14 RELIGION OUTSIDE THE (GOD) BOX Religion and the “Old” Media Religion and Sport Print Publishing Muscular Christianity and the YMCA Radio Evangelical Protestant Sports Televangelism Ministries Religion and the “New Media” Religion and Spirituality at the Religion Online: Producing and Individual Level Accessing Information Invisible Religions On-Line Religion: Practicing Faith on Quasi-Religious Movements the Web Summary Here are some questions to ponder as you read this chapter: • What effect have technologies like the printing press and the radio had on faith and faith communities? • Who is using television for religious purposes, and what impact might this have on religion in the future? • How might the Internet affect religion as a communal/shared experience, and how might it influence individual faith systems? • Is sport an avenue to enhance faith (and does a religious faith contribute to athletics)—or are they competing systems, each needing the time, energy of participants, and socializing participants in quite different values? • Are there other forms of religion that operate subtly in the society—forms of religiosity that are implicit or taken for granted? 348 Chapter 14. Religion Outside the (God) Box • 349 • Is religion becoming privatized and individualized? If so, what might be some consequences of this? • What is the place of movements like astrology, scientology, and similar quasi-religious organizations in society? tudents are often told to think “outside Last, a number of social scientists maintain the box”—to think broadly, critically, that religion is undergoing significant transfor- S unconventionally. Sociologists of religion mation as new forms of religion are emerging. are well served to do the same. Not all religion or Some of these new forms are nontheistic, and religiousness is to be found inside the “God some even lack a supernatural dimension. For Boxes” we think of as churches, synagogues, this reason, many sociologists prefer to call these temples, and mosques. Thinking “outside the processes “quasi-religious phenomena” or “func- God Box” allows us to understand some tional alternatives to religion.” Regardless of important social changes that have taken place in what one calls them, these value perspectives modern society and the religious adaptations that provide many people with a sense of purpose in have resulted. life and with a center of worth (which is the ety- Two of the most important aspects of contem- mological basis for the word worship). When porary society are the media and sport. These any ideology or value system becomes a mean- arenas are often not taken seriously by students ing system—one that defines the meaning of life, of religion, however, because they are “mass” or death, suffering, and injustice—it usually takes “popular” cultural phenomena. Religion is seen on a sacred cast in the eyes of the adherents. By as serious and important while popular culture is looking only inside the God Boxes, we overlook silly and frivolous, yet the two commonly intersect. these new phenomena. One cannot understand some very important developments in religion without understanding its relationship to the media and sport. RELIGION AND THE “OLD” MEDIA Excessive association of “religion” with church, temple, or mosque (institutionalized Although a study of radio/television and religion forms of religion) is the starting point of had already been published by the mid-1950s Thomas Luckmann’s (1967) analysis of what he (Parker, Barry, & Smythe, 1955), sociological called “invisible religion.” The identification of study of media and religion really took off with religion with the God Box has narrowed the the rise of modern “televangelism” in the 1970s field of sociology of religion, which is espe- and 1980s. Those who lived through those cially problematic because, in his view, orga- decades could not escape the sight (if not the nized religion is becoming more marginal in influence) of “TV preachers” like Billy Graham, modern societies. Luckmann argued that Oral Roberts, Rex Humbard, Robert Schuller, emphasis should be placed on the individual’s Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim and struggle for a meaningful existence in society, a Tammy Faye Bakker. Even as those pioneers struggle which is fundamentally “religious.” If have passed from the earth or at least public we focus only on institutionalized forms, we consciousness, broader concerns about the will miss the key religious activity going on in relationship between religion and media have modern society. Much of religion has become been addressed by sociologists. privatized, as individuals work out religious As Stewart Hoover (2009) observed, “media solutions for themselves, on their own terms. are fundamentally technological in origin, and 350 • PART VI. SOCIAL CHANGE AND RELIGIOUS ADAPTATION technological change plays an important role this could have happened without the printing in their development and evolution” (p. 689). press. The printing press had similar revolution- Our survey of the relationship between reli- ary effects within Judaism (Brasher, 2004). gion and the media, therefore, will