ReligionNerd.com » Mary

Burning Jesus, Mary, and the Prophets

religionnerd — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:25:30 +0000

By Kenny Smith & Heather Abraham

In his superb book, The Muslim Jesus (2001), Tarif Khalidi observes that Jesus of Nazareth plays an important role in Islamic religious worlds. As is well known to students of Islam, within the pages of the Qur’an, Jesus (Isa) is “the word and spirit of God,” a prophet sent by Allah (in 7th century Arabia, Allah was the Arabic term local Christians used when speaking of God) to call humankind back to the proper religious path, one who demonstrates his spiritual authority by performing numerous miracles, including the healing lepers and the blind, and raising the dead. Although the Qur’anic Jesus is not crucified and resurrected, nor is he understood as God himself in human flesh (in traditional Islam, Allah transcends the world entirely and thus nothing in the world could be Allah), he was born of a virgin (Mary), fulfilled important messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, and was physically taken up into heaven by God at the end of his life.

A “Muslim Gospel,” Khalidi points out, even overflows the pages of the Qur’an: for nearly a thousand years (from the 8th-18th centuries CE), stories and sayings attributed to Isa continued to emerge in Islamic written and oral traditions. While this Jesus is Islamic in tone, a clear Biblical voice is evident. In one of the earliest of these, “Jesus said to his people,”

Do not talk much without the mention of God, lest your hearts grow hard; for the hard heart is far from God, but you do not know. Do not examine the sins of people as though you were lords, but examine them, rather, as though you were servants. Men are of two kinds: the sick and the healthy. Be merciful to the sick and give thanks to God for health. (52)

Similar arguments could be made for a vast number of important Biblical figures. Noah (Nuh), for example, is the first of five super-important prophets in Islam (along with Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad). Noah, the Qur’an explains, spent centuries preaching to the sinful, begging them to mend their ways or face the wrath of God. His efforts attracted some willing to embrace the strict monotheism of Islam, and it was with resignation that Noah builds the ark and awaits the coming deluge, able to save only a small number.

Moses (Musa), like Jesus, appears in both the Qur’an and in hadith (sayings and stories about the Prophet Muhammad that have come down from the time in which he lived, 7^th century Arabia). In one of these stories, Moses steps out of Biblical history and intercedes on Muhammad’s behalf. As Huston Smith re-tells the story, one night the arch-angel Gabriel visits and takes Muhammad into the seven heavens to the presence of God, who instructed [Muhammad] that Muslims were to pray fifty times each day. On his way back to earth [Muhammad] stopped in the sixth heaven, where he reported the instruction to Moses, who was incredulous. “Fifty times a day!” he said in effect. “You’ve got to be kidding. That will never work. Go back and negotiate. (245) Muhammad accepted Moses’ counsel and appealed to God successfully decreasing the mandated daily prayers from fifty to five.

The figure of Mary (Maryam) is also a highly revered figure, recognized for her devotion and obedience to God, and belongs to an exclusive group of women who are considered ‘Perfect’ because of their strength of faith and their unquestioning submission to God’s will. Aliah Schleifer, in Mary the Blessed Virgin of Islam, points out that, “Mary’s position is not just that of the most exalted category of women, but she is ranked in the highest category of all human beings,” with a degree of spiritual development equal to that of Jesus and approaching that of Muhammad. (95) In what is perhaps the most well-known Qur’anic story about Mary, the young heroine retreats to the desert for an extended period of prayer and meditation. When she returns home, villagers are scandalized when the unwed Mary returns with her infant son, Jesus. As they accuse her of deep sinfulness (sex outside of wedlock), the infant Jesus speaks up and defends her!

So, what?

We have struggled with the implications of this discussion for the current climate of intense, anti-Muslim sentiment within a still largely Christian America, epitomized especially well by recent “Qur’an burning campaigns,” and by the larger numbers of Americans that (we suspect) tacitly support such actions.

On one hand, we would hope that the stories discussed above would provide compelling illustrations of “common religious ground” that would give pause to those who might otherwise support the social marginalization that Qur’an burnings (or the quiet support of such actions) suggest.

Mary & Jesus

At the same time, while ecumenically-minded Christians may be intrigued by, and appreciative of, these shared religious resources, religious conservative are likely to find them irrelevant, if not spiritually deceptive and dangerous. “If it is not of the Bible,” this perspective often insists, it is simply not from God. Little is accomplished by demonizing conservative perspectives. More, as Russell McCutcheon has astutely pointed out (in recent Facebook communiqués), to insist that religious conservatives become more ecumenically-minded is to insist that they practice a very different kind of religion, one that gives up a “Bible-only” perspective for one that sees other religious traditions as cousins rather than antagonists. Just as religious pluralists (like us) insist from a kind of transcendent, God’s-eye view, that overlapping Qur’anic and Biblical stories represent resources to be celebrated and explored, Bible-only religious conservatives may adopt this same transcendent perspective to authoritatively declare precisely the opposite!

