First up from The God Machine this week is a surprising surge in the credibility of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and its system of beliefs, “Pastafarianism.”
You’ve no doubt seen the posters, adapting Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam to show Adam’s finger reaching out to a Spaghetti Monster, instead of a bearded God. The “religion” was founded in 2005 by Oregon State University physics graduate Bobby Henderson to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent-design creationism in public school science classes. (Henderson asked the board to include lessons on the “Pastafarian” theory of creation to also be taught in science classrooms. It declined.)
The “church,” however, struck a chord, and has grown dramatically in popularity, particularly on college campuses and in Europe. FSM meetings and clubs are no longer unusual. And this weekend, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will draw serious scrutiny and in a theological setting. (thanks to reader M.W. for the heads-up)
When some of the world’s leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They’ll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.
The appearance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion’s annual meeting gives a kind of scholarly imprimatur to a phenomenon….
It was the emergence of this community that attracted the attention of three young scholars at the University of Florida who study religion in popular culture. They got to talking, and eventually managed to get a panel on FSM-ism on the agenda at one of the field’s most prestigious gatherings.
The title: “Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody.”
“For a lot of people they’re just sort of fun responses to religion, or fun responses to organized religion. But I think it raises real questions about how people approach religion in their lives,” said Samuel Snyder, one of the three Florida graduate students who will give talks at the meeting…. In short, is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?
Philosophy majors in the audience are no doubt enjoying this modern version of “Russell’s teapot.”
Other news from the God machine this week:
* Addressing the plenary session of the annual General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, one of the largest annual gatherings of Jewish leaders in the world, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean struck an inclusive political note. “This country is not a theocracy,” Dean said. “There are fundamental differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party believes that everybody in this room ought to be comfortable being an American Jew, not just an American; that there are no bars to heaven for anybody; that we are not a one-religion nation; and that no child or member of a football team ought to be able to cringe at the last line of a prayer before going onto the field.”
* A liberal Baptist church has been kicked out of its state convention for tolerating gay people: “Delegates to the annual meeting of the N.C. Baptist State Convention voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to expel Charlotte’s Myers Park Baptist for welcoming gays and lesbians without trying to change them. The liberal church of 1,970 members became the first to be kicked out under rules passed at last year’s meeting that said any Baptist church that affirmed or endorsed homosexual behavior would be considered ‘not in friendly cooperation with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.’ Six other churches out of more 4,000, including three in Charlotte, quit the Baptist State Convention to protest those rules.”
* The Oral Roberts scandal continues to unfold: “Richard Roberts, the embattled president of Oral Roberts University who is facing accusations he misspent university money to support a lavish lifestyle, has received a vote of no confidence by the tenured faculty at the evangelical university. The resolution was approved by faculty on Monday and obtained late Tuesday by The Associated Press. Faculty members plan to distribute the nonbinding document to the school’s Board of Regents and the faculty assembly at an upcoming meeting.” The vote was reportedly “nearly unanimous.”
* And finally, two days after Georgia Gov. Sonny Purdue (R) hosted an official pray-for-rain event at the state capitol, a storm crashed through the region. Some believers were delighted, and pointed to the rain as proof of divine intervention, but the news was not all good — drought-stricken land just soaked the rain up, and at least nine people were injured in the storm.