Reflections on Injustice: Dan Stidham and the West Memphis Three Case

Morehead's Musings: Mr. Stidham, thank you for your willingness to do a follow up interview on the West Memphis Three case (previous interview here) in light of last week's surprising release of Damien Nichols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin. Before we move to questions related to an update on the case, can you comment on your legal work since you served as defense attorney for one of the defendants, and how you have stayed involved as this case developed over the years?

Dan Stidham: I served as Jessie Misskelley’s court-appointed trial counsel, and was involved in all of his appeals up until 2008. At that time I became a full-time State District Court Judge here in Arkansas, and could no longer serve as counsel for Mr. Misskelley. In addition, I had become a witness in the case with regard to the Rule 37 appeals for both Mr. Misskelley and Mr. Baldwin. I could not be a lawyer, a judge and/or a witness in his case all at the same time. After 2008, I continued to serve as an “unofficial” advocate for all of the West Memphis Three and the fight for their freedom. I often referred to myself as the “Cheerleader” after that time. The Rule 37 hearings lasted on and off for two years.

After the trial ended in 1994, I made a promise to Jessie that I would continue to fight for him for as long as it took to get him released for a crime that he did not commit and correct this injustice. After 18 years and 78 days, I was finally able to fulfill that promise a week ago and it was an awful good feeling I must say to be in the Courtroom watching it unfold. I would have gladly spent another 18 years if that would have been necessary, but I am glad that they are now finally free.

Morehead's Musings: Since the original conviction a number of interesting developments occurred over the years, such as new DNA evidence. Can you sketch some of this, and how it seemed to strengthen the case for the innocence of the WM3 rather than the State of Arkansas?

Dan Stidham: During the latter stage of the appeals and the quest for new trials for the WM3, the defense team was never charged with proving that any particular individual or individuals were actually responsible for the crimes, though that would have been a huge bonus and made it even easier and more clear that the WM3 were not responsible for the deaths of the three eight-year-old kids. Through the use of the best forensic technology and experts available including DNA analysis, the defense was able to demonstrate that no reasonable jury would convict these kids in the event a new trial be granted. Of course, the State fought us “tooth and nail” for many years before an agreement for testing the evidence was reached. There were several DNA profiles taken from biological material found at the crime scene and on the bodies, but not once did any of it point back to, get linked or relate to, in any form or fashion, the WM3. DNA in a hair found in one of the ligatures used to bind one of the victims was found to match Terry Hobbs who is victim Stevie Branch’s father. Another DNA match was discovered on a tree stump where the bodies were found which belonged to David Jacoby who was with Terry Hobbs on the day of the murder. There is also a partial DNA sample that was taken from one of the penile swabs done at autopsy that does not have enough genetic markers to definitively state that it belongs to any particular individual as compared to the rest of the population, but there was enough markers to exclude all known samples in the case including all three convicted men. Just in the past two weeks, two other “foreign” DNA samples were discovered on some shoelaces that do not match any known samples in the case again excluding the WM3.

Also, witnesses began to recant their 1993 and 1994 statements and defense investigators uncovered additional new evidence that lead to the inescapable conclusion that these kids were absolutely innocent. The legal team continued to expand to include lawyers from all over the country, and none of us, including the celebrity donors, were going to let this injustice stand. Then suddenly the media finally realized that the nonsensical drama that was presented in court in 1994 to obtain the convictions against the WM3 was not what they had been told it was, and what was left of the State’s case completely unraveled.

The prosecution’s theory was that the case was a Satanic Ritualistic Homicide. The problem with this is that just like the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, there is no such thing as a Satanic Ritualistic Homicide. The FBI’s own Ken Lanning has never been able to document a single case of Satanic Ritualistic Homicide anywhere on the planet. Similar studies in the UK have revealed the same thing. Thus, as it became more and more apparent that there were going to be new trials in the case, the state was going to have to use the only evidence that they had left which was Misskelley’s Satanic Ritualistic Homicide false confession. Some of your readers will point to other statements Misskelley said, or may have made, subsequent to the trials Misskelley is so mentally handicapped, he would say or admit to anything. I know this because I have been the only person on the case who has watched this unfold over the course of the past 18 years. I could get him today to admit to killing JFK in Dallas in 20 minutes or less and he wasn’t even born yet in 1963. He and I could sit down and solve every “unsolved” murder in the country if people were still willing to believe in false confessions. Those who use Misskelley’s false confession as evidence of guilt for the WM3 simply do not understand the dynamics or the psychology of interrogations and false confessions. If they themselves were ever submitted to the same mental torture that Misskelley endured then they would immediately understand. Another example of a coerced confession would be any one of our pilots who are interrogated and forced to give false confessions even though they are trained on how not to do this. No human can withstand mental torture for very long, especially someone who is mentally handicapped.

Frankly, “Yea,” “Uh-huh,” and “Okay” are not words consistent with a real confession. This is what you find in the Misskelley statements. Police officers today are trained not to ask leading questions and look for information from suspects that only that only someone who was actually at a crime scene would actually know about. Police and Prosecutors (for the most part) today understand these dynamics and no reasonably intelligent police officer or prosecutor today would even file charges based on such ridiculous evidence, much less accept Misskelley’s statements as either accurate, or as an indication of guilt.

In 1993 and 1994, very few people in the world understood the concept of false confessions. One of the three who did, was with me in the courtroom at the Misskelley trial and Judge Burnett refused to allow him to testify or qualify him as an expert. Ironically, two weeks later in the Echols-Baldwin trial, he allowed a so-called expert in the occult to testify despite the fact that he had an illegitimate mail order PhD from a diploma mill to allow prosecutors to present evidence of a Satanic Ritualistic Homicide, again a phenomenon that simply doesn’t exist. Simply put, the judge allowed junk science to be injected into the trial and scientifically reliable evidence to be excluded.

“Satanic Panic” convicted the WM3 and the hard work of many people from all around the world refused to let this injustice stand. To try and get a conviction, the State would have had to overcome the best experts and lawyers in the world, and try to prove the first ever Satanic Ritualistic Homicide in the world. No small task I can assure you. The new experts stated that what police and prosecutors thought was sexual mutilation in 1993 was actually post-mortem animal predation.

Morehead's Musings: Observers, particularly those who have followed the WM3 case for years, were stunned last week when it was learned that a meeting in court was scheduled involving the defendants, their families, and legal authorities in Arkansas. Speculation then followed that some kind of deal was in the works, and to everyone's great surprise the WM3 were freed. How did this deal come about?

Dan Stidham: I wasn’t in the room when the plea deal was reached, however, Mara Leveritt reported the exact details of how it happened in the Arkansas Times recently. I defer to her on this issue. I will say that the State of Arkansas, obviously, really wanted this case to go away, and the WM3 wanted to be out of prison for something that they did not do, especially Damien Echols who had been on death row and solitary confinement for over ten years. A rarely used legal doctrine allowed both sides to accomplish their goals, thus ending a case that could have gone on for even more years.