look at the Religious publishing today remains a evolution of media technologies from print vibrant cultural and economic phenomenon. and publishing to radio and television to “new According to the Association of American media” like the Internet. Of course, techno- Publishers (2010), net sales of books in their logical developments cannot be understood “religious category” grew 2.4% from $557 independent of their economic, political, and million in 2002 to $658 million in 2009. social environments, so we pay some attention Although this rate of growth was modest due to those factors as well. to the challenging economic conditions of the time, it more than doubled the overall rate of Print Publishing growth in the book publishing industry over the same time period (1.1%). These sales are The development of the mechanical (movable supported by organizations such as Christian type) printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in Retailing magazine (which serves the $4.6 billion 1440 was arguably the most important techno- industry in “Christian products”), the Evangelical logical innovation of the second millennium. It Christian Publishers Association, Religious had a monumental effect on all of the major Book Trade Exhibit, and the Association for institutions of society: education, medicine, poli- Christian Retail. tics, and, of course, religion. Indeed, the so- As in Gutenberg’s day, Bibles lead the way. called Gutenberg Bible was the first major book Indeed, nearly 28% of individuals surveyed by printed using the press. It played a central role in Publishers Weekly reported purchasing a Bible ushering in the print revolution and also had a in the previous year (Elinsky, 2005, p. 24). significant effect on the practice of religion itself Recently, religious fiction and self-help block- (Man, 2002). busters have also contributed to this market Prior to the wide distribution of religious texts segment. The “Left Behind” series of 16 nov- to people who were not ordained ministers, the els, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, hierarchies of Christendom controlled what was have sold over 60 million copies. This is disseminated as Truth. The common (and typi- remarkable for a series of books that focus on cally illiterate) member of the local church did the “end times” from the premillennial dispen- not have any basis for challenging the Pope or sationalist perspective of some sectarian other ecclesiastical leaders. Those leaders were groups’ of the book of Revelation. Even more the authority. However, Martin Luther used the remarkable is that five of the books were New printed word in many powerful ways. He and York Times’ best sellers, indicating their mass other reformers claimed that the Bible alone was appeal. Another book that has dominated the the ultimate source of Truth and religious author- best seller list for years is megachurch pastor ity. The church leaders were to be believed only Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life. insofar as they were faithful to the scriptures. Published in 2002, it has sold over 25 million Luther himself used the printed word to spread copies and is the best-selling hardback book in his version of Christian Truth, and he did so with American history. It has also been translated a vengeance. He not only wrote more than other into 30 languages (Pew Forum on Religion & dissenters but he outpublished the entire legion Public Life, 2005). Highlighting the articula- of Vatican defenders (Brasher, 2004). He pub- tion between different media platforms, mega- lished in the common languages of the people church pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen’s rather than in Latin, and the Protestant book, Your Best Life Now, sold 700,000 copies Reformation was launched. It is doubtful that in the first month after its publication in 2004, Chapter 14. Religion Outside the (God) Box • 351 and his follow-up, Become a Better You, was By 1946, Time characterized “radio religion” also a New York Times’ best seller. as “a national institution,” one that was “preached to an estimated congregation of ten million” (“Religion: Radio Religion,” 1946). Radio Excluded from this national institution, how- This history of the development of radio ever, were evangelical Protestants. Radio sta- technology is complex, but for our purposes tions gave their free public interest time only to we can note that in the 1920s commercial mainstream Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish radio broadcasting began. Despite the fact that groups. Unable to take advantage of the free in 1930 the average cost of a radio receiver airtime, entrepreneurial Protestants like Paul was $78 (equivalent to $1,019 in 2010 dollars), Rader, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Charles 40% of all U.S. households owned one. As the Fuller bought airtime for their programs and price dropped, that proportion more than dou- thereby helped to transform the religious orien- bled to 83% by 1940, and by 1950 nearly tation of the American mass media in an evan- every household in the United States (96%) gelical direction (Hangen, 2002).