If you want to understand the role of spirituality in life today, the place to look is outside the church. To the media and, of course, entertainment.
I go to a family and it is broken up and I say, "what caused this?" Drink! I step up to a young man on the scaffold and say, "what brought you here?" Drink! Whence all the misery and sorrow and corruption? Invariably it is drink. Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell. Listen! 75% of our idiots come from intemperate parents, 80% of the paupers, 82% of the crime is committed by men under the influence of liquor, 90% of the adult criminals are whiskey made. The Chicago Tribune kept track for 10-years and found that 53,438 murders were committed in the saloons...Look at Kansas. It is dry. In 85 of 105 counties in Kansas there is not one idiot.
- from Booze, or Get on the Water Wagon
preached by the evangelist Billy Sunday in 1917
Regardless of whether there really were no idiots in Kansas (just reading that made me laugh aloud), the influence of Sunday during the early part of the 20th century was astounding. His famous or, perhaps, infamous (should you qualify as an idiot) Booze sermon is credited by scholars with being one of the reasons Prohibition passed in 1920.
A pro baseball player turned fire-and-brimstone preacher, Sunday mesmerized crowds with his theatrical style (left), folksy delivery and apparently stentorian voice...this being the era before the electronic sound system. After attending Sunday's revivals, so many people began asking for recommended readings, the American Library Association (ALA) started issuing lists of religious books for public libraries.
At the top of every list was Harry Emerson Fosdick (below), the most famous preacher in the US from the 1920s through the 1940s; he was the founding preacher of the Rockefeller-backed Riverside Church in New York, a radio star and a bestselling author. "Cultural power matters," explains Matthew Hedstrom, author of The Rise of Liberal Religion. "The folks who ran the major trade publishing houses, or sat on the religious books committee of the American Library Association, or coordinated Religious Book Week in the 1920s, or organized the reading programs during World War II—these were liberals, and that kind of cultural power matters."
Once this liberal establishment ditched their traditional ideas about the market being "corrupt", they began marketing religious works just like you would soap - or any other commodity. "Books were a critically important—perhaps the most important—religious commodity of the twentieth century, certainly by the 1920s," continues Hedstrom. And commodities are what make markets run, including culture. "If you are interested in the mechanisms of culture, and you study the twentieth-century United States, you have to study media and markets. These are the most powerful forces in American cultural life."
Liberals controlled mainstream media and publishing, and they had a religious agenda: to promote some version of the "Kingdom of God" on earth, not by withdrawing from it or turning away from it, but by participating fully. And in doing so, they hoped to "redeem" the culture. "Postmillennial theology desires the Kingdom of God on earth, and believes that human beings, with divine grace, can achieve it," says Hedstrom. "This is in contrast to a bunkered fundamentalism that aims to save souls but otherwise remain safely removed from a corrupt and corrupting world."
So, from this perspective, cultural "success" now goes way beyond just "saving" souls (whatever that means) to addressing issues of ethics, promoting progress and jumping in to save the world you live in right now. And all thanks to the book culture of the 19th century which allowed liberal religious ideas to spread and take root. Be it "Peace Corps or Amnesty International or the Human Rights Campaign, or through social work or psychological counseling, or through cultural efforts like literacy promotion," says Hedstrom, "many more avenues are available for doing your religion."
Including fab jewelry. "My mission is to share this Light with the world using my jewelry designs as the medium for achieving this goal," explains Rachel Brown about her eponymous line of jewelry which is designed to oxidize and scratch naturally, eventually resembling treasures from antiquity uncovered in an archeological dig. "Through my prayers, it is my wish that the Kabbalistic meditations engraved upon my jewelry bring the wearer blessings, protection, perfect health, prosperity, and miracles." The ring (top) certainly qualifies! It is crafted from hematite, which is thought to connect the wearer with the earth and thus feel safe and secure. Courageous, even.
Aesthetically, what I particularly love is how it manages to look both rough-hewn as well as futuristically sleek. Plus it helps a good cause: a percentage of the sale price goes to Spirituality For Kids, dedicated to helping children to realize their own unique purpose and potential in life.
It is available from RachelBrownJewelry.com.
- Lesley Scott
Honoring the past to help us pave the way forward fashionwise is a signature of the Folkspun fashion tribe. For more of my posts & podcasts about this tribe, CLICK HERE. To learn more about each of fashion's four mega-tribes that I track, START HERE.
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