseq6&div=17&id=&page=">here</a>) is the increase in the number of Americans who do not identify with any religion, namely the <em>nones</em> (not affiliated with a religion). They are now at least as numerous as evangelicals, if not more. But as researcher <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335929198_THE_OTHER_SLEEPING_GIANT_THE_NON-_VOTE_OF_THE_RELIGIOUSLY_UNAFFILIATED">Lauric Henneton notes</a>, <em>nones</em> have in common only that they do not want to be counted as belonging to a religious group or established traditions. It says nothing about their actual beliefs. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/">2014 Pew Research Center survey</a> shows that atheists and agnostics are on the rise, but still account for less than a third of nones, with the rest identifying themselves as “nothing special.” Unsurprisingly, Bernie Sanders is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/07/bernie-sanders-religion-values-how-both-shape-his-politics/">a favorite among the <em>nones</em></a>.</p>
<h2>Religion and younger voters</h2>
<p>Younger generations are increasingly <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/">unaffiliated with a religion or a church</a>, but they are also the generations <a href="https://www.axios.com/2020-election-youth-vote-gen-z-895c7c4b-3ee2-4068-8b83-96178249d3f0.html">least likely to vote</a> which reduces their impact on the elections. Even if they voted more, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/29/18644145/vote-2018-election-gen-x-z-millennials-baby-boomers">they did in 2018</a>, America’s institutional political structure <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=1G6gDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT72&dq=electoral+college+further+amplifies+the+power+of+whiter,+more+rural,+more+Christian+voters+Klein,+Ezra#v=onepage&q=electoral%20college%20further%20amplifies%20the%20power%20of%20whiter%2C%20more%20rural%2C%20more%20Christian%20voters%20Klein%2C%20Ezra&f=false">amplifies the power of whiter, more rural, more Christian voters</a>. </p>
<p>Religion is thus likely to continue to play a major role in US elections for years to come. And with the help of what <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/03/bill-dallas-christian-nationalist-right-donald-trump">Katherine Stewart calls</a> the “Christian nationalist machine,” Donald Trump will certainly make religious identity a central element of his campaign.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Joe Biden has taken control of the Democratic nomination with a string of big primary wins. The ongoing coronavirus epidemic is in part responsible, but the role of religion should not be overlooked.Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Assistant lecturer, Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris LumièresLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1323682020-03-03T15:35:59Z2020-03-03T15:35:59ZWill Catholics and Protestants ever heal their rift over Communion?<p>On February 29, for the first time in nearly 500 years, a <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/protestants-to-take-catholic-communion-at-calvins-cathedral-in-geneva-on-leap-year-day.html">Catholic mass was held</a> in the main church in Geneva – the Protestant theologian John Calvin’s adopted home town.</p>
<p>It’s still not clear from news coverage whether Protestant worshippers were invited to receive communion. One report said that Protestants and Catholics alike would be invited to take communion while <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/first-mass-since-reformation-to-be-held-in-swiss-cathedral-75707">another denied this</a>, insisting that: “people of a faith other than Catholic will not be formally invited to Eucharist, the sharing of bread and wine.” </p>
<p>The event, and the confusion around it, highlights the problem of some Christians excluding other Christians from this central sacrament of the faith – one that, rather than dividing Christians, ought to reconcile and unite. So, should – and can – Catholic doctrine change?</p>
<p>An illusion in most religions is that their beliefs and rituals are unchanging – and this is the same for most Christians. Instead of seeing the faith as dynamic, most Christians slip into thinking their particular focus of attention is not only immune to change but somehow perfect – the last word to be said on a topic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318093/original/file-20200302-18299-xorla0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Last Supper: on which Christianity’s ritual ‘meal’ of Communion is based.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonardo da Vinci</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One item of doctrine that has got stuck in this way by being repeated rather than reflected upon is the Catholic Church’s statement that only those they consider in doctrinal agreement about the Eucharist (otherwise labelled as, variously, “Holy Communion”, “the Mass” or “the Lord’s Supper”) can participate fully at its celebration. This is a ritual whose symbolic focus is that of people gathered around a common table, eating portions of a broken loaf and drinking from a common cup filled with wine. </p>
<p>What each ritual element is taken to mean has been controversial for centuries – but the basic set of symbols seen as linked to the Last Supper of Jesus is common to all the churches. The various meanings given to this meal make it more a moment of visible tension between churches rather than the moment of coming together they all claim they want it to be.</p>
<p>Put crudely, this means that if you are a Protestant you are not invited to eat at a Catholic service. It also means that a Catholic, even if welcome at a Protestant Eucharist, should refuse to share fully in the meal by eating and drinking.</p>
<p>This practice of keeping denominations separate was standard policy for centuries – but, with the rise of the ecumenical movement in the 20th century, it began to seem out of place. Nonetheless, the Catholic Church – <a href="https://www.anglicancommunion.org/ecumenism/ecumenical-dialogues/roman-catholic/arcic.aspx">while willing to talk about unity</a> – saw this step as impossible “until there was unity of faith”. By this the Catholics meant doctrinal uniformity: tantamount to a reversal of the Reformation – and there is no chance that will happen.</p>
<p>This no-go attitude on the Catholic side not only creates deep hurt in relations between church leaders, but it creates tensions in households every Sunday where partners want to worship together but one feels excluded if they are from differing churches.</p>
<h2>Things could be different</h2>
<p>This problem appeared to be easing after the Catholic Church’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/10/10/162573716/why-is-vatican-ii-so-important">Second Vatican Council</a> (1962-5) which opened dialogues with the Reformed Churches to overcome inherited differences. But in recent decades, under two conservative papacies, the situation deteriorated again. In 1998 the Catholic bishops in Britain and Ireland issued (<a href="https://cbcew.org.uk/plain/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/11/one-bread-one-body-1998.pdf">One Bread One Body</a>) which effectively forbade any sharing of communion. Moreover, in a conservative climate it became clear there was serious resistance to discussion or research.</p>
<p>This negative climate was changed suddenly in November 2015. To mark the beginning of 500th anniversary celebrations of Martin Luther’s challenge to the papacy, Pope Francis <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/10/28/499587801/pope-francis-reaches-out-to-honor-the-man-who-splintered-christianity?t=1583161179749">visited Rome’s Lutheran Church </a>. Afterwards, he took questions and this issue of intercommunion was, not surprisingly, raised. Rather than closing down the question, he opened up several new avenues of thinking which could lead to a change in Catholic law and practice.</p>
<p>Francis used his familiar approach that the church is more a <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/pope-tells-lutheran-to-talk-to-the-lord-about-receiving-eucharist">field-hospital for suffering humanity</a> than an oracular lawgiver. What, he wondered, if communion was food for a journey needed by people, rather than a reward for being a good Christian? This new openness will not be welcomed by conservatives, but many see it as a new way forward in relations between the churches. </p>
<p>Francis also called on theologians to explore this difficulty afresh. Here is the <a href="https://zenit.org/articles/pope-s-visit-to-lutheran-community-in-rome/">key statement</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I make your question my own – I wonder: is the sharing of the Lord’s Supper the end of a journey or the viaticum [travellers’ food] to journey together? I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What would Jesus do?</h2>
<p>So can one create a theological rationale for change? Here is just one such argument. We humans need food – but only through teamwork can we eat. We do not simply eat together, we share meals. Meal sharing is distinctively human – and this sharing has an inherent structure. </p>
<p>This has implications for the eucharist because its form is a meal – commemorating Jesus’s last supper. Can you be present and I refuse to share the food with you? Can I say that it is a meal of welcome and then not share with someone I call a “sister” or a “brother” because of Christian baptism, who asks for a share? Family meals must promote reconciliation by sharing or they are dishonest – and so unworthy of worship.</p>
<p>I have tried to take up Pope Francis’s call to theologians and advanced nine different arguments for a change in Catholic practice in my book Eating Together, Becoming One. They have only one common element: fixing this ulcer of division means re-imagining the meal Jesus bids his followers to share in his memory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas O’Loughlin’s book Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians is published by Liturgical Press.</span></em></p>This centuries-old argument over doctrine needs to change and we have a pope who wants that to happen.Thomas O'Loughlin, Professor of Historical Theology, Faculty of Arts, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1260982019-11-06T12:35:39Z2019-11-06T12:35:39ZEvangelicals in Brazil see abuse of God’s earth as a sin – but will they fight to save the Amazon?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300158/original/file-20191104-88409-1fad28g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trees that survived a forest fire stand amid smoldering smoke in the Vila Nova Samuel region of Brazil, Aug. 25, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Amazon-Fires/e95ba873e0f84bd7935ecab0573eab49/32/0">AP Photo/Eraldo Peres</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the <a href="https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/brazils-largest-city-plunged-into-night-like-darkness-in-middle-of-the-day/519031">Brazilian city of São Paulo abruptly went dark at midday</a> on Aug. 19, there was talk of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/20/sudden-darkness-befalls-sao-paulo-western-hemispheres-largest-city-baffling-thousands/">the Apocalypse</a> – <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=sao%20paulo%20apocalipse%20until%3A2019-08-29%20since%3A2019-08-19&src=typed_query">not all of it in jest</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, meteorologists explained, unusual wind patterns had carried smoke hundreds of miles from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-amazon-is-burning-4-essential-reads-on-brazils-vanishing-rainforest-122288">burning Amazon rainforest</a>. The smoky fog blanketing São Paulo in darkness forced 21 million city-dwellers to confront the deforestation under way in remote reaches of South America. </p>
<p>For some conservative Protestants, however, São Paulo’s sudden eclipse illustrated something they already believed to be true: Humans have violated God’s plan for the Earth by abusing the environment – and climate change is the result.</p>
<h2>Christians and the climate</h2>
<p>Christian movements like evangelicalism and Pentecostalism aren’t often associated with environmental protection. </p>
<p>In a famous 1967 article in the journal Science, the historian Lynn White <a href="http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/theology/research/projects/beyondstewardship/blame/">argued</a> that Christianity hurts the environment because the Bible teaches believers that God gave them “dominion” over the world. Therefore, White wrote, many Christians feel they may treat the Earth as they please. </p>