Morehead's Musings: I watched the press conference with Prosecutor Scott Ellington after the announcement that the WM3 were being released, and the deal seemed curious if not contradictory to an outside observer. On the one hand the state had the WM3 admit guilt yet allowed them to maintain their innocence. They also had to agree not to bring civil suit against the State. And when reporters asked in follow up about whether the State still thought the WM3 were guilty, the response was yes, but that the hope was that the three had been rehabilitated. As someone who is familiar with this case, but with no legal background, it seems to me that the State wanted to cover itself legally and politically, while also getting out of an increasingly difficult case from a public relations perspective. Is this view off base? What are your thoughts?

Dan Stidham: There should be no politics in justice, no where, no how, but your view and the reports in the media seem to indicate that “this view” could possibly be on base. I will say that I was proud of the courage the Arkansas Supreme Court displayed for remanding the case back to the trial Court because former Judge, now State Senator, David Burnett earlier had refused to even consider the new and overwhelming evidence in the case in earlier hearings. This was about a two year process as I recall do conduct this appeal.

I also think that despite the allegations of “politics” being invoked by some people in the case, issues I cannot address personally, Prosecutor Scott Ellington has shown considerable courage in agreeing to the “Alford” plea. He deserves great credit for this decision, demonstrated an ability to make tough decisions, and has taken considerable heat over this which I believe is quite unfair. He simply doesn’t deserve it. After all, this case is a case he inherited just last year and he made none of the original decisions that were made in the case back in 1993 and 1994.

Mr. Ellington announced on Thursday that despite the fact that he considers the case “closed” he would consider any new evidence brought to him and would prosecute the real killers if adequate proof was presented to him. Again, quite a courageous move on his part. Also, Governor Beebe recently publicly stated that he would pardon the WM3 if the real killers were discovered. I applaud the Governor’s position in this regard, as it is the right thing to do.

Judge David Laser also deserves credit for his leadership in taking on the issues in this case and accepting the plea that freed the WM3. It was clear to me that he took considerable time and in reviewing the overwhelming amount of evidence in the case. Had the “Alford Plea” not been entered, I truly believe he would have taken the courageous step of granting new trials for the WM3. But this would have meant more time for the Defendants behind bars and perhaps more countless appeals, etc.

These victim’s families deserve better than they got from the WMPD and they deserve closure. I will personally continue to work on this case and others have also pledged their continued support to find the real killers as well. This “Alford Plea” was by no means perfect justice, but it is justice, nonetheless. A man is off death row and three innocent persons who have spent half their lives in prison for something they didn’t do are free at last.

Morehead's Musings: For me this case was a reminder that legal evidence is never interpreted in a vacuum. Some have recently written on this case in connection with "cognitive bias." What part might negative stereotypes of heavy metal music, the Goth subculture, minority religions like Wicca, and fears over the occult have played in how evidence and the defendants were interpreted?

Dan Stidham: Negative stereotypes played a huge role in the case. In fact, I was invited yesterday to write a law review article on that very subject. We in the criminal justice system must be very careful not to let fear, prejudice, bias, and culture, or sub-culture issues interfere with our ability to interpret facts and evidence. Just as there should be no politics injected into our criminal justice system, there is no room for stereotypes of any kind there as well. It can lead to injustice, something that I personally cannot tolerate in any form or fashion. The goal of our criminal justice system is truth and justice and to allow fear and panic to rule the day is wrong and it erodes public confidence in our criminal justice system. There is a reason that the statue, and icon of justice, “Lady Justice” has a blindfold on.

Morehead's Musings: What lessons would you like people to take away from the tragic experiences of the WM3 in this case?

Dan Stidham: Wow. There are so many. First of all, that sometimes things are not always as they first appear. That we should never let anything like this happen again to anybody and that there are a myriad of things that we can do to prevent them from happening, and we should be doing them all right now.

Let’s not let fear and prejudice be invoked into any criminal trial. Let us demand that our Courts and legislatures mandate that all interrogations be recorded from beginning to end so that we can see what really happens in the interrogation room. This protects the police as well as the defendant.

If we are not going to let polygraph evidence to be introduced into evidence in Court, then let’s stop letting the police use it as a “tool” to extract false confessions from people, especially the mentally handicapped. The first vote from the jury in the Misskelley trial was 7-5. Mr. Crow and I had convinced 5 of 12 jurors that there was “reasonable doubt” in the case. Imagine what the turnout might have been had the jury been allowed to hear Dr. Richard Ofshe (who has a real PhD and a Pulitzer Prize) testify about the nature of the false confession….and hear Warren Holmes testify that Misskelley had actually passed the polygraph test that the WMPD told him that he had “flunked” and that he was “lying his ass off.” It might have saved him, Mr. Echols and Mr. Baldwin, from 18 years and 78 days that can never be restored back to them.

Interestingly, in 1993 only Minnesota and Alaska required full recording of all confessions in felony cases. Today, 17 States require it either through Court mandate or legislative mandate. We must all work together to get this number up to all 50 States. We are making progress. We must continue to find ways to improve our criminal justice system that is already the best the world has to offer. But we make mistakes sometimes and we must never let our ego keep us from correcting these mistakes.

We must also not forget all the other wrongfully convicted defendants, some of which who are now on death row and who didn’t have the luxury of HBO documentaries and major donors to assist them with their appeals. Even the most casual observer can look at the Innocence Project’s website and see that the number of exonerations due to DNA evidence is skyrocketing. Faulty eye witness testimony, false confessions, prosecutorial misconduct, and junk science like hair and fiber comparisons which can mislead juries are at blame. With the number of these cases, we know there are other innocents out there some of which who are death row and some of which who have already been executed for crimes that they did not commit.

Lastly, a lesson I would like people to take away from this case is the power of prayer and the power of never giving up. Winston Churchill once said: “Never, never, never, give up.” We didn’t and we prevailed. There were many dark days over the course of the past 18 years and every time I got down or depressed, I would get and email or a letter from someone on, or the other side of the planet thanking me for standing by my client and not giving up. I would like to thank each and every one of these folks who contacted me, encouraged me and sustained me in those darkest days. They truly inspired me and kept me going forward.

Morehead's Musings: Since your work with the WM3 you have developed a speaking program where you touch on things like false confessions and satanic panics. Can you tell readers a little about your seminar work and how they might get in touch to schedule you for their event?

Dan Stidham: I have been speaking about the case on college campuses and at professional seminars around the country for the past 18 years talking about this particular injustice and the ways that we can prevent cases like this from happening again. Fortunately, I get to add a few more slides and a happy ending to my power point presentation. I hope to keep getting invited to speak about the case even though the case is now over so that the next generation of lawyers, judges, prosecutors and police officers can learn from the mistakes of the West Memphis case and what we can do to improve our system of justice. The WM3 case has already become an icon for injustice in America and hopefully the invitations will keep coming my way. I really enjoy speaking about the case.

