using the readings, please complete test 1450 PS. there is also a book that i will pass onto you once you download the rest of the class readings

Religion both adopts and resists media change.

New media can provide locations for emerging religion.

Religious practitioners are often unreflective about the implications of the media and thus unprepared for the way they reshape faith and practice.

The relationships between media, religion, and culture are mutual. Neither media, religion, nor culture isfixed; moreover, they are each changed through their interactions with one another. As we have seen in earlier chapters, this connection between media, religion, and culture is not a new development.

Religion has always been mediated, and it is inseparable from the forms of its mediation. To say we are studying religionandmedia is only to make explicit our awareness of this inevitable connection. Our subject matter is rightly the entire history of religion in its multiple mediations.

Through religion people seek to relate to the ineffable, to something beyond culturally limited human experience. Yet humans cannot stand outside our own historical and culturalfinitude to observe religion at work. We see religion as it is expressed in particular cultural mediations.Thisprocessisparticularlyevident when new forms of communication emerge, providing new locations for the reli- gious imagination. Language, the capacity to make images and art, the development of systems of writing, the growth of literacy, and the emergence of technologies such as the printing press, radio, TV, andfilm did more than expand the range of messages. These forms of expression enabled new ways of being human and, through emerging forms of media, individuals and cultures found new ways to relate to and articulate that ineffable something beyond their experience. Locating religion in the digital age The most recent media revolution has been the digitalization of image and information, the emergence of the Internet, and the rise of various forms of social media. As with past media revolutions, various questions arise. What does religion look like in the midst of this monumental shift? How do individuals, movements, and institutions adapt to the new communications technologies that rapidly divide text and image into infinitely variable building blocks, create new “spaces ”and relationships, and allow data to be sampled, edited, and reorganized with a click of the mouse? What sort of persons and societies are we becoming, and what forms of religious practice are emerging that speak of the ine ffable sacred in these new media spaces? Where shall we look for vibrant examples of religion at work in digital culture? Chapter 2explored the way that contemporary religious practice has become individualized and focused on the self rather than on the life of organized reli- gious communities. The chapter expounded on the idea that the contemporary religious project, at least for people in the United States and Europe, is one of individual identity construction (Hoover 2006). It looked at the ways that, in a period in which many describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious, ” individuals construct their religious identities, often by drawing on ideas and practices from multiple sources. Religion scholar Sarah Pike suggests that religion is more fully understood when it is examined at the margins of society. Her interests are wide ranging.

She studies the practices of groups ranging from Muslim punks to Neopagans.

Pike re flects on the con flicts and accommodations that Hmong immigrants to the United States make to integrate both traditional shamanic practice and fundamentalist Christianity in their religious lives. Pike says that signi ficant religious activity takes place in “other spaces ”including “alternative religions on the internet, shrines and altars in unexpected places, backyard and roadside religion, and music subcultures and festivals ”(Pike 2008: 171).

Chapter 4introduced the notion that many contemporary people draw their identity from networks of relationships that loosely connect them to multiple communities rather than by participating in a single core community. This suggests that organized religions and local religious communities such as mosques, temples, synagogues, and churches may become less important as they become only one part of the religious or spiritual network within which people move. The way that religion has become a matter of personal construction, per- formed at the margins of society or expressed in loose networks, draws our attention to signi ficant emerging patterns of religious practice and belief. This phenomenon, however, can mask the continued presence and in fluence of organized and institutionalized religion. This chapter looks at how established religious communities respond to media change.