<p>Among Christians in the United States, evangelicals are <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-christians-climate-views-can-lead-to-better-conversations-about-the-environment-115693">least likely to believe that climate change is real and human caused</a>, according to <a href="https://www.prri.org/topic/climate-change-science/">public opinion polls</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Gospel_of_Climate_Skepticism/frWnDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">academic research</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="7rhvc" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7rhvc/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>This is not the case in Brazil. There, evangelicals and Pentecostals
– who make up <a href="https://www.alainet.org/pt/articulo/199997">about 30% of the Brazilian population</a> – are just as environmentally concerned as other religious groups, <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/brazil/LAPOPBra14-v15.2.5.1-Por-140316_W.pdf">public opinion surveys</a> show. In fact, <a href="http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp">some surveys</a> find that church attendance actually boosts Brazilian evangelicals’ environmental concern. </p>
<p>My own <a href="https://www.acls.org/research/fellow.aspx?cid=9FE4AF25-3A1F-E911-80E4-000C296A63B0">research</a> on <a href="http://amyericasmith.org">politics, religion and public opinion in Latin America</a> reveals that many conservative Protestants in Brazil don’t just believe in climate change and think of it as sin. Some even see environmental destruction as a sign of the coming Apocalypse. </p>
<p>“God put everything in our hands perfect,” one evangelical pastor from the Brazilian state of Pernambuco told me during an interview in March. “We’re destroying it.”</p>
<p>I cannot name the pastor, as under the terms of the academic ethics boards overseeing my research, all names must remain protected. </p>
<p>Another pastor from the Assembly of God, Brazil’s largest Pentecostal church, explained to me in 2014, “God made the universe. He put fish of all colors … trees, all sorts of little birds. Every year,” he continued, God “sends flowers. Now man in his sinfulness destroys it all. He kills the little birds, he burns down the forests.” </p>
<h2>Rightists but not anti-environment</h2>
<p>This faith-based distress at humanity’s poor stewardship of God’s creation has some powerful and outspoken proponents in Brazil. </p>
<p>The Catholic Church recently held a <a href="https://theconversation.com/pope-affirms-catholic-churchs-duty-to-indigenous-amazonians-hurt-by-climate-change-125123">global meeting addressing the climate crisis</a> in the Amazon. And Brazil’s former environment minister, Marina Silva, a member of the Pentecostal Assembly of God, has voiced horror at the <a href="https://sostenibilidad.semana.com/medio-ambiente/articulo/ex-ministra-de-ambiente-de-brasil-sobre-incendios-en-amazonia/45464">recent fires consuming the Amazon</a>.</p>
<p>Silva leans left, but most Brazilian evangelicals are politically conservative. So their environmental beliefs aren’t necessarily reflected in their voting records.</p>
<p>Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, won <a href="https://www.ecodebate.com.br/2018/10/31/o-voto-evangelico-garantiu-a-eleicao-de-jair-bolsonaro-artigo-de-jose-eustaquio-diniz-alves/">68% of evangelical and Pentecostal voters</a> in last year’s presidential election. Bolsonaro, a <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/08/20/brazils-environmental-changes-under-a-far-right-climate-skeptic/">climate skeptic</a> whose policies have dramatically accelerated the rate of deforestation in the Amazon, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Religion_and_Brazilian_Democracy/km2MDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">appealed to evangelicals and Pentecostals</a> with his deeply conservative views on gender, sexuality and religion’s role in society. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.amyericasmith.org/brazilian-democracy-in-the-balance-2018/">survey I conducted</a> after Brazil’s 2018 election found that voter attitudes toward environmental protection had no bearing on their candidate preference. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro did not hide his <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-deforestation-already-rising-may-spike-under-bolsonaro-109940">disregard for environmental protections</a> on the campaign trail. But many evangelicals I’ve interviewed had no idea Bolsonaro was planning to remove <a href="https://theconversation.com/strict-amazon-protections-made-brazilian-farmers-more-productive-new-research-shows-105789">restrictions on fires for tree-clearing in the Amazon</a>. They supported him because he opposes gay marriage and <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaros-approval-rating-is-worse-than-any-past-brazilian-president-at-the-100-day-mark-115617">supports school prayer</a>, they said. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300160/original/file-20191104-88387-1s3vdqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marina Silva, second from left, at a rally for indigenous rights, Sept. 13, 2018. Silva ran for president of Brazil as the candidate of the Sustainability Network Party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Elections/219606ddfd7d4f5da6d68c7debba2060/24/0">AP Photo/Eraldo Peres</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Evangelical environmentalists?</h2>
<p>The outbreak of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fires-weaken-amazon-rainforests-ability-to-bounce-back-123312">human-made fires in the Amazon</a>, which spurred a <a href="https://theconversation.com/california-polluters-may-soon-buy-carbon-offsets-from-the-amazon-is-that-ethical-123738">global reaction</a>, has suddenly made the environment much more politically salient in Brazil. </p>
<p>Surveys in August found that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-49411984">96% of Brazilians thought</a> President Bolsonaro should do more to combat deforestation. There was no difference between the views of people who had voted for Bolsonaro and those who had not. </p>
<p>Bolsonaro’s support among evangelicals has <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/bolsonaros-evangelical-support-falling-why">fallen substantially</a> since he took office in January, according to the <a href="http://media.folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2019/09/02/574c277a171a64f166dee28d083f08cfag.pdf">polling firm Datafolha</a>. Just 37% of evangelicals now think Bolsonaro is doing a “good” or “great” job. </p>
<p>This trend isn’t limited to evangelicals. Bolsonaro’s popularity has dropped <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolsonaros-approval-rating-is-worse-than-any-past-brazilian-president-at-the-100-day-mark-115617">in virtually every demographic group</a>. The decline began well before the crisis in the Amazon, but Bolsonaro’s handling of the fires may have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-poll/disapproval-of-bolsonaro-presidency-jumps-after-amazon-crisis-poll-idUSKCN1VN19C">shaved five points off his approval rating</a>.</p>
<p>This scenario creates the possibility that right-wing evangelicals and traditional environmental groups in Brazil could unite to push the Bolsonaro administration to better protect Brazil’s rich natural resources. </p>
<h2>Coalitions for creation care</h2>
<p>Bringing Brazilian evangelicals into the environmentalist movement would require, among other changes, a shift in language. </p>
<p>“A religious leader’s discussion with his followers is totally different from a scientist or an environmentalist,” Paulo Barreto, Director of the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment, <a href="https://folhagospel.com/entrevista-discurso-de-religiosos-tem-mais-impacto-do-que-de-cientistas/">told the Brazilian newspaper Estadão</a> in 2007. “It’s more emotional.”</p>
<p>Talking about “God’s creation” might feel uncomfortable to scientists and some progressives. But research shows that emphasizing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-christians-climate-views-can-lead-to-better-conversations-about-the-environment-115693">common values between Christians and environmentalists</a> can foster more productive engagement.</p>
<p>The Canadian evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe recently made a similar case <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/sunday/climate-change-evangelical-christian.html">in the New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>“By beginning with what we share and then connecting the dots between that value and a changing climate,” she wrote, “it becomes clear how caring about this planet and every living thing on it is not somehow antithetical to who we are as Christians, but rather central to it.” </p>
<p>New environmental coalitions are already forming around the endangered Amazon. </p>
<p>Domestic and international pressure has led Bolsonaro to <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ambiente/2019/08/bolsonaro-muda-decreto-e-proibe-queimadas-so-na-amazonia-legal.shtml">impose a 60-day ban on all burning in the region</a> and to <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2019/09/20/bolsonaro-prorroga-uso-de-forcas-armadas-no-combate-a-queimadas-na-amazonia-por-mais-30-dias.ghtml">authorize Brazil’s armed forces to fight fires</a>. This October, the Brazilian Amazon had <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ambiente/2019/11/numero-de-queimadas-na-amazonia-no-mes-de-outubro-e-o-menor-desde-1998.shtml">fewer forest fires than any October since 1998</a>. </p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Erica Smith's research on religion and climate change has received funding from the University of Notre Dame Global Religion Research Initiative; the Luce/ACLS Fellowship in Religion, Journalism, and International Affairs; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. </span></em></p>Brazilian evangelicals are politically conservative, but they still believe in climate change. Turning them into climate activists, however, will be a challenge for the environmentalist movement.Amy Erica Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science as well as Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Professor, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1236512019-10-08T12:23:13Z2019-10-08T12:23:13ZFundamentalism turns 100, a landmark for the Christian Right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295839/original/file-20191007-121051-gxto9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C32%2C5398%2C3538&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christian fundamentalists have become a politically powerful group since the movement's foundation in 1919.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/649879327?src=tYC8s-EhwheQWAZKj9_FfQ-1-21&size=huge_jpg">Raul Cano/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These days, the term “fundamentalism” is often <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=hst_fac_pub">associated with a militant form of Islam</a>. </p>
<p>But the original fundamentalist movement was actually <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=hst_fac_pub">Christian</a>. And it was born in the United States a century ago this year.</p>
<p>Protestant fundamentalism is still very much alive. And, as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/susan-l-trollinger-and-william-vance-trollinger-jr-righting-america-at-the-creation-museum-baltimore-johns-hopkins-university-press-2016-2695-pp-344-isbn-978-1-4214-1951-0/6448C35DF86684FBF419A1B1D166AE7F">Susan Trollinger and I</a> discuss in our <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/righting-america-creation-museum">2016 book</a>, it has fueled today’s culture war over gender, sexual orientation, science and American religious identity.</p>
<h2>Roots of Fundamentalism</h2>
<p>Christian fundamentalism has roots in the 19th century, when Protestants were confronted by two challenges to traditional understandings of the Bible. </p>
<p>Throughout the century, scholars increasingly evaluated the Bible as a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">historical text</a>. In the process they raised questions about its divine origins, given its seeming inconsistencies and errors.</p>
<p>In addition, Charles Darwin’s 1859 book “<a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=eng_fac_pub">On the Origin of Species</a>” – which laid out the theory of evolution by natural selection – raised profound questions about the Genesis account of creation. </p>