Information about my public speaking program, which I am in the process of up-dating can be found at www.danstidham.com.

I have also decided to write a book about my experiences in the case. I have been kicking around the idea for years but until now I could never decide if I really wanted to re-live the pain of the past. Now that this pain has been strongly mitigated by the freedom of the WM3 it made my decision both easier and obvious. I plan to get started this weekend. The truth of what happened and why it happened must be told. I also think it might be therapeutic for me personally to write this book.

Morehead's Musings: Mr. Stidham, thank you so much for your ongoing work on behalf of the WM3.

Dan Stidham: Thank you for your kind and generous words and the opportunity to follow up with our earlier discussion for your readers. I would be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to thank a couple of people without which the freedom of the WM3 would not have been possible. If I tried to name everyone, there is always the danger of leaving someone out as there are so many folks who worked for so many years on this case. Despite the danger, let me acknowledge a few folks like John Phillipsborn, who is without a doubt the best lawyer I have ever encountered. Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger who first brought this case to the attention of the world through their HBO documentaries and to the attention of people like Eddie Vedder, Natalie Maines, and Johnny Depp who along with countless others donated money to fund the defense and particularly the DNA testing. Eddie Vedder is perhaps the most incredible and generous individual that I have ever met.

Of course, Lori Davis and Mara Leveritt’s work was instrumental. Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh also donated funding for the case. Obviously, their generosity helped tremendously to bring about justice in this case. My many thanks, and best wishes to them for their support.

Old friends like Grove Pashley, Burk Sauls, Kathy Bakken and Lisa Fancher also had a huge impact on this case along with new friends like Amy Berg who is working on a documentary on the case.

I would also like to take time to thank my children who let their Dad miss a few ballgames and other things while they were young so I could keep this case alive long enough for help to arrive. And when the cavalry arrived, did they ever! Also my parents deserve credit for instilling in me the qualities I needed to do my work on this case and live my life. My family was as proud of what happened on Friday as I was. Thanks.

Transitions completed

Readers may recall my previous post regarding my work on Transitions, an resource designed for those who have made the decision to migrate out of Mormonism and into traditional Christianity. I am pleased to announce that the video and workbook are the first three chapters are available for viewing on Vimeo.

Transitions : the Mormon migration from religion to relationship - PART 1 from WIIS on Vimeo.

Transitions Part 2 - Relationships from WIIS on Vimeo.

Transitions Part 3 - Church Culture from WIIS on Vimeo.

For more information on Transitions see the website at www.LDStransitions.com.

We are holding the first seminar related to this resource titled "Using Transitions in Congregations," September 17 from 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. The seminary is free and is for pastors and other coaching people to assist others using Transitions as a tool for former Mormon immigrants. This event will be held at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 8575 South 700 East in Sandy. Email James@gslc.net for a flyer with more information and to pre-register.

West Memphis Three Freed!

In the past I have discussed the tragic case of the three young men known as the West Memphis Three who were convicted and imprisoned for eighteen years for allegedly engaging in a satanic or occult crime on three boys in Arkansas. This link includes my analysis, and this one is an interview with Dan Stidham, the defense attorney for one of the men.

Although the evidence against them years ago was weak to non-existent, and later DNA evidence failed to link them to the crime (even pointing toward another individual), the legal system and politicians in Arkansas seemed content to refuse to reconsider the case. The, seemingly out of the blue, a meeting was called involving the young men, their families, and the legal system. Today, we watched with a mixture of amazement, shock, and happiness, as the men were released after a plea deal was agreed to. The deal makes no sense in that the three had to plead guilty, and yet were allowed to maintain their innocence while recognizing the court had sufficient evidence to convict them at a new trial. They are also barred from filing a civil suit against the state. This strange plea deal seems aimed less at justice and fairness in the case, and more toward the Arkansas legal and political system saving face and covering their asses as the conviction and sense of injustice became an international incident.

As we rejoice over the freedom of the West Memphis Three this is time to remember that facts and evidence are not interpreted in a vacuum, but take their meaning and plausibility in social and cultural contexts. When this is tainted by satanic panic it can have dire consequences.

For those interested in learning more about this case see the book Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt (Atria Books, 2003)), and the documentaries Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2.

Krista Tippet On Being: The Civil Conversation Project

The new email for Krista Tippet's On Being program focuses on The Civil Conversations Project. The email describes the project in this way:

Restoring Political Civility
Conservative Christian voices are prominent in our most heated debates. Evangelical educator Richard Mouw has wisdom on navigating fear, and the temptation it brings to distort the truth about those we see as enemies. This is part of the Civil Conversations Project — ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces.

How Do We Live and Honor Each Other Despite Our Differences?

Tippet goes on to interview Mouw which includes some interesting exchanges on this much-needed subject matter. After quoting a passage from of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah on seeking the Shalom, the peace of others, Mouw elaborates:

And how do we look at what was in that context, you know? Hebrew people in exile trying to figure out how in the world they're going to relate to a pagan culture. And then God says, seek their Shalom, seek their well-being, you know, even if you disagree radically with them. And then in the New Testament, the Apostle Peter says that we have to honor all human beings and have a regard for their well-being. I take those to be sort of different ways of getting at a very common Biblical theme. What does it mean for me to honor the Muslim, to honor the Mormon, to honor people of unbelief who are hostile toward Christianity? What does it mean to honor them? And then I think we need to work at the theology there, you know. How do we view other people?

The transcript of this interview is worth considering, as are the merits of The Civil Conversations Project, which has implications beyond interreligious conversations and relationships.

Sacred Tribes Journal, Stephen Webb, Mormonism, and Christian Materialism

The next issue of Sacred Tribes Journal due out later this year will focus on neglected issues of dialogue between Latter-day Saints and traditional Christians. A major facet of this issue will interact with Stephen H. Webb.Webb's forthcoming book on divine embodiment. Webb did his PhD at the University of Chicago, and he teaches in religion and philosophy at Wabash College. He has written on various topics, including Mormonism, where he came across Robert Millet and Gerald McDermott's dialogue book Claiming Christ, found the interaction and subject matter intriguing, and wrote a piece for Reviews in Religion and Theology.