Still, as history amply demonstrates, cultural boundaries are never static, and American history especially displays all sorts of exchanges between communities that had little to celebrate in common. Thus, while it may appear exceedingly naïve to expect that the above discussion has any chance of persuading those who support Qur’an burnings to re-think their position, it is at least possible that such discussion might, by who knows what unexpected and counter-intuitive paths, arrive at positive ends.

Sources:

Tarif Khalidi ,The Muslim Jesus (2001)
Aliah Schleifer, Mary the Blessed Virgin of Islam (Kentucky: Fons Vitae, 1997)
Huston Smith, The World’s Religions (New York: HarperCollins, 1991)

Spiritual-Not-Religious or Just Lazy?

religionnerd — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:23:52 +0000

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By KATE BLANCHARD, Religion Dispatches

Having hung out with church folk for several decades, I have come to expect the words “spiritual but not religious” to be accompanied by air quotes and a tone of disdain. But lately even non-religious folk have begun to hate on the SBNR.

One recent scientific study draws a link between mental illness and lazy spirituality—and some atheists scorn others for not having the courage to come out and admit what they really are. “Today’s secularists must do more than mount defensive campaigns proclaiming that we can be ‘good without God,’” writes one author;

spiritual, but not religious’… translated from the psychobabble, can mean just about anything—that the speaker is an atheist who fears social disapproval or a fence-sitter who wants the theoretical benefits of faith, including hope of eternal life, without the obligations of actually practicing a religion.

The Reverend Lillian Daniel’s latest book, When “Spiritual But Not Religious” Is Not Enough, will not disappoint readers who have come to enjoy her self-deprecating humor, her theological insights, and of course, snarky jabs at those fence-sitters who want it all: the SBNR.

The book is a collection of stories and essays, some more sermonic than others. There is a lovely reflection on being the “stand-in church” for a dying friend who was not a church member. A chapter on prayer explores the age-old question of why anyone should bother praying to an all-powerful, all-knowing deity—for Daniel, prayer is the prime antidote to self-deception. A tale about her angry grandmother and a naughty dog provides an opportunity to think about prejudice that perpetuates an us-vs.-them mentality. A memoir about often being the new kid in school causes her to consider the radical teachings of Jesus about whom it’s acceptable to eat with. A connection to an ancestor on the Mayflower provides fodder for thought about immigration in the 21st century.

Perhaps the most powerful chapter is a meditation on teaching a class among prisoners at Sing Sing. The writings of Paul the apostle about dying with Christ, in whom new life is hidden, has special resonance among people who are almost literally dead to the world, and whose new life is hidden behind bars.

At the center of most of these reflections is her congregation. It becomes clear that what is most important for her about Christianity is not its doctrines, narratives, sacraments, or even individual faith. It is community—the people who are “stuck with you.” What makes Christian community different from other kinds of community is the fact that it is shaped by a tradition of particular narratives and rituals and practices that, at least ideally, push back against self-serving consumer capitalist culture. It is for this reason—the lack of commitment to being stuck with any particular community of sinners—that the SBNR are particular targets of her judgment.

Daniel is writing primarily for Christians, and she is likely to appeal to the folks for whom ecclesiology is of primary concern. Roman Catholics and neo-orthodox post-liberals alike will especially appreciate her insistence on staying connected, not only to two thousand years of Christian tradition, but also to those annoying, smelly people next to you in the pews. Church, for these folks, is the only antidote to perverse secular rhythms and virtues, and Daniel is playing their song.

Other Christian readers, however, may be dissatisfied. Although Daniel does profess a very personal faith in the nearby Jesus and the awe-inspiring Christ, Bible-thumpers and traditionalists will not necessarily appreciate it coming from an ordained woman in one of the most socially liberal denominations in the world: “a welcoming and inclusive church where you are not expected to leave your brain outside on the sidewalk” (no offense, all you other churches!). And although she is usually very careful to use theological language that no one can call heretical, she also attends yoga classes and has no problem embracing the full meaning of “Namaste” in that context.

