Religion and pop culture go together like watermelons and summer. They are so intertwined, sometimes we don't even recognize the allusions anymore! Can pop culture be a religious experience? Can the love for pop culture go too far?
In this episode, we explore its core concepts. We talk about the role of God and touch on Buddhism. We question terms like "holy" and "sacred".
Our exploration continues into the complexities of religion and spirituality. We discuss the differences between righteousness and holiness and think about the challenges of understanding holy texts. We draw connections between deification and fan culture, questioning the rituals and tax-exempt status of both.
We then broaden our discussion to talk about spirituality versus religion. Exploring the wider scope of spirituality, including practices like sound therapy and LSD use. We challenge the idea that religion requires specific beliefs. Our conversation also touches on tax exemption for churches, inspired by John Oliver's humorous take. We share different views on whether churches should be tax-exempt, considering transparency and financial concerns. We end by inviting listeners to share their thoughts on this complex topic.
Book: Jesus Potter Harry Christ: The fascinating parallels between two of the world's most popular literary characters, by Derek Murphy
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Preston Meyer 00:14
And welcome to the holy watermelon Podcast. I'm Kate Preston.
Katie Dooley 00:20
And what are we talking about today?
Preston Meyer 00:23
What are we talking about?
Katie Dooley 00:25
I mean, I did all the research for this episode, so I should probably introduce it. We're talking about
Preston Meyer 00:31
para religion and culture, pop
Katie Dooley 00:34
culture, as religion is the topic, but religion in pop culture will definitely come up. I think it's unavoidable. We also I'm just gonna say we have a third co host, that's my dog. So if you hear snorts or jingles, that's her, that'll just help with editing if you just know she's here. Alright, so let's get started. I guess. When I was researching this, I found a term I had never actually heard before, which was pair religion and I thought that that describe what we're talking about really well. And its definition is a secular belief system having certain aspects of religion, but not all aspects of religion. So then I had to look up what religion was because if you heard our last few episodes nobody knows.
Preston Meyer 01:27
Yeah, I think the things we covered in the last two episodes lend themselves very easily to the discussion of parrot religion.
Katie Dooley 01:35
Yes, and I Yes, all the talk arounds I guess what religion is and what Gods are basically fall under pair religion. So for morons who didn't really throw up formal religion has a belief in supernatural powers, some influence or live rituals and ceremonies and so a pair religion would be missing some of those things. So this is where pop culture comes in. And that could be repaired religion, whether that sports celebrity, your favorite TV show, media, Aberdeen's media, just like a big that covers all, YouTube and books, and everything worshipping
Preston Meyer 02:17
PewDiePie.
Katie Dooley 02:20
I mean, I think we all have our favorite YouTubers. Well, yeah, I
Preston Meyer 02:24
think if you spend enough time on YouTube, you're definitely somebody that you're going to keep going back to.
Katie Dooley 02:29
It's true, like the holy watermelon podcast, right?
Preston Meyer 02:32
Like and Subscribe. He was five star reviews. So
Katie Dooley 02:37
we're getting better this. Maybe we should start our conversation with why people worship pop culture, like religion, and maybe some similarities and differences and what that looks like. I mean, you wrote a paper on this.
Preston Meyer 02:56
I did. And I didn't actually explore the why in the paper that I wrote. But I just tried to illustrate a whole bunch of things and said, See, these people are definitely religious in their reverence for these things. Yeah, sports masochism is a great example. It helps bind communities together, you go to a hockey game, and you're in a stadium filled with people who are super excited to be there to participate together and love screaming. They'll usually
Katie Dooley 03:26
well, I can't say usually that's how they worship.
Preston Meyer 03:29
Right? There's an awful lot of getting dressed up in the uniform of your favorite player who are picked. Absolutely. There's loads of war paint, I think, probably more in football games than hockey games. But I see a lot more hockey jerseys on the train in hockey season than I see football during football season. I'll think cannabis, right? CFL is not a big deal. I actually have friends who have been professional football players, but not here in Canada.
Katie Dooley 04:02
So yes, people celebrating their puck choice can look a lot like worship.
Preston Meyer 04:11
Absolutely. There's, if you look at the cosmic duality that's present in an awful lot of the big religions, there's good and evil. That's usually the way it's simplified. And it's super easy to see rival teams like the rangers and the islanders. If you like one, the other one is not likely to be anything other than the rival the evil. And that's a little bit religious. The other
Katie Dooley 04:43
Yeah, yeah, I think it's them. Absolutely. Um, I didn't put this in the show notes, but I'm actually reminded of the book that I read for the first episode called in
Preston Meyer 04:57
the beginning. Know, the face
Katie Dooley 04:59
instinct. Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, our first episode called in the beginning, the book was called a faith instinct. And it talks about how humans are programmed to be religious. And I think that this is probably one of those Why's the question of the why is that we feel compelled to be part of the community.