As an outgrowth of this, Webb has written Jesus Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter (Oxford University Press, November 2011), where he argues that traditional Christians can learn from Mormonism regarding the notion of divine embodiment. Indeed, he goes so far as to argue for a traditional Christian notion of God's materiality, and that orthodox Christian theology needs to reflect further on this topic. Here is a description of the book provided by Webb:

If modern physics teaches us that matter is more mysterious than people used to think, could the spiritual be more material than theologians ever imagined? This book conceptualizes matter and spirit not as opposites or even contraries but as the very stuff of the eternal Jesus Christ. The result is a Christian materialism based on a new metaphysical interpretation of the incarnation. Webb provides an audacious revision of some of the deepest layers of Christian common sense with the goal of constructing a more metaphysically sound orthodoxy. Taking matter as a perfection (or predicate) of the divine requires a rethinking of the immateriality of God, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the Chalcedonian formula of the person of Christ, and the analogical nature of religious language. It also requires a careful reconsideration of Augustine’s appropriation of the Neo-Platonic understanding of divine incorporeality as well as Origen’s rejection of anthropomorphism. Webb locates his position in contrast to evolutionary theories of emergent materialism and the popular idea that the world is God’s body. He draws on a little known theological position known as the “heavenly flesh” Christology, investigates the many misunderstandings of its origins and its relation to the Monophysite movement, and supplements it with retrievals of Duns Scotus, Caspar Scwenckfeld and Eastern Orthodox reflections on the transfiguration. Also included are discussions of classical figures like Barth and Aquinas as well as more recent theological proposals from Bruce McCormack, David Hart, and Colin Gunton. Perhaps most provocatively, the book argues that Mormonism provides the most challenging, urgent, and potentially rewarding source for metaphysical renewal today.

Francis Beckwith at Baylor University, a Roman Catholic scholar, and Charles Randall Paul of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, a Mormon scholar, have agreed to review Webb's book and responsive and interactive essays. Other essays, and a book review of Joseph Smith, Jesus, and Satanic Opposition (Ashgate, 2010), will also be included in this exploration of neglected issues in Evangelical-Mormon dialogue.

I have just begun working through an advance copy of the uncorrected proof for Webb's Jesus Christ, Eternal God in preparation for my editing of this edition of STJ. I think readers will find the book, and the interactions at STJ of great interest, and some level of controversy (as Webb himself acknowledges), particularly where Webb interacts with Mormon metaphysics. From Webb's Introduction:

Chapter 9 might be the most controversial of my book, because I am convinced that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has much to contribute to contemporary theology, especially on the topic of Christian materialism. Unfortunately, creedal Christians rarely take Mormonism seriously. Perhaps the main reason for this neglect is the Mormon rejection of creation out of nothing, which puts it at odds with most of Western meta- physics and Christian theology. None of its philosophical positions has made it more prone to scholarly condescension than this one. Moreover, any attempt to articulate the perfectibility of matter runs the risk of being accused of a con- spiratorial alliance with the hermetic tradition, a confluence of magical, religious, and philosophical teachings that made every effort to infuse spirit into matter. Hermeticism is the opposite of Gnosticism; it seeks to enable matter to reach its potential by discerning the seeds of creativity planted therein (and thus is the father of emergent materialism), while Gnosticism sees matter as the evil product of an evil creator. I defend the Mormon tradition from the charge of esotericism, though admittedly its metaphysical presuppositions can be reconstructed in a variety of ways, given the informality of much Mormon the- ology. I think that traditional or creedal theologians have more to learn from Mormonism than any other religious tradition today, and that the Mormon position on matter can be reasonably defended, though I offer some suggestions on how to revise it in the light of the teaching of heavenly flesh.

We are planning on this issue of the journal being published by year's end. I highly recommend Jesus Christ, Eternal God for those interested in pursuing significant theological topics, particularly those that intersect with Mormon theology. The book can be ordered through Oxford University Press.

John Stott: RAndall Balmer's Memorial at Religion Dispatches

John Stott, the great evangelical statesman, recently passed away. He has long been a role model for me as he combined his faith with not only a commitment to sharing that faith with gentleness and respect, but also in his holistic approach to his faith and his willingness to reassess aspects of it (such as in his leanings toward annihilationism in contrast with eternal punishment, a point worth considering in light of the Rob Bell Love Wins controversy).

Randall Balmer recently wrote a piece in Stott's memory for Religion Dispatches that is worth reading.

Guest Post at Flunking Sainthood: The Younger Evangelicals and 'Embodied Ministry'

As an outgrowth of my recent guest appearance on a panel at the Mormon Matters podcast, Jana Riess invited me to write a guest post at her blog Flunking Sainthood. You can find the post titled "Are Younger Evangelicals More Respectful of Mormonism Than the Old Guard?". If you're an evangelical, please reserve judgment until you read the piece before rejecting it simply by the title. Here's my introductory paragraph:

In his book The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (Baker, 2002), the late Robert E. Webber discussed the diversity of Protestant evangelicalism, and developments in this subculture’s religious landscape. He defined “younger evangelicals” to include anyone “who deals thoughtfully with the shift from 20^th- to 21^st-century culture.” These shifts involve different attitudes to theology, culture, and other religions. I include myself in this demographic (perhaps more by like-mindedness than age), and offer my thoughts on what this involves for evangelicals engaging Mormon culture.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood/2011/06/are-younger-evangelicals-more-respectful-of-mormonism-than-the-old-guard.html#ixzz1QaGqdolW

Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders and Religious Conflict

The Pew Form on Religion and Public Life has an interesting report out titled "Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders." One section addresses this group's opinion of religious conflict and other religions:

Conflict between religious groups, by contrast, does not loom as a particularly large concern for most of the evangelical leaders surveyed. A majority says that conflict between religious groups is either a small problem (41%) or not a problem at all (14%) in their countries – though a sizeable minority considers it either a moderately big problem (27%) or a very big problem (17%). Those who live in the Middle East and North Africa are especially inclined to see inter-religious conflict as a moderately big (37%) or very big problem (35%). Nine-in-ten evangelical leaders (90%) who live in Muslim-majority countries say the influence of Islam is a major threat, compared with 41% of leaders who live elsewhere.

On the whole, the evangelical Protestant leaders express favorable opinions of adherents of other faiths in the Judeo-Christian tradition, including Judaism, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. But of those who express an opinion, solid majorities express unfavorable views of Buddhists (65%), Hindus (65%), Muslims (67%) and atheists (70%). Interestingly, the leaders who live in Muslim-majority countries generally are more positive in their assessments of Muslims than are the evangelical leaders overall.

Later the report discusses tensions between religious traditions:

Overall, most of the evangelical leaders report that conflict between religious groups is not a big problem in their home countries. Leaders in the Middle East and North Africa are most likely to say religious conflict is a moderately big (37%) or very big (35%) problem. About half of those in the Asia-Pacific region (55%) and sub-Saharan Africa (49%) also see inter-religious conflict as a moderately or very big problem. By contrast, in North America, Latin America and Europe, majorities say it is either a small problem or not a problem at all.

Still, the survey finds some signs of tension with non-Christian religions, particularly Islam. Nearly seven-in-ten of the evangelical leaders (69%) name Islam as more prone to violence than other religions.7 Far more leaders say Islam and Christianity are “very different” (69%) than say the two faiths have “a lot in common” (25%). And a solid majority of the leaders who express an opinion (69%) feel that Muslims are generally unfriendly toward evangelicals in their country. Sizeable minorities also see Hindus (41%) and Buddhists (39%) as unfriendly toward evangelicals. Of the evangelical leaders who express opinions on other religious groups, most say they hold generally unfavorable views of Hindus (65%), Buddhists (65%) and Muslims (67%).