The folks most likely to be alienated by her book are, unsurprisingly, the seekers—those who call themselves SBNR, of course, but also those who want religious community, or at leastwant to want it (full disclosure: like me). For these folks, who may be, as she says, “shopping” for a place to belong, Daniel has absolutely no patience. Perhaps the most telling tale in this regard is her meditation on the differences between Marys and Marthas: Martha represents efficiency and good works (not to say control freaks), while Mary represents leisure, passivity, and slackerdom—with perhaps a bit of grace thrown in. Martha does, while Mary is.

So far this is pretty standard fare, but I was utterly fascinated to then discover her diagnosis of the church as being overly full of Marys—people who just want to sit and listen to Jesus. Meanwhile she is a Martha—a multi-tasker who (in keeping with the Protestant work ethic) defends being busy: “In order for some people to sit around being still and having deep thoughts, I guarantee you there’s always another group of people running around behind the scenes making it all possible.”

I, for one, have been estranged from church for the past few years specifically because I have the exact opposite feeling: I see the church as being full of Marthas, type-A achievers (albeit of the friendliest kind) with boundless energy who have created church in their own image; and though I crave scripture, communal prayer, and hymnody, I can’t stand the thought of being expected to join in what often feels like busy-ness for busy-ness’s sake. I already have to be a Martha in my work and home lives; what I lack is silence, something more easily found among Buddhists than Christians. I desperately need just to sit, mindfully, with others doing the same. But I feel ashamed of asking for this at church, where I fear—and Daniel’s book seems to confirm—that people will see me as a lazy couch-potato, never doing enough.

But while Daniel has not provided an obviously warm welcome for those who may be trying to figure out a way to be in religious community, it is possible to detect a bit of tenderness between the snarky lines.

She admits to being someone who was never quite sure where she belonged; church, for her, provides a body of people who accept her. She tells a story of struggling with depression over a dying cat; church is where people care about her grief. She also comes from a place of rich white privilege; church is where she finds help in trying to be part of righting the injustices of the economic status quo. And even though she scoffs at SBNR indecision, she then turns around and bemoans her own: “we live in a society that favors decisiveness over perplexity. You are supposed to know what you want and act on it. There’s no room for uncertainty. It’s considered wishy-washy.”

Her thoughts on the prodigal son and his bitter elder brother are strikingly apropos of the book’s overarching concern: “resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die,” she notes wisely, even amidst nagging thoughts like, “Why am I struggling and that jerk seems to be rushing by me, coasting through life?” In short, this book is a very honest confession of how much Lillian Daniel needs church, as well as how tired she is of having to defend her religiosity to liberals who don’t feel the same need, and who are narcissistic enough to think all religion is therefore for suckers.

So really, who can blame her for being a bit sarcastic? Most of us who are prone to sarcasm would probably admit that it gets worst when we are feeling most vulnerable, and true religion taps into our most vulnerable spots. If the goal of Daniel’s writing is to affirm the faithful in their commitment to church membership, she’s taken exactly the right tack. Her venting will garner lots of laughs and plenty of “Amens!” But if, having vented, she then hopes to win over some of those who might be testing the waters, she might consider ridding her rhetoric of stereotypes and caricatures designed to shame them for not yet belonging.

The Christian—Pagan Mix-and-Match

religionnerd — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:34:05 +0000

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Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., Georgia State University

After Christmas and Easter, what’s the most important Christian holiday? It’s not really a very Protestant question—since you need saints and Mary, and the whole ritual calendar they entail, to pose it—and even in the Catholic or Orthodox Christian world it depends very much on where you put the question.

In Greece the question has a pretty clear answer: it’s August 15, the feast day of the “All-Holy” (Panagia) Virgin Mary. And in Rome it’s equally clear: it was June 29, the Feast of Peter and Paul.

A couple of things strike you about this last feast, right away. First of all, it’s a strictly Roman holiday, unlike the Panagia for which most of Greece shuts down, even at the height of the tourist season. By contrast, no other Italian city celebrates this festival as Rome does. It’s actually a religious festival designed to celebrate the city of Rome, in its way. Think of it in this sense as a subtle Roman combination of Thanksgiving with the Fourth of July.

Still more unusually, the festival celebrates two saints together, Peter and Paul, men who were, according to the biblical record at least, sometime antagonists and never really co-workers. So why celebrate these two saints together?

The answer has a lot to do with the pre-Christian history of Rome, and the pagan residue that so often exists just beneath the surface of a great many Christian churches, Christian practices, and Christian holidays (think of the Druid trees at Christmas, the Dionysian rending and rejoining at Easter, and so on).