Organized religion in the digital age The current status of organized religion in the world is more complex than a simple narrative of decline would suggest. It is true that in some parts of the world participation in organized religion has declined. But huge numbers of people worldwide still identify with some form of organized religion. The Pew Organized religion in the age of digital media 87 Research Center writes,“The world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030”(2011: 1). Hindus are generally recognized as the third largest religious community after Christians and Muslims and their numbers are thought to approach 1 billion people. In sections of Africa and in Latin America Pentecostal Christianity has seen huge growth. The picture in the northern hemisphere is mixed. Some regions have become more secular, but migration and other factors have also introduced new traditions in places where long-held religious practices have declined. The Nordic countries are an example of these changes: their populations are increasingly being described as secular, and once-dominant Christian practices have faded. Many immigrants to the region from Islamic cultures bring their religion with them, contesting this image of the secular state. A full picture of religion in the Nordic countries, and similar societies, requires attention to the rise of the secular and the resulting decline of particular traditions and practices. However, these changes must be considered in relationship to the way existing religions adapt and traditions new to the region emerge, and to the cultural tensions between these new tendencies.

Many people in a range of countries still affiliate with organized religion, so the study of religion and media needs to consider how those religious communities and their institutions respond to media change.

Adaptations to media change in American Christianity How do organized religious communities adapt to changing media environments?

How are they shaped by their adoption of, or resistance to, new media? Religious organizations make use of media for internal communication, to speak to the wider society about a variety of moral and civil issues, and as a setting for ritual practice. Religious identity becomes tied to these forms of expression, leading established religious communities to sometimes resist communication changes, fearing that new ways of communication will distort their message and alter their practice. This was evident in the suspicion of many established Christian groups of the development of television. They thought the form too insubstantial and impersonal for primary religious communication and thus largely left tele- vision to emerging religious groups. A similar thing may be happening with social media.

As early as the 1980s, in discussing the tendency of established religious leaders to resist new forms of media, Bible and media scholar Tom Boomershine cited the biblical account of the early sixth-century BCE ruler of Judah, King Jehoiakim, as an example of resistance to the power of religious media. The prophet Jeremiah confronts the presumably divinely appointed King, by reading aloud from the new media of the day, a scroll, recounting the prophet’s criticism of the king (Jeremiah 36:1–32). King Jehoiakim responds by burning the scroll and ordering the prophet’s arrest. Boomershine claims that most mainline American Christians similarly resist new media when they challenge their way of doing things, suggesting that they want to live in the print communications 88Religion in the midst of change world where American religious practices werefirst developed. He notes that religious communities that overcome this resistance and adapt successfully to media change increase their role in society, and cites the rise of British and American Methodism in the seventeenth century as due in part to their adap- tation to the changes in print technologies that allowed the cheap printing and distribution of pamphlets and song books (lectures and personal communication).

David Morgan’s more recent work on religious tracts further develops this history (1999). Such ideas are moving increasingly into public discourse. A 2011 article in the weekly magazineThe Economistwas titled“Social Media in the 16th Century: How Luther Went Viral.”The article’s author argues that five centuries before new media played a role in organizing and advancing the democratic uprisings in many Muslim nations that came to be called the Arab Spring, Martin Luther’s use of what could be called the“social media”of his day helped bring about the Protestant Reformation (Standage 2011).

Television and the consequence of adapting, or not adapting, to media change Previous media changes, such as from oral to written communication, or the invention of the printing press and the resulting spread of literacy, did more than accelerate the spread of existing religious messages. They reorganized practice, allowing new relationships to emerge, and in the process people developed new understandings of their religious beliefs and practices. The same process of resistance and adaptation is going on as established religions adapt to a changing media culture today.

Under pressure to adapt to new forms of media, religious communities have typically taken one of two approaches. Some assume that media are merely containers into which an unchanged message can be inserted. Thus they adopt new forms of media but with little attention to how their own practices, understandings, and assumptions change in the process. Others recognize that media change will lead to changes in their practices and understandings and, in order to defend the purity of forms of religion tied to the last media revolution, or to the forms of media common when their tradition emerged, they resist media change and are slow adopters of new forms of mediation. It is less common for religious leaders or communities to embrace new media technologies andbe reflective about how these changes may introduce new ways of relating, new religious practices, or alternative systems of religious authority.