Preston Meyer 05:21
Yeah. And a community that is bound together by a belief in something even if that belief is as simple as our team is going to win. I remember in V for Vendetta there was that the mantra of the Chancellor Have you strength through unity, unity through faith. And that faith can be literally anything general trust or belief example from pop culture, right. It's like I studied this a little bit.
Katie Dooley 05:52
Like you're talking about pop culture, and religion.
05:58
Are such dorks? Yeah,
Preston Meyer 06:00
but it's okay. Right.
Katie Dooley 06:03
I feel like sports is kind of its own beast, especially sports and there's often a standout player, you know that Michael Jordan is in the Wayne Gretzky's. But often it's a team sport. And maybe it's because I'm a sports fan, but I can't separate out one player from another Sorry, guys. But it just blurs on the screen. On the screen. They shoot their puck into hoops and different quarters. I don't know. That was purposely bad. I know a little bit
Preston Meyer 06:39
by sports do the goal.
Katie Dooley 06:42
Figures or number y. But I would separate sports a little bit from books, movies and television because books, movies and television often have. They have a protagonist always
Preston Meyer 06:57
have their fiction. Sports are straight up real. Quidditch. People play Quidditch. That's true. I mean, it's started out as a fictional terribly nonsensical game that turned into somehow a thing that people actually do
Katie Dooley 07:13
Delmon sensical. Yeah. That's true. But there I mean, no, I'm just being a brat. But there are fictional sports to precedent. Yes. But you're right.
Preston Meyer 07:24
But we don't revere the sports heroes, for their sports achievements in these fictional stories. We revere Harry Potter, for example, not because he's a great seeker, but because he took seven or eight years to beat Voldemort.
Katie Dooley 07:41
Wow, what a great segue into talking about what a Christ figure is. I don't know if you plan on that. We're silly today. So I was reading another book to get ready for this and good book, not really what I thought was gonna be at all, it will definitely be helpful later on. But I was reading Jesus Potter, Harry Christ, and it talks about the parallels between two literary characters. It's not really a comparison of Jesus and Harry Potter. But they did provide a really great definition of what a Christ figure is. So I'm going to read that Christ figure is simply a literary reference used to identify a fictional character that seems to symbolize Jesus Christ in a significant way, such as through the endurance of suffering, a sacrificial death, or a perceived rebirth or resurrection. Many literary figures have been called Christ figures by various researchers, including a half of Moby Dick Gandalf or Frodo Baggins of Lord of the Rings, or Galahad in the Grail quest. So that's where I separate movies and TV and books a little bit is because we have these Christ's character figures that don't necessarily appear in real world forts.
Preston Meyer 09:00
And we appreciate them. Why? Because they're awesome stories.
Katie Dooley 09:04
They are awesome stories is actually it's
Preston Meyer 09:08
a hotly contested statement regarding Harry Potter. But there's an awfully large following of Harry Potter, because they're absolutely enjoyable stories, whether or not you think they're academically good.
Katie Dooley 09:26
I mean, that's a different discussion. I think the conversation I want to have around Christ figures is, why is it interesting? Is it interesting because we've heard this story for 2000 years? And I honestly don't know and I didn't think to look into it. Is there a non Judeo Christian equivalent of Christ figure? Or is this further this? This deep dive that I don't necessarily want to go into today? If you do have a Christ figure from another religious group? Is it Just because it's an even older story than we realize it probably I've answered my own question. comments, thoughts, concerns.
Preston Meyer 10:09
In my excitement for developments in the Marvel Universe, I've done a little bit of looking into this new announced TV show TV show. It's on Disney plus, probably like two or three years from now called moon night. Character I know very little about but I did some wiki reading. And he's this Jewish fella, or half Jewish, Jewish or half Jewish, who his dad is a rabbi, and he's out as a mercenary. He's a very scary dangerous fellow. And he experiences this death or near death experience. In a wanna say, Egypt, I'm going from memory from what Wikipedia article summarizes probably more than one version of the story. But, you know, when I'm just casually looking into my pop culture, learning, expectations, Wikipedia, it's an OK place to go to Manage expectations maybe. And he is approached by this Egyptian god who brings him back from this near death or, or maybe full death, to be almost himself a deeply deranged Christ figure. Crush, beggars can come in a lot of different flavors, usually they tend to be non threatening, very positive Savior figures.
