This series, Crash Course Religions, began by asking what makes a religion a religion, noting the difficulty previous generations of Western scholars had a hard time understanding religions that did not adhere to Western traditions and often promoted an artificial hierarchy of religious traditions, supporting their assumptions that Western Religion, primarily Christianity, was superior to these other religions. Academic Religious Scholars have since learned that if something doesn’t fit their framework, it’s not a sign that that religion is somehow “inferior,” but that there’s a problem with their framework. Unfortunately that also requires that the person investigating or researching another religion must attempt to step out of their own worldview, or religious point of view, and take the other tradition at face value with no “better or worse” value judgments at work. Sadly, there are some who cannot make that leap, much like a fish not knowing what water is.1 

The series began by questioning whether doing Yoga was a religious practice or religion itself. That video, basically a primer on the challenge of understanding religion on a global scale, concluded with what would become a series mainstay: “maybe, it depends on how you practice Yoga.” Thus, it is fitting that the series end by exploring the boundaries or assumed boundaries between religion and cultural self-identification, or pop-culture. When does fandom mean more to the participant than something to do with ones idle time? When does it become religious?

It’s easy to assume that those mentioned in the video, who identify their religion as JEDI are doing it in jest to rebel against traditional religions and don’t really believe that their participation in Star Wars fandom is a Religion. But isn’t that assumption more or less the same problem that Western colonizers had when they encountered indigenous religions that didn’t conform to Western Christian frameworks? It would seem to be a mistake to just dismiss this phenomenon as just another passing fad.

What I find more interesting is that the role of religion, especially in pre-scientific cultures, was etiological, or used to answer or speculate on relatively universal questions like where did our community come from, why are we here, what is our relationship with the material environment around us, what happens to us after we die? Community leaders, parents and thinkers would ponder these questions and come up with stories to address these questions. Over time some stories became more favored than other and became founding stories. As cultures interacted stories were shared and exchanged, and some founding stories changed, while others were abandoned and some became myth or legend. I have no doubt that this process has been going on since the beginning of language, probably using singing and music, centuries before the advent of writing. 

In the ancient past it began with questions that evolved into countless stores that contained some element of Truth to satisfy the questioner. But now, in this “scientific age,” we’re looking at religious belief that knowingly begins with a fictional narrative and sees a profound, life-affirming Truth, and in the process looks beyond the fictional nature of the story to something “real,” at least as real as traditional Western Christianity, in their eyes. 

There will always be those who are disingenuous about their religious self-identity, whether Jedi, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal or any of the thousands of options (even Scientology!). We should have learned over 100 years ago that just because something doesn’t conform to our religious framework doesn’t disavow it as being “legitimate.” This even applies to Pastafarnianism or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Whether it makes sense to you or not is not the question. Whether it lasts or not isn’t the question either. It may complicate things, but how adults approach their lives isn’t for you to manage or countermand. We dealt with this problem last week when we looked at “religious freedom,” and our country’s ideology that this should apply to all forms of religion (even Scientology!). It comes down to whether the practice or belief gives your life meaning, regardless of whether others can see it or not. In this, those who are still or continually working at it, we are all on the same journey (it just that the Jedis are beginning in different distant galaxy). Enjoy. JBB

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Tags: Crash Course Religions, Star Wars, truth in fiction, video Mondays, what is Religion

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FOOTNOTES:
  1. Sorry, that’s a reference to an excerpt from a David Foster Wallace graduation speech. Click this LINK to watch a short video visualization.[↩]