<p>Many American Protestants easily squared their Christian faith with these ideas. Others were horrified. </p>
<p>Conservative theologians responded by developing the doctrine of <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=eng_fac_pub">biblical inerrancy</a>. Inerrancy asserts that the Bible is errorless and factually accurate in everything it says – including about science. </p>
<p>This doctrine became the theological touchstone of fundamentalism. Alongside inerrancy emerged a system of ideas, called <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">apocalyptic or “dispensational premillennialism</a>.” </p>
<p>Adherents of these ideas hold that reading the Bible literally – particularly the Book of Revelation – reveals that history will end soon with a ghastly apocalypse. </p>
<p>All those who are not true Christians will be slaughtered. In the wake of this violence, Christ will establish God’s millennial kingdom on Earth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christian fundamentalists have remained consistent in their core beliefs for a century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1535472?src=ES6KBBIsK_9SunrzYTxe-Q-2-92&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Setting the stage</h2>
<p>A series of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">Bible and prophecy conferences</a> spread these ideas to thousands of Protestants across the United States in the late 19th century. </p>
<p>But two early 20th-century publications were particularly key to their dissemination. </p>
<p>The first was author <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Cyrus Scofield’s 1909 Reference Bible</a>. Scofield’s Bible included an overwhelming set of footnotes emphasizing that the errorless Bible predicts a violent end of history which only true Christians will survive.</p>
<p>The second was “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">The Fundamentals</a>,” 12 volumes published between 1910 and 1915 which <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469633435/guaranteed-pure/">made the case</a> for biblical inerrancy while simultaneously attacking socialism and affirming capitalism. </p>
<p>“The Fundamentals” provided the name of the future religious movement. But there was not yet a fundamentalist movement. </p>
<p>That came after World War I. </p>
<h2>The birth of the Fundamentalist Movement</h2>
<p>After Woodrow Wilson’s April 1917 declaration of war on Germany, the government <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/12/propaganda-america-wwi/">mobilized a huge propaganda campaign</a> designed to demonize the Germans as barbarous Huns who threatened Western civilization. Many conservative Protestants traced Germany’s devolution into depravity to its <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=hst_fac_pub">embrace of Darwinism and de-emphasis of the Bible’s divine origins</a>. </p>
<p>Six months after the war’s end, William Bell Riley – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God's%20Empire&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">pastor of Minneapolis’ First Baptist Church</a> and a well-known speaker on the Bible’s prophecies regarding the end of history – organized and presided over the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">World’s Conference on Christian Fundamentals in Philadelphia</a>. </p>
<p>This five-day May 1919 meeting attracted over 6,000 people and an all-star lineup of conservative Protestant speakers. It produced <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association</a>, which birthed a movement that influences American political and social life today. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807861912/in-the-beginning/">summer and fall of 1919</a> Riley sent teams of speakers to spread the fundamentalist word across the U.S. In addition to promoting biblical inerrancy and apocalyptic premillennialism, they attacked socialism and Darwinism. </p>
<p>Soon, Riley and his newly minted fundamentalists began trying to <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_fac_pub">capture control of major Protestant denominations</a> and <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_fac_pub">eliminate the teaching of Darwinian evolution</a> from American public schools.</p>
<p>The anti-evolution crusade had some success in the South. <a href="http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/">Five states</a> passed laws banning the theory of evolution from classrooms. </p>
<p>In March 1925 Tennessee <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090520091924/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm#">made it illegal</a> to teach “that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Four months later a science teacher named John Scopes was tried and convicted of violating the statute.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A historic marker outside the Dayton, Tenn., courthouse where the 1925 Scopes Trial was held.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Scopes-Monkey-Statue/fa25ca37ffb94b1d808de61f4a5d003c/59/0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fundamentalism after Scopes</h2>
<p>Though the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Scopes Trial</a> brought ridicule by the national media, fundamentalism did not wither away. </p>
<p>Instead, it <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=hst_fac_pub">continued to advance</a> during the 20th century. And it remained remarkably consistent in its <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">central commitments</a> of biblical inerrancy, apocalyptic premillennialism, creationism and patriarchy – the idea that women are to submit to male authority in church and home. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists also embraced political conservatism. This commitment grew more intense as the 20th century progressed. </p>
<p><a href="https://rightingamerica.net/books/gods-empire-william-bell-riley-and-midwestern-fundamentalism/">Fundamentalists</a> despised <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal</a>. They saw welfare to the poor and increased taxes on the rich as an indefensible expansion of government powers. </p>
<p>When the Cold War brought the United States into conflict with the Soviet Union, their concerns about the all-encompassing, anti-Christian state <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">intensified</a>. </p>
<p>Then came the 1960s and 1970s. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists bitterly <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">opposed</a> the civil rights and feminist movements, the Supreme Court’s rulings <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-engel-v-vitale">prohibiting school-sponsored prayer</a> and <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade">affirming a woman’s right to an abortion</a>, and President Lyndon Johnson’s programs that sought to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307834/the-fierce-urgency-of-now-by-julian-e-zelizer/">eliminate poverty and racial injustice</a>.</p>
<h2>Fundamentalists go political</h2>
<p>Understanding Christian America to be under deadly assault, in the late 1970s these politically conservative fundamentalists began to organize. </p>
<p>The emergent Christian Right attached itself to the Republican Party, which was more aligned with its members’ central commitments than the Democrats.</p>
<p>In the vanguard was Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell Sr. His “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Moral Majority</a>” sought to <a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-the-legacy-of-jerry-falwell-sr-in-trumps-america-79551">make America Christian again</a> by electing “pro-family, pro-life, pro-Bible morality” candidates. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Ronald Reagan with pastor Jerry Falwell Sr., in March 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Reagan_with_Jerry_Falwell_C13442-5A-1.jpg">White House/ Ronald Reagan Presidential Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the 1980s, the movement has become increasingly sophisticated. Christian Right organizations like <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Focus on the Family and Concerned Women of America</a> push for laws that reflect the fundamentalist views on everything from abortion to sexual orientation.<br>
By the time Falwell died, in 2007, the Christian Right had become the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">most important constituency in the Republican Party</a>. It played a crucial role in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/trump-christian-right-values.html">electing Donald Trump in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>After one century, Protestant fundamentalism is still very much alive in America. William Bell Riley, I wager, would be pleased.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248894/original/file-20181204-133095-1p2xxs2.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>William Trollinger (with co-author Susan Trollinger) is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/righting-america-creation-museum">Righting America at the Creation Museum</a></p>
<footer>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>Protestant fundamentalism was officially born in the United States in 1919, fueling a culture war that continues today.William Trollinger, Professor of History, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1079562019-01-02T23:54:54Z2019-01-02T23:54:54ZThe resolve to be thinner and fitter this year won’t lead to salvation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308026/original/file-20191219-11919-1yo0s8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=225%2C17%2C3461%2C1974&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The idea that fat is lazy and thin is virtuous has its roots in Christianity and is perpetuated by industry and media today. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year? If so, you are participating in a social as well as a personal ritual. The patterns of resolutions, considered collectively, reveal what many of us consider to be virtuous. </p>
<p>You’d be in the majority if you chose to work on “healthy living” in some way. Eating healthier and being more physically active are two of the <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/one-three-canadians-improving-personal-fitness-and-nutrition-top-new-years-resolution">most popular</a> New Year’s resolutions. What drives this particular version of the virtuous life — healthy living as virtue — rather than the many alternatives?</p>
<p>Would you be surprised to hear that the root is Protestantism?</p>
<p>The early Protestants believed that the way to salvation was through hard work and self-discipline. Max Weber, one of the early sociologists, argued that this <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestant-ethic">“Protestant ethic” became core to capitalism</a>. </p>
<p>While Western society has <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/06/27/canadas-changing-religious-landscape/">grown less religious over time</a>, we continue to value working hard and containing ourselves. On occasion we justify letting loose, but resolutions bring us back to that original Protestant core value: Self-discipline.</p>
<p>We could self-discipline ourselves to watch less television, shop less, reduce use of disposable plastics or volunteer more. Why do eating and exercise get so much attention?</p>
<h2>We are told fat is lazy, eating sinful</h2>
<p>Chalk that up to the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Fat-2nd-Edition/Lupton/p/book/9781138493070">frequent messages that fat bodies are bad, and thin bodies are good</a>. Thinness has long been thought to be virtuous, an idea that also <a href="http://www.junctures.org/index.php/junctures/article/view/160/274">has its roots in Christianity</a>, where fatness was associated with sloth (the opposite of hard work), and eating with carnal pleasures and sinfulness.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251607/original/file-20181219-45403-hah73j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The media is rife with messages that eating is a sin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pro-thinness and anti-fatness rely on two core assumptions: all bodies can be thin through self-discipline with food and exercise, and body size simply reflects personality and commitments to social norms. </p>