The response of various groups of American Christians to the spread of televi- sion provides vibrant examples of these tendencies toward unreflective adaptation or resistance. Unlike nations like Great Britain, where television and radio were developed as public systems, in the United States they developed primarily as commercial enterprises. The airwaves themselves, however, were understood to be a public resource, and broadcasters were granted license to use them in ways that, at least in theory, served the interest of the viewing public. Although broadcasters interpreted“the public good”and the values of their communities Organized religion in the age of digital media89 in a variety of ways, norms arose that television broadcasters would cover the news and provide some form of public service programming. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established that religious programming was one appropriate form of public service broadcasting.

To meet their obligation for public service, commercial stations began to donate difficult-to-sell Sunday morning airtime for religious broadcasting. The programming was produced by already established and dominant religious groups who were assumed to articulate widely shared religious values. Typically they did this relatively inexpensively in production space made available by the networks or local stations at little or no cost. The National Council of Chur- ches (a federation of the then“mainline”Protestant denominations), the Roman Catholic Church, and to a lesser extent liberal Jewish groups produced public affairs programming with a religious focus and children’s programs, and broadcast worship services, thus effectively controlling this religious space. The assumption of these groups was that these programs were supplemental to face- to-face congregational worship. In fact, one Roman Catholic program was called“Mass for Shut-ins,”signaling that it was suitable only for those who could not attend mass in the brick-and-mortar sanctuary of their local parish.

This established system of religious broadcasting began to be challenged in the 1960s. The FCC ruled that paid religious programming also met the obli- gation of stations to serve the needs of their communities. In the mid-1970s a process of deregulation began, expanded during the Reagan administration, which treated broadcasting more as a commercial enterprise than a public trust. Religious broadcasting itself became a commercial enterprise. The growth of cable television in the mid-1980s and’90s radically increased the number of outlets, making it increasingly practical for entrepreneurial religious groups to market their own programming or even create their own stations and networks.

As free public service opportunities died away in the face of deregulation, the primary response of the established religious groups to television outside their public service niche was one of suspicion. Confident of their place in society and suspicious that television could do the substantive work of religion, the established mainstream religious groups did not make the investments needed to continue broadcasting. Because they saw the media as something separate from religion and accepted the popular description of television as a“vast wasteland,”they saw their role as one of ethical critique. Through the National Council of Churches, they tended to support the development of media stan- dards and the regulation of what they understood to be television’s excesses.

Of course, the impact of television on American religious practice was not only seen in the content of the programming. For good or ill a television- oriented society operated under the expectation that people should be stimu- lated and entertained. Television encouraged multi-tasking and shortened attention spans. Dominant religious groups largely saw efforts to adapt to these cultural changes as an unfaithful acquiescence to popular culture and, at least subconsciously, resisted such changes. This resistance can be understood partly 90Religion in the midst of change in terms of social class. The dominant religious voices in the early television era were tied to the upper-middle class. They saw television as a lower-class activity, even if they watched it themselves. Their resistance also expressed a theological concern rooted in their recognition that media change, in con- junction with other forces, would lead to changes in religious practice, which in turn might lead to changes in belief.Evangelicals, in contrast, were much more entrepreneurial. The emergence of Evangelical broadcasting outside the public service ghetto is evidence of Evangelicals ’faster adaptation to media change. They seized the broadcasting opportunity created by a free market and this contributed to the growth of Evangelical Christianity in the United States and, as their programs were exported, the spread of Evangelicalism in the developing world. In the mean- time, the anxiety felt by once-dominant religious groups toward media change played a role in the decline of mainline Protestant authority. While the old mainline churches paid a price for failing to move into the new media culture, the readiness of Evangelicals to uncritically embrace tele- vision broadcasting was not without its costs. Inserting an unchanging religious message into a new form of mediation was not, it turned out, as easy as Evangelicals had assumed. With programs like Pat Robertson ’s “The 700 Club, ”Evangelicals embraced the talk-show format of the “Tonight Show, ” which was cheap to produce when compared with narrative television and allowed the host a clear voice of hierarchical authority (Figure 6.1). The makers of these shows seemed heedless, however, of the way that the values of the larger celebrity culture were embedded in the format they embraced. The hosts of such programs paraded a series of actors, musicians, politicians, and sports fi gures across the stage to legitimize Evangelical practice and belief. Preacher hosts like Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker became celebrities in their own right and often adopted the excesses and enti- tlements of celebrity life as signs of divine blessing. The financial and sexual scandals of broadcasters like Swaggart and the Bakkers resulted in part from the unregulated celebrity culture that religious broadcasting created.