In this particular case, Peter and Paul look a lot like Romulus and Remus, the mythic founders of the city of Rome. Peter and Paul are deliberately juxtaposed to Rome’s primordial founders, almost as if to celebrate this, the second founding of the city… as a Christian city, in its new Christian guise. Both Peter and Paul were believed to have made their way from Jerusalem to Rome, and both men were believed to have been martyred here, in the imperial capital. This linkage of foundational violence, of the founder’s death and the founding of the city, is also very mythic and very old.

There is abundant literary evidence for the connection of these two pairs of founding figures, the pagan pair and the Christian pair, in Roman mythology. Ovid informs us (in Fasti VI, 795-796) that on the 29^th of June (“when as many days of the month remain/ as the Fates have names,” he quips), a temple was dedicated to Quirinus, “the god with the striped gown.” Livy confirms this (in his History X, 46), adding that this Temple of Quirinus was dedicated with the rich spoils brought to Rome at the conclusion of the Samnite wars.

But who was this Quirinus? Ovid gives us the surprising answer (at Fasti II, 475-512): he was none other than Romulus himself, deified after his death, and commemorated as the primordial founder of Rome’s unswerving path to world conquest.

You can see some remarkably suggestive iconographic parallels here.

Romulus and Remus, rival brothers, only one of whom survives to establish Rome’s imperial destiny and to give the city its name. So too with Peter and Paul, rival apostles, only one of whom was named by Christ himself as the Rock on which his church would be built, and who would lend his name to the most famous edifice in western Christendom.

Peter is almost always depicted holding the keys to the Church Christ commissioned him to build. Paul, by contrast, is almost always depicted holding the sword with which he was beheaded (as a Roman citizen, he had the ironic right not be crucified). Peter was believed to have survived Paul, since he (and not Paul) is remembered as the first bishop of Rome, and thus the initiator of an unbroken chain of apostolic command. Not enjoying Roman citizenship, he died by crucifixion (but upside down, so as not to claim any equality with his Lord).

The stories regarding Peter’s martyrdom were more confused than Paul’s. And it took a long time for Christians to settle on the precise date. Peter’s martyrdom was commemorated on December 28th in the oriental Christian calendar, and on February 22^nd in Gaul. Elsewhere, it was celebrated on the second Friday after Epiphany. But not long after Christianity was established as the state religion of the empire with its “capital” in Rome, the date of Peter’s martyrdom was established as well: on none other than June 29^th (this was settled in the western, Latin-speaking churches by the late fourth century, and in the eastern churches by the mid-fifth).

As so often in early Christian history, the emergence of Christianity as the defining cultural force of the empire, when viewed from one perspective, changed everything; viewed another way, it changed nothing, or put another way, the new faith was absorbed into the ritual life of the very world that it had come to conquer.

Romulus was deified, renamed as Quirinus, and given a temple of his own on June the 29th. Then the Founder was to be reconceived in a Christian idiom, as a man named Simon who was renamed as Peter. And after Peter was sanctified, the Founder received yet another temple in Rome, San Pietro, destined to be the premier religious edifice in all of western Christendom.

But Rome remained Rome, always. Peter’s successors were to live in a palace whose named (Quirinale) recalled Quirinus’s original temple, and bore the old Roman title of pontifex maximus when officiating at the Basilica of Saint Peter. And this resplendent new temple dedicated to Peter was to celebrate his feast day on the selfsame date that the very first temple to Romulus was founded: on June the 29^th.

Recalling the palimpsestic mish-mash that constitutes most religious traditions is to recall a central part of their allure, and offers a suggestive reminder of their fundamental humanity, a humanity that no divinization can quite erase.

This Muslim says, give me that ol’ time Judaism

religionnerd — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:00:47 +0000

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By Hesham A. Hassaballa, Fredericksburg.com

It was not until recently that I learned the full story behind the annual festival that is Hanukkah, and the story fascinates me. I learned that its overarching theme was one of “traditional” vs. “progressive” Jews in ancient Palestine. I then got to thinking: Had I been alive at the time, would I have joined the Maccabee revolt? Probably yes, at least in spirit. In fact, I most probably would have been a Jew.

This stems from my deep devotion to Islam. I believe the message of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the very same message of Moses, although the particulars may be different. Since Moses was a prophet of God, and his Law was sent by God for me to follow, I would have been bound to follow it. Therefore, I would have strenuously opposed the Greeks who believed that all the gods should be worshipped at the Jerusalem Temple.

Those gods, I believe, were inventions of man, and their presence defiled the Temple erected for the worship of the One True God of Abraham, just as the various deities of the Arabs defiled the Holy Temple in Mecca.