<p>Neither are true. We are continually told we can all be thin if we eat less and exercise more but that assumption is unscientific. In one of the most robust studies of intensive, long-term support for changing lifestyle routines, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.20662">only 27 per cent of participants bodies were 10 per cent lighter over an eight-year period</a>. A 10 per cent reduction of weight is significant, but does not necessarily mean a thin body. </p>
<p>A recent example has been the follow-up studies of participants in <em>The Biggest Loser</em>. Thirteen of 14 contestants regained the body fat. What’s more, the dramatic eating and exercise routines promoted on the show <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.21538">actually slowed the participants’ metabolism over time!</a></p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VBC7IrG5Ke0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>If you exercise and eat the same as people 30 years ago, you’re <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orcp.2015.08.007">likely to have a body that is substantially heavier and fatter</a>. So what else is at play? Answering that question is still a work in progress. An attempt to map the various influences on weight gives a much more honest and complex picture, one that is still incomplete. </p>
<p>Genetics, medication side effects, pollutant exposures, hormonal changes, stress and poorer sleep patterns are all part of the answer.</p>
<h2>Fuelling disgust and shame</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, unscientific and harmful ideas about thinness and fatness persist through continual messages from the big institutions. Governments, public health organizations, corporations and the media routinely reinforce the message that self-discipline leads to thin bodies, that we are in a crisis of fatness and that it is up to us to keep ourselves thin no matter the unhealthy pressures put upon our bodies.</p>
<p>Corporations <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-food-industry-conspiring-to-make-you-fat-81537">sell us unhealthy food</a>, then run campaigns about the importance of moderation. They even <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-big-squeeze-inside-the-fight-over-juice-in-canadas-food-guide/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links">lobby governments to recommend their unhealthy foods to the public</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-food-industry-conspiring-to-make-you-fat-81537">Is the food industry conspiring to make you fat?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The media is rife with judgemental and dehumanizing messages about fatness. This is true of both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2011.561915">news</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2012.743631">and</a> entertainment <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/sth.2010.2">media</a>. Consider the latest offering: <a href="https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/netflix-insatiable-review-debby-ryan-fat-shaming-1202901875/">Netflix’s <em>Insatiable</em></a>, a show about a girl whose body drops pounds after her jaw is wired shut, then gets revenge on her bullies. The show is something of one long fat joke.</p>
<p>Governments continue to allow non-nutritious foods to be sold, while supporting public health campaigns that emphasize self-discipline. Health promotions campaigns continue to use visual messages that fuel disgust, shame and loathing of bodily fat despite <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2012156">evidence that such campaigns are less effective</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2013.02.010">deepen stigmatization</a>, which <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2012.301069">worsens health</a>.</p>
<p>All of these societal messages shape our emotions and thoughts about our own and other people’s bodies. </p>
<p>We feel responsible for the size and shape of our bodies, despite the many influences on the styling of our lives and our bodies. We are encouraged to see our bodies and health as personal projects, and as failures unless they conform to a particular ideal.</p>
<h2>New visions of virtuous living</h2>
<p>What would it mean to refuse such pressures? </p>
<p>To some, this is a rejection of the social norms that create solidarity. People might become uncomfortable or defensive when others refuse to participate in moralistic talk about food, exercise and bodies — talk that sounds something like “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/baroness/sketches/season-1/let-them-eat-cake">I can have this piece of cake because I worked out this morning</a>.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tZenHhe-Ab4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Roxane Gay discusses her book “Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.”</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But what if we resolved, for the rest of 2020, to express social solidarity while reinforcing other virtues? </p>
<p>We can, for example, resolve to be kinder to each other and ourselves. We can resolve to learn something new in the next three months, or to start a new volunteering gig. </p>
<p>We can collectively invite other visions of virtuous living together.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Jen Wrye, Instructor at North Island College in B.C., co-authored this article.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patty Thille received funding from the Canadian Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Killam Trusts, the Alberta government, and other small donors during her MA and PhD degrees. She currently receives funding from the University of Manitoba. She is an occasional contributor to Upstream, a national, independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization that advocates for a healthier society. </span></em></p>Moralistic talk about food, exercise and bodies has its roots in Christianity and is perpetuated by corporations. Collectively, we can resist.Patty Thille, Assistant Professor in Physical Therapy, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033812018-09-19T14:52:13Z2018-09-19T14:52:13ZAuthor of first English novel kept it hidden for ten years – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237072/original/file-20180919-158222-d37jey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Foxe's Book of Martyrs, detailing the grim fate of Protestant clerics Latimer and Ridley, is one clue as to why Baldwin hesitated before publishing his irreverent book.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A dense work of early English prose, strewn throughout with serious and teasing marginalia from its author, might not be the most likely candidate for stage adaptation – but this project has just been undertaken by a team of artists and academics in Sheffield. William Baldwin’s <a href="http://www.presscom.co.uk/halliwell/baldwin/baldwin_cat.html">Beware the Cat</a>, written in 1553, will be performed in September as part of the university’s <a href="http://festivalofthemind.group.shef.ac.uk/">2018 Festival of the Mind</a>.</p>
<p>As a literary form, the novel is usually thought to have <a href="https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/the-rise-of-the-novel">developed in the 18th century</a> with the mighty classics Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. But researchers believe we should be looking back to the relatively neglected prose fictions of the Tudor era to find the earliest English examples. <a href="http://www.presscom.co.uk/halliwell/baldwin/baldwin_cat.html">Beware the Cat</a>, an ecclesiastical satire about talking cats, is a prime candidate and is now thought to be the earliest example of the novel form in the English language.</p>
<p>Baldwin is barely known outside the circles of Renaissance literature, but he was highly celebrated and widely read in Tudor England. In the mid-16th century, he was earning an inky-fingered living as a printer’s assistant in and around the central London bookmaking and bookselling area of St Paul’s Cathedral. As well as writing fiction, he produced <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-mirror-for-magistrates-1574">A Mirror for Magistrates</a>, the co-written collection of gruesome historical poetry that was highly influential on Shakespeare’s history plays. He also compiled a bestselling handbook of philosophy, and translated the controversial <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A15987.0001.001?view=toc">Song of Songs</a>, the sexy book of the Bible.</p>
<p>Beware the Cat tells the tale of a talkative priest, Gregory Streamer, who determines to understand the language of cats after he is kept awake by a feline rabble on the rooftops. Turning for guidance to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albert-great/">Albertus Magnus</a>, a medieval alchemist and natural scientist roundly mocked in the Renaissance for his quackery, Streamer finds the spell he needs. Then, using various stomach-churning ingredients, including hedgehog’s fat and cat excrement, he cooks up the right potion.</p>
<p>And it turns out that cats don’t merely talk – they have a social hierarchy, a judicial system and carefully regulated laws governing sexual relations. With his witty beast fable, Baldwin is analysing an ancient question, and one in which the philosophical field of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-philip-k-dick-redefined-what-it-means-to-be-in-human-92085">posthumanism</a> still shows a keen interest: do birds and beasts have reason?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236865/original/file-20180918-158225-1hutkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woodcut from William Griffith’s 1570 edition of William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Turbulent times</h2>
<p>But rights and wrongs of a different order coloured Baldwin’s book release. He self-censored for several years before making the work public. Beware the Cat was written in 1553, months before the untimely death of the young Protestant king, Edward VI. Next on the throne (if you disregard the turbulent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8154">nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey</a>) was the first Tudor queen, Mary I. Her Catholicism was fervent and these were terrifying days. By the mid-1550s, <a href="https://www.johnfoxe.org/freeman-marion.pdf">Mary was burning Protestant martyrs</a>. One of her less alarming, but still consequential, decisions was to reverse the freedoms accorded the press under her brother Edward. </p>
<p>At the height of his power during the 1540s, the Lord Protector during the young Edward’s reign, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, had relied on particular printers to spread the regime’s reformist message. Men such as John Day (printer of <a href="http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126927.html">Foxe’s Book of Martyrs</a>) and Edward Whitchurch – Baldwin’s employer – printed and circulated anti-Catholic polemic on behalf of the state. Not content to persecute these men by denying them the pardon she accorded other Protestant printers, Mary I banned the discussion of religion in print unless it was <a href="http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/mirror-magistrates-and-politics-english-reformation">specifically authorised</a> by her officials.</p>
<h2>Radical press</h2>
<p>As a print trade insider, Baldwin was intimately connected with the close community of this <a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349182/1/450513_vol1.pdf">radical Protestant printing milieu</a> – and Beware the Cat is deliberately set at John Day’s printing shop. Having written a book that parodies the Mass, depicts priests in some very undignified positions and points the finger at Catholic idolatry, Baldwin thought better of releasing it in the oppressive religious climate of Mary’s reign. But by 1561, Elizabeth I was on the throne and constraints on the press were less severe – despite the infamous case of John Stubbs, the writer who in 1579 <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/TUDstubbsJ.htm">lost his hand</a> for criticising her marriage plans. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237088/original/file-20180919-158225-16itc2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sermon being preached at St Paul’s Cross, 1614.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Gipkyn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Baldwin, now in his 30s, had become a church deacon. He was still active as a writer and public figure, working on his second edition of A Mirror for Magistrates and preaching at Paul’s Cross in London, a venue that could attract a 6,000-strong congregation.</p>