Katie Dooley 11:43
And I guess the point we should clarify is I was reading about Christ figures on
Preston Meyer 11:50
wake up with fear
Katie Dooley 11:51
so easy. And it says that they need to, it's very broad, almost anyone can be a Christ figure. So I don't even know it's a great definition. Or you could argue that someone is a Christ figure very easily. So it does the character might display one or more of the following traits. What are one performance of miracles, manifestation of divine qualities healing others displaying kindness and forgiveness right there. I'm already crazy. You're fighting for justice being guided by the Spirit of the Father character, and the characters own death and resurrection
Preston Meyer 12:32
symbol.
Katie Dooley 12:33
Right so I've been seeing but healing others, like literally any doctor character, you could argue as a Christ figure because if it's
Preston Meyer 12:44
not there playing out any one of the stories in the Bible that center around Jesus doing a thing, then it's very easy argue that Christ figure.
Katie Dooley 12:52
So why What about the case for your story is so appealing 2000 years being retold and retold and retold and retold. We
Preston Meyer 13:01
all love a hero. But that's just the way it goes. And if you don't love a hero, that says something about your character that I don't want to dive into it this particular
Katie Dooley 13:11
sociopath. Seriously, like a bare minimum, you're probably a sociopath. Probably,
Preston Meyer 13:17
yeah, no judgments. We need sociopaths to keep things going.
Katie Dooley 13:23
She never likes. She
Preston Meyer 13:25
likes some heroes. But there's plenty of villains that she finds absolutely fascinating and really latches on to. These, we all generally love a hero, and a hero that we can feel some sort of familiarity with actually helps a lot. And familiarity can be achieved in a lot of different ways. If he's from your hometown, like Deadpool is from Saskatchewan, like the actual character of Deadpool, the character of Deadpool is always like Wolverine, because he's from Alberta, right? Wolverine is from Alberta, Ryan Reynolds. I think it's actually from BC. Yeah, I think. Not that I have learned the home countries of all of the superheroes ever, that would be dreadfully boring to study up on for long term that's very different. takes all kinds to make the world go round, right. So familiarity in that way is easy enough to accomplish. Another way of familiarizing yourself, what are familiarizing the hero of your story to your audience, is to make them seem like something that they're already aware of. And Jesus is pretty ubiquitous around the world. The Everyman. In some ways, he's definitely well known, at least in part. Like there's an awful lot of people who say they're Christian who straight up don't know Jesus, but they're aware of Jesus and at least a few stories.
Katie Dooley 14:59
So that's
Preston Meyer 15:03
and so that that familiarity having a Jesus type hero in your story helps to familiarize the audience with the hero.
Katie Dooley 15:14
I have a follow up question, and my brain doesn't quite know what it is.
Preston Meyer 15:18
So I think that's the why anyway,
Katie Dooley 15:22
this might be diving down a rabbit hole. Do you need to have some awareness of, of Jesus to appreciate the stories? Or is the story of Jesus based on the every story? as well?
Preston Meyer 15:37
That's the great question, isn't it? One of my favorite heroes, whose called a Jesus figure is Superman. Yeah, that was, almost all Christians will say, Jesus, and Superman, basically the same guy. But there's a couple of reasons why I really don't like that statement. Number one, is, Superman was written by a couple of Jews, who definitely would have been familiar with Christian lore live, like one of the creators was a Canadian, from Toronto, one of them was an American, they met up in Cleveland, I'm pretty sure. And they threw together this great story after a few other ideas that weren't really working out. And that's they lived in a world where Jesus was absolutely a real present thing. But if you look at the Superman story that they wrote, there's no Jesus there at all. It's all Moses. Interesting.
Katie Dooley 16:40
And that was, I guess, what I sort of talked around earlier of other religions. And because we're in North America and Judeo Christian world, are their Moses figures, or, you know, Buddha figures, or Muhammad figures, like we talked about the Christ figure, and it's very easy to find. But maybe that's just because we're in North America. And whether you're Christian or not, you just societally you grew up with it. And it's easy to read, it's easy to find. And I don't even know if it's easy to find, because people are purposely relating to the Bible, or if it's just actually good story writing?
Preston Meyer 17:26
That's a great question, right? I like that you brought up the potential of a Buddha figure made me immediately think of the matrix. I remember when it came out. And ever since everyone's like, Neo is the the awesome Jesus figure in the story. He's absolutely messianic. He actually feels to me more like a Buddha figure. He becomes enlightened. So I mean, he also has a guide, but he doesn't rely on his guide very much either. Which, I mean, there's absolutely a perfectly decent argument that he's a Jesus figure. There's several books on this subject that point that out. And I, I just happen to feel that he's more of a Buddha figure.