Figure 6.1 Pat Robertson on set Organized religion in the age of digital media 91 Evangelical culture in America both grew and changed as it embraced the forms of television. Worship became a spectator sport, something one watched more than one did. This was true not only on television but also in the mega- churches that shared in the embrace of media culture. Here also preachers became celebrity performers, and worshipers, audience members. In this pro- cess, Evangelicalism grew by becoming more like the surrounding culture. In order to reach more people they unreflectively surrendered their minority identity with its demand for distinctive Christian practice.

More could be said about this transition. But for the moment it is enough to say that mainline American Protestantism shrank in an era when it failed to adapt to new technology and to the new forms of practice it invited.

Meanwhile, Evangelicalism grew, partially because of its uncritical adoption of new forms of media, but it changed in unforeseen ways because it failed to anticipate the implications of its media choices.

Challenges and possibilities in the digital age Does the American church’s experience in the age of television foreshadow the way in which religious groups will respond to the digital age? Again, today we see that established religiousfigures, institutions, and movements are challenged by the emergence of new media cultures. What atfirst appear to be merely new ways of communicating are in fact locations where new forms of society arise. What will religion look like in digital culture, what new forms of religion will develop, and how will established religions adapt to this changing context?

Which religions, religious communities, and religious leaders will cling to the belief that a pure essence of their religion isfixed and embedded in past forms of mediation, thus resisting new media’s forms and the social assumptions and practices that grow up around it? Who will critically and creatively establish religion in these new social spaces?

It seems that some religious leaders are again making the mistake of assuming that new media are just containers. Or they think that media are simply amplifiers that allow them to be better heard in the midst of a wider media buzz. They try to duplicate face-to-face practices and express their current theologies and social agendas through new media. In doing so, they are likely to miss the way that today’s new media reflect changing models of authority.

Formats like Twitter and Facebook are designed to be conversational; they reflect a fairlyflat model of authority in which voice is given to many people rather than to a few officials or experts. These new formats make it easy to build networks within which new interpretations appear and are tested. In contrast, hierarchical institutions, religious and otherwise, want to build web- sites that function like print or television. They imagine that information only flows one way.

At the end of the twentieth century the World Wide Web was still primarily a location for passive data. Its significance was that it made more information available to more people in searchable formats. The turn of the century marked 92Religion in the midst of change the rise of what came to be called“Web 2.0.”Websites became interactive spaces where the users could do more than consume content; they were able to comment on it, edit it, and add to it. One piece of evidence that individuals and institutions are adapting to the emerging media culture with itsflattening of authority is their willingness, perhaps even clamor, for their websites to be venues of conversation and debate rather than mere purveyors of information.

The website of Focus on the Family, a large socially and theologically con- servative media ministry that teaches hierarchical family values, is one example of this desire to use new media like old media. The site is visually attractive and filled with images, question-and-answer forums, and data. It is full of top-down advice and information in columns and videos. If you have a concern you can click on“Frequently Asked Questions”and select the question most like your own to get the site writers’counsel. What you cannot do is post your own opinion, disagree with their answers, or for that matter even frame your own questions. Only recently, as their president has begun to blog, has there been any space to respond.