<p>Once it was released, Beware the Cat went through several editions. It was not recognised for the comic gem that it is until scholars <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3713829">such as Evelyn Feasey</a> started studying Baldwin in the early 20th century and the novel was later championed by American scholars <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780873281546/Beware-Cat-First-English-Novel-0873281543/plp">William A. Ringler and Michael Flachmann</a>. </p>
<p>Now, it has been adapted for performance for the first time and is being presented as part of the <a href="http://festivalofthemind.group.shef.ac.uk/">University of Sheffield’s Festival of the Mind</a>. This stage version of Beware the Cat has been created by the authors with Terry O'Connor (member of renowned performance ensemble <a href="https://www.forcedentertainment.com/">Forced Entertainment</a>) and the <a href="http://pennymccarthy.com/">artist Penny McCarthy</a>. </p>
<p>Baldwin’s techniques of embedded storytelling, argument and satirical marginalia are all features that have been incorporated into this interpretation of the text. The production also includes an array of original drawings (which the cast of four display by using an onstage camera connected to a projector), but none of the cast pretends to be a cat. Instead, it is left to the audience to imagine the world Baldwin’s novel describes, in which cats can talk and – even if just for one night – humans can understand them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Stenner and Frances Babbage received funding for this project from Sheffield University Festival of the Mind.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Stenner and Frances Babbage received funding for this project from Sheffield University, Festival of the Mind.</span></em></p>In the mid-16th century, William Baldwin wrote a satire on Catholicism but waited a decade before publishing it. Sensible man.Rachel Stenner, Teaching Associate in Renaissance Literature, University of SheffieldFrances Babbage, Professor of English Literature, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/860972017-11-02T23:38:53Z2017-11-02T23:38:53ZIn Brazil, religious gang leaders say they’re waging a holy war<p>The expression “evangelical drug trafficker” may sound incongruous, but in Rio de Janeiro, it’s an increasingly familiar phenomenon.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.religionfacts.com/neo-pentecostalism">Charismatic Christianity</a> is <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-censoring-a-queer-museum-brazil-edges-closer-to-authoritarianism-84199">on the rise across Brazil</a>. Even Rio, a famously libertine city, elected an <a href="https://theconversation.com/rio-de-janeiros-new-evangelical-mayor-could-threaten-the-citys-famed-diversity-68138">evangelical mayor</a> last year. Now, evangelical Protestantism is so far-reaching in Rio that even some of the city’s most notorious drug dealers claim to be spreading the gospel. </p>
<p>I study <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/robert-muggah">violence in Latin America</a>, and I’ve observed a sharp increase in reports of religiously motivated crimes in Rio de Janeiro over the past year, in particular <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/13/prejudice-againstcandombleworshippersincreasesinbrazil.html">attacks on “terreiros”</a> – the temples belonging to the Candomblé and Umbanda faiths. </p>
<h2>Brazil’s evangelical turn</h2>
<p>Persecution of these <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/african-derived-religions-brazil">Afro-Brazilian religions</a>, whose adherents are largely poor black Brazilians, <a href="http://www.publicadireito.com.br/artigos/?cod=13d83d3841ae1b92">has been around since the 19th century</a>. But studies in Rio – both mine and those of other crime researchers – suggest that the current wave of religious bigotry is more pointed, and more violent, than in the past. </p>
<p>While statistics confirming this new trend are still poor, the increase in religious hate crimes appears to coincide with the spread of evangelical Protestantism in Brazil.</p>
<p>Today roughly a quarter of all Brazilians identify as Protestant, up from 5 percent in the 1960s. Many Brazilian Protestants attend mainstream services. But the <a href="https://www.alternet.org/belief/dramatic-religious-shift-brazil-evangelicals-are-rapidly-overtaking-catholics">fastest-growing denominations in Brazil</a> are the hard-line <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/07/18/brazils-changing-religious-landscape/">Pentecostals and Neopentecostal churches</a>
– including the wildly successful Assembly of God and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"917344908834467840"}"></div></p>
<p>That’s also true in politics. Evangelical lawmakers currently hold <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2017/08/1910522-evangelicos-apostam-em-distritao-para-ampliar-bancada-na-camara.shtml">85 of 513 seats</a> in Brazil’s lower house of Congress, meaning that the religious right is <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/amid-crisis-in-brazil-the-evangelical-bloc-emerges-as-a-political-power/">shaping the national debate</a> on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-brazils-political-crisis-a-powerful-new-force-evangelical-christians/2016/05/26/5c8b9bdc-1c7d-11e6-82c2-a7dcb313287d_story.html?utm_term=.4f66043996c1">gay rights</a>, racial equality, women’s reproductive health, education and other social issues. </p>
<p>Rio de Janeiro saw a <a href="https://www.alternet.org/belief/dramatic-religious-shift-brazil-evangelicals-are-rapidly-overtaking-catholics">30 percent increase in evangelicals</a> from 2000 to 2010. Over the same period, the number of Catholics and followers of Candomblé and Umbanda <a href="http://m.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/12/1844365-deixam-de-ser-catolicos-ao-menos-9-milhoes-afirma-datafolha.shtml?mobile">dropped by 9 percent and 23 percent, respectively</a>. </p>
<p>Most converts are poor people attracted to the evangelical doctrine of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9047c83c-197d-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996">personal salvation</a>. Today, evangelical leaders in Rio’s impoverished favelas routinely deliver a message of fidelity, purity and prosperity. </p>
<p>Some of them also have a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/afro-brazilian-religions-struggle-against-evangelical-hostility/2015/02/05/b6a30c6e-aaf9-11e4-8876-460b1144cbc1_story.html?utm_term=.1fb994c29b40">dim view of Afro-Brazilian religions</a>. For preachers espousing a binary spiritual worldview, “good” Christians must wage holy war against “evil” practitioners of Candomblé and Umbanda. </p>
<p>As Edir Macedo, the multi-millionaire bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, <a href="http://portais4.ufes.br/posgrad/teses/tese_3321_Wal%E9ria_Vieira_de_Almeida.pdf">wrote</a> in <a href="https://blogs.universal.org/bispomacedo/2012/05/19/orixas-caboclos-e-guias-deuses-ou-demonios/">his 1997 book “Orixás, Caboclos and False Gods or Demons”</a>, Afro-Brazilian religions “seek to keep us from God. They are enemies of Him and the human race … This struggle with Satan is necessary…to eternal salvation.” </p>
<p>The book sold more than three million copies before it was <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/cotidiano/ult95u115122.shtml">banned by federal authorities</a> in 2005.</p>
<h2>Religious ‘cleansing’</h2>
<p>For <a href="http://negrobelchior.cartacapital.com.br/trafico-igrejas-evangelicas-e-intolerancia-religiosa/">some analysts</a>, this theological interpretation is just thinly veiled religious discrimination. </p>
<p>Still, parishioners – including a handful of drug kingpins who control favelas across Rio – are heeding the call to arms. For these evangelical criminals, Candomblé and Umbanda are Satan’s work, and they must be stamped out, one terreiro at a time.</p>
<p>Fernandinho Guarabu, a 38-year-old don in Rio’s <a href="http://tudo-sobre.estadao.com.br/terceiro-comando-puro">Terceiro Comando Puro gang</a>, is an example. Sporting a tattoo of Jesus Christ, Guarabu is <a href="https://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/traficante-mais-antigo-no-poder-no-rio-guarabu-garante-liberdade-com-olheiros-e-propina-a-pms-da-ilha-diz-policia.ghtml">known for violently “cleansing”</a> his community – the Morro do Dendê favela – of practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.rj.gov.br/web/imprensa/exibeconteudo?article-id=4285777">state hotline dedicated to tracking religious intolerance</a>, more than 30 terreiros were destroyed in fewer than 20 days during September 2017, and reports of religious discrimination have increased 119 percent since 2015. </p>
<p>Adherents of Afro-Brazilian religions living in gang-controlled areas report personal harassment, too. Followers are often prohibited from practicing their faith, and people caught wearing the religious garb of Candomblé and Umbanda may be expelled from the community. </p>
<p>According to representatives of a newly launched <a href="http://ccir.org.br/">Commission on Combating Religious Intolerance</a>, drug traffickers are responsible for a sizable number of these cases. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"793827776058896384"}"></div></p>
<h2>The prison-to-church pipeline</h2>
<p>A small group of evangelical preachers in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas may have inspired these anti-Candomblé and Umbanda crusades, but the problem escalated in prisons. </p>
<p>A decade-long war on drugs has fueled <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-war-on-drugs-fuels-deadly-prison-riots-in-brazil-67337">mass incarceration</a>. Brazil’s overcrowded state prisons are essentially <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/opinion/brazils-deadly-prison-system.html">governed by one of two competing drug trafficking organizations</a> with the government only nominally in control. </p>
<p>Gangs have long <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/17/brazils-prison-massacres-are-a-frightening-window-into-gang-warfare/?utm_term=.caf8689bc967">recruited their rank and file from prisons</a>, and incarcerated members stay busy organizing trafficking and racketeering businesses. </p>
<p>Faith groups, too, have <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-drugs-church/brazil-evangelicals-seek-drug-gangs-lost-souls-idUSN0132664320080915">a long tradition of working with prisoners</a>. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/world/americas/turning-to-religion-in-prison-brazilian-ends-up-on-other-side-of-the-bars.html">Universal Church</a> and <a href="http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story5485-55-inmates-baptized-in-brazilian-prison">Seventh Day Adventists</a>, among others, run programs in those same prisons, from drug treatment to restorative justice. </p>
<p>Previously, these <a href="http://carceraria.org.br/tag/igreja-catolica">ministries</a> were <a href="http://www.fbac.org.br/index.php/en/realidade-atual/map-of-the-apacs-in-brazil">predominantly Catholic</a>. Today, of the 100 faith-based organizations subcontracted to run social programs in prisons, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/if-i-give-my-soul-9780190238995?cc=us&lang=en&">81 are evangelical churches</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, Charismatic Christianity has spread quickly through the criminal justice system. Jailhouse conversions are common. Evangelized inmates are frequently housed in separate prison wings that <a href="https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/137508/Johnson_umn_0130E_13041.pdf?sequence=1">stand out for their order and cleanliness</a>. Some have even <a href="http://www.researchonreligion.org/church-organization/andrew-johnson-on-pentecostals-in-prison-in-brazil">established their own ministries</a> inside jail.</p>
<h1>Life in Baixada Fluminense</h1>
<p>For drug kingpins, developing positive relationships with local Rio pastors while in jail can tighten their grip on power once released. </p>
<p>Converted traffickers control many of the city’s favelas, but the violent heartland of evangelical trafficking is Baixada Fluminense, a sprawl of townships in Rio’s poor northern outskirts. </p>
<p>Over the past century, the area has seen <a href="http://puc-riodigital.com.puc-rio.br/Texto/Desafios-2015/Explosao-demografica%2C-o-grande-no-da-Regiao-Metropolitana-25497.html#.WfKEnFtSyUk">waves of migration</a> from Brazil’s north and northeast, where Afro-Brazilian religions prosper. Baixada Fluminense is now home to at least 253 <a href="http://www.nima.puc-rio.br/images/MAPCMRA-RJ/TEXTOS/Cartilha%20Mapeamento%20com%20codigo.pdf">Candomblé and Umbanda terreiros</a>, more than any other municipality in the state. </p>