Katie Dooley 18:07
So while we're talking about it before we sort of move on to the next part that I want to talk about. This is storytelling format. As described by one of my favorite writers, Donald Miller, he writes books on business writing, and I use this frequently in my work so storytelling format, a character is your character.
Preston Meyer 18:34
Let's call it Luke Skywalker. How the problem Yeah, he does. He hates tending to dehumidifiers on a desert planet means the guy. Yeah, Old Ben Kenobi. That gives him a plan. Yeah, go fight the Empire. Here's your dad's lightsaber call
Katie Dooley 18:50
them to action. Yes. That Yeah. Cool. There's probably a little more with like the Republican shit but we join
Preston Meyer 19:00
the rebellion to save Princess Leia because here's a mission leads to a success. Yeah, they actually get her off the Death Star. And it avoids a failure. Yeah, she didn't get killed. And the character transformers Yeah, Luke becomes a Jedi or Well, kind of he slowly becomes aware of the force and does use it
Katie Dooley 19:21
very much a new help Luke Skywalker. Yes. Yeah, definitely.
Preston Meyer 19:28
We can definitely stretch this out further.
Katie Dooley 19:30
Right, but we could storytelling format easily can do that with Jesus. Oh, yeah. Or basically anyone else like is that any good story? Once you know this. I was literally watching Lord of the Rings and Preston came. So Frodo has the ring me scandal. Joe joins the fellowship goes to Mordor tosses three in the fire avoids the destruction of the world. And Frodo and the happy little ha But again, x finger, minus a finger and a whole bunch of points. He's actually not a happy little hobbit again. He's deeply traumatized and has to go across the sea. That's his character transformation.
Preston Meyer 20:11
Book is different than the movie. It's been. Brian
Katie Dooley 20:15
and I were talking about this. It's been so long since I've read it, I actually have no frame of reference for book to movie anymore.
Preston Meyer 20:21
Yeah, so I took a whole course on the works of Professor Tolkein, through college, and it was pretty enjoyable. We started with the Silmarillion moved through the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And that's actually all we covered of his writings. And I really enjoyed the summer alien, first couple of chapters, and then it got really hard to keep reading, I skimmed half of The Hobbit. And then when it came to Lord of the Rings, I was so burned out that I just went I had to write something about it, I would look through the movie, to find where in the book, I would find the information I needed. And then read that chapter in the book. So I know, more or less how the story ended in the book. Remember very little, because I was skimming it looking for something. I just know that it is a lot more bleak. And sad than the end of the movie was gonna be when
Katie Dooley 21:20
I finished Jesus Potter Harry Krystal go back to Earth during Christmas. Well, what a lovely wormhole that was. So I have some example of pop culture as religion. And I really wanted to keep this episode on pop culture as religion, not religion in pop culture. But I think that would be hard.
Preston Meyer 21:40
There's definitely some blend in this Venn diagram in the mind. And
Katie Dooley 21:44
the reason I wanted to stay with pop culture is religions, because religion in pop culture is infinite. And we could talk for hours, basically, just reiterating that everyone's a Christ
Preston Meyer 21:55
figure. Right? That's all we want to do.
Katie Dooley 21:58
So there's a couple of examples I wanted to talk about. I mean, I guess, is it healthy or not? And if if there's a problem with worshiping pop culture, or treating pop culture as religion, so just keep that in mind. So two examples that kind of tie in together, both of which I love is they love Bob's Burgers episode, and we're both Bob's Burgers hands where the kids try to save an aquarium and they turn it into a church. And then there's also a John Oliver Last Week Tonight episode that I highly recommend. And he's taught he's talking about televangelists and seed face. So he actually turns his show into a registered religion with the IRA. So it can be tax exempt, and he can take donations.
Preston Meyer 22:50
It's weird that more companies don't do this. Like like in Bob's Burgers, they set up the aquarium to be a religion. We could totally take that model and just build up the temple of the shark have, basically, why, why am I blanking on the name of the big waterpark down in San Diego,
23:10
like Sealand,
Preston Meyer 23:12
like sea land, is that what it's called? SeaWorld. It's called SeaWorld where we could do, we can totally set up a thing like SeaWorld probably in a place with a warmer climate than we have, and set it up as the temple of the shark, call it a religion. If you want to come and visit the park, you have to offer a sacrifice, usually in the form of dollars. Let's be real.