It is not surprising that conservative religious communities who assume that they possess clearlyfixed religious truths use new media in ways that privilege the voices of key leaders. However, visits to the websites of established liberal communities and traditions reveal that liberals seem equally slow to embrace the implications of Web 2.0. Emerging religious communities and younger practitioners have been more likely to accept the more conversational implications and possibilities of Web 2.0.

The struggle over how to use new media is also found in the websites maintained by Muslim student groups in the United States. Many are primarily outlets for some authoritative tradition or teacher, usually from abroad. But others are created locally and give voice to young Muslims themselves as they examine what it means for them to be modern, Muslim, and American. These websites are works in progress, spaces in which young Muslims explore their identities, take stands, and respond to each other, in effect using the Web as a place where they can perform their bifurcated identities as Muslim Americans.

Together the authoritative sites, in which foreign imams give direction about proper Muslim life, and the performative sites, where young Muslims, often students, work out their own identities, reflect religion’s struggle with the constructive and conversational forms of identity typical of digital culture. The student-run sites adopt the conversational style of digital culture through which individuals network and construct individual religious identities, while the often Saudi-funded sites resist that style in order to maintain an authoritative structure tied to earlier models of communication. Whether this networked and constructed form of religious identity is resisted or embraced, it is a part of the digital culture in which we live as well as a part of contemporary religious life. Such changes point to the question of what organized Islam will look like in the West. Will the mosque, led by a foreign-born and trained cleric, be the dominant expression of organized Muslim life, or are alternative expressions of modernist Islam establishing their own sites and institutions?Organized religion in the age of digital media93 Identity construction in and around organized religion Religion tends to make an absolute claim on identity. To embrace a particular tradition by declaring oneself a Hindu, a Reformed Jew, or a Seventh-day Adventist is to say“this is a central fact of my identity.”There is a tension between this absolute identification and the way identity is worked out in digital culture. It was argued in earlier chapters that the linearity of writing resulted in a particular kind of thinking rooted in logical progression. Digitized information seems to function differently. It is subject to easy manipulation and less linear combinations. Sampling, the act of taking bits and pieces of someone else’s artistic work, is a central component of creation in the digital world.

Originality is not only found in doing something entirely new or in following a single strand to its logical conclusion, but also in putting found and inherited elements together in new ways. How will organized religious communities, ideas, and institutions change if, rather than being central facts of identity, they become elements in the constructed religious identities of individuals?

Hip hop provides an illustration of how identity is constructed in digital culture. Performers play with the elements of what went before, scratching, sampling, and combining tofind new resonances and patterns. Hollywood films with titles like 2011’sCowboys and Aliensshare this approach. They create narrative out of the surprise of combining two familiar but distinct genres.

Scholars function in a similar way,finding new knowledge at the intersections of traditionally distinctfields. Many people create religious identity in this way as well. Protestants“sample”forms of Catholic spirituality; Jew-Bus understand themselves to be simultaneouslyJewish and Buddhist. Lynn Schofield Clark (2005) demonstrates that many American teens inhabit a complex moral universe that combines Christian symbols with images from the occult and the paranormal.

It can be a challenge for practitioners of organized religions to see their tra- ditions used in this constructive way. They see elements of their traditions sampled by people who make these pieces a part of their individual religious identity in ways that separate the image, practice, or concept from the internal logic and disciplines of the tradition. Yet some established religious commu- nities are moving into this boundary space, attempting to connect with those who draw on the traditions in their constructions of religious lives.

For example, in Denver, Colorado, the historically separatist Mennonite church has assigned pastor Dayvid Graybill to work with a group of urban artists, the majority of whom might be described as“former Mennonites”in that they have given up consistent worship, but continue to be shaped by the tradition in which they grew up. The artists, who have otherwise largely abandoned traditional religious practice while still being shaped by their Men- nonite past, call their community Another Way. They gather to eat, drink, share their art and stories, and ponder questions about what sustains ethical and spiritual life. Here a representative of a tradition follows individuals out of the established church, maintaining a connection and creating a ritual space that helps to produce or reinforce individual identity and community around an 94Religion in the midst of change artistic practice that carries some spiritual valence. However, it’s not easy to know how the participants or the denomination understand their connection to Mennonite Christianity.