<p>The Baixada Fluminense is also one of Rio’s most dangerous corners. Murder rates have fallen slightly across most of the city over the past decade, but not in Baixada Fluminense. According to the <a href="http://www.isp.rj.gov.br/">Institute for Public Security</a> 1,486 of a total 4,197 reported homicides in the state so far in 2017 occurred in Baixada Fluminense.</p>
<p>Described by locals as a “Wild West,” the area is home to <a href="https://apublica.org/2017/09/a-baixada-fluminense-e-invisivel/">famously corrupt public officials</a> who have long worked with <a href="http://bandnewsfmrio.band.uol.com.br/editorias-detalhes/mp-denuncia-milicianos-da-baixada-fluminense">militia and mafia groups</a> to intimidate their rivals. This practice – called “coronelismo,” or patronage – allows drug traffickers, evangelical or otherwise, to operate with impunity.</p>
<h2>Fighting back</h2>
<p>Rio de Janeiro state officials are taking note of this worrying new strain of violence. In the wake of attacks on Afro-Brazilian terreiros in Nova Igaçu, a municipality in Baixada Fluminense, the <a href="http://www.rj.gov.br/web/sedhmi/exibeconteudo?article-id=4258439">Joint Commission to Support Victims of Attacks on Religious Institutions</a> was launched. </p>
<p>Working alongside a <a href="http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/direitos-humanos/noticia/2017-08/rio-tera-delegacia-especializada-para-combater-crimes-raciais-e">newly established task force</a> dedicated to tackling racial crimes and intolerance, the state commission aims to map religious violence and resolve outstanding cases, including those involving evangelical drug traffickers. It will also make recommendations to prevent violence in the name of God.</p>
<p>People of faith are fighting back, too. In September 2017, some 50,000 people joined Rio’s <a href="http://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/rio-de-janeiro,marcha-no-rio-pede-liberdade-religiosa,70002005117">10th annual walk for religious freedom</a>, the largest gathering since the procession’s inception. The iconic Copacabana beach was packed with evangelicals, Catholics, Baha'i, Buddhists, Jews, Hari Krishnas and others – all dressed in white and marching in solidarity with Afro-Brazilians. </p>
<p>In Brazil’s religious diversity, there is conflict, yes, but unity, too.</p>
<p><em>Dandara Tinoco helped to report this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Muggah is the co-founder of the Igarapé Institute (Brazil) and the SecDev Foundation (Canada). Both organizations are impartial, non-partisan and research focused. Each receives funding support from bilateral agencies and foundations. All relevant information is available on the websites of these institutions. </span></em></p>As hard-line Pentecostalism spreads across Brazil, some drug traffickers in gang-controlled areas of Rio de Janeiro are using religion as an excuse to attack nonbelievers.Robert Muggah, Associate Lecturer, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/863502017-11-01T10:18:32Z2017-11-01T10:18:32ZHow Martin Luther gave us the roots of the Protestant work ethic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192698/original/file-20171031-18693-m1uhea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">William de Brailes, circa 1250AD</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The posting of 95 theses is not the only act for which Martin Luther is famed. In 1522, he began the work that would last a lifetime: translating the Bible. This was not a neutral act. If we can trace <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-martin-luthers-reformation-tells-us-about-history-and-memory-85058">society’s influence on tales of his theses’ posting</a>, we can also see similar factors at work as Luther deliberated over what a German Bible should say.</p>
<p>Luther’s was not the first German Bible translation. When he translated the New Testament, there were already <a href="http://www.ionasword.net/2017/08/16/bibles-on-the-net-1/">18 German Bibles in print</a>. What was different about Luther’s text? Partly the source – older Bibles were based on the <a href="https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-jerome-the-bible-translator/">traditional Latin text attributed to Jerome</a> (circa 400AD). Inspired by humanist scholars such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/erasmus.shtml">Erasmus</a>, Luther translated from Greek and Hebrew – the original biblical languages. </p>
<p>He was also determined to communicate God’s word in a way that would strike people afresh. Like <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_tyndale/">William Tyndale</a> in English, Luther coined new words and deliberately reworded well-known texts. Christians who had been used to “Ave Maria” (Hail Mary) now heard an angel give her “Greetings”. A natural translation, Luther argued, would be simply “Liebe”, that is “Dear…” Mary. </p>
<p>But Luther well knew that in rewording this New Testament dialogue, he was undermining centuries of “Hail Mary” penance. Jesus’ command to repent – “poenitentiam agite” – interpreted in the medieval church as “do penance” through ritual actions, provided the starting point for Luther’s 95 theses, because of his distaste for indulgences, which he saw as a corrupt form of repentance. In Luther’s view this – and the notion that Jesus’ mother had power over Christians’ destiny – were flawed.</p>
<h2>A new understanding</h2>
<p>If the changes Luther introduced were sometimes visibly doctrinal, there were other concerns at work, too. Translating the Bible into everyday language involved deciding how to frame a text that would shape everyday life.</p>
<p>Though the New Testament was complete in 1522, a full Wittenberg edition of Luther’s Bible did not appear until 1534. By that point, other reformers – most notably <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Huldrych-Zwingli">Ulrich Zwingli</a> and colleagues in Zurich – had completed alternative translations from the original languages. </p>
<p>Why were they ahead? Luther’s work seems to have stalled in 1525. That year, tens of thousands died during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Peasants-War">German Peasants’ War</a>, an uprising prompted in large part by the notion that the Bible (and God) supported the cause of the lowliest in society. In the aftermath, Luther became more reticent about <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/650697">who should read the Bible and when</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence of this rethinking can be seen in the book of Ruth, the story of a widow who emigrates with her widowed mother-in-law, marries Boaz – a relative of her late husband – and so becomes the great grandmother of King David. Luther first translated this short Hebrew text in 1524, revising it very slightly for a 1525 reprint (the speed of reprinting is itself an indication of how eagerly his work was received). </p>
<h2>Ruth: the ‘proper’ woman</h2>
<p>By 1540, Luther was once again revising the Bible. This time he worked with a team of colleagues. The records of this work include notes taken by one of the team and marginal annotations that Luther himself made in a copy of the Bible, along with the published revision. They got to Ruth on April 7 1540. There was not much to edit here, but <a href="http://www.ionasword.net/2017/04/19/watching-luther/">Ruth 2:7</a> presented a particular challenge.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192701/original/file-20171031-18686-xwra5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original text of the story of Ruth in Luther’s translation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Luther University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars today are uncertain <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1517346">how to fit together the last Hebrew words of this verse</a>, which are: “this”, “rest” (or “stay”), “the house” and “little”. The landowner (Boaz) has asked his harvest manager about a strange young woman (Ruth). The manager’s answer seems staccato, words piled together without due grammatical attention. <a href="http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=jewishstudies_papers">Some have suggested</a> this is stylistic – that we are meant to imagine the manager stammering his response.</p>
<p>Ruth has arrived at the field, hoping to gather leftover grain after the harvesters. But has she been stood waiting for an answer, an example of patience? Was she on the verge of giving up and going home, heightening the drama of Boaz’s sudden arrival? Can Boaz see her sitting indoors? One scholar traced 18 different ways of translating the passage, gathering together <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1517346">Greek, French, English and German</a> texts through to the present day.</p>
<p>The 1540 records show Luther and his fellows agreeing first that Ruth is a “fromm” – that is a “proper” or “pious”, woman. This opinion intrudes upon the biblical text in chapter one, and recurs as a remark on <a href="https://archive.org/stream/werkediedeutsche03luthuoft#page/364/mode/2up">Ruth 2:10</a>. Right after that note, the discussion turns back to verse 7: “Her stay in the house is little”, the minute-taker writes in Latin. “A comment on her habits”. In Luther’s own handwriting we learn that Ruth is not like other women, accustomed to lounging around at home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192702/original/file-20171031-18686-1odag73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sleeping Venus: how artists in Luther’s day were inclined to picture women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Midway through this remark, he switches from Latin – the language of scholarly discourse – to the language of his target audience. In the <a href="http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00096751/image_310">printed German Bible of 1541</a> and its successors, the whole sentence appears in the margin.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192685/original/file-20171031-18711-joq8uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luther’s marginalia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Difficult Hebrew words are taken out of context and turned into a commentary upon her whole character. Luther is convinced that Ruth is a decent woman. The textual uncertainty is determined by her model status: modelling the best of possible female behaviour.</p>
<p>In Ruth, the ready and willing worker, we sense the beginnings of what Weber would term the <a href="https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2013/SOC571E/um/_Routledge_Classics___Max_Weber-The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism__Routledge_Classics_-Routledge__2001_.pdf">Protestant work ethic</a>. That ethic is normally associated with the later Reformer, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestant-ethic">John Calvin</a>, whose teaching about predestination created an anxiety that drove Protestants to ensure they spent their time well. But in the margins of the 1541 Luther Bible and its successors, we can see that concern already at hand. Good women should not be idle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iona C Hine is director of 500 Reformations, a not-for-profit initiative at the University of Sheffield disseminating research about Luther, Reformation and its aftermath. </span></em></p>As well as his 95 Theses, Luther took on the awesome challenge of a new German translation of the Bible in which he set out to challenge both doctrinal and social beliefs.Iona C Hine, Researcher in English and Biblical Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851972017-10-31T09:52:23Z2017-10-31T09:52:23ZLuther’s musical legacy is the Reformation’s unsung achievement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191443/original/file-20171023-1717-134stdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=64%2C5%2C3819%2C2276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-view-organist-playing-pipe-organ-735416491?src=8ww7MugciSpY9-Sc_uq2Dg-1-24">JohnKruger/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five hundred years ago this month, Martin Luther triggered what would become the Protestant Reformation with a document protesting corruption in the Catholic Church. At its heart, his Reformation was a movement about the nature of sin and the means of salvation; about the power of the church versus the authority of scripture. But it also helped to shape modern religion in other, more unexpected ways: one of these was through the birth of congregational song.</p>