Katie Dooley 23:33
That's like an admission fee.
Preston Meyer 23:35
Right? But it's not it's a sacrifice to the gods of the sharks. Come and check it out.
Katie Dooley 23:41
Well, I mean, that's a great i somebody's
Preston Meyer 23:45
gonna beat me to actually making this a real thing. Well,
Katie Dooley 23:49
I don't actually know. I've tried to find it. I can't find what the series rules are for on religion, but I hope our Congress subscribers care to make a donation to our Patreon so that we can register as a religion. I will wear giant watermelon on our heads. Sure,
Preston Meyer 24:08
I think absolutely. You try out a watermelon and it's not gonna get real gross, perfect. And then it could be a perfectly reasonable hat. I
Katie Dooley 24:15
just thought we'd make the felt but I like the cutting edge. So obviously, the buzz burgers episode is fiction, but John Oliver actually turned his show into a registered religion. Is there a problem with that?
Preston Meyer 24:35
Is there I'm asking that depends on how you want to evaluate a religion. As far as dangerous religions go. I don't think Last Week Tonight counts as a dangerous religion. Is it an abuse of the tax code? Maybe. But so the tax code be better? The tax code should absolutely be better. We got way too many and people who make way more money than I do paying less taxes than I do. And I haven't paid taxes in years.
Katie Dooley 25:10
He's been a student everyone just Yeah,
Preston Meyer 25:12
not a tax evaders, evading tax. I just have not legally been required to pay taxes in a long talk
Katie Dooley 25:20
and be like, Who's this lazy? Motherfucker?
Preston Meyer 25:25
I have only recently qualified myself to be a host on this podcast.
Katie Dooley 25:30
You're my club and then
Preston Meyer 25:33
me. No, that's not true. There's a reason there's two of us we can't just have one person who's educated and call that a podcast.
Katie Dooley 25:44
So whether or not something's legally registered entity with whatever tax place, that's where to buy looking Tax Department.
25:54
Pete stop making mouth noises. Yeah, tax taxation
Katie Dooley 25:59
hammers of your country. Is there a point where worship of media or let's say celebrities is dangerous? What you taking, taking your like, or love of thumb thing to a worship beyond level, I
Preston Meyer 26:22
suspect with no personal experience in this department, that there is somebody who genuinely believes in at least the possibility of a real life Cthulhu. And that's a thing that approaches religion. And because Cthulhu is a dark, maddening character in the writings of HP Lovecraft that could bump up against dangerous potentially.
Katie Dooley 26:55
I even mean, so much as liking How I Met Your Mother too much. Right? Is there? I don't know what that looks like. Maybe the producers met your mother have a crazy fan encounter that they want to email me about? But is there a benefit to worship worshiping something to that level? That again, that's the pure religion, not your typical religion,
Preston Meyer 27:22
but to there's a benefit. And
Katie Dooley 27:25
and is there a point where it's dangerous? So again, like, like How I Met Your Mother, the Harry Potter books,
Preston Meyer 27:33
let's go with My Little Pony,
Katie Dooley 27:34
My Little Pony. Orlando. Sure.
Preston Meyer 27:40
The reason my little pony came to mind is because you've got a strong following of people who are super committed. And I've had friends who really love My Little Pony. There's absolutely some good stories that are absolutely worth sharing with your children. My Little Pony? I don't know My Little Pony well enough, but I suspect strongly that there is. But that is a uninformed suspicion. Or at least under informed. And what I do know is that there is like You familiar rule, you're familiar with rule 34? Yes. My Little Pony has some scary Oh, no scary contributions to the internet. Oh, now and that is because of the religious or almost religious or parent religious following of this media. Well, I mean, the little plastic toys eg that you get your kids, not terribly sexual, but are they sexual at all? To some people they are if people are into what they're into, and though I'm not going to kink shame somebody I do believe that there is a line where you do need to change your behavior
Katie Dooley 29:00
I guess if you're not hurting anyone, including yourself
Preston Meyer 29:07
or other animals that often people don't feel comfortable with considering as having feelings or feeling pain, anything that sentient don't hurt it. What's What's the line for sentient?
Katie Dooley 29:24
Does it have a personality? Absolutely.
Preston Meyer 29:27
I think that's a pretty decent criteria. If you want to follow those rules that you have set then that's a perfectly good criteria to meet that.