I'm a Guest at Mormon Matters Podcast

Yesterday I was asked to be a guest as an evangelical on the Mormon Matters podcast. I will be appearing and discussing a variety of issues with host Dan Wotherspoon, and fellow guests Joanna Brooks, and Jana Reiss. We will be recording our conversation this coming Monday, June 13.

The discussion will surround an article by Warren Smith in Patheos which argued that evangelicals should not vote for Mitt Romney since a vote for him is, in his words, "a vote for the LDS Church."

You can also read a follow up interview with him at Patheos, and an interview with him by Joanna Brooks at Religion Dispatches.

Update: A written introduction and the podcast, "Why Are Mormons Seen as 'Dangerous by Some Evangelical Christians," can be read and listened to here at Mormon Matters.

In addition, Jana Riess has written an article in follow up to our conversation titled "When Theological Disagreement Spills Over into Anti-Mormonism" at her blog Flunking Sainthood.

New Volume on Heaven's Gate

I recently learned of a new academic exploration of the Heaven's Gate UFO religious group.

Heaven's Gate:
Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group

Edited by George D. Chryssides, University of Birmingham, UK

On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 39 men and women were found in an opulent mansion outside San Diego, all victims of a mass suicide. Messages left by the Heaven's Gate group indicate that they believed they were stepping out of their 'physical containers' in order to ascend to a UFO that was arriving in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. The Heaven's Gate suicides were part of a series of major incidents involving New Religions in the 1990s, as the new millennium approached. Despite the major attention that Heaven's Gate attracted at the time of the suicides, there have been relatively few scholarly studies. This anthology on Heaven's Gate includes a combination of articles previously published in academic journals, some new writings from experts in the field, and some original Heaven's Gate documents. All the material is expertly brought together under the editorship of George D. Chryssides.

Contents: Foreword; Approaching Heaven's Gate, George D. Chryssides; '88 update – the UFO Two and their crew: a brief synopsis, Marshall Herff Applewhite; Seekers and saucers: the role of the cultic milieu in joining a UFO cult, Robert W. Balch and David Taylor; Religious studies and 'heaven's gate': making the strange familiar and the familiar strange, Mark W. Muesse; Heaven's Gate: the dawning of a new religious movement, Patricia L. Goerman; Heaven's Gate: a study of religious obedience, Winston Davis; The Devil at Heaven's Gate: rethinking the study of religion in the age of cyberspace, Hugh B. Urban; 'A sometimes mysterious place': Heaven's Gate and the manufactured crisis of the internet, Douglas E. Cowan; Scaling Heaven's Gate individualism and salvation in a new religious movement, Benjamin Ethan Zeller; 'Come on up and I will show thee': Heaven's Gate as a post-modern group, George D. Chryssides; Postscript; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

About the Editor: George D. Chryssides is Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham. He has written extensively on new religious movements: his books include The Advent of Sun Myung Moon (Macmillan, 1991), Exploring New Religions (Cassell, 1999), Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (Scarecrow Press, 2001) and A Reader in New Religious Movements (with Margaret Z. Wilkins, Continuum, 2006). He has contributed to numerous academic journals and edited collections.

Reviews: 'Heaven's Gate is one of the most interesting new religious groups to emerge in the twentieth century. Virtually unknown to scholars prior to its communal suicide in 1997, it has become the focus of significant research and important analysis. This worthwhile collection of studies is the most comprehensive to date. I enthusiastically commend it to anyone interested in understanding, not just UFO religions, but also the emergence and significance of new religions and alternative spiritualities more generally.'
-- Christopher Partridge, Lancaster University, UK

For further information, or to order a copy visit the Ashgate website.

Necropolis Now: Interview with Ronald Hutton

Ronald Hutton, the scholar and historian who has written significant volumes on Paganism, including Triumph of the Moon, has given an interview worth reading at Necropolis Now. Here's an excerpt:

Did you write The Triumph of the Moon to demolish the traditional history of Pagan witchcraft?

Absolutely not: I wrote Triumph to fill a vacuum created by the collapse, within Britain, of that traditional history: which is why I do not devote any space in the book to a sustained attack on that history itself. The concept of early modern witchcraft as a surviving pagan religion, which had been scholarly orthodoxy in the mid-twentieth century, began to disappear among professional historians around 1970, along with many other nineteenth-century beliefs. At the same time, many Pagan witches who had worked with founding figures of traditions, such as Gerald Gardner, Alex Sanders and Robert Cochrane, had always expressed doubts regarding the truth of what those founders had claimed about the history of those traditions. By 1990 these two developments had converged to produce a general disbelief in the origin story of modern Paganism among its British leaders. During that year (before I had published anything on Paganism myself) I attended a conference held at Kings College London at which a succession of them declared that its traditional historiography should be regarded as myth and metaphor rather than literal history. As I mention in Triumph of the Moon, this had already also begun to occur in the United States from the 1970s: Isaac Bonewits, Aidan Kelly and Margot Adler all alerted American Pagans, in different ways, to the fact that the traditional account of their historical origins was problematic.

For those interested in Pagan studies, especially the recent controversy in some quarters surrounding Hutton's Triumph of the Moon, this interview is worth a read. It can be read here.

Investigation Discovery Looks at the West Memphis Three

The Investigation Discovery Channel will be broadcasting the program True Crime with Aphrodite Jones with a focus on the West Memphis Three on May 5 and 8. See the program listing here. My previous interview with one of the defense attorneys in this case, Dan Stidham, can be read here.

Robert Schreiter Interview on Local Theologies

In the past I posted on an interesting book by Robert J. Schreiter titled Constructing Local Theologies (Orbis Books, 2002). In my previous post I discussed Schreiter and his ideas related to local theologies as follows:

Schreiter is a Catholic theologian who is part of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. I found his Catholic perspective, as well as his theological and cultural savvy to be extremely helpful in reflecting on theological contextualization. In his view contemporary pluralism presents a "multiplicity of new pastoral and theological problems unprecedented in Christian history." Schreiter discusses some of these unique challenges that arise in a variety of forms, such as the asking of new questions in differing cultural contexts, questions that impact even the most routine issues of church life often taken for granted in the West:

"Indeed, so many new questions were emerging that the credibility of existing forms of theology was weakened. For example, questions about the eucharistic elements: How was one to celebrate the Eucharist in countries that were Muslim theocracies and forbade the production of importation of fermented beverages? What was one to do in those cultures where bread products such as bread were not known, in which the unconsecrated bread itself became a magical object because of its foreignness? Or how was one to celebrate baptism among the Masai in East Africa, where to pour water on the head of a woman was to curse her with infertility? How was one to understand Vatican Council II's opening to non-Christian religions in countries in southern Asia where Christianity seemed destined to remain a minority religion?"