<p>By the 15th century, music had become one of the most prominent features of religious worship. Most parish churches had <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false">at least one organ and a small semi-professional choir</a>; these modest resources were dwarfed by the great cathedrals and monasteries. The singing of <a href="https://youtu.be/bI2WazTO0iw">complex polyphonic music</a>, where the voices of singers weaved elaborately together, had become an important means of praising and serving God. </p>
<p>Even within the medieval church, this elaborate music had had its critics. In 1325, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H8e78zaI8YoC&lpg=PA195&ots=r9oENLIMx4&dq=pope%20john%20xxii%20edict%20music&pg=PA193#v=onepage&q&f=false">Pope John XXII issued a decree</a> criticising musicians who “intoxicate the ear without satisfying it”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bI2WazTO0iw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/aeh6713.0001.001/257:AEH6713.0001.001:12?page=root;size=100;view=image">Writing later</a> in the 14th century, the Oxford theologian whose writings inspired the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/lollards_01.shtml">English “Lollard” heresy</a>, John Wycliffe, wrote that the more time men spent singing, the less they observed God’s law. On the eve of the Reformation, the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus complained that the people were <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false">three times removed</a> from the music of the church, by dint of its use of Latin, complicated musical style, and non-participation.</p>
<h2>Waxing lyrical</h2>
<p>In large part, the Reformation sought to banish what it saw as the ritual excess of the late-medieval church. The Swiss reformer Huldreich Zwingli, a talented musician, had <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false">the organs of Zurich dismantled</a> and its choirs disbanded. The Frenchman Jean Calvin restricted religious music in his adopted home of Geneva to the unaccompanied singing of the biblical Book of Psalms. This <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hrBZ9npRAHEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA121#v=onepage&q&f=false">“metrical psalmody”</a> was also popular in England, although in cathedrals there, organs and choirs continued to prosper with the support of Elizabeth I. </p>
<p>Even the Catholic Church sought to <a href="https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct22.html">regulate music to some degree at the Council of Trent</a>. A (likely false) story persists that it was only the beauty of <a href="https://youtu.be/BRfF7W4El60">Palestrina’s <em>Missa Papae Marcelli</em></a> that stopped the council banning polyphony from the church altogether.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BRfF7W4El60?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the midst of this challenging environment, Luther’s love of music rings loud, clear and true. In the <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/tabletalk.v.xxxix.html"><em>Tischreden</em></a>, the record of his mealtime conversations, Luther proclaimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always loved music; whoso has skill in this art, is of a good temperament, fitted for all things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He argued that schoolmasters and preachers ought to be skilled in music, “or I would not regard him”. The Reformation was in part born out of Luther’s struggles with his own conscience and sense of sin. There is a ring of personal truth about his claim that music was: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The best solace for a sad and sorrowful mind; by it the heart is refreshed and settled again at peace.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Luther waxed most lyrical about the power of music in the <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/conversions/files/2014/09/Luther-Preface-to-Symphoniae-iucundae.pdf">foreword to Georg Rhau’s <em>Symphoniae iucundae</em></a> (“Delightful Symphonies”, 1538), addressed “to the devotees of music”. In it, he praised music as “the excellent gift of God”, “instilled and implanted” in all creatures “from the beginning of the world”. Any man or woman not touched by the power of music, he wrote with characteristic earthiness, deserved to hear nothing else but “the music of the pigs”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191715/original/file-20171024-30577-1kfmu4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All together now…</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowamateur/8329857232/in/photolist-dG5Gm9-iihLN1-34Ydj3-rqWKtN-niGeJF-ndYEBf-c5YU9m-e8m1E6-niGgHG-pyjFuM-fpY2dM-4uXAQV-6vTK22-8niUXH-j185VM-niGgFN-rt7Zvt-afF579-9kSLBv-62p2Qa-7njY4J-jDmLmz-pyTn6C-qUFDDk-SeVcZY-mD34rB-e8m1CT-ny986J-mD4caG-niGfx7-boLVrB-a6ncMu-niGh4y-nAbMd8-niGexw-nzTQQt-nzTQyB-acZ7Pm-fvtPwA-niG6AD-ny98Eu-nAbMA2-nAc4c1-nAc5jb-ny98r3-niGf5y-2KtnK-ceKuML-nBXPhR-dbvHUG">Charles Clegg/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Praise be to hymn</h2>
<p>Luther’s reformation therefore integrated the simple unison plainchant and complex polyphony of the Catholic Church into his new Protestant liturgy almost wholesale. However, Luther also brought significant change, through the introduction of the congregational singing of vernacular psalms and hymns. People had sung religious music before of course – many Christmas carols have medieval origins. But never before had the people played an active, musical role in church services. </p>
<p>This was a democratisation of one of the most popular and emotive dimensions of religious worship, and a powerful weapon in the Reformation’s battle for hearts and minds.</p>
<p>By allowing composers to write original lyrics, rather than just setting the words of scripture, Lutheran hymns could also communicate new religious doctrines. The most famous hymn of Luther’s own composition was <a href="https://youtu.be/uI7QMtXBLgY"><em>Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott</em></a> (A Mighty Fortress is our God). The second verse reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing…</em></p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uI7QMtXBLgY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The message was clear: mankind could not rely on their own good works; salvation came from God alone.</p>
<p>In 1620, the German Jesuit Adam Contzen remarked that Luther had converted more souls with his hymns than with all his books and sermons. Whatever else we make of Luther’s Reformation, it is clear that he gave the world a musical gift which continues to resound in the present day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Willis works for University of Birmingham and has received funding from the ARHB (2005-6), ARHC (2006-9) and the Leverhulme Trust (2010-13).</span></em></p>In the great reformer’s eyes, if you didn’t love a rousing tune you deserved only “the music of the pigs”.Jonathan Willis, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852372017-10-25T09:51:21Z2017-10-25T09:51:21ZGermany commemorates the birth of the Reformation in art, song and Playmobil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190903/original/file-20171018-32378-1l8yftz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C6%2C1943%2C1315&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/33421022256/in/photolist-SVitxE-QDjEvm-LF1XxJ-MMCrF1">Nick Thompson/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Germany will shortly enjoy a national holiday to celebrate a moment that tore Europe apart. In Wittenberg, <a href="https://lutherstadt-wittenberg.de/en/">a small town in Saxony-Anhalt</a>, politicians and church leaders will gather to take part in a commemorative service at the Castle Church. There, 500 years ago, Martin Luther supposedly nailed up his 95 theses against indulgences, challenging the pope’s authority to grant remission from punishment for sin.</p>
<p>Whether or not Luther actually nailed anything to the church door remains <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses">a matter of debate</a>. But his list of objections to the practices of the Roman Church, alongside his subsequent writings, without doubt set in train a series of events that led to the splintering of western Christendom.</p>
<p>Luther’s Reformation has always played a prominent part in German commemorative culture. Already in 1617, the anniversary of the 95 theses was marked with great solemnity in Lutheran areas of the Holy Roman Empire, against a backdrop of religious and political tensions that led, less than a year later, to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Thirty-Years-War">the outbreak of the Thirty Years War</a>. Each subsequent centenary has been given a particular flavour by its immediate historical context. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191175/original/file-20171020-22940-1upwhmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A commemorative medal from 1617.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.museum-digital.de/bawue/singleimage.php?objektnum=2916&imagenr=13243">Landesmuseum Württemberg</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Through the centuries</h2>
<p>In 1817, Luther provided a focal point for the aspirations of a German nation in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1917, during World War I, numerous festivities and a flood of images and texts celebrated Luther as the embodiment of the German spirit. He was paired with Bismarck, and held up as an inspiration for every German during the nation’s ongoing <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/wiki/anniversary/from-the-reformation-until-today-politics-on-luthers-back/">struggle for honour and power</a>.</p>
<p>Commemorations of Luther’s birthday augmented these Reformation centenaries. In 1983, for example, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) celebrated Luther as a socialist champion, a progressive force who contributed, in the words of the East German leader, Erich Honecker: “To progress, to the development of world culture.”</p>
<p>In 2017, October 31 will mark the culmination of a whole decade of <a href="https://www.luther2017.de/en/2017/luther-decade/">quincentenary festivities</a>. There have been around 10,000 individual events, ranging from <a href="https://www.3xhammer.de/de/">three major national exhibitions</a> in Berlin, Wittenberg and Eisenach to numerous smaller commemorations organised by individual states, towns and local communities. </p>
<p>These have provided an opportunity to attract tourists, in particular to Luther sites such as Wittenberg and Eisleben (where the reformer was born and died) that languished in obscurity under the GDR. They have also offered an important chance to explain to a broad public not only the Reformation’s historical outlines but also its contemporary relevance. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190896/original/file-20171018-32382-vyiw0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luther’s statue dominates the main square in Wittenberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wittenberg-germany-nov-4-main-square-205855486?src=BKAymTSoSQCfmX0Q2r2laQ-1-58">gary yim/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the 2017 anniversary has attracted its fair share of criticism. Sceptics have spoken of <a href="http://www.mdr.de/tv/programm/sendung760202.html">“Luther veneration” and of “Luther hype”</a>. Federal and state subsidies – taxpayers’ euros – have flowed into a commemoration in which the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has played a central role. That has seemed, to some, inappropriate. The co-financing of the EKD’s 2017 ecumenical Kirchentag (Church Assembly) has proved <a href="http://www.mz-web.de/wittenberg/finanzierung-so-teuer-ist-der-evangelische-kirchentag---und-so-wird-er-bezahlt-26975524">particularly controversial</a>.</p>
<p>From a historian’s perspective, much of the anniversary rhetoric has <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21713843-500th-anniversary-95-theses-finds-country-moralistic-ever-how-martin-luther-has?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/nailedithowmartinlutherhasshapedgermanyforhalfamillennium">reanimated outdated narratives</a> about how “one great man transformed the world” and about the Reformation as the birthplace of modernity. In the US, for example, the public broadcaster PBS <a href="http://www.pbs.org/program/martin-luther-idea-changed-world/">anachronistically attributed to Luther’s Reformation</a> a drive towards freedom of religion and women’s rights. </p>
