Religious and Spiritual Identity

I realised my spiritual beliefs were not compatible with the beliefs of my Anglican Church and Sunday School at a very young age, therefore at age 11 or 12 I chose not to be confirmed. Without the constraints of the church or a religion, I was able to explore my own form of spirituality. How did I do that without the internet?

When I was 12, some members of my family attended mind power courses – the type popular in the early 80s with a rational approach complementary to the emerging new age spiritualism of the 70s. This, along with the esoteric books and meditation cassettes in my family home, afforded me the opportunity to explore a kind of spiritualism without the unwanted restraints of a religion or church.

I suspected that some of my beliefs might be compatible with those of Paganism and Wicca and found information on these in the self help and personal development sections of book stores. Esoteric book stores, health food stores, and the small shops in Elizabeth Arcade that carried free publications, brochures and advertising provided specific information required for a spiritual quest in South East Queensland.

www.bookstoreguide.org

In spite of all this I have never actually managed to form a concrete religious identity, due mostly to my adversity to being restricted by one doctrine. Not until studying religion at UQ did I discover that I, and those like me, have been categorised despite our efforts not to be! I have never found the identity of “new age” attractive and apparently I’m not alone. The category of “pick-and-mix” fits quite well considering my favourite Chinese Proverb, “Listen to all, plucking a feather from every passing goose, but follow no one absolutely”. But the best fit is Vincett and Woodhead’s (2001) category of “Mind, Body, Spirit” due to my occupation as a Remedial Massage Therapist and practitioner of various vibrational medicine techniques.

A young person seeking religious and spiritual information in the 21^st century can find the task of forming a religious identity, or not, a much simpler journey than that experienced by those of us searching in the 80s and 90s. The internet can provide information on all aspects of religion and spirituality required for  a pick-and-mix style of spirituality, and at the same time can provide for those who crave the sense of belonging afforded by the vast array of sites catering for followers of major religions and new religious movements.  

References

Bookstore Guide.2007-2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2013. 

Vincett, G., & Woodhead, L., (2001). Spirituality. In Woodhead, L., Kawanami, H., & Partridge, C. (Ed.) (2001) Religions in the modern World: traditions and transformations (2nd  ed.). Oxon: Routledge

Brand New Religion

Referring to our weekly reading, Mara Einstein’s Social Compass in Evolution of Religious Branding (2011), which discussed the branding and marketing techniques of the Church of Scientology and the United Methodist Church, Professor Sylvie Shaw posed the question, what of the branding of the major churches that do not run obvious marketing campaigns? Does the Catholic Church, for example, have a brand? And if so, how is it promoted?

The Vatican website, http://www.vatican.va/, has a link to Vatican News that publishes stories from the Vatican’s press office, effectively delivering stories that are not only of interest to Catholics but that also promote the Vatican and the Catholic Church in a way that it wishes to be portrayed. The news service provides print stories, a calendar of significant events, even CTV – Catholic Television.

 http://www.vatican.va/

The Church of England website, http://www.churchofengland.org/, provides a similar news service but it is also very open with regard to its promotional activities. Only three clicks from the home page, on their “Working with the media” page, you can find “Advice on promoting your church to the media” providing tips on the type of story to send to news agencies and how to make them stand out, as well as format and structural advice.

On the other end of the spectrum - neither a major church that doesn't require advertising nor a church with a major marketing budget - is the small urban church, for example, Brisbane’s Invision Ministries. Invision Ministries’ website, http://invision-ministries.org/, possesses contemporary design to promote and represent their brand to the urban “businesses of Teneriffe, Newstead, New Farm and surrounding areas” who contribute to the charity work of the church, as well as to potential parishioners in the area who relate to the contemporary urban branding.

Even without big budget advertising campaigns of the Church of Scientology and the United Methodist Church, churches big and small can promote their brand to their market using websites and the activities of their own press offices.

References

 Einstein, Mara. Social Compass in Evolution of Religious Branding (2011)

http://www.churchofengland.org/ 

 http://invision-ministries.org/

 http://www.vatican.va/

Music Makes the People Come Together

According to Madonna in her song Music, “music makes the people come together”. There is a sense of community according to individual’s musical preferences, and more so when a sub-culture is formed around the music created. An example of one such sub-culture is that of the hip-hop culture, originating in the United States but which has spread internationally including Australia, with its own brand of hip-hop and sub-culture to match.

As well as community, there are other spiritual or religious elements associated with hip-hop culture. Robin Sylvan in Traces of the Spirit (194) states that the “transcendental element within contemporary rap” music in the United States “constitutes the core of the hip-hop tradition” and that “forms of rap show clear continuities with the African American musicoreligious tradition”. “Structural elements such as the centrality of the groove, polyrhythmic texture, foregrounded orality, vocal styles, call and response, audience participation, and dance, (as well as) its celebratory ritual form” all contribute to the spiritual essence of hip-hop. The DJ of a hip-hop outfit “is not only the musician but the navigator as well, the one with the power to set the direction for the collective musical journey” and “there is a conscious recognition that this power is spiritual” (198). 

 The Herd en.wikipedia.org

Rappers experience a form of transcendence with “some sense of being connected to nommo, the West African term for the spiritual power of words” (Sylvan 198) as they rap through their rhymes at high speed. Sylvan (198) also offers that “another central component (of rapping) is truth-telling” or “the message” (198). Australian hip-hop artists use this medium to tell uniquely Australian truths such as anti-racism, anti-random violence and community support messages, for example, The Herd’s 77 percent, with its claims that 77 percent of Australians are racist based on poll results that 77 percent of Australians supported John Howard’s stance on the Tampa crisis of 2001, and Hilltop Hood’s Stopping All Stations, with its story of an aging war veteran victimised by youths.

I have been fortunate enough to have experienced several live hip-hop performances including that of The Herd and Hilltop Hoods and there is definitely a sense of collective musical journey at these shows. A live performance of Michael Franti, an American hip-hop artist whose lyrics carry a peaceful, anti-war message, was typical of a transcendental experience similar to that experienced in an evangelical religious gathering.

Michael Franti www.last.fm

Hip-hop is not alone in its truth-telling. The pre-hip-hop era of punk, in particular the The Clash of the United Kingdom, carried a strong message of anti-racism which was sometimes at odds with the others of their genre. The message in these songs lives on in their recordings and continue to resonate with relevance decades later.

 The Clash http://www.facebook.com/theclash

References

Sylvan, Robyn.Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. New York

and London: New York University Press. 2002 Ch. 6, Message: Rap Music and Hip Hop culture.182-213.