I would have also stood against those Jews who, seeking to advance themselves in Hellenistic society, wanted to make nudity acceptable, wanted to burn the books of the Torah, made circumcision–the mark designated by God to be the symbol of His Covenant with Abraham and his descendants–a capital offense, and wanted to sacrifice a pig on the Temple altar. At that time, these actions would have seemed to me–just as for the other followers of the Maccabees–direct contraventions of the Law of Moses.

This is what the Law of Moses says: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God [is] one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deuteronomy 5:4-5). And, further, the Law says: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3).

In the particulars, the Law forbade being naked, and it forbade the consuming of the flesh of swine. So these actions by the Jewish “reformers” would have seemed to me an attempt not to not reinterpret the Law for modern times, but to discard it completely.

So it seems obvious that in my constant struggle to be a devout servant of the God of Abraham, I would have been in the Maccabees’ camp–although I do not know if I personally could have taken up arms against my fellow Jews.

These reflections should come as a surprise to no one: As a Muslim, I worship the God of Abraham, the very same God who was worshiped and honored in the Temple in Jerusalem. As a Muslim, I honor and revere the prophet Moses, Aaron, and all the other Hebrew prophets.

Also, my holy scripture speaks with honor and reverence about King David and Solomon. The Quran says: “We believe in God, and in that which has been bestowed from on high upon us, and that which has been bestowed upon Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and their descendants, and that which has been vouchsafed to Moses and Jesus; and that which has been vouchsafed to all the [other] prophets by their Sustainer: we make no distinction between any of them. And it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.” (2:136)

As Jews wind down their annual commemoration of the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, I would remind them that American Muslims honor and revere the very same holy figures they do. In their hearts, as they navigate their daily lives in America, Muslims carry the love for God and all His prophets. In their houses of worship (which, recently, some Americans have attacked in misplaced “revenge” for the acts of extremists) verses of the Quran that honor Moses, Jesus, Mary, and Abraham are sung out each and every day in ritual prayer.

Yet these are the people who are attacked by some as “terrorists.” These millions of faithful Muslims have nothing to do with the criminals who act in the name of their faith.

We have much more in common than in distinction, and if more people knew that, we would go a long way toward fighting those forces who seek to divide us by hatred and fear. Those who divide us by hatred and fear must not be allowed to win.

The Arrival of Extraterrestrials on the American Religious Landscape

religionnerd — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 02:25:17 +0000

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By Kenny Smith

In November 2009, some thirty world-class scientists gathered in Rome to attend a week-long conference on astrobiology. The conference was sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. It’s goal: to assess the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, a possibility, attending scientists maintained, that seems increasingly likely in light of recent discoveries. As Carol Glatz, writing for the Catholic News Service, explains,

Vatican Observatory

Until 1995, no one knew whether there were planets circling some of the billions of stars in the universe. Advancements in planet detection have since led scientists to discover more than 400 planets outside of the solar system and dozens more are found each year… [At the same time,] discoveries of life in very inhospitable conditions on Earth, such as rock-eating microbes living deep beneath the ocean floor, show that different life forms may exist on other worlds. (1)

Consequently, Glatz notes, although the conference looked only at scientific evidence and hypotheses, it is “very important that the church is involved in this type of research looking at life in the cosmos.”

Of course, Christian philosophers and theologians have been speculating about the possibility, and religious significance, of extraterrestrial life for many centuries, a tradition which continues into the present day. Writing for Beliefnet.com in an essay enticingly entitled, “Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?,” Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno argues that, although it is commonly assumed that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would signal “the death of religion, most religious people don’t see it that way at all… God created the whole universe. There’s nothing that makes one place more special than another. Religious people have been able to think in these ‘cosmic’ terms all along, and happily speculated about ‘other worlds’ long before the science fiction crowd had adopted the concept.”(2) At the same time, he concedes, much like the encounter with non-Western religious cultures, we may find that extraterrestrials have very different experiences and understandings of the divine, resulting in spiritual teachings and traditions we might fail to recognize as religious at all. In the event of such contact, “we would clearly want to tell ETs what we have learned [about the nature of God]; we also want to listen to them, to hear what they have learned.” On this view, importantly, ETs may even have something to teach us about the spiritual life!

Other Christian thinkers, however, are far less sanguine about the prospects of contact. The website, Hearken the Watchmen (.com), for instance, features an essay menacingly entitled, “Demons (Extraterrestrials) Tremble at the Name of Christ.” This essay argues that the notion of off-world intelligence cannot be understood without reference to the biblical idea of “fallen angels.”(3) In at least some respects, such anti-ET theologizing represents a clear continuation of Pat Robertson’s religious efforts from the late 1990’s. In a famously controversial July 8, 1997 broadcast of his 700 Club, Robertson warned that if ETs do in fact exist, they are best understood as demonic beings working to lure us away from faith in Christ (e.g., through modern-day UFO sightings). As such, he concluded, those found to be in league with such beings (e.g., UFO researchers) deserve, under biblical law, execution by stoning!