Rethinking what a“new church start”might look like, United Methodist pastor Jerry Herships established After Hours, Denver. In this“theology pub”a constantly evolving community meets in a bar for theological conversation and networks with more established churches to celebrate communion and provide meals to the homeless in a city park. A wider network follows the organization through social media, responding to invitations to offer prayers and material support to those in need. Both in the bar and in the park, these Methodists stretch what it means to be a congregation.

Nadia Bolz Weber, a Lutheran pastor with a widely read blog and hundreds of Facebook followers, is the designated pastor of Denver’s House of All Sin- ners and Saints. The church is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and also with the informal“emergent church movement”that deliberately experiments with new models of“church.”The boundaries of her congregation are difficult to define. They meet in a borrowed sanctuary. People who have never attended are digitally linked to the congregation and regard it, in some way, as a part of their religious identity. Invited by tweets and Facebook posts to pray for one another, they respond, digitally, that they are doing so.

At the same time, some new religions seek to become more like established religions. The practitioners of Neopaganism often describe themselves as reconnecting with an ancient tradition. Outsiders have questioned the continuity of this practice and, observing their loose organization and marginalized status, often describe Neopaganism as an example of the emergence of a“new”religion.

One Neopagan group samples the familiar language of organized religions in their search for legitimacy. Striving to be more organized and established, members of the Living Earth Church sample the language of the still dominant religious tradition in the region, and call themselves a“church,”and the leader of their Wiccan practice, Joy Burton,“pastor.”Their construction of religious identity points to how they are similar to and different from their Christian neighbors.

The examples above provide on-the-ground illustrations from one city of how established forms of religion can adapt to new ways of being religious and to the way the elements of established religion are sampled by people creating new locations for belief and practice. In some of these examples we see insti- tutional religions adopting new forms and settings for religious practice in order to attract outsiders. In others, the practices or structures of“church”are something that new communities draw on without making the institutional church a part of their conscious practice. In still others, both seem to be going on at once.

Branding as identity construction in religion In a digital culture, where individual religious consumers are exposed to innu- merable religious possibilities, institutional religions have begun to learn theOrganized religion in the age of digital media95 lessons of branding from the world of commercial advertising. The religions see that they need to create clear and inviting images that create a sense of identity.

In doing so the institution itself uses media technologies and spaces in a process of identity construction.In 2011 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ran a media cam- paign in the United States. In TV spots and on billboards individuals of diverse ethnicities and social classes engaged in a variety of activities such as working as an artist, riding a motorcycle, or feeding the homeless. Each person proclaimed at the end, “I’m a Mormon, ”or had this phrase printed below his or her photo (Figure 6.2). The campaign cleverly addressed two slightly con flicting stereo- types about Mormons. It took a religion that has been seen as marginal and exotic, one that is described by some critics as a cult, and presented it as made up of everyday, interesting people. Mormons are also by reputation conservative, a homogeneous community of predominantly white, Republican nuclear families. The “I’m a Mormon ”Mormons were, by contrast, much more diverse than the stereotype; they were presented as unique individuals, some of them fairly unconventional. On the ongoing “I’m a Mormon ”website you can enter your own gender, age, and ethnicity to discover Mormons in your own demographic. The result is a picture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that suggests that, as with the religious practices of other communities, Mormon religious life can be sampled and combined into the diversity of American life. It is impossible to say what the still inchoate digital culture will mean for organized religion in the long run. We do not know which new practices and institutions will succeed, or which established traditions will struggle and shrink.