In order to address these questions in ways that are theologically and culturally responsible, Schreiter suggests that we need to develop local theologies. He defines this as a form of theology that "begins with the needs of a people in a concrete place, and from there moves to the traditions of faith," and which involves a "dynamic interaction among gospel, church, and culture." Schreiter sees this starting place with culture as a strength as it begins "with the questions that the people themselves have" rather than the concerns of the church that often result in a theology and ecclesiology disconnected from local cultures.

I have been trying to get with Schreiter for some time for an interview to discuss questions of mine that have arisen over the course of my own dialogue between theologies, (sub)cultures, and various religious groups. Following are my questions and Schreiter's responsive thoughts.

Morehead's Musings: Protestant evangelicals are used to thinking about theology in terms of received historical theologies like Calvinism or Wesleyanism. Yet you describe a need for "local theologies." Why are these Protestant historical theologies examples of local theologies even if Protestants don't recognize them as such, and how do you define local theologies in terms of new expressions of theology in cultural and subcultural contexts?

Robert Schreiter: Theologians of whatever denominational stripe or inclination think their theology works above or apart from the context because of its subject: God. But even those who affirm biblical literacy have to contend with the fact that the Bible was written down by finite humans. Take a look at the document that came out of the October 2010 Capetown meeting of the Lausanne Covenant. (Incidentally I have an article appearing on the mission theology of the Lausanne Covenant's three big meetings, appearing in April in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research).

The theology of, say, John Calvin can be seen as local inasmuch as his writings were shaped by a response to a specific historical circumstance--reform of the Church in the 16th century. Local or contextual theologies are sensitive to context, but they are not determined by it.

Nearly all Western theologians seem to have difficulty accepting the limitations of their formulations. I get requests all the time (especially from Europe) to talk about the "universal" in the "local" theologies.

Morehead's Musings: Many evangelicals have been wary of sociology and have usually not brought it into dialogue with theology. How might a sociology of knowledge be significant for local theology formation?

Robert Schreiter: What I call a "sociology of theology" (that part of the book is widely quoted) is really built on a sociology of knowledge, i.e., a realization that all knowledge is situated, even as it reaches out beyond its situatedness. My point was to say that the location (monastery, university, oppressive situations) shape the form that theology takes. Another way is to look at theology's addressees: for whom is it intended, and what counts for them as genuine knowledge?

Morehead's Musings: I have been impressed with the missionary work of Catholics historically, particularly Jesuits like Matteo Ricci. Were they involved in the development of local theologies as you discuss, drawing upon the cultural tools they had available to them in their time?

Robert Schreiter: Was Ricci a local theologian? In many ways he (and perhaps even more, his contemporary Roberto de Nobili in India) was, albeit ahead of his time? Such local theologies arose when it became clear that the received theology Ricci and others were trying to transmit could not be understood or was regularly misunderstood by its intended audience. It is this disconnect that prompted the beginnings of contextual theology in the 1970s. It was certainly the reason I was drawn into it.

Morehead's Musings: At one point in your book you state: "..in cultures where human growth is not seen as personal achievement, but as discovering the underlying and unchanging patterns of the universe and coming into conformance with them, wisdom theology will find a ready home. The ideal of a fulfilled human life becomes one where a conformity to those archetypes of existence is carried out. One thinks of the Greek concept of paideia, the quest of the alchemist, and the discovery of the unity of the atman and the Brahman in Indian religion in this regard." At another point previous to this you reference the importance of kinship to theology for other groups. Here I am thinking that the former insights would have great relevance in a theology for Western esotericism and Paganism, and the latter with Latter-day Saints (Mormons). While we might think of wisdom and kinship theologies as being relevant for the peoples of Asia and Africa, in the West aren't esoteric and Latter-day Saint theologies examples of the types of connections between various subcultural groups and local theologies that can be made?

Robert Schreiter: One work you might consult is by the Roman Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson: her Friends of Apostles and Prophets which is on the doctrine of the communion of the saints. You will get some good connections by looking at what has been written on Christians' relations with the ancestors, especially in Africa and East Asia.

Morehead's Musings: One of the greatest challenges for Protestants, particularly evangelicals with their concern for orthodoxy over against heresy, has been the fear of syncretism. But with this concern in mind you suggest that syncretism raises the question as to how serious we are about contextualization. With the lack of success in missions in Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu cultures, it would appear that we need to be more bold and experimental in the formulation of local theologies. In this regard you write: "Is there a Buddhist way of being Christian, or a Hindu way of being Christian? Those two great traditions have been able to accommodate Christianity, but Christianity does not seem able to accommodate them." You then mention Christian "exclusivist thought patterns," and ask "Are those thought patterns essential to Christianity or do they represent certain cultural categories only?" How might those wishing to develop new local theologies that begin with the prisms of other traditions do so in ways that engage in healthy forms of syncretism, as religious studies understands the term (as opposed to theologians who view it as wholly negative).

Robert Schreiter: Syncretism continues to be a touchy subject across most of the religious spectrum. Practice is outstripping theory on this one. Robert Putnam in his recent book American Grace found some 80% of average Christians (across the spectrum) accepting a "pluralist" position on Christ and other religions, despite the tenets of their churches. It seems to have grown out of the experience of the goodness found in believers of other faiths. I took up the question of syncretism again in The New Catholicity. On double belonging, see Catherine Cornille, Many Mansions? and Paul Knitter's recent book on how he considers himself a Buddhist Christian.

Morehead's Musings: Thank you for your thoughts on these issues. I look forward to your IMBR article.

Interview at Vampires.com

A new interview with me has been posted at Vampires.com where I discuss not only my thoughts on the origins of vampires in folklore and mythology, as well as vampires in popular culture and as an identity group, but also on figures like Bill Schnoebelen and Don Rimer. The interview can be read here.

Don Rimer: Occult Expert or Merchant of Fear?

Update 1/22/12: Don Rimer passed away on Saturday, 1/21/12.

As I keep in touch with various aspects of my research interests at times I find a few surprises. In this case it came not from my direct research, but in something related to it.

I was researching the vampire subculture and checking in with a few websites related to this, as well as on Pagan websites I frequent, and found mention of a gentleman claiming to be an expert in "the occult", and using this "expertise" to lead seminars and provide consulting on "occult ritual crimes" for law enforcement, as well as the media and various civic groups. The individual is Don Rimer, and I found him mentioned on both vampire and Pagan websites as someone who keeps quite busy presenting his views on the dangers of everything from Afro-Caribbean religions to the vampire culture to various fantasy-role playing games. Given these claims I thought it was worth exploring.

My research led to me learn that Don Rimer is a retired police officer, who now presents seminars through the Oklahoma Gang Investigators Unit. His views on "ritual crime and the occult" can be found in a document on the OGIU website titled "Ritual Crime and the Occult (the New Youth Subculture)" from 2009. This document casts quite a wide net of concern, and in so doing, I detected several problematic areas, troubling in that it comes from a self-described expert, and someone providing guidance to law enforcement and thereby impacting lives in significant fashion.