We need not, however, remain within the worldspace of speculative Christian theology to discern religious appropriations and re-contextualizations of the idea of ETs. Indeed, since the mid-20^th century, a number of religious movements have emerged for whom interaction with extraterrestrials is central to the modern-day spiritual quest.

Kenneth Arnold

The widespread belief that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are spaceships from more spiritually advanced civilizations located elsewhere in the galaxy is typically thought to have emerged in the wake of Kenneth Arnold’s reported sighting of nine large, metallic, crescent-shaped objects flying at very high speeds (some 1,600 mph) over the Cascade Mountain range in western Washington on June 24, 1947. Arnold, a civilian pilot from Boise, Idaho, was searching for a lost Marine C-46 transport plane when he spotted the UFOs. They flew, he said, “like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.”(4) The national news media quickly picked up the story, and in the days, weeks, months, and even years that followed, thousands of new sightings were reported from across the country. Saucers and cigar-shaped ships were reported hovering in the skies, darting across suburban landscapes, and at times were said to swoop in low to the ground and cause automobiles to stall. Numerous private secular organizations were formed, and government investigations initiated, in an attempt to account for what appeared to be a widespread and disconcerting phenomena. Indeed, in 1948 an Air Force Pilot was killed in a plane crash while pursuing a reported UFO over Louisville. In 1952 a fleet of UFOs were said to have invaded U.S. airspace over Washington D.C.

Beginning in the early 1950s, the first “contactees” (i.e., persons claiming to have communicated with the occupants of the UFOs) began to speak publicly about their experiences, and the urgent messages they had for humanity. Around such persons distinct communities soon gathered, some of which became formal religious institutions. At one point 150 such groups existed, each dedicated to a different contactee and his/her received teachings.

Some contactees reported face-to-face meetings with extraterrestrials. In the early 1950s, for instance, George Adamsky (1891-1965), a Polish immigrant who worked in a hamburger stand in southern California, claimed to have travelled by spaceship to some of the other inhabited planets in our own solar system with an extraterrestrial by the name of Orthon. The people of Orthon’s home planet, Adamsky reported, lived in peace and harmony, and were visiting Earth to warn human beings about the dangers of atomic weapons and energy. In the mid-1950s, Orfeo Angelucci (d. 1993) claimed to have spent several days aboard an extraterrestrial spacecraft where he was asked to bring back teachings of peace, love, and of an ancient kinship linking humans and extraterrestrials.

This tradition of contactees claiming face-to-face, physical contact with benevolent extraterrestrials continues into the present day. Phillip Krapf, who worked as a reporter and then copy and managing editor at the Los Angeles Times for twenty-five years, earning Pulitzer Prize for his work covering the L.A. riots of 1992, reports many extended encounters with a highly advanced extraterrestrial people known as the Verdants. Apparently, Krapf was chosen by the Verdants to serve as an ambassador between human and Verdant civilizations. In the coming years, Krapf teaches, Earth will be ushered into a galactic federation, and it will be the job of ambassadors such as himself to ease this transition. (5)

Other contactees have claimed telepathic, rather than physical, contact with extraterrestrial visitors. George van Tassel (1910-1978), an aeronautical engineer, claimed to have conversed telepathically with “extraterrestrial beings who circled the earth in their UFOs on a mission to raise the planet’s ‘vibratory level’ and thus improve the human race.”(6) Van Tassel ultimately hoped to reconcile his experiences with the biblical text. In so doing, he came to believe that humankind was itself an extraterrestrial race that had been placed upon the earth in order to develop spiritually. Due, however, to the interference of a group of negative extraterrestrials in this process, an enlightened female space being named Mary came to earth and gave birth to Jesus of Nazareth, whose role was to assist humankind in their development. Along with a fleet of UFOs, van Tassel predicted, Jesus would return to earth in the 1950s to save humankind from the continued influence of the negative entities and the threat of atomic weapons. (7)

The tradition of telepathic contact has likewise continued into contemporary times. Through her many books, workshops, and seminars given around the world, Barbara Marciniak transmits teachings from an extraterrestrial civilization located in the constellation of seven stars we know as the Pleiades. As her website explains:

The Pleiadians are a collective of multidimensional spirit beings from the Pleiades star system, and have been speaking through Barbara Marciniak since May of 1988. [They] are here to assist humanity with the process of spiritual transformation in the years leading up to December 2012. Their distinctive style blends wit and wisdom, common sense, and cosmic knowledge in teachings that encourage expansive thinking and personal empowerment, and which have been compared to native shamanism. (8)