Katie Dooley 29:36
So if your pair religion doesn't hurt anything sentient I think it's fine. Yeah,
Preston Meyer 29:43
that's that's fair, including yourself,
Katie Dooley 29:45
everyone. So
Preston Meyer 29:46
if your religion, your shrine,
Katie Dooley 29:49
that you spend all your time at and you don't eat problems, problems Yeah. So, how has religion absorbed pop culture? And religion intentionally or unintentionally can give greater meaning to media?
Preston Meyer 30:09
I don't know try to list in but it's they're both kind of big questions. Maybe we'll
Katie Dooley 30:17
end with how has religion into our pop culture. And then we can talk about some of our favorite examples, Christ figures or Bible stories that we that are like,
Preston Meyer 30:27
religion absorbing pop culture. There's an awful lot of Christians today, compared to the very few Christians 2000 years ago, who actually believed in the figure of Lilith, who is in any story that deals with a hell and a devil. And the idea of angels in pop culture that I'm aware of, there is a Lilith figure, who, in old rabbinic writings, was Adams first wife before Eve in the Garden of Eden, who was not a great wife, who would not submit yourself to Adam. And so was cast out and replaced with a far more submissive wife.
Katie Dooley 31:12
I don't know if the audience heard my IRA. Wives, but there was a pretty big iral. But
Preston Meyer 31:20
that's the story. And it's not based on the biblical text. But it's an old story that has been told so often, that it has found itself in popular culture, which has then reflected itself back on to how a lot of Christians actually look at their theology. So that's one example of pop culture affecting theology that I've observed.
Katie Dooley 31:46
Oh, that's a interesting one.
Preston Meyer 31:48
It is an interesting one, and it's interesting to dive into and look at or, or hell, the way most Catholics or even Protestants see hell is based a lot on the story of Dante, ala Gary and his Divine Comedy. Very good. So those are the two examples I've got. And they're, they're pretty cool. The Divine Comedy is a good read. But also, you know, it's a time commitment. It's broken down into three consumable chunks.
Katie Dooley 32:22
And, yeah, I mean, those are examples where it actually influences how we read Scripture.
32:32
Interesting.
Preston Meyer 32:34
I hope those answered your question.
Katie Dooley 32:36
I mean, it sure did. Okay. Now, I'm just like, pondering feel. feels to me. Also was the ascension of Mary, like added after the fact by the Catholics? Yeah, absolutely. That was a pop culture, though, because that was so old. I mean, I guess maybe it wasn't was my pop culture. But I'm glad when, when you mentioned more than how it was like what was added after the fact that people believe that's actually not in there at all. And that was one that was the question
Preston Meyer 33:02
there is how do you define pop culture?
Katie Dooley 33:04
I mean, I don't remember the date that the ascension of Mary was that like, added of cannon
Preston Meyer 33:10
was after she died.
Katie Dooley 33:13
Very good. And before I was born, so that narrows it down right? About 1900 years. Thanks, Stan. I mean, I would feel like we should put this other thing I would find pop culture is any media that is popular that is popular at the time. So I don't I don't know enough about what was happening at that time to determine whether that was based off of pop culture or not. But I think it'd be an interesting thing to look into, because I bet it was influenced by what was happening at the time.
Preston Meyer 33:43
It was the popular belief back in those days, when the story came about that to be the mother of God, you have you, therefore had to be sinless yourself. which became a problem when people started teaching that. Absolutely. Everybody is born deeply sinful. So there had to be this higher status given to Mary so that she could be a believable vessel to bear. A sinless Jesus. So the why is the word escaping me right, immaculate? The Immaculate Conception? Isn't the conception of Jesus. Yeah,
Katie Dooley 34:22
I remember learning. This is like one thing that stuck with me from my time in university with religious days is that it's the conception of Mary was immaculate and immaculate, everyone. I don't know. It actually means untouched by man, the mailman. So if your house is immaculate, it means your husband and the whole view, not just pristine it means untouched by a man immaculate fun fact.
Preston Meyer 34:45
Because men are dirty and
Katie Dooley 34:46
men are girls. My rights,
Preston Meyer 34:51
sorry. So Mary had to be elevated to this higher status. And then the story, the proto evangelio of James This tells the story of how Mary was conceived immaculately by a figure who not only bears the name and in the English translation, but straight up is a copy of the Old Testament. Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Interesting. Yeah, Mary's own story is also very similar to Samuels in the Old Testament. It's just copying older source material, like we talked about before,
Katie Dooley 35:31
before we turn on the mic. So that makes this really weird. But that'll come in an episode when we probably just talked about Jesus for at least an hour. That might be a two parter, but it could be I was saying to Preston, this book that I'm reading do this potter Christ, I thought it would be more about pop culture, but it's actually about how the the author argues that Jesus is a fictional literary character as opposed to historical. And that information for Jesus was borrowed by earlier writings, just like the Harry's in the frozen world are borrowed from Jesus. So Preston, why is some of your favorite Jesus see pop culture for lack of a better term? Because like I said, there was gonna be no way we could talk about pop culture as religion without religion and pop culture. So what are some of your favorite examples of religion in pop culture, and it can be anything like, I'm just going to test out the Book of Mormon musical is amazing.