Due to my concerns, yet perplexed as to why someone would present misinformation in the name of expertise and be sought out for thousands of presentations, I thought I would share some bibliographical suggestions with Mr. Rimer via email in terms of good scholarly literature that might help shape his understanding of the issue. In response, Mr. Rimer stated that he gained his accurate knowledge of the groups in question through study with Wiccans, Vampires "and those who worship Satan." He also claimed that the document at the OGIU site was an "old edition" and that he had sent them a new one to be uploaded. As of the date of this post the document I originally reviewed is still there, and the same misinformation is presented by Mr. Rimer in the name of "occultic expertise."

After my exchanges with Mr. Rimer I thought I would solicit feedback from academic colleagues of mine who specialize in these areas, as well as representatives from the religious communities and identity subcultures who are knowledgeable about the issues, and Rimer's views on the matter. Without exception, everyone confirmed my suspicions. In fact, while Rimer has had some contact with those in the Pagan community, I could not track down anyone willing to agree that he accurately describes Paganism, and his claims about learning from vampires may be limited to magazine articles and random conversations at vampire clubs as well as newspaper articles on alleged "vampire killings," hardly the stuff of good ethnographic research and scholarly study.

My colleagues did point me toward additional resources that discuss Rimer and his problematic views on the "occult." These include a lengthy consideration of Rimer at Witchvox (http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_article.html?a=cabc&id=8939. In addition, I benefited greatly from those associated with the Atlanta Vampire Alliance and their research materials through Suscitatio Enterprises, LLC (http://www.suscitatio.com). These sources are worth interacting with, not only for accurate understandings of Paganism, Wicca, and the vampire subculture, but also for correctives to Rimer's misinformation on these and other subjects.

It is not necessary to repeat the critiques of Rimer offered in the sources mentioned above, and others that can be found online, but I would like the reader to come away with the following:

Problematic terminology and definitions
Rimer uses the term "occult" not only in a pejorative manner for various expressions of Western esotericism, but also as a blanket term for a diverse group of unrelated religions, spiritualities, and identity subcultures.

Imagined connections
Rimer makes inappropriate connections between various elements to alleged "ritual crime." Of course there are crimes, sometimes very grisly, but isolated cases of crime are not necessarily connected appropriately, nor do they flow out of, the groups he describes as dangerous.

Unfamiliarity with scholarship
Rimer is unfamiliar with the good body of academic materials on this subject matter, as well as the related to topic of satanic panics. In fact, in comments made to me he seems to hold academics at a distance and privileges his lay approach at "expertise." He doesn't have to be a scholar, but he should be familiar with the academic material related to the subjects he's instructing others on.

Counter-cult influences
Rimer also appears to be influenced by Protestant evangelical counter-cult approaches to the subjects he lectures on, which tends to lump diverse phenomena together with a primary concern that whatever religion or spirituality that is non-Christian is somehow connected to the demonic.

Despite the serious flaws in his approach, and the misinformation contained in his presentations, Rimer continues to be sought after and provides input to law enforcement, including training on how to identity alleged occult ritual crime. One of his most recent cases took place in Chesapeake, Virginia, where a woman was arrested for killing pigs and burglarizing a church. Thankfully in this Wavy.com story Rimer is quoted as (rightly) saying that there is nothing to link the woman with satanic worship. But Rimer's strange understanding of the things he labels as "occultic" will eventually lead him to mislead law enforcement, perhaps hampering the arrest of real criminals, or leading to the arrest of innocent people in the fervor of satanic panics.

My advice to law enforcement and other civic groups is to seek out responsible sources of information for their knowledge of religious and spiritual groups, as well as identity subcultures. Mr. Rimer seems more like a merchant of fear than an occult expert.

Mormons, Folklore, and the Paranormal

Recently I posted an interview with the authors of Paranormal America (NYU Press, 2010) which presented sociological analysis of paranormal adherents based upon the American Religious Identification Survey. This type of research is very helpful as it not only touches on those who accept paranormal phenomena, but also in its conclusions in regards to the paranormal and how it relates or doesn't relate to those within various religious traditions.

One religious group not considered in this survey was the Mormons. Not to worry. There is a forthcoming book that addresses the place of paranormal experiences and folklore in Mormon history.

Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore
W. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen
5.5 x 8.5, est 256 pages

ISBN 978-0-87421-838-1
paper $21.95 (available April)

ISBN 978-0-87421-823-7
e-book $18.00 (available July)
Cain wanders the frontier as a Bigfoot-like hairy beast and confronts an early Mormon apostle. An evil band of murderers from Mormon scripture, known as the Gadianton robbers, provides an excuse for the failure of a desert town. Stories of children raised from the dead with decayed bodies and damaged minds help draw boundaries between the proper spheres of human and divine action. Mormons who observe UFOs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries find ways to explain them in relation to the church’s cosmology. The millenarian dimension of that belief system induces church members to invest in the Dream Mine, a hidden treasure that a would-be heir to Joseph Smith wraps in prophecy of the end times. A Utah version of Nessie haunts a large mountain lake. Non-Mormons attempt to discredit Joseph Smith with tales that he had tried and failed to walk on water.

Mormons gave distinctive meanings to supernatural legends and events, but their narratives incorporated motifs found in many cultures. Many such historical legends and beliefs found adherents down to the present. This collection employs folklore to illuminate the cultural and religious history of a people.

Contents

Elaine Thatcher, Foreword

W. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen, "Between Pulpit and Pew: Where History and Lore Intersect"

Matthew Bowman, "A Mormon Bigfoot: David Patten's Cain and the Conception of Evil in LDS Folklore"

W. Paul Reeve, "'As Ugly as Evil,' and 'As Wicked as Hell': Gadianton Robbers and the Legend Process among the Mormons"

Matthew Bowman, "Raising the Dead: Mormons, Evangelicals, and Miracles in America"

Michael Scott Van Wagenen, "Singular Phenomena: The Evolving Mormon Interpretation of Unidentified Flying Objects"

Kevin Cantera, "A Currency of Faith: Taking Stock in Utah County's Dream Mine"

Alan L. Morrell, "A Nessie in Mormon Country"

Stanley J. Thayne, "Walking on Water: Nineteenth-Century Prophets and a Legend of Religious Imposture"

My thanks to aquinas of Summa Theologica for bringing this to my attention.

Special Edition of Sacred Tribes Journal on Dark Green Religion Online

It was many months in the making, from initial concept, to the solicitation of articles, to article submission, editing, formatting and eventually publishing, but the special edition of Sacred Tribes Journal, Volume 6, no. 1 (Spring 2011) is now available. This edition focuses on Dark Green Religion and the book of the same title by Bron Taylor.