A growing number of religious innovators have claimed both telepathic and physical contact with spiritually advanced ETs. One particularly striking example is that of Prophet Yahweh, Seer of YAHWEH. In May 2005, Prophet was interviewed by a reporter from a local ABC-affiliate in Las Vegas, Nevada. Prophet, it seems, claimed to have received telepathically (e.g., in prayer and dreams) from YAHWEH, the creator-deity described in the Hebrew Bible, detailed instructions for summoning the angels of Yahweh (superhuman spiritual beings piloting UFOS) and also claimed to have summoned thousands of UFOs in this way over the past twenty-five years. Local reporter, Mike Delastruto, was dispatched to investigate Prophet’s claims, and the resulting interview is interesting to be sure. (9)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObD_ujS0t9E

While critics of UFO-based movements are often quick to attribute the blending of religion (or spirituality, if you like) and extraterrestrials to a lack of sanity, intelligence, or education, this claim is increasingly difficult to sustain. One strong example is the loose, largely on-line spiritual community that has formed around the person and teachings of Dr. Richard Boylan. A practicing psychotherapist and university lecturer for many years, Boylan teaches that a federation of ET cultures (whom he prefers to refer to as “Star Visitors” or “Star Nations”) is currently at work in numerous ways for the betterment of humankind. One of these is the subtle “upgrading” of the human genetic code (through entirely benign and non-invasive methods), which in turn will help to transform our troubled world into a much more evolved civilization. Applying his clinical skills to questions of ET upgrades, Boylan’s website offers a questionnaire intended to help ascertain whether, and to what degree, one has already been “upgraded,” (http://www.drboylan.com/starkididqstnr.html) and workshops held around the country for parents and children struggling with the emergence of psychic abilities said to result therefrom.

Some Concluding Thoughts

It may well be the case that, at some future point, Earth will be visited by one or more ET civilizations. Within the wider scientific community, one finds varied opinions as to the likelihood of such a scenario. Isaac Asimov famously argued that, while the universe is indeed vast, it is also very old, and civilizations such as ours may not last especially long. Hence, while the universe may have given rise to many different civilizations capable of detecting one another, there is no reason to think that they overlap chronologically. Others insist that, even if they did, the distances between stars is far to wide to make journeys to other stars truly feasible. Of course, these arguments implicitly assume that ET civilizations would suffer from the same limitations as our currently does. If such assumptions prove false, and contact happens, scholars who study religion will surely have their hands full, and I would surely like to be one of them!

We need not, however, await that day. The idea of ETs, whether conceptualized as the angels or demons of the Western theistic traditions, or as largely secularized and spiritualized elder brothers and sisters with sagely advice for our troubled world, have been here for quite some time. More, one wonders as to the ways in which this presence will expand and modulate in future years, taking the American religious landscape where no one has gone before.

Sources:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0905002.htm
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2000/08/Would-You-Baptize-An-Extraterrestrial.aspx?p=1
http://www.hearkenthewatchmen.com/article.asp?id=9
Robert Ellwood, “UFO Religious Movements,” in Timothy Miller, ed., America’s Alternative Religions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 393.
Phillip Krapf, The Contact Has Begun: The True Story of a Journalist’s Encounter with Alien Beings (New York: Hay House, 1998); Phillip Krapf, The Challenge of Contact: A Mainstream Journalist’s Report on Interplanetary Diplomacy (New York: Origin house, 2002).
Brenda Denzler, “UFOs and Religion,” in Eugene V. Alexander, W. Michael Ashcraft, eds., Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, Vol. II (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006), p. 216.
Brenda Denzler, “UFOs and Religion,” in Eugene V. Alexander, W. Michael Ashcraft, eds., Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, Vol. II (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006), p. 216.
Barbara Marciniak’s website: http://www.pleiadians.com/#header.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1562039690219561839#docid=-80565937579011473
http://www.drboylan.com/starkididqstnr.html

Modern Images of Mary, The Versatile Saint

religionnerd — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:18:21 +0000

Get Shareaholic

By: Heather Abraham

According to the International Marian Research Institute, eighty percent of all Catholic shrines are dedicated to the Virgin Mary and are among the most desired pilgrimage destinations in the world. In fact, Marian shrines receive more annual pilgrims than any other religious figure. Although a dominant figure in Catholicism, Mary’s appeal transcends theological differences, as Mary’s devoted pilgrims hail from all Christian denominations and the many branches of Islam. Yes, I said Islam. Mary, who plays an important but not extensive role in the New Testament, has a much more prominent position in the sacred text of Islam. This article, however, is not about Mary in Islam; that subject I will save for a future posting. Today, I intend to explore the Mary of the people—Mary as she appears in lived religion. Most specifically how Mary’s image is utilized by her followers in artistic, new, and unique ways.