Preston Meyer 36:33
There's so much fun. I like that though. It addresses the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That's not what the story is about. It's about two missionaries who straight up make their own theology and really screw up. And the potential for teaching in Uganda, where the Church of Jesus Christ is not currently present, as far as I know, not at least on any official status. It is a pretty funny example of religion and pop culture. We had a lot of fun go into that show together. Huh, my favorite. There's,
37:11
I have a bunch.
Preston Meyer 37:11
There's so many little aspects of things that are all over the place and so many different media. What what's coming to your mind? Well,
Katie Dooley 37:19
one of my favorite things to do this sounds so stupid, is I like to listen to the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, which, if you haven't listened to it, it's an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical from the 70s. And it's like the last few days of Jesus. And then I'll listen to Book of Mormon because then it's chronological. But it's like Jesus Christ Superstar, like very serious. And book Mormons not. But I listen to them both together and think about all my theology and for the day. I mean, if we're talking Christ figures, I've always been a big Harry Potter fan, literally just watching Lord of the Rings. I think those are probably my big ones. I had another point to make, but I'll let you tell me about some of your favorite examples.
Preston Meyer 38:09
My most ridiculous example was Hamlet two is a ridiculous movie. I can't remember the name of the star. But basically, the idea of the show is that this new theater teacher comes to school and says, I got this show plan that's really going to rock everybody's socks. It's a sequel to Hamlet. I was like, what? Everybody died in Hamlet.
Katie Dooley 38:42
I mean, I know it's been done very rarely, but it's rare that not the original author does
Preston Meyer 38:49
like, right? Like the idea of a spiritual sequel is one thing, but this is straight up Hamlet two, meant to be a sequel to the original Hamlet done 400 years later. Oh, now, as a musical. If I remember correctly, it's actually been fairly confident it was a musical. And so everybody's dead. You have to bring them back to life. How do you do that? Bring in Jesus.
Katie Dooley 39:18
Jesus just resurrected everyone. Yeah,
Preston Meyer 39:19
and it's just gets crazy. So that was a lot of fun. I mean, I wouldn't call it high quality cinema, but I would recommend it. It was some good fun. The opposite end of that spectrum. I would say you've got things like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan is Jesus. Absolutely.
Katie Dooley 39:41
CSS is very open about that. He's Yeah, apologist and I don't mind Lion, the Witch in the wardrobe.
Preston Meyer 39:49
It's the only story in the series that I actually familiarized myself with and I did enjoy it well enough, though. It's weird that the kids walk into Narnia in land full of sentient animals of all shapes and sizes, wearing fur. And nobody talks about
Katie Dooley 40:08
my problem. My problem book in the CS Lewis series was the Silver Chair. That one is like, have some religion shoved down your throat. And that one I actually struggle with read that one, like the entire thing is very preachy, I found this, and that's why I remember it, because there's a bunch of books and I couldn't list them all to you. I will read the series once but everywhere the sellers are being very, very preachy, but
Preston Meyer 40:34
I do enjoy the Lenten it's a good it's a good movie, which is the only basis I have to judge the series on I've never actually read any CS Lewis, I have Mere Christianity on my shelf. I've been meaning to read it for 10 years, and I still haven't gotten around. Well, I'm gonna assign it to you in a podcast. Is it even a long book?
Katie Dooley 40:55
Well, one more question I want to address especially to you as a religious person, and I have my own ideas for this but as a whole and religious person I can't really answer it is getting away with religion in pop culture, especially like, really blame examples of Jesus Christ Superstar Book of Mormon, I have Lucifer here on the list. Where you are dealing with Canon and scripture. How do you not offend people?
Preston Meyer 41:30
What do you mean? Do I fail to offend people?
Katie Dooley 41:34
Personally, people that you personally. Um,
Preston Meyer 41:40
I'm sorry, I guess I don't understand the question. Well,
Katie Dooley 41:44
you remember the LDS church? Why are you not offended by the Book of Mormon? The musical not not the actual book?
Preston Meyer 41:52
Because I don't take it personally, I guess like there are. There's one song I believe,
Katie Dooley 41:58
which favorite song five out that out right now. You don't want me to?