This edition of the journal includes an extensive interview with Taylor, responses by Christian environmentalists Loren Wilkinson and Peter Illyn, interations by Taylor with Wilkinson and llyn's essays, and a response to this by Wilkinson. The issue also includes my film review of Avatar, and commentary on the book The Lost World of Genesis One, both of which dovetail with applications to Dark Green Religion.

I couldn't be happier with the way this turned out, and I hope that this volume opens the door for ongoing dialogue in various venues on this topic between those concerned with this form of spirituality from whatever perspective brought to it. The special edition can be found here.

Academic Conference on Religion Satanism

From the sociology of religion email list:

Satanism is a subject that has always drawn a lot of media attention as well as interest from the general public. Scholarly studies of the subject, however, have more often focused on socially constructed "Satanic Panics" than on Satanism as a religious alternative in itself. Recently, this has begun to change, and anthologies such as Contemporary Religious Satanism (Ed. Jesper A Petersen, Ashgate, 2009) have started to fill the gaps in scholarly knowledge concerning Satanism. A further attempt to remedy the situation was made when the first ever international scholarly conference on Satanism was organized in Trondheim, Norway, in 2009. The conference was a great success, and resulted in an anthology that will be published by Oxford University Press later this year. In September 2011, we welcome you to Stockholm, Sweden for the follow-up to 2009's gathering of specialists.

Keynote speaker: Marco Pasi

Deadline for abstracts: May 22, 2011.
Submit your abstract to: per.faxneld@rel.su.se and
kennet.granholm@rel.su.se
(remember to submit abstracts to both organisers).

Papers dealing with most aspects of Satanism are welcome (including Satanism in literature, cinema, etc). However, we discourage papers treating "the Satanic panic", "Satanic ritual abuse", etc, as these themes have received sufficient scholarly attention. Conference fee will be announced later.

http://www.erg.su.se/pub/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=16068

Sacred Folly Coming in March

Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools by Max Harris (Cornell University Press), is scheduled for publication in March of this year. Previously I have written on the significance of the concept of sacred follow for the church:

This book will update and correct remarks Harris has made previously about the Feast of Fools in his book Carnival and Other Christian Festivals: Folk Theology and Folk Performance (University of Texas Press, 2003). As I have argued previously in my masters thesis on Burning Man, and in several posts on this blog, western evangelicalism would do well to reflect on the importance of festival and play in connection with ecclesiology and worship and how the historical Feast of Fools, properly understood in its historical and ecclesiological contexts in the past, might be recontextualized in certain subcultural contexts for the present.

The publisher's website describes the book as follows:

For centuries, the Feast of Fools has been condemned and occasionally celebrated as a disorderly, even transgressive Christian festival, in which reveling clergy elected a burlesque Lord of Misrule, presided over the divine office wearing animal masks or women’s clothes, sang obscene songs, swung censers that gave off foul-smelling smoke, played dice at the altar, and otherwise parodied the liturgy of the church. Afterward, they would take to the streets, howling, issuing mock indulgences, hurling manure at bystanders, and staging scurrilous plays. The problem with this popular account—intriguing as it may be— is that it is wrong.

In Sacred Folly Max Harris rewrites the history of the Feast of Fools, showing that it developed in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as an elaborate and orderly liturgy for the day of the Circumcision (1 January)—serving as a dignified alternative to rowdy secular New Year festivities. The intent of the feast was not mockery but thanksgiving for the incarnation of Christ. Prescribed role reversals, in which the lower clergy presided over divine office, recalled Mary’s joyous affirmation that God “has put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble.” The “fools” represented those chosen by God for their lowly status.

The feast, never widespread, was largely confined to cathedrals and collegiate churches in northern France. In the fifteenth century, high-ranking clergy who relied on rumor rather than firsthand knowledge attacked and eventually suppressed the feast. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historians repeatedly misread records of the feast; their erroneous accounts formed a shaky foundation for subsequent understanding of the medieval ritual. By returning to the primary documents, Harris reconstructs a Feast of Fools that is all the more remarkable for being sanctified rather than sacrilegious.

Reviews

"Sacred Folly is a major achievement; it is a book that we have needed, and Max Harris is preeminently the person to have written it. It reads gracefully, and the author is an attractive presence throughout."—David Bevington, Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, University of Chicago

"In this bracingly revisionist book, Max Harris overturns long-held assumptions about the nature and functions of the Feast of Fools. Denounced by fifteenth-century French theologians as a wanton and ungodly rite, the Feast of Fools was in reality, as Harris shows, a reverential, not a rowdy, holiday. With incisive analysis and meticulous scholarship, Sacred Folly sets the record straight. In doing so, it unearths the fascinating history of one of the most misunderstood liturgical festivities."—Claire Sponsler, University of Iowa

"Max Harris has written an important and necessary book, offering for the first time an accurate history of a subject that has been persistently and consistently misrepresented in scholarship. No other book has even remotely approached the thorough revision of the history of the Feast of Fools successfully undertaken here. Harris takes on the daunting tasks of sorting accurate from biased interpretation, tracing the passing down of error from scholar to scholar, and identifying the deliberate introduction and transmission of misinformation. Harris not only demolishes an inaccurate history but also constructs a new and durable one to replace it."—Pamela Sheingorn, Bernard M. Baruch College and Graduate Center, CUNY

"The modern history of medieval ritual has long been a history of misinformation and misunderstanding. This engaging book is a crucial intervention that should recalibrate the methods for studying early liturgy, drama, and popular culture; it also suggests the need for a reevaluation of larger historical narratives. By gathering, disentangling, and contextualizing primary and secondary sources produced over two millennia, Max Harris proves that the Feast of Fools was a legitimate liturgical celebration shaped by specific historical developments in the twelfth century and in certain areas of northern France. In so doing, he not only reconstructs the circumstances in which clergy conceptualized, crafted, performed, and defended a particular festive liturgy; he also exposes the ways that changing notions of propriety distorted secondhand accounts of it, leading to its suppression in the fifteenth century and the metastasizing of these erroneous reports down to the present day. This is an exemplary work of scholarship: careful but wide-ranging, lucid, and humane."—Carol Symes, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

About the Author

Max Harris is Executive Director Emeritus of the Wisconsin Humanities Council, University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has also taught at Yale University and the University of Virginia. He is the author of four previous books, including Carnival and Other Christian Festivals: Folk Theology and Folk Performance and Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Mexico and Spain.

Patheos: An Evangelical Graduates from the Mormon Institute Program

There was a recent post at Patheos that is worth reading titled "An Evangelical Graduates from the Mormon Institute Program." Here's the introduction:

After four years of attendance and participation, David recently graduated from an LDS Institute of Religion. The odd thing is: David's not Mormon, never has been, and may never be. He is, in fact, a committed Evangelical, and a PhD student in Molecular Biology. Ben Spackman, one of his Institute teachers, asked him about his inter-religious experience.

(Note: Within the Mormon context, "Institute" refers to church-sponsored religious instruction for students attending colleges, universities, and other postsecondary institutions. For more details, see this entry in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.)

The piece can be read here.