More popular than ever before, Mary has become Christianity’s most versatile, utilized, and venerated figure. Most intriguingly, Mary’s image has become main-stream and is found in the most unusual of places. Images of Mary are often depicted on t-shirts, purses, murals, wallets, yard art, jewelry, graffiti, and on the bodies of her devoted followers. Tattoo images of Mary range from small devotionals to enormous masterpieces— covering an entire human back. To illustrate Mary’s versatility, I will acquaint you with two recent encounters I had in my hometown of Atlanta—one of the most religiously diverse cities in the south.

During a recent shopping trip to my local farmers market I encountered what, for many, may seem strange but which demonstrates perfectly how effortlessly Mary’s image shifts from sacred space and into the mundane world to commune with those who venerate her. While paying for my groceries, I noticed an image of Mary, as the Virgin of Guadalupe, gracing a common scale which stood about 4 feet in height. Leaving my husband at the register, I wandered over to investigate and to take some pictures. Above and below Mary’s image were the words “Get Your Daily Inspirational Message” in English and Spanish. For a fee of 25 cents, customers could weigh themselves and be rewarded with an inspiring message from the Virgin Mother. No judgmental weigh-in here! As I delightedly snapped pictures, I caught the attention of the store security who warned that pictures were forbidden in the store by order of management. I quickly explained my interest to the perplexed security guard who was concerned that I was stealing secrets for the competition until I showed him that I only had pictures of the Mary scale on my camera. Although he was obviously confused, he finally acquiesced agreeing that “the Virgin is good” and walked away muttering to another employee that I was loco. Being the nerd that I am, I sat nearby with my patient husband and observed how a few customers interacted with the scale. I didn’t have to wait long before three teen girls approached the scale and one by one stepped up, blessing themselves first, and received their weigh in and inspirational message for the day.

The most humorously delightful chanced upon image of Mary that I have ever encountered occurred on a hot summer day as I was driving on Peachtree Street. Sitting at a red light, I noticed a large pick-up truck pull up on my right. Not one to be impressed with cars (I drive a 23 year old Volvo) I was drawn to the beauty of the pearl white truck which glowed in the sun—highly polished and chromed out. After proceeding through the light the truck pulled in front of me and thus revealed the amazing mural airbrushed on the tail-gate. Picture this: center-right of the tail-gate was an image of Mary, again in the form of the Virgin of Guadalupe, floating a few feet off the ground and surrounded by an indigo sky. In front of her was a man kneeling in supplication, hands together in prayer beseeching Mary for a boon. Now comes the best and most creative part—above this kneeling man’s head was a bubble like the ones used in comic books. In the bubble was an image of the exact truck that the “real” man was driving. I was blown away at the artistry of the images and the message they conveyed. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera and my cell was lost in the black hole I call a purse. Sadly, I have been looking for the truck ever since. Although I don’t possess a physical photo of the vehicle, I can still conjure up the image in my mind’s eye and delight in the iconic representation which was so devotedly created in honor and veneration of this versatile Saint.

For those devoted to her, Mary is a compelling figure who provides solace, reassurance and hope. Mary is also an elusive figure impossible to simply define, for she has played many roles in the lives of those who have bowed their heads in request or supplication. Leonard Boff, In The Maternal Face of God: The Feminine and Its Religious Expressions, argues that Mary’s persona changes to meet the needs of her devotees. He writes, “Each new generation finds itself in Mary, projecting its dreams, its sociocultural ideals, upon her. In her, each new generation discovers the revelatory path of the feminine archetype that crowd our unconscious.” (251) Mary is the most human of historical and scriptural figures; welcoming the masses and participating in the daily lives of her followers who embrace her as one who has experienced and transcended human fragility. It maybe that those who venerate Mary do so because they feel she somehow “lives” in the world with or around them and is not a distant figure, too aloof to take part in their everyday world.

This leads me to the question of the day: Although these images are not indicative of the “standard” understanding of religious art, they obviously play a crucial role for modern day Marian devotees. Why does Mary’s image lend itself to such displays of art and do these examples represent a new wave of early 21^st century religious art?

P.S. If any Religion Nerd reader finds my elusive truck, please snap a picture for me and send it to the editor along with any other unique representations of Mary.

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