There will likely continue to be space for religious co mmunities who resist the implications of digital culture, de fining themselves in opposition to these changes, though they will likely seem increasingly separatist or counter-cultural. Other Figure 6.2 Mormon.org billboard 96Religion in the midst of change religious communities will experiment with varying degrees of comfort with the new forms of communication and community. Some will see their established communities shrink even as spiritual seekers sample their rich beliefs, images, and practices in constructing more customized religious lives outside organized religion. But it seems likely that, however people are constructing themselves, whatever new forms of religion are emerging, the symbols and practices connected with church, mosque, temple, or synagogue will be a part of the rich stuffthat people sample as they formulate their religious identity in the digital age. Discussion questions 1 What is it about emerging forms of media that makes the mutual relationship between religion and media more obvious?

2 Where do you see established religious communities adapting to new media today? Where do you see them doing this well? What are some of the consequences of religious communities adopting new forms of media without reflecting on how they may be changed by these new media practices?

3 What do we learn about media and religion more generally from reflecting on the way different groups of American Christians have made use of television? How were Evangelicals changed by the development of televangelism? Why were mainline Christians slower to invest in television ministries?

4 What is Web 2.0 and what are its implications for the presence of organized religion on the Web?

5 The chapter suggests that even those who participate in established forms of religion often use it in projects of religious identity construction.

Discuss how established religion is sampled, and implications of this practice for the participants and the religious traditions they sample.

6 The reflections that follow look at two religious traditions that are often thought of as new or exotic, and consider how they use media and mediation to be accepted. Thevenin writes about the“Iama Mormon”media campaign, reflecting on how Mormons present themselves. Pike looks at the campaign to have veterans’cemeteries allow the graves of Wiccan soldiers to be marked with the pentacle.

What do we learn about religious diversity and inclusion from these examples? What do they teach us about religious identity, and about the performance of that identity in public spaces? References Clark, Lynn Schofield (2005)From Angels to Aliens, New York: Oxford University Press.

Hoover, Stewart M. (2006)Religion in the Media Age, London: Routledge. Organized religion in the age of digital media97 Morgan, David (1999)Protestants and Pictures: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Age of American Mass Production, New York: Oxford University Press.

Pew Research Center (2011)Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, January 27.

Pike, Sarah (2008)“Religion,”in David Morgan, ed.Key Words in Media, Religion, and Culture, London: Routledge.

Standage, Tom (2011)“Social Media in the 16th Century: How Luther Went Viral,”The Economist, Dec 17.

98Religion in the midst of change Reflection Wicca and religious freedom networking in the digital age Sarah M. Pike Sgt. Patrick Stewart, a Wiccan, was serving in the US Air Force when the helicopter carrying him was shot down in Afghanistan by Taliban terrorists in 2005. His widow Roberta wanted the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to mark his grave with a pentacle, the Wiccan symbol of a star withfive points representing earth, air, water,fire and spirit. The VA had a list of 30 approved religious symbols, but Stewart was told that the pentacle was not one of them and that she would have to go through a long process to get it approved. It turned out that Wiccans had petitioned for the same right years earlier. Their applications had been continually delayed, while other religious groups’symbols were approved more quickly. Stewart contacted Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan church known for religious freedom advocacy on behalf of Wiccans and other Neopagans.

Circle spread the word over its many media and Internet contacts that Wiccan veterans were being unequally treated by the VA.

Circle Sanctuary’s“Lady Liberty League,”which was founded in the 1980s to promote religious freedom, is highlighted on Circle’s website and features a detailed account of what came to be known as the“Veteran Pentacle Quest”(www.circlesanctuary.org/index.php/lady-liberty-league/ the-story-of-the-veteran-pentacle-quest.html). Reverend Selena Fox of Circle published several stories on the website from 2005 on, which were picked up by Neopagan blogs like“The Wild Hunt”(http://wildhunt.org) and online news sites like Witchvox.com. Wiccans and other Neopagans were among thefirst religions to begin networking over the Internet, which offered anonymity as well as a supportive community for those who were afraid of being persecuted for their beliefs. Since the 1990s, Wiccans have used the Internet and other forms of media to promote accurate information about their religion and to counter misrepresentations. The Veteran Pentacle Quest was successful in part because of the widespread appearance of stories on the Internet, which were also picked up by news outlets across the country as varied asChristianity Todayand theNew York Times.