<p>In 2017, the “dark side” of the Reformation, in particular Luther’s anti-Semitism, has been discussed more thoroughly than ever before, but still, a primary focus on Luther as the harbinger of individual freedom has left relatively little space for public discussion of his social conservatism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190897/original/file-20171018-32348-emm0e5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Berlin: a cardboard sculpture of a naked Martin Luther challenged his anti-semitism in May 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/FELIPE TRUEBA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Immortalised in plastic</h2>
<p>What, then, will remain from the 2017 centenary? The best answer is probably the rejuvenation of Wittenberg, and the costly but necessary renovation and restoration of Reformation sites throughout eastern Germany. </p>
<p>The EKD’s extensive programme of outreach, its determination to facilitate reflection and discussion though workshops, exhibitions and less formal events, will certainly have touched many individuals, both Christian and non-Christian.</p>
<p>For public consumption, Luther’s relatively uncontroversial role as a translator of scripture has been highlighted: the first thing to greet the visitor to Wittenberg is a <a href="https://r2017.org/neuigkeiten/beitrag/einzeleintritt-fuer-buchturm/">27-meter tower in the form of a bible</a>. Luther <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/18/the-reformation-classical-musics-punk-moment?CMP=share_btn_tw">was himself a gifted musician</a>, and the hymns that he wrote played an important part in spreading the evangelical message. The musical heritage of the Reformation, with Johann Sebastian Bach as its apogee, <a href="http://www.wittenberg.de/magazin/artikel.php?artikel=1079&menuid=1">has proved to have particular appeal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190901/original/file-20171018-32345-19bfijn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Getting their hands on the best selling Playmobil figure of all time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwf_eleventh_assembly/27512614673/in/photolist-HVckPp">The Lutheran World Federation/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Reformation historians, the catalogues from the three national exhibitions alone comprise 1,500 pages of excellent images and analysis. There are numerous new Luther biographies, the best of which neither idolise nor vilify the reformer, but give a rounded picture of him as a thinker and as an individual: an exceptional figure, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gh/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/gerhis/ghx045">but also a product of his time</a>. </p>
<p>With a little distance, we will have another Reformation anniversary to analyse, another milestone of German commemorative culture to mine for what it tells us about Protestant identity. And perhaps best of all, thanks to Playmobil, many of us who study the period now have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/feb/18/martin-luther-playmobil-figure-sold-34000-in-72-hours">at least one little plastic Luther</a>, complete with quill pen and Bible, on our desks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bridget Heal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Martin Luther has always given the country a chance to examine itself. Half a millennium on, the picture is more complex than ever.Bridget Heal, Director of the Reformation Studies Institute, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851962017-10-24T08:43:06Z2017-10-24T08:43:06ZThe man who gave us the Reformation – and it wasn’t Martin Luther<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191588/original/file-20171024-30605-1aoyrf0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> </figcaption></figure><p>When Martin Luther <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-posts-95-theses">published his 95 theses</a> 500 years ago this month, so the story goes, his general target was the corruption of the church. But he also had a very particular organisation in his sights. By October 1517, the extraordinary reach and power of the Fugger banking family was threatening not only the integrity of religion, but the very foundations of European society. </p>
<p>If Luther’s words provided the spark for the Reformation, it was the Fuggers who provided much of the fuel.</p>
<p>Originally cloth merchants based in Augsburg, Germany, the Fuggers moved on from dressing aristocratic weddings to lining aristocratic pockets. It was a move that brought a corresponding rise to power and notoriety. The family’s success during the latter years of the 15th century brought them lucrative business with the Hapsburgs, the Austro-Hungarian family whose lands extended across Europe and who supplied a succession of Holy Roman Emperors for four centuries.</p>
<p>The man responsible for this diversification of the family business was Jakob Fugger and the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vuAE8CC7JOAC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=siegmund+fugger+loan+23,627&source=bl&ots=BWN5zRMep2&sig=yCnegTh6HbkK2U0jsHSMj7G845g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNgpaJvPrWAhVrLMAKHUiACrEQ6AEIPjAD#v=onepage&q=siegmund%20fugger%20loan%2023%2C627&f=false">first transaction was a loan</a> of 23,627 florins to Siegmund, Archduke of Tyrol, in 1487. The loan was significant in establishing a binding relationship with powerful people. More practically, the loan was secured with a mortgage on the archduke’s prize Schwaz silver mines. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191172/original/file-20171020-23000-h9qzfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Collateral damage?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silver-bullion-on-red-wood-selective-714019189?src=W7P_oFnr9-85m8_zh5zz0A-1-69">VladKK/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Power games</h2>
<p>This arrangement meant that if Siegmund was unable to meet his repayments, the Fuggers would simply get paid in bullion. The highly profitable and risk-free nature of this arrangement led the Fuggers to quickly develop it elsewhere. <a href="http://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4162">By the turn of the 16th century</a> they controlled the <a href="https://www.tyrol.com/things-to-do/attractions/all-attractions/a-schwaz-silver-mine">whole of the Schwaz production</a>, owned their own silver mines in Tyrol and Carinthia and were quickly muscling in on Hungarian copper production. </p>
<p>The Fuggers developed close personal as well as business connections with the aristocracy. They married themselves into some of the most powerful families in Europe – particularly the Thurzo of Austria – and loaned heavily to the rest. Clients included Henry VIII of England, Charles V of Spain and the German Emperor Maximillian I. The latter proved particularly lucrative, helpfully combining overweening (and therefore expensive) military and political ambitions with what the economist Richard Ehrenberg claimed was a reputation as “the worst manager of all the Hapsburgs”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191173/original/file-20171020-22945-144l75q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stamp of authority.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DBP_1959_307_Jakob_Fugger.jpg">NobbiP/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So much money was gained through their various businesses that by the turn of the 16th century Jakob <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21660074-not-nothing-was-jacob-fugger-known-jacob-rich-goldenballs">was known simply as “The Rich”</a>.</p>
<p>Having spent his early years in and around the silver mines of the Harz Mountains where his father was a master smelter, Luther would have been acutely aware of the Fugger’s interests in metal. But it was their mining of religion that incurred his wrath in 1517. </p>
<h2>‘Indulge me’</h2>
<p>The Roman Curia – the central administrative body of the Catholic Church – demanded high fees from those achieving high office. The intersection of ecclesiastical, family, and financial structures in the Holy Roman Empire allowed those with the means to hold multiple positions of power, all of them lucrative. So while it was important that the Princes of the Church be good and pious men, they also needed a lot of ready cash. </p>
<p>When Albrecht of Brandenburg was appointed Elector of Mainz in 1514, he had to raise 21,000 ducats to pay the Curia. Albrecht was already a powerful man: he held several other ecclesiastical offices. But even he did not have the means for such high fees. So he borrowed it from the Fuggers at interest – the latter described by convention at the time as a fee for “trouble, danger and, expense”.</p>
<p>To provide himself with an income to repay all this, Albrecht paid an additional 10,000 ducats to secure from Pope Leo X the right to administer the recently announced “Jubilee Indulgences” designed to pay for work on St Paul’s Basilica in Rome.</p>
<p>Indulgences claimed to offer the purchaser reductions in the time spent by loved ones in Purgatory. They had been a controversial church practice for centuries. Luther was not the first to condemn indulgences – many regarded them as heretical – but the audacity of Albrecht’s corruption as he sought to pay back Jakob Fugger gave his words greater force. </p>
<p>Albrecht’s appointed Pardoner – <a href="https://reformation500.csl.edu/bio/johannes-tetzel/">Johann Tetzel</a> – was accompanied at all times by an agent of the Fugger. The agent held the key to the Indulgence chest and when it was full, it was the agent that took the contents. Half went to the Fugger agent in Rome to pay off the Curia, half to Augsburg to pay off Albrecht’s loans. Luther’s comparison of such antics to the biblical story of Christ driving the moneychangers from the Temple, was too obviously legitimate to ignore. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191174/original/file-20171020-22976-1hbprvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luca Giordano: Expulsion of the Moneychangers from the Temple.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=moneychangers+temple&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=ca7rys2wcn7o8ay49d3641sy6#/media/File:Luca_Giordano_-_Expulsion_of_the_Moneychangers_from_the_Temple_-_WGA9007.jpg">Luca Giordano/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anti-capitalist</h2>
<p>In short, it was the abuse of money and power that gave us the reformation. And debt was at the very heart of it. It is a familiar tale. The Fugger family’s fortunes eventually waned from these extraordinary heights, but they set the tone for a distinctly “capitalist” form of banking – one that endured. </p>
<p>The rapid spread of modern accounting practices, the rock-solid security of their metal-backed loan business, and their ruthless manipulation of markets made the Fuggers a formidable mercantile power. Later banking dynasties used similar techniques – <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/updates/history-rothschild-family/">particularly the Rothschilds</a> – but none have equalled their power or notoriety. Jakob “The Rich” is still reckoned to be the single wealthiest person ever to have lived. Just how wealthy we will never know. According to <a href="http://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4162">Fugger historian Mark Häberlein</a>, Jakob anticipated the practices of modern day plutocrats by striking a deal with the Augsburg tax authorities in 1516. In exchange for an annual lump sum, the family’s true wealth would not be disclosed. </p>
<p>Luther’s intervention was a response to the corrosive effects of greed and corruption. It may have provoked an epochal schism in society and centuries of associated religious warfare, but it barely dented the rise of capital. The Fuggers and their successors thrived in the chaos of the Reformation. It is entirely feasible to position Luther, as much as anything, as an early anti-capitalist. It is not without irony then that a few centuries later, the historian Max Weber would associate the “Protestant Ethic” with the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/protestantethics00webe/protestantethics00webe_djvu.txt">“Spirit of Capital”</a>. That would leave Luther spinning in his grave.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angus Cameron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Meet Jakob Fugger, the man who underwrote the ambition of power-hungry medieval Princes.Angus Cameron, Associate Professor, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.