Preston Meyer 42:02
I've seen people use it as just a fun song to say, yeah, these are the things we believe. And the tone of it is a little mocking in some parts, particularly those parts that slightly misrepresent what we believe. But it's also sung by a fellow named Kevin who, that's, that's what he believes. And though most of it reflects the general belief of the church, not all of it does, technically. It's, I accept it as an expression of a fictional person's belief. Constantine, the movie, not the TV show, they came up with Keanu Reeves, like, almost 15 years ago or whatever. Yeah. Perfectly enjoyable. There's a part in it. There's like, while in hell Corinthians has a couple of extra chapters or whatever. It's been a while since I've seen that too. But I remember that little thing. And it's just like, that's weird. Because there's plenty of extra books in the Bible that could be added that aren't books that we know the Bible talks about, that are no longer available, things like that would have been easier to say, oh, yeah, it's in these other writings of Paul, rather than saying, Yeah, this epistle just had an extra chapters that have been cut. It's kind of weird. But it doesn't offend me it just but it does hit me as kind of weird. And Lilith being used, like, as mentioned before, in almost every story that deals with hell, and angels and demons. It doesn't offend me, it just that storytelling, in that universe, things are different. It's to think that all stories take place in the same universe I live in. It's just asking to be offended and have problems. But if you accept a thing as fiction, and everything's gonna be just fine. The way I deal with it is,
Katie Dooley 44:00
I guess, then my follow up question. And then maybe I'll go into my thoughts. Is there a point or place where pop culture could cross a line? Where is there a way they could have done the Book of Mormon musical, for example, that you have been like, this is super offensive to everything. I believe, if they were, I mean, and maybe if you can remove yourself a bit, because if you can separate people who can't separate themselves from that,
Preston Meyer 44:29
I think if something is deliberately defamatory, like the Book of Mormon, talks about the book, more musical talks about how Joseph Smith found the plates and how to pass them off to Brigham Young and said, Don't let anyone see them. I mean, that's straight up not true, but it's not presented as deliberately defamatory. It's presented from the point of view of a character who straight up has zero familiarity with his church's history. And so that if you were to make that transition and to make the Book of Mormon musical about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and make it straight up contradictory to all of the histories that we have available on that time, that would probably be offensive. But when it's told from the point of view of us, completely ignorant figure, it's way less offensive.
Katie Dooley 45:26
Okay, perfect. That's
Preston Meyer 45:27
where I stand.
Katie Dooley 45:28
And that's that was my thoughts, again, that I can't say as a non believer, but I have a friend who's quite a devout Christian, she loves loose fur, but she's also said some very accurate to Scripture. Obviously, loose fur does not come to earth as a hot man, fortunately, but every time they reference something biblical, it's accurate, and that's where she enjoys it. And I, when I first saw this, her not knowing that much, I was like, Oh, she don't like this, but she enjoys it because it's accurate. And and you just kind of confirmed that and because it's accurate, or accurate to the character. It's like, okay,
Preston Meyer 46:08
if in Lucifer, for example, where you have a figure living on Earth as this hot dude, imagine having Jesus show up, but instead of being like Jesus, he's like Zeus from the old tales in Greece, that would be offensive to people. Because that's, edges straight up a misrepresentation of the character. And biblically we have very little detail on what the character of Lucifer really is. And presenting him in any sort of way that is attractive to people. It makes perfect sense based on his role, that it's not offensive.
Katie Dooley 46:50
And I mean, for the premise of the show, a good character to pick Crake Jesus as a crap.
Preston Meyer 46:57
No, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be interesting, I think.
47:00
Yeah.
Preston Meyer 47:03
I think it would straight up fail to be interesting.
Katie Dooley 47:04
There's that show. I haven't seen that Netflix club Messiah. Have you seen the
Preston Meyer 47:08
previous I've seen the previous for it. I've heard it's good. Yeah.
Katie Dooley 47:12
Anyway, that was a complete digression. But any final thoughts any bows you want to tie in wrap up this episode?
Preston Meyer 47:23
Religion is complicated. Don't be afraid to try to talk to your friends about it. And the things we've addressed I think are both fascinating and very deep wells to dive into as always are
Katie Dooley 47:43
you have any thoughts or comments are lovely congregants that's phone calling you know, shoot us an email let us know your favorite Christ speaker is or example of religion and pop culture at and it was wrong last episode because I hadn't said that up yet. Holy watermelon pod pod@gmail.com. And leave us five stars on your preferred podcast player and subscribe and share with a friend. He's been with you
