By: Frederick Mark Gedicks and Roger Hendrix
Religious experience arises out of one of the strongest
motivational drives of human life, the need for meaning in one’s
existence. Many human activities speak to this need; religion does
so by offering a “‘deep understanding’ of the place of human
beings” in the world, together with “guidance about the most
worthwhile way to live” in it. Religion “points to that which
is ultimate, infinite, unconditional in man’s spiritual life,” and
thus defines for its adherents that which is most important in
their lives, their “ultimate concern.”
What is one to make of the fact that mass culture now
portrays and even triggers such a deep and significant human
experience? On the one hand, it is not necessarily good news
for believers that Hollywood has appropriated religious experience
as a formula for commercial success. Can encounters with God
really be evoked by something as mercenary and prosaic as a movie,
a television show, or a rock CD? Many believers are put off
by purported spiritual reactions to mass culture, thinking them
vaguely vulgar, tainted by commercial and other spiritually dubious
motivations. And with some reason. There is no doubt
that the religious content of many pop vehicles designed to appeal
to a mass audience is diluted, so as to avoid giving offense and
enable broad viewer identification with actors and themes.
The proliferating prime-time portrayals of spirituality, for
example, are “deliberately non-specific about the spiritual forces
animating their characters’ universe.” They portray the idea
of a deity “unattached to religion,” who is variously described as
“fate, God, the higher power, the universe, [or] the collected
energy source.” Likewise with spiritual bestsellers, which
tend to be “extra-biblical”—that is, “not what evangelicals
consider the literal truth.” This pragmatism may have even
become normative—that is, it may now be thought that a mass
cultural product should be tailored to appeal to a wide
audience. The Passion, for example, was widely
criticized as a product of mass culture precisely because of its
uncompromising and even sectarian account of the crucifixion.
The combination of vast information about diverse religious
experiences made accessible by the digital revolution, and
epistemological uncertainty brought on by contemporary postmodern
sensibilities, has moved religious experience beyond the control of
denominational and institutional religion to the control of the
masses, where marketplace democracy determines what is real and
true.