Eventually, an organization called Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the VA on behalf of Circle, alleging religious bias, and settled in US District Court in 2007. The VA approved the pentacle as an official emblem in 2007. Soon afterwards, Roberta Stewart appeared in news stories beside her husband’s memorial plaque with its pentacle (http://stewartmemorial.tripod.com/pentaclequest.htm). A full account of the Veteran Pentacle Quest is online at www.circlesanctuary.

org, as are photos of veterans ’graves marked with pentacles. As one veteran ’s wife told Fox News, “I like to see our success literally etched in stone, because it will be ”(Figure 6.3).

A lively online presence, widespread media coverage, and the eventual victory of the Veteran Pentacle Quest have resulted in greater understanding of Wicca among reporters and the general public, as well as increased openness among Wiccans and other Neopagans about their religious identities. In this and other cases, Wiccans used online networking as well as more traditional media channels to rally support and celebrate their victory.

Figure 6.3 Grave with Wiccan pentacle 100Religion in the midst of change Reflection Advertising that“I’m a Mormon” Benjamin Thevenin You might call 2011 the“Mormon Moment,”when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) was the subject of much public attention.The Book of Mormonmusical was killing on Broadway and Mitt Romney would soon be the Republican Party’s nominee for the pre- sidency. The LDS Church itself entered the conversation about the public perception of Mormons with the“I’m a Mormon”campaign, in which billboards, TV spots, online ads, and a new website mormon.org featured a diverse array of church members, sharing both their unique identities and their shared faith as Mormons.

The ads were ubiquitous on television for months; readers might have caught a few. Each spot would introduce an individual, feature them discussing their careers, families, and passions, and end with them identi- fying themselves as Mormon. Thisfinal declaration was structured to come as a surprise and was a uniting element to a series of ads which featured a pretty eclectic mix of personalities including a physics professor from Vanderbilt University, a professional surfer from Hawaii, and a beekeeper from Italy. This variety presented the LDS people as a diverse group of interesting individuals, people you might already know and like, who happen to be members of the Mormon faith.

One notable example is the TV spot featuring Cassandra Barney, a Utah-based painter and mother. Cassandra’s profile is significant because, like many of the ads, it implicitly challenges stereotypical perceptions of Mormons. Cassandra is a spunky artist who paints female matadors“ready to take on whatever comes their way, and do it beautifully.”She’s also a committed mother of three girls and makes a particular effort to acknowledge her husband’s role in her career as an artist:“He…wanted me to pursue this, was really good at picking up the slack, and never said ‘Get in there and clean that house!’”Cassandra pushes the boundaries of common representations of LDS women as polygamous wives and bonnet-wearing pioneers. Yet her identity is still recognizably Mormon, anchored in faith and family.

For decades, the LDS Church has used media to answer Jesus’call to “Go ye unto all the world, and preach my gospel to every creature.”But something that distinguishes the“I’m a Mormon”campaign from pre- vious public relations efforts is its emphasis on individuals rather than on teachings. While the ads and billboards potentially fulfill an evangelical function, their primary focus is to help the publicfirst get to know and relate to Mormons as people (and often cool ones, at that). Also significant is that these Latter-day Saints are not just the subject of the campaign, but also active participants in its considerable social media presence. All Mormons, together with Cassandra, are invited to use Mormon.org, blogs, YouTube, and Facebook to share their stories and engage in conversations as means of encouraging a greater public understanding of their people, practices, and perspectives. Not only does this mark the LDS Church’s venture into the age of crowd-sourced, digital media marketing, but it also puts its faithful at the forefront, a people on a mission to use media to clarify misconceptions, share their own stories, and spread their beliefs. 102Religion